Stormlight Consumption

[DoomslugTD]

I could not find any posts specifically mentioning this, but if there are sorry for the repeat.

Do we know enough to quantize how much stormlight different abilities / healing takes or how much they leak for different oath levels in terms of sphere denominations or any other form of measurment we have?

Thanks

Edited October 4, 2024 by DoomslugTD

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

11 minutes ago, DoomslugTD said:

I could not find any posts specifically mentioning this, but if there are sorry for the repeat.

Do we know enough to quantize how much stormlight different abilities / healing takes or how much they leak for different oath levels in terms of sphere denominations or any other form of measurment we have?

Thanks

Not that I can recall offhand, but it has been a stated intent of the series (and more importantly, its fans) to eventually achieve this milestone from very nearly its inception. The first really really big breakthrough will almost certainly be:

(Sunlit Man spoilers)

Spoiler

How many fully saturated "average" diamond chips (average in air quotes because it is revealed that there is actually a lot lot lot of uncontrolled variation in chip capacity and Rosharand just make up for that uncertainty with volume and ignorance) are equivalent in capacity to the liquid Investiture bestowed by an "average" (same reason...) Breath from Endowment (identified in sunlit man as a BEU (Breath equivalent unit)?

Once that is known, we can really start to nail down how much Investiture is required to heal any given wound at any given rate, how much soulcast food can be produced with a given number of diamond chips, and what the energy density and efficiency of Rosharan fabrials are compared to their awakened, hemalurgic, and shade-based counterparts. 

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, DoomslugTD said:

I could not find any posts specifically mentioning this, but if there are sorry for the repeat.

Do we know enough to quantize how much stormlight different abilities / healing takes or how much they leak for different oath levels in terms of sphere denominations or any other form of measurment we have?

Thanks

As mentioned by @hwiles

We do not, yet. WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner

When Kaladin and Shallan and the others are in Shadesmar, it talks about broams of Stormlight. How do they measure that? Because you could have partially depleted spheres.

Brandon Sanderson

A broam's worth of Stormlight is just a full sphere. Newly infused. Behind the scenes, there are actual units of measurement for Investiture that a broam would correlate with, but you would need to be measuring that using instruments that measure Investiture that they don't quite have on Roshar yet. They could make them, but they don't quite have them yet. They're close.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

Quote

Questioner

How many diamond chips does Zahel require to survive?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. We will actually be releasing this pretty soon. But I actually have used my prerogative as a famous author to force some others to actually do the number crunching and the math of it. And so we will have a straight up unit measurement for you of various things coming up pretty soon. Once the number crunchers are done, you will know.

Skyward San Diego signing (Nov. 7, 2018)

Quote

Questioner

*inaudible* also storing Stormlight. Did you decide the value of the gems first?

Brandon Sanderson

So I actually retrofitted it. What we looked at is how much food does it create, how much is that equivalency in our world, what factors do we need to change, and things like that. And we retrofitted how much things were worth. There's also a measurement in there of how much-- amount of Stormlight there is and how much that is worth, how much energy and work that can do.

Questioner

*inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

I assign other people to do a lot of that these days. I say, "Here is the situation I want, run the math on this and come back and tell me how much I may use here or there."

MisCon 2018 (May 26, 2018)

 

And, of course, in RoW Navani is introduced to (White Sand Spoilers:)

Spoiler

Taldain Sand, as an investiture measurement tool (also seen in Oathbringer, used by Wit to Find Shallan's identity in Kholinar)

So, as the Scientific Method takes hold on various planets, we should see more of these questions getting answered. 

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

10 hours ago, Treamayne said:

RAFO. We will actually be releasing this pretty soon.

This was 2018...what exactly is "pretty soon" for Brandon? 

[Treamayne]

9 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

This was 2018...what exactly is "pretty soon" for Brandon? 

Well, we have this WoB saying (Mistborn Spoilers):

Spoiler

Expect more on investiture units around Mistborn Era 3:

Quote

Emerald101

I was wondering if there is a unit of Investiture, like maybe something Khriss uses.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but I haven't canonized it yet. Good question. I will eventually canonize it, because I think that people will want it, but I probably won't do so 'til [Mistborn] Era 3, because I want the scientific way of talking about the cosmere to mirror how developed the cultures are, but some of the scholars are beyond where everyone else is. It can be measured. There is a unit.

<Edited for length and relevance>

Arcanum Unbounded release party (Nov. 22, 2016)

 

 

[DoomslugTD]

11 hours ago, Treamayne said:

We do not, yet. WoBs

Ok good to know, do we have anybody that has made some estimates based on in book stuff? I like making games based on the things I like, and so I am currently trying to design a war hammer esc game for the cosmere for fun but I want to investiture usage to actually be vases on something. If there isn’t anything that’s fine though, thanks for the help!

[Treamayne]

9 minutes ago, DoomslugTD said:

Ok good to know, do we have anybody that has made some estimates based on in book stuff? I like making games based on the things I like, and so I am currently trying to design a war hammer esc game for the cosmere for fun but I want to investiture usage to actually be vases on something. If there isn’t anything that’s fine though, thanks for the help!

Sunlit Man Spoilers:

Spoiler

I would search the site for threads about BEUs (Breath Equivalent Units) - which were introduced in Sunlit Man, since there were a few threads back then trying to correlate BEUs to Heightenings to Stormlight Spheres

None of it is official until Brandon releases the conversions, but some fan attempts were made

The Sharder FAQ linked in my signature has info on using the advances site search features, if you need them. 

 

[Master Silver]

14 hours ago, DoomslugTD said:

I could not find any posts specifically mentioning this, but if there are sorry for the repeat.

Do we know enough to quantize how much stormlight different abilities / healing takes or how much they leak for different oath levels in terms of sphere denominations or any other form of measurment we have?

Thanks

In terms of healing, it seems like Truth Watchers and Light Weavers are significantly better at healing than WIndrunners or Skybreakers. I am not sure where edge dancers fall. So the same ability may be easier or harder taking more or less light/energy/work depending on the person.