Moonlight's Invested Ink = Tears of Edgli Dye

[Atlas333]

Not sure if this has been discussed before but I was poking around the coppermind and was reading up on Tears of Edgli and how they're better for awakening. This isn't surprising as color is important to the magic system but some further digging revealed that it's more than the flowers being sources of strong color. (bolded for emphasis)

 

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Questioner

What is the process for you to create a symbol or map for a book?

Isaac Stewart

Both of those have kind of a different process. If you look at the overview, the process is the same, and it's the same process that a lot of time is used for plotting the book, where you start macro and then go down to the micro level. So, I'll talk about each of those separately.

For a symbol, it's usually Brandon coming to me and saying, "We need a symbol for this series." Or I realize we need a symbol for this series. Let's say the Nalthis one. We just came up with that, we put it on the spine of the Warbreaker leatherbound.

So we said, "We don't have a symbol for Nalthis. What do we want that to be?" And I talked to Brandon, and we said, "Maybe a symbol of the Tears of Edgli." And so, we talk about, "What are the Tears of Edgli? What do we know that's canonical? What do you have in your head?" And we kind of came up with a story about them. And then I just start drawing.

Brandon Sanderson

So, if you don't know what these, the Tears of Edgli are flowers that they get a specific dye for that are briefly mentioned in the books. But they are where the Shardpool is in Warbreaker. So it's actually pretty relevant, although in the first book, it doesn't actually pop up all that much. But they are Invested flowers, basically.

YouTube Livestream 3 (Jan. 25, 2020)

 

The idea of invested dye immediately made me think of the Lost Metal and Moonlight's universal stamps. She says you need to use "invested ink" to make them work. Now she may be referring to purified Dor but I got the impression that these are two different substances with Dor being much more powerful. 

I think it's clear the conclusion I'm reaching, the invested ink Moonlight uses is made from the tears of Edgli. To me this is the option that makes the most sense with what we currently know. Maybe the Elantris sequel will prove me wrong and it's actually a substance made on Sel but I feel fairly confident in this theory. 

[Treamayne]

For consideration:

TES Day 3:

Spoiler

The only way to get a better stamp was to carve one from crystal itself, which was incredibly difficult.

For ink, they had provided bright red squid’s ink, mixed with a small percentage of wax. Any fresh organic ink would work, though inks from animals were better than inks from plants.

Also, keep in mind that the Tears are invested, partially, by growing in the vicinity of Edgli's Shardpool (by vicinity, we likely mean square miles, as they are said to grow all over the valley) and we only know where one of Sel's Shardpools is located - so invested plants or animals living near a Shardpool on Sel is also a possibility.

It does not negate your theory, but it feels like it may apply. 

Hope that helps

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Atlas333 said:

I think it's clear the conclusion I'm reaching, the invested ink Moonlight uses is made from the tears of Edgli. To me this is the option that makes the most sense with what we currently know. Maybe the Elantris sequel will prove me wrong and it's actually a substance made on Sel but I feel fairly confident in this theory. 

I feel like, because it's mixing different investitures, this shouldn't work unless you were to somehow unkey investiture of the Tears. Yes, the ink normally doesn't fuel the stamp, but without the access to Dor from Sel, it's the ink that should provide investiture for a Soulstamp to function. And you can't just take Stormlight and fuel non-Rosharan invested art with it. Similarly, you shouldn't be able to use investiture keyed to Endowment to fuel non-Endowment art. 

Spoiler

Aneesh

If there's a Forger like Shai who plausibly had an opportunity to ingest lerasium and become Mistborn, but she passed it up, could she create a stamp that makes her temporarily a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

She would have to have access to enough Investiture to make that happen. The stamp saying, "Hey, I'm a Mistborn!" doesn't actually give her the Investiture to do that. She could rewrite her past so that she took that bead. She would not actually be able to use the power, until she got an infusion of Investiture, which could be done with a stamp in the right manner, but most of the time you're gonna have to have some external source. Basically you're gonna have to take a hit of Investiture, a large amount of it, and then use the stamp, and then it will feed on that to change you into basically any of the other magics.

Aneesh

Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

If you could get a hit of Stormlight, that'd work. The problem is, Stormlight's not easy to get off of Roshar, and it still is technically keyed. You could get it a lot more easily-- Stormlight would work fairly well, but what you really want is some pure, unkeyed Dor. That stuff, you could do all kinds of things with. But, you know, it's kinda dangerous. But that's the stuff you're gonna want, or something like unto it.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

In the book we saw Moonlight use Dor as the ink for her Soulstamps, when she transformed into an Elantrian. TLM ch 54:

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She popped the top off the jar of Investiture, then dipped her stamp into that light and used it on the wall— making the door for Marasi.

However, she previously used a glowing red ink, which certainly wasn't just pure Dor. This makes it highly likely that she is using another type of investiture and the Tears of Edgli fits the most. I still feel it should be unkeyed first but I may be wrong because, I don’t know, it’s not physical investiture like Stormlight is or something? TLM ch 44:

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She selected one, dampened it with some odd glowing red ink, then raised it. “Be ready to move,” she said, then pressed it to the wall. The stamp head, remarkably, sank half an inch or so into the brick. When Moonlight pulled it back—trailing red mist—it left a glowing red stamp imprinted into the wall, marked by intricate designs and patterns.

[Elite01]

I will say that I have heard Endowments is the most "no strings attached" off all investiture due to the shards intent. I do think it still has its own identity but maybe its easier to remove than stormlight?