shardblade shape limits

[strmblsd he/him]

Ok so i had the thought. how thin/small can you make a shardblade? could you make a shardblade but as a tripwire to sever someones soul and barely be visible or is there  limit there? we  have seen that you can make them massive so why not tiny trip wires or a whip. a shard whip? 

[Treamayne]

29 minutes ago, strmblsd said:

Ok so i had the thought. how thin/small can you make a shardblade? could you make a shardblade but as a tripwire to sever someones soul and barely be visible or is there  limit there? we  have seen that you can make them massive so why not tiny trip wires or a whip. a shard whip? 

I don't know about a trip wire severing the legs - since the Spiritual Ideal of a trip wire is not a sharpened cutting edge, and Lift's WyndleRod shows that a manifested living Spren in a non-edged form doesn't cut. The Sunlit Man explores much of what is possible with manifesting a living Shardweapon. As for a whip - mayby a Chain Whip is possible, but it all has be connected and metal, so that is a factor. 

TSM Spoilers:

Spoiler

List of Known Manifestations[edit]

The following is a list of manifestations Auxiliary is know to have held:

Ball[25][36]

Barbell[35][20]

Bo Staff[17]

Bracers[21]

Chain

With Cuffs[18]

With Hook(s)[5][6][36]

With Knob[6]

With Ring[5]

Clamp[61]

Claw Hooks[36]

Clock[21]

Crowbar[5][45]

With Loop[35]

Dome[9]

Door Guard[40]

Modified Door Guard[40]

False Cabinet[45]

Gauntlet[16]

Handhold[50]

Jack[21]

Malformed Jack[21]

Ladder[16]

Machete[36]

Magnetic Boot[16]

Model Ship[62]

Pole[37]

With Flat End[6]

With Sharpened End[6]

Shardblade[37][19]

Shardspear[17][44]

Shield[21][9]

Expanded Shield[21][9]

Mirrored Shield[19]

Transparent Shield[16]

With Bipod[21]

Spade[32]

Wrench[37]

Enlarged Wrench[16]

Hope that helps.

[Duneye]

There's also a case of a shardpen being used in WaT I believe. I don't know where it gets the ink, but apparently it works.

[Treamayne]

33 minutes ago, Duneye said:

There's also a case of a shardpen being used in WaT I believe. I don't know where it gets the ink, but apparently it works.

It has an inkwell, she carrys the ink for it. WaT Ch 21:

Spoiler

“Their troops get reborn,” Ka said, poring over the scout reports. She made notations with her silver pen, one of the most interesting uses of a Shardblade among the Windrunners to date. It had a cartridge to fill with ink and everything. She chose to wear a blue havah embroidered with the Bridge Four symbol on the shoulder, one of the new uniforms Kaladin had authorized.

Wat Ch 47:

Quote

Though Peet wore a standard Bridge Four uniform, Ka preferred a slit-sided havah and leggings. Sigzil had never seen her summon her Shardblade as a sword outside of practice—but she used it as a pen regularly.

 

 

[strmblsd he/him]

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

I don't know about a trip wire severing the legs - since the Spiritual Ideal of a trip wire is not a sharpened cutting edge, and Lift's WyndleRod shows that a manifested living Spren in a non-edged form doesn't cut. The Sunlit Man explores much of what is possible with manifesting a living Shardweapon. As for a whip - mayby a Chain Whip is possible, but it all has be connected and metal, so that is a factor. 

TSM Spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

List of Known Manifestations[edit]

The following is a list of manifestations Auxiliary is know to have held:

Ball[25][36]

Barbell[35][20]

Bo Staff[17]

Bracers[21]

Chain

With Cuffs[18]

With Hook(s)[5][6][36]

With Knob[6]

With Ring[5]

Clamp[61]

Claw Hooks[36]

Clock[21]

Crowbar[5][45]

With Loop[35]

Dome[9]

Door Guard[40]

Modified Door Guard[40]

False Cabinet[45]

Gauntlet[16]

Handhold[50]

Jack[21]

Malformed Jack[21]

Ladder[16]

Machete[36]

Magnetic Boot[16]

Model Ship[62]

Pole[37]

With Flat End[6]

With Sharpened End[6]

Shardblade[37][19]

Shardspear[17][44]

Shield[21][9]

Expanded Shield[21][9]

Mirrored Shield[19]

Transparent Shield[16]

With Bipod[21]

Spade[32]

Wrench[37]

Enlarged Wrench[16]

Hope that helps.

so if you used it with the intent to cu something like a razor wire or something i dont see why this wouldnt work. the intent of it is to cut someone not to trip them so it should in theory work

[Treamayne]

15 minutes ago, strmblsd said:

so if you used it with the intent to cu something like a razor wire or something i dont see why this wouldnt work. the intent of it is to cut someone not to trip them so it should in theory work

Assuming by "cut somebody" you mean creating a blade deadened limb, how would razor wire accomplish that? Unless you have an entirely different idea of what razor wire is and can accomplish, what I am familiar with from the mailitary would certainly bleed a limb, but it won't "cut" through the center of the limb to deaden it.

Edited February 7, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[ChillPenguin]

3 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Assuming by "cut somebody" you mean creating a blade deadened limb, how would razor wire accomplish that? Unless you have an entirely different idea of what razor wire is and can accomplish, what I am familiar with from the mailitary would certainly bleed a limb, but it won't "cut" through the center of the limb to deaden it.

There are wires used to cut soft cheeses and egg slices. Of course you could just imagine a sword that is really long and thin. The problem is that if it’s too thin it might droop/sag. I don’t know if we have anything indicating how flexible shardblades are. 

[Nitpicking]

8 hours ago, Duneye said:

There's also a case of a shardpen being used in WaT I believe. I don't know where it gets the ink, but apparently it works.

In Yumi, Painter wields what is essentially a Shardbrush.

[Rhaenys She/Her]

On 2/7/2025 at 4:00 PM, ChillPenguin said:

There are wires used to cut soft cheeses and egg slices. Of course you could just imagine a sword that is really long and thin. The problem is that if it’s too thin it might droop/sag. I don’t know if we have anything indicating how flexible shardblades are. 

Don't we see Adolin use his to climb onto a higher ledge while in Shardplate? I don't think they bend or flex at all since they are a concept. Like how Shardplate only cracks and breaks instead of denting like metal should. I do believe there is a size limit established in The Sunlit Man

[Hexagonal He/Him]

Adolin outright states that Shardblades do not bend, so I think having some kind of thin sword could definitely work. The size limit was suggested in TSM, with Aux using some of Sig's investiture to grow larger(dome at the end of the book). To me it seems like shardblades do definitely have a size barrier, and Aux was only able to overcome it because of Sig's dawnshard nature and/or Aux being consumed a bit. There is likely a different way to help invest a spren to manifest as a larger size in the PR, but as of now they are unknown.

[dezaS Hᴇ/Hɪᴍ]

19 hours ago, Hexagonal said:

Adolin outright states that Shardblades do not bend, so I think having some kind of thin sword could definitely work.

Right. I think of shardblade material (Tanvastium/Koravarium) as similar to dragonsteel as seen in Dragonsteel Prime-once shaped, or in this case summoned, it cannot be bent or damaged regardless of effort used (unless that effort is Nightblood, though that is more eating the Investiture than actually cutting it. (It's not a perfect comparison, especially for shardplate as at least dead shardplate is known to be able to be damaged by simple trauma and force)

19 hours ago, Hexagonal said:

To me it seems like shardblades do definitely have a size barrier, and Aux was only able to overcome it because of Sig's dawnshard nature and/or Aux being consumed a bit.

Really? To me it seems like it's just a manner of how to channel the most investiture to the spren, shardblades are a literal physical manifestation of investiture and that's how Sigzil did it in Sunlit.

(I may be wrong though)

[Hexagonal He/Him]

2 hours ago, DezaS said:

Really? To me it seems like it's just a manner of how to channel the most investiture to the spren, shardblades are a literal physical manifestation of investiture and that's how Sigzil did it in Sunlit.

(I may be wrong though)

I think you're right, and the way that Sigzil did it was through his dawnshard nature. I bet a regular radiant could use stormlight to help their spren manifest larger with some training and/or an additional MoI. The possibilities(maybe using armor spren and radiant spren to manifest different parts for like a shard engine or something?), could be fascinating and practically endless.