Investiture Rankings

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

As it appears that no one has made this yet, I'll be ranking as many things as possible in the comsere by Investiture levels. Of course, this will be an ongoing thing, and if anyone thinks I got something wrong, please tell me.

1. Harmony. 2 Shards.

2. The Dor. I guess the Investiture is the same as Harmony, but Harmony probably leads by a single BEU from Sazed's soul.

3. Retribution. Also 2 shards, but missing a piece of Honour.

4. The other Shards, not counting Ambition and Virtuosity. I guess Mercy would be on the lower side from involvement in the Ambition vs Odium conflict, and Automony gave a tiny bit to her Avatars. 

5. Avatars of Autonomy

6. Wind, Stone and Night

7. Stormfather, Nightwatchwer, Sibling, Unmade

8. Nightblood

9. Yoki-Hijo

10. Elantrians

11. Lerasium Mistborn

12. Heralds

13. Returned

Edited May 8, 2025 by KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren said:

As it appears that no one has made this yet, I'll be ranking as many things as possible in the comsere by Investiture levels. Of course, this will be an ongoing thing, and if anyone thinks I got something wrong, please tell me.

1. Harmony. 2 Shards.

2. The Dor. I guess the Investiture is the same as Harmony, but Harmony probably leads by a single BEU from Sazed's soul.

3. Retribution. Also 2 shards, but missing a piece of Honour.

4. The other Shards, not counting Ambition and Virtuosity. I guess Mercy would be on the lower side from involvement in the Ambition vs Odium conflict, and Automony gave a tiny bit to her Avatars. 

5. Wind, Stone and Night?

6. Avatars of Autonomy probably.

7. Stormfather, Nightwatchwer, Sibling, Unmade

8. I'm going to say the Heralds

9. Nightblood?

10. Yoki-Hijo

11. Elantrians

12. Lerasium Mistborn

13. Returned

You know, I'm not sure how to compare Harmony, Retribution, and the Dor.

Retribution has higher ended MoIs and especially noticeable chunks of Investiture put into Unmade, Heralds, the Sibling, and the Stormfather (and given Syl's new appearance after his destruction, I think now her).

However, Ruin and Preservation made an entire planet from scratch even if their MoIs are generally not very high scaling.

The Dor's powers seem to be channeled by mortals like no other Shard(ic pair) except maybe Bondsmiths, what with Elantrians being more Invested than Returned and Elantris itself being a giant magical conduit.

I think that there could be arguments made for any of them being the most Invested, though that difference probably won't be substantial. 

[Through The Living Ash he/him]

Nightblood is Invested enough that it should go at #5: 

Quote

Mason Wheeler

Nightblood is the most ridiculously over-Invested thing in the cosmere, second only to the Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Mason Wheeler

Was this true from the moment of its creation, or did it grow in power over time.

Brandon Sanderson

Grew in power over time. Kind of answers a question that people have been wondering. But, yes.

Everything else on the list looked correct to me. 

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

8 hours ago, epl2 said:

Nightblood is Invested enough that it should go at #5: 

Everything else on the list looked correct to me. 

I'm pretty sure there was also a WoB saying that the Stormfather was more Invested. I don't remember the exact wording though.

 

12 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

You know, I'm not sure how to compare Harmony, Retribution, and the Dor.

Retribution has higher ended MoIs and especially noticeable chunks of Investiture put into Unmade, Heralds, the Sibling, and the Stormfather (and given Syl's new appearance after his destruction, I think now her).

However, Ruin and Preservation made an entire planet from scratch even if their MoIs are generally not very high scaling.

The Dor's powers seem to be channeled by mortals like no other Shard(ic pair) except maybe Bondsmiths, what with Elantrians being more Invested than Returned and Elantris itself being a giant magical conduit.

I think that there could be arguments made for any of them being the most Invested, though that difference probably won't be substantial. 

Really, we need to know the E=mc^2 equivalent except for Investiture and mass instead of mass and energy.

[Kitch]

There's a piece of preservation and ruin in each person on Scadrial, and I believe the mists contain some part of preservation after Sazed brought them back. So that may be a factor for Harmony vs Retribution 

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

3 minutes ago, Kitch said:

There's a piece of preservation and ruin in each person on Scadrial, and I believe the mists contain some part of preservation after Sazed brought them back. So that may be a factor for Harmony vs Retribution 

All people in the Cosmere have a piece of some Shard. For Rosharans it's unclear as Roshar predates the Shattering, but the only Shard in residence is Retribution. The Everstorm, or whatever it has become, is like a mist equivalent. So I don't exactly know.

[Kitch]

I had thought I remembered reading that Scadrial was different because it started off with no life, while the other shards settled on planets that already had life. So that the process of creating life on that planet requires embedding some of ruin/preservation (but more preservation), as opposed to other planets where the shard becomes "connected" and embedded with the life, like how Odiums tone became part of Roshar. 

[Nitpicking]

Both Scadrians and Nalthians have "extra" investiture compared to humans from other worlds.

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

2 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

Both Scadrians and Nalthians have "extra" investiture compared to humans from other worlds.

 

On 5/5/2025 at 12:20 PM, Kitch said:

I had thought I remembered reading that Scadrial was different because it started off with no life, while the other shards settled on planets that already had life. So that the process of creating life on that planet requires embedding some of ruin/preservation (but more preservation), as opposed to other planets where the shard becomes "connected" and embedded with the life, like how Odiums tone became part of Roshar. 

Yeah Endowment may not have created Nalthis, but she created the people on it.

[DiePie]

On 5/4/2025 at 5:12 AM, KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren said:

As it appears that no one has made this yet

Not since the release of WaT I don't think. I've seen similar arguments before (mostly in threads arguing whether mistborn can take radiants in a 1v1), but ranking shards is something people tend to avoid.

On 5/4/2025 at 10:20 PM, Kitch said:

had thought I remembered reading that Scadrial was different because it started off with no life

The entire Scadrian planet was created from scratch, supposedly revealed in the arcanum unbounded Scadrial essay (@Trusk'our points this out in his first reply). I did find this interesting WoB when looking (bolding added by me for emphasis):

Spoiler

Questioner

Can Odium or any other [Shards] edit text like Ruin could? ...Or is that a special Ruin thing.  

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible for others as well. The trick about it is, [Ruin] saturated everything on Scadrial in a way that not all Shards saturate their planets.  

Questioner

Okay, what do you mean "saturate"?

Brandon Sanderson

Creating it, does that make sense? And so this was partially an aspect of the fact that everything on that planet, every atom was, y'know, had him in it... I mean he didn't create the atoms, let's say that, but yeah... The whole planet's existence and particularly the people on it are [Ruin], attuned to [Ruin].

Shadows of Self London UK signing (Oct. 19, 2015)

Do we count this "saturation" as part of Ruin's investiture? I believe it's mentioned in The Hero of Ages that part of the reason Ruin wants to destroy Scadrial is to reclaim this investiture (as the shard is trapped on Scadrial as long as it's there), the reclamation seems to function similarly to Retribution on Roshar. Since Ruin and Preservation both invested into Scadrial in equal amounts we can x2 this for Harmony. Combine that with the prevalence of physical manifestations of Harmony's investiture (Harmonium and mist), and Ruin and Preservation seem to be two of the weakest shards that haven't been splintered. If the Dor is one entity I'd place it above, then Retribution, and then all of the single shards in a line below. There's an argument to be made about putting Retribution above the Dor but this is already too long and I don't find it convincing.

I'd also place the avatars of autonomy above the spirits of Night (which is gone), Wind (which was suppressed by Odium without any seeming difficulty), and Stone. There is no evidence they have any meaningful amount of investiture... just that they are pervasive across Roshar.

Spoiler

Argent

If we are looking at very highly Invested beings, we have Yumi, and we are told that she is more Invested than Elantrians, more Invested than Returned. Let's compare Yumi, Elantrians, and Heralds. Who is most Invested, who is least Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

Of those, probably Heralds... The thing is, the Heralds varied. How in tune and aligned they are with their oaths, their promise... It wasn't Oaths, but they did promise certain things when they became Heralds. It was pre Knights Radiants, it's not as formalized as Oaths. How in line with the power of Honor, how in line with the kind of natural Investiture of Roshar--which is separate from Honor, Cultivation and Odium--are they, how can they draw upon that. I will call them the least of the three though.

Argent

So Heralds on the bottom, and Yumi on top, and Elantrians in the middle?

Brandon Sanderson

Yumi on top, but Yumi's very close to an Elantrian. They're within the same conversation. And most of the yoki-hijo were traditionally in the past less, they've gained Investiture over time.

Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023)

(Bolding added by me for emphasis)

As far as invested beings go, mistborn and heralds are pretty low. Most of their power comes from the ability to channel investiture through themselves, with the Heralds holding Stormlight and Mistborn burning metals as a "key" to channel Preservation's power. Heralds take the cake imo, considering their superhuman speed and ability to peer into the future, putting them in the prestigious position of... second to last. Nightblood is def more invested than any of these people.

 

On 5/4/2025 at 8:11 PM, KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren said:

Really, we need to know the E=mc^2 equivalent except for Investiture and mass instead of mass and energy.

Not sure if you've seen this WoB. I would also be interested in what the actual conversion could be, if only to see where a black hole places on this list lol. You may also be interested to know that there was a time Brandon was toying with making investiture convert into power (like energy per second power) which makes this a whole lot more difficult lol.

Spoiler

Questioner

How much have you thought about the mathematical relationship between Investiture and energy/matter? Is there a cosmere E=mc^2?

Brandon Sanderson

I've thought about the concepts a lot. The numbers, I actually tried to get some mathematicians... There are some lovely folks, I'm like, can we come up with a standardization? And it kind of broke their brains, not because they aren't smart people, they're very smart people, but they're like, "Brandon, where do we even start? How much energy is being expended?" and this sort of thing. I would like to get a unit of measurement, how much Investiture equals how much energy, but at the same time, the work being done by the various magic systems, it's going to be too constrictive to put too much math on that, I feel like. I would like to. It is a much bigger project than you might imagine it being. How much energy is stored in a sphere? That's kind of where we started. A sphere stores Investiture, obviously some of that Investiture is being lost as energy, it is transferring energy as the sphere releases light. That is happening automatically, it's decaying and radiation is happening. How much is it therefore losing, how much could it do, how much of that can be transferred to doing work with a Lashing... All of this stuff, I have thought about way too much, and we have no answers for you yet because it is a really big project. Maybe we will someday, or maybe we'll just say, this is too big a project to even be able to mathematically quantify. I'm sure if you have suggestions, you can post thoughts on the subreddits, and perhaps that will get to the various arcanists who are helping me with this.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

I'd also be curious if someone who knows more about Dawnshards wants to weigh in on where they would go. From what I recall they don't seem to have a lot of investiture on their own (thus why a Radiant can't hold one), and instead need another source to really be effective.

[Nitpicking]

3 hours ago, KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren said:

 

Yeah Endowment may not have created Nalthis, but she created the people on it.

Brandon has stated that both Endowment and Preservation deliberately added more Investiture to "their" humans.

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

7 hours ago, DiePie said:

As far as invested beings go, mistborn and heralds are pretty low. Most of their power comes from the ability to channel investiture through themselves, with the Heralds holding Stormlight and Mistborn burning metals as a "key" to channel Preservation's power. Heralds take the cake imo, considering their superhuman speed and ability to peer into the future, putting them in the prestigious position of... second to last. Nightblood is def more invested than any of these people.

 

7 hours ago, DiePie said:

I'd also place the avatars of autonomy above the spirits of Night (which is gone), Wind (which was suppressed by Odium without any seeming difficulty), and Stone. There is no evidence they have any meaningful amount of investiture... just that they are pervasive across Roshar.

Alright I've demoted the Heralds and promoted Autonomy's Avatars.

[Nitpicking]

13 hours ago, KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren said:

Alright I've demoted the Heralds and promoted Autonomy's Avatars.

Including, say, Wax's sister (name forgotten)? The Autonovatars vary a lot, it seems.

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

1 hour ago, Nitpicking said:

Including, say, Wax's sister (name forgotten)? The Autonovatars vary a lot, it seems.

Yeah. Telsin didn't actually become Trell though.