12th Aether?

[Argenti he/him]

Do we know what the 12th aether is? Since we know the ten essences, and then midnight on top of that? What's the 12th? Or What's your best guesses?

Aether of night
 

Spoiler

I haven't read it, but i'm open to spoilers for it if it gives any hints.

 

[Treamayne]

3 hours ago, Argenti said:

Do we know what the 12th aether is? Since we know the ten essences, and then midnight on top of that? What's the 12th? Or What's your best guesses?

Aether of night
 

  Hide contents

I haven't read it, but i'm open to spoilers for it if it gives any hints.

 

We do not know the eleven other Aethers either - the only confirmed Aethers are:

• Crimson
• Zephyr
• Verdant
• Sunlight
• Midnight
• Roseite

The remaining Aether (and spores) do not connect directly 1:1 with Roshar's Ten essences - both are based on the same realmatic principals, but distinguish things differently.

WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

MoriWillow

Is there any significant relationship between the twelve types of aethers and the ten essences on Roshar, even just in a sense of recurring cosmere-wide patterns?

Brandon Sanderson

I would say yes, but it's tenuous.

Secret Project #1 Reveal and Livestream (March 8, 2022)

Quote

Ladder Contact 6814

What are the other six types of spores we didn't get to see in the book? Were there any that you really wanted to include, but couldn't?

Brandon Sanderson

No. When I've written books, I tend to gravitate toward a couple of the aethers that are really the most dynamic for action scenes and things like that. Some of the other aethers are there for the necessity of the future of the Cosmere. For instance: zephyr, while very useful in this for firing cannons and stuff, is really there so that we can have propellant in space by just-add-water and make yourself some extra propellant. And atmosphere; kind of a low-tech (there's better-tech ways), but a low-tech way to: "hey, we've got zephyr aether, it makes breathable air. And so, if we've got water and a barrel of this stuff, then we'll be able to breathe." So there are some of the aethers that are there for that sort of reason, so that we can have pneumatic weaponry and some easy access to emergency propellant in space, and stuff like that.

But verdant is the one that I just keep coming back to, that one and roseite, as making for the most dynamic storytelling. We'll see what I do with some of the others. I'm not gonna answer what the ones I haven't mentioned are, because I am saving them for future books to be used and to be interesting and engaging with them.

Tress Spoiler Stream (March 31, 2023)

Quote

Comatose

Also talking about aether, a lot of the aether spores—or all of them that we've seen—map fairly neatly to a primal essence or element. And so we're wondering, if that's a continued pattern, what’s the essence for the crimson aether? Or to put it another way, what's with the red spikes? The world wants to know.

Brandon Sanderson

What’s with the red spikes? So, red spikes are the aether version of coral, which is… I did not, let’s just say, want to do a flesh aether. So we're going in a coral direction as our kind of organicish, fleshy sort of thing. Do understand they're not going to be a one-to-one, right? We might have some wiggle room there, but so far I've done them as a one-to-one.

Comatose

But that is kind of fun, though, if it is kind of mapping to flesh that it's still got kind of a horror or like a scary element to it.

Brandon Sanderson

Imagine it more like carapace and things like that as what we might call our "flesh" for mapping the aethers there. I'm not going to go with some aether that creates giant tumors. I did toy with it. It just, you know, certain things don't work as well as other things.

So the the verdant aether is— verdant and roseite have been the two that have always been the most interesting to me. Though of course, zephyr is really important for the for the space age cosmere, right? Being able to have portable air and some some propellant that breaks the laws of our universe by providing propellant that is small, very compact, and very easy to use as a propellant helps a bit with space age stuff.

Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023)

Note - Crimson Aether appears to be similar to how (SA Spoilers) Magnified Ones use Progression with their Carapace.

Quote

Comatose

Kind of a similar question about the Midnight Essence, now that we have seen that crop up in Tress as well as in Stormlight Archive. Is something similar happening with the Midnight Essence? We have also the nightmares, in Yumi, that appear similar, they're also mimicking things.

Brandon Sanderson

So, there's a couple of things getting interwoven here. The actual idea of Midnight Essence is a concept like Lightweaving that predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, that various magic systems are basically "borrowing" a law of the cosmere and creating a parallel effect from the same basis, if that makes any sense.

Yumi is a little distinct from that. It's feeling similar; I would not call it true Midnight Essence. It's an awful lot more like a Lightweaving that has--because Lightweavings can have mass to them, because investiture can have mass to it--so you're looking a little bit more like... imagine a bunch of Stormlight becoming tangible, you can touch it, because of a powerful Lightweaving or something like that. Of course, these things all bleed together because I'm using the same fundamental principles to make them. But, for me, Midnight Essence has this personality that comes prefixed. What the Midnight Mother is making, what you're seeing in the Midnight Sea and things like this, you're gonna get some similar personalities to these things, and not necessarily the same with the nightmares.

<edited for length and relevance> Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023)

 

 

 

Aether of Night Spoilers(ish)

Spoiler

Two shown are already confirmed Canon (Amberite - renamed Rosite and Verdant)
It is very unlikely that Bestarin (animal) or Corpate (metal) will be Canon Aethers.

As for other aspects, one has already been repurposed in both Aether and Non-Aether versions and the last is unknown if it wil become a Canon part of Cosmere.

Hope that helps

Edited May 17, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

There’s also in TatES a strange rumor about ‘bone spores’, and I’m not sure how that fits in if files is already taken.

[Treamayne]

54 minutes ago, Radon said:

There’s also in TatES a strange rumor about ‘bone spores’, and I’m not sure how that fits in if files is already taken.

Bone Spores (Spoilers)

Spoiler

White Sand Spoilers

Spoiler

Are implied to be the White Sand - which is White while invested, Black when drained and also (likely) controlled by a Luhel Bond

Meaning, it is likely stories from Taldain made it to Lumar, and people thought some iteration of "this sounds like spores" and centuries later we now have the myth of the 13th "Bone Spore"

 

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

Ohhhhhhh.

That makes a lot of sense

do we have confirmation in a WoB?

[Treamayne]

13 minutes ago, Radon said:

Ohhhhhhh.

That makes a lot of sense

do we have confirmation in a WoB?

Nope, because I have not been able to attend a Q&A (and likely never will) and most people that do are too laser focused on RAFO WaT questions to ask basic things like confirming White Sand uses a Luhel Bond or if the Bone Spores are a legend grown from misunderstanding on sand mastery. There is even a thread where some of us post the WoBs we hope to see one day (but Brandon frowns on asking questions from other people - so it is rude to "share" questions)

That's why I said "likely" and "implied" - lots of evidence, no confirmation (yet).