Awakened weapon commands

[IcedOutPenguin He/Him]

What commands can an awakened weapon be given?

[Argenti he/him]

7 minutes ago, IcedOutPenguin said:

What commands can an awakened weapon be given?

Anything you can imagine, I suppose. I doubt there's any requirements for the command.

Edited August 10, 2025 by Argenti
Had a stroke

[IcedOutPenguin He/Him]

But what would some commands do?

We know what Destroy Evil does, but what about Protect Me, or Save us?

[Argenti he/him]

3 minutes ago, IcedOutPenguin said:

But what would some commands do?

We know what Destroy Evil does, but what about Protect Me, or Save us?

 who knows? 

The item would need to interpret what "protect" or "Save" means, and we've seen how Nightblood does with evil. Could it capture you inside itself? Could it fly? Who knows  

[Treamayne]

2 hours ago, IcedOutPenguin said:

What commands can an awakened weapon be given?

2 hours ago, IcedOutPenguin said:

But what would some commands do?

We know what Destroy Evil does, but what about Protect Me, or Save us?

 

The thing to keep in mind is that the Command is only one part of what would determine the eventual Type 4 Biochromatic Entity. WoBs:

Spoiler

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howtofall

We know that the effects of various magic systems are changed by their interactions with metals (Scadrial’s three obviously, as well as fabrials on Roshar). So my question is: when a piece of metal is Awakened, does the type of metal change the nature of the Awakened object in any meaningful way?

For example, If Nightblood had been made of iron or tin rather than steel...

Brandon Sanderson

It would most likely change what is happening with Nightblood to use different materials, and that includes different types of metal.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

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asmodeus

If the only variable we change, during the creation of Nightblood, is to use a different Allomantically-viable metal (say, iron or bronze instead of steel), but keep everything else constant (the same Breaths, same people doing the same visualization, and whatever other factors were involved), would it have manifested different powers/capabilities?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Most likely.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

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Questioner

If Vasher and Shashara had Awakened a non-weapon in exactly the same way as Nightblood (say a shield), would the object exhibit the same properties as Nightblood?

Brandon Sanderson

So, if you said "destroy evil" to a shield... no, it wouldn't be exactly the same. The Command is the most important part of all of this, but the shape, how the weapon perceives itself, how you perceive it, is all gonna play into this. They're playing with some real dangerous stuff when they made Nightblood. And it didn't go as intended.

San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020 (July 23, 2020)

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Walin

Does Nightblood contain any of Ruin's Investiture? Like, not atium, but...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, technically; and I'm not wiggling around that, because technically, location in the Cosmere and who belongs to what gets really weird, right? Because Ruin's Investiture is everywhere--but I'm not talking that way. I'm talking the way you actually mean it. 

Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)

Note: Theorized that the use of "Destroy" in the Command is why part of Ruin's investiture affected Nightblood's Awakening.  Not confirmed, but the point is that, if correct, having a Command that may incorporate another Intent could affect the Type 4 you are trying to make. 

 

[Argenti he/him]

3 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

The thing to keep in mind is that the Command is only one part of what would determine the eventual Type 4 Biochromatic Entity. WoBs:

  Hide contents

Note: Theorized that the use of "Destroy" in the Command is why part of Ruin's investiture affected Nightblood's Awakening.  Not confirmed, but the point is that, if correct, having a Command that may incorporate another Intent could affect the Type 4 you are trying to make. 

 

Very good point

[Nitpicking]

The word "awakened" here confused me, because Awakening is the whole magic system of animating things with Breath, like Vasher making his straw doll at the very beginning of Warbreaker. 

If making Biochromatic Entities is related to regular Awakening, then what the Awakener visualizes while Commanding the weapon would be the most important determiner.

[CoderDrag0n8 He/Him]

10 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

The word "awakened" here confused me, because Awakening is the whole magic system of animating things with Breath, like Vasher making his straw doll at the very beginning of Warbreaker. 

If making Biochromatic Entities is related to regular Awakening, then what the Awakener visualizes while Commanding the weapon would be the most important determiner.

I'm pretty sure making Biochromatic Entities is just Awakening on steriods (SO SO SO many more Breaths)

[Elite01]

I think the more simple the command the better 

“be sharp” 

“don’t break” 

“fight well” 

[IcedOutPenguin He/Him]

"Hunt."

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, Elite01 said:

I think the more simple the command the better 

“be sharp” 

“don’t break” 

“fight well” 

31 minutes ago, IcedOutPenguin said:

"Hunt."

Sanderson Addresses this in the Warbreaker Annotations - Seeming Simple and being Simple are not the same

Spoiler

Annotation to Prologue:

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If you’ve read the book through, then you know that Vasher’s simple-sounding Command of “Fetch Keys” given to the straw man is incredibly complex. In fact, it’s probably one of the most complicated Commands given to any Awakened object in the entire book. It’s kind of cool to me that Vasher uses it here, showing off incredible mastery of the magic, before anyone reading will even realize how much skill saying those two words correctly really takes.

Annotation to Ch 21:

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One of the subtle, yet drastic, changes to Awakening that happened in this story came during the middle drafts. Originally, the Command was part of the process of Awakening—but wasn’t as important as I eventually made it. I had intended for very difficult things to be accomplished through the use of very long and intricate Commands. However, as I wrote the first draft, I felt this was bulky. What it meant that was if you wanted to use a powerful Awakening in battle, you’d have to stop and spout several paragraphs of instructions. It really cut down on the tension of the battle sequences. (And Awakening was already slower than I preferred, with the need for all of the steps—Breathing, finding color, then Commanding.)

So during revisions, I changed this. Instead of requiring a lengthy Command to create a powerful Awakening, the strength and skill of the Awakener is instead determined by their ability to visualize what they want the Command to do. The Command is a focus, the spoken words an important part of the process, but the real trick is getting the right mental picture.

This way, someone can practice a lot, and still use simple Commands—like Grab things—yet have them do very powerful things. It also allows me to have Commands be easier to learn and use, yet still require skill to master.

Annotation to Ch 37:

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What she would need to do is Awaken something with a one-Breath Command. There are some. They don’t do much, but you can Awaken a very tiny scrap of cloth tied into the shape of a person with a very simple Command. That takes one Breath.

WoB:

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Oudeis

(Disclaimers so that you can't say, like, "well if a Shard...") If a regular Awakener, just a mundane Awakener with nothing more than a few hundred Breaths and not any other outside influences, is there some Command they could give a blanket to get the blanket to turn warm? Generate heat; is that a normal thing you can Command?

Brandon Sanderson

Not in just a normal situation. I mean, technically, you could tell the blanket "start rubbing one part against another part" or something like that, or "set yourself on fire," right? But that's not what you're asking. For Awakening to work, you have to work within the intrinsic properties of the matter you're making, except it can move around a bit and with a few little other things it can do.

It's not outside the realm of possibility you could activate those Breaths as Investiture to do something else, but you would need more than just the simple magic system of Awakening. 

JordanCon 2021 (July 17, 2021)

 

Hope that helps.