crack-theory [Discuss] Rhythms Chatting

[TheJ.R.Douglas he/him]

Possible Spoilers Ahead! If you aren’t caught up on the Cosmere beware!

Also, I apologize for grammatically inconsistencies, I copied this straight from my notes app because I wanted to get this out there before DS Nexus. 

Also not sure if this theory is already out there.

Spoiler

Rhythms in relation to the shattering, adonalsium, nightblood, investiture, patterns in sand, the shattered plains, anti investiture, and the dawnshards

Is the shape of the shattered plains a reflection of the rhythm of honor, odium, or retribution (i.e. a mix of honor & odium, the rhythm of war)?

What is the pattern of the other shards and their combinations? 

What is the pattern of adonalsium?

Shards have rhythms, and investiture by extension carries the rhythm of its shard. Navani found a way to isolate investiture and change its rhythm, and found a way to reverse a rhythm and create anti investiture.

Therefore, if investiture in isolation can have its “polarity” changed by playing the inverse of a shardic rhythm, then in theory if you could isolate a shard (likely without its vessel) you could do the same to it.

What would happen if you did manage to change the “polarity” of a shard of adonalsium? Like, what if you inverted Honor? Would it become Dishonor? Or Anti-Honor (which doesn’t sound as cool)?

This goes deeper. Each shard has a rhythm, so there is a combination for each of the 16 in pairs, maybe even in trios and quads. So therefore, adonalsium has its own rhythm which is the combination of all 16. Which means… you could inverse the rhythm of adonalsium. You could create a true opposite of adonalsium, or anti-nalsium if you would. 

What is the pattern of anti-nalsium?

Ruin and Preservation were drawn together to make Scadrial by the desire to create that came with the shards they carried. Other shards also have similar desires. Invention sure seems interested in creating things. Is there a fourth shard that has a drive to create? 

I theorize there are four main drives that are each shared by a set of four shards and associated directional with the each of the Dawnshards. Exist. Change. The other two. 

Assuming that the one dawnshard different from the rest is one of the two unknown to us, that could be the source of corrupt investiture. That command that could have split four corrupt shards from adonalsium, with drives associated with that command. It could be the source of all corrupt investiture, assuming it was different when adonalsium was using it to create the cosmere.

Now what about what happened at the shattering? We know the dawnshards were used to shatter adonalsium, but how were they used? I propose this: the dawnshards were used to shatter adonalsium, but Hoid was also present, someone we know is musically inclined. I believe that the dawnshards were used in conjunction with the inverse rhythm of adonalsium in order to shatter it.

Is this the source of corrupt investiture? The one different dawnshard and the inverted rhythm of adonalsium? Or just the corrupt dawnshard?

Do dawnshards have rhythms? Maybe. It’s possible that the four dawnshards each have a rhythm that corresponds or is similar to the four shardic rhythms of the set of shards it shares its command with. 

Corrupt investiture is colored red. Odium has been associated with red, as has Autonomy. There should, in theory, be two more shards that will be associated with the color red. I would also propose that their shardic rhythms will be similar, and their drives will be shared. Dominion seems a likely candidate. Perhaps Ambition too.

Possible shard combo of theorized corrupted shard set:

Dominion + Odium + Ambition + Autonomy = Domination

All four corrupt shards with one combined drive, one combined rhythm. The rhythm of domination.

What would that rhythmatic pattern be? 

What would that dawnshard related drive be?

What would that dawnshard command be?

Can corrupt investiture have its polarity reversed?

Can anti investiture be corrupted?

Investiture that nightblood has consumed turns black, but is not corrupt investiture. The black smoke from the father machine is also black, not corrupt. Described as fouled.

Nightblood attacks the spirit, kills on all three realms. The father machine consumes souls. Similar… there was a theory on this before, I heard it on shardcast.

Point being, nightblood consumes investiture regardless of the rhythm it is keyed to, the identify of the investiture. It then leaks out its consumed investiture as black smoke. Is that investiture unkeyed? Or is it keyed to nightblood? 

If the black investiture is keyed to nightblood, then in theory nightblood could have its own rhythm. The father machine could too.

There is some kind of connection between awakening, consumption of investiture, and the fouling up of investiture (I.e. black smoke). Do awakened objects with huge amounts of investiture, and entities/people with massive amounts of investiture, develop their own rhythms? Or is it that the people/entities that consume that much just take on the rhythm of the shard associated with that investiture? 

Black smoke investiture seems unique to awakened objects, if you don’t count the smoke of Ruin. Unless the rhythm of ruin was used somehow in the creation of both nightblood and the father machine…

Does nightblood have its own rhythm? Is it dancing to ruin’s rhythm? Or is it perhaps dancing to the rhythm of anti-nalsium?

What would nightblood’s rhythmatic pattern be?

It is unlikely that the rhythm of ruin was pivotal in the creation of nightblood, seeing as it was awakening using breaths and it was created on Nalthis. More likely it’s has its own rhythm or the anti-nalsium rhythm.

In summary of this insane, rambling, theorization, rhythms are the key to the cosmere. It all comes back to the rhythms. 

Thoughts? I know I’ve raised more questions than answers, but that’s what WoBs are for, right?

Edited December 9, 2025 by TheJ.R.Douglas
Better title to reduce confusion

[Treamayne]

This seems more like a stream-of-conciousneess list of questions than a theory, but. . . 

4 hours ago, TheJ.R.Douglas said:

Spoiler

Corrupt investiture is colored red. Odium has been associated with red, as has Autonomy. There should, in theory, be two more shards that will be associated with the color red.

 

This is a false premise. Corrupt investiture is any investiture changed from it's normal baseline, and was first seen on Sel (Emperor's Soul-spoilers):

Spoiler

When Shai is testing her Essence Marks. Because the test stamps are forcibly changing Gaotona's Spiritweb in an unnatural way, the stamps leak red light/smoke/investiture as the effects are rejected by his spiritweb. WoB:

Quote

Roger

As I understand it, red is a sign of corruption in the cosmere. I just reread The Emperor's Soul, and it mentioned wisps of red smoke when Shai tests the Soulstamps. Does this mean she is corrupting Gaotona's soul?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that is what that means. Corruption doesn't have to have the negative connotation, right? Basically, it means an outside influence is changing the Spiritual nature of the soul. And, yeah, that's exactly what is happening right there. Now, I would call that a pretty good thing, but... like, all of those things, where she is playing with someone's soul, and changing it, and changing their past, and things like this. This is, by cosmere definition, corrupting someone's soul. That's expressly what it is.

YouTube Livestream 10 (June 18, 2020)

 

 

 

4 hours ago, TheJ.R.Douglas said:

Black smoke investiture seems unique to awakened objects, if you don’t count the smoke of Ruin. Unless the rhythm of ruin was used somehow in the creation of both nightblood and the father machine…

This may also be False Premise - as Nightblood was made with some portion of Ruin involved. WoB:

Spoiler

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)

The current prevailing theory is that by using "Destroy" in the Command, Shashara accidentally invoked some of Ruin's Intent into Nightblood's Command. It also does not only come from Awakened Objects (Nalthian Awakening or other) because it is also seen in Tress and Threnody and anywhere with Midnight Essence - the Father Machine is just an example of an Awakened Fabrial that is creating Midnight Essence. WoB:

Spoiler

Strifelover

My question is around connections between corrupted Investiture on different planets. We have the shroud; we have Midnight Essence; we have the nightmares; and we have Nightblood. All of them have, like, oozy black smoke. Are they all connected somehow with the corrupted Investiture of Odium, Ambition...?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes and no. The question is: all of these different manifestations (we've got the Midnight Essence, we've got the shroud, we've got Nightblood), are they connected? Are they all related in some way to Odium or Ambition? The answer is no to the second.

When I was building the Cosmere, one of the things that I knew is that I wanted to explore magic systems really in depth. And in order to do that, I built fundamental principles by how magic, Investiture, would manifest. And I wanted it to be consistent. For instance, I wanted the rules... if you're making illusions in one world, I wanted those illusions to behave a lot the same way that they would on other worlds. So I built these fundamental principles that I build up from. And one of those fundamental principles is about Investiture that is trying to become alive and is being held back by something. And that is where you get Midnight Essence sort of things. It's, like, one step from being able to become self-aware, but it's being held back. And there's even, kind of, some frustration in there, as much as something not truly self-aware can have. So if you watch for that theme, you'll see it more and more.

C2E2 2024 (April 26, 2024)

Hope that helps

Edited November 25, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[TheJ.R.Douglas he/him]

28 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

This seems more like a stream-of-conciousneess list of questions than a theory, but. . .

You're right. I perhaps should have refined this down into a more concise format...

The real theory is that,

Spoiler

because you can change investure's rhythm from that of one shard to another, you might be able to change a shard in its entirety given proper circumstances and equipment. And that there does exist a rhythm associated with Adonalsium, and you could inverse it.

 

33 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

This is a false premise. Corrupt investiture is any investiture changed from it's normal baseline, and was first seen on Sel (Emperor's Soul-spoilers):

It has been some time since I read that, I had forgotten it was described that way. And I appreciate you linking that WoB, my remembrance of them can be shoddy, and I should probably have done more research. I definitely did not have the proper definition for corrupt investiture...

 

2 hours ago, Treamayne said:

This may also be False Premise - as Nightblood was made with some portion of Ruin involved. WoB:

Also didn't know about his WoB, thank you again.

[Treamayne]

2 minutes ago, TheJ.R.Douglas said:

You're right. I perhaps should have refined this down into a more concise format...

The real theory is that,

  Hide contents

because you can change investure's rhythm from that of one shard to another, you might be able to change a shard in its entirety given proper circumstances and equipment. And that there does exist a rhythm associated with Adonalsium, and you could inverse it.

When and who changed a rhythm from one Shard to a different Shard?

RoW Spoilers:

Spoiler

All Navani accomplished in RoW was to invert Voidlight into Anti-Voidlight using the Vacuum tube. Otherwise, she and Raboniel were able to mege lights (Warlight from Stormlight and Voidlight) but could not actually convert Stormlight to/from Voidlight. 

So I do not know what you are referencing there. . . 

 

[TheJ.R.Douglas he/him]

1 minute ago, Treamayne said:

When and who changed a rhythm from one Shard to a different Shard?

No no, you misunderstood.
 

Spoiler

I wasn’t saying anyone had changed a rhythm from one shard to another. I was suggesting that if you could change investiture in isolation, like Navani did, then theoretically if you could isolate a shard you could do the same. Maybe. A theory.

 

Perhaps I need to return to my drawing board

[Argenti he/him]

On 11/25/2025 at 6:18 PM, TheJ.R.Douglas said:

No no, you misunderstood.
 

  Hide contents

I wasn’t saying anyone had changed a rhythm from one shard to another. I was suggesting that if you could change investiture in isolation, like Navani did, then theoretically if you could isolate a shard you could do the same. Maybe. A theory.

 

Perhaps I need to return to my drawing board

Emberdark (World spoilers, not plot)

Spoiler

Ambition is that. Somehow, odium made the whole shard negative investiture. 

 

[Qianweilian He/him]

Did anyone else read that as "rithmatic theory" first? I thought we had gotten something exciting about a rithmatist sequel.

[Treamayne]

20 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

Did anyone else read that as "rithmatic theory" first? I thought we had gotten something exciting about a rithmatist sequel. 

Yes, I also at first thought they were refering to Rithmatist - but did not think it was a sequel, since we know Brandon has not yet found an appropriate co-author yet. 

I just thought it was in the wrong section. 

Edited December 9, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[TheJ.R.Douglas he/him]

18 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

Did anyone else read that as "rithmatic theory" first? I thought we had gotten something exciting about a rithmatist sequel.

I wish it were

I’m just a nut job, unfortunately, and thought my naming convention was clever

Sorry for getting your hopes up

Maybe one day when I’m not so embarrassed by how quickly I jumped the gun on this post I will revise it and change the title to reflect

Happy Holidays by the way, one and all

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, TheJ.R.Douglas said:

I will revise it and change the title to reflect

You can do that easily now - just edit the first post. More details in the SHARDER FAQ