Cultivation, Lift, and Not Leaving Roshar

[Verdance he/him]

Uh, bad title

So, a few weeks/months/years ago (someone is burning cadmium in my house I swear) I made a post asking for clarification on why Dalinar didn’t just try and evacuate humanity from Roshar, leaving the singers and Odium behind. One of the reasons given, aside from it being more boring than eagles to Mordor, was that apparently a being invested by a shard can’t leave the system that that shard inhabits, at least that was what impression I came off of. I’m pretty sure Mraize mentions something like this in Rhythm of War when talking to Shallan about trying to get Stormlight out of the Rosharan system, but I’m not entirely sure.

 

tldr: uneducated bs fan says something that probably not true
 

Anyways, my question is: If Cultivation has left Roshar, what effects might that have on Lift, a being directly invested by her? I assume she hasn’t been just ripped from Roshar to some other system, but does this affect her powers? Just curious what implications there are of this.

[Frustration]

So let me see if I can explain.

The reason Dalinar couldn't evacuate the humans from Roshar is that Honor is bound to that system just as much as Odium is, until Dalinar as Honor revoked the agreement all of the Shards and their powers were stuck there.

[Returned he/him]

59 minutes ago, edgyswordname said:

Anyways, my question is: If Cultivation has left Roshar, what effects might that have on Lift, a being directly invested by her? I assume she hasn’t been just ripped from Roshar to some other system, but does this affect her powers? Just curious what implications there are of this.

We don't have a ton of examples, but what few we do have suggest that Shards' proximity to the users of their magic systems is not important to that magic still being available to those users. As examples, we have worldhoppers who travel far from their original systems and can still use their powers (the Feruchemist in WaT, Vasher, era 4 Scadrians, Nomad, Shai in Lost Metal, Hoid's use of various powers in various settings, and others). Investiture may continue to accumulate even when a Shard has left, though we have fewer examples of this (I'm thinking of the one on Patji). It seems like creating a magic system might require (or at least involve) a Shard Investing themselves heavily in a place, though.

So I don't think that Cultivation leaving would have any effect on Lift. There certainly may be subtleties we don't know about, but major effects have not been clearly shown.

[Verdance he/him]

Thanks a lot! 

[Raelynn]

Would Lift be one of the only Radiants who still had power if all the others only used Stormlight? They’ve literally lost their power source, forever. Radiants can use Towerlight, but how does that work with the situation in Urithiru, and would the light (a combination of Stormlight and lifelight), be affected or decimated by the change? And also, can radiants use voidlight? Sorry for asking so many questions but the book is quite confusing.

[Namle84]

That’s correct.  Lift is the only radiant  who can surgebind on Roshar outside Urithiru.

 

And on the original question… turns out the only reason investiture and investiture beings couldn’t leave Roshar was the agreement among the shards there.  Once Dalinar voided that agreement, Stormlight (and all the lights), Heralds, fused, spren etc. can leave freely

[Nitpicking]

19 hours ago, Raelynn said:

Would Lift be one of the only Radiants who still had power if all the others only used Stormlight? They’ve literally lost their power source, forever. Radiants can use Towerlight, but how does that work with the situation in Urithiru, and would the light (a combination of Stormlight and lifelight), be affected or decimated by the change? And also, can radiants use voidlight? Sorry for asking so many questions but the book is quite confusing.

Towerlight is said at the end of WaT to be available, but only in and very near Urithuru, and it can't be stored in gems because it leaks out quickly for plot convenience reasons.

It's implied that only Radiants bound to Enlightened spren or Voidspren can use Voidlight. Venli comments that she can use Voidlight for Surges "because" she also has a Voidspren. (She also keeps her Envoyform abilities, such as speaking and understanding all languages.)

[Raelynn]

Thank you! That really helps.

[Frustration]

On 1/17/2026 at 12:19 PM, Verdance said:

made a post asking for clarification on why Dalinar didn’t just try and evacuate humanity from Roshar, leaving the singers and Odium behind.

I've been thinking about this recently, and while it wouldn't be easy something like this could happen.

Dalinar could open up a crap ton of elsegates like Cusichesh does, and let all the humans leave the system. The spren would be stuck as would all the radiants, but they should mostly be able to survive.

Then Dalinar could beat the crap out of Taravangian without fear of killing people as a result and he can put Roshar back together afterwards.