Creative shard weapons.

[strmblsd he/him]

radiants can make their shardblades into whatever shape they want, so could they in theory make the weapons incresingly smart and creative, could one in theory make a shard tripwire that is hard to see but if someone walks through it they end up severing their soul and dying? could you make a chain whip, whip shardblade and use it to whip around and sever souls? could these in theory work? and what other creative ways could you use shardblades being able to change shape?

[MrHobbes343]

You can make a shardblade clock if you can comprehend the clockwork inside.

 

So, yes in the future the sky is the limit for creative problem solving. I would argue that beyond the access to surges the universal multi-tool is the primary thing that gives Roshar a major leg up in era 3. Even if they are a bit down the tech tree from scadrial, they will eventually be able to replicate and prototype new creations without the need for advanced fabrication and metallurgy. With malleable shardblade steel and soulcasting, many industrial challenges disappear.    

[storming_kayana]

19 minutes ago, MrHobbes343 said:

Sí, en el futuro no habrá límites para la resolución creativa de problemas. Yo diría que, más allá del acceso a las oleadas, la multiherramienta universal es lo que le da a Roshar una gran ventaja en la era 3. Aunque estén un poco por debajo de Scadrial en el árbol tecnológico, eventualmente podrán replicar y prototipar nuevas creaciones sin necesidad de fabricación ni metalurgia avanzadas. Con el acero maleable de las hojas de esquirlas y la fundición de almas, muchos desafíos industriales desaparecen.    

But maybe you're missing the fact that they probably need to understand the operation of advanced tools. It's similar to the idea of universe in the cognitive realm. You have to figure the ideas first to manifest them.

1 hour ago, strmblsd said:

radiants can make their shardblades into whatever shape they want, so could they in theory make the weapons incresingly smart and creative, could one in theory make a shard tripwire that is hard to see but if someone walks through it they end up severing their soul and dying? could you make a chain whip, whip shardblade and use it to whip around and sever souls? could these in theory work? and what other creative ways could you use shardblades being able to change shape?

I like to think in a trap in which you can "cut" the feet's soul so you can incapacite your enemy.

Spoiler

However, we have seen that is slighly easy recovering from a shard injury

 

[Adonalsium Will Return He/him]

Shard-Frisbee that, when it’s about to hit, becomes a sharp disk

[Verdance he/him]

How big can a shardweapon get?

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

Rope. Being able to make rope out of shardblade matter would be an incredible power. Bonus points if the rope can be sharp or dull where the user wants it to be, since that does cover the trip wire case, but even just normal style dull rope is great. A living rope that can be stiff, soft, loose, tight, based on mental commands can be used to carry things, restrain enemies, and even as part of a shelter.

That said, there is a weirdness that WaT introduced that it is possible to defend against a shardspear by having however much investment in the tissue as a Focused One has. This kinda makes every notion of Shardblades are the premiere weapon system seem stupid to me and like the actual nature of warfare is just having more god juice. Thuncasts are not highly invested to make them immune to Shardblades because Rayse loved being a loser.

[PanLin they/he]

20 hours ago, strmblsd said:

and what other creative ways could you use shardblades being able to change shape?

In addition to the cool ways others have mentioned in this thread, I think the biggest advantage is that you can change the shape your spren manifests in on the fly—we've seen Kal change Syl's form mid-combat to great effect.

At any time, immediately, you can summon your spren or change their form to whatever you need in that exact moment. I also suggested a shard-swiss-army-knife as an idea, but the nature of the Nahel bond means your spren IS a Swiss army knife at all times anyway.

You can, for example, use them as a shield to block an incoming projectile, switch to a grappling hook to get to a better vantage point, switch to a sword to clear any obstacles there, switch to a megaphone to shout some orders/information, switch to a javelin to throw it at the person who sent the original projectile at you, then immediately resummon them to you as a shield, all in a matter of seconds.

[Cephandrious Maxtori Fae/Faer]

Shardwhips are really neat, assuming they can be sharp enough to cut, and I don't see why they couldn't be.

[Nitpicking]

On 4/21/2026 at 2:21 PM, Verdance said:

How big can a shardweapon get?

SPOILER FOR THE BURNING MAN:

Spoiler

Sigzil turns his Shardblade (the corpse of Aux) into a building-sized metal shelter.

 

[Verdance he/him]

18 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

SPOILER FOR THE BURNING MAN:

  Hide contents

Sigzil turns his Shardblade (the corpse of Aux) into a building-sized metal shelter.

 

Spoiler

Burning man? You mean sunlit man?

 

[Jult]

Shard-vehicles could be interesting. Probably nothing as complex as an automobile. But I could see Shardboats or Shardboards being manageable. If building-sized really is the limit, then you could get pretty creative. Spawn an entire wagon for some Shard-public-transit.

[Frustration]

My personal favorite is the shardbrella.

Basically the point is that a windrunner could use it to fly through something like an airship or a building.

 

The shardbrella is formed with a long spear-like handle, which ends in an umbrella or top like cap, creating a shielded space underneath. The point of the shardbrella is sharpened enough to cut. Likewise four bladed points come from the point and create a bladed ring a few inches further out from the ends shardbrella. Now to finish it off we just add tiny blades running along the sides of the shardbrella.

I really don't know if I explained that well, but the idea is that at the top there is a point and a ring of blades that would look like this

Spoiler

 

Anything that gets hit has a circle removed from it the size of a person, and that circle that is cut out is torn in four pieces, which is further shreaded apart until it is harmlessly dropped past the person holding it like fine confetti

Here's what it would look like from the side

Spoiler

 

If that makes no sense at all please tell me, and I'll find a way to explain better.

 

 

On 4/21/2026 at 4:03 PM, ParaTulip said:

Rope. Being able to make rope out of shardblade matter would be an incredible power. Bonus points if the rope can be sharp or dull where the user wants it to be, since that does cover the trip wire case, but even just normal style dull rope is great. A living rope that can be stiff, soft, loose, tight, based on mental commands can be used to carry things, restrain enemies, and even as part of a shelter.

That said, there is a weirdness that WaT introduced that it is possible to defend against a shardspear by having however much investment in the tissue as a Focused One has. This kinda makes every notion of Shardblades are the premiere weapon system seem stupid to me and like the actual nature of warfare is just having more god juice. Thuncasts are not highly invested to make them immune to Shardblades because Rayse loved being a loser.

The reason Focused ones are resistant to shardblads isn't invesitutre. It's that their bodies are so dense that once the point/blade gets past the skin the rest of the skin holds the metal and prevents the blade from going deeper. That's why Sigzil could kill them if he was going fast enough.

Fun fact: you can do the same thing with cheese

Spoiler

[deleted]

Given Brandon's answer to a block of Cheese stopping a shardblade, how does the last clap work?

Brandon Sanderson

So, I'll admit, I've been considering the cheese question since it was asked.

I'm not sure if it has to be cheese. But any object that is sufficiently thick but also sufficiently pliable that it's going to press down on the blade while it's cutting IS going to create drag on the blade.

The Blade does, by necessity of my understanding of the relevant physics, need to be able to vaporize a tiny bit of matter into Investiture while cutting, in order to create space for the Blade to continue to slide through. This is related to why it doesn't cut things with souls.

At the same time, I'm not convinced that this is relevant to the actual question being asked. I think that I have to relent that, with a sufficiently large block of cheese and a Shardbearer trying to cut lengthwise through it, the drag produced on the flat of the blade is going to tire the Shardbearer. Making cheese legitimately more difficult to cut through than stone or metal. And a big enough block of cheese might stop the slice straight up, because the weight placed on the blade will be pretty heavy.

That said, the top replies to this thread are pretty relevant, and are correctly explaining the mechanics of the situation. There is this little "shield of vaporization" around a Blade while it cuts, so a thinner Blade (like Szeth's Honorblade) might not have this drawback at all. It depends on how far back the shield of vaporization extends, and how thick the blade is.

My current instinct says that wider blades would be stopped by this, and so those of you planning to make ten-foot-thick walls of cheese to stop an invading Shardbearer can continue in your...endeavors.

Remember, kids, keep your Shardblade thin for actual combat (for multiple reasons.) Only make the big showy forms when you're trying to look intimidating. (With a nod to the fact that a thick blade does tend to be better for getting through Shardplate, giving you more mass to hit with. Choose Adolin's Blade for Shardplate Duels. Szeth/Jezrien's Honorblade for cheese.)

General Reddit 2022 (March 19, 2022)

 

Edited April 24 by Frustration

[Verdance he/him]

So… with an object that i can manipulate the exact size and shape of… why should i make it a blade when i can just summon the appropriate shape of the inside of someone’s lungs?

[Frustration]

23 minutes ago, Verdance said:

So… with an object that i can manipulate the exact size and shape of… why should i make it a blade when i can just summon the appropriate shape of the inside of someone’s lungs?

You can't summon it inside of someone, their investiture would interfere with it.

[Verdance he/him]

Just now, Frustration said:

You can't summon it inside of someone, their investiture would interfere with it.

Aren’t Shardblades summoned inside of people multiple times in Stormlight? Shallan, Jasnah, Dalinar, I swear they did so at some point.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

10 hours ago, Frustration said:

The reason Focused ones are resistant to shardblads isn't invesitutre. It's that their bodies are so dense that once the point/blade gets past the skin the rest of the skin holds the metal and prevents the blade from going deeper. That's why Sigzil could kill them if he was going fast enough.

I think this is a difference in concept. I could imagine something like a line that splits whatever interaxial or molecular bonds it comes within a certain distance of, a parting of the substances at their basic level. If more momentum is needed, simply cut a rock from the ground (or imagine a wire widening to a sold metal weight at the end) and use it to...

Okay so I am inventing an implement for cutting cheese from first principles here, but Shard Cheese Cutter is definitely not something you want to call a companion who can understand the words. Wirehammer sounds more respectful.

I guess there's something about the want for a horse in Sigil's predicament, he lacked a lever and/or a source of momentum that wasn't his own ability to fall harder.

[QuantumAce]

On 4/21/2026 at 5:03 PM, ParaTulip said:

Rope. Being able to make rope out of shardblade matter would be an incredible power. Bonus points if the rope can be sharp or dull where the user wants it to be, since that does cover the trip wire case, but even just normal style dull rope is great. A living rope that can be stiff, soft, loose, tight, based on mental commands can be used to carry things, restrain enemies, and even as part of a shelter.

 

So basically a light line from the Cytoverse. 

On 4/21/2026 at 5:03 PM, ParaTulip said:

That said, there is a weirdness that WaT introduced that it is possible to defend against a shardspear by having however much investment in the tissue as a Focused One has. This kinda makes every notion of Shardblades are the premiere weapon system seem stupid to me and like the actual nature of warfare is just having more god juice. Thuncasts are not highly invested to make them immune to Shardblades because Rayse loved being a loser.

 

Shard weapons not being an automatic one hit kill in literally every situation does not disqualify them from being a premiere weapons system.  As far as limitations go, introducing one brand of Fused that makes them more difficult to kill with a shard weapon is fairly minor. 

As far as Thunderclasts, it is highly probably there are limitations to using cognitive shadows to animate stone. Even if it was as simple as just pumping in more investiture, Rayse was not willing to commit more to Roshar because it would limit his freedom. 

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

1 hour ago, QuantumAce said:

So basically a light line from the Cytoverse. 

Never heard of this before. I just think a near indestructible rope that can appear and disappear at will would be an insanely huge get for human problem solving options. The two most basic tools of humanity are ropes and sticks, clothing as we know it can be understood as a form of rope, homes as forms of sticks. Fire and social systems (including roping animals into those systems) are what I see as the other big instruments of humans, but I don't think I could describe either of those as being a single object in the way shardblades are.

Swords, spears, guns, all of them can be understood as being in the stick family.

[Nitpicking]

On 4/22/2026 at 6:13 PM, Verdance said:

  Hide contents

Burning man? You mean sunlit man?

 

Yes. Yes I did. (I don't think the title of the book needs to be spoilered, BTW. That's public knowledge.) Thanks.