shard spren irl

[Joltizard1337 He/Him]

I saw a thread talking about spren in real life and which ones would be cool, and it got me thinking... would honor or cultivation spren exist without the existence of those shards? I know that honor spren are made by the shard and those of the shard (stormfather and other honor spren) so i dont knopw if they would exist on earth, if spren were real

[Myst He/Him]

6 minutes ago, joltizard1337 said:

I saw a thread talking about spren in real life and which ones would be cool, and it got me thinking... would honor or cultivation spren exist without the existence of those shards? I know that honor spren are made by the shard and those of the shard (stormfather and other honor spren) so i dont knopw if they would exist on earth, if spren were real

If spren were real, the events and powers that caused them to exist in Stormlight also caused the Honorspren and Ashspren to exist(albeit later in time)

As such, everything’s kinda related. You can’t have Honorspren without the splitting of the shards, and the other shards.

but, if you’re talking about Spren just magically popping into existence, then that would depend on what you define as “Spren” if Honorspren are Spren then they would exist, if you think they’re not because they were made later, then they wouldn’t. It depends 

[Joltizard1337 He/Him]

49 minutes ago, Myst said:

If spren were real, the events and powers that caused them to exist in Stormlight also caused the Honorspren and Ashspren to exist(albeit later in time)

As such, everything’s kinda related. You can’t have Honorspren without the splitting of the shards, and the other shards.

but, if you’re talking about Spren just magically popping into existence, then that would depend on what you define as “Spren” if Honorspren are Spren then they would exist, if you think they’re not because they were made later, then they wouldn’t. It depends 

i thought they always existed? there was an epitaph or something saying adolnasium put a cap on them but that they preceded him

Edited May 12 by joltizard1337

[Myst He/Him]

12 minutes ago, joltizard1337 said:

i thought they always existed? there was an epitaph or something saying adolnasium put a cap on them but that they preceded him

Adolnasium made the planet, and put people there. Spren are a result of those people personifying their emotions.

So my understanding is that they didn’t always exist. Do you know where that epitaph is?

[Joltizard1337 He/Him]

4 minutes ago, Myst said:

Adolnasium made the planet, and put people there. Spren are a result of those people personifying their emotions.

So my understanding is that they didn’t always exist. Do you know where that epitaph is?

i cant remember

[Myst He/Him]

2 minutes ago, joltizard1337 said:

i cant remember

Fair, if you remember I’d like to see it

[Joltizard1337 He/Him]

28 minutes ago, Myst said:

Fair, if you remember I’d like to see it

I cant find it at all, Ive looked through the first three books' epigraphs and cant find it. I think might have read something adjacent to that somewhere and conflated it

 

[Nitpicking]

Epigraph. An epitaph is something you write on a memorial to a dead person (like a tombstone).

The spren are fragments of a Shard. All Investiture is canonically part of one or more Shards, even if the Shard's Vessel didn't choose to create them. Note that some Shards don't create spren (Ruin, Preservation, Endowment). If a Shard is Splintered (what Odium and Autonomy did to Dominion and Devotion), the splinters are spren of one kind or another (as with the spirits on Komashi).

[alder24]

Roshar was created by Adonalsium with Lesser Spren only, intelligent True Spren and God Spren were created by Shards after Honor and Cultivation settled on Roshar. Spren are beings of pure investiture and in our universe there is no investiture so they can't exist here. But those "what if" kind of questions are just for fun so who cares about it? In a theoretical scenario where you can wave a magic wand and pop a spren into existance it doesn't matter how its alive, the only thing that matters is that it is alive. 

Spoiler

Questioner

Did the spren that we know of as the Cryptics exist before Honor and Cultivation came to Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Ah, good question! No. Cryptics would be one of the forms of spren that were a later creation. Creation is the wrong term, but yeah. 

Billy Todd, Moderator

Later development? Evolution?

Brandon Sanderson

All of the sapient spren are later developments. 

Billy Todd, Moderator

Are they evolved from the earlier spren?

Brandon Sanderson

Evolution doesn't work the same way on the spren, right? The spren were created more than evolved, I would say.

Billy Todd, Moderator

Maybe cultivated?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, cultivated. *laughter*

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

 

[Nitpicking]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Roshar was created by Adonalsium with Lesser Spren only, intelligent True Spren and God Spren were created by Shards after Honor and Cultivation settled on Roshar. Spren are beings of pure investiture and in our universe there is no investiture so they can't exist here. But those "what if" kind of questions are just for fun so who cares about it? In a theoretical scenario where you can wave a magic wand and pop a spren into existance it doesn't matter how its alive, the only thing that matters is that it is alive. 

  Hide contents

Questioner

Did the spren that we know of as the Cryptics exist before Honor and Cultivation came to Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Ah, good question! No. Cryptics would be one of the forms of spren that were a later creation. Creation is the wrong term, but yeah. 

Billy Todd, Moderator

Later development? Evolution?

Brandon Sanderson

All of the sapient spren are later developments. 

Billy Todd, Moderator

Are they evolved from the earlier spren?

Brandon Sanderson

Evolution doesn't work the same way on the spren, right? The spren were created more than evolved, I would say.

Billy Todd, Moderator

Maybe cultivated?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, cultivated. *laughter*

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

 

Brandon's comments there seem to contradict what we read in Wind and Truth. The Night, the Wind and the Stone predate the Shattering. Unless ... maybe they were non-sapient before Adonalsium's death?

[Joltizard1337 He/Him]

21 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

Epigraph. An epitaph is something you write on a memorial to a dead person (like a tombstone).

The spren are fragments of a Shard. All Investiture is canonically part of one or more Shards, even if the Shard's Vessel didn't choose to create them. Note that some Shards don't create spren (Ruin, Preservation, Endowment). If a Shard is Splintered (what Odium and Autonomy did to Dominion and Devotion), the splinters are spren of one kind or another (as with the spirits on Komashi).

Yeah, i realized halfway through I was using the wrong term

what about the aethers on lumar? aren't they unrelated to a shard and invested?

Edited May 13 by joltizard1337

[Nitpicking]

On 5/13/2026 at 1:09 PM, Joltizard1337 said:

what about the aethers on lumar? aren't they unrelated to a shard and invested?

Yes. Yet Brandon sometimes says all Investiture is now associated with a Shard. Which WoB would you prefer to believe?