Shardblades

[TheSilverDragon]

So it came to.me, when I saw the quote about nighblood being a shardblade, that shouldn't every shard have a unique shardblade. Honor and cultivation have the Shardblades that everyone thinks of. Sel's, forgot the shard's name, has nightblood. Riun's would probably be a spike that has spiked a lot of people. No ideas of Presevation's though. Odium's would most likely a voidspren in blade form.

I can't think of any other shards right now, but what do you guys think?

[Lord Pifferdoo]

Sel had two Shards, Dominion and Devotion. 

 

Interesting theory, though I have a feeling Shardblades may refer to objects that can sever spiritual bonds. 

[Voidus]

1. Nightblood is from Nalthis not Sel and so is from Endowment.
2. The Aons in the centre of Seons would probably be able to become Shardblades, not sure exactly how though.
3. Ruin and Preservation have no known Splinters so I don't think it likely that they'd have any.

[WindrunnerRadiant]

Hmm... I like the idea that Shardblades might simply be blades capable of severing spiritual bonds. But I'm not sure it fits. Nightblood hasn't necessarily shown any of those capabilities, although perhaps we just haven't seen them explicitly.

 

I, for one, am inclined to believe that Shardblades are any weapons either with large amount of investiture or are in some way a splinter of a shard or even both. If it is just a large amount of investiture, the shard wouldn't have to be splintered in order for there to be a shardblade of that shard.

[Arook]

I would say a better way to say what Nightblood does is consumes the spirit of what it attacks and a shard blade just cuts the spirit apart. Anything touched by Nightblood vanishes into the black vapor and a shard blade just severs the connection. living things react differently then something dead in fact each living creature must have 2 types of spirit now that I think about it one while alive and then replaced by the second one when that is destroyed. That is why you can't cut a living person because you can only cut the primary soul of an object.

 

Shard blades type objects can attack the spirit

 

See a splinter or sliver is something that has a large amount of investiture. All shard blades a splinter or sliver but not all splinter and slivers are shard blades.

[Shard of Adonalsium]

Well, the thing is, Spren and Seons, possibly even Skaze, are all Splinters of a Shard. Yes, they are not all from the same Shard, but seeing as how Spren from Honor can have a weapon and armor form, who's to say, given several hundred years, would Seonblades or Skazeplate become a thing on Sel? Eh?

[Voidus]

Technically the Aons at the center of Seons are the Splinter.

[Surgebound Rainspren]

I always found it strange how Shardblades can seemingly change their corporeal form:

It can slice right though a person not leaving a scratch and instead cut away the persons very soul one moment

Then It can cut through stone and block/be-blocked by other Shardblade's or plates

[WeiryWriter]

Well, the thing is, Spren and Seons, possibly even Skaze, are all Splinters of a Shard. Yes, they are not all from the same Shard, but seeing as how Spren from Honor can have a weapon and armor form, who's to say, given several hundred years, would Seonblades or Skazeplate become a thing on Sel? Eh?

 

It's theoretically possible.

[WindrunnerRadiant]

I always found it strange how Shardblades can seemingly change their corporeal form:

It can slice right though a person not leaving a scratch and instead cut away the persons very soul one moment

Then It can cut through stone and block/be-blocked by other Shardblade's or plates

Roshar Shardblades primarily cut through the Spirit of a living thing. We can't be positive about why or how this is, but it has a lot to do with realmatics. However, lacking a spirit to cut through, they will simply cut through the physical object itself. The reason that they can't cut through each other or shardplate is because they have to much investiture within them. Theoretically, they also wouldn't be able cut through Nightblood, Atium, and maybe even a person with enough investiture in them, such as a Returned or an Elantrian. At least it might be harder than someone with no investiture in them.

[Arook]

So as I understand it everything that exists in the physical exists in the other 2. Not everything in the cognitive or spiritual has a physical aspect. With that when you cut a person you cut the soul of a person but not the spiritual aspect of the body. The blades have an unnatural ability to cut it can not be a simple matter of it just cuts the thing in the way if no soul is found. A interesting thing to note the blades fuzz around a body visibly when cutting the soul.

[WindrunnerRadiant]

The fuzzing is interesting. Perhaps it is the blade entering the spiritual realm when it comes to close to a spirit, which would explain it working the way it does. If it instantaneously enters the spiritual realm when it gets to close to something with a soul in it, the Shardblade would instead cut the soul in stead of the physical body.

[Arook]

I know I'm being picky but I don't think it cuts the physical body but the spiritual connection of said object. Ie arm to torso. All of the cuts are super smooth I bet it is eliminating a small amount of the spiritual essence of what it touches making a hair line cut by removing the tiniest bit of an object From existence. Of course that is based on my theory of what Night blood does to walls and stuff.

[Jondesu]

I got the impression Nightblood isn't a "Shardblade" like the Rosharian blades, but a "shard blade", as in it contains a shard of power (not in the sense of the Shards of Adolnasium either of course, but just a significant amount of investiture) that gives it special powers.  It can't be summoned and dismissed like Shardblades, and it may not cut the soul in the same way (those cut with it basically vanish if I remember correctly from Warbreaker), but it shares some similarities.  When Szeth and Nalan call it a shard blade, they're just using a familiar term that's as close as they can understand to what it is, even though it's not actually a Shardblade exactly.  It should be a comparable weapon, however, in many ways; just very different in many other ways of course.

 

I also don't think Nightblood is something inherent to the way Endowment works, but rather the way Endowment's investiture works makes objects like him/it possible.  That means other Shards wouldn't necessarily also have shard blades or something similar, though they would all potentially have objects or uses of power (maybe an Aon, for instance) that can affect a person or creature's connection to either the spiritual or cognitive worlds.  That actually has terrifying potential, in fact…

 

jW

Edited May 21, 2015 by Jondesu

[Voidus]

I got the impression Nightblood isn't a "Shardblade" like the Rosharian blades, but a "shard blade", as in it contains a shard of power (not in the sense of the Shards of Adolnasium either of course, but just a significant amount of investiture) that gives it special powers.  It can't be summoned and dismissed like Shardblades, and it may not cut the soul in the same way (those cut with it basically vanish if I remember correctly from Warbreaker), but it shares some similarities.  When Szeth and Nalan call it a shard blade, they're just using a familiar term that's as close as they can understand to what it is, even though it's not actually a Shardblade exactly.  It should be a comparable weapon, however, in many ways; just very different in many other ways of course.

 

I also don't think Nightblood is something inherent to the way Endowment works, but rather the way Endowment's investiture works makes objects like him/it possible.  That means other Shards wouldn't necessarily also have shard blades or something similar, though they would all potentially have objects or uses of power (maybe an Aon, for instance) that can affect a person or creature's connection to either the spiritual or cognitive worlds.  That actually has terrifying potential, in fact…

 

jW

Brandon has confirmed multiple times that Nightblood is essentially a twisted Shardblade with much more Investiture.

[ARARITA]

Zombieblade .

[natc]

Brandon has confirmed multiple times that Nightblood is essentially a twisted Shardblade with much more Investiture.

I think he's referring to Nightblood as a cosmere-wide definition of "Shardblade", while the name normally refers to the Roshar-native variety due to greater numbers and exposure.

They share similar principles, I'd sau, which group them together, but while spren are cognitive entities that are splinters "anchoring" themselves to the physical realm, Nightblood and possibly other type IV biochromatic entities are originally physical objects "anchored" to a splintet instead through Awakening. Different methods of creating two examples of a group of phenomena collectively known as Shardblades.

Edited May 21, 2015 by natc