Flangria from Heliodor

[Turos he/him]

I've been looking over the Ten Essences and the values of different spheres based on the gemstones within. Emerald is the most valuable because it is used to soulcast things into food. After looking at the chart of the essences, emerald is tied to plants. Plants are food.

 

What about flangria, the soulcast 'mystery meat'? It doesn't make sense that plants and meat go together with emeralds when there is a perfectly well-suited gemstone for soulcasting flangria. Heliodor is associated with meat.

 

My theory is that heliodor is used for that purpose and that the value of heliodor is probably two or three ranks below that of emerald currency. It doesn't sound like flangria is that appealing to characters in the books, sans herdazians and Sigzil, but it is still food and can mix things up in a warcamp.

 

Peter Alhstrom has been cited for explaining that there are five ranks of sphere currency. Shallan is cited for saying that nine of the ten gemstones are used for currency. Thus, some gems share value with others. I imagine heliodor is equal in value with ruby spheres (rank 3), or possibly as high as sapphire (rank2).

 

Sources: my gut.

 

Edit:

As a side note: have you ever noticed how the essences are listed?

 

1 - Sapphire(soft blue) - Translucent gas, air

2 - Smokestone(glassy black) - Opaque gas, smoke, fog

3 - Ruby(red) - Fire

4 - Diamond(clear, white) - Quartz, glass, crystal

5 - Emerald(green) - Wood, plants, moss

6 - Garnet(deep violet) - Blood, all non-oil liquid

7 - Zircon(pale blue) - All oils

8 - Amethyst(soft violet) - Metal

9 - Topaz(tan) - Rock and Stone

10 - Heliodor(yellow) - Meat, flesh

 

1 and 6 are similar. Same for 2 and 7, 4 and 9, and 5 and 10. The latter seem to be more human/creature-related or more solid.

Edited July 11, 2015 by Turos
please do not doublepost

[WeiryWriter he/him]

I always got the impression flangria/soulcast meat was made using heliodor, not emerald, since that's how the magic works.  Emeralds make plant-stuff, heliodors make animal-stuff.

 

Also on the 9 of the 10 used in spheres thing, do you have a quote for that?

 

And on the groupings of the Essences I've always grouped them 1/2 (as gaseous essences), 6/7 (liquid essences), 8/9 (solid essences), 5/10 (biotic essences), and 3/4 ('cause they are the ones that are left and like Spark and Lucentia sort of go together event if the soulcasting attributes don't exactly...)

[Turos he/him]

 

There, she used all her remaining spheres to fill the oversized goblet lamp. To get enough light, she was forced to use spheres of all nine colors and all three sizes, so the illumination was patchy and varied.

Sanderson, Brandon (2010-08-31). The Way of Kings (p. 140, chapter 8). Macmillan. Kindle Edition.

 

I guess it wasn't dialogue. My bad. Too bad it doesn't say which is not included.

 

You matchups make sense, too. I kinda thought of 1 and 2 as the gas forms of 6 and 7. 6 is basically water-based liquids, at least it seems that way. 7 is oils. 1 is evaporated from 6 and 2 is burned up from 7, other than fog. That one should probably be smog to fit better. Meh.

 

I wonder what would be used to create mold, mushrooms (if they have them) and other bacteria mass, since they belong to neither the plant nor the animal kingdoms.

Edited July 11, 2015 by Turos

[Oudeis he/him]

Chapter 8, Nearer the Flame.

 

There, she used all her remaining spheres to fill the oversized goblet lamp. To get enough light, she was forced to use spheres of all nine colors and all three sizes, so the illumination was patchy and varied.

 

There's been a lot of speculation as to what that specifically means. Some people think that smokestone is a sphere, but since it's dark, it doesn't count as a "color". Some people say ruby and garnet are both "red" so there's only nine "colors", some people say sapphire and zircon. Some people say that since diamonds are clear, they're not a "color". Some people, like myself and apparently Turos, take it to mean that there is a polestone which isn't a sphere; heliodor and smokestone are the only two that are never expressly mentioned as spheres in the book, though both are mentioned as existing. Why one of them wouldn't have been made into a sphere is a mystery to me.

 

EDIT: Grr... ninja.

Edited July 11, 2015 by Oudeis

[Turos he/him]

My feelings are that smokestone is the odd one out due to the same reason each gem has a certain value. Why did Jasnah turn the fallen stone into smoke? it may have been a valuable gemstone for that size, but it was the cheapest of the three, perhaps, and less painful to lose if it had cracked. Who needs smoke? What value can you derive from it? If that is the attitude, why base your coin on it?

 

The only fault with this theory is if the gases that can be soulcast include useful gases. Nothing in the books makes me aware of machinery that would benefit from even those, however, and it may be likely that only surgebinders who can soulcast would ever be able to make anything more specific than smoke.

 

If you were trapped in a cavein or fallen debris, would you value sapphire air? Definitely. And we have seen how useful it is to soulcast stone, expecially if its marble (hmm, there goes my theory of specifics).

 

Smokestone is the least profitable in the current stage of technology and unworthy of currency.

[Oudeis he/him]

Eh, I question your "she made it smoke cuz her smokestone wasn't valuable" theory. Her three best (and the gems in her Soulcaster she was gonna pretend to use) would have given her crystal, smoke, and fire. Crystal would have helped not at all. Fire... if it would have burst out like the smoke did, fire would have been a TERRIBLE idea. Smoke was pretty much the only viable option of the three.

 

The rest of it, I don't happen to agree with, but it's viable.

 

I feel like somewhere in the book, someone mentions that diamonds are the least valuable, specifically because they give the best light. They were too useful to hoard, so they were made cheapest so that you could put out a bunch of clearchips to read by, and if someone did steal them, oh well, they stole pennies. So one gem is priced based on soulcasting properties, but another is based on the inverse value of the actual light itself. Who knows what the rest are based on.

 

To add further confusion to the mix... I want to find that Peter quote. Because I feel like as a part of it, he mentions that there are only five levels of value, but that no two gems share the same level. Which would mean there are four spheres of... indeterminate worth? I dunno, the whole thing seems like a contradiction in terms, like two horses that are taller than each other.

[Turos he/him]

I emailed Peter about the rate from marks to broams and here's the response I got.

 

 

Five chips per mark, four marks per broam. There are also 5 levels of value according to the gemstone used.

The question I asked got a very clear answer, but the bit on the end is not quite something I understand. I'll have to ask him about that one.

 

Here ya go.

[blad3mast3r he/him]

Do we have a spere value exchange chart? ive been trying to figure this out

[ccstat he/him]

Do we have a spere value exchange chart? ive been trying to figure this out

 

We have an incomplete one on the wiki. We know that for the same size, 1 emerald = 2 sapphire = 5 ruby = 10 garnet = 50 diamond. The remaining 4 or 5 currency gems (see above discussion on Shallan's "9 colors" quote) fit into those established value levels, so some gems are equivalent in value.

We also know that 1 broam = 4 marks = 20 chips.

 

 

I feel like somewhere in the book, someone mentions that diamonds are the least valuable, specifically because they give the best light. They were too useful to hoard, so they were made cheapest so that you could put out a bunch of clearchips to read by, and if someone did steal them, oh well, they stole pennies.

There is a WoB that talks about that, but I don't remember it being discussed in the book. As far as I know the causation works the other way: they use diamonds for light because they are cheapest. If you can find the quote about value following use I would like to see it.

(source)

Mostly rich people use spheres for lighting. Poor people use candles and such since you don’t want to leave your spheres out in the open. There are low-light spheres worth the same amount as a candle, so someone could swipe that and there wouldn’t be a difference.

Edited July 11, 2015 by ccstat