Honorblades, Shardblades and Fabrials

[Lumen]

So:  Are Honorblades a type of Fabrial?   First a quote:  http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1052

 

LEIYAN

I'm guessing it's a RAFO, but why do Honorblades work the way they do?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Honorblades were crafted before Shardblades existed--

 

LEIYAN

So they were crafted.

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

They were crafted before Shardblades existed, and all Shardblades that exist came about as certain individuals trying to find out how to copy Honorblades .

 

LEIYAN

So would it be fair to say that Honorblades are analagous to fabrials in some sense? Trap spren in a crystal yada yada Stormlight power?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

There is an analogy there, that I think would pass the SAT's rigor for analogies.

 

So.  What we know.  The Heralds were given Honorblades.  These blades allow them to do special things (surges & absorb stormlight).  Later, Spren bonded with Humans, and are able to emulate Honorblades.   When one of these Spren "dies" it has the physical form of an ShardBlade (mimicking an honorblade).  There are other quotes saying that the Heralds can only do surgebinding with the HonorBlade but have other "gifts" as well.  

 

Speculation (Honorblades & old-style Fabrials):

 1) Honor created (or had someone create, or created with the help of Cultivation) 10 Super-Fabrials, the Honorblades, gave these to the Heralds, along with some additional investment to the Heralds themselves. 

 

 2) The creation of (old-style) Fabrials has something to do with Spren.  Changing a spren to, or forging a spren with an object (metal?).  I cannot speculate here.  We have two types of examples in the Cosmere.  Investiture can have a solid form (metal) - so possibly, a spren + solid investiture could be shaped into a sword.  We also have an example of a normal sword imbued with "breath" that creates a "type of Shardblade".  

 

 3) Other Fabrials were created in a similar way (regrowth, soulcasting, etc).  basically, small scale, single surge human copies of the Honorblades (not sure if the shape is important for old-style fabrials).

 

  4) Holding an Honorblade gives a user an imperfect bond with the Spren within the Honorblade.  The holder can absorb stormlight to power the surges, but is not efficient.   The stormlight holding ability is not part of the lesser man-made old-style fabrials, which require inset stones as a powersource, (or power from someone with a spren-bond, that is, the surgebinder is the power source, rather than a gem).   That is, the man-made fabrials do not provide a bond with the holder, which allows holding stormlight -- though something odd is happening to those folks who use a Soulcaster too often.  

 

  5) The weak bond to the Honorblade spren may or may not allow small changes to the Honorblade's appearance over time.

 

  6) Spren gain consciousness over time.  I believe that is stated in the books.   I assume the Honorblade is created with a pre-conscious/unthinking/primordial radiant spren

 

Speculation (Shardblades & new-style Fabrials)

 1) Mature Spren of the same type used for the Honorblades bonded with normal Humans, and learned they could mimic the Honorblades (that is, are able to manifest in the physical world as a blade, and provide surgebinding - this may imply that the Honorblades are simply bound Spren, not swords imbued with spren).  

 

 2) Because the bond is strong, the physical manifestation is more malleable (can be sword, spear, knife, etc), and Stormlight use is more efficient (unlike the weaker version of the bond with an Honorblade).  The "Dead" spren manifest as a sword, because that is how they see themselves (mimicking the Honorblades).  However, they can also change slightly over time, depending on their wielder.  The "dead"-spren bond must be even weaker than that with Honorblades, since the wielder cannot hold stormlight.

 

 3) I am categorizing New-style Fabrials with the Knights Radiant, because, instead of the spren manifesting as the Fabrial, a spren is captured in a gem, and the fabrial is a separate component (like the KR), making use of the spren's innate investiture.  

 

Now. using all this speculation, I can infer that Shardplate is an Old-style Fabrial (made up of spren, the same way old Fabrials were made) and requires either a Radiant, or gems to provide power.  

 

Further, that the original KRs  (or a specific subset of them) knew how to (were able to) make old style Fabrials, since the KRs have plate, and access to old-style fabrials (in the visions).  

 

Other posts that touch on this topic:

 

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7647-spren-splinters-old-style-fabrials

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6819-the-origin-of-shardplate/

Edited July 17, 2015 by Lumen

[Argent he/him]

I think you may be very much on the right track here - but I am more interested in Nightblood than the Shardblades. Let me distill the arguments I find most interesting and relevant:

• Nightblood is a Shardblade - a unique one, but a Shardblade nonetheless
• Shardblades are the locked physical manifestations of dead spren - which in turn are cognitive aspects. Living ideas. 
• Nightblood was created as a successful attempt to imitate a Shardblade. He was also an attempt to recreate [a Shardblade] using a different magic system - BioChroma.

So the way I see it, at least one of the Five Scholars found out about Shardblades and decided to create one. This probably happened on Nalthis - otherwise I imagine Nightblood would've been created with Stormlight instead of Breath. So the Scholars got themselves a sword, which may or may not have been made in a certain way (e.g. maybe only certain metals would've worked, we don't know), which took care of the easy part. Now, this sword had to be infused with a cognitive aspect a little more sophisticated than "I am a sword!" - and BioChroma probably proved itself extra useful, because Commands seem strongly cognitive in nature. However, simply Awakening the sword wouldn't have been enough, it needed to be at least a little sentient. So they dumped a bunch of Breaths in it, betting on the knowledge that investiture eventually becomes self-aware, and large amounts of it presumably become self-aware quickly. 

[Blaze1616 he/him]

I think you may be very much on the right track here - but I am more interested in Nightblood than the Shardblades. Let me distill the arguments I find most interesting and relevant:

• Nightblood is a Shardblade - a unique one, but a Shardblade nonetheless
• Shardblades are the locked physical manifestations of dead spren - which in turn are cognitive aspects. Living ideas. 
• Nightblood was created as a successful attempt to imitate a Shardblade. He was also an attempt to recreate [a Shardblade] using a different magic system - BioChroma.

So the way I see it, at least one of the Five Scholars found out about Shardblades and decided to create one. This probably happened on Nalthis - otherwise I imagine Nightblood would've been created with Stormlight instead of Breath. So the Scholars got themselves a sword, which may or may not have been made in a certain way (e.g. maybe only certain metals would've worked, we don't know), which took care of the easy part. Now, this sword had to be infused with a cognitive aspect a little more sophisticated than "I am a sword!" - and BioChroma probably proved itself extra useful, because Commands seem strongly cognitive in nature. However, simply Awakening the sword wouldn't have been enough, it needed to be at least a little sentient. So they dumped a bunch of Breaths in it, betting on the knowledge that investiture eventually becomes self-aware, and large amounts of it presumably become self-aware quickly. 

 

A random thought just occurred to me; what if Breath was used instead of Stormlight because Stormlight would run out? It doesn't perfectly attach, making breath the better option. Otherwise their hacked Shardblade would eventually die, returning to be a normal sword?

[Argent he/him]

That's also possible - but Warbreaker kind of implies that Nightblood was forged on Nalthis. There is too much lore that links the events around its creation to that world for it to be simply brought.

[DreamEternal]

Do you have any evidence that Nightblood was knowingly created as a replication of Rosharan sprenblades instead of just being a similar thing created by a different method?

Edited July 17, 2015 by CognitivePulsePattern

[Ascendant Warrior he/him]

I just had a thought, and I suppose this would be my first theory, so feel free to tear it apart or support it as much as you all want 

 

Speculation (Honorblades & old-style Fabrials):

 1) Honor created (or had someone create, or created with the help of Cultivation) 10 Super-Fabrials, the Honorblades, gave these to the Heralds, along with some additional investment to the Heralds themselves. 

 

What if, instead of Cultivation, the Honorblades were created with the help of Endowment? I have no real logic, but the idea of forging the Honorblades with a spren seems much more analogous to Nightblood. I'm probably forgetting certain facts, but there ya go.

[Lumen]

Do you have any evidence that Nightblood was knowingly created as a replication of Rosharan sprenblades instead of just being a similar thing created by a different method?

http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/

 

[–]Boogalyhu34 2 points

3 days ago  

Can Nogntblood be considered a splinter and does it function like a spren realmatically, are there distinct differences is what I'm asking.

 

[–]mistborn[S] 5 points

3 days ago  

Nightblood is kind of his own strange thing. He's an attempt to use one magic to replicate something in another. He's closest to a spren, but kind of like a...robot spren, for lack of better words to use.

 

 

[–]ArgentSun 3 points

3 days ago  

When you say that Nightblood is "an attempt to use one magic to replicate something in another," do you mean life in general, or are you referring to a specific effect in a specific magic system?

 

 

 

[–]mistborn[S] 8 points

3 days ago  

There are those involved who knew that Shardblades existed before they tried the Nightblood experiment.

 

Edited July 20, 2015 by Lumen

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

Ultimately, Spren and Shardblades are splinters of their particular Shards, with enough Investiture to generate sentience. Nightblood is another example, as are Seons. 

 

I like this theory because if Honorblades are Fabrials, it explains why anyone can use them and yet there is no kind or sense from the Honorblades of sentience or bound thought. We've no examples of any Fabrials indicating any form of intelligence to anyone, so far at least. My only concern is that Fabrials mimic or show only limited portions of surgebinding abilities whereas Honorblades grant full surgebinding to the wielder. How do you bond a spren-like level of investiture into an object but not have a consciousness? 

[Oudeis he/him]

Nightblood possibly not a Splinter. What few definitions we have of Splinters specify that they are bits that came off of larger powers. Nightblood is a lot of little powers fused as one. It's possible he's something fundamentally different that operates on a different principle.

Presumably you are talking of the ancient fabrials. We don't see them used a lot. When we do, with the Soulcasters, the use makes the user appear inhuman. Why hasn't Szeth been modified as the Ardents have? A question that will have to be considered.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

I suppose in the same way that Ruin + Preservation = Harmony, and per WoB they are a single Shard now that they've intermingled, 1000 small parts of Endowment added together in one entity = 1 larger Splinter. In the same way that a Returned are 1 Splinter that gets them to the 5th Heightening (=2000 breaths), Nightblood at his 1000 breath equivalent is half a splinter at least. 

 

Looked at in another way, Nightblood = Shardblade (per WoB) = Spren = Splinters of Honor/Cultivation, therefore Nightblood is a Splinter of Endowment as well. 

 

As to the Fabrials... yes? We haven't had any indication of Spren communication with users of Fabrials, ancient or modern. Shallan uses the Oathgate which is a giant ancient Fabrial, but even though she is a bonded (almost) Radiant, there is no sense of sentience from any presumably bonded spren in the Fabrial. Navani gives no indication of any spren communication in any of the Fabrials she makes/uses. Nor does Shallan note any sentience in the spanreed she uses to communicate with the Ghostbloods. 

 

SIDE NOTE: is anyone else creeped out by the fact that spanreeds and the levitating platform function because the Spren inside was also split in half along with the gem??

 

Soulcasters use makes users appear inhuman I would argue due to the frequency and amount of use they are put through on a daily basis. In the same way that Flaring metals turns you into a metal Savant which has physical effects, so would overuse of any investiture, probably especially if you're not predisposed/designed to use that investiture form. 

[WeiryWriter he/him]

I suppose in the same way that Ruin + Preservation = Harmony, and per WoB they are a single Shard now that they've intermingled, 1000 small parts of Endowment added together in one entity = 1 larger Splinter. In the same way that a Returned are 1 Splinter that gets them to the 5th Heightening (=2000 breaths), Nightblood at his 1000 breath equivalent is half a splinter at least.

 

While Harmony sometimes /acts/ like a single Shard, it is still two Shards.  Sazed has to deal with two Intents.

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

 

 

INTERVIEW: Apr 15th, 2013

Reddit AMA 2013 (Verbatim)

THANATOS17901 ()

Thanks so much for all your writing, Way of Kings is the best book I've read in the last decade.

If Sazed were to die, would he drop the shards Ruin and Preservation, or would he drop the shard Harmony?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Excellent question. The shards are now intermingled, and would take effort to split apart. He would drop Harmony. (This is what Odium feared would happen, by the way.)

TAGS

 

I guess it depends on the view. Earlier WoBs say it is a more subjective view but i'm of the opinion that the possibility of conflicting/tricky to mesh Shard Intents will still mesh but it might just take longer (as well as competent Shard holder to take them up)

[Oudeis he/him]

1000 small parts of Endowment added together in one entity = 1 larger Splinter. In the same way that a Returned are 1 Splinter that gets them to the 5th Heightening (=2000 breaths), Nightblood at his 1000 breath equivalent is half a splinter at least.

 

I disagree. Weiry has already addressed the Shards issue, and my previous comment stands. A Divine Breath was never 2000 separate Breaths; we are told time and time again, in book and in WoB, that the Divine Breath is a single Breath 2Kx as powerful.

 

All I'm saying is, WoB has defined a Splinter as one piece of power broken off of a larger piece. Maybe the WoB was imprecise and maybe it does count going the other way, but that we know of, Nightblood is unique.

 

Nightblood = Shardblade (per WoB) = Spren = Splinters of Honor/Cultivation, therefore Nightblood is a Splinter of Endowment as well.

The part I disagree with you on is that Shardblade = Spren. We know that Spren can form Shardblades. However we also know that Honorblades are Shardblades. Basically we've seen three types of Shardblade, and only one that we have any reason to suspect is a Spren. All jacuzzis are hot tubs, but not all hot tubs are jacuzzis.

 

SIDE NOTE: is anyone else creeped out by the fact that spanreeds and the levitating platform function because the Spren inside was also split in half along with the gem??

Prolly. Spren aren't all sentient, and they certainly aren't human. I'm not creeped out by the fact that my dog eats out of a bowl on the floor or that satellites are flung into space. It's no creepier that the spren get split in half, than it is that the stone itself is split in half. Or that you bit into an apple.

 

Soulcasters use makes users appear inhuman I would argue due to the frequency and amount of use they are put through on a daily basis. In the same way that Flaring metals turns you into a metal Savant which has physical effects, so would overuse of any investiture, probably especially if you're not predisposed/designed to use that investiture form.

It's suggested that Soulcasters get used with relative rarity; certainly not with constant use every day as you suggest. For years, Szeth is bound to his Honorblade every moment, constantly taking in Stormlight, Surgebinding, and using the Blade to cut things. If the Ardents use their Soulcasters more frequently than Szeth does, it has to be by a small margin, yet they have huge obvious noticeable deformities and he has none.

[natc]

Literally nobody implied that the divine breath was 2000 separate breaths in this thread. He's saying that's how much investiture the one breath contained.

Though I do believe breath isn't uniform anyway, so who knows how much percentage of that Nightblood is. 49-ish%?

[Oudeis he/him]

And I didn't say that anyone said it was many Breaths. My original point had been about a Splinter being about direction, not power. Hoodie replied talking about comparative power levels. I reiterated that my point had never been about power levels. I'm sorry if there was confusion.

[Moogle]

It's suggested that Soulcasters get used with relative rarity; certainly not with constant use every day as you suggest. For years, Szeth is bound to his Honorblade every moment, constantly taking in Stormlight, Surgebinding, and using the Blade to cut things. If the Ardents use their Soulcasters more frequently than Szeth does, it has to be by a small margin, yet they have huge obvious noticeable deformities and he has none.

 

Soulcasters are apparently in high demand, or at least they were becoming so as of WoR. An ardent complains:

“Brightlord,” he said. “I had not realized you were coming to supervise.”

“I’m not here to supervise,” Adolin said, glancing with discomfort at the Soulcasters. “I’m just surprised. Don’t you usually do this at night?”

“We can’t afford to any longer, bright one,” Kadash said. “There are too many demands upon the Soulcasters. Buildings, food, removal of waste . . . To fit it all in, we are going to need to start training multiple ardents on each fabrial, then working them in shifts. Your father approved this earlier in the week.”

Before this, each fabrial was apparently used by a singular ardent, and apparently they were worked to such a degree that it was simply not possible to keep to the same system. Given the amount of food they need to Soulcast, the constant creation of new buildings, the regular Soulcasting of latrines... I'm not certain I'd ever say Soulcasters were used with "relative rarity" compared to Szeth.

 

Szeth isn't necessarily infusing 24/7. If we go by the Taravangian chapter at the end of WoK, he typically spends a while scoping out his target before doing his killings (he got work as a porter and evidently worked long enough that he did not need supervision). I would concede he probably used Stormlight much, much more often towards the end, but it was not "years" since the date he met Taravangian, and I would imagine the Soulcasters have been working just as long as he has, if not longer.

 

Though, I don't think it is merely a matter of time. I don't think Szeth would have become deformed if he kept up his constant Stormlight usage for another few decades.

 

The reason, I speculate, is that Szeth gains the benefits of constant healing while using Stormlight. It is unclear if ardents get that benefit, though Shallan remarks on feeling as though she drew in Stormlight at one point when she Soulcasts and Adolin does not describe them as glowing (just their fabrials). If ardents are forced to bear the stresses of using Investiture (like an Allomancer) without pairing it with the healing being infused with Stormlight gives, that may explain why they become deformed and Radiants do not.

 

It would also partially explain the relative rarity of Surgebinding fabrials. If they turn you into a monster, there's a huge incentive to not bother with them. (Though I don't know why we would see so many Soulcasters and no Regrowth-ers.)

Edited July 22, 2015 by Moogle

[Kelsier Kenobi]

I think you may be very much on the right track here - but I am more interested in Nightblood than the Shardblades. Let me distill the arguments I find most interesting and relevant:

• Nightblood is a Shardblade - a unique one, but a Shardblade nonetheless
• Shardblades are the locked physical manifestations of dead spren - which in turn are cognitive aspects. Living ideas. 
• Nightblood was created as a successful attempt to imitate a Shardblade. He was also an attempt to recreate [a Shardblade] using a different magic system - BioChroma.

So the way I see it, at least one of the Five Scholars found out about Shardblades and decided to create one. This probably happened on Nalthis - otherwise I imagine Nightblood would've been created with Stormlight instead of Breath. So the Scholars got themselves a sword, which may or may not have been made in a certain way (e.g. maybe only certain metals would've worked, we don't know), which took care of the easy part. Now, this sword had to be infused with a cognitive aspect a little more sophisticated than "I am a sword!" - and BioChroma probably proved itself extra useful, because Commands seem strongly cognitive in nature. However, simply Awakening the sword wouldn't have been enough, it needed to be at least a little sentient. So they dumped a bunch of Breaths in it, betting on the knowledge that investiture eventually becomes self-aware, and large amounts of it presumably become self-aware quickly. 

 

Is it possible that Nightblood is a dead Spren Shardblade brought back to life with Breath?  Wouldn't that be possible given the way Breath works?

[Argent he/him]

Possible? Maybe. Almost nothing is impossible in the Cosmere as long as you have enough investiture. I find it highly unlikely though. I there would be far too much investiture interference for something like this to work.

[Blaze1616 he/him]

Possible? Maybe. Almost nothing is impossible in the Cosmere as long as you have enough investiture. I find it highly unlikely though. I there would be far too much investiture interference for something like this to work.

 

Plus, at that point, wouldn't you be making more of a lifeless, Type II entity rather than a Type III?

[IAmTheBeard]

I'm not sure that the definition of Splinter being used here is quite right. Oudeis gave the definition as a piece of power that's broken off, based on Splinter as a verb meaning to fragment a Shard. But that's not the definition we've been given. It's more about having attained sentience on its own. See:

 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=699#8

 

 

PUCK

"How is a Splinter different from a Sliver?

BRANDON SANDERSON

"Let me see... You have met splinters in Elantris, Warbreaker, and in Way of Kings. You have not met them in Mistborn."

PUCK

"I feel like we know that. So, qualitatively, what's the difference?"

BRANDON SANDERSON

"Qualitatively, they're reverses of one another. A Sliver is a human intelligence who has held the power and released it. A Splinter has never been human."

PUCK

"But it derives from a Shard's power."

BRANDON SANDERSON

"Yes. That's not it completely, but there's at least something to think about."

 

So it's a part of a Shard, yes, and it was never human.

 

and http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1078#25 (emphasis mine)

 

 

WETLANDER

Please explain what you will about Shards and Splintering and Slivers.

BRANDON SANDERSON

An event happened long ago which destroyed something called Adonalsium into 16 pieces. And 16 people took up that power.

QUESTION

People?

BRANDON SANDERSON

I call all intelligent species people. If someone takes up the power and lets go of it, it has the effect much like a balloon that's been stretched and then the air is let out. I call that a Sliver; based off of the Lord Ruler calling himself the "Sliver of Infinity". The Lord Ruler is someone who held the power and then released it. And so, current Slivers are the Lord Ruler, Kelsier, and there may be others around who at one point held the power and let go of it. A Splinter is a term used by certain people in the cosmere for power of Adonalsium which has no person caring for it, no... no person holding it, which has attained self-awareness.

WETLANDER

So is that like the mists and the Well? Are they...

BRANDON SANDERSON

They are not, because they have not attained self-awareness. But, the Seons are self-aware. So, any piece, for instance there were some spren on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation got there. Those were already Splinters of Adonalsium where he had left power which attained sentience on its own. So, it can be intentional is what I am saying, does that make sense? You have seen other splinters.

 

I think the key point is that Splinters are pieces of power that become sentient. 

 

The question, as it regards Nightblood, is whether how the power attains sentience (or, really, sapience) matters for the definition. In the second quote above, Brandon mentions Splinters of Adonalsium that gained sentience on their own as being specifically Splinters. So, did Nightblood become sentient on his own? It seems more like the power was fiddled with to give it sentience. That jibes with the comment about Nightblood being like a robot spren. So does he count as a Splinter? If the definition specifically requires that they gain self-awareness on their own, then Nightblood isn't a Splinter.

 

Personally, I'd lean toward Nightblood being a Splinter, just an artificial one. A robot spren. 

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

 

 

INTERVIEW: Sep, 2012

Cosmere Q&A - 17th Shard (Verbatim)

MILLENNIUM

Do Honorblades have the same sort of relationship to Honor (possibly to a much greater degree) that Shardblades do?

BRANDON SANDERSON

You're on the right track.

 

For the OP. It is an interesting idea. If it what is theorised about Oathgates, Shardplate and possibly Surge fabrials is correct (that they are made from spren somehow), then it could be that Honourblades are also fabrials

 

As for Nightblood, i agree with IamtheBeard's idea; artificial splinter. Perhaps a future question to be asked is; Would Nightblood be closer to a Sprenblade or an Honourblade?

Edited July 22, 2015 by ParadoxSpren

[Oudeis he/him]

I'm not sure that the definition of Splinter being used here is quite right. Oudeis gave the definition as a piece of power that's broken off, based on Splinter as a verb meaning to fragment a Shard.

It is a pet peeve of mine when people start deciding they can speak to what I meant or why I said what I said. If you want to disagree, please feel to. I would appreciate if you would refrain from explaining why I'm saying what I'm saying.

As I said, WoB implies that a Splinter is specifically one piece broken straight off something bigger. I recently posted a link supporting this argument which I will repost here tomorrow when I get to my home computer.