How KR get their stormlight

[marianmi]

It's not clear how they do it. On the battlefield, can they run out? Do they store it somewhere?

Szeth thinks that having a plate would interfere with his lashings, at least a plate powered by gemstones. 

Also, we know that radiants leak stormlight, if they hold it. It looks to me a good idea to fuel the plate this way: all the stormlight "lost" would go into plate and power it...

 

But then, how do they get the stormlight from, being inside the plate?

[Takeshi]

I think plate only interferes with magical abilities.  Taking in Stormlight wouldn't count I don't think.  For example, if Kaladin were in Shardplate and his faceplate was open, he wouldn't have any trouble breathing in Stormlight (is my assumption).

 

As for maintaining stormlight, a few things.  First, the fully-ascended radiants (like from the chapter Starfalls) would've known all the ideals, thus they would be able to manage stormlight more efficiently.  Second, they may just carry around spare infused gems.  Third, I'm thinking that plate originally worked with the radiant in maintaining stormlight somehow (your suggestion might be right).

[Bloodfalcon he/him]

I'm inclined to think that after a few Ideals, the reward will go from "holding Stormlight more efficiently" to "holding Stormlight permanently."
Maybe everyone will have a personal cap on how much or something. Maybe not.

[Kurkistan he/him]

What Takeshi said, I would guess.

[The Count he/him]

It's not clear how they do it. On the battlefield, can they run out? Do they store it somewhere?

Szeth thinks that having a plate would interfere with his lashings, at least a plate powered by gemstones. 

Also, we know that radiants leak stormlight, if they hold it. It looks to me a good idea to fuel the plate this way: all the stormlight "lost" would go into plate and power it...

 

But then, how do they get the stormlight from, being inside the plate?

 

IIRC, Szeth says that 'the gemstones interfere with his lashings', which is why he does not wear plate. His contention is that it is one or the other...

 

However, I think Szeth is not a trustworthy source here, we know that (from Starfalls, and from the Recreance vision) that windunner KRs most certainly can use lashings while in full plate.

 

So either Szeth is wrong (or at least his knowledge in incomplete) or the modern plate is different somehow.

 

Myself, I think, Szeth is incorrect here. Maybe at his 'level' he cannot use his powers effectively enough to wear plate, wheras a full KR can due to his power / experience / awesomeness... I am not really sure.

 

As for infusing, I think the 'gem pockets' within sharplate were originally intended to power the Radiant as much as they were the plate itself. This would serve to both provide a source of power for the Radiant as well as blocking any darkside infusers (assuming these exist) from stealing their power source.

 

Assuming that a fully levelled up KR can hold stormlight (near) perfectly and use if very efficiently, this may have been enough for even protracted battles.

Edited October 28, 2013 by MadRand

[name_here]

Szeth is apparently not a Radiant, he just has very similar abilities. He holds Stormlight much less efficiently than Kaladin; he can only hold it for a few minutes while Kaladin spent half an hour using Full Lashings for rock climbing and had enough left to cushion his fall.

[Moogle]

I would guess that Shardplate is already full of Investiture, so you can't add more to it or Lash it. Because of this, I doubt that the Shardplate provided any Stormlight directly.

 

Herowannabe

My friend and I asked him something like this at a book signing, but for some reason it never seemed to make it onto 17th Shard. We asked if a shardblade or Nightblood could be used as a hemalurgic spike (i.e.: two different investitures of magic). Brandon said that yes, in theory you could do that, but objects have a limit to how much investiture they can hold, and that it could be argued that things like Nightblood and Shardblades are already "full."

(source)

 

I think that the slots for gems in Shardplate are not a hack and were actually used by the Knights. They're ancient relics, based on an ancient understanding of fabrials. I don't think non-Radiants could have added them, or known to add them in order to power the Plate. Kaladin spoke the Second Ideal, and suddenly Stormlight started working better for him. He could already hold it for half an hour before this happened. Add another few Ideals, and I think with just a few gems hooked up to the Shardplate, a Radiant could go on for a whole day infused. Since there's slots all over, because apparently you can repair Plate with just a gauntlet, there's plenty extra to repair the Plate and provide some extra juice for Surgebinding.

 

The difference between modern Shardplate and Shardplate glowing with glyphs? I'd guess it has to do with the fact that an infused Radiant is inside the armor, and the armor 'filters' any Stormlight streaming off the Radiant's body, or reacts to Honor's Investiture. I suspect it grants fine-grained control over being able to temporarily dematerialize parts of the armor, like the Radiant in Dalinar's vision got rid of her helm. Because the Plate is already 'full' of Investiture, I think it would naturally interfere with all Surgebinding in it. I think to get around this, Radiants could say, temporarily make their gauntlets disappear and fling Stormlight from their hands, then re-materialize their gloves. Modern Shardplate is used by humans with only a tiny bit of innate Investiture from Honor and thus only have enough control of Shardplate to make the helm semi-translucent.

 

Windrunners, of course, could Lash themselves inside the Plate and not be restricted, which is how they could fly. I don't think they directly Lashed their Plate.

 

There's no evidence that anything besides the helm and Shardblades can be disappeared, I admit. I don't see why the helm/Blades should be special, though. Szeth (who is not a Radiant, and doesn't have Honor's Investiture?) would find that his Lashings were obstructed because he could not control his Plate and dematerialize it.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Moogle

[hoser he/him]

Consider Starfalls:

• as the knights appear: Shardplate is glowing, with etched glyphs that leak vapor; eyes are glowing
• While talking: armor not glowing, except large Radiant symbol; eyes glowing, leaking
• When flying:armor glows

Consider the Recreance vision:

• The armor glows at joints and on glyphs across the front
• the blades glow for a while after abandoned, then fade
• when walking away, their eyes are extremely light, but they are not glowing. 

 

Possible ways for Knights Radiant to get their stormlight:

• Gems in their armor serving as sink/source/battery
• Armor serving as sink/source/battery
• Blade serving as sink source battery
• Access directly from the source as needed
• Gems external to the armor charged by highstorms

As for Szeth, I believe that he is right, but what is true for him is not true for the Radiants in their own armor.  Whether compatible investments or some other explanation applies, I don't know.

 

Based on the above data, we can make some deductions. 

1. In the Recreance vision, some of the windrunners flew in, so they must have been infusing.  When they walk away almost immediately they don't seem to be glowing.  Assuming they can't just make it go away, their stormlight must be in the armor or the swords.  Either they made sure they had none or nearly none or they found a way to sink it in their equipment or directly to another realm. 
2. The armor glows when the powers are in use and only a glyph and sometimes the joints when the powers are not in use.  If infusing the armor to make it glow were the way the Radiants store their energy, this pattern would be reversed.  So the glowing armor is not for stormlight storage.  The armor glowing reminds me of Syl's antics when Kaladin is doing his spearfighting thing.  This matches what we saw when Dalinar saved Elhokar from the Chasmfiend.  The armor glowed in sympathy with the use of power, but not before or after.

I do not believe that I have really eliminated any possibility.

• The armor could store the stormlight without glowing.
• The swords are permanently linked to the cognitive and/or spiritual realm, so they could be source and/or sink for stormlight. 
• The gems in the armor are already essentially batteries that can source stormlight to Radiants.  If Radiants can sink the stormlight into the gems, then it could explain what is happening. 
• If the Radiants can access and vent the stormlight directly to whichever realm it is coming from, that would work too.

I believe Occam's razor suggests that the gems are the batteries, but given the likely richness of this magic system, that seems like a weak argument. 

Edited October 29, 2013 by hoser