The unified theory of Roshar

[Djarskublar]

First off, sorry if this belongs over in SA forum, but this is really a realmatics post, and I wanted more exposure to stimulate more discussion. An admin is free to move it if they feel the need.

First off, some groundwork. We know humans aren't native to Roshar, they immigrated, probably with a Shard. Listeners are native, and presumably made by Adonalsium.  We know Odium came to Roshar after Honor and Cultivation.

Now to present a bunch of theories that work well together in this. The focus of Roshar is the bonds with spren, not oaths or spren themselves. Odium doesn't really have his own system, he didn't Invest enough for that, he just sorta jacked the systems Honor was involved with. Cultivation Invested after Honor, but not long after. Soulcasting is Cultivations system, listener forms are Honor's, and surgebinding is the mixture system (like feruchemy is the third system on Scadrial). That previous is the weakest theory of the theories. The Rythmns predate Honor Investing.

How this all ties together?... It's story time!

 In the beginning Go...Adonalsium creates Roshar and the Rythmns and Listeners. There are a few spren, and there is limited hive mind communication between the Listeners via the Rythmns. Form magic is limited in style and scope. Perhaps one to three forms type deal.

Adonalsium gets Shattered. Honor comes to Roshar and Invests, boosting form magic to what we see today (minus void forms). A few more spren are created.

Cultivation is in hot (and bothered ;)) pusuit, and brings some humans with her. She invests and Soulcasting becomes available to everyone. With a soulcaster you are slowly changed into something inhuman like Adolin sees in a similar manner to becoming a savant. Even more spren species are created, as the few spren of Cultivation aren't all, we get the mixture-of-the-two spren.

Humans can't use form magic because they weren't created to be able to attune the Rythmns, but Listeners can use Soulcasting because Cultivation invested when both species were around. There are Highstorms at this point, but they are much weaker and don't provide nearly the same amount of Stormlight.

Things are dandy for a while, then Odium comes along. Honor and Cultivation would win in a dukes fest, but not by much. Odium says "little shards, little shards let me Invest in!"

Honor replies, "not by the hair of my shardy chin chin!"

Odium then threatens to go Shatter other shards first then come for the two of them. Honor realizes it wouldn't be right not to protect the others, and comes up with his plan. He tells Odium that to make it a fair contest, they would let mortals do the fighting. Honor lets Odium partially invest. Enough to give him power there but not enough to power a whole new system, while also limiting his influence elsewhere. Odium accepts and the Oathpact is partially complete. Honor and Cultivation create the Heralds and sugebinding, but it's just those ten people. Odiums power just influences the systems of Honor, since the Oathpact is with him. The Heralds are created at this point or some short time before, so Odium gets voidbinding for his Unmade, and he adds new spren to create new listener Forms. The Oathpact is complete. At this point things are hazy history wise, but irrelevant. The spren figure out Nahel bonding. Stuff happens and Honor is Shattered.

This sounds fairly far fetched, but explains a lot if taken together.

The spren bond as a focus makes sense and accounts for problems with other proposed foci. You Cultivate and then Honor the bond with words and actions for surgebinders. You do some unknown ritualistic stuff to prepare for Form change, then go into a Highstorm and hope the right spren shows up. You form a bond with it and change form using the Highstorm's Light as fuel. (skipping some stuff here and everywhere obviously) You Honor an intent through attunement of a Rythmn as part of the process. We don't know much about Soulcasting, but I would bet they are doing something Cultivationy with a spren to enact a change. No Shadesmar for them, though, I would guess.

That covers the ultra basics of this. I can flesh it out tomorrow, but it's late and I have work, so this will have to do. Have at me!

[Yata]

I was working to my Theory on Roshar's ecology and magical influences...But I will wait some days to post it to avoid confusion between our ideas.

Then, I agree with some point (for example the bond as Roshar's focus) but I see some points of your theory that are quite doubtful:

- Soulcasting is one of 10 Surges that aren't inherit of a Shard, they are like our four fondumental forces. I find unlikely that Cultivation have the ownership of one of them, much more one that it's not so strictly related to her Intent/Mandate as others (for example Progression). Neither in the books nothing suggest that the Soulcasting is special

- The Rhytms are not a strictly Roshar or Listeners relate phenomean, but this is not exactly a problem to your theory. Probably the Listener may hear the Rhytms because they are too close to the Cognitive Realm.

- I am really unsure if a Shard may  stop another Shard from Investing his power

Edited August 20, 2016 by Yata

[Spoolofwhool]

Alrighty. I'll bite again. 

So while this has some correct point, there are a few assumption, or premises, which make little sense, or are contradicted by other facts or occurrences. As such, they undermine the whole thing.

First of all, soulcasting. You claim it is of Cultivation. What exactly lead you to that premise? As far as I am aware, it is just one of the surges, which as Yata says is one of the fundamental forces. Nothing has been lead to believe it is of Cultivation, nor is there any logical progression, as far as I can tell, as to how you could think there is. 

Secondly, when you say that Cultivation and Honor would stop Odium from investing and that he required their permission, do you mean that they could use their power to destroy him if he tried without their permission? Also, what logic is there to claim that Odium would lose? There seems to be more of an argument that he would win against both considering he won against Devotion and Dominion on Sel. 

Thirdly, I'm pretty sure Odium did cause another manifestation of investiture to appear: voidbinding. While this is probably similar to surgebinding, judging by the similar name, it's probably akin to the relationship between allomancy and feruchemy, where both use metals.

Fourthly. What leads you to the conclusion that Honor was shattered after the Oathpact? My opinion, based on what has been said in SA is that Odium shattered Honor, but at the same time Honor bound Odium and created the Oathpact as part of the prison. 

Fifthly, it has been stated by Brandon that Cultivation and Honor came to Roshar together.

There are other points, but I don't have access to my copies of SA to reference appropriate for the other details, so I'll leave them aside.

 

Final remarks. Your theory doesn't mention where fabrials come from. Clearly, they are a manifestation of investiture, though of what shard(s)? Overall, as a theory, this is poorly made. Not only does it not present evidence supporting itself, but it contains information which is factually incorrect. This lowers credibility of the theory. I suggest performing a bit more research regarding what you are theorizing about before revealing the theory. Also, don't rush posting the theory. Make sure it's well fleshed out then post it. Might help catch errors.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Spoolofwhool

[Oversleep]

2 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

Cultivation Invested after Honor, but not long after.

They came to Roshar together, as they were a couple.

2 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

Soulcasting is Cultivations system

Soulcasting - Surge of Transformation - is just one of the Surges.

2 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

listener forms are Honor's

Parshendi are not of Honor. When asked whether they were of Cultivation or of Odium, Brandon said "Not originally".

And what @Yata said.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Oversleep

[Mason Wheeler]

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Fourthly. What leads you to the conclusion that Honor was shattered after the Oathpact? My opinion, based on what has been said in SA is that Odium shattered Honor, but at the same time Honor bound Odium and created the Oathpact as part of the prison. 

WoB is that the shattering was a (relatively) recent event, as Honor personally has memories of the Recreance that he was able to share with Dalinar.

[Djarskublar]

Alrighty, good points all. It was late and getting later, so yeah low evidence. I think the biggest thing everyone didn't like was Soulcasting. We know it's one of the surges, that doesn't interfere at all. I'm talking about the kind the ardents do with the fabrials. Those are ancient. My theory is that they are what cultivation personally powers. Other fabrial tech is like the Nahel bond. Its a hack, only from humans rather than spren. Something funky is happening to those ardents who use their soulcaster for a while. I didn't see any evidence that that was happening to people who use other fabrials regularly. Plus there is Shallan's conversation asking if any soulcasters are real after she finds out Jasnah's is fake. Her surge covered it, she didn't need a real soulcaster. On the other hand soulcasters appear to be much older than other fabrial tech. My guess is that humans mimicked them in an attempt to create more Plate and Blade. That is the goal of modern artifabrians after all.

So clarification on Investing. Yeah they came together, but Cultivation was herding cattle (humans) and took a while to get there. Honor Invested and gave power to the locals, the Listeners, powering up their primitive form magic. Cultivation showed up with humans and invested, and this made basic soulcaster fabrials available for everyone. At this point one of two things is the case. Cultivation powers all fabrial tech, or just soulcasters while other fabrials are an anomaly like the Nahel bond. My bet is that it's just the soulcasters, or we would have seen much more established fabrial tech. Also, the Listeners do have soulcasters. They mention that is why they fight for the gemhearts. On the other hand, I don't think we see any other fabrials from them. Sorry I forgot to at least mention fabrials, it was a big OP.

At this point I doubt anyone understood what they were doing well. Adonalsium had very recently Shattered, so they had the same amount of experience as Sazed, but without any copperminds or Shardic history to go off of. There is no way the history extends to pre-Shattering, or Sazed would be more aware of stuff outside Scadrial. That is justification for why they invested so oddly. They didn't know any better.

As with the various types of Lightweaving, the fact that Soulcasting is a surge as well is irrelevant. It is accomplished in a different manner.

Finally, we dont know how Investing works mechanically, and what Shards can or can't do to each other directly. I bet Odium deceived the Selish Shards, and that let him Shatter them, whether immediately or later I couldn't say. So that is why I just presented a scenario that may work. As with Atium becoming one of the 16 metals, Odium piggybacked Honor's form magic and the new Herald's surgebinding to cause voidforms and voidbinding. My guess is that Honor let him in uncontested, but not unconditionally. He saw that as the right thing to do. It gave him a better chance of surviving Shardic combat that he had less experience in, while limiting Odiums influence on other Shardworlds. How that works... no idea. But that is the only possibility for what the Oathpact is that makes any sense. Odium may also have granted access to Soulcasting fabrials for his creations, dunno either way. No text for that.

Better now? I agree it has some weak links, but on the whole it is a cohesive theory. I came up with this while trying to reconcile the Oathpact with how the magic is set up and what the focus could be.

Edit: added one thing about Listener soulcasters.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Djarskublar

[Blightsong]

1 hour ago, Djarskublar said:

Alrighty, good points all. It was late and getting later, so yeah low evidence. I think the biggest thing everyone didn't like was Soulcasting. We know it's one of the surges, that doesn't interfere at all. I'm talking about the kind the ardents do with the fabrials. Those are ancient. My theory is that they are what cultivation personally powers. Other fabrial tech is like the Nahel bond. Its a hack, only from humans rather than spren. Something funky is happening to those ardents who use their soulcaster for a while. I didn't see any evidence that that was happening to people who use other fabrials regularly. Plus there is Shallan's conversation asking if any soulcasters are real after she finds out Jasnah's is fake. Her surge covered it, she didn't need a real soulcaster. On the other hand soulcasters appear to be much older than other fabrial tech. My guess is that humans mimicked them in an attempt to create more Plate and Blade. That is the goal of modern artifabrians after all.

So clarification on Investing. Yeah they came together, but Cultivation was herding cattle (humans) and took a while to get there. Honor Invested and gave power to the locals, the Listeners, powering up their primitive form magic. Cultivation showed up with humans and invested, and this made basic soulcaster fabrials available for everyone. At this point one of two things is the case. Cultivation powers all fabrial tech, or just soulcasters while other fabrials are an anomaly like the Nahel bond. My bet is that it's just the soulcasters, or we would have seen much more established fabrial tech. Also, the Listeners do have soulcasters. They mention that is why they fight for the gemhearts. On the other hand, I don't think we see any other fabrials from them. Sorry I forgot to at least mention fabrials, it was a big OP.

At this point I doubt anyone understood what they were doing well. Adonalsium had very recently Shattered, so they had the same amount of experience as Sazed, but without any copperminds or Shardic history to go off of. There is no way the history extends to pre-Shattering, or Sazed would be more aware of stuff

invested so oddly. They didn't know any better.

As with the various types of Lightweaving, the fact that Soulcasting is a surge as well is irrelevant. It is accomplished in a different manner.

Finally, we dont know how Investing works mechanically, and what Shards can or can't do to each other directly. I bet Odium deceived the Selish Shards, and that let him Shatter them, whether immediately or later I couldn't say. So that is why I just presented a scenario that may work. As with Atium becoming one of the 16 metals, Odium piggybacked Honor's form magic and the new Herald's surgebinding to cause voidforms and voidbinding. My guess is that Honor let him in uncontested, but not unconditionally. He saw that as the right thing to do. It gave him a better chance of surviving Shardic combat that he had less experience in, while limiting Odiums influence on other Shardworlds. How that works... no idea. But that is the only possibility for what the Oathpact is that makes any sense. Odium may also have granted access to Soulcasting fabrials for his creations, dunno either way. No text for that.

Better now? I agree it has some weak links, but on the whole it is a cohesive theory. I came up with this while trying to reconcile the Oathpact with how the magic is set up and what the focus could be.

Edit: added one thing about Listener soulcasters.

Yea, i would say fabrial instead of specifying it as Soulcasting. Brandon has said that Fabrials are the specific manifestation of investiture.

 

Im also wary to say that Listener forms are of Honor, as Cultivation seems much more in line with their culture, and the process of changing forms in the forst place.

 

I also think you are assuming too much about the original ability of the vessels of Honor and Cultivation. If they had enough knowledge of realmatics to be able to splinter Adonalsium then i have no doubt that they were pretty proficient with the power once they had it.

[Spoolofwhool]

While it is nice that you've expanded on your theory, you still have multiple errors. Not only that, you have yet to provide reasoning for why you think these are the case.

First of all, soulcasting. I fail to see how there is any evidence that it existed before the Heralds. We know that the ability of the Knight Radiants to soulcast came from spren imitating the Heralds. At the same time, it seems probable that the fabrials were made to imitate the Herald's abilities as well. The case that the soulcaster fabrials change people unlike other fabrials is not much of a case that they're more link to a shard's power, since they're dealing with power far greater than other fabrials. 

Bit of a continuation from the previous point. The Parshendi do not have soulcasters. They clearly grow their own food and when Eshonai was thinking about the food production she never thought about soulcasters. This means that either they don't have any, or Brandon is writing really poorly by having a character deliberately not think about something they would normally to fool us. 

Moving on to Cultivation and Honor. While Brandon's answer of "they came together" can be flexible, considering that they were fairly close and everything, I can't really see it anything other than, they arrived on Roshar together. While this doesn't really impact your theory that Cultivation's investiture resulted in fabrials, your theory that she gave soulcasting fabrials to everyone seems illogical. Once again, information presented seems to indicate that the ability to manipulate surges began with the Heralds and other forms of it were based off of those abilities after seeing them.

Could you be more precise about what you mean by "There is no way the history extends to  pre-shattering,"? If you're suggesting that the holders of Honor and Cultivation didn't have any knowledge of pre-shattering, then that's wrong, since they were alive before. Also, I don't see what says that they invested oddly. By your logic, Ruin and Preservation, who were also new, must've also messed up the investiture thing, along with all the other shards.

2 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

As with the various types of Lightweaving, the fact that Soulcasting is a surge as well is irrelevant. It is accomplished in a different manner.

What does Lightweaving have to do with soulcasting and how does their connection make being a manipulation of a surge irrelevant? 

2 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

As with Atium becoming one of the 16 metals, Odium piggybacked Honor's form magic and the new Herald's surgebinding to cause voidforms and voidbinding.

Atium was treated as one of the 16 metals because people didn't know any better and TLR deliberately manipulated information to that goal. It really didn't have anything to do with Ruin accessing Preservation's manifestation of investiture. Moving on, while I can sort of agree with Odium mimicking the forms Honor gave the Listeners, since those were just a mimic of the original forms they had, in your theory, it seems more like Odium mimicked the original method of forms as well. Although, you could say that he did so because Honor did so already. As to voidbinding. As far as we have been lead to believe regarding realmatic theory and investiture, shards have no control over the manifestation of investiture which results from them investing in a planet. I don't agree with your theory that it is somehow different here, and that Odium could chose, when no other shard managed to. It seems more likely that he invested in Roshar like Honor did, and voidbinding was the manifestation of investiture which resulted. Of course it would seem similar to surgebinding, because all manifestations of investiture of a planet are similar, and guided by the nature of the planet.

Overall, you address, some of the concerns brought up, which I'm thankful for. At the same time though, you introduce more flaws and erroneous logic. Also, you need to provide more reasoning as to why you theorize a certain point; you cannot just state things like it is fact in a theory.

[Djarskublar]

2 hours ago, Blightsong said:

Yea, i would say fabrial instead of specifying it as Soulcasting. Brandon has said that Fabrials are the specific manifestation of investiture.

 

Im also wary to say that Listener forms are of Honor, as Cultivation seems much more in line with their culture, and the process of changing forms in the forst place.

 

I also think you are assuming too much about the original ability of the vessels of Honor and Cultivation. If they had enough knowledge of realmatics to be able to splinter Adonalsium then i have no doubt that they were pretty proficient with the power once they had it.

I believe you on that first point, but can you put up the quote? I haven't seen that one. And I REALLY suck at looking up WoB. That's part of why I have so little sourcing in the post. I'm gonna get some quotes once I'm off work.

For your second, I wouldn't say any of the systems except surgebinding make any sense for any of the shards. This just got my guesses better. It could easily be the other way around, with Cultivation being the source for forms and Honor the source for fabrials. Odium likely has something for all the power sets, but we haven't seen the void version of Soulcasting... if it's even different at all.

For your third point, any knowledge they had (I agree they knew a lot) was still theoretical. There is a difference, for example, between knowing how guns work and being accurate at shooting them. As TLR shows, you still need other kinds of knowledge as well to be a good Vessel. I'm sure they picked it up quickly, but there was still room for early mistakes.

I'll post a response to spool later... Gotta work! I'll try to find relevant WoB too... Uggghhhh I'm bad at that though.

[The One Who Connects]

2 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

5 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

As with Atium becoming one of the 16 metals, Odium piggybacked Honor's form magic and the new Herald's surgebinding to cause voidforms and voidbinding.

Atium was treated as one of the 16 metals because people didn't know any better and TLR deliberately manipulated information to that goal. It really didn't have anything to do with Ruin accessing Preservation's manifestation of investiture.

I was under the impression that Preservation, not Ruin was the one hijacking. (albeit passively) He switched cadmium/bendalloy with Atium/Malation so that his Atium Misting army could naturally occur, since mistfallen became one of the 16.
It's "citation needed" but the third parahraph mentions this

2 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Bit of a continuation from the previous point. The Parshendi do not have soulcasters. They clearly grow their own food and when Eshonai was thinking about the food production she never thought about soulcasters. This means that either they don't have any, or Brandon is writing really poorly by having a character deliberately not think about something they would normally to fool us. 

It must have been mentioned somewhere, how else will they use the Gemhearts to sustain their armies?

2 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

5 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

As with the various types of Lightweaving, the fact that Soulcasting is a surge as well is irrelevant. It is accomplished in a different manner.

What does Lightweaving have to do with soulcasting and how does their connection make being a manipulation of a surge irrelevant? 

Jeez, I should've just quoted your post all at once. As for multiple Lightweaving types, that's Hoid's thing.

Edited August 20, 2016 by The One Who Connects

[Spoolofwhool]

28 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I was under the impression that Preservation, not Ruin was the one hijacking. (albeit passively) He switched cadmium/bendalloy with Atium/Malation so that his Atium Misting army could naturally occur, since mistfallen became one of the 16.
It's "citation needed" but the third parahraph mentions this

It must have been mentioned somewhere, how else will they use the Gemhearts to sustain their armies?

Preservation changed people to be able to burn atium so that they would have an edge. I don't think he confused the knowledge of the metals. TLR knew that atium wasn't one of the 16, since he knew it was Ruin's body, and I think it was stated somewhere that he knew about the other metals from ascending, but deliberately hid that knowledge after establishing the Final Empire. Overall though, we're deviating from the main point I was making when I made my comment. Saying atium was thought to be on of the 16 metals isn't an argument for the theory that Odium was somehow able to add his investitures to Honor's 

Eshonai did talk about growing crops, and said something else about accelerating their growth. It was theorized that they had a way of using stormlight to accelerate the growth of crops, which is why they need the gems. It makes sense to me. In any case, even if the Parshendi did have soulcasters, it doesn't actually prove anything about soulcasting existing pre-Oathpact.

[Yata]

in one of the Eshonai's Interludes one soldier informed her about a Gemheart capture and she say "good, our people may eat"
Reading the Spoolowhool's previous post I began to think that the Listeners may have a Progression Fabrial... But if they have something like that they will use it to heal their only Shardbearer.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Yata

[Spoolofwhool]

13 minutes ago, Yata said:

in one of the Eshonai's Interludes one soldier informed her about a Gemheart capture and she say "good, our people may eat"
Reading the Spoolowhool's previous post I began to think that the Listeners may have a Progression Fabrial... But if they have something like that they will use it to heal their only Shardbearer.

True. Eshonai stayed wounded. However, it's possible that she chose to not be healed so that they could keep growing crops. With the shardplate and warform's toughness, she probably could get around despite the injury.

[Yata]

11 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

True. Eshonai stayed wounded. However, it's possible that she chose to not be healed so that they could keep growing crops. With the shardplate and warform's toughness, she probably could get around despite the injury.

Or maybe the Surge-Fabrials are more limited in their scope of function. For example we know that Soulcaster fabrial can't trasform in every essences. And (maybe) a Progression Fabrial may be used or for Grow or for Regrow...not both

Edited August 21, 2016 by Yata

[Djarskublar]

All right, so I suck at Theoryland. I am going to try to explain my reasoning for who is in charge of what system. Basically after going back and reading it again, I realize how silly the bit about how they came to the system is. That was meant as a possible scenario that would set up the systems how I think they work. I retract that part, as a story. Also, some revision is going in based on information I gained because of this discussion.

Basically, I realized that fabrials, surgebinding, and forms were the three magic present that had non void aspects. (i.e. there are void forms and voidbinding, but there are non void forms of those.) Basically, surgebinding didn't even really exist as far as I can tell before the Heralds. There is a low chance they we're created when the two invested, but that is doubtful. How lame would a magic system be that could only ever have 10 immortal practicioners? The shards invested in a planet, not ten people, after all! My bet from that premise was that surgebinding in Herald form came about because of Odium doing things. They needed something cool to fight him, and they created the Heralds to do that. That means the systems that were actually present after the two invested were forms and fabrials.

AFAIK (possible headcanon, please correct if wrong) fabrials enslave a spren to a fabrial. That doesn't sound like an Honor-able thing to do, so that left that it was Cultivations. It doesn't really fit any of the three intents well if you ask me, so this is what I went with.

Forms probably existed from when Adonalsium created the Listeners. I have hypothesized for a while that the Rythmns are like cosmic radio noise, and the listeners atTUNE their cognitive 'radio' to hear them. This is the only species that Mr A created to be able to do this that we know of, so if a human could attune them, they could use form magic. However, Listeners are the only ones who can use this magic by virtue of being the only known species able to attune the Rythmns.

Honor's Investing at this point, by process of elimination, is the patron of form magic. I don't know what Honor Investing did to form magic, but I can make a wild but possible guess: Listeners could before only have one form... usually. There would be rare cases of form magic shifing them. They could all attune all of the Rythmns. There were probably fewer forms too. After Honor invested, something changed to make it easier for listeners to form the bond with spren for a transformation. More forms were probably available too.

We know far too little about void magic for me to want to post too many guesses about the what's up with Odium. Basically I think his magics are just addendums to the others. That's just what it looks like to me. I have no real attachment to the idea since I have no concrete evidence.

That help clarify what I'm talking about? One final note: I believe that Nahel bonding was possible LONG before any surgebinders were even twinkles in their mother's eyes. It was a natural outflow of both of them investing, similar to feruchemy. It was just that nobody on Roshar knew about it. Not even the spren.

[Spoolofwhool]

If I understand you correctly, your theory regarding the magic of Roshar is this: Cultivation caused fabrials, Honor caused forms, and nahel bonds are the product of both. Surgebinding on the other hand occurred after Odium started meddling. But you also say that Odium's meddling was the appearance of the void forms, which are the void Listener forms and voidbinding [void surgebinding]. Do you see the circular reasoning going on?

Now then, here's where I break things down:

WoB says that surgebinding, voidbinding and fabrials as the main manifestations of investiture. 

Quote

QUESTION

How many magic systems are in The Stormlight Archive, and how many of them [have been seen?]

BRANDON SANDERSON

I would see the only major one you haven’t seen is Voidbinding, it depends on how you count them. I count fabrials as one, Surgebinding as one, and Voidbinding as one. And then the Old Magic is kind of its own weird thing.

Once again, voidbinding isn't a Odium-aspected surgebinding. It is a separate manifestation of investiture, likely due to Odium investing in the Roshar. The forms of Listeners is probably something completely different, possibly unrelated to manifestation of investiture. My opinion is that Listeners bonding to spren to achieve the various forms is a natural evolution of the species. While Odium did create spren which gave them access to specific forms of power, they adapted to bond with them naturally. I don't think the Rhythm are connected to changing forms, but rather having forms gives rhythms to the Listeners. 

1 hour ago, Djarskublar said:

Honor's Investing at this point, by process of elimination, is the patron of form magic. I don't know what Honor Investing did to form magic, but I can make a wild but possible guess: Listeners could before only have one form... usually. There would be rare cases of form magic shifing them. They could all attune all of the Rythmns. There were probably fewer forms too. After Honor invested, something changed to make it easier for listeners to form the bond with spren for a transformation. More forms were probably available too.

As Brandon said, forms are not a manifestation of investiture. On the other hand, it seems evident though that Honor's investiture resulted in surgebinding. After all, he gave the Honorblades to the Heralds which gave them the original surgebinding powers, which the spren copied. Also, I don't think Heralds have natural surgebinding powers, but had them as a result of their Honorblades. Nahel bonds are not a manifestation of investiture, but part of a method of gaining access to surgebinding.

Overall, my opinion is that Honor's investiture resulted in surgebinding. Odium caused voidbinding to manifest, Fabrials are the hybrid manifestation, an alternate means to obtaining the powers of the other manifestation of investiture. As such, I don't actually think Cultivation actually invested in Roshar in the normal sense. While she certainly invested some power into, such as creating spren along with Honor and possibly affecting Shinovar, it feels more to me like she stood on the sideline while using her power to primarily cause the Old Magic, which is just her using her power more or less directly to mess with people via the Nightwatcher. 

[Jondesu]

10 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

As such, I don't actually think Cultivation actually invested in Roshar in the normal sense. While she certainly invested some power into, such as creating spren along with Honor and possibly affecting Shinovar, it feels more to me like she stood on the sideline while using her power to primarily cause the Old Magic, which is just her using her power more or less directly to mess with people via the Nightwatcher. 

I think this is a nearly impossible conclusion, but I also don't think Cultivation's Investment in the planet resulted in a new magic system (we can see her influence on Surgebinding, after all, and Cultivation is a compatible enough Intent with Honor that it wouldn't have necessitated a new magic system, unlike with Ruin/Preservation).

Instead, I think Cultivation is the reason for crem and it's nearly magical properties.  That's what's responsible (possibly along with Stormlight, though we're not completely sure how that works) for the amazing growth on otherwise almost pure rock, and that just screams Cultivation to me.  The Nightwatcher doesn't sound like Cultivation, but since we have WoB saying she's similarly related like the Stormfather and Tanavast, I'm actually guessing that the Nightwatcher is Cultivation's Vessel playing tricks on people.  Perhaps she was already like that before taking the Shard, and her personality wasn't so different as to warp that part out of her.

jW

[Spoolofwhool]

6 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

I think this is a nearly impossible conclusion, but I also don't think Cultivation's Investment in the planet resulted in a new magic system (we can see her influence on Surgebinding, after all, and Cultivation is a compatible enough Intent with Honor that it wouldn't have necessitated a new magic system, unlike with Ruin/Preservation).

Instead, I think Cultivation is the reason for crem and it's nearly magical properties.  That's what's responsible (possibly along with Stormlight, though we're not completely sure how that works) for the amazing growth on otherwise almost pure rock, and that just screams Cultivation to me.  The Nightwatcher doesn't sound like Cultivation, but since we have WoB saying she's similarly related like the Stormfather and Tanavast, I'm actually guessing that the Nightwatcher is Cultivation's Vessel playing tricks on people.  Perhaps she was already like that before taking the Shard, and her personality wasn't so different as to warp that part out of her.

jW

That's basically what I'm saying. There are obvious traces of Cultivation's power so she has invested in Roshar. It's just that she hasn't invested enough to produce a new manifestation of investiture, or in the manner required to do so. I disagree that having two shards investing enough for a manifestation of investiture to appear would only result in one manifestation of investiture if their intents are similar. Cultivation isn't the reason for crem, though she is influencing it, (WoB) so that definitely proves she has placed some power in Roshar. 

So overall, you say my conclusion is impossible, then immediately proceed to agree with it, so I guess you don't actually think it's impossible. 

[Jondesu]

2 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

That's basically what I'm saying. There are obvious traces of Cultivation's power so she has invested in Roshar. It's just that she hasn't invested enough to produce a new manifestation of investiture, or in the manner required to do so. I disagree that having two shards investing enough for a manifestation of investiture to appear would only result in one manifestation of investiture if their intents are similar. Cultivation isn't the reason for crem, though she is influencing it, (WoB) so that definitely proves she has placed some power in Roshar. 

So overall, you say my conclusion is impossible, then immediately proceed to agree with it, so I guess you don't actually think it's impossible. 

Heh, I guess I did misunderstand, but I still disagree on that point of not investing enough.  I don't think it's a matter of investing less, just that the way she invested resulted in a mixing of her magic with Honor's, along with then influencing the crem and the growth of the various lifeforms on Roshar.  I think she invested just as much as Honor did.  That'd be a great question to pose to Brandon sometime, though.

jW

[Spoolofwhool]

1 minute ago, Jondesu said:

Heh, I guess I did misunderstand, but I still disagree on that point of not investing enough.  I don't think it's a matter of investing less, just that the way she invested resulted in a mixing of her magic with Honor's, along with then influencing the crem and the growth of the various lifeforms on Roshar.  I think she invested just as much as Honor did.  That'd be a great question to pose to Brandon sometime, though.

jW

Possibly. We don't really know enough about the mechanics of investiture and producing a manifestation of investiture to say for certain. I doubt though that it has to do with amount and it probably has to with the method. For a manifestation to occur the shard probably needs to place their power directly into the world instead of just investing into parts of the world. I disagree though that her investiture mixing with Honor's resulted in no manifestation of investiture from her. Ruin and Preservation's investiture were basically entirely mixed when they made Scadrial but they still produced a manifestation of investiture each plus a hybrid system.

[Djarskublar]

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Possibly. We don't really know enough about the mechanics of investiture and producing a manifestation of investiture to say for certain. I doubt though that it has to do with amount and it probably has to with the method. For a manifestation to occur the shard probably needs to place their power directly into the world instead of just investing into parts of the world. I disagree though that her investiture mixing with Honor's resulted in no manifestation of investiture from her. Ruin and Preservation's investiture were basically entirely mixed when they made Scadrial but they still produced a manifestation of investiture each plus a hybrid system.

That's what is so confusing though. By the way, you did misunderstand one thing about my last post, Nahel bonding is surgebinding like Kal does, but your wording suggests either you believe, or that you think I believe that they are separate. I said at the end that Nahel bonding was possible LONG before any spren figured it out and tried it. Basically, surgebinding must be the combo system of Roshar, akin to feruchemy. Nobody realized that it would be a thing though. If the Shards knew, they weren't telling. The Heralds are probably just some cool people from back when the desolations first started that Honor (and probably Cultivation too, considering that they were granting the combo system) decided to heavily invest to make immortal. Then they also gave them Honorblades. The spren then realized that they could do something similar. That is a pure guess about the Heralds, though.

One other thing. That WoB you quote has a TON of wiggle room. First he says it depends on how you count them, and then he also says it's only the major ones. It could easily be argued that form magic isn't that big a deal. The form magic we have seen basically just boosts a certain skill set all the time. Kinda on par with a permanent pewter or tin burn, without side effects because the magnitude isn't as great. It is probably the least flashy power set we've seen. Hence it's not a major one he counts.

Now in this post you specifically said you agree that they have the combo system and one each. So what are those systems? Surgebinding is the combo obviously. Anyone disagree with that?  There is void stuff of Odium. Sanderson said the Old Magic is something else. My bet is that it's basically Cultivation's Vessel screwing with people via the Nightwatcher because she is heartbroken and bored. Then we just have fabrials as a Manifestation left, but two systems to account for. Unless it's somehow also a combo system, and the two of them are basically responsible for two half systems. Based on what we saw on Scadrial, I think that is unlikely.

That means we have a manifestation of Investiture unaccounted for. The only other magic we know of is form magic. Considering that the Stormfather talks to Eshonai when she is trying to shift to stormform, I figure that there is a fair chance the system is of Honor. Also, as I said before, enslaving spren to fabrials doesn't sound like something that could come from Honor's intent.

[Jondesu]

I think the idea that they have to have their own magic systems plus a combo one is flawed, though. According to Brandon, there's really only one magic system on Sel, just with different means of accessing/using it for the different regions. While I'm sure things changed with the shattering of Devotion and Dominion, I can't imagine that fundamental concept changed that much, since we have no indication that Surgebinding on Roshar really changed at all after Honor's shattering, and while having the Dor in the Cognitive has a big effect, I think that D&D's Intents meshed so well that they didn't spawn individual magic systems, but just one combined one. I think mostly the same thing happened on Roshar: Surgebinding isn't of Honor alone, but both Honor and Cultivation. It's just that Honor's Intent is more obvious there (but the Nahel bond must be cultivated for a Radiant to grow). I simply don't think Cultivation has her own separate magic system, since I wouldn't classify the Old Magic the Nightwatcher does as a magic system (and neither does Brandon from what I remember).

jW

Edited August 21, 2016 by Jondesu

[Djarskublar]

I don't classify old magic that way either, but you are forgetting fabrials. Where do they come from if not from one of the two of them? Odium? He's already getting void forms and voidbinding for Hoids sake! What more does he need?!

No, there definitely has to be at least something going on here. If you want to accept that both surgebinding and fabrials are combo systems, then you just have to say that the 'good' forms are from all the way back when Mr A created them. They had to come from somewhere after all. Void forms are "forms of power" that Odium is causing.

But that doesn't make a ton of sense. Odium is also the source of voidbinding, why should he get a full manifestation of investiture for the Listeners, but also something akin to surgebinding? If you accept that surgebinding and fabrials are both combos, then Odium should just have void versions of those or his own system from the forms, and none of this nonsense about multiple systems. Basically, if you accept voidforms as Odium personal power, and voidbinding as the combo deal with him getting a sorta addition to surges, why nothing with fabrials as well?

I could see an argument that Sel is different because all the power is mixed up in the CR. Perhaps it all got stirred together after their shattering. Then there is only one super powerful cognitive storm there, and it powers one system.

The thing is, we dont have a 'typical' case of a system with 2+ shards. Scadrial was created by R+P, and Brandon said that makes things funny there. D+D are Shattered, and the power is doing funky stuff in the CR. Honor is Shattered, and Odium invested later, which may or may not have an effect. There isn't anything we can point to and say 'hey that's normal, compare it to that.'

My bet is that since Cultivation is still intact, surgebinding remains relatively unchanged. I would guess that more Stormlight is available from Highstorms now that Honor is Shattered, but that is a planet wide thing not just a surgebinding buff. I posit that the system is most likely to be as I described before.

Forms are Honor's. Fabrials are Cultivation's. Voidforms are Odiums. Bindings (void and surge) are the combo system. Nothing else adds up unless you are willing to swap forms and fabrials, which I could be talked into.

[Spoolofwhool]

Your premise is that the ability to change forms is a manifestation of investiture, along with fabrials, and voidbinding and surgebinding, which you are classifying as the same magic system. However, if this is actually true, then either Brandon was directly lying when he said the three major magics are fabrials, voidbinding and surgebinding, or you aren't classifying a manifestation of investiture as a major magic. Note that he listed each one separately. See the problem?

 

Now here is my theory on how the manifestation of investitures work, and Roshar.

First of all, Listeners bonding with spren to achieve different forms is a naturally occurring phenomenon from before Honor and Cultivation arrived. At that time, they bonded with the few spren types that existed on Roshar at that point. I theorize that they could achieve dullform, mateform, workform and possibly scholarform, meditationform and artform at this point.

Next, Honor and Cultivation arrived together. While Honor invested fully into Roshar, Cultivation did so differently, to a lesser degree. What the result of this was that only a single manifestation of investiture appeared, while a multiple of new spren were created, as a result of the mixing of their powers. These new spren gave the Listeners new forms they could become. The new forms likely included warform and nimbleform, forms listed as being of gods. The manifestation of investiture which appeared was surgebinding, based on the concept of Honor and binding, which worked by binding a spren to a person in order to allow them to manipulate the fundamental surges which governed Roshar. However, this power was never used, probably because spren were not interested in bonding with either of the sentient species.

After some time Odium arrived. At some time, probably around the time of the creation of the Oathpact, he invested into Roshar as well. This brought about voidbinding, a new manifestation of investiture based on hatred, or perhaps . Then, as a result of the investiture of Honor and Odium, a new manifestation of investiture appeared. This is the ability to create fabrials, based on bonding and hatred, which allowed people to access the surge and other manipulations. 

The First Desolation began, spurred on by the Oathpacts and the Heralds, each bearing an honorblade made by Honor, granting each the power to manipulate two surges. This desolation was lesser than the other as the Listeners had not accepted the power of Odium yet. Likely the first voidbringers were related to the Unmade, which Odium had already splintered from himself. Some or all voidbringers may also be voidbinders. As the First Desolation progressed, or after it was over, the spren decided to imitate the surgebinding powers of the Heralds by choosing to bond with humans. As a result of this rejection, the Listeners approached Odium or his Unmade, and in exchange for their help, more spren were created which would give them forms of power. Likely the forms of power include smokeform, nightform, decayform and stormform.

[Blightsong]

Maybe fabrials are of Adonalsium. He seemed still pretty invested in Roshar (with Highstorms raging long before Honor and Cultivation arrived) when he was shattered. It just doesn't seem to me like fabrials have an Initiation process in line with the intents of any of the three shards involved.