Non-human Shard Vessels? [Arcanum Unbounded Spoilers]

[Nebelskind]

So I was just looking at the Google excerpt from Arcanum Unbounded's section on Scadrial, and I noticed this from Khris's description of the system:

"...the Shards undoubtedly used humans from Yolen as a model (indeed, both of the Vessels for these Shards were human before their Ascensions) in creating life." 

Mostly this isn't anything new, but the way it's worded makes me think that some of the original Vessels weren't human, or at least that some of the current ones aren't.

Any thoughts on the implications of that? Has anyone heard or seen any theories about the possibility of non-human Vessels?

[Weltall]

Brandon has mentioned before that Yolen has/had three sentient races, one being dragons. Via WoB we know that one of the two parties writing the Letters in Stormlight Archive's epigraphs is a dragon. We don't know if he's a Vessel or not but it seems reasonable to assume that with sixteen Shards to go around, at least one of the things went to someone who wasn't human. When someone directly asked Brandon if all sixteen original Vessels were human they got a RAFO and a comment about Yolen's three races so the implication was fairly obvious.

This discussion has some of the WoB and speculation.

Edited November 18, 2016 by Weltall

[Nebelskind]

I completely forgot about the dragons being sentient, thanks!

[Yata he/him]

Someone think that Endowment's Vessel is a Dragon. This theory borns from a reference to dragons in Nalthis's mithology (and Brandon confirmed that dragons are part of Nalthis's mithology). But we don't actually know if Endowment is a dragon, the reference may be older than the Shattering or come with worldhopper.

[Ari he/him]

On 18/11/2016 at 1:54 PM, Weltall said:

Brandon has mentioned before that Yolen has/had three sentient races, one being dragons. Via WoB we know that one of the two parties writing the Letters in Stormlight Archive's epigraphs is a dragon. We don't know if he's a Vessel or not but it seems reasonable to assume that with sixteen Shards to go around, at least one of the things went to someone who wasn't human. When someone directly asked Brandon if all sixteen original Vessels were human they got a RAFO and a comment about Yolen's three races so the implication was fairly obvious.

This discussion has some of the WoB and speculation.

I think if the recipient/Frost was actually a Shard's vessel, Hoid wouldn't be bothering to make implications about him being a Dragon, heh.

[Eki]

On 2016-11-20 at 5:26 PM, Ari said:

I think if the recipient/Frost was actually a Shard's vessel, Hoid wouldn't be bothering to make implications about him being a Dragon, heh.

Well, considering Hoid actually knew Frost from before the Shattering, I wouldn't find that very odd. I'm still leaning towards Frost not being a Vessel, but still.

[Nebelskind]

1 hour ago, Eki said:

Well, considering Hoid actually knew Frost from before the Shattering, I wouldn't find that very odd. I'm still leaning towards Frost not being a Vessel, but still.

Yeah I'm not sure; I could see either way making sense but I think I agree that he's probably not.... It is interesting that he's apparently taken an oath to not interfere, though; if he is a Vessel, it must be one that's more withdrawn for whatever reason.

[Weltall]

I'm not sure on Frost being a Vessel or not either (leaning towards the latter) but the point I was trying to make was more along the lines of 'we know non-human sentients exist so it's very likely at least some of the original sixteen weren't human'. Especially given the way Brandon answered that one question.

Now whether we'll see any non-human Vessels prior to the Dragonsteel arc or we'll just hear about them is another question, since he might be saving their first 'on-camera' appearance for those stories.