Could the Breaths held by the God King have originally came from Stormlight?

[snote]

I have always wondered how the scholars acquired so many breaths. I know, over a long period with the elderly and dying donating their breath to the them, they could definitely acquire that many. I just wondered if, since we know, that they were aware of Roshar and at least its Shardblades, (Since we're told in a WoB that Nightblood was an attempt to recreate one.) if they could have traveled there to start siphoning off its investiture and bring it back to use in their research. It would definitely be a more moral way of acquiring that much Breath. Send one of the five over to to Roshar, hop through Honor's perpendicularity, come back do a little research and keep themselves alive for a few years, go back. 

Like a milk run, if you will.

[Spoolofwhool]

Stormlight isn't breath. We've been told, or at least its been implied, that Vasher cannot awaken with stormlight. There is no reason to think that he can somehow interconvert between both forms of investiture either.

[Jondesu]

11 minutes ago, snote said:

I have always wondered how the scholars acquired so many breaths. I know, over a long period with the elderly and dying donating their breath to the them, they could definitely acquire that many. I just wondered if, since we know, that they were aware of Roshar and at least its Shardblades, (Since we're told in a WoB that Nightblood was an attempt to recreate one.) if they could have traveled there to start siphoning off its investiture and bring it back to use in their research. It would definitely be a more moral way of acquiring that much Breath. Send one of the five over to to Roshar, hop through Honor's perpendicularity, come back do a little research and keep themselves alive for a few years, go back. 

Like a milk run, if you will.

The scholars almost certainly didn't only get Breaths from the elderly and dying.  We see children giving their Breath to Lightsong and the other gods, and have another account of that happening with Jewels, and considering Vasher was the first God King, he could have demanded the Breath from a huge number of his subjects and they probably would have willingly surrendered it.  It doesn't seem unbelievable at all to me.

And as noted, Stormlight can't be converted into Breaths exactly, even if someone manages to figure out how to Awaken with them (and if Vasher doesn't know how now, he certainly didn't back then), and in part I think that's because they have a Cognitive Aspect that retains something of the original person (just a theory of mine, not at all confirmed).

[snote]

Here's a WoB that implies, at least from the opposite direction, that you can use other investiture to power other systems.

 

LEINTON

Can Breath be used to power Surgebinding?

BRANDON SANDERSON

They are very similar Investitures, and most of the magics can be powered with the other magics if you are capable of making that happen.

LEINTON

What would happen to the Breath?

BRANDON SANDERSON

The Breath would be consumed in the same way that Stormlight is. A renewing resource, much like Atium is.

TAGS

cosmere, investiture, stormlight archive, warbreaker, awakening, breath, stormlight, surgebinding, ,

[Spoolofwhool]

7 minutes ago, snote said:

Here's a WoB that implies, at least from the opposite direction, that you can use other investiture to power other systems.

 

LEINTON

Can Breath be used to power Surgebinding?

BRANDON SANDERSON

They are very similar Investitures, and most of the magics can be powered with the other magics if you are capable of making that happen.

LEINTON

What would happen to the Breath?

BRANDON SANDERSON

The Breath would be consumed in the same way that Stormlight is. A renewing resource, much like Atium is.

TAGS

cosmere, investiture, stormlight archive, warbreaker, awakening, breath, stormlight, surgebinding, ,

Yes. No one said it isn't possible, just that no one, as far as we know, is capable of doing it. Also, this still doesn't mean that you are able to convert one into the other.

[snote]

QUESTION

Can Vasher draw Breath from a highstorm?

BRANDON SANDERSON

I will answer that eventually... You know what, yes he can. Not Breath though, he can draw Investiture the way he needs it.

[ROSHtaFARian2.0]

Again, nobody is saying that using Stormlight to Awaken isn't theoretically possible, but I believe Brandon was asked specifically if Vasher could Awaken things with Stormlight and Brandon said no, he hasn't figured out how to do that yet. He can keep himself alive with Stormlight, but that's it.

So it seems extremely likely that Stormlight can potentially be used to hack Awakening and fuel it in place of Breaths, but nobody's figured out that particular hack yet. Meaning there's no way the original treasure trove of the God Kings came from the Scholars bringing back Stormlight from Roshar and converting it into usable Breaths Vasher later used to Awaken his Lifeless army.

Edited March 4, 2017 by ROSHtaFARian2.0

[snote]

Okay, this is kinda frustrating. I feel like you're assuming they couldn't do something, we don't know if they could or could not do. We do not, at least based on the evidence that's been posted by you, know if they did or did not have the ability to interchange the two investitures on Nalthis. I say they did because everything Brandon has said on the subject says that all investiture is interchangable. At worst we don't know. Not that it isn't possible but simply that we don't know.

22 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Yes. No one said it isn't possible, just that no one, as far as we know, is capable of doing it. Also, this still doesn't mean that you are able to convert one into the other.

In fact, you did.

On 3/1/2017 at 11:00 AM, Spoolofwhool said:

Stormlight isn't breath. We've been told, or at least its been implied, that Vasher cannot awaken with stormlight. There is no reason to think that he can somehow interconvert between both forms of investiture either.

 

QUESTION

Can Vasher draw Breath from a highstorm?

BRANDON SANDERSON

I will answer that eventually... You know what, yes he can. Not Breath though, he can draw Investiture the way he needs it.



and another saying exactly the same thing in a different way.

 

LEINTON

Can Breath be used to power Surgebinding?

BRANDON SANDERSON

They are very similar Investitures, and most of the magics can be powered with the other magics if you are capable of making that happen.

LEINTON

What would happen to the Breath?

BRANDON SANDERSON

The Breath would be consumed in the same way that Stormlight is. A renewing resource, much like Atium is.

This in fact does mean it can be done. There is also the fact that Vasher is still alive, he is converting the Stormlight into Breath. Whether consciously or subconsciously. We know the Returned need a Breath a week to live. He is alive and that quote states it with no ambiguity, he is using the investiture on Roshar to do something that requires Breath. That is a conversion if you want to call it that. From my understanding investiture is investiture. The planet and who made it have a hand in shaping what its magic system does. Like if you gain the Stormlight equivalent of investiture to reach the 7th heightening, you won't gain the abilities it would grant if you had the Breath equivalent. At least not while you're on Roshar. You just simply have a bunch of Stormlight. (As far as we know, at least.) Because it was produce by the Shards of Roshar and not Endowment. 

Also, think of it like this. Can Szeth use Nightblood? Absolutely. Otherwise the story would suck for him to have a sword he can't use. The problem, as far as we know, he doesn't hold any Breaths. So, can Nightblood use Stormlight to feed instead of Breath? Everything points to "Yes". The thing I'm talking about is the same. The pool of investiture can be used to fuel whatever system the wielder wishes, as long as the right amounts are held. It's the wielder, who has the intent and Shardic influence on them. They are tainted by whatever planet they came from and/or whichever Shard made them or the planet. I'm sure the investiture when created on that planet, also bares the taint I'm talking about, but not to the point it can't fuel other magics. It's still just investiture. There are tons of WoB and pieces of story that say, at least in different wordings, that this is the way all this works.

I think I'm done trying to convince anyone of my thoughts on the God King's treasure. I don't see any evidence that says I'm wrong, just arguments that seem to change each time I post a piece of evidence undermining the last argument. Which wasn't what I wanted to do when I started this post. I wanted an interesting discussion or proof that showed it wasn't possible. I've not seen any proof. Though, there is a lot of proof that shows that everything about what I originally said was possible. The only unproven part is if the Awakeners at the time actually did it. Not if it was possible, just if they did. They knew about Roshar, they knew how to get there, the two are compatible and "Similar in investiture" (To quote Brandon). So, it is absolutely possible. Unless you all have some smoking gun quote, that I wasn't able to find, I don't see what the point in arguing about this would be, anymore. I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree or something.

Also, I messaged Brandon about this on Reddit, I'll post the reply, if he allows me to, when/if he gives one.

[ROSHtaFARian2.0]

I wasn't trying to be pedantic, I just couldn't track down the specific WoB at the moment so I was affirming what others had said, about there having been an answer on whether or not Vasher could Awaken with Stormlight YET. Here it is:

Interview: Jan 21st, 2015

Changing Hands, AZ

ZenBossanova

Can Vasher use Stormlight to Awaken things?

Brandon Sanderson

No, all it does is keep him alive. But he has tried and has not figured out how to awaken things.

 

 

Edit: I do understand that your theory was about converting Stormlight into the Breaths that form the God King's treasure trove, and again, I do agree that is probably possible, but I believe that's still precluded by this WoB.....given that Vasher used the original treasure trove of Breaths to Awaken his Lifeless army, it seems to me that if he had somehow converted Stormlight into Breath to form that treasure trove, that would count as him having Awakened things with Stormlight.

Edited March 4, 2017 by ROSHtaFARian2.0

[Jondesu]

Exactly, Vasher not knowing how to Awaken with Stormlight wouldn't mean much if he was totally separate from the Five Scholars and the first God-King, but… he was the first God-King.  If he doesn't know how, and obviously the treasure isn't just Investiture, but Breaths, because he doesn't know how to use other Investiture (or at least Stormlight) to Awaken far into the future from that time, so he obviously couldn't then either.

[Spoolofwhool]

@snote I think you're misunderstanding what I was talking about, as well as how investiture works, to some degree, so I'll lay out my thoughts fully so you don't have any misunderstandings.

As I see it, there are different types, or flavors, of investiture. You have breath, stormlight, feruchemical charges, the power gained during allomancy, the innate soul of a person, etc. All of this, at its base, is investiture, essentially another state of matter/energy. However, at the same time, each of these different types have some differences between them, which contrast them slightly. For instance, stormlight leaks out of practically all objects it is stored in, while breath sticks, as far as we know permanently, to objects it is stored in, unless it is being used for awakening. These net differences are what I was referring to when I said you cannot interconvert between types; I don't think it is possible, or at least, not realistically possible, to take some stormlight and modify its properties so it becomes an equivalent number of breaths in investiture. 

This does not mean though that you cannot use one type of investiture to a manifestation of investiture which isn't designed to use it. Each manifestation of investiture is largely designed to use a specific form of investiture, such as surgebinding using stormlight and awakening using breath. However, at the fundamental level, each one is using the same fuel, investiture, just that it is expecting a certain form. Therefore, it is certainly possible to get a manifestation of investiture to be fueled by a type of investiture it isn't designed to use, but that doesn't seem to be that you're actually changing one type of investiture to another, but rather just tricking the magic to accept a different type. So yes, while it would be possible to awaken using stormlight, and by the wording I'm going to assume it's practically possible, not just theoretically, that doesn't mean Vasher would actually be converting the stormlight to breath, just that he's hacking awakening to fuel itself off of stormlight instead.

In the opposite manner, Nightblood just cares about consuming the fundamental investiture; it doesn't care about which form it is in. The Returned are the same, they need investiture, not a specific form by all accounts. 

In conclusion, I see no reason to think that the God King's treasure and all the breaths the Five Scholars managed to gather were somehow derived from stormlight as we've seen no reason to believe that you can somehow practically convert one type of investiture to another. The part which you seemed to be confused about in my replies is that you're assuming that awakening requires breath, and that awakening using stormlight would require turning it into breath, while I don't. 

Edited March 4, 2017 by Spoolofwhool

[+Extesian]

Try not to get too discouraged by the responses @snote. We all just like to get specific with understanding and terminology because there's so much intricacy to the magic systems and we all want the same thing, to understand them better.

Spool's explanation of investiture is as always spot on and it's worth thinking about properly.

I think the key questions to answer for your specific theory are:

Could Vasher (who gathers the treasure of breaths) have gotten Stormlight from Roshar at that time? Probably, he or at least one of the Scholars was there, they based Nightblood on Shardblades. I'm not sure if we know whether he was capable of absorbing Stormlight back then (he certainly is now).

Could he have used Stormlight to awaken back then? We know that can be done, but equally we know that it seems he did not as he can't now and why would he lose the ability? So yes its probably possible but we basically know it wasn't the case.

Could he have used Stormlight to create Breaths, as we know the treasure is in the form of Breaths? Same answer as the previous except that we don't even know that it's even possible to convert investiture. Yes investiture used for certain purposes is interchangeable (eg to feed Nightblood) but not for specific magic uses in the absence of the system being hacked. And as Sppol said that's not a conversion of the investiture itself, it's just changing what flavor of investiture can be used as fuel.

I think the main thing to realize is why Vasher is on Roshar. It's not to more easily get investiture to use in awakening. It's because he's a Returned who (as far as we know) effectively has his soul stapled onto his old corpse. That requires one breath each week to maintain that stapling. He cannot (currently) use any old investiture to awaken but he CAN use any old investiture to stay alive. That's why the WoBs say he can use Stormlight. But he can't use it for awakening and, presumably, can't convert it into Breath.

So it's a good theory and it raises one of the most important Cosmere questions - using more easily available investiture to power more potent Cosmere magics. Could that be done in the future? Maybe. Was that what actually happened? I think not from the WoBs.

[snote]

Can Vasher use Stormlight to Awaken things?

Brandon Sanderson

No, all it does is keep him alive. But he has tried and has not figured out how to awaken things.

Thank you for finally posting other than the equivalent of "Lol, no."

[snote]

Oops, misread something and responded before realizing my mistake.

Edited March 5, 2017 by snote

[kaellok]

In response to the OP, though, 50,000 breaths might not be THAT many.  Create a culture where the dying donate their Breath before they go, throw in a healthy dash of nationalism, a pinch of fearmongering, and coat it all with the trappings of a pseudo-religion/cult, and depending on the population size it could be done in under a year.  Maybe some hero-worship and prioritization of the Champion Savior over the individual or group.

There are some similarities to this today already, but on an economic sense.  The US military focuses on concentrating a significant amount of power (Breath) onto a relatively small number of Champions (military--specifically, the super-advanced air and naval superiority advantages) to protect the rest of the group.  If you think of Breath as just another economic resource (which it is in-world, to an extent) then the more pressing question that I always had was, "Only 50,000? How tiny is that population?"

[dyring]

2 hours ago, kaellok said:

 "Only 50,000? How tiny is that population?"

Its low status to be a drab thou. Only the poorest or possibly the most fanatical believers will give breath away. The vast majority of that is likely pulled from the slums of the city itself. And the population there is limited 

In addition, not all goes to the god king. There are alot of other awakeners, and they assumedly die quite often dies without giving their breath away.

And the returned together eat a large number of breaths, around 1000 or so every year(numbers of returned differ from year to year).

As for the topic:

Seems clear from the WOB that is is relatively easy to use stormlight instead of breath for fuel, eitehr for nightblood or for returned weekly breath.

Converting stormlight to and from breath on the other hand, is either impossible, or(more likely) hard enough that noone have figured it out yet. And had they figured it out, they would have used it, breaths is way more convinient to store then stormlight. And there is likely the problem with using it for awakening, if Vasher tried, I think he might have been able to awaken something if he put a gemstone in it to store the stormlight. Otherwise, it likely leak right out, making it not work.

On the other hand, he is a researcher, if it was that easy, he should figured it out so maybe not.

 

[Modal Seoul]

You guys need to all ask Endowment about this.

[snote]

I absolutely don't want to beat a dead horse here. I just want to clarify a few things.

Vasher doesn't *currently* know how to convert/use Stormlight as an Awakener's tool.

So what?

There are reasons that doesn't matter.

He isn't the only scholar, nor is he the only one who has been off world. Both Denth and Shashara have been, at least one has been specifically to Roshar, if not both. (I'll find them exactly if anyone distrusts this.) according to WoB on the topic.

One of the last things Vasher says to Denth is, "I know the commands to make you forget." As Vasher himself was ashamed of some of his past and, it was implied, wanted to remove it from his mind to allow him to forget his sins. It seems entirely possible that the process of how to convert Breath to Stormlight or use it in Awakening, whichever is required, is in that block of information he deleted from his mind.

Also, someone said, "50,000 Breaths aren't all that many." True, but the scholars had so many more than that, that we know of. They had the phantoms, the King's Treasure, Nightblood, Lifeless, and on and on with research, staying alive, and lost/failed awakenings. I would say closer to half a million Breath were spent by them, if not more. I know I would be a lot more likely to spend a wealth of Breath knowing I can just pop over to Roshar and get as much as I want, without having to harvest them from the living. Not that the scholars were all that empathetic but it would definitely make things easier.


I may be wrong about all this. I still stand very firm on the point that we DO NOT KNOW enough information about any of this to say definitively YES or definitely NO, when it comes to the question originally posed by me. I just thought it was interesting to postulate. I still would like anyone to chime in with what they think about the idea. If you can provide a definite answer, please do so. Just know that I am not trying to argue with anyone I think we all do and have agreed on all of this, except for one single point, which is that they didn't do what I'm suggesting. I say they're wrong and everything I can find says they are but whatever, I still would like to hear from anyone with anything to say on the matter.

 

[+Trellium]

22 minutes ago, snote said:

Vasher doesn't *currently* know how to convert/use Stormlight as an Awakener's tool.

Can you post the specific WoB language? If we only look at at the fact that Brandon specifically said "currently", that leaves the door open to Vasher having more knowledge in the past, but doesn't really evidence anything. However, now that you point out that Vasher "knows the commands to make you forget", I think you are on to something. I mean, Vasher is the kind of guy who killed the love of his life just to prevent the knowledge of how to create a Type IV Biochromatic Entity from spreading. I doubt he would hesitate to purge his own memories of this same knowledge. The only hole in this theory that I see is that if Vasher could really do that, why didn't he just make Shashara forget how to create a construct like Nightblood instead of killing her? Perhaps the target of such a command needs to be a willing participant? Either way, it makes sense that Vasher would do anything he could to prevent knowledge of how to accumulate massive quantities of breath from Rosharian Stormlight from spreading, as gathering the necessary investiture is itself a major barrier to the process of creating "another Nightblood". This would include purging his own memory of any useful steps in the process.

[+Extesian]

7 hours ago, snote said:

I absolutely don't want to beat a dead horse here. I just want to clarify a few things.

Vasher doesn't *currently* know how to convert/use Stormlight as an Awakener's tool.

So what?

There are reasons that doesn't matter.

He isn't the only scholar, nor is he the only one who has been off world. Both Denth and Shashara have been, at least one has been specifically to Roshar, if not both. (I'll find them exactly if anyone distrusts this.) according to WoB on the topic.

One of the last things Vasher says to Denth is, "I know the commands to make you forget." As Vasher himself was ashamed of some of his past and, it was implied, wanted to remove it from his mind to allow him to forget his sins. It seems entirely possible that the process of how to convert Breath to Stormlight or use it in Awakening, whichever is required, is in that block of information he deleted from his mind.

Also, someone said, "50,000 Breaths aren't all that many." True, but the scholars had so many more than that, that we know of. They had the phantoms, the King's Treasure, Nightblood, Lifeless, and on and on with research, staying alive, and lost/failed awakenings. I would say closer to half a million Breath were spent by them, if not more. I know I would be a lot more likely to spend a wealth of Breath knowing I can just pop over to Roshar and get as much as I want, without having to harvest them from the living. Not that the scholars were all that empathetic but it would definitely make things easier.


I may be wrong about all this. I still stand very firm on the point that we DO NOT KNOW enough information about any of this to say definitively YES or definitely NO, when it comes to the question originally posed by me. I just thought it was interesting to postulate. I still would like anyone to chime in with what they think about the idea. If you can provide a definite answer, please do so. Just know that I am not trying to argue with anyone I think we all do and have agreed on all of this, except for one single point, which is that they didn't do what I'm suggesting. I say they're wrong and everything I can find says they are but whatever, I still would like to hear from anyone with anything to say on the matter.

 

There's a couple of relevant WoBs.

Quote

UESTION

Has Denth ever been to Scadrial?

BRANDON SANDERSON

So Scadrial is one of the planets that’s easier to get to, in Cosmere terms. I will say this: he did not travel the Cosmere widely. But Scadrial is one of the easier ones to get to - he spent a lot of time on Roshar, and did not travel widely

Quote

QUESTION

So, Vasher, and maybe some of the other ones have been off world--

BRANDON SANDERSON

Shashara has been, yeah.

So you're right that they've probably both been to Roshar, and certainly Denth.

I still feel we need more to be sure but you've written this further evidence nicely, good job.

[The One Who Connects]

6 hours ago, Trellium said:

7 hours ago, snote said:

Vasher doesn't *currently* know how to convert/use Stormlight as an Awakener's tool.

Can you post the specific WoB language? If we only look at at the fact that Brandon specifically said "currently", that leaves the door open to Vasher having more knowledge in the past, but doesn't really evidence anything.

Here's the specific wording, and it does not bode well for your ideas.

Quote

Can Vasher use Stormlight to Awaken things?

Brandon Sanderson

No, all it does is keep him alive. But he has tried and has not figured out how to awaken things.

 

[Spoolofwhool]

8 hours ago, snote said:

I say they're wrong and everything I can find says they are but whatever, I still would like to hear from anyone with anything to say on the matter.

Are you saying that everyone who disagrees with your speculation is wrong or that everyone who is offering a definite answer is wrong?

[Djarskublar]

To expand on @Spoolofwhool's fairly exhaustive explanation to make it easier to understand, there are some properties of Investiture that he didn't delineate that you perhaps don't know. Investiture usually comes 'tainted' by an Intent that derives from its Shard of origin. Stormlight comes from Honor, Cultivation, or some mix of the two, as well as some from when Adonalsium originally created the Storm and infused it, so Stormlight is pretty complex. Regardless of the exact mix, it has Intent aligning it with the Shard(s) it comes from, and the magic it normally powers follows that intent. Breath comes from Endowment, and that is why Breath cannot be taken, only freely given.

This leads into the actual point: to convert Light into Breath, you don't just need to change its form and properties, you also need to change its inherent Intent, which is incredibly difficult to do, and there is only one thing in the canon at the moment that can do so. This isn't to say that it is impossible for anything else, it is just the only thing that can right now. That thing is Nightblood. When Nightblood rips the Breaths and then the very spark of life from a person, it is taking Endowment's Investiture. That shouldn't be possible normally, as I stated above, so it 'corrupts' the Investiture and changes its Intent. While this Investiture still exists somewhere, it is no longer accessible by Endowment, so it is effectively destroyed. To convert Light into Breath, you need to make something Honorable/Cultivating into something that Endows. That is much easier said than done.

Basically, using Light to Awaken is somewhat similar to trying to use a windmill rather than a waterwheel for mechanical power. Doable, but requires some pretty complex hacks when you are talking about magic. On the other hand, actually converting Light to Breath is like trying to convert lead into gold. Also possible, but far, far more difficult.

[snote]

On 3/13/2017 at 6:41 PM, Spoolofwhool said:

Are you saying that everyone who disagrees with your speculation is wrong or that everyone who is offering a definite answer is wrong?

Anyone who says, "We know "For a fact!" that what you're offering up for speculation is 100% incorrect." is just wrong to say that, based on what we know. I can't stand naysayers. I don't mind discussion and debate, that's fine, but someone who has half the facts going, "That won't work." or "Nope, can't do that." even though there is no reason to think otherwise or no way to know for sure, is just fundementally irritating to me. I don't have any problem being incorrect in my assumptions or my guesses. I do, however, get very defensive when someone who hasn't spent as much time looking at facts I've looked at says, "Nope. Sorry, you're wrong." Which, I feel, was *exactly* how I was greeted with this idea.

 

 

On 3/13/2017 at 11:31 PM, Djarskublar said:

To expand on @Spoolofwhool's fairly exhaustive explanation to make it easier to understand, there are some properties of Investiture that he didn't delineate that you perhaps don't know. Investiture usually comes 'tainted' by an Intent that derives from its Shard of origin. Stormlight comes from Honor, Cultivation, or some mix of the two, as well as some from when Adonalsium originally created the Storm and infused it, so Stormlight is pretty complex. Regardless of the exact mix, it has Intent aligning it with the Shard(s) it comes from, and the magic it normally powers follows that intent. Breath comes from Endowment, and that is why Breath cannot be taken, only freely given.

This leads into the actual point: to convert Light into Breath, you don't just need to change its form and properties, you also need to change its inherent Intent, which is incredibly difficult to do, and there is only one thing in the canon at the moment that can do so. This isn't to say that it is impossible for anything else, it is just the only thing that can right now. That thing is Nightblood. When Nightblood rips the Breaths and then the very spark of life from a person, it is taking Endowment's Investiture. That shouldn't be possible normally, as I stated above, so it 'corrupts' the Investiture and changes its Intent. While this Investiture still exists somewhere, it is no longer accessible by Endowment, so it is effectively destroyed. To convert Light into Breath, you need to make something Honorable/Cultivating into something that Endows. That is much easier said than done.

Basically, using Light to Awaken is somewhat similar to trying to use a windmill rather than a waterwheel for mechanical power. Doable, but requires some pretty complex hacks when you are talking about magic. On the other hand, actually converting Light to Breath is like trying to convert lead into gold. Also possible, but far, far more difficult.

LEINTON

Can Breath be used to power Surgebinding?

BRANDON SANDERSON

They are very similar Investitures, and most of the magics can be powered with the other magics if you are capable of making that happen.

[Naurock]

Probably the only one capable of this is Hoid with the Moon Scepter, and that's a giant MAYBE. Because while it was canonized that it's a "Rosetta Stone" for investiture, he also threw in symbols. Nalthian magic doesn't seem to include symbols, only commands, visualization, breath (investiture), and color.

Also, worth noting. Humans are terrible containers for holding stormlight. Apparently after speaking oaths a human becomes more "leak proof" but Vasher has spoken no oaths. He would've drained all his stormlight within a matter of hours, so it couldn't have become the God King's trove.

I believe it was stated in Arcanum Unbounded that the storms on Roshar are Adonalsium's doing. So in essence stormlight should be able to be used in Endowment's magic system. But it would be difficult.