Parshendi Shard Bearers

[Paladin Brewer he/him]

I've read both books twice, but I've been recently listening to Way of Kings on audio.  They briefly mentioned Parshendi shard bearers, which I did not pick up on before.  How would the Parshendi have received shard blades?

[The One Who Connects he/him]

Outside of them possibly being heirlooms, they would gain them the same way Kaladin would've in Book 1. Kill a Shardbearer and take their Plate/Blade.

[Paladin Brewer he/him]

25 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Outside of them possibly being heirlooms, they would gain them the same way Kaladin would've in Book 1. Kill a Shardbearer and take their Plate/Blade.

I suppose. Given that the Parshendi are a somewhat new discovery I wouldn't have thought they would have had any, but I suppose sometime during a 6 year war they might have nabbed one. :/

[The One Who Connects he/him]

Just now, Paladin Brewer said:

I suppose. Given that the Parshendi are a somewhat new discovery I wouldn't have thought they would have had any, but I suppose sometime during a 6 year war they might have nabbed one. :/

That's why I suggested heirlooms, maybe some of the Blades that are unaccounted for from the Recreance

[DeTess she/her]

I remember that someone in the book was theorizing that their Shardblades where the reason Gavilar wanted to be on friendly terms with them. This implies they had the Blades pre-war.

[Tsidqiyah he/him]

I thought that in WoR it was mentioned that during the initial encounters, blades and plate were seen by the humans. This would lend to the heirloom theory. At the same time any we see summoned likely require a fabril which indicates they were captured. as the parshendi dont use fabrils like the humans do

[The One Who Connects he/him]

2 minutes ago, Tsidqiyah said:

At the same time any we see summoned likely require a fabril which indicates they were captured.

You make a valid point. Is Eshonai's Shardblade ever described as having a gemstone on the hilt?

[Zennix he/him]

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

You make a valid point. Is Eshonai's Shardblade ever described as having a gemstone on the hilt?

The gemstone is just a gemstone, and not a fabrial. You don't need a fabrial to summon or dismiss a Shardblade. You need only to add an ordinary gemstone to the Blade. Fabrials have spren trapped inside them. 

[rjl]

I don't have books with me at the moment but in one of Shallan and Jasnah's discussions in book 1 they said that the parshendi had had sharblades prior to the treaty - Jasnah suggested it as a theory for why Gavilar wanted the treaty -> so he could get those shardblades.

As for where they got them, Dalinar notes at some point that the number of blades left behind in his vision of the Recreance far exceeds the number known about today - the question when it comes to shardblades in modern day Roshar is not "why are there so many" but rather "where are they all hidden" - is there a big cache of them somewhere because seemingly 90+% of those abandoned by the Knight's Radiant are unaccounted for today

-> wild theory I've literally thought of right now, are the Shin hiding 100s of Shardblades as well as the honourblades? (could be a different group not the shin, e.g. one of the heralds maybe?)

Edited April 17, 2017 by rjl

[Weltall]

It's noted in Gavilar's account of the first meeting with the Parshendi that when a greatshell appeared, one of them held out his hand as if preparing to summon a Blade, then quickly stopped but was still noticed. Ergo, they had shards before the treaty and before the war and it's even discussed by Jasnah and Shallan that this discovery might have been the motivation for the treaty in the first place. Given that the Parshendi were also noted to possess fine weapons that don't seem to match their observed level of development it's safe to assume that if they could find caches of arms and armor from Stormseat, they could have found a couple sets of Blade and Plate as well in the time since the Recreance.

[Jondesu he/him]

On 4/17/2017 at 4:33 PM, Zennix said:

The gemstone is just a gemstone, and not a fabrial. You don't need a fabrial to summon or dismiss a Shardblade. You need only to add an ordinary gemstone to the Blade. Fabrials have spren trapped inside them. 

That brings a very interesting possibility to mind.  Did adding the gemstone (which we know was part of what allowed bonding the blades so they could be dismissed and summoned) turn them into fabrials?  After all, the blades are spren that have been "killed" and trapped in that form, so adding the gemstone may basically trap them the same way. Obviously the mechanics of how it works are different, but these are Radiant spren, so maybe that's to be expected.

[Fulminato he/him]

oathbringer prologue spoiler 

Spoiler

Why had he offered such a favourable treaty? At first it seemed like an accommodation between tribes. That was before she had come here and seen the city and watched its armies patrol the streets. Her people had once been like this, they knew that from the songs. They once had cities of their own and armies [and/in ???]. That, had been long ago.

They were a tribe of lost people, traitors who had abandoned their cause to be free. This man could crush them and take their Shards, the few weapons they passed down from ancient times.

 

don't give a real clue, but the shard are taken very long time ago, probably during the fallout of the recreance.

based on dalinar vision, the radiant fought something that day, can be some free listener amogn them?

 

Edited April 23, 2017 by Fulminato

[Farnsworth]

Or....

They could be voidbringer livespren blades. Or livespren blades that have died but were originally voidbringers. 

[Radiant_Jaeger he/him]

4 hours ago, Figberts said:

Or....

They could be voidbringer livespren blades. Or livespren blades that have died but were originally voidbringers. 

Interesting Idea, we know for sure of the one shard set that Eshonai possesses. My idea is that there were groups of Radiants all over the world who slammed their blades into the ground and left them to be taken, not just the couple hundred we see in Dalinar's visions.

[Fulminato he/him]

22 hours ago, Figberts said:

Or....

They could be voidbringer livespren blades. Or livespren blades that have died but were originally voidbringers. 

the listener had some blade, eshonai are the last shardbearer, in the first years of the war dalinar defeat a couple of parishendi shardbearer himself. don't think there are some real difference, or the alethi already noted them

Edited April 25, 2017 by Fulminato

[Weltall]

On 4/24/2017 at 1:54 PM, Radiant_Jaeger said:

Interesting Idea, we know for sure of the one shard set that Eshonai possesses. My idea is that there were groups of Radiants all over the world who slammed their blades into the ground and left them to be taken, not just the couple hundred we see in Dalinar's visions.

We know there were more because the ones who left their Blades and Plate at Feverstone Keep were just the Windrunners and Stonewards. While we can't know how many Knights composed the other Orders (given that the Bondsmiths typically numbered all of three it seems) we know that some of the others were at least similarly numerous and when you remember that Dalinar saw more Blades in his vision than all the ones known to exist in the present era, that means a ton more sets of shards unaccounted for that could find their way into various hands.

For example, Adolin's Shardblade has been confirmed to have once belonged to an Edgedancer, meaning it wasn't among the ones abandoned at Feverstone.