+Lewis Nethur He/Him Posted June 5, 2017 Posted June 5, 2017 (edited) I guess...It just seems kinda weird that: Shashara would tell Vasher she was going to teach people how to make Nightbloods Argue with him passionately Then get herself murdered over the argument all without ever divulging that she wouldn't have actually been able to teach people how to make their own Nightbloods without first teaching them to worldhop. Like, she probably would've thrown in there at some point: "Jk Vasher, making Nightbloods can't just be done with awakening, please don't murder me," thereby diffusing the situation... Edited June 5, 2017 by hwiles
Calderis he/him Posted June 5, 2017 Posted June 5, 2017 (edited) Then it must have happened differently than imagined. I am perfectly fine with this working differently than I think as far as it not involving off world investiture. Or even that that investiture was included and used accidentally so that even Shashara didn't know, as much as I think that route would be a cop out. I cannot, on the other hand, accept that a Cosmere magic system has the ability to break itself. Even Shards are bound by rules. Either there is an in system explanation, or there is an external system complicating things. Awakening cannot corrupt Awakening though. Edited June 5, 2017 by Calderis
+Lewis Nethur He/Him Posted June 5, 2017 Posted June 5, 2017 @Calderis , after @FiveLate 's last post I have to concede that you're probably right that Nightblood is still bound by the rules and physics of awakening, as it's clear from those quotes that as of Warbreaker he was still heavily defined by the command used to awaken him. I was mistaken in thinking he wasn't, good discussion.
Darkness he/him Posted June 6, 2017 Posted June 6, 2017 On 28/05/2017 at 4:33 AM, Yata said: Nightblood is an attempt to replicate a Shardblade with Awakening. If you use a Shardblade as base the whole point would fall. Anyway a Shardblade could not really be confused with a common weapon. And Vasher saw both Nightblood (with his original name) before and during the Awakening. We have also a WoB (but now I have not the time to search on theoryland) on the fact Vasher didn't need to actually see a real Shardblade to design Nightblood, instead only stories about the Blade would be enough. About the mixing Investiture, you have right. It's for now not easy to understand. It's possible Nightblood as simple sword was not a standard sword at all. But there are a lot of possibilities for Invested Metal. It could be a Metalmind, a Spike, a Soulcasted Steel, Therenody's Silver, simple Scadrial metal, ecc...(I am quite sure to forgot something but I can't think to other way to Invest Metal) re: Invested metal. I definitely agree with filled metalminds and hemalurgic spikes counting, and probably threnody's silver. But as far as I understand, soulcasting something does not make the product invested. Soulcasting steel wouldn't imbue the steel with investiture (but a surgebinder could probably stick investiture onto metal - like Kaladin and his rock climbing). Also, scadrian metal is not invested. You can take the same metal from another planet, bring it to scadrial, and have an allomancer burn it. The molecular pattern of the metal acts as a key / catalyst for investiture-based magic, but it isn't the source of the investiture. I think the only metals that might count as invested are the god-metals, because they are the solid form of investiture... The 'body' of shards. As for forged metal. I dont believe the target of the forgery gains any investiture from being stamped. The stamp itself likely contains investiture, but that's not quite the same thing.
Calderis he/him Posted June 6, 2017 Posted June 6, 2017 6 minutes ago, Darkness said: As for forged metal. I dont believe the target of the forgery gains any investiture from being stamped. The stamp itself likely contains investiture, but that's not quite the same thing. The stamp is a focal point of the investiture, and so is definitely more invested than the rest, but there is a sustained change to the object as a whole so I believe it would be invested itself. Regardless, this wouldn't work for Nightblood anyway. All of Sel's magics are location dependant. A stamped object on Sel wouldn't function off world, so a stamped sword on Nalthis would break the connection to the magic and return to its regular form.
+Extesian he/him Posted June 6, 2017 Posted June 6, 2017 13 minutes ago, Calderis said: The stamp is a focal point of the investiture, and so is definitely more invested than the rest, but there is a sustained change to the object as a whole so I believe it would be invested itself. Regardless, this wouldn't work for Nightblood anyway. All of Sel's magics are location dependant. A stamped object on Sel wouldn't function off world, so a stamped sword on Nalthis would break the connection to the magic and return to its regular form. Yeah the object itself is invested Quote QUESTION If you Stamp yourself, so you have an overridden Spirit Web, and then you get Spiked… [laughter] What would happen? BRANDON SANDERSON We’ve actually worked this one out, so. [laughter] QUESTION Well, you’d die, or very close to it, but would the Stamp revert? BRANDON SANDERSON So what’s probably going to happen here is that you’re going to rip off the Investiture you’ve put on your soul, and your own soul will have less damage. Now, the Spike is only gonna get the-- the Spike, you’re like ‘what will it do?’ It will do what you’ve been overwritten with, but remember, becoming an Allomancer requires so much energy, and things like--Ehh, it is theoretically possible in the Cosmere to rewrite yourself ‘you’re an allomancer’, someone Spikes you to get this. The Investiture doesn’t care that it was fake on you, you have managed to get that Investiture to work. Uhh, this is really tough. And really, like, you need Connection, and Investiture, but yes it rips off, and you have made a Spike that makes you an Allomancer, even though the person was a forger. But this is the kind of stuff that is like the thought experiments for physicists in the Cosmere as opposed to, yenno. Also I've seen people say that a stamp will fail off Sel. Do we know this? Yeah the Dor is location dependent. But a stamp infuses the target with investiture and then wears out and must be replaced. I agree that the stamp won't take if it's not applied on Sel. But if it's applied on Sel then the target goes offworld do we have any knowledge that it would fail immediately? Or just once the stamp wears out? Realmatically, if it needs a constant influx of investiture it should. But it feels to me like a stamp gives a one off influx or investiture that wears out. I may be off the mark but this is a question I've had for a bit. 1
Calderis he/him Posted June 6, 2017 Posted June 6, 2017 6 hours ago, Extesian said: Yeah the object itself is invested Also I've seen people say that a stamp will fail off Sel. Do we know this? Yeah the Dor is location dependent. But a stamp infuses the target with investiture and then wears out and must be replaced. I agree that the stamp won't take if it's not applied on Sel. But if it's applied on Sel then the target goes offworld do we have any knowledge that it would fail immediately? Or just once the stamp wears out? Realmatically, if it needs a constant influx of investiture it should. But it feels to me like a stamp gives a one off influx or investiture that wears out. I may be off the mark but this is a question I've had for a bit. Two things. First, the way I understood it living things are already changing, so stamps need to be reapplied. But for inanimate objects the stamp is a one off. Second, you could be totally right. My brain fixated on location dependence and never consider the investiture being internalized enough to act passively. I guess it could go either way. Combine those two things and I suppose a stamped object could be exported off of Sel. A Person would have a lot more problems since you have to reapply. 1
+Extesian he/him Posted June 6, 2017 Posted June 6, 2017 Sometimes I realize I've missed some basic realmatic fundamentals, usually when it's something in a book that I haven't reread in a long time. You're right about living vs non-living @Calderis, I think. I can't believe I hadn't realized that. Cheers! But yeah I've been wondering about this soulstamp location-dependence for a while. I'll put it on Q&A.
Darkness he/him Posted June 6, 2017 Posted June 6, 2017 (edited) 17 hours ago, Extesian said: Yeah the object itself is invested Also I've seen people say that a stamp will fail off Sel. Do we know this? Yeah the Dor is location dependent. But a stamp infuses the target with investiture and then wears out and must be replaced. I agree that the stamp won't take if it's not applied on Sel. But if it's applied on Sel then the target goes offworld do we have any knowledge that it would fail immediately? Or just once the stamp wears out? Realmatically, if it needs a constant influx of investiture it should. But it feels to me like a stamp gives a one off influx or investiture that wears out. I may be off the mark but this is a question I've had for a bit. upvoted for the timely WoB (read it previously, found it fascinating, promptly forgot haha), and great line of reasoning. I've been swayed along the lines of one-off, etc. In the specific case of Nightblood: if he was stamped, I feel that he was changed by his awakening sufficiently for any stamps to have faded. So I'm going to very briefly delve into semantics here. Does it count as 'invested metal' if the investiture is overlaying the object, and not actually infusing it? Because both forged objects and hemalurgic spikes seem to have investiture stuck or stapled to them, but not actually infusing them like a metalmind or (probably) god-metal. Edited June 6, 2017 by Darkness planning to see brandon at Supanova in 10 days... i'll add stamp location and metal infusion to my list of 70+ questions haha
+Extesian he/him Posted June 6, 2017 Posted June 6, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, Darkness said: upvoted for the timely WoB (read it previously, found it fascinating, promptly forgot haha), and great line of reasoning. I've been swayed along the lines of one-off, etc. In the specific case of Nightblood: if he was stamped, I feel that he was changed by his awakening sufficiently for any stamps to have faded. So I'm going to very briefly delve into semantics here. Does it count as 'invested metal' if the investiture is overlaying the object, and not actually infusing it? Because both forged objects and hemalurgic spikes seem to have investiture stuck or stapled to them, but not actually infusing them like a metalmind or (probably) god-metal. Yeah I've just put it up as a Q&A rather than a theory to see if anyone can blow it out of the water. If it seems to be right I'll put it on my realmatic misunderstanding thread. Edit - Oversleep answered my question here. Quote Viper So do soulstamps get weaker further from MaiPon? If you left Sel via Shadesmar and went to another planet, would the soulstamp stop working? Brandon Sanderson That's correct. As for the investiture in spikes, this Quote HEROWANNABE How about a spike charged with Hemalurgy? Not in a person. BRANDON SANDERSON Not in a person? It depends on how strong—yeah. A spike is moderately—in the realm of these sorts of things—moderately easy to push on, because a spike does not rip off very much investiture. Only enough to short circuit the soul, and it loses that over time. So I would put that at the bottom—with the top being very hard—to be one of the easier things. So i think the answer is that a spike is invested but not as invested as you'd think. For something that messes with your soul so much it doesn't take a lot of investiture as it's a short circuit. I'll spoiler that whole WoB as it's informative for anyone who hasn't seen it. Spoiler HEROWANNABE I’m curious, I’ve got a list of various cosmere bits of metal, and I wonder if you would rank them from like 1 to 10 or easy to difficult on how hard it would be to steelpush on them? BRANDON SANDERSON Okay. HEROWANNABE So, like metal inside a person’s body? BRANDON SANDERSON It depends on how strong the investiture in them is. HEROWANNABE Is that going to be the answer for all of these? BRANDON SANDERSON Probably. HEROWANNABE How about a spike charged with Hemalurgy? Not in a person. BRANDON SANDERSON Not in a person? It depends on how strong—yeah. A spike is moderately—in the realm of these sorts of things—moderately easy to push on, because a spike does not rip off very much investiture. Only enough to short circuit the soul, and it loses that over time. So I would put that at the bottom—with the top being very hard—to be one of the easier things. HEROWANNABE How about a metalmind? A feruchemy metalmind that is "full." BRANDON SANDERSON That is going to be middle of the realm. Generally easier than, for instance, a shardblade, which is going to be very hard. AARADEL But a shardblade isn’t actual metal. Ish? BRANDON SANDERSON Ish. Is Lerasium a metal? Yeah. HEROWANNABE So would that be the same for Shardplate, too? BRANDON SANDERSON Shardplate and blade are very hard. Blade is probably going to be harder. [...] HEROWANNABE Halfshard? Like a halfshard shield? BRANDON SANDERSON Halfshard shield is going to be in moderate. HEROWANNABE Nightblood? I imagine is going to be very difficult. BRANDON SANDERSON Very hard. Of all the things you’ve listed, he’s the hardest. Far beyond even a shardblade. HEROWANNABE Far beyond metal inside a person? BRANDON SANDERSON Yes, depending on how invested the person is. AARADEL If someone was invested as much as Nightblood I’m pretty sure it’s going to be very difficult. BRANDON SANDERSON Yes, for instance, the Godking, at the end, with all of those Breaths. Pushing on something inside of him? Getting through all that? Gonna be REAL hard. Average person on Scadrial? You’ve seen how hard that is. A drab? Much easier. HEROWANNABE That was actually going to be my next one- No, sorry, not a drab, a Lifeless. BRANDON SANDERSON A Lifeless. Lifeless are kinda weird, because they’ve had their soul leave, but then they’ve had a replacement stuck in, in the form of Breath, which puts them in a really weird position compared to a Drab, which has had part of their investiture ripped away, but the majority of it remains. So anyway, I’m going to give you one more. Pick your favorite. HEROWANNABE Okay, a soul-stamped piece of metal. BRANDON SANDERSON A soul-stamped piece of metal is going to be on the lower, easier side. Not a lot of investiture going on in a soulstamp. Edited June 7, 2017 by Extesian
Darkness he/him Posted June 7, 2017 Posted June 7, 2017 4 hours ago, Extesian said: Yeah I've just put it up as a Q&A rather than a theory to see if anyone can blow it out of the water. If it seems to be right I'll put it on my realmatic misunderstanding thread. Edit - Oversleep answered my question here. As for the investiture in spikes, this So i think the answer is that a spike is invested but not as invested as you'd think. For something that messes with your soul so much it doesn't take a lot of investiture as it's a short circuit. I'll spoiler that whole WoB as it's informative for anyone who hasn't seen it. that's a nice confirmation for soulstamps, but I'm not convinced the push/pull argument answers my confusion about what is actually internally invested and what is just externally bound up in investiture. I guess a better way to ask it would be, 'does a hemalurgic spike absorb the target's piece of soul into itself, or is the piece of soul just kind of tethered to the spike?'
Yata he/him Posted June 7, 2017 Posted June 7, 2017 1 hour ago, Darkness said: that's a nice confirmation for soulstamps, but I'm not convinced the push/pull argument answers my confusion about what is actually internally invested and what is just externally bound up in investiture. I guess a better way to ask it would be, 'does a hemalurgic spike absorb the target's piece of soul into itself, or is the piece of soul just kind of tethered to the spike?' There is really no difference. The Soul is stores in the Spiritual realm. So the Spike's soul merges or links with he stolen One....but also try to find a distinction between merge and link is quite futile for the Realmatic as both the things Will be simply Connections between the two Spiritwebs 1
cometaryorbit Posted June 8, 2017 Posted June 8, 2017 On 6/5/2017 at 1:25 PM, hwiles said: He turns brick walls into clouds of smoke...Admittedly, we don't know that much about Endowment's magic system, but that seems pretty outrageously different from any other awakening we've seen... I don't think that's a function of Awakening as such, except in that it was Awakening that created Nightblood in the first place (but the power to destroy stuff into smoke isn't itself part of that magic system). I think that's a broader-Cosmere consequence of Investing a weapon (or maybe any 'inanimate' physical object) that heavily. Nightblood is a super-Shardblade of sorts, destroying on all three realms rather than the more 'surgical' Spiritual-cut of Rosharan Shardblades; if you could charge up a Rosharan Shardblade to 100x its normal Investiture, it might well do the same thing. A ridiculously super-charged Nicrosilmind blade might do the same too, maybe - depending on whether the Investiture is stored in an inert form or not.
Pattern he/him Posted June 8, 2017 Posted June 8, 2017 The reproducability of Nightblood and him being more invested than 1000 breaths are quite a mystery for me. Where does the additional Investiture come from to make Nightblood saturated and why would this also happen with other hypothetic awakened swords made by Yesteel? I see no problem in Lifeless wielding swords like Nightblood, since they are so sticky for Breath, that the Breath to awaken a Lifeless cannot be retained, so also Nightblood should be unable to take that Breath away and kill the Lifeless in the process. He probably would just be a shardblade-like sword being able to cut stuff really well without the other effects that happen when he consumes Breath. Bad enough for Vasher to kill Shashara to prevent this happening, I think. So, was Nightblood really as strongly invested as he is now, when he was created? I don't think so. Nightblood was used quite soon after creation and fed on vast amounts of Breath in the process (probably far more than the 1000 breaths necessary to create him). If he consumed and digested this Breath, with the black smoke he emits as digestion waste, it would be possible for Nightblood to fill himself to the brink with Investiture that is not in the form of Breath anymore and in consequence not detectable as such. For Vasher it would still look as if Nightblood still had only the Investiture of 1000 Breaths while the more cosmere aware observer would realize that Nightblood is saturated. If this feeding on Breath is a typical (but before unexpected) feature of Class IV Entities, the same would also happen with other swords created with Awakening. Perhaps this is a side effect of making Breath stick to metal at all. Usually only organic materials can be awakened, so perhaps to awaken anorganic matter there is needed some general attraction to Investiture to make the Breaths stick at all, resulting in an Investiture-draining object. The aquired sentience of a Class IV entity might alter the Intent of the Investiture (according to the Command used for Awakening), leading to "corrupted" Investiture. Here Nightblood could be interpreted as a mini-Shard with the Intent to "Destroy Evil" and its own form of Investiture. While drawing Breaths, the Investiture of Endowment, there happens a mixing of Investiture or at least a transformation. The same would be valid for Stormlight. Nightblood feeds on Investiture, digests it and leaves some waste in form of black smoke. This of course breaks down, if Nightblood had been saturated with Investiture right after creation before first use. For this to be the case though, the additional Investiture has to come from somewhere. And the source has to be able to be tapped many times, since the danger of more swords like Nightbloods is real. Another point: When the person wielding Nightblood runs out of Breaths, Nightblood feeds on the wielder's soul. How many Breaths worth has a whole soul (a breath being only a small part of a person's soul on Nalthis, endowable)? The first digested soul plus the 1000 Breaths to create Nightblood could also be interpreted as mixed Investiture, since the unendowable part of a soul is not really the same kind of Investiture as an endowable Breath. And perhaps 1 soul + 1000 Breaths is enough to create a highly Invested sword. 1
Yata he/him Posted June 8, 2017 Posted June 8, 2017 7 hours ago, Pattern said: I see no problem in Lifeless wielding swords like Nightblood, since they are so sticky for Breath, that the Breath to awaken a Lifeless cannot be retained, so also Nightblood should be unable to take that Breath away and kill the Lifeless in the process. He probably would just be a shardblade-like sword being able to cut stuff really well without the other effects that happen when he consumes Breath. Bad enough for Vasher to kill Shashara to prevent this happening, I think. The Soul is perfectly sticky to the Humans too but Nightblood could feed of It. 7 hours ago, Pattern said: The aquired sentience of a Class IV entity might alter the Intent of the Investiture (according to the Command used for Awakening), leading to "corrupted" Investiture. Here Nightblood could be interpreted as a mini-Shard with the Intent to "Destroy Evil" and its own form of Investiture. While drawing Breaths, the Investiture of Endowment, there happens a mixing of Investiture or at least a transformation. The same would be valid for Stormlight. Nightblood feeds on Investiture, digests it and leaves some waste in form of black smoke. I was a fan of this idea months ago but as change Intent to the Investiture is something extremely hard for Shard-level being. I think It's unlikely. 7 hours ago, Pattern said: This of course breaks down, if Nightblood had been saturated with Investiture right after creation before first use. For this to be the case though, the additional Investiture has to come from somewhere. And the source has to be able to be tapped many times, since the danger of more swords like Nightbloods is real. Another point: When the person wielding Nightblood runs out of Breaths, Nightblood feeds on the wielder's soul. How many Breaths worth has a whole soul (a breath being only a small part of a person's soul on Nalthis, endowable)? The first digested soul plus the 1000 Breaths to create Nightblood could also be interpreted as mixed Investiture, since the unendowable part of a soul is not really the same kind of Investiture as an endowable Breath. And perhaps 1 soul + 1000 Breaths is enough to create a highly Invested sword. The problem here is that as far as we know maybe Nightblood never (directly) killed Someone. So the Soul's theory could be possible but high speculative. 7 hours ago, Pattern said:
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