Vasher's Divine Breath on Roshar

[Killik he/him]

So, presumably this has been asked, but I couldn't find it.  Please direct me if there is already a thread for it.

Vasher must replenish his Divine Breath on a Nalthis weekly cycle.  I also haven't found threads on this but I know they exist, I am assuming that he can substitute stormlight for eating a breath.  That is all well and good but what does he do during The Weeping, particularly the one with no Highstorm in the middle?

Is the Rosharan weekly cycle shorter than Nalthis so he can (very luckily) survive on the gemstones that hold their light long enough until The Weeping ends?  Can he even draw stormlight from a gemstone like a surgebinder or would he need the raw investiture of the storm itself?

 

[Droughtbringer]

We have a lot of speculation across the Cosmere section of this website, but no real concrete answer. We just know that he does stuff and lives.

[Weltall]

We know that Vasher subsists on Stormlight most of the time, which means that he's covered for effectively the entire year aside from the twenty days of the Weeping. A week on Nalthis is seven days so he only needs to go three weeks without a new source of Investiture, give or take depending on when the last highstorm before the Weeping and the first after it arrive. And every other year there's a highstorm in the middle of the Weeping. Figure that he might be able to store some Stormlight in gems at the beginning of the Weeping and he might only need two weeks worth of Investiture in a given year. That's not a whole lot.

Now remember that could have a store of Breaths either within himself (with some trick being done to supress the color aura) or stored in one of his possessions and so it's not hard to imagine that he has an emergency reserve to see himself through the Weepings if he can't get Investiture any other way. He ended Warbreaker with roughly two hundred Breaths (per the epilogue he had enough to reach the Second Heightening) and could certainly have obtained more afterwards. For illustrative purposes, let's assume that he was still at that point when he worldhopped to Roshar and needs three weeks worth every year. Realistically he'd probably need slightly less on average but we'll just go with that. 200/3=66.67, he can survive for a long time on that.

[+Extesian he/him]

A perfectly cut gem holds stormlight extremely well and we've seen big gems still have stormlight late in the weeping. I think he can easily last out the weeping.

Just a note Weltall, a rosharan week is 5 days, not 7.

As to how he gets Stormlight, we don't really know but 

Quote

Q: Does Vasher have a different way of getting access to stormlight than everyone else? Given that he has no spren, no honorblade and he isn't a squire?
A: Yes. He can use stormlight to stay alive, but it doesn't let him Surgebind.
Q: Could Szeth get access to this method?
A: Yes
Q: And use it to fuel Nightblood?
A: Yes he could
Q: Can you tell me what that method is?
A: <Smile>

 

Edited September 20, 2017 by Extesian

[Khyrindor he/him]

3 hours ago, Extesian said:

Just a note Weltall, a rosharan week is 5 days, not 7.

1

Erm, he did say Nalthian week, not Rosharan. 

[+Extesian he/him]

51 minutes ago, Rider of Storms said:

Erm, he did say Nalthian week, not Rosharan. 

Touche  sorry weltall, that's what i get for not reading carefully! Mea culpa

[BlackYeti he/him]

Remember that Vasher has demonstrated that he still has life sense. Therefore he must have a large stockpile of Breath (enough to reach one of the Heightenings), which he could use in place of Stormlight if he ever ran out.

[knightedbishop he/him]

Seems a lot unknown at this point. Since Brandon refused to elaborate, Vasher’s method of harvesting Stormlight could have story implications. 

 

I wonder what what the equivalency is. How much Stormlight equals one Breath? Even Breaths seem not exactly equivalent. In warbreaker there is mention of some people having particularly strong Breath, plus there the Divine Breath of the Returned. 

 

Could be that that a single gem equals a few Breaths. Could be that Vasher can store Stormlight just like he stores Breath, and therefore have a stockpile. I wonder if Stormlight can help him reach the Heightenings. Can it fuel Awakening off of Nalthis? We know Nightblood can also feed on Stormlight. Once it’s taken in by a conscious entity, is Investiture all just one pool to draw from?

[Yata he/him]

22 minutes ago, knightedbishop said:

I Ionder what what the equivalency is. How much Stormlight equals one Breath? Even Breaths seem not exactly equivalent. In warbreaker there is mention of some people having particularly strong Breath, plus there the Divine Breath of the Returned. 

The Divine Breath is a totally different thing at all, It is a Splinter of Endowment, while Breath are Just a bunch of Investiture (the same difference between a Spren and Stormlight).

24 minutes ago, knightedbishop said:

 Could be that that a single gem equals a few Breaths. Could be that Vasher can store Stormlight just like he stores Breath, and therefore have a stockpile. I wonder if Stormlight can help him reach the Heightenings. Can it fuel Awakening off of Nalthis? We know Nightblood can also feed on Stormlight. Once it’s taken in by a conscious entity, is Investiture all just one pool to draw from?

It's possible the opposite, multiple infused gems could worth a Breath, we don't know the ratio.

By the way I strongly disagree both of he stockpiling of Stormlight ad the Stormlight has properties completely different from Breath and the possibility for Vasher to reach highter Heightenings with Stormlight.

Breath acts in a unique (for now) way. It has both Innate and Kinetic Investiture's properties. While it works as Innate Investiture It gifts Heightening... In Kinetic Investiture mode, It no. Stormlight instead has not an Innate Investiture's profilo (and It's not strage as Almost no other Kinetic Investiture acts like Innate other than Breath).

[Mulk he/him]

I wonder if it would be proper to say then that being Returned, the cannibalization of breath that prioritizes the non-Divine breaths and the Divine Breath as a last resort instead of being hard-coded to Breath is instead hard-coded to Investiture of any sort and not specifically Breaths - meaning it can feed off whatever Investiture the Returned has to offer it.  Whatever the ratio is, clearly Vasher already knows it and can plan for it.  So, in theory, if Vasher had eaten a bead of lerasium and could store and burn metals, it could cannibalize that instead of Breath as well.  Interesting.  I'm curious to see how that works on screen at some point.  I'm also curious how Vasher figured out how to make use of Stormlight for this purpose without having the necessary spirit web cracks to invite a Nahel bond - or if he is properly cracked, without having yet bonded a spren to allow him to inhale and make use of Stormlight.

I'd agree with Yata about stockpiling of Stormlight - clearly that is not something that can be done, not in the amounts that Breaths can be done. I like the terms Kinetic and Innate - I don't know if they are something you invented @Yata or if you got them from somewhere but it's a fantastic way to differentiate it, or so I think.

[Yata he/him]

1 hour ago, Mulk said:

I wonder if it would be proper to say then that being Returned, the cannibalization of breath that prioritizes the non-Divine breaths and the Divine Breath as a last resort instead of being hard-coded to Breath is instead hard-coded to Investiture of any sort and not specifically Breaths - meaning it can feed off whatever Investiture the Returned has to offer it

Yeah the Returned need to feed of Investiture regardless of the form, I believe that more than "the Returned priorizes the regular breath before the Divine", it's actually the Divine Breath who operate to keep the Returned alive with everything it has avaliable...So the Divine Breath simply consume all the other Investiture and then, itself.

1 hour ago, Mulk said:

So, in theory, if Vasher had eaten a bead of lerasium and could store and burn metals, it could cannibalize that instead of Breath as well.  Interesting.  I'm curious to see how that works on screen at some point. 

It's possible, without doubt. But it will not be easy to performe. The Preservation's Stream is a bit less manipulable than Breath or Stormlight (there is a WoB somewhere on a Surgebinder fueled by Breath or Preservation's power that explain this a bit) so It could be done, but we don't know the amount to workaround to make it possible.

1 hour ago, Mulk said:

I'm also curious how Vasher figured out how to make use of Stormlight for this purpose without having the necessary spirit web cracks to invite a Nahel bond - or if he is properly cracked, without having yet bonded a spren to allow him to inhale and make use of Stormlight.

I had a theory in this regard but it was proved false but remember Vasher is in a certain way already bonded with a Splinter (the Divine Breath), I believed it was the cause of his ability to use Stormlight (you could fina a more detailed explaination in my signature) but we know for WoB that Szeth could use the same way Vasher does to obtains Investiture to use safety Nightblood (by the way this doesn't mean he will do it, just that it's possible for him to performe the same trick) therefore my Returned-trick isn't right.

1 hour ago, Mulk said:

I'd agree with Yata about stockpiling of Stormlight - clearly that is not something that can be done, not in the amounts that Breaths can be done. I like the terms Kinetic and Innate - I don't know if they are something you invented @Yata or if you got them from somewhere but it's a fantastic way to differentiate it, or so I think.

Acutally those are not my terms, they are actually Canon term to Investiture.
Kinetic Investiture is the Investiture in use. It acts as a stream of power (A Seeker feels the Kinetic Investiture's usage)

The Innate Investiture is a bit more complex to explain but it's the Investiture who compose the Soul or Investiture stable in a passive way (by the way, the Lifesense detect Innate Investiture)

My explaination is a bit lacking but I don't think this is the best place to talk of this...If you want I am sure you could find a better explaination here on the forum

[Weltall]

2 hours ago, Mulk said:

@YataSo, in theory, if Vasher had eaten a bead of lerasium and could store and burn metals, it could cannibalize that instead of Breath as well.

Per Word of Brandon, other forms of Investiture would work but some are easier to access than others. For example, we're told that Taldain would be a good place for Vasher to get easy Investiture, except that it's currently impossible to travel there. Scadrial would be "a lot harder" but it would be possible.

3 hours ago, knightedbishop said:

I wonder if Stormlight can help him reach the Heightenings. Can it fuel Awakening off of Nalthis?

Brandon has said that Vasher has tried to Awaken using Stormlight but hasn't been successful. Given the way Breath works, it may not be possible to substitute another Shard's Investiture for it and get the same results. Or it may be and Vasher hasn't figured out the trick yet, but if so I suspect the hack would have to be pretty complicated. The way that he feeds off Stormlight in place of Breath is much simpler, since his Divine Breath doesn't care what form of Investiture it gets as long as it receives an amount equivalent to one Breath every Nalthian week.

[kmosiman]

I agree with that concept.

There's a scene where Vin tries to burn some metal that was Invested by someone else. She can sense the extra power, but she can't use it.

I think Vasher would have the same sort of issue. He can get the power, he can eat the power, but he can't use the power to Awaken.

[Killik he/him]

18 hours ago, kmosiman said:

I think Vasher would have the same sort of issue. He can get the power, he can eat the power, but he can't use the power to Awaken.

I was reading through a thread on the Warbreaker forum dealing with the investiture and catalyst of the Nalthis MS.  There was some question to whether or not the Tears of Egli was required to be used in the dye of something to draw the color as a catalyst for Awakening.  Certain scenes of Warbreaker make it seem like this is not the case and that an Awakener can draw the color from any item, but perhaps all things Nalthis are innately invested by Endowment and so can be used. 

If that is the case, then perhaps color from Nalthis must be used and that's why Vasher hasn't yet been successful.  You would think he would have tried this, but as we don't know the circumstances of his worldhopping, its possible he came to Roshar with only items that had already been drained of color.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

On 9/28/2017 at 10:02 AM, Killik said:

There was some question to whether or not the Tears of Edgli was required to be used in the dye of something to draw the color as a catalyst for Awakening.  Certain scenes of Warbreaker make it seem like this is not the case and that an Awakener can draw the color from any item, but perhaps all things Nalthis are innately invested by Endowment and so can be used. 

Personally, I don't like either of those theories, as they'd make awakening useless in the rest of the Cosmere. We've already done that with Sel, and Awakening isn't as overpowered as AonDor is. I just don't think it needs that extra restriction.

[Guck]

Here is another thought. On Nalthis, there are limited breaths. A large amount of breaths on Nalthis could be nothing compared to the amount of spren on Roshar. If Vasher were to have a large amount of breaths on Nalthis, the amount would cause a color aura to show around him. It's entirely possible he has managed to gain so much stormlight on Roshar that not only does he never really need to worry about breaths again, but the color aura is so huge, the entire planet is bathed in it, so you wouldn't be able to notice it.

Edited October 12, 2017 by Guck

[Weltall]

Given that even the God Kings don't have a breath aura anywhere near that powerful, the amount of Investiture he'd need to absorb to get that kind of effect (if it's even possible) would be mind-boggling. We're talking Shard-level here. And Stormlight is noticeably 'leaky' so the idea that he's able to retain Stormlight for any length of time is questionable. It's much more likely that he either has a trick to completely supress his breath aura in a manner like he supresses his Divine Breath or he leaves most/all of his Breath reserves stored in some handy object so that he simply doesn't have an aura in the first place.

[Yata he/him]

Like weltall said Vasher could not stock Stormlight ad he does with Breath. They have simply a different amount of stickyness.

Vasher doesn't neither Need an huge amount of Breath to survive on Roshar.

1-2 Breath for years (and Just when the calendar is aganist himself) is enough for him to survive. For the rest the Stormlight is so freely avaliable to not worry.

Vasher is also suppressing his Divine Breath in Roshar and He probably carry in himself not too much Breath or He becomed good to Mask them.

We already saw someone capable of goiing around with 100-200 Breath in Roshar wihtout expose himself...so no really hard to believe.

On a last note, people on Roshar has no experience with Biochroma and they have not Breath to start... for them is really harder to notice someone else Biochroma compared to a Nalthis guy.