[OB] Radiant Spren

[Nedyah Drallid]

Now, I know there have been multiple threads with this topic, but I haven't found one that just talks specifically about the spree. So here, now that we have seen ten different kinds of salient spree, I thought it would be nice to try to match them up. I will be listing the Order, Spren (My best guess), the mascot spren, and the underlying principle they personify. Here we go:

Windrunners:

Honorspren

Windspren

Honor

 

Lightweavers:

Liespren/Cryptics

Creationspren

The underlying mathematics and numbers of the world

 

Elsecallers:

Inkspren

Logicspren

Knowledge? (If ink represents words)

 

Bondsmiths:

Superspren

Gloryspren (At least for the Stormfather one)

Roshar? (Going by the theory of Growing/Sky/Sea/Earth/etc.)

 

Releasers:

Ashspren

Firespren? (Someone else's theory I have mixed feelings about)

Ruin/Destruction (Makes logical sense)

 

Skybreakers:

Highspren

Starspren? (It sounds viable)

Morals/Ethics/Law/Justice?

 

Stonewards:

Stonespren/Foundationspren/Earthspren (Based on Shadesmar description)

?

?

 

Edgedancers:

Cultivationspren

Lifespren

Cultivation

 

Truthwatchers:

????

?

?

 

Willshapers:

Likely Lightspren, but not quite confirmed

?

Mystery? (I don't know, I'm reaching here)

Edited December 20, 2017 by Nedyah Drallid

[Trayal]

Happy to see this topic, as this list is something I've been trying to figure out for awhile now. I think we've been given hints from the very beginning by the list of ten essences that exist in the Ars Arcanum of the books (or here: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Ten_Essences). Pay particular attention to the "Essence" or "Soulcasting Properties" or "Divine Attributes" columns. For example, 'zephyr' is defined as a light wind, and 'transparent gas/air', which both fit in with windspren for Windrunners.

Some of these are not obvious. For example - Elsecallers essence is 'Tallow' - what does that have to do with inkspren? Well, tallow, wax, soap, and similar substances were often ingredients in the making of ink. For the divine attributes, 'wise' and 'careful' thought could be defined as logic, so 'logicspren' would fit well.

Releasers have a 'listed Body focus' of 'the soul' so maybe the name 'Releasers' has something to do with releasing the soul of things? It seems likely that their mascot is flamespren.

Willshapers have essence/properties of foil/metal, and I'm not sure where to go with that. Mirrorspren? Doesn't seem likely. Maybe something to do with forging or smithing? One of their attributes is building. Kelek, the representative Herald of the order, is mentioned as teaching how to cast bronze at the beginning of desolations.

And so on. Lots of information to play with.

[Kardenal_13 he/him]

Skybreakers I'd probably go with Law or Justice, though I'm not sure which one atm... Law seems to fit more with what we know about them but Nale is the Herald of Justice. I don't think Morality or Ethics fit since from what we've seen Skybreakers don't think about what's right or why it's right, they just choose a code and stick to it. I'm leaning toward Law here.

Is there a post for the Releasers' mascot spren being Flamespren? If not why do you have mixed feelings about it? Also I'm not sure about Chaos/Destruction as their principle since it seems a bit too close to Ruin for me. I don't really have a replacement though. One of Chanarach's virtues is Bravery, so maybe that?

I think the attribute that the Willshapers have would probably be Curiosity given the description we get of them in WoR. As for the name of their spren I think of Timbre as a Cometspren (since that's what she looks like). I personally don't think that Mist or Fog, mostly because if we're gonna name it for something real than Comet makes more sense than those. As to their mascot spren (I love this name BTW), I think Awespren are a likely candidate, if we take curiosity as the underlying principle of the WIllshapers (plus both of their physical forms involve rings in some sense, which got me thinking about this).

5 hours ago, Nedyah Drallid said:

As to Captain Ico's daughter, I assumed that was either Glys or The Stump's spree. He never said how recently it happened.

Glys is a "He" or at least Renarin has referred to him as such, so I don't think that he is could be the captain's daughter. That makes me think that Timbre probably IS the Ico's daughter, making HER a Lightspren.

[Nedyah Drallid]

I've seen the flamespren mascot mentioned in a few other threads. I haven't seen any evidence for it, but it seems plausible and worth a mention.

My issue with curiosity and bravery is that they are a bit too human based for underlying concepts of the universe, but maybe I misread that part.

The reason I went with mistspren is because we saw them as one of the sapient spren type in Shadesmar. Maybe there are just random sapient spren races, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that. I called them mistspren because that what they are called in the book, but maybe that's a misnomer and they are really something like mysteryspren or twilightspren or curiosityspren.

 

I forgot Glys was a he, but it could still be Stump's spren, or even Ym's. Brandon Sanderson has made a point of consistently describing them as light reflected through a gemstone. I don't think that there is a better name for that kind of spren, and Timbre didn't really strike me as the cognitive embodiment of light.

 

Finally, on to the mascot spren. I like awespren as mascot and think it likely. Other possibilities include starspren, luckspren (my current choice for the skybreakers), musicspren (the one with the Ryshadiums), and passionspren. I was trying to think of relatively common ones that seemed to be above base emotions. Don't know if passion count, but they seemed powerful. I was just imagining a Radiant swearing one if his oaths, surrounded by hundreds of hungerspren, or winespren. Not really the most radiant of scenes.

[TheEdgedancer]

Im afraid that the WIllshaper spren is actually most likely Reachers, or lightspren, though it hasn't been confirmed, as they have the same attributes/personality as Willshapers were described of and Ico says his daughter ran off chasing stupid dreams, and mentioned that his father was a deadeye. Timbre mentions that her father died in the Recreance(is a deadeye). Timbre looks like a ball of light, which is probably where the name lightspren comes from.

[DocHoliday he/him]

Winds Spren are sapient enough to mimic voices, so do river spren according to Kaladin in WoK

[Nedyah Drallid]

1 hour ago, DocHoliday said:

Winds Spren are sapient enough to mimic voices, so do river spren according to Kaladin in WoK

But at the same time in our world, so do parrots, and they aren't sapient

[RShara she/her]

Is the Bondsmith's underlying principle maybe Connection? We know Connection is a fundamental Cosmere principle.

[thejopen27 he/him]

Candidate for Skybreaker mascot spren; Star-spren. 

[DocHoliday he/him]

1 hour ago, Nedyah Drallid said:

But at the same time in our world, so do parrots, and they aren't sapient

Well, in the Cosmere they bond Chickens to! 

Let's not discount possibilities

[Nedyah Drallid]

3 hours ago, RShara said:

Is the Bondsmith's underlying principle maybe Connection? We know Connection is a fundamental Cosmere principle.

That's a good guess, the reason I'd didn't write any theories is that we don't know about the other two bondsmiths. They might very well be essentially their own orders in and of themselves. We don't have much to go on.

Edit: I forgot that I wrote the theory of Roshar there, and thus contradicted myself. Although, connection actually works with Do what.

Edited November 30, 2017 by Nedyah Drallid

[TheEdgedancer]

I'm afraid that the WIllshaper spren is actually most likely Reachers, or lightspren, though it hasn't been confirmed, as they have the same attributes/personality as Willshapers were described of, not Truthwatchers and Ico says his daughter ran off chasing stupid dreams, and mentioned that his father was a deadeye. Timbre mentions that her grandfather died in the Recreance(is a deadeye). Timbre looks like a little ball of light, and so it would make sense that she is a lightspren. Sure the Turthwatcherspren do look like light, but they look like "light as if you shone it through a prism", or "light growing in the shapes of plants", while Timbre who based on evidence above looks most like a lightspren, is a "ball of light". The spren tha was going to bond with Eshonai was Timbre. Finally, Brandon Sanderson himself said in a WoB after Oathbringer was released, that he didn't want to canonize the Truthwatcherspren, meaning that we hadn't met them yet.

[duladen he/him]

On 11/30/2017 at 2:01 AM, thejopen27 said:

Candidate for Skybreaker mascot spren; Star-spren. 

For some reason I thought this was confirmed, but now I can't recall where it would have been. Maybe just because the Highspren look like veils of stars.

[The Sovereign]

34 minutes ago, TheEdgedancer said:

I'm afraid that the WIllshaper spren is actually most likely Reachers, or lightspren, though it hasn't been confirmed, as they have the same attributes/personality as Willshapers were described of, not Truthwatchers and Ico says his daughter ran off chasing stupid dreams, and mentioned that his father was a deadeye. Timbre mentions that her grandfather died in the Recreance(is a deadeye). Timbre looks like a little ball of light, and so it would make sense that she is a lightspren. Sure the Turthwatcherspren do look like light, but they look like "light as if you shone it through a prism", or "light growing in the shapes of plants", while Timbre who based on evidence above looks most like a lightspren, is a "ball of light". The spren tha was going to bond with Eshonai was Timbre. Finally, Brandon Sanderson himself said in a WoB after Oathbringer was released, that he didn't want to canonize the Truthwatcherspren, meaning that we hadn't met them yet.

I think we have scoured up enough evidence to confidently say that the Lightspren (Reachers) are the Willshaper Spren.

[Sandra she/her]

Hi Original Poster (can someone enlighten me and tell me how I link people in a post? thanks :))

How about adding the description of the sentient spren:

Honorspren - blue skin

Liespren/Cryptics: black with patterns instead of faces

Inkspren: black shiny skin

Superspren (e.g. Stormfather)

Ashspren: white with skin resembling ash

Highspren: no idea

Stonespren/Foundationspren/Earthspren (Based on Shadesmar description): cracking skin

Cultivationspren: made of vines with crystal hands

 

As The Sovereign said, I also vote for changing the Truthwatcher and Willshaper sprens:

Truthwatchers:

Lightspren / Reachers: bronzy Skin with golden eyes

Willshapers:

Fogspren/Mistspren: Looks like fog (HA)

[Nedyah Drallid]

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond, I've been busy. You guys raised some valid points about lightspren, so I changed the original post. My last dying effort to keep Lightspren with the truthwatchers is to bring up the possibility that Timbre is a lightspren just like Glys, but Timbre is in a different shape because she's with a parshendi. I'd think that an inkspren bonded to a parshendi would look like a parshendi, because of the way the parshendi viewed Inkspren. I see a lot of issues with this theory, but I might as well throw it up as a final defense.