[OB] Where are the "Voidblades"?

[Jofwu]

Just curious what people think about this. As far as I can remember, the Fused and the rest of Odium's forces fight with regular, mundane weapons. We also see them trying to get their hands on as many Shards as possible. While this could be a matter of simply disarming the humans, they seem to think those weapons would be very useful.

Why don't Odium's forces have magical weapons of their own? Have we just not seen any yet, or are they limited from making them somehow?

Can voidspren not become Shardblades because a Nahel-like bond is required? Or maybe that "ability" is something specifically related to Honor (+Cultivation?), which spren related to Odium are unable to do? If either of these were not the case, I'd think Odium would be commanding some of his Voidspren to serve as weapons.

Maybe voidspren can't become Blades for whatever reason. Is there not some other way they could be making similar weapons? Invested weapons that are a more serious threat? Something to give Odium's forces an upper hand? 

Thoughts?

[bo.montier]

8 minutes ago, Ookla the Jof said:

Just curious what people think about this. As far as I can remember, the Fused and the rest of Odium's forces fight with regular, mundane weapons. We also see them trying to get their hands on as many Shards as possible. While this could be a matter of simply disarming the humans, they seem to think those weapons would be very useful.

Why don't Odium's forces have magical weapons of their own? Have we just not seen any yet, or are they limited from making them somehow?

Can voidspren not become Shardblades because a Nahel-like bond is required? Or maybe that "ability" is something specifically related to Honor (+Cultivation?), which spren related to Odium are unable to do? If either of these were not the case, I'd think Odium would be commanding some of his Voidspren to serve as weapons.

Maybe voidspren can't become Blades for whatever reason. Is there not some other way they could be making similar weapons? Invested weapons that are a more serious threat? Something to give Odium's forces an upper hand? 

Thoughts?

Well, I think part of this is how the bond is formed. Regals have to have a voidspren in their gemheart; it's not like the nahel bond where the spren is separate...At least that's my understanding.

[Guest Procrastinationspren]

Perhaps a nahel bond is required in order to the spren become a blade. I think we haven't seen a nahel bond with a voidspren (we don't even know if that's possible). Renarin is still bonded to a non-voidspren, Glys is just corrupted. Maybe the royals (i think that's the name for the singers that have the power forms) relation with voidspren is not sufficient to make that possible. I think that when (if) we see human voidbinders we'll have these kinds of questions answered.

But one thing is a fact: we haven't seen any mention of "voidshards" at all, not even stories of past desolations or books about them or from any individual who might have seen those. So that's a strong point agaist its existance.

[Jofwu]

6 minutes ago, bo.montier said:

Well, I think part of this is how the bond is formed. Regals have to have a voidspren in their gemheart; it's not like the nahel bond where the spren is separate...At least that's my understanding.

This is what I was told on Discord.  Apparently I'm not making my point clearly. This is what I was addressing with "Can voidspren not become Shardblades because a Nahel-like bond is required?" So, yes, this may be the case. I think it would be an interesting observation. One to be followed with "why" and some interesting Realmatics.

But even if the answer is as simple as that for spreblades, I'd think Odium has the knowledge of how to make other Invested, Shardblade-like weapons. Maybe not, but if that's the case... why?  

[Stormfather-in-Law]

Man, if shardblades screamed when held by humans, think of when Odium's minions start using their captured blades.

[Yezrien]

Maybe Odium’s human followers will start bonding Voidspren, and that’ll create Voidshards. Maybe Moash will be the first. Maybe next time his friend Leshwi dies, she’ll try forming a Nahel bond instead of taking a new parshman host.

[The Sovereign]

33 minutes ago, Ookla the Jof said:

"Can voidspren not become Shardblades because a Nahel-like bond is required?" So, yes, this may be the case. I think it would be an interesting observation. One to be followed with "why" and some interesting Realmatics.

There are some interesting implications here regarding the nature of the Bond. To start, we know that Voidspren can become blades (as we have seen Glys turn into one), but I suspect that is due to the Nahel bond. This is speculation but I would guess that typically the Regals' Voidspren cannot manifest as a blade (unless they somehow achieved a Nahel Bond). The Spren is trapped inside of the Singer's Gemheart and as far as I can tell cannot simply leave as they wish. If they are able to manifest as a blade I suspect it would be inside of the Gemheart which seems lets say dangerous for the Singer...

A couple of points should be looked at here: First when Renarin first shows Glys off to Adolin he mentions that Glys wasn't sure if he would be able to or not. I initially read this and thought it was because he wasn't sure if Renarin has progressed far enough into his Oaths. Perhaps it is actually that Voidspren typically cannot. Another thing that warrants consideration is whether or not Glys is a special case as he is apparently a corrupted Truthwatcher Spren.

[dbulick]

I think there are three things going on here.  First a Fused, the soul of a dead parsh, and second a void spren, an evil spren of Odium, and Glys, a corrupted "normal" spren.  I don't believe the fused will be able to summon blades, because they are completely taking over and inhabiting the body.  This isn't like a bond, it is a complete take over of the person.

Not sure what the void spren are going to do, but again it seems as though they have to be inside the Listeners gem heart to provide a form.  I would posit that is definitely a weapon btw.  Glys is a totally different animal.  He formed a nahel bond with a human, so he is not limited by being in a gem heart.

[Jofwu]

1 hour ago, The Sovereign said:

Another thing that warrants consideration is whether or not Glys is a special case as he is apparently a corrupted Truthwatcher Spren.

Yeah, I'm not sure Glys makes for a good example here. A "voidspren" seems to be a distinct type of Odium spren, while Glys definitely seems to be an actual Truthwatcher spren (who has been corrupted). 

[Matt Snow]

Well I would guess that the Voidspren in the Regals gemhearts can't form Shardblades because, iirc, a Shardblade is the physical (or at least MORE physical) manifestation of a spren, so the Voidspren would have to leave the gemheart in order to form.

Assuming of course like others have said here that you don't need a Nahel bond to form a Shardblade, as others have said.

[Carbonationspren]

2 hours ago, Ookla the Jof said:

I'd think Odium would be commanding some of his Voidspren to serve as weapons.

Well, he kind of already does that. That's basically what Thunderclasts are. The Knights Radiant/Honor/Cultivation don't have an equivalent super-huge-rock-beast-warrior-thing. 

Shardblades, though, are mentioned multiple times as being "designed to fight" Thunderclasts. This leads me to believe that Odium (thus far) is unable of creating Voidshards, and has found other ways to create spren-based weapons. 

[+ElephantEarwax]

Spoilered because I don't want trouble.

Spoiler

But we do see the plating shifting to make weapons during the thaylen city battle.

 

[Carbonationspren]

2 minutes ago, Ookla the Elephant said:

Spoiler

But we do see the plating shifting to make weapons during the thaylen city battle.

 

This seems like more evidence that Odium can't create Voidshards, for whatever reason, so he finds ways to adapt. He enhances the Singers/Fused/Royals/Parsh-whatevers so that they can grow their own biological (Investiture-enhanced) weapons. These seem kind of like a Shardplate substitute, but a Shardblade equivalent is still absent. Singers don't have access weapons that can effortlessly cut through any material besides the Shardblades they have captured from humans. 

[Aminar]

I think that the fact they don't exist is kind of why the fighting is so bad. Like... We've had a couple of jealous thoughts from Listener viewpoints about how the Spren prefer humans because of possibly their heightened emotions. Humans get more spren and more out of the spren bond, while needing the spren bond less. And that seems to be kind of the crux of the war. And why at some point there was a deity switch. 

Odium has created weapons that rival the destructive capability of Shards though. Thunderclasts and the omnisurging thing that Amaram became. If he'd been given that power beforehand and had time to master it... Well... Yikes. 

I'm sure Odium has more in store as well. Whatever unmade Szeth hid away will surely be found. (I don't think the one Amaram ate was that one, but rather the one the gives voidlight.)

[Nymeros]

I dunno but its sad....they seem so weak.

[kaellok]

The parsh were the Dawnsingers.  Near the end of tWoK, Honor says, "A champion could work well for you, but it is not certain.  And...without the Dawnshards...Well, I have done what I can.  It is a terrible, terrible thing to leave you alone."  (Note that the ellipses are part of the direct quote.)

I had always taken it to mean that the Dawnshards were some ancient and powerful weapon that the humans had--but knowing who the Dawnsingers actually are, and reading the few sentences with that lens, it could also mean that the Dawnshards had been in service to Odium, but something was done by Honor to prevent them from being used (easily). 

It's a bit of a stretch, but I think it's plausible that the Dawnshards were Voidish in origin, but Honor blocked them away.

@Stormfather-in-Law, I'm not convinced that the Shards are being taken in order to be wielded.  They're still fairly significant amounts of Investiture, and Odium seems like the kind of person petty enough to go to extreme lengths to defile and destroy the remnants of a powerful foe that thwarted him for a long time.  Honor might be dead, but His power isn't gone, and Odium is probably doing what he can to make sure it doesn't pool back together again.