The breath problem.

[Karger he/him]

Breath is like feruchemy.  It is allows insanely powerful abilities with the main problems being its scarcity.  What happens when some Scadrian people worldhop over and get some and then compound to make more?  Are is era four going to have thousands of Nightbloods running around?

[RShara she/her]

Breath doesn't get compounded like metals do.

Quote

Questioner (paraphrased)

What would happen if Allomancer was also an Awakener and Awakened metal he'd burn?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

If he did that, he’d get Allomantic power and also get back the Breaths used in Awakening the metal.

Footnote: Supposedly it was around half an hour into the signing line; has not been found on the record although we may have started it after it was asked already; follow-up to this
Warsaw signing (March 18, 2017)

 

[Karger he/him]

10 minutes ago, RShara said:

Breath doesn't get compounded like metals do.

Thank God(or Brandon in this case)!  Also thanks for the WoB

Edited February 11, 2020 by Karger

[Thanatos]

Heres another breath query...

Are Spren made of the same stuff as Stormlight??? Anything else??

Vasher and co creating Nightblood, did they somehow convert Stormlight into breath, then moulded the new "breath" into a spren like creature by Awakening, to get.... Nightblood??

...

Edit:

That would be a crap ton of Stormlight. Given NB is so OP. And where did the Stormlight go? Did NB's creation cause a subtle shift of power amongst the Shards. as per WoB that NB holds abit of Ruin. Possibly all Shards.

Or did Endowment gain power?

Edited February 11, 2020 by Thanatos

[RShara she/her]

No, they used Breath to make Nightblood. Vasher reminisces about it a bit in Warbreaker.

[Weltall]

9 hours ago, Thanatos said:

Are Spren made of the same stuff as Stormlight??? Anything else??

Spren are chunks of Investiture that have gained a mind of their own (to a greater or lesser extent depending on the type) so in one sense they're made of the same 'stuff' but at the same time the Investiture is taking different forms and doing different things so it's kind of like saying that two humans are the same because at a biochemical level any two individuals are basically made from the same materials with relatively minor variations. DNA versus sDNA, I guess.

Quote

Vasher and co creating Nightblood, did they somehow convert Stormlight into breath, then moulded the new "breath" into a spren like creature by Awakening, to get.... Nightblood??

As mentioned, no, we're certain they used actual Breath for it. We also know that Vasher hasn't worked out how to use Stormlight to Awaken, which means no converting it to Breath either; he just uses the Investiture the Stormlight represents to sub for the Investiture in a Breath.

[Quantus he/him]

11 hours ago, Thanatos said:

Heres another breath query...

Are Spren made of the same stuff as Stormlight??? Anything else??

Vasher and co creating Nightblood, did they somehow convert Stormlight into breath, then moulded the new "breath" into a spren like creature by Awakening, to get.... Nightblood??

...

Edit:

That would be a crap ton of Stormlight. Given NB is so OP. And where did the Stormlight go? Did NB's creation cause a subtle shift of power amongst the Shards. as per WoB that NB holds abit of Ruin. Possibly all Shards.

Or did Endowment gain power?

So, couple side to that. 

The current Spren on Roshar are made of some mix of Honor and Cultivation's Investiture (all have at least a bit of both), except the Voidspren which are weird and come in various flavors, but presumably have Odium in there too. 

Nightblood was initially made with just those 1000 breaths, but he has substantially more Investiture now, and for RAFO reasons he has a lot of specifically Ruinous Investiture.  Leading theory is that the nature of his Command (ie Destroy Evil) Forged a link to Ruin, though he may also be absorbing the Investiture of his victims.  But the fact that Azures blade doesnt pop targets in all three Realms supports the idea that his Command is key to the puzzle.  Nightblood was made on Nalthis and with just Breaths and 9th Heightening Awakening, but only after the Scholars in question traveled to Roshar and observed Shardblades; Nightblood was their attempt at recreating what they saw (WOB describes it as a "robot spren" and also a 3rd generation Shardblade, after Honorblades and the spren Shardbaldes). 

Vasher has figured out how to feed his Divine Breath with Sotrmlight so he doesnt need a store of Breaths to Survive week to week, but per WOB has not figured out how to perform Awakening with it.  There is still a lingering  question of what he does during the Weeping, since that's two weeks without a Storm and normal gems would be exhausted by then.  Worst case he sneaks access to a Perfect Gem every year, or maybe he burns one breath a year, or makes a pilgrimage to Cultivation's Perpendicularity.   Or, since there's a strong hint that the Nightwatcher got her hands on Nightblood at one point, he might have gotten a Boon to use Stormlight in some non-standard way like Lift. 

 

 

 

[+robardin he/him]

3 hours ago, Quantus said:

There's a strong hint that the Nightwatcher got her hands on Nightblood at one point, he might have gotten a Boon to use Stormlight in some non-standard way like Lift. 

Hmm, I thought the Nightwatcher might not visit off-worlders. Felt the Scadrian and onetime spy for House Venture recalls trying to visit the NW himself but she did not appear to him, which he believes is because she "doesn't like foreigners" (and then he adds to Dalinar, "You're a little less foreign, sir.")

[Quantus he/him]

29 minutes ago, robardin said:

Hmm, I thought the Nightwatcher might not visit off-worlders. Felt the Scadrian and onetime spy for House Venture recalls trying to visit the NW himself but she did not appear to him, which he believes is because she "doesn't like foreigners" (and then he adds to Dalinar, "You're a little less foreign, sir.")

True. The hint Im referring to is that the Nightwatcher offered Dalinar "a blade that bleeds darkness and cannot be defeated."  She might have made an exception for a Returned, being their own kind of Odd, or she might have acquired it separately after they arrived.