Spheres and Gemhearts

[Endrogue he/him]

I remember someone saying that Roshar would be a convenient place for vegans with all their soulcast food. Of course that's not the case because, correct me if I'm wrong, soulcasters use gemhearts to soulcast the food and gemhearts come from animals. Their counter was that they could simply use spheres to soulcast the food. I don't recall it ever being mentioned that Rosharians would mine for gemstones or that mined gems on Roshar hold stormlight.

So do all the gemstones in spheres come from gemhearts?

[Karger he/him]

55 minutes ago, Endrogue said:

So do all the gemstones in spheres come from gemhearts?

Sort of

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ccstat

Are gems in those mined or exclusively from gemhearts?

Brandon Sanderson

Some are mined. Mining is not easy on Roshar.

Firefight Atlanta signing (Jan. 24, 2015)

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TheFulgid

Where do gemstones come from?

Brandon Sanderson

Gemstones on Roshar are mostly coming from gemhearts. And, I remembered to stick in some mentions of this in Oathbringer, 'cause a lot of people have been asking about this. It's not something-- like, the daily ranching of animals for their gemhearts is not something that we bring up a lot, but there is some limited mining operations on Roshar as well, you've just gotta get through the crem.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

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Questioner

Where did you get the idea for the gemhearts.

Brandon Sanderson

So, I wanted-- in the books, I wanted there to be an economic component to the magic, like, something that was based on the money in the world. And I knew I wanted to use the gemstones, but I also knew they would be used up really quickly by the magic, with Soulcasting. So, I built something into the creatures of the world, so that we could renew the gemstones, so they wouldn't all just be gone after a few hundred years.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

A vegan would still be eating animals indirectly in nearly every case until Roshar gets the synthesis down.

Edited May 22, 2020 by Karger