Leecher Shenanigan

[+Invocation]

What's happens if you Leech a Shardblade? Or a spren in general, really. Are they protected because it's part of their self, their being, or can you just deprive them of themselves like that? 

[therunner he/him]

WoB RAFO'ed it, but if it was possible it would be incredibly difficult
 

Quote

Questioner

If you were a Leecher, could you destroy a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to RAFO that for now, let's just say that it would be incredibly difficult if it were possible, and I'm not going to even say if it is. But that kind of power... 

Questioner

Let's just say they were burning duralumin as well.

Brandon Sanderson

Let's just say that the Investiture in a Shardblade is much greater than your average Allomancer, but... This type of thing is not unheard of in the Cosmere. The larkin, the Leechers, and Nightblood all have a similar sort of thing going on. Destroying a Shardblade would be really hard. And Investiture resists other forms of Investiture, so.

Calamity Austin signing (Feb. 25, 2016)

Since he then likens Leechers to Larkin and Nightblood, and Nightblood is far beyond any Leecher or Larkin, I don't think Leecher can really destroy a Shardblade even with Duralumin. (Nigthblood is so far the only thing capable of outright killing spren, that is not anti-investiture, Larkin never did such a thing based on what we know).

EDIT (accidentaly posted early): So I don't think it is a question of being protected, but more that spren and shardblades are so much more invested that Leecher does not really stand a chance (barring special circumstances, like if you trapped a spren and leecher had time to recharge).

Edited November 12, 2021 by therunner

[HSuperLee]

Considering the interaction we've seen with Nightblood and cognitive entities, I assume a leecher has the ability to destroy spren and shardblades by draining them completely. However, they are so high investiture that they may have some ability to resist it, and even if they don't, they'd take a very long time to drain. Presumably though, it would be relatively easy to turn them into deadeyes, and then draining them more would reduce them to something more damaged than that.

[+Invocation]

9 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

Considering the interaction we've seen with Nightblood and cognitive entities, I assume a leecher has the ability to destroy spren and shardblades by draining them completely. However, they are so high investiture that they may have some ability to resist it, and even if they don't, they'd take a very long time to drain. Presumably though, it would be relatively easy to turn them into deadeyes, and then draining them more would reduce them to something more damaged than that.

Well that's horrifying. Wonder if there's some connection between that and the two factions of the Ones Above further down the timeline? Allomancers vs Radiants, potential spren killers vs people needing spren psychologists.

[Dunkum he/him]

18 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

Considering the interaction we've seen with Nightblood and cognitive entities, I assume a leecher has the ability to destroy spren and shardblades by draining them completely. However, they are so high investiture that they may have some ability to resist it, and even if they don't, they'd take a very long time to drain. Presumably though, it would be relatively easy to turn them into deadeyes, and then draining them more would reduce them to something more damaged than that.

petty sure it would take an absolutely enormous amount of chromium to leech a spren/shardblade even to the point of becoming a deadeyes. and that's assuming its standing still long enough to let you.

[StanLemon]

Leeching seems to only absorb active Investiture rather than Investiture that is inherent to an object. This is shown in BoM when it sucks out the charge of a magic gun without actually destroying the gun itself. I could see it draining Stormlight from gems that power Fabrials but not do anything to the Spren inside. So I doubt it would do anything to the Shardblade except maybe keep it from changing forms, the same as it can prevent a Blade from being summoned. 

[Quantus he/him]

1 hour ago, StanLemon said:

Leeching seems to only absorb active Investiture rather than Investiture that is inherent to an object. This is shown in BoM when it sucks out the charge of a magic gun without actually destroying the gun itself. I could see it draining Stormlight from gems that power Fabrials but not do anything to the Spren inside. So I doubt it would do anything to the Shardblade except maybe keep it from changing forms, the same as it can prevent a Blade from being summoned. 

Per WOB It will will drain the stormlight from a person and will prevent them from summoning their blade.  But it would not just destroy the spren any more than they can could touch and destroy Atium.  I think they'd only be able to do that if they could actually "burn" the shardblade's Godmetal, and there are somewhat contradictory WOB's on what it takes to make that work.