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Devil's advocate only: but that WOB clarified that Preservation, Ruin, and Cultivation were not Inward oriented Shards, but I think it remains to be seen if that is a blanket statement that can be applied to all Shards. I tend to think it is going to vary by Intent, with some being more outwardly focused than others. Honor, for example, seems a bit Inwardly focused when he apparently forgot that unlike him normal people can betray their given word, and I suspect Ambition would have manifested as a very Self-focused sort of being purely based on Ambition as a theme. EDIT: Full disclosure a big part of why I believe this is because I've long been nursing a theory about the Shards that specifically involves half of them being Inwardly focused and half being Outward, so I cant promise my interpretation of the WOB is entirely neutral. I didnt think they were the second on his list, rather the WOB I recall seemed to say that he was looking for Ambition first and just happened to come across D&D while still out looking for Ambition. Of course it then seems to imply that he got trapped in Roshar while still looking for Ambition, so I dont really know what to think.

All the 16 knew each other (and Hoid). We dont know anything about their relationship before Odium arrived, though if they didnt like/respect each other I doubt they'd have settled together. We do know that there is at least one pair among the 16 that are related/family, which may or may not be Aona&Skai. Odium just kinda showed up and knocked them off, and as best we know his motivation is that he wants to be "top dog" so he's all 15 that can challenge him. But there's been hints in Stormlight that he has a tenuous excuse in that it sounds like the shards agreed to some sort of non-interference pact that some are interpreting as being violated by Shards that settled together.

Odium definitely liked to dress in Gold, but the color association passage I look to is from when Odium gave Dalinar a glimpse of his actual Spiritual self during that vision, rather than his meatsuit's fashion choices. I dont have the book with me but I seem to recall it being a very Sauron's eye sort of Red-Gold around a black-hole. I agree that I cant think of anythink specific that would assocaite Honor with Blue, I think that's a perspective issue where readers are associating the Windrunner Blue with all the radiants and/or with Stormlight itself, just because the Windrunner Order has recieved a lot of stage-time. Cultivation being Green at least makes sense, and there was that Green fog (Cultivation-light?) that was around her and Dalminar during the flashback.

That could easily be a later addition. Once Vorinism was being used to keep the general population in line they'd need to have an explanation for why it was just as useful to be a farmer or craftsman rather than the only Calling being the Soldier.

Which is interesting in light of the fact that Nale has begun to Doubt himself and his own judgement. I wonder if he's on a path that will eventually run afoul of that 5th Ideal?

Nah, I dont think so, thought admittedly I missed that we were looking at Nale in possession of Nightblood rather than the close of OB (which I defaulted to). Nightblood is the only thing that gives Nale any kind of chance, but Nale is still a very...linear thinker, compared to Hoid's cosmic ability to scheme, distract, and Lightweave. Meanwhile, If you take him at his word Hoid is immune to Shardblades/Honorblades, and is collecting Investitures including Allomancy, Heightenings and now Surges. Of all the non-shard entities in the Cosmere, Nightblood can potentially threaten him, and maybe a Dragon could (who knows?) but any individual Herald would not be enough, methinks. That being said, Hoid's the kind of guy where if he find himself in a direct confrontation like that, he's already screwed way the frell up.

Same. I can see it falling out one of several ways: They all have the same basic Oaths like most orders, because being the Bondsmith God-Spren has implications on Purpose even if they are themselves wildly different They have wildly different/personal/unique Oaths, as different as the Three themselves They only appear different but are part of a Set. My guess being that the Stormfather is the Physical Aspect focused on the physical storm, the Nightwatcher is the Spiritual Aspect focused on understanding/Manipulating Spiritwebs, and by default the Sibling would somehow be a Cognitive-focused entity. Something in the middle, where their Ideals do have some common theme but are still more varied/personalized than typical, perhaps approaching the same concern-problem from wildly different perspectives. Something more like the Truthwatchers or Skybreakers, but with the variance coming from the spren's differences rather than the Human partner.

True, but in a head-to-head conflict my money is still on the Wit.

Agreed, I just meant that (if the theory is true) any external effect should cause savantism, and also any Internal effect that is Altering rather than Reinforcing the person (most of them. So to my mind just about all allomancy, and most feruchemy. But not Gold/Health, maybe not Identity? Im not sure but it would be a very few that would be theoretically in tune with the natural state of the spiritweb to avoid the warping issue. In a Rosharan example, I'd expect even Radiant Soulcasters to have a danger of Savantism (thought I could certainly be wrong), but I would not expect a Radiant to develop Savantism from over-use of their base Stormlight Healing ability. And I could honestly see the argument going either way in the case of Progression.

*coughcough* Hoid *cough*

Moash vs Rlain. The dialogue would be amazing, with Moash wallowing in his self-pity and self-imposed exile from Bridge 4, while Rlain quietly puts all his pettiness into perspective in a way only the most fringe member of Bridge 4 (and arguably the entire Radiant Alliance) could achieve.

Nalthian on vacation: "My Breathes!!! I'm RUINED!!!!"

We have it confirmed that Awakening does drain Infrared and Ultraviolent colors as well as the visible spectrum, so I would entirely expect the Heightenings to let you perceive those eventually. But I also fully expect there to be some spiritual Mumbo Jumbo in there. The heightenings seem to represent a relatively linear progression toward some sort of weak splinter-hood, and the person is getting more and more suffused with Investiture. I think at some point there's going to be some peaking between realms; could be some weak Peaking into the Spiritual as a Fortune effect, or could be peaking into the cognitive like some Horneaters can. Or both, or something else entirely. We still dont know how Nathians Worldhop, but the Scholars at least had a pretty big Breath store when they were out and about. If they are Tin ferring or Twinborn I believe they'd be able to fill metalminds with the excess Sensory input and regulate it to some extent.

I dont think so, Im pretty sure we have it confirmed that an alloy of Atium and Lerasium would just make an Atium Misting like any other Lerasium alloy, and I know we have it confirmed that Alloying the two would not create Harmonium:

I agree, I get the strong indication that they whistled it all up directly from their Investiture from all the talk about how their essence permeates scadiral more than would be typical for a shard that has just arrived and Invested.

I think that's a bad comparison, Soulcasting is an External application of Investiture with an External Power Source, it has all the same elements needed for Savantism that Allomancy has. I was talking about Feruchemy specifically, where the Investiture expenditure is still entirely Internal (again, specifically with F-Gold). The comparison to Surges would be whether it is possibel to become a Savant through extreme over-use of a Progression Fabrial the way you can with a Soulcasting Fabrial. Which would actually be a great question to ask if anyone gets a chance.

That's really the key of my disappointment I think: Id wanted Electrum to basically let you store Focus, filling being more along the lines of ADD while tapping it would let you get temporarily obsessive about your intended task/target/goal.

This is admittedly nitpick, but while I agree that Miles didnt have much of a rational need to continuously burn, I dont thin we can say one way or the other whether he was burning constnatly for less rational reasons (addition to the sensation and/or a psychological need to be constantly invulnerable come to mind). Nitpick: this doesnt make any real difference, but per WOB he has the bag and also he had his own small store of beads in his belly. Still well within the very scientific unit of "1 Bagful" though :-P The WOB says that "A small bead used right can reverse age someone back to their childhood", and while we dont know what the usage curve looks like once youre holding back multiple centuries, I think the Doylistic intent was for Marsh's little bag to be able to keep him alive for at least some Era3 appearances.

Oh, ok that's entirely fair. I had originally thought that the "determination" that electrum stored would give you some sort of Super-will power and make you more mentally resilient. I was disappointed to learn how far off base that theory was.

Admittedly, Cadmium is probably a much more enjoyable experience, with gold you'd still have to deal with the sensation of suffocating, I would think.

Now that you mention it, I could easily see an argument that F-Gold would specifically be less likely to produce Savantism than almost any other form of Feruchemy. Unlike most of the other ones that are skewing some aspect of the Spiritweb one way or another, tapping F-Gold is all about channeling Investiture to Assert the Spiritweb itself, to Reinforce it. The "warping" description of Savantism implies bending the spiritweb out of it's true shape, but Gold (specifically) does not put the Spiritweb under that sort of stress. In theory, anyway. But if it's true that some feruchemy would be capable while others would not, I would have to assume that Atium would be in the "Can" category since it's very specifically fighting against the Spiritweb's true Age in an ever-increasing amount. At which point, we could reasonably assume that if feruchemical savantism were possible, The Lord Ruler should have been an atium savant, if he was constantly burning enough age to hold the clock back by a 1000 years. Which might be another bit of support for the idea that feruchemy innately mitigates that sort of thing even with the shear amount of Investiture being channeled.

Double Chromium would have an infinite amount of Luck, Id go with something along the lines of "Blessed" or "Exalted", ideally something with some spiritual/religious overtones to reflect the fact that Fortune tends to involve peaking into the Spiritual Realm.

The economics of it are a very good point, I wasnt even sort of considering that side.

Isnt that what he did do, though? He compounded Atium burned enough to keep him in a comfortable physical prime. We do know that it started taking more and more as he got further and further from his natural age, but I dont see any benefit from going younger than you have to.

Im not sure that would do what you want it to. As I understand it, Electrum ferrings are basically just Bi-Polar with a finger on their depression slider bar, but tapping (and thus compounding it) just sticks you into a very Manic state, it doesnt make you more functional in any particular way. Frankly it always seemed like one of the least useful for compounding, since you dont ever want to tap too much at a time.