Quantus

There's a new WOB that says specifically that Bondsmiths have historically had the power to pull Stormlight and give it to people (sorry I cant post it directly, my work's internet filter has started blocking Coppermind URL's, but it was in the Idaho Falls Signing in December 2018, question #48). He does acknowledge that both Odium and the Stormfather where surprised by what Dalinar did with the whole Unity moment. The only thing I can come up to reconcile that with the Stomrfather's statement is that we're talking about two distinct abilities: that Bondsmiths have been historically able to draw Stormlight from the Spiritual and grant it to people (Dalinar does it again after the Taylen Field battle off-screen to recharge Kaladin, who said it seemed particularly draining), but that the actual Unity moment where Dalinar merged the realms, summoned the perpendicularity, and charged every single gem and Radiant in the vicinity would be a separate (and new) ability.

Coincidence and/or just a pun at best, I think.

If it negates their strength enhancement it would be great, but if not they could likely rip out of it. If the shardbearer also has a blade they'd still be able to cut themselves out, but it would be somewhat slow and awkward, as cutting wire with a ridiculously oversized blade isnt particularly easy no matter how sharp the mundane edge is.

I dont think the Sibling "lived" in the gemstone pillar, at least not in the way that spren inhabit Fabrials, it seems redundant to the Bond. My guess is that the reason one Bondsmith always stayed there was that it took a Bondsmith with Dalinar's ability to channel Stormlight (which we now know they all had) to fully power the thing. I figure the reason that they were associating the Sibling with Urithiru more at the time of the Gem Archive was that at the time they only had the one Bondsmith (Im guessing the Sibling is "sleeping" while the Stormfather and Nightwatcher are active is a result of the Sibling being the only one Bonded during the Recreance).

How would that hack work? For the compounding hack with feruchemy to work you need to burn a metal that has been charged with feruchemical investiture to make the investiture from Preservation act like that Feruchemy rather than standard allomancy. But soulcasting doesnt leave any charge in the item (unlike Forgery...)

Per WOB if you leave a mass of Investiture alone long enough it has a way of eventually becoming Sentient all on it's own (even if nobody picks it up). I think that means it's theoretically possible that Trell could be one of the bigger chunks of Ambition, Devotion, or Dominion that has begun acting on it's own. My money is still on an Avatar of Autonomy, but I do think that Splintered doesnt necessarily mean Out of Play.

Assuming they have no natural mineral deposits like earth had, Human poop also works as a source of potassium nitrate. Urine as well (it was known as the "swiss method"). Bat guano was popular because the caves they found it in would often already have some potassium nitrate forming naturally on the walls, though I couldnt say if it was actually richer in the minerals per pound. As far as nitrocelulose production goes, that's typically done with ammonia as the base ingredient along with heat and some catalysts, thought getting industrial quantities of ammonia is it's own challenge without fossil fuels for the Hydrogen. But then if you are already collecting all the chamber pots for urine and feces, you'd probably have enough for tactical military use. As far as the Warhammer vs Plate question, Im of two minds on how that would play out. They became prevalent in the medieval times as a response to the advent of steel surface-hardening of iron armor, which was causing blades and axes to glance off, which sounds like a lot of the issue with shard-plate. I tend to think big blunt maul-style hammers would be less effective (without plate-enhanced strength behind them, anyway) given how much the plate can protect against fall damage. On the other hand Aluminum opens possibilities. If the field effect of aluminum would operate through a steel outer layer, you could pull off a proper spike that would likely be your best bet for delivering critical damage. However if ends up needing to be the outer layer for direct contact, getting as big of a maul as you could wield would probably do the most damage and negate some of the enhancement plate offers to combat fall damage, but it would be slow enough you'd need other group tactics to immobilize the plate-bearer (hooks, tripwires, and aluminum mesh nets maybe). Regardless of the offensive tactics the anti-shard folks would definitely want Half-shards, and Im convinced that aluminum armor would be helpful, as even one or two instances of turning a shardblade attack into a glancing blow (before the much softer aluminum would cave) could prove a critical tactic.

The sibling was associated with it according to some of the gem record epigraphs, where it's mentioned that it'd begun withdrawing even before the actual Recreance (OB Ch 70). There are some theories that it was involved in it's construction or function. There's another epigraph, though, that mentions that at least one of the Bondsmiths was always in residence, which makes me doubt that it was a permanent association if the Bondsmiths took turns with that duty. (WoR Ch 44)

This. I'd expect it to allow for some level of Induced Thrill on a target. Given the restrictions on most fabrials vs their Radiant Counterparts, I doubt it would give you a whole lot of variable control, though the design of the fabrial itself might make a lot of difference, but all of them I image would just be some version of Induced Thrill, and I doubt you'd see the sort of subtly that you can get with Rioting. You could make it internally aimed at the user, and get something akin to a Bane (of DC Comics) where you have a dial to turn the Thrill up or down whenever you want the berserker strength. Or maybe a targeted thing where you can blast an enemy with it to scramble their restraint and tactical thinking. Most likely you'd have a Thrill Bomb that covers the battlefield in the full Red Mist and just causes a massacre.

Going to see it tonight, Ill report back then. Very excited!

Probably not, since he's going by a wildly different name. If there's anything against it in the land, it would likely be more something he's imposed from the top down. He may not care, or given that he's set himself up as a god in his own right he may be discouraging mention of other religious figures in general. All that's speculation on my part though, we dont really know much of anything of the current state of things there.

I suspect they'd either lack Identity equivalent to somebody filling a metalmind, or (depending on if they survive via Gold healing, etc) the newly grown piece of Soulweb might have changed enough to give them a new or at least slightly different Identity, along the same lines of how a split spike lets both recipients use the metalminds of the original but not each other since there's a muddying effect on their Identity. On that note, the most immediate use I can think of to steal Identity is to access a feruchemist's Metalminds, or in a broader Cosmere situation maybe bypass some other form of Investiture-lock they may have implemented (cant think of anything specific but I could see it coming into play vs something Selish). Though in Era2 with Ferrings but no full Feruchemists I think it would be more practical to just steal their feruchemcial ability itself. In a hypothetical that likely never has had a chance to happen, you might be able to lash past Plate if you had managed to spike the Identity of the original Radiant that created it.

I imagine it's frowned upon in Tukar, at the very least...

As a datapoint: The savant trying to reach Akinah in the OB interlude said that she was able to Soulcast a part of an object rather than the whole thing (to be able to poke a hole in the giant stone blades) because she was so advanced with it's use (and/or so far gone into the cognitive, seeing "the dark sky and second sun"), but she still had to physically touch them, and thought it was foolish that the captain had counted on the storm passing enough to let the dinghies get close safely. I think that if she could distance soulcast she would have had every motive to do it there, and none to protect the secret.

I always liked the more vulgur types ("How in the name of Zues's Butthole", "Christ On a Stick", etc) soo.... Nale's Knob Pali's Piss Battar's Butthole

Indeed. Per WOB, generic Honorspren would themselves qualify as Splinters of Honor

Ah, rightright, the one guiding them to the Fused mustering point. I thought (but have no actual proof, admittedly) that those were also corrupted spren, and would be in the same class as Glys, the Oathgate spren, and Ulim the "Envoy" spren that was manipulating Venli into creating the Everstorm early on.

What @Scion of the Mists said. Leras and Ati actually Created the whole planet, not just the the humans on it. It's the only instance we know of where Shards created something that large or complex. In the rest of the cases the planets, and sometimes the inhabitants were there prior to the Shattering.

That is assuming she is forewarned while he is not, and she has no particular advantage in that arena; she can be caught as unprepared as any other mortal, with the possible exception of Renarin. I tend to agree with many here, Jasnah and Soulcasting can trump just about anything Kaladin can bring to the table. Though I do agree that if Stormlight is taken out of the equation, Kaladin would almost certainly win a more traditional martial fight. He has more training, battlefield experience, and as far as I can tell Natural Talent than anything we've seen Jasnah demonstrate. The biggest advantage Jasnah would have in such a fight is that she is far less hindered by traditions honorable combat and/or silly gender roles, and would be more likely to skip straight to any devastatingly brutal options that might present themselves, while Kaladin would be the one more likely to hesitate.

I dont remember which one you are talking about, unless it was Sja-Anat herself? Or was this something while they were in Shadesmar? Can you tell me which chapter?

Take a half-step to the side and call them "Fidelity-spren"? Personally I lean toward them being something about consistency, tenacity, and/or continuation. Something like Resolve-spren, Stoicspren, or Preservationspren (which would be particularly interesting for wider cosmere reasons). But there's at least as much chance that they are going to be a little more subtle and abstract than those in the same way that Inkspren and Cryptics/Liespren/Truthspren. Not to mention all the opportunity for philosophic debate with "Honorspren"

I was under the impression that they all were to corrupted/enlightened "children" of Sja-Anat. Though the term is admittedly very broadly used, including being applied to the Fused.

If the Everstorm's spren (which admittedly is still itself theoretical) where just a pure Created Spren, that would be highly odd to me because it would be the first time we know of that Odium created a spren whole. So far he has always used raw materials and modified the Investiture involved for his own purposes: he used Singer Souls to create the Fused, he Corrupted existing spren for the Forms of Power and other Voidspren, and by all implication he Unmade something pre-existing to create the Unmade. I always thought he was specifically trying to avoid using too much of his own Investiture which would further Bind him to Roshar, so doing so now and especially doing so on the scale of a Stormfather-esk Godspren would be a hell of a change of M.O. Personally, I think it more likely that he used the souls of all those singers that took on Stormform and subsequently died in the Everstorm's creation as the raw materials for his new godspren. Hell, there are also displaced souls in each Everstorm when a Fused is reborn that could be adding to it's pool of Power.

Book Four prediction: Kaladin, Shallan, and Adoline will all not appear in the book. At all. Because by then we'll have all gotten entirely too tired of hearing about them. So the book will focus on the budding romance between Szeth and... I dunno...Dreyh? Lyn? Somebody he can go flying with (with an Aladdin soundtrack playing in the background). There might be some mention of that whole "Final Desolation" thing and the creepy guy with the scepter, but only in the background.

-Renarin is shaping up to be waaay more interesting than anything Id hoped for. And Im glad Jasnah made the choice she did. -Ditto Nale -Never expected Szeth to swear to Dalinar