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Or unending use of a particular type of soulcasting, entirely circumventing the economic cost of using one. That seems more tactically valuable than long-term storage in most (but not all) circumstances, and Roshar will hopefully only ever need nine gem Prisons I dont imagine it's a speed of withdrawl issue, as you say, otherwise the Oathgates would burn through them at an accelerated rate. I figure it would be more of an accumulated stress issue, and in most crystalline materials those stresses accumulate around the occlusion and crystalline imperfections that a truly perfect gem would lack, potentially giving those stresses no foothold to start accumulating in the first place. I definitely agree on that, I guess the crux of the question is whether the actual, literal Perfection of the crystalline structure is able to push 'Resilient' into 'Immune', the same way it pushed stormlight storage from Longer to literal Permanent storage. Dont get me wrong, Id never have the guts to risk one for an Experiment, and there is no better use than as an Unmade Prison, period. But given one good peak into the Spiritual Realm to make sure it would work first (Atium, Renarin, misc. Fortune Effect, etc), and there are strong arguments to be made (especially back before the apocalyptic book events and the Radiant return). A Perfect Emerald, for example, would give an army (or possibly even a small nation) an Infinite Food Supply: you soulcast food for the the entire duration of each highstorm, and your only limits become how fast you can cycle material in and out of your Soulcaster's presence, and how long they can last in the job before they become a walking statue of tasteless Gruel.

No love for Tia? It's a toss-up for me between David (who as the "hero" and POV character is cheating a bit, Im supposed to like him) and Prof because Im a sucker for tragic sacrifice.

That's really it, all in the title. Gems crack when over-used, which is sort of a cornerstone of the rosharan gem economy. But Perfect Gems lack any imperfection which in turn gives them perfect efficiency to the point that they dont leak stormlight at all, despite leaking being a fundamental trait of Stormlight itself. Ive always considered the cracking effect to be a natural seeming function similar to lasers/optics, where the imperfections in the lens or cable medium cause energy leakage that leads to heat/physical stress, and ultimately cracks. If they are so perfect that they can prevent all leakage, would they not also be so perfect that they would not face the same energy overload?

Have you SEEN the state of the Singer race right now?

Not Connection as in the feruchemical trait, I was using Connection in the more general sense that Spiritwebs are basically a bunch of Connections; for example your age is part of your Connection to places, people, and times, even though feruchemically it's a different metal entirely. The sort of shardic Connection I meant was the connection to a Shard required to hack yourself into magic systems, like the connection to Preservation that Lerasium gives you. Also, regarding Breaths, that Coppermind entry is based on This WOB, which is a lot less specific or definitive. It can store the "Invested abilities" of a Returned or a Radiant but that's not realmically descriptive. And combined with This One that points out how there is a qualitative difference between Breath and Divine Breath regarding how they interact with the Spiritweb or whether they can be stored in Spikes, so it's very likely they are going to be different to Nicrosil as well; but it's pretty specific that normal Breaths are not part of the Spiritweb. And as a much more general point: While it is quantifiable and he does intend to establish conversion equivalency between the different types, Investiture is very specifically Not Joules. In the Cosmere the normally binary Matter&Energy nature of the Universe is expanded out to Matter, Energy, and Investiture as three separate things that all interact to create reality. Personally I see it as it's interaction with Matter and Energy as being buried down at the quantum level where things like being Perceived start having tangible effects on the state of reality. But a lot of that is irrelevant to your topic, I misunderstood your whole point. If you are talking about using Nicrosil to create a Scadrial equivalent to plate and/or shardblades, thats something else. I thought you were more talking about a worldhopper that got their hands on a shard using Nicrosil to store that in a metalmind for some reason. Cosmere-wide is is a function of any Investiture to gain sentience, so one path would be to attempt to make a scadrian robot-spren, some metallic arts equivalent of Nightblood. I think that would be possible, though short of just cramming astronomical amounts of investiture I think it would take more of a multi-metal Medallion with a combination of spiritual traits, and likely Ettmetal depending on how it actually functions as an allomantic emitter. I suspect it's literally making a temporary pseudo-spiritweb to emit the allomantic effect, by touching a misting's spiritweb and "preserving" it's shape and function for a short time, using it's investiture charge to create a sort of Spiritweb Hologram. The biggest barrier unknown I see is that there are fundamental functional differences between the types of Investiture, which make them behave differently even if channeled into thew same magic system. Breathes are fundamentally more prone to permanence and to transferring (usually limited) sentience than most, while Stormlight is more prone to moving things (spren, people, objects) across the Physical/Cognitive boundary. And in the case of Stormlight, a lot of it has to do with Roshar having a rich, porous Investiture ecosystem, making it easy to move things back and forth (spren do it naturally all the time, even without Bonding). By comparison, in Scadrial it takes years to crystallize a small bead of godmetal, and the Metallic arts have very few mechanism that actually convert Investiture to Matter, and I dont think any of them are Externally acting. You can 100% get to a half-shard with Invested Metalminds, but I think trying to get something that you can freely dismiss like a shardblade would be a lot harder (let alone the multi-realmic attack capability). Nightblood is stuck in the Physical Realm, and he's the closest thing to a shardblade around.

Honestly I dont think you can actually store a Spren in Nicrosil. While we dont actually know what it is, I dont think Nicrosil an Investiture Battery (not any more than all metalminds, anyway). And while I do fully think you could Store the bond you get to the Honorblades, the fact that you cannot take the Nahel bond without using two spikes and spiking the Spren's native Cog-realm form, I really dont think it would work on the shardblades (certainly not living, likely not dead). The Plate is something else and was never sentient, so it might work. Spren are Investiture, but they still have Spiritwebs like physical beings so there are some qualitative differences between them and "commodity" Investiture like Stormlight, the metallic arts, or even Breaths. That being said they can be stored in Gems like stormlight, so maybe it could work... What I believe Nicrosil does is Store whatever the Connection you may have to a Shard, more or less by mimicking the relevant bits of Spiritweb, and thus Investuture functions that dont involve the Spiritweb wouldnt qualify. So it would give you the ability to use a Surge, which otherwise takes either your own Nahel Bond or a squire Connection a Radiant, but it would not let you store Stormlight in it. It would let you store a Connection to Endowment enough to use Breaths for Awakening, but you wouldnt be able to store Breaths themselves (at least not using the Feruchemy, you can always just store breaths in objects regardless). Random Thoughts: -Why would you need to store Plate or a Shardblade in the metalmind if they already can be summoned at will? Or are you talking about getting a Nicrosil Metalmind so Invested that it would become sentient like a spren or Seon? My understanding is that the relative power scale of Scadrial is significantly lower than the other shardworlds, to the point were I think that would take crazy, nigh ungodly amounts of investiture to accomplish. -Rosharan Spren are the only things that have any predisposition to a sword shape, and that is specifically because they were mimicking he Honorblades. Even Nightblood is explicitly an attempt to recreate the rosharan blades. -For what it's worth, I took the mention of talking metal in Era2 to be an Awakening cameo, though I believe we do have WOB that rosharan spren have been spotted off-world.

Agreed. Selected reading from the audio book, or even better the Graphic Audio, as a sort of pseudo-Movie Day would be about as much as Id want to give them, and only if there were scenes with specific topical relevance involved.

Oh, I absolutely dont think they'd care about a Dynasty, unless maybe they were a fan of the additional Connections that would represent. That was a pure Doylistic statement on how I'd like the story play out. I also am glad Star Wars seems to be moving away from the Skywalker dynasty model, for the same general reasons.

Ive seen it both ways: Her bonding the Sibling makes sense via the Fabrial connection, while the Nightmother side is more about her Maternally commanding nature along with her engineer's mind, which I see as very much a form of Cultivation (if striped of the normal farmer/organic connotation). I also prefer for Navani for the Nightmother simply because I prefer Rlain for the Sibling. Though the flip side is that I would kind of rather not see too much of a Kholin Dynasty forming over the Radiants, which is the only thing that makes me lean away from Navani entirely for one of the Bondsmith positions. EDIT: The other thing, and this is more a thematic feeling than anything solid, is from that scene where Dalinar uses essays written by both Navani and Jasnah. The differences between their writing, with Jasnah's being a work of Intellectual Art while Navai's was more "Authentic", and far more focused on the practical, seems like it could be a reasonable difference between the more purely intellectual and/or scientific Elscallers and what you'd expect from (what I expect to be) Cultivation's Bondsmith.

In Oathbringer, Navani has a POV scene during the alliance meeting where she keeps repeating the same mantra to herself: "Bring Order from the Chaos" This sounds suspiciously like a Radiant Ideal to me. My first thought was that it sounded like exactly the sort of 2nd Ideal that I would expect Elsecallers to speak, it sounds right up the thematic alley of the Inkspren. On the other hand, I really want Navani to be the Nightmother's Bondsmith, and I fully expect their Ideals to be more unique than average since their three Spren are all very unique. All that to say that while Im very biased, I could still get behind the idea that "I will unite instead of divide. I will bring men together." is the Honor-skewed version, but that the you could express the same abstract with "Bring Order from the Chaos" from a more Cultivating perspective. Thoughts?

As @Calderis said, the End-Neutral aspect of it is very likely the difference in that unlike Allomancy or Radiants that require cracks there is no need of any outside Link for for a power Conduit. Similarly Awakening doesnt require Snapping because Breaths are locally stored Batteries. If it helps, you could think of it as a permanent Spiritweb mutation more like the Royal Locks, which are fueled by normal food metabolism rather than an external Investiture. There is also the fact that whatever Change was made to the Terris Spiritweb was apparently a necessary First Step to creating Kandra, so there is that facet of it's interaction with Hemalurgy.

Lightsong by a wide margin, though I do enjoy any time Nightblood in on stage. Lightsong in general, and his interactions with his Priest in particular, are some of my favorite in the entire Cosmere.

Im not a real teacher, but we did discuss something similar recently. @Beaker has apparently used Emperors Soul for "not especially academic 11th graders" successfully. As far as general lessons that you could work with the novels, Emperors Soul has some interesting What-If discussion possibilities. All the settings of Stormlight are amazingly interesting, with the coral-like plants, giant crustaceans, etc. And there are some wonderful resources floating around here that work out the mathematics of things like why the Greatshells are physically impossible even on a planet with lower gravity than earth (you could basically use it to disprove Godzilla ) . I personally enjoy the glyph writing system, and how they use them both as symbolic logo-graphics and also to approximate phonetic spellings. Not sure how well the stormlight novels themselves would translate to primary schoolers though. Reckoners would probably be a really good choice, especially for the age-group. It is a bit more comic books than LOTR fantasy but it is classically awesome Sanderson that is also written for a slightly younger audience. It's basically a What-If scenario where people start getting superpowers (x-men style), but more realistic in the sense that society collapses entirely in the face of a bunch of demigods that the Authorities are entirely unequipped to deal with. For Reasons there arent much in the way of Superheroes stepping up to Defend the Innocent, so the villains sort of carve everything up into territorial City-states. Given the current pop-culture obsession with Superheroes, this is one that offers a huge amount of thought-provoking perspective that you usually dont get in that genre, since it basically starts with the idea that the "Good Guys" arent going to always Win when they try to save the world.

And so it goes... A little sad, it could have had some cool implications on the wider physical realm, but that's not unexpected. Thanks

Crap! Thought we were in the main cosmere discussion. Sorry!

All the RP is collected in it's own sub-forum. Here's the link to the Reckoner's section of that. Is that what you were looking for? https://www.17thshard.com/forum/forum/70-reckoners-rpg/

Ah, ok cool that's an interesting Idea. Worth noting that the Aon Rao (the one Raoden "fixed" by adding the chasm-line) is also one of the Constellations in the Selish sky. And if there is one Aon in the sky there are likely more, with the moon almost certainly playing a role in how they manifest (could be a whole new source of tidal-esk changes). So, new question regarding the Moon Scepter's role and/or function: Is it still accurate? By that I mean is it supernatural enough to have updated itself when the Aon Rao changed, or could it be out of date now? Is that the only selish symbol to have changes? For that matter, if the Aon Rao is also a constellation, was there perhaps a corresponding celestial event that added a Chasm-line to that one too?

Especially in light of the WOB @Ookla the Indefatigable posted, I think it's a combination of his own nature making him less vulnerable to it, but that being Invested by Syl is also going to offer some defense (if not a complete immunity all on it's own, by the "war inside of Kaladin" statement. For example, when he was first brought to the shattered Plains he was so on the edge of rage that he was ready to kill anyone he perceived being unjust to him; at that point he'd likely have been vulnerable tot the Thrill. In general terms though, I think the Thrill is looking for more or less the same spiritual foothold that Nightblood is testing for, and Kaladin's immunity to Thrill is similar to Vivenna's "immunity" to Nightblood's Test of Evil.

I think it would be a major upset to the planet comparable to an Invested Shard leaving the planet. Aons (or rather, various symbol languages) would likely still be the Focus of the world (the way Metal is on Scadrial) that allows the Investiture to reach the Physical world, but everything on Sel now is the result of two masses of Investiture being broken and stuffed in the Cognitive, so I think reassembling them and moving it back to it's natural Spiritual Realm home would be a half-step away from the Dor leaving and a whole new shard arriving. All that has the caveat that if the newly minted Vessel in question wanted to they could likely consciously mold things so that the new Investiture interfaces with the Aon symbol system in a way that preserves some if not all of the Dor magics. Elantrians would probably be hardest hit, though the fact that the Ire members didnt seem to be affected by the Reod might indicate that it's not as necessary after the transformation. Dakhor might get their bones depowered but I dont think they'd face much beyond that, unless the changes are being actively maintained as with Forgery/Bloodsealing.

An astrological drive for it makes as much sense as anything. How do you see the Moon Scepter fitting in?

For what it's worth, there is a strong theory (and I think now a WOB?) that says the true purpose of Lerasium is to permanently forge a Connection to the shard of whatever Godmetal it is alloyed with, and that the reason WOB says that making a Mistborn is a side effect is because when it has no other Shard's investiture to alloy with it will simply reinforce the Connection with itself (ie. Preservation) and make a Mistborn (or Misting in the case of Atium since Ruin's already Invested in the Metallic Arts). It's also been implied several times that Hoid took the bead but didnt burn it to become a Mistborn. Those two things open up a lot of possibility for Hoid saving it to Connect to other magic systems like being able to actually Awaken with his apparent store of Breaths, maaaaybe getting Dor off-world, etc.

The Parsh and the Spren are both are part of the Highstorm Investiture ecosystem of Roshar, which as others have said predates the Shattering (in some form). In that sense the Investiture isnt coming directly from a Shard (in the way that Allomancy or even Breaths do) but rather it's coming from the ambient flow if Investiture that is constantly cycling on Roshar. In that sense the Investiture is either non-specific in the same way that every Human has an amount of innate "spark of Life" investiture, or else you could argue that the Investiture involved is some mixture of the three Shards currently Invested in Roshar. Put another way I dont really think the Forms would innately come from a specific shard any more than individual Gemhearts do. The only exception (I think) is that there generally seems to be a lot less integration with Odium's Jonny-Come-Lately Investiture, which is why they provide wholly different Rhythms and whatnot.

Argument that Hoid is the Protagonist: Umm....He seems a decent fellow? Argument that Hoid is the Antagonist: HE WARNS EVERYONE NOT TO TRUST HIM!!!

Between Jasnah becoming the queen, Dalinar writing a book, and the reemergence of Radants that never were gender discriminating, I strongly suspect that will be one of the many obsolete cultural taboo's that will fall by the wayside. Hopefully they'll learn the joys of Sweet&Spicy. To answer a specific question: nah, I dont really see any all-women spear squads. Hopefully by the time they'd be able to form they will all have let go of the distinction all together. Id think all women squads would only be needed if they were unable to gain acceptance/equality within the established hierarchy, and since Kaladin is currently at the forefront of that Im hoping he'll be able to steer things away from segregation. Regarding Rlain, a lot of us would love to see him in more of a leadership role, specifically as the third Bondsmith.

After college, my friends and I described our DnD group as "interpersonal problem-solving training" or similar. Basically we described all the soft-skills involved (planning, strategy, interpersonal conflict resolution, etc) and just didnt mention that the setting also included elves and gnomes and magic daggers. Similarly, one friend of mine was in charge of a 300-person, upper-tier WoW raiding guild back in the heyday, and the shear amount of logistics and conflict resolution involved was unquestionably difficult, and made for impressive experience if you described it in business terms.