Quantus

Not really. If he's a Dawnshard, he hasnt been one (or the right one) long enough to develop the same inhibitions as Hoid, since he is capable of physical harm. His stance is a relatively common one for both Doctors and the downtroden (both by caste and enemy occupation). Most of the focus on kaladin's lineage that Ive seen has been on the hints that his mother was part of one of the noble houses.

There are (fairly old) WOB's that claim all Investiture in the Cosmere is From Adonalsium (or was it Of Adonalsium). If we take that to still be true then it means the Aethers simply believe they are separate from Adonalsium. But if we assume they have good reason for their beliefs, I have a theory to reconcile it: Theory: The Aethers were Investiture that was left alone too long and gained Sentience on it's own. Their Investiture is technically still of the Cosmere and of Adonalsium, but they are not a creation of Adonalsium and they probably just consider Adonalsium a bigger example of themselves (Investiture-gone-Sapient). Corollary Theory: Adonalsium created Roshar specifically to be a pressure relief system to prevent the circumstances of stagnant Investiture that allowed the Aethers to form and gain sentience. from happening again. Support (Tenuous) : One of the few things about Adonalsium we know from WOB is that they would have prevented pre-shattering Spren from gaining sapience even though it would have been possible.

No, as far as we know. Nothing is impossible, especially with Shards, a) but Hemalurgy requires the user to know what they are trying to do, and b) Nightblood is too invested to take new Hemalurgic Investiture (per WOB).

I like it. At this point (and assuming the older WOB's dont just prove to be outdated to his plans), I think every Shard is going to have an associated Frequency, which with manifest as a Color, a Tone, Both, or Neither (in the sense of not being perceivable by the the normal range of 5 senses, the visible light part of the EM spectrum, etc). A lot of the rest is a give person and/or magic system trying to make cognitive sense of the information. Your point about the Metal lines appearing Blue is interesting, it makes me curious if somebody with Heightening and Perfect Color would perceive them any differently. Or perhaps glean more information from them? WOB does say they can be used to identify different metals (without savantism).

Devils' advocate statement, but WOB says Ruin's accociation with the Color Black is restricted to Scadrial and that those two Polarized to White/Black because of how much of direct opposites they were. So, despite the fact that Nightblood is confirmed to have Ruin in him, the presence of color Black might be coincidence for Midnight Essence. more like how Blue Honor and Green Cultivation have a whole spectrum of different colored Radiant Orders.

Im not convinced he's particularly consistent, and a lot of that sounds like him buying his own hype a bit. Sure it does, if you assume he's at the stage in his research and realmics that he believes that Spren and cognitive shadows (Fused and Heralds, maybe Returned if he's aware fo them) are all cousin states of existence. The Heralds are sustained by the Oathpact by all indications, and their bodies are provided, created, and/or repaired during the course of the Desolation cycle. The nearest example to mimic is the Fused, where a Cognitive Shadow entirely overrides a PR raw material host body. I think he's seeing what it takes to make that happen, and he's settling on Honorspren since they appear to have the closest thing to Human anatomy.

That first WOB was the one I was thinking of when I said Ishar's goal was manifesting a new body to allow travel, but I realize there was a whole lot of my own assumptions in there for both of their motivations. Still, I think he's after something other than suicide like the Stormfather believes. The Stormfather has been known to describe a pretty wide variety of things as Death, so it could also be another fuzzy thing. I think he wants to disConnect himself from the Oathpact completely and transition to a new type of Cognitive Shadow that isnt Bound to Honor. That would probably allow him to travel but travel may not be his actual goal.

I think it's relevant in the sense that we know he is experimenting with creating bodies for Spren and forcing them to manifest in the Physical realm by "bringing them over" somehow. We know his powerset primarily centers around Connection Manipulation. It's implied (but not confirmed, correct?) that his ultimate goal is to safely Create a new and/or UnConnected Body for Cognitive Shadows like him, as a step toward the eventual goal of being able to travel more like Returned.

I agree, Id completely forgotten the connection to the Shadesmar hunting party they came across in Shadesmar. That being said, I dont think it's beyond an unbound Bondsmith's capabilities to force the Bond on a spren, either by creating a Bond or by forcefully relocating an existing one.

I may be looking at a different line, but Ishar's notes talk about "the process of creating bodies for them..." as a separate thing, and I can find no mention of manifesting bodies in that scene. I may have missed that, when did we learn about Ishar targeting Notum? Regardless, I dont think that precludes Ishar Smithing the Bond for his own purposes and against the Spren's will.

I think he's messing with the Nahel bond of Spren and Radiant pairs, Overwriting the human Radiant with the Spren's Spirit to manifest them with a body in a process closer to what the Fused are doing to their Singer host.

Basically, once the Shard has Invested in the world enough for it's Pure Tone to emerge, then it has assimilated enough that it's no longer "Corrupting" foreign Investiture to interact with the local system. This is why some Voidspren are described as shadowy red and some are Odium's Gold, the older ones where created under old rules (just like Spren genders).

The short answer is that different forms of Investiture have different rules, just like different forms of Energy have wildly different rules (even within the same broad categories), heat and light and gravity and magnetism are all Energy, but they each have their own rulebook, and even Radio Waves vs Microwaves dont behave the same. The explosion part requires forcing both Light and the Anti-Light into the same container, the annihilate each other inside the container which becomes over-pressurized. Without the container, the annihilation still happens but energy just gets released. It's the difference between lighting a pile of gunpowder on a plate vs inside a grenade housing. As for the Godmetal Raysium, Godmetals are weird because they are Investiture converted and solidified into Matter, so they dont play by the same rules as either Investiture in gaseous Form (ie the Lights) or in any pure Investiture form (ie while Investing a person or Object, or when Sapient). Per WOB, the solids are settled into a specific purpose and sort of crystallized that way, compared to the gas or liquid forms that are more free, and thus more volatile in this context. Overall, Anti-light works on the principles of Wave cancellation so it has to match the original are perfectly as possible with a slight phase shift. The simpler the sample/state of Investiture, the easier it will be to match that waveform. The Lights are simple and constant (like the pure Tones they come from) so it's relatively straightforward to counter it completely. Anything more more Identity will have a more complex waveform "voice" that would need to be matched to get the same cancellation resonance, most dramatically with Plate and with sapient Spren. It's possible in theory to craft Ant-light to counter any specific Investiture, up to and including specific surges and/or effects of any magic system, but it's a lot more target-specific than Anti-Matter (which just cares what subatomic particles are involved).

Two Utilitarian deities, one Benevolent one that is more powerful than either and is devoted to Balance. And Me, their Favored (former) mortal. If they truly "are your friends and will help you in what ever way they can" then I will have become literal God-Emperor favored by the entire Pantheon. Help me in whatever way they can means they support me and my goals, would never let me die (even to Age), would never let those I love suffer, and would empower me in a lot of wonderful ways.

At the Height of their Power? Sazed, Rashek, Taravangian

Same as Koloss: The one that says an Inquisitor needs a Linchpin spike to hold things together with 4 or more spikes. Koloss have 4 spikes with no dedicated linchpin, and the Times a Kandra has had 4 did not seem to cause the fallout we're told would happen to an Inquisitor. That's how Inquisitors need to do it, but they have 4 random and UnConnected spikes. Kandra and Koloss both use paired Blessing Spikes, which I suspect is why they dont have the same threshold for a Linchpin, especially since WOB describes it's function as "Coordinating" the other spikes. So if Blessing Pairs are innately more coordinated, it's logically possible can implant up to 4 Pairs before the same instability arises.

The short and unsatisfying answer is that the Inquisitors are a completely different race than humans, and so are Kandra, so they just have their own rules. And iirc the Lord Ruler specifically built the linchpin flaw into them to make them easier to control/eliminate if they challenged him. But WOB does also say that there's some flexibility in how the linchpin can work and which metal it can be. Steel is typical, WOB below makes it sounds like the a Healing spike could work too when available.

Im not sure how I feel about the metal economy side of it, but especially for Feruchemy (where the metal is not consumed) I think I would treat them like props that you just Have unless the Story itself conspires to take them away. But even for Allomancy, it might honestly fall more in the category of Arrow Consumption, where I generally just dont bother unless there are specific/unusual circumstances that limit the recourse. Wayne wasnt (obviously) rich but he was given Bendalloy rations by the police force which let him use his powers without too much worry about the monetary cost. I might use something like the old White Wolf method of Weath, where you had rating that represented your general lifestyle, and costs within it could be ignored but cost of the next order of magnitude would incur more lasting Cost/penalty. So an average person could buy rations and a room for the night without consequence but would have to spend narrative effort to get a new Horse and carriage, while the Noble could buy horses all day long but would need to spend narrative effort to buy a Keep, and the barbarian raised by wolves would need to spend narrative effort just to get a Clean pair of pants.

I entirely agreed, Tapping has to be elected before the outcome is known, with the possible exception of Chromium, and the negative effects should more often than not cascade into additional roles and consequences (allowing for wide DM creativity much like with Nat1's) unless the DM feels they were sufficiently strategic to avoid them. For Gold Healing, I dont think it needs to be reactive any more than traditional Healing Magics, since it's not necessarily faster than any normal voluntary action. The big difference would be that you can tap it even when incapacitated, unconscious, or when you drop below 0. In fact, it could make some fun scenarios if a Ferring is unable to Stop themselves from Tapping while incapacitated, making it possible for others to forcefully exhaust their Metalminds.

My Feruchemy suggestion for @Trusk'our was intended for 5e, so I would recommend the same idea: A relevant Storing roll with a PC determined penalty, that banks the Charge to be added later on as an equivalent Bonus. For Gold, that would be the Short Rest Hit Die roll, adding Charges representing an increase to the Con Bonus that translate directly to HP earned. You mostly let the bonuses come into play wherever an associated Stat bonus is already being added to the roll, so the numeric balance takes care of itself.

Im not saying I think Investiture is the reason Soulcasting cannot create Gems, but I do think that whatever realmic weirdness is stopping Soulcasting is likely to also stop Cohesion and Tension since they are relatively Low-Power surges that are easier to block overall. As you say, I suspect its similar in explanation to how Metals are innately closer to the Spiritual Realm on Scadrial and manifest with that Glow in the CR that can mess with even Shards' cababilities. And I believe it's not just an issue of Soulcasting not being able to Affect Gems, considering that Soulcasting can Create but not Affect Aluminum, but they cannot to either for Gems... As far as I recall I know Soulcasting cannot create them but I dont know if its confirmed they can also not modify them. Though to be fair, I also think this is a Doylist issue born of a need for stable Rosharan Economics that we (and Brandon) are going to have to work backwards to explain.

I think that just makes Klynar an Aetherbound world taken over by the Midnight Essence and maybe something unique to give individual symbiotes more of a unique spren-like personality, and instead of Water they need Meat (or Chocolate, per the sequel). Or maybe a Radiant style-skaze, bonded with a Nahel Bond but with enough Dominion to use Death as fuel like Dakhor, and flavored with much more gooey Blade& Plate equivalents. EDIT: I just learned that the 3rd one is coming out in November. I wonder if they'll set up Knull or one of the other big Symbiote storylines from the comics, or just make something "fresh" for the screen.

Counterpoint: Both Cohesion and Tension struggle to affect anything that is even a little Invested, and while not every gem is Invested, they seem to have more Bleed-over from the Spiritual than other substances (akin to Metal's Cognitive Glow on Scadrial). If whatever is preventing Gem Creation via Soulcasting involves even a little Investiture in the physical gems, they are likely beyond the reach of those Surges (for now).

That's all very fair, though Im not sure I see why Str and Cha matter More in 3.5 than in 5e; they were firming Dump stats most of the time in 3.5, but with all Stats having an associated Save in 5e that becomes more dangerous. Yes exactly, they essentially always have to perform a Storing Roll. Most of the time they'll do it in a nice safe location where they can mitigate the risk and be fine with situational logic, but if they're pushed into a corner they can (for example) be really slow for a couple rounds of combat (with penalties to DEX, etc) to bank a bonus for one big punch right after.

I think Taldain is supposed to be the furthest along, so they might be aware of it and pushing it elsewhere. Or anyone Old enough to have been around for Yolen, like all the dragons. Or anyone with enough Fortune and/or Spiritual Future Sight; I have to assume Instant Noodles would shine like a beacon in the SR, as a true Milestone of Civilization.