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I could be wrong but I dont think that would work for the same reason you cant typically grab Breaths with a Spike: the Investiture involved is stored in the Physical realm and is not making changes to your Spiritweb directly.

Breaths that are used up or "destroyed" return the spiritual and her, so it would be really hard for her to loose a significant portion of it. But assuming a store of them could be created and maintained enough to get an actual relevant chunk of the shard, it would be more or less like when the Lord Ruler took up the Well: Ascending to phenomenal cosmic power, Temporarily. But they presumably would not actually take the Shard from the current Vessel any more than the Lord Ruler did. Given enough time INvestiture can gain sentience, and given enough investitrue things can tend to become more sentient than otherwise. But Nightblood was Awakened with way more Intent and a specific Magic system. It doesnt appear that a physical Object is going to awaken to sentience on it's own (which do not have Spren or anything, that different). otherwise Sel would be talking by now. This worries me somewhat because of the following observation. Nightblood consumes Breath (and other Investiture, but let's limit ourselves to Breath for a second). Every person on Nalthis is born with one Breath. Populations tend to grow. Which means that under normal rules of demographics, population of Nalthis should keep increasing. This in turn means that under normal circumstances the number of people with Breath on Nalthis should be growing. I can see the following possible explanations to this: Endowment can give Breath to many more people than are currently living on Nalthis. So, the exponential population growth has not yet reached the level at which Endowment's ability to award a Breath to each Nalthis-born human is seriously challenged. When it happens though, things will not go well. There is some built-in mechanism controlling population growth on Nalthis, making certain that the population stays within the limits. Nightblood's consumption of Breath makes these limits smaller, and overall may lead to Endowment's inability to grant Breath to Nalthis-born, but not for a while (essentially, Endowment controls population trends at she sees fit). Thoughts? Brandon Sanderson Just as a point you should understand, the amount of MATTER in the cosmere is finite too. As is the amount of energy. Worrying that Endowment will run out of Breaths to give is a little like worrying that the amount of carbon on Earth will run out because people keep being born. uchoo786 So just for clarification, once Nightblood consumes investiture, that investiture gets recycled? That's what I've always assumed. That it enters the cognitive/spiritual realm? Brandon Sanderson The investiture he consumes is not gone forever--it's not leaving the system, so to speak. General Reddit 2015 (Dec. 14, 2015)

Welcome! What's your favorite Sanderson work? No personal experience with it, but the top google response I got was:

Good catch, yes, Warbreaker will explain Azure and Nightblood. Secret history is basically all the cosmere-relevant stuff that happened behind the scenes of mistborn Era 1.

I think they can do Just about anything other Investiture can do, with enough Training and the appropriate Command (and the Intent of the mental images to guide it). It seems the most adaptable of the investitures, adapting and shedding Identity more readily than the others, moving freely to invest physical objects, and take Commands largely through pure Intent. I would not be at all surprised to find they could be used to charge any other source of Investiture with a relatively simple Command (ie. Charge a metalmind or gem, etc). It might take more mental gymnastics around the Commands but I suspect when taken to their Sci-fi extreme they will be able to mimic most other cosmere effects. We know they allow for Worldhopping, and it seems they can Connect you to the Local enough to get the language translation effect. We know they give a lot of benefits just by being Invested in the Physical form of a person (ie the Heighenings) which appear to be a direct linear scale of improvement for traits like Senses, Mental Intuition, Age, and Health, as well as more overall metaphysical Mass when it comes to overcoming other Investiture effects. TInfoil: I suspect they are a post-shattering Investiture manifestation that is mimicking the Dawnshards themselves, or at least the one of them. As far as I can see there are really only a few specific limitations to them: They need (and use up) Color to move, which is a mechanism we don't yet understand They struggle to effect non-organic materials far more than organic matter. "The nature of the Warbreaker magic is tied to the shard of Endowment, which is about giving. There are, therefore, things you cannot do for yourself." One example is healing yourself. (per WoB)

More or less, though I dont imagine it as a Choice so much as that the Rosharan Gemheart ecosystem was designed as part of this pressure relief, and all the creatures of that world with gemhearts should be able to help that purpose. But you are right it would need a Sapient species to fully support a cognitive realm, which itself is entirely needed for the Spren to exist. The Singers in that light would be the alternative specifically conceived of and created because Humans (and presumably Dragons and Sho Dal) where not innately suitable. And probably needed the custom Spiritweb Expansion Slot that is the Gemheart.

Friend! How ya been? He might be able to figure out a way with enough Connection Manipulation. He has the benefit of being a Sliver, so he should understand the realms better than most. And we know he does have access to Sel and it's magical Programming Languages, which probably have the most versatility and potential to customize that sort of Connection sufficiently. Also Im willing to bet Awakening could do it (based on the Ruin in Nightblood, whole other topic), you could make a Breath affect a purely cognitive entity (they might require a physical form to Invest?) Fwiw I dont think that sort of Connection would be a natural process on Scadrial, but then normally people dont become the sole focus of a dominant religion on the planet. That's the sort of thing that could have a significant effect on a planets Cognitive Realm, which in turn is what I think it would take to plug yourself into such a broad abstract concept for real power. On Roshar I would imagine the process being that either he (d)evolves into a spren that starts to take on those Connections through a combination of Choices, Self-Image, and the prevalence of Bonds that love to form on Roshar. Or else he'd attract and Bond some sort of primal Survivorspren and piggy-back the required Connections that way. Or he bribes a Bondsmith...

Nicely presented! I too agree with the "What" but have a slightly different spin on the "Why": I think it's Intended as in Investiture Pressure Relief and/or Realmic Balancer. We know that Roshar functions that way now per WOB, which prevented some of the potential fallout from Honor's splintering. So maybe that's the intent and not a side effect. Maybe Adonalsium realized the use of Investiture/Darnshards/etc. was causing a realmic Imbalance and built a whole solar system intended provide a constant cycle of investiture through the realms, to give the Cosmere a way to reach and maintain an equilibrium state in spite of all the sapient futzing with the system was being done. Separate question is whether Adonlsium screwed something up bad before they made this to get the idea, whether the mortals noticed, and whether that had anything to do with deciding to go through with the Shattering.

Stormlight 4 is probably one of the most Cosmere-aware books so far, so more than any other it had connections to several (most?) other Cosmere books. If you haven't already, Warbreaker should be your top priority to explain some things. Elantris will have a couple recognizable things in it too. I would probably say finish the available Mistborn before picking up Mistborn: Secret History just to avoid any potential impact of a couple cool reveals. Emperor's soul doesn't connect but is often cited as people's favorite story, so it's worth it at any time. The rest of the shorts are up to you, worth reading but less revelatory from a Cosmere plot perspective. All of this is my opinion, and this is a topic that lots of people have thoughts on.

A Cognitive Shadow without a Body would need a constant supply of Investiture to maintain the existence. So I think his existence would become far more characterized by that constant need. "Survivor" would then become a little sour, more about endlessly post-poning the Beyond than about resisting the hazards of the world or however you see Survivorism. I dont think they are subject to the perception whims of the population the way abstract Spren are (and Im not sure that trait is even shared with the more similar Seons, to be honest). That appears to be to have more to do with the far more interconnected Investiture ecosystem of Roshar, at least to me. The Nightwatcher, for example, was made intentionally to lack that influence. I do think he would develop some various forms of mental health issues like any overly long-lived creatures (Heralds, Returned, Elantrians, etc).

I dont think that will be the norm, or the historic direction of it. At most I think that will be the vector of Dalinar specifically as the first Bondsmith of Tanavast's ghost. But prior to that one was the Bondsmith of the Storm more than Honor itself, and the other two have even less direct association with Honor, and at least as much with Cultivation. But I also would be entirely accepting of the three Bondsmiths having more individualized Ideals that diverge from each other relative to the differences in their Spren.

Yup:

Melishi did the thing during the False Desolation, and I've been under the impression that their madness has been a more cumulative thing over the cycles that led to them abandoning the Oathpact and all that, as opposed to something that came afterward through Radiant interference.

Interesting question! I would call the mental degeneration a form of "Age" in the sense of inevitable degradation that makes their existence finite. But the fused are possessing an otherwise normal body, unlike the Returned or Heralds (as far as we know). I have no idea if the body continues to age at it's previous rate, theoretically forcing a long-lived fused to trade in bodies as the singer ages out of usefulness, or if the Fused possession (that affects their physical forms in the skin patterns at least) stalls the body's aging processes.

Agreed, though with at least one asterisk. Post-Dawnshard I think the Dysians might be have trouble ascending because infusing their swarm with that much Investiture would start waking up all the individual entities to sapience, effectively destroying the swarm as a cohesive entity. Spren on the other hand cant themselves become a Vessel because they lack the native Physical realm Connection, at most I think they could provide a seed intelligence for the Shard to become its own self-aware entity. EDIT: No Idea where that leaves Nightblood, a robot spren with a Sapient mind that was born to the Physical Realm natively through Awakening... Here's a few relevant WOB's.

First off, that is an AWESOME profile icon! Look to the Stars, for Hope Burns Bright! Past that, it's a good point that there is a delay/limit to the engagement of Tapping a metalmind, but I think that barrier can be easily overcome with Temporal Allomancy and Mental Speed; either it's the result of Intent taking time to crystalize enough for the effect, in which case Mental Speed would shorten the gap, or else it's more "real" and they can pulse some Temporal Allomancy to give themselves all the subjective time needed to engage a suit of internal powers. Pewter specifically we know does have upper limit in that you will gain muscle bulk until you lose all range of motion and are a giant lump of meat, but that somewhat unique. I think it was Alloy of Law where we saw Wax blow years of weight in one blast, but without Allomancy to leverage that weight all a normal ferring could do is break what they are standing on, but they'd still smear their bones against the rock if they tried to punch with that alone. I also just found a WOB that says that Feruchemical Speed would increase the base rate that you Burn metals. Full are not the only "Overpowered" magic type, at least in a Tournament Battle Vs. sort of setting. Radiants get some of the best base-package, even before individual surges come into play. And a mature Elantrian who's gotten Dor off-world with some Connection and is given time to Write a proper AonDor program can do just about anything conceivable, including mimicking almost any other ability known (in theory). But the combination of Physical and Mental Speed, Temporal Allomancy, Gold Compounding and the precognitive advantages of Atium and Electrum, make a direct confrontation with a Fullborn all but impossible unless you can get the element of Surprise. At least until we get some more concrete upper limits of these things. Like how we know justs by WOB that they cant go full Speed Force, they still have to deal with wind resistance and things like that (even though Id say BoM sort of broke that limit already...)

Nice! More or less Yes Per WOB, but the repeated spiking would have cumulative damage, and per INquisitors we know there is a limit to how many spikes you can maintain. I dont think so, because from what we've seen Identity is a whole other thing than the sort of History revision Temporal Effect. However, along very similar lines: since we dont know as much about it, I think it would work with a Chromium Spike to "Steal Destiny" after Flaring of Atium or Electrum to get a detailed image of the person's more distant Future. Maybe, assuming it can be directed to specific tasks that way, as compared to Atium flaring that is also a Fortune-based peak into the Spiritual, but with a built-in target restriction. A few of my own: A chromium Leecher with a glove that can hold medallions to grant the different allomantic powers. They would have to select the right medallion for the job, but as long as they can hold onto their target with the glove they would grant them the ability to Burn those specific metals just long enough to Burn up all their metalminds and/or Spikes. The Classic F-tin mitigates all the downsides of A-tin, and you can then compound any individual sense you want, including non-standard ones like Pain or Balance. Im in the camp that thinks there exists a perfect alloy ratio of Lerasium to Atium that would create a full Feruchemist.

It doesnt, it just makes you struggle more while you are doing those things, so you jog and heal slower and with more difficulty. Feruchemy is naturally limited by how much you can store at any given time, and how detrimental that is. In most cases you would have to store up for a very long time (suffering the whole time) to get the dramatic bursts of power. There are a few exceptions that can be more easily stored like Rest (which is the only one you can store while asleep). Weight is easy to store (beneficial even) but typically not as useful as it is for Wax because it doesnt make you all that more durable and you need a way to exert the force (like steelpushing). Most of the others would suck to store fully (storing Gold fully could literally kill you in time) so you would only be able to pull off the big trick Once before you needed weeks of recovery time. Compounding, on the other hand, can get pretty ridiculous, especially with an actual Fullborn. Thank gods they are normally impossible.

Mansions of Madness, a mystery/RP board game from the makers of Betrayal at the House on Haunted Hill, where you RP scenario's but instead of a GM player it has an interactive software companion that randomizes everything and triggers the encounters, etc. Dyson Sphere Program, a Resource Gathering, factory building & automation game that lets you take over a star cluster's worth of planets and systems to build dyson spheres. Edit: this is a video game in early access, and the visuals alone are worth the time.

You do the work of the gods, my friend!

What they are made of is sort of a major plot point. How far have you gotten?

To elaborate on a few of these: Metallic Arts is Genetic (spiritual DNA, not the chemical stuff), so it follows the bloodlines even if they leave their homeworld. It also works on any mundane metal, it doesnt have to be from Scadrial. Most normal People are not Invested enough just standing around that they would have actual trouble leaving. Only grumpy Ghosts that have been juiced with Investiture to keep them "alive". Breaths and Divine Breaths can be taken off-world, but only people living on Nalthis will be born with Breaths or get Returned. Leave the world and within a few generations there will be no Breaths, and Immigrant families will eventually naturalize and start being born with them. Sel magics are all more specifically locked to the planet because they run on Dor fuel and it only exists in the local Cognitive Realm of that planet. Any magic taken too far from their home region (let alone off-world) will stop working, because they dont naturally route through the Spiritual Realm that lets you ignore distance. We've see that it's possible, but you have to take extra steps involving Connection manipulation to create a Spiritual umbilical or something. Taldain Sand can be transported and grown off-world, and can be charged in the presence of any kinetic Investiture, so it could very easily become a common Container for Investiture to be moved around the cosmere. As far as we know you have to be born to Sand Mastery, though there is a WOB that you could become one with an alloy of Lerasium and Autonomy's theoretical Godmetal. Rosharan Magics are sticky by nature, and the way the Bonds work the people (ie. Radiants) are more Invested as a base state since their Spiritwebs are merged with a Spren, a living being of pure Investiture. So even the average Radiant will have a lot of trouble getting off-world. We know it is possible, and that Radiants in the very distant future seem able to travel. The current theory that I think leads the pack is that it's a matter of Connection Manipulation just like Selish Dow magics. However even if they solve that problem, stormlight is too leaky by it's nature to be easily transported without an impractical amount of Perfect Gemstones (or a Bondsmith). I swear I found a WOB once that said you could charge Gems from any Perpendicularity, which would go a long way toward their outward expansion. Otherwise they would need ways to convert Investiture from and to stormlight.

It really all comes down to who or what Trell actually is (shard vs Avatar, and of whom). Also what Thaidakar actually "is" these days. And how much overlap is in that venn diagram. I would still very much love to see a plotline of rival Avatars of the same shard...

Good point.

As far as I recall they want to overthrow the existing government(s) and breed allomancers to take over, not literally destroy the planet. FWIW, this is a corollary to "Kelsier = Trell = Avatar of Autonomy" theory. Im not saying I buy into it personally, but it is another valid option.