Stark

I think it worth clarifying that Jasnah, as an Elsecaller can transform objects into all 10 essences, irrespective of the 'Caster she uses, which is why it changed nothing that she had Shallan's broken 'Caster. However, her 'Caster had three Gem types, giving the appearance that it had three modes, Crystal, Flame and Smoke. I believe she also used a garnet for Blood when saving Shallan. I don't think the gem type matters to a Radiant, but it does to a fabrial user. So maybe a non-radiant 'Caster can handle up to three essences, dependent on the gem types integrated, until the user becomes to adapted to one essence in particular and begins to transform themselves? Once they reach the Savant state they can no longer use other Essences?

I think for me, the biggest hint as to what would Have "broken" Jasnah, or at least cracked her enough to make her a candidate, was the scene in the alley with Shallan. The magnitude of her response to the thugs, how she sought them out and destroyed them without mercy seems to point towards an event in her past that would justify this stance. I do not believe that she was sexually assaulted, if for no other reason than Brandon himself has stated that he finds sexual assault to be an overused tool in fantasy. Especially when it comes to bringing female characters to their "lowest" point in their character arcs, or personal history.He explains it better in his annotations for Warbreaker (Warbreaker Annotations). But she may have known someone in her childhood who was mugged and murdered in an alley, and that emotional trauma would be enough to "break" her, if she was close enough to the person. I could definitely see that leaving a vigilante streak in someone when it comes to those that would prey on people trying to get home.

Awesome @The One Who Connects! Thanks for finding that WOB! I'm now seeing this legion of metal golems, Soulcast from fallen heroes, awakened as Lifeless protectors, or semi-sentient Nightblood style golems... With no evil blood harvesting required!

This is the only hiccup I can foresee for this approach.From what little we have seen of Soulcasting, it involves changing the target identity in the cognitive realm. If the target, in this case a corpse, has a new identity as a metal statue that was never living, it may very well fail the "once living" criteria. It all hinges on whether the target retains "memory" of its previous identity in its new form. This may be a question for a forger. It would also require extremely precise 'Casting - to do a partial change of the corpse, leaving the skeleton intact as bone.

A couple of small adjustments. This was assuming that you would be using a skeleton for the framework of the golem, so the use of human bones would very minorly reduce the weight of steel. Another point is that iron is not steel. The iron you are collecting would need to be converted to steel, preferably of the stainless variety to prevent rusting. SO the addition of the carbon to the iron would further reduce the volume of blood iron you would need, but in the end it is still a staggering amount. Final point, for the collection of the iron, you are not thinking like a mad scientist enough. You need material that was once alive, and humans are not the only mammal that have blood, and therefore blood iron. A proper mad awakener bent on creating a Lifeless steel golem, possibly sentient like Nightblood, would not limit themselves to human sacrifice to collect the iron. In fact it is most likely that they would start with animals to keep from being discovered. But yes, at the end you have the Golem of Hallandren, commanded to protect the city from all threats for all time. Yeah, that is some twisted Blood-magicy-pseudo-hemalurgic-awakening right there. I could totally see Taravangian getting behind this research from his death hospital... Edit: Huh, if we are looking for metal that had been alive to yield the best awakening results, wouldn't a Soulcast metal corpse be the least evil option?

Super, super dark. I think the main problem with this is the science. Modern Nalthis seems to be still in the horse/carriage/ sword state of scientific development. They may not have progressed far enough to (a) recognize that blood has an iron component, or (b) be able to extract - or - filter the iron out of the blood. So why this may ultimately work, I do not think it is possible from a tech level given what we no Nalthis. This route is probably best for creating a metal golem, not unlike the D'Denir statues, bone core with blood iron body. That said, we know this took a ton of breath to accomplish. If we keep your calculation, but look at it as 1320 humans worth of Breath to awaken the sword, that might work. But other than that, not technologically possible.

I'm going to say no, for similar reasons that ferrings don't seem to be Savants. The ferrings are not channeling investiture to gain excessive power further warping their souls. The Koloss are being granted abilities, true, but they don't have to channel investiture to gain the benefit. They grow in strength, as if they were tapping strength, but without the safeties in place that prevent a ferring from dying. But no, no active investiture consumption after spiking, so no Savantism in Koloss. Era 2 Koloss-blooded Pewter Allomancers, sure. But otherwise no.

Yes, but we here at the 17th Shard excel at nitpicking. I will say that we do not know for sure that ancient fabrials do not use trapped spren. As you say, we do not know how they function. This is drifting a bit from the topic of Savants, but it almost feels like the koloss. They get hemalurgic implants that increase their growth and strength till they die in battle, or the square-cube law gets them, while losing a lot of mental capacity and upping rage. Soulcasters get transformative abilities while having physical alterations to their bodies and alterations to their mental states. Both are unstable, leading to the eventual premature death of the subject. Both of our examples, Kala and Human, remember having been human, and express a desire to return to the human state...

Wow, this is awesome. I have not started many topics, but this is the first one to take off so much. Granted, a cynic could point out that I went for the low hanging fruit, talking about Savants right after we got the Ad Astra transcript, or at all really, but still, thanks everyone who is contributing! So Hemalurgy, I don't disagree that they can be savants, especially if they are the enhanced type rather than hemalurgic constructs. But Hemalurgy is so wierd that I did not want to include it as examples of what I guess you could call natural Savants. They were made savants by having stolen abilities stapled onto their souls. They are the Fankenstein's Monster of Savants (excluding Koloss, Kandra and Bleeders things which we could consider as constructs, not exactly enhanced. Though one could argue that TenSoon is approaching savant-hood of form shifting I suppose, but again it is hard to classify) @The One Who Connects is very much correct about the steelsight being indicative of Savant positive abilities. But I purposefully did not look at Hemalurgists for Savanthood as it is not naturally achieved, so it is hard to distinguish what is a symptom of the Hemalurgy and what is a symptom of Savantism. I was hoping to ID the "natural" Savants. Great, now thinking about natural vs unnatural savants, I wonder if the Soulcasters count as natural, as they are not Nahel bonded and relying on trapped Spren. Thanks as well for the correction on TLR's lie detection! I need to re-read those annotations. All Nalthians... I'm going to disagree here. They are all invested, sure, but they are not all Savants. The investiture is too passive. I agree that possessing a large stock of Nalthian investiture is awesome, but if you are not actively using it, you cannot become a Savant. So much so that I don't think any non-returned Awakener could become a Savant in their lifespan. But Vasher has been around long enough for his deeds to fade into myth and legend, so much so that he often appears as multiple people with opposed intents in the same event. He has been awakening for long enough that I figure he could be counted as a Savant, what do you all think? I mostly agree with this. Awakeners are exempt in 99.9999999etc% of the cases. Pushing past your limits (The flaring, Kenton over-mastering, etc) or constant use will lead to Savantism, where as regular use will not. External devices will mess you up, quickly. Hemalurgy even more so. So given those Criteria, does anyone have any more potential savants to add to the list? Or are there any names that should be stricken? Kenton might be justifiable to add. There are decent cases for removing Marsh and Breeze.

Yeah, this interlude reveal is kind of exploding our knowledge of non-radiant Soulcasters... I had focused on the line where she describes seeing Shadesmar to the crew member, but the line in the OP is also a good one, and someone else had quoted her noticing a vague sometiing else when the Captain had anticipation spren... I cannot wait to read the book and learn everything it reveals...

I might disagree with this a bit. Walking around with 10000 breaths that you aren't using is not much different on an investiture scale (to my mind) than walking around with 10lbs of pewter in your stomach that you aren't burning. Physically there is a difference, the Breaths give 8th or 9th heightening, and the pewter gives lead poisoning. But if you are constantly awakening with your Breaths, or constantly burning/flaring the pewter, actively using the investiture, rather than sitting on it, as it were, then we get to Savantism. I think there needs to be an active component. In the same vein, I don't see someone who has carried a Soulcaster for 40 years, but never used it, as a Savant, regardless of how much Stormlight they have access to. From what I understood, becoming a Savant is not a matter of raw power, it is a matter of constant, or near constant, use over extended periods of time. Which is how TLR became a Savant for everything he had access to. This is cool, and adds some depth to the conversation. But I had figured someone who has a rating of 1 (assuming the rating indicates power, not skill) could become a Savant with repeated use and a rating 10 could remain 'normal' by rarely using their power. White Sand prose discussion: This is why I left Susebron off the list. While he has tons of investiture at the tip of his tongue, he never used it until much later. Similarly, one could argue that all Inquisitors "see" using Savantism of iron and steel, seeing the metal in everything at trace amounts. I excluded them because Hemalurgy adds a level of weird to the debate, but I figure there is an argument for their inclusion. What I figured for the Savantism Spectrum would be along the lines of we have a semi-defined point where someone becomes a Savant. But there are varying degrees of it. Using Roshar as an example, A Soulcaster (maybe) could be considered a Savant type I when you first start seeing some physical and minor manifestations of their body and mind changing. Type II would be a more drastic change in mentality, and say 10% of their body converted. Type III is a massive mental shift, lack of appetite and 30% conversion. Depending on how sever you count the conversion, maybe type III never occurs naturally, as it is fatal, or the person fully shifts to cognitive. Or something else, depending on the nature of the investiture. Different investitures could have different rates, like burns, to use a mundane example. Nalthian investiture could be regarded as Type A, analogous to first degree burns. You need approximately a 90% burn coverage for first degree burns to be fatal. Nalthian investiture seems relatively benign (although, admittedly the most invested individuals we encounter already died and came back. I'm curious what would happen to a normal person who reaches the upper heightenings) So you need much more investiture before you see drawbacks. Scadrian would be Type B, analogous to second degree burns. 30% is enough to be fatal, though you can survive more. So the Savantism takes root faster and far more noticeably. Rosharan Soulcaster Investiture would be Type C, or third degree. 10% can be fatal, though you can in some cases survive more than that. And here is where we see the most drastic changes. Using that as a Savant Spectrum, you would have type of investiture, and degree to which it has converted your spirit web determining where on the Spectrum of Savant you land. You could have a Scadrian Savant deeper into the spectrum than a Rosharan, but it would be less noticeable, and rarer.

I for one am hoping that one of the flashbacks will contain the actual interaction with the Nightwatcher. Having a first hand account of how she appears and how the interaction goes is something that I desperately wish to see.

You are right, of course, the new definition will change everything. It could very easily add or remove from this list. I will add that I'm fairly certain that we have a WOB confirming that TLR has multiple Savant level abilities, which may account for his ability to be a "human" lie detector. But all others are up in the air pending the new definition or WOB. As for awakening Savants, you may well be right. I was assuming that any form of investiture could have Savants, though Awakeners would be quite interesting, as they are being endowed with bits of other peoples souls. With each breath being part of someone else's soul, your own original breath would very quickly get lost in the mass of breaths contained in your body. Plus the exchange of breath, the real possibility of being an Aawakener without your own original breath, and the quantity you require to achieve the various heightenings and be able to awaken... I'd be willing to bet on that leaving some interesting cracks on the soul... I've never actually read the RPG books, so this is news to me, thanks. You are right about the discrepancy, but I think that might come down to mental versus physical. The Soulcaster affects the physical world, and Spook uses one of the physical (albeit internal) metals, so we see some very obvious outside changes. But both Breeze and Marsh use internal metals, so theirs may be more subtle? I mean, that sounds really weak, especially compared to TLRs numerous abilities. I'd guess the lie detector ability is a manifestation of his Soother/Rioter Savantism, but he was a Savant far longer than the others, if he is still a cannon Savant...

I apologize if this if this topic has already been discussed, but nothing came up in the search that quite matched this thought. Savants and Savantism have become a bit of a hot topic lately, as there has been much discussion about them, more so now after the Ad Astra reading. While occurrences of Savantism are quite rare in the Cosmere, we do get a skewed view on them, as we are more likely to see them around the big events that tend to be central to Cosmere stories. As a result, I wanted to take a look at our known Savants in the Cosmere, and get the thoughts of the minds on here, with a bit more of a focus on the Savants who have viewpoints. The focus is only because we get to see the side effects of Savantism more if we can be in the character's head. The reason for this is that I believe that Savantism is not a single state, but a spectrum, where the effects become more pronounced the longer and more deeply the user succumbs to the Savantism. Similar to drug use, I suppose. You can have drug users that are purely recreational. Then you have the habitual users, who would be analogous to Savants. They range from minor addiction to constant use. And the effects of addiction/constant use become more pronounced with time. So here is my list of known/suspected Savants that we have encountered: The Lord Ruler - After a thousand years, he was pretty much a Savant for everything. We do not have any perspectives from his point of view, so he won't be mentioned much more. Savant for Centuries. Jedal "Lestibournes" "Spook" - Was temporarily a tin Savant before Harmony cured him and made him a full Mistborn. Had reached a state of constant tin use, was starting to see major physical symptoms in his senses, after about a year of Savantism. Unknown if continued constant use would have led to CR bleed through, would be interesting to explore with the enhanced senses. Savant for approximately a year. Kaza, the Soulcaster - She has the most significant symptoms we have had the opportunity to witness. Much of it may be due to (Spoiler below). Physical manifestations as her body is transforming, mental changes as she is unable to relate to the mental/emotional state of people around her. Losing her tether to her mortal form. Some signs of CR bleed through. Savant for at least 30-40 years (estimated). Vasher, the Scholar - I'm hesitant to include him on this list. But after so many years as a Returned Awakener, and having held God King level Breaths at least once, I feel safe listing him as a Savant for awakening. Especially given how easily he awakened in the scenes we saw for him. He experimented with Breath, and created new commands, and lives off of Investiture. And he has been using Stormlight for some time now. Cannot think of any evidence of symptoms of his Savantism, other than the facility with Awakening. But that could be argued to be a result of his research. At the same time, it was implied that he was awakening more easily than he should have been at his Breath levels. His ability to Command was extrememly impressive. He did have some interesting personality quirks and asocial tendencies, especially when compared to Denth who was not as much of an Awakener that we know of. But we cannot confirm if this was just his personality, or a mental symptom of his Savantism. We do not have an exact age for him, but I would hazard Savant(?) for at least three centuries. Miles Dagouter - Gold Savant, probably. We do not have much from Miles Hundredlives perspective. What we did see was that he had lost the ability to feel or be affected by pain. We also saw that he was frequently experiencing life as both his current outlaw self and his former lawman self simultaneously - along with intense self-loathing as both of them hate each other. While intensely bizarre, that could have led to some interesting mental and CR insights into Savantism if we'd seen more from his perspective. Sadly, we do not get to see more. Savant for 20-30years, estimated. Pre-Inquisitor Marsh - Bronze Savant, probably. As we know most Seekers become Savants, we can assume that Marsh was likely a savant for most of his adult life. We don't get to see much of this, except for his training with Vin, and most of that pertains directly to Allomancy. We don't get to see any real symptoms of Savantism beyond his extreme skill at seeking. Inquisitor Marsh can't really be discussed, because although he is definitely a Savant in a few areas, the Hemalurgy messes up his Spirit Web so much that the data is kinda corrupted. Savant for most of his adult, human life. Edgard "Breeze" Ladrian - Brass Savant. Other than being insanely good at manipulating and Soothing people, as well as his penchant for vocalizing when focusing, we don't have much. His Soothing may be compulsive at this point, as we see in the Well of Ascension Seige of Luthadel, but we never get a Breeze perspective. Savant for most of his adult life. Waxillium "Wax" Ladrain - Steel Savant. Wax has his steel bubble that affects everything except his stuff. He is a weird case, as he has no drawbacks. I know Brandon is not entirely happy with this, and is thinking of how he will address it in the future. Savantism achieved during his time in the Roughs. Unfortunately, most of our examples of Savants are from Scadrial, so it is unwise to apply universal statements before we get to see more. But I get the feeling that a mix of exposure and length of time as a Savant affect the magnitude of the symptoms. Kaza is probably the best instance of late stage Savantism that we get, as well as Miles. We do have some examples of early stages of it as well, Spook. I also know I'm doing a crap job of stating a point - this would fail any English class on all conceivable levels. Not my best writing, by far, a result of trying to write at work, while not focusing entirely on what I'm doing, or having time to review and make sure I'm not repeating myself. The point was, no one seems to express Savantism exactly the same way. But we do see some physical or mental symptoms in most of them, the magnitude of which seem to be linked to how habitual the individuals listed use their power. And some of it, Kaza and Miles specifically, may bleed through into the CR a bit. I would assume Spook would have done the same at some point. Does anyone have other examples of Savants that I missed? Or contest my presumed Savants. Or have Cosmere wide Savantism thoughts to add?

What is standing out for me in the Soulcaster transcript is this line, emphasis mine: This has me thinking that non-nahel bond Soulcasting Savantism starts to pull the caster into the cognitive realm. Which has me thinking, will Soulcasters who have reached Savantism also see the afterimages around Szeth that Lift sees? Also, this is probably the most highly advanced state of Savantism we've seen. Spook became a Savant, but over the course of a year-ish. Rosharan Soulcasters have been at this their whole lives. This one even indicates that she has been using the caster from her childhood all the way through her middle years. So, do all forms of Savantism lead to this eventual blurring of the physical and cognitive realms? If Spook had 40 years of being a Tin Savant, would he start to sense the cognitive realm through his enhancements? Or start to have parts of his body take on tin like aspects (literal tin eyes anyone?) Or are these changes limited only to Rosharan Savants? Or limited only to Rosharan Soulcaster Savants?

I may be incorrect, but it may be a syllable thing as well. As far as I can remember, each name consisted of two syllables, of which one was an Aon. RAO-den. Sar-ENE. KI-ln. As long as there was at least one Aon somewhere in the core of the name, it becomes Aonic.

On the surface, it appears that the occurrence of Allomancers and Feruchemists being born naturally on Scadrial is going down, as the (recessive?) genes are getting more and more wide-spread and diluted. However, we also have a WOB stating that the Allomancers are depleting Scadrial's finite supply of metals, at different rates depending on the natural availability of the specific metal as well as the Allomantic burn rate. This will cause some interesting things in modern era Scadrial, until they finally get access to extra terrestrial mines. But what if the two are more than than a simple correlation, what if they are linked and cause-and-effect? This is my question: Is there a direct link between the dwindling metal reserves on Scadrial and the dwindling numbers of Metal born? Or more specifically, if Scadrial ever gets to the point were no viable metals remain to fuel the Metal arts, will Metal born stop being born? I'm betting the answer is no, they are not linked. While the metal is finite, the Investiture creating the metal born is not. But I'm still curious.

I've had a pervasive fear for a short while now that Rayse will be defeated and drop the Odium Shard on his death. Then, to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands and restarting the cycle, Cultivation takes it up (she has enough hatred from Tanavast's death probably) to create a new shard like Harmony, but rather than a force of good, she ends up as a Cosmere style dark Galadrial with the intent of Cultivating or Fostering Hatred. This, to me, would be far worse than just Odium on its own, and absolutely terrifying. I think Brandon gave a WOB at the Seattle signing this year that that would be something Cultivation would try to avoid, but I was not there and have not yet seen the transcript, so I cannot confirm.

Oathbringer could be he title of a book yet to be written, or that is written during the SA3. Seeing as Dalinar has not carried Oathbringer since WoK. So what if Oathbringer (in world) is Dalinar's autobiography, written by scribes as his version of Nohadon's Way of Kings? I could see that being important, both as he is the first Bondsmith in Millennia, and it would be something that could be disseminated to other nations to help unite. That, or it is the book detailing the History of those who have borne Dalinar's former blade, Oathbringer, chronicling the deeds and events it was involved in until Dalinar sold it to buy Bridgemen.

Or, as often happens with wild-west style lawmen and bandits, eventually their luck runs out. Maybe Arbitan faced one bandit too many and died. Retirement was not always an option. Though I hope he had a happier ending.

Nah, not always. Many of the Novellas don't have time for Romance. The Emperor's Soul in particular strikes me as a good example of no romance.

Mine has the Atium symbol incorporated into it. Atium is a pretty good one for the first trilogy, as Ruin was kind of central to the whole plot. An alternate would be to eschew the metal symbols completely, if you are going for the "I am Hope" motif. Seeing as that was a Kelsier line first, maybe something involving the Survivor's Spear, the glass daggers and some representation of either the mists, or the mistcloak?

Lifeless are dead people who have had one, or more, Breath permanently re-annealed to their physical form. With small maintenance (ichor-alcohol, minor repair) they are functional. Shardsblades are 'dead' spren, bonded to a new "host" over the course of a week or longer, having the soul of a living person re-annealed to their physical form. With small maintenance (the 10 heartbeats) they regain some of their previous function. In Lifeless, especially well made ones, you can see some of the person the used to be. Skills and such, and there were some hints at more with Clod. In Shardblades, if you bring them into contact with someone who is bonding a living spren, you get some mentally scarring evidence that the original personality may still be locked in the 'corpse'. Am I crazy to be drawing parallels between the Lifeless and dead spren shardblades? And as a follow up, is it even crazier to think Nightblood might be a Lifeless Spren? You can never recover the investiture spent creating a lifeless, and nothing comes out of Night blood. ***Just noticed that the post above me is commenting on the same thought process. And apparently there is a thread dedicated to Nightblood being an awakened shardblade. So I'm a little embarassed, but I'm not going to delete this part of my question. I'm just not going to expand on it further than this.*** For the lifeless/shard parallel, in both cases, without some form of bonding, the body does lie there inert. In the case of the spren, it is far more overtly dangerous, as the corpse is an edged weapon. It is really difficult for an organic corpse to be that inherently and immediately dangerous. I'm more looking at the functions regained by the awakening and bonding process. Are those parallels crazy?

Ummm...

I was always under the impression that the 'raid' was something carefully orchestrated by Straff to make sure his son got soundly beaten, to see if he would Snap in a controlled setting. Straff was pragmatic and vicious enough to have his son(s) ambushed to see if they could become advantageous to him. I'd have to hunt around, but I think either Zane or Straff mention something to that effect in WoA.