Djarskublar

Well, when I was coming up with these, I was literally just thinking about the list of magic swords in the AD&D 1st ed DM's guide... That was one of the swords. Well, one problem with the Bands is that they really aren't all that large. Just the size of large metalminds. That doesn't sound like very high capacity to me. As we have seen with Forgery, level of Investiture doesn't equate to power, so I am not concerned whether something has 1000 breath equivalent, but the Bands would need a LOT of Investiture to resist a Blade. A claymore filled to the brim with speed would be much more Invested for the purpose of resistance. I also disagree with your perspective that the weapon has to do something. Being able to fight a Shardbearer sounds good enough to me. Just because you have a magic sword doesn't mean the magic has to actually do anything. Your definition of a Shardblade is apparently a weapon that is Invested, and has some sort of magic effect (apparently external to any other magic effect it could have). It could be argued that Rosharan Shardblades don't actually have a special effect, at least, dead ones don't. They are just really cool swords. They don't shoot lasers or something. Assuming you take off the gem that allows them to be desummoned/summoned, what difference is there really between a Shardblade and a regular sword? Just the things it cuts. That WoB suggests to me that a Shardblade is just a really invested weapon. A steel claymore that has been filled up with speed sounds like it fits.

Maybe you could use a regular steel sword, and then fill it with compounding. Not really a Shardblade, but it does qualify as a weapon, right? It fills both requirements. It is a weapon, and it is invested. The two just aren't related directly. On that note, I could totally see AonDor being able to make a flaming sword. That would be pretty fun, and probably relatively easy, honestly. Or invert the Aon effect (however that works) to make a frostbrand. I bet that with some very specialized Aons, you could make a sword that ate Investiture. Another powerful sword would be one that shocked on contact with an opponent, rendering metal armor obsolete. You could maybe use some nasty fabrial science to make a vampiric sword. Where even a small cut on your opponent sucks out their blood. (Like at the battle of Narak, where Navani said she was concerned the moisture gathering fabrial might suck the blood of everyone nearby.)

I have heard that he changed it, but I don't know what he changed exactly. I recently acquired my copy of WoR, so I probably have the new version. What was changed?

Even if skyeels don't need much magic to fly, I still think they are using magic at least a little bit, like a partial upward Lashing or something. It would make them closer to neutrally buoyant in air, and allow extended flight that is fairly easy. The gas bags are like sandbags for a hot air balloon. Not the main means of flight, but something to help control it for particular circumstances. Even if they don't technically need the magic to fly, it is still a bonus. I imagine it is basically the difference between hang gliding and a plane. Besides, don't skyeels follow ships for extended distances? That makes more sense if they aren't gliding and using thermals. I don't think a Chasmfiend has gas bubbles helping to support it, and that wouldn't help the circulatory system anyway. A change in gravity, incidentally, wouldn't affect a Santhid that much. Buoyancy is a function of density and displacement, which is related to mass, not weight. I still think there is something going on with all of these things, and gravity manipulation is the best bet. Something to note: these spren don't show up with chulls. Chulls have the form change/pupation in storms mechanic of Greatshells, but not these arrowhead shaped spren. They are large, but not unreasonably so. They could easily be a thing on a low grav/high oxygen planet like Roshar. This suggests to me that they have the standard pupation bond (or whatever it is), but that only larger things and skyeels that need a boost have this interaction. I guess this is a question for Brandon.

Yep. Szeth will now never fall in love. The way to a man's heart is his stomach, and his has no soul now. On a different tack, the fabrial probably healed his gut wound too.

I just reread WoR, and it gave me a few ideas. This one may have been discussed before, but not necessarily in the direction I am looking. I posit that certain fauna of Roshar are Surgebinders... kinda. More that they are fabrials. During the Chasm scene, Shallan mentions that the spren around the Chasmfiend are the same as the ones that flock around skyeels (and maybe Santhid?). Skyeels have always interested me. How do they fly? They don't have wings. They just kinda 'swim through air.' This suggests to me that they are magic. These spren are around them, and there is nothing that will convince me that Greatshells could survive even a low gravity planet like Roshar without their circulatory system failing- without magic. This suggests to me that skyeels and Greatshells like Chasmfiends are doing something with the surge of gravitation. Say something about their biology makes the skyeels zero to low gravity. This would allow them to swim through air like a snake slithering on the ground, or maybe more like a stingray. Greatshells could have their personal gravity reduced even more so that they can get proper blood flow through their freaking huge bodies. This would allow them to pull some pretty cool stunts. When Kaladin is binding things together with Adhesion, there are little spren there. The characters guess they are gravitationspren. I would guess they are adhesionspren, or maybe the Ars author is correct and they are (air)pressurespren. This leaves the spot of gravitationspren open... for the spren following Greatshells and skyeels. I agree with the theory that the Listeners and other life forms on Roshar are living fabrials that use the storms' Investiture to change form. Why not other things too? I feel like there was some other evidence that I wanted to discuss, but I can't remember it right now.

Regarding Trell having connection to Odium, that may be Connection with a capital 'C'. Of it is one of the sixteen originals (likely) then they knew Rayse. They have a Connection to him. Him saying if you get it then great is what suggested this to me. They don't have to be connected by working together, but by simply knowing each other a long time.

Yeah this is really 'interesting' (read: annoying). Now we have almost nothing to go on for what that chart is. Something I don't think has been noted before: the red symbol at 7 o'clock appears to have spren or Light in it... Interesting.

Shalash. Nickname.

Ninja'd! Yeah spheres are gems suspended in glass. The glass isn't even spherical, it's compressed into an ovoid shape to make them not till away. We don't really know anything about the cuts, but my guess is that the closer the cut gets to making the gem the shape its natural lattice would make it is the perfect cut.

Nice art. Better than your usual fare, which is solid. Have an upvote. I disagree that Kaladin was OOC there. He wanted to protect Dalinar. That extends to wanting to kill the only real threat to him. Sadeas has nothing on the Blackthorn in full force. Trickery like the Tower is the only way to beat Dalinar. That or send your Truthless assassin. Szeth was the only real and immediate danger to Dalinar at that point. Kaladin owes him a blood debt of one Shardblade. That was also the point in time where he was considering helping Moash with the plot. He was a lot... angrier at the time. I don't think it was off of him to say/think those things. Another thing people complain about with Kaladin is how quickly he ramps up his power. They compare him to Shallan and Jasnah, who, while highly intelligent, don't really practice their power as much. Ivory has apparently been preventing Jasnah from going fully into the CR as she has wanted for years. She is a highly proficient soulcaster, but she is honestly afraid of her power. Ditto for Shallan. The fear is preventing Shallan from progressing in the use of her Soulcasting ability. Her Lightweaving improves in leaps and bounds, but nobody bats an eye. That happened over the course of a few weeks. Kaladin knew of his powers for months and practiced their use with his crew for a fair portion of that. They experimented with his abilities a lot more than the women. He then spent hours practicing lashing himself to acquire a power he knew he could use. That is quite different from Shallan wondering about the limits of Lightweaving. The Radiants all appear to instinctively use their abilities at some point, and the scene you mention is where Kal figured it out. Shallan instinctively soulcast the vase, and Jasnah jumped into the CR at the feast flashback. I see no reason the things Kaladin did were implausible or OOC. Convenient? Sometimes. Awesome? Usually. The disadvantaged duel is my favorite action sequence from any medium or genre. Ignoring pithy one-liners because they are irrelevant to action, he jump kicked Plate hard enough to crack it! Kal isn't my favorite character, but he is awesome.

Is that supposed to be a bad thing? ALL the pages! is my motto when it comes to good books.

I pretty much disagree with all of your reasoning. I feel like this thread can still go places. Harmony isn't opposing the Set, really. Wax is opposing the Set, and Harmony is facilitating the conflict. Harmony is disappointed in a civilization that hasn't advanced nearly enough. You are missing a big point here. You mention their income inequality etc., but that is basically irrelevant. Let us compare for a moment. Industrial revolution- Earth (1700-2000), and post-Catacendre Scadrial (Catacendre to BoM). Similar timeframe, similar social issues, infinitely more growth on Earth. Scadrial has magic, and they still have barely advanced 50 years worth of tech in 320. The argument that the Catacendre seriously damaged their ability to research is more or less moot. 20 years in, and they are fine, 100 and they are fully capable no matter how you swing it. They were probably stable, if low population, within a year, considering all the materials they had to work with. It's not as if they were flung to the stone age. Beyond that, with all the knowledge and clues Sazed left them, they should have been up to our level with 50 years of equivalent research, 100 at the outside. Harmony is right. He made it so easy for people to farm, and with no actual war to shift economic growth, they had no reason to research. They had enough tech to be able to have canneries. That means full machinery, potentially with steam power. The land is fertile enough that a small percentage of the population can farm, another small part can be politicians, a large chunk as workers, and then another fair chunk as researchers. The researcher chunk is apparently not present, though. I can definitively say that Harmony is right. NoScads suck. My vote is on screwing Elendel and letting the SoScads win any conflict. On the point of him not bothering with Trell and its agents... really? He is still new to the game. I think events in SoS and BoM sufficiently explained that what happened with Bleeder was not something he could really personally do something about within his moral bounds. The Set is a group of people whom he doesn't agree with, but as with Marsh, he isn't going to stop them from making choices. Ditto for any agents of Trell, unless they aren't human. Instead, he informs human (Wax) agents of the situation and lets them decide to do something about it. He is stopping the red mist, and that is definitely enough divine intervention to satisfy me. Does that make sense? I can never tell if I have sufficiently explained myself... It's also late, which is an automatic quality hit.

Oh okay... Didn't see that somehow. Yeah I'm down for that too. ALL the pages!

Ummmm... No. WoR is 1080 pages. ~400k words. 450k words would come out closer to 1200-1250 pages. I am down for 1750 pages though!

I know this theory is seriously grasping at straws, but I really just don't want Trell to be Autonomy or Odium. I was totally on board for Trell=Autonomy at first, but now I realize that I just don't want to read that. I also have to admit that I want more named Shards. Please.

So how do you guys think book six is going to go down? Is it going to be the last book even? State of Sanderson please! I got basically nothing on this count... Go to worldspire and beat up Biblioden, obviously. I was more wondering about the new structure from a new POV. I seriously got nothing.

Yeah it was an interesting question because they come from the Unmade. Did he say it would be possible at all? Even if by a different mechanic? If so, it makes me wonder if ol' Gavilar is hanging around the CR trying to figure out how.

You know you are addicted to 17th shard when you actually follow this thread...

He's been this devious since Elantris, honestly. I was certain Dif wasn't what he said when his backstory was explained. Only survivor in a Sanderson novel? Yeah right. Not unless you're a Radiant. I didn't see him being that important in advance though. Every time I think about that ending I rage a little though. Holy (insert several expletives of choice)! I never saw the ending being that dark. I was even warned...

One other thing. The man next to me in line apparently asked about Kel. I heard none of it, but I haven't seen him post it, so second hand is better than nothing. He asked if Kel had been born on Roshar, and something similar happened to him, would he be able to communicate with the living via Death Rattle. My understanding (of what I remember of what he paraphrased... Not a solid source) is that Brandon said it would be similar to a Rattle, but not the same.

Alright I will repost my WoB here for ease of access. Djarskublar: So I could be wrong, but a Hemalurgic spike, when you use it and become a savant it does damage to your Spiritweb, right? Brandon: Yes Hemalurgy always hurts you. (I think he was saying that the Hemalurgy itself hurts you more than being a savant, but I'm not sure how to interpret this) Djarskublar: So say you go to Roshar and you give somebody a Hemalurgic spike for some Allomantic power, don't care what, and you use it to become a savant. Does that qualify them as 'broken' enough to become a Radiant? As long as they are also following the Ideals to attract a spren. Brandon: So becoming a Radiant is a spectrum of terminologies. It... probably, but you would have to find a Radiant who would, or a spren who would be willing to touch that, okay? It's going to drive them back. Djarskublar: So would it also affect your probability of becoming an Elantrian? Brandon: Yeah it would affect your ability to become anything else, yes. Djarskublar: Okay, so would it be a positive effect, negative effect...? Because I was like, it gives you cracks in your Spiritweb. Brandon: It does give you cracks in your Spiritweb. Djarskublar: So it's easier for Investiture to get in. Does it make it easier for other Investitures to get in? Brandon: It would make it... yes. It's going to drive spren away. So what it's really going to make easier for, there, is spren and Investiture that doesn't care. Djarskublar: Okay, so Investiture doesn't care but spren do. Brandon: Investiture might care depending on if it's part of a Shard-- if it has intent and things like this. Djarskublar: So it might let Stormlight in easier than a Breath, type thing. Brandon: I'm saying it might let Odium in easier than Syl. Because Syl would care, and Odium would not care. Djarskublar: Okay cool. Brandon: Alright, so it could be a really bad thing, is what I'm trying to say to you. Djarskublar: Yeah that's cool. I just want to know more about gold too. Gold Allomancy too. Because Miles was doing some funky stuff. Brandon: Miles was doing some funky stuff. Have at it. He also mentioned that Pattern actually was originally from one of his Dark One drafts. Interesting stuff.

Please don't double post, just edit it in. (Future reference, so Chaos doesn't get mad.) I really like this idea too. It fits with what we know, and your theory. Relevant to this discussion is the WoB I gained at DT signing a mere couple days ago. Djarskublar: So I could be wrong, but a Hemalurgic spike, when you use it and become a savant it does damage to your Spiritweb, right? Brandon: Yes Hemalurgy always hurts you. (I think he was saying that the Hemalurgy itself hurts you more than being a savant, but I'm not sure how to interpret this) Djarskublar: So say you go to Roshar and you give somebody a Hemalurgic spike for some Allomantic power, don't care what, and you use it to become a savant. Does that qualify them as 'broken' enough to become a Radiant? As long as they are also following the Ideals to attract a spren. Brandon: So becoming a Radiant is a spectrum of terminologies. It... probably, but you would have to find a Radiant who would, or a spren who would be willing to touch that, okay? It's going to drive them back. Djarskublar: So would it also affect your probability of becoming an Elantrian? Brandon: Yeah it would affect your ability to become anything else, yes. Djarskublar: Okay, so would it be a positive effect, negative effect...? Because I was like, it gives you cracks in your Spiritweb. Brandon: It does give you cracks in your Spiritweb. Djarskublar: So it's easier for Investiture to get in. Does it make it easier for other Investitures to get in? Brandon: It would make it... yes. It's going to drive spren away. So what it's really going to make easier for, there, is spren and Investiture that doesn't care. Djarskublar: Okay, so Investiture doesn't care but spren do. Brandon: Investiture might care depending on if it's part of a Shard-- if it has intent and things like this. Djarskublar: So it might let Stormlight in easier than a Breath, type thing. Brandon: I'm saying it might let Odium in easier than Syl. Because Syl would care, and Odium would not care. Djarskublar: Okay cool. Brandon: Alright, so it could be a really bad thing, is what I'm trying to say to you. Djarskublar: Yeah that's cool. I just want to know more about gold too. Gold Allomancy too. Because Miles was doing some funky stuff. Brandon: Miles was doing some funky stuff. This suggests to me, in context of your theory, that any damage qualifies you to become a Radiant, but only certain spren will be attracted to certain kinds of damage. Different kinds of damage involve different Intent. I bet that a Hemalurgic spike will let someone become a great Dustbringer. But as he said, Syl won't touch you. And apparently spikes are bad for you if you live on Roshar because Odium. In the end, specific types of trauma attract different Investitures. That fits with your theory.

The feel I got was that he was talking about spiritweb cracks and Investiture and intents. He was implying that both Hemalurgy and savantism breaks you so that other Investiture can get in. He mostly talked about how Hemalurgy would repel other Investitures without compatible intents. In regards to your P.S., there was sorta more at the beginning, but it was basically me saying hi and leading up to the question. Nothing important there. And I didn't hit the record button before, so it wouldn't be verbatim. The bit about Stormlight being blank was me being tricky on my feet. I know there is a theory floating around that Stormlight doesn't have an intent, that it's 'blank'. I was trying to sneak in a confirm for that in edgewise. He dodged that though. Worth a shot, though. I honestly thought the most interesting part of this was how he said "becoming a Radiant is a spectrum of terminologies." He was probably talking about how you would have to speak more ideals, but I'm not certain. In the moment I was more interested in the answer to my original question. Yes, savantism makes it easier to get other powers. Woohoo. I wonder how high level of savantism Hoid has attained...

@RenegadeShroom Okay yeah I get you now. By the way, Shardblades and Atium are made of pure Investiture. That is why he says they are the same thing- a god's body. It's not that they are both metal. Although I am curious about what would happen if you used a Blade as a Hemalurgic spike. Or had a Mistborn eat a Shardblade (living in sphere form).