DrakeMarshall

You know, that might be why metal is so hard to awaken. Apart from metals role in unlocking allomancy and the like, the mistborn trilogy also implies metal has some level of inherent investiture. So does the beginning of SH... At any rate, that all aside, it would make sense that nightblood started out as not an ordinary blade. I mean, if you are going to use that much breath, one might as well find a good receptacle. What nightblood was exactly before awakening is sort of speculation. I personally find it unlikely that he was a shardblade (nightblood has certain inconsistencies with a shardblade, for example the bonding methods, as well as the fact that he cannot change form or be summoned or dispelled). Plus I feel that the breath-gained sentience and the dead spren both in one blade would have strange effects. However, I wouldn't be remotely surprised if nightblood was inspired by stories vasher heard of sprenblades on roshar. Maybe nightblood was initially just a masterwork sword but otherwise normal. Maybe it was a hemalurgic spike (that would certainly be interesting though also a lot of worldhopping, especially since hemalurgy has never been widely known to people). Maybe nightblood was even made from some kind of invested substance (a god metal or a manifestation of some other shard's investiture). Hard to really say. One interesting thought though... When Szeth first sees nightblood, his immediate reaction is to note that the black mist looks like stormlight but dark. This might just be a manifestation of breath shoved into metal with an aggressive command... Or maybe it is evidence of another shard's touch on the blade. So it isn't impossible that nightblood bears some other kind of undisclosed investiture. Maybe Vasher even isn't aware of this other investiture, since he wasn't the only one who made nightblood.

I say we create a new division for hemalurgic spikes cookies used to steal and bestow biochromatic breath. It would also be useful because we can discover if humans from planets other than nalthis possess breath. And because with this we can make very, very good cookies. Since while you eat one you may attain a new heightening, the flavor of the cookie is bound of be unprecedentedly exquisite.

Granted I guess? Anyway, for your bane you lose the ability to recognize if you have been trolled. I wish for an tin foil hat so I can be immune to emotional allomancy as well as alien mind control!!!

Granted. Somewhere on earth, there is now a dragon that would be your BFF. As for your bane, you now forget everything that happened over the course of the day at the end of every other day. I wish to become a member of the ghostbloods.

Help everyone is responding with SH spoilers and I haven't read it yet I will assume the book disproves the idea though.

Hm... Do we know if copper could detect surgebinding?

Lol. Also, speaking of kandra and Roshar, amians seem very similar to kandra. I'm not saying they are the same at all, I am sure they aren't, but it is interesting.

This is rather a lot of speculation. But I still think it is a fascinating idea. So I have mentioned earlier, I am pretty sure the way to splinter a shard is to have more investiture on hand than they do. So if one shard are more invested than another (for example, preservation being slightly more invested on scadrial than ruin), the more invested shard will eventually be able to splinter the less invested one. This is precisely how Ati killed Leras. This also explains why shards tend to fight indirectly (for example, the desolations and the heralds forming a kind of proxy war for odium and honor). How would this work on adolnasium? Not exactly sure, unless adolnasium invested so much in everything that people were able to overpower it. So anyway. We know that Rayse killed Tanavast. By the above reasoning, this means that honor would have to be more invested than odium. I predict that this piece of investiture honor did not have access to when being splintered by odium was the stormfather. I will pull the quote up later, but in WoR it says the stormfather fled when honor and odium fought. Perhaps this extra bit of power deserting Tanavast is what caused his death.

Are we sure we know when honor was shattered? For that matter, do we know if cultivation was also shattered? At any rate, I think you are approaching this the right way. This is the sort of thing that poses a threat to shards. However, I think the method of killing shards may be slightly different. Rather, I think the reason to draw out a shard's investiture is simply because doing so will weaken them. If you are relatively less invested than the other shard, you might be able to defeat them, killing the shardholder.

Interesting. Seeing as odium is using the same techniques as were used against adolnasium... And seeing as he still needs to have more investiture than his opponents for the technique to succeed... Doesn't this imply that a force with greater power than adolnasium was used to shatter adolnasium? Or maybe adolnasium was actually completely invested in everything. In this case, it would take minimal force to shatter it. This actually makes a lot of sense.

Well, solid investiture in some form would make sense, yes. Technically a shardblade is also solid investiture, however, this investiture is a manifestation of a spren. Hard to say if shardplate is more or less invested than a god metal. Lerasium and atium are both quite powerful.

I am inclined to go with the theory that shardplate is formed from lesser spren. A windrunner's plate may be made from windspren. Alternatively, if the "half-shards" are any evidence, shard plate may work in a way similar to a fabrial. The fact that it regrows after being shattered implies that they are related to a spren, though.

Yes I believe odium's extra power comes from the fact that he doesn't invest very much in things, and is thus able to be slightly more powerful than other shards it takes on. Except harmony, who odium is rightfully afraid of.

I point out issues in these sorts of things plenty of times as well. It is a way to maintain continuity and such. You should become a theory breaker. At any rate, the voidbringers are certainly to be viewed as a side effect. I wonder what exactly a desolation entails of from the perspectives of the involved shards... Interesting thought. And, the leaders of the ghostbloods are cosmere aware, because at least some of their members worldhop. The most unusual thing about the conflicts between shards underlying all of this is that a shard's power can really only do things in proportion to how much the shard has invested in the area. It makes me wonder, was adolnasium restricted to certain locations pre-shattering? Was adolnasium only a god on a few worlds it had invested in? It would be reasonable to conclude that adolnasium would be able to invest in sixteen times more planets than a regular shard could, but would this nevertheless ultimately limit the area adolnasium itself could reach?

Well, technically a shard's "body" is just a physical manifestation of their power. Like atium for ruin, et cetera. So at this point we examine the distinction between a shard and a human shardholder. When a human takes up a shard, their physical, cognitive, and spiritual aspects are possibly absorbed into the shard. It would make sense then that upon death the physical body re-separates out. All this being said, I think a shardholder's presence is basically completely bonded to the shard. So they would have a hard time actually inhabiting the physical realm in one location. If they were in fact able to, they might well be able to remain un-vaporized, but then those nearby might be vaporized in this case. And I suspect if a second shard nearby were to oppose such a manifestation they could prevent you from becoming physically present. So I doubt a shard could actually undergo such a process. Interesting and slightly related question: can a shardholder give up the power of a shard without dying? I don't mean like just temporarily stepping in like a sliver might. I mean an actual permanent shardholder. So for example, what if Sazed tried to step down from being harmony? Could he just walk away as a normal person and leave the two powers without a holder, if he wanted to?

And, if a group of kandra ate some chasmfiend corpses, they would still be sentient and could probably even form vocal cords. So, if hoid brought some kandra to Roshar, he could finally get his row of chasmfiends dancing and singing an ode to his greatness.

Yes, but are we sure that all these attempts to bring back the voidbringers are purely unfounded and misguided? There are quite a few immensely powerful and well populated secret societies racing to do just this. What I am asserting is that there might be more to it than what we are inclined to believe. I think they have a better reason than that to go down this path. It may or may not qualify as a good enough reason to justify returning the voidbringers, but this isn't so simple as "bring back voidbringers to bring back heralds."

Both are in theory about cutting somebody for a good cause. Computers are like walruses.

Probably. I believe it has been described as enhancing one's ability to make intuitive leaps, which would certainly be helpful in devising new uses for Aons.

I never said anybody was in league with odium. I said Ameram was trying to bring back the voidbringers. Which, as you yourself have noted, is confirmed. The ghostbloods are definitely one of the more interesting of involved parties, however. As worldhoppers, their motives may have much more scope than those of the others.

Both can have feathers. Quills are like mercenaries.

Neither are real and both like spearing things. Susebron is like a plastic spork.

Both have claws and bad manners. Chandeliers are like wit's flute.

An interesting fact on the death rattles... The diagram actually says they are a distraction and something Taravangian should not pay attention to. So... Why exactly is Taravangian using these to augment the diagram? I doubt Sanderson would be reusing the exact same thing ruin did to the prophecy, but something vaguely similar is happening.

If just a bit of a soul will do, you can always use a hemalurgic spike... It isn't a whole soul, but it is a very portable way to carry a prime cut of one. We do have some cookies on hand, after all...