Ciridae

I always took that to mean that they had Soulcasters similar to how the Alethi do. Soulcasters are rare, but not Nale's Regrowth-fabrial-rare. I assumed that they farmed to have a more reliable food supply, as well as provide the little extra that they might need if the gemhearts aren't enough. The fields are probably not that extensive though, if Eshonai thinks her people will starve without the gemhearts. They might have found other surgebinding fabrials in the ruins of Stormseat, but I think we would have heard of those.

@The One Who Connects What Itchy Savant said And thanks for the link as well!

You're right of course that different types of investiture act differently, I was just looking for other examples of investiture that acts positively on the health of the invested being. I don't remember the parshendi mentioning cracked gemstones, but it's been a while since I read the books. If they refer to cracked gems you're right again, I dont see a way they would crack unless they were used in a fabrial.

A lot of the ecology on Roshar has evolved to coexist or depend on all the investiture present. A good example are the Skyeels and Chasmfiends that enter in symbiotic relationships with certain spren. I think that other organisms on the planet such as rockbuds have developed ways to use the investiture around them, perhaps as an alternate way of getting at the energy needed to grow and survive. I dont think the Parshendi have access to Surgebinding fabrials. Also Warbreaker spoilers:

I'm not sure if I have to put the question into a spoiler tag, but just to be safe, the following contains spoilers for the first Mistborn trillogy and minor spoilers for the SA and Elantris. I had a couple of questions about Shardpools in general and specifically the Well of Ascention. So the well fills up every 1024 years at which point someone needs to use or release the investiture. But what happens if nobody uses the well at that point? Would Ruin have simply been freed? Why would he be? Also if it's Preservation's investiture concentrating in a certain spot, why couldn't you just use whatever amount of investiture had gathered there at any given point? Why not wait 500ish years and use the investiture to fix Final Empire Scadrial? I'm sure the acumulated investiture would have been enough at that point, maybe sooner. My best guess is Preservation didnt want that? Also why is the power usable in the first place? Other Shardpools we've seen don't seem to provide intuitive Ascention. In Elantris and the SA it is hinted at that the Pools just allow (sometimes accidental) worldhopping. So was Preservation's only reason for needing a warden to reset Ruin's prison (i.e. Lord Ruler and those before him) so that Ruin could eventually escape and create Harmony? And finally what happens to Atium when it is burned? The whole point of creating Misfallen was so that they could burn the Atium so Ruin couldnt get to it, but I always assumed the investiture would simply flow back to Ruin, from where it would leak back into the Pits of Hathsin after years and years. But that can't be the case or burning all of it would have been the same as just giving the Atium to Ruin. Obviously I've misunderstood how some of this works, I would be very grateful for some explanations (Also sorry for the long text)

I could see Kelsier as an Elsecaller, the way how he thinks all nobles are guilty and deserve to die reminds me of how Jasnah justified killing the thugs. On the other hand he has the leadership qualities of Windrunners even if he doesn't have as much of an internal struggle about what is right and what is wrong. I wish we knew more about some of the other orders, he certainly is stubborn and determined too, like Stonewards are supposed to be.

I'd be very interested in seeing what aluminum does to sentient investiture like spren.

Well we still have 3 books to go in the first pentalogy of the SA amd another five after that, so there's still a lot of time until we see how that story turns out. Similarly, there is still one book left in the Wax and Wayne series, but that is a lot closer than most of the Stormlight books. It's entirely possible one of the main characters dies in the Lost Metal. BoM Spoilers

I think we get a hint at the end-negative magic through Nightblood. There are some weird things about it that are difficult to explain by what we know of Awakening, like the black smoke, or why it cuts on all three Realms. Also, why is Nighblood so incredibly powerful if it has only been invested with 1000 breaths? Sure thats a whole lot, but to me it has always seemed like too little for its level of power. Relevant WoB on the black smoke: Thats just screams multiple magic systems to me. We know the Scholars were inspired by Rosharan Shardblades, so they have worldhopped and know of other magic systems. My guess is that the end-negative system is in there somewhere, explaining the "corrupted" investiture, and maybe why Nightblood steals investiture from whoever wields it in the first place. Yes, to power the Realm-cutting but why in such a violent and involuntary way?

Is it possible that he only used part of the lerasium? Would using only a bit of his bead turn him into a weak mistborn? Hoid isn't the type to duralumin-push people off their horses or control armies of koloss. He seems more the type to nudge people gently into a certain direction, so even watered down emotional allomancy is sufficient for his methods. You dont have to be a crazy powerful allomacer to profit from steelsight or a minor tin boost. I think he still has an ace up his sleeve and some lerasium left over.

This isn't really a theory, but rather some observations and thoughts that have been bouncing around my head for a while. Basically it seems like the saying "The eyes are the window to the soul" is very applicable in the cosmere. We have many instances where the local magic interacts with a person's eyes in a special way. A good example is how a person's eyes burn and shrivel after their soul has been severed by a Shardblade. The Blade cuts on another realm, leaves most of the body intact, and the only physical manifestation of a severed soul are the burned eyes. This doesn't explain why the flesh turns grey when only a limb is cut, but that seems to work like what the Shades on Threnody do. Staying on Roshar, the eye color of Stormform Parshendi and Radiants changes after having bonded a special spren. The bond is essentially the filling of a crack in the spirit web with sentient investiture, it makes sense that it would manifest as a change of eye color in the Physical Realm if the eyes give us a glimpse of changes to the spirit web. I'm not certain what the relationship between the spirit web and the soul is however, so if anybody knows, that would be very helpful. Savantism is another form of altering the spirit web. If I remember correctly, the Soulcaster-Ardents we see are Transformation savants and their eyes have changed to resemble gemstones. Shouldn't people who's spirit web is altered in other ways also manifest changes with their eyes? It would be interesting to know if similar changes occur for allomantic savants. The only example I can remember is Spook, who's eyes did change but I think we can safely attribute that to the special effects of tin. On the note of Allomancy, Inquisitors are spiked through their eyes. Of course we see that you don't necessarily have to be spiked through the eyes, but it makes sense that the eyes are Hemalurgic binding points in the spirit web. Again, if someone knows more about how the spirit web, the soul, and points on the physical body connect, that would be very helpful. I hope this was somewhat coherent and made a bit of sense, basically it seems the eyes are realmatically important If anybody has other examples or insights or objections, I'd love to hear them!

Someone once proposed (I'll see if I can find the link to the thread later) that fain life was Adonalsium's second wave of creation after trule, 'life 2.0' if you will. I think that makes a lot of sense, fain life is clearly dominant to trule, smothering and corrupting it

IIRC Kalak remembers being killed by Thunderclasts in previous desolations. So physical damage will probably do it, unless Thunderclasts posess some other magical abilities than animating rock

Interesting thought, if a larkin was part of a Sleepless, that would give them the power to deinvest any Radiant. Maybe that's part of how the two Skybreakers were killed so easily.

What is a naturally born Cognitive Shadow? It's been a while since I read Warbreaker but I thought Endowment gave individuals who died a quick look into a possible future and the oportunity to return and prevent a disaster instead of passing on into the Beyond.

I like the idea that Cultivation isn't what we think her to be (even if we really don't know much at this point), but I don't think she murdered Honor to confuse Odium. But maybe Honor's death is part of a long long plan that Cultivation and Honor hatched out (again, foresight) similar to Leras'.

I always assumed that she would become a knight radiant because she was ascribing more and more characteristics to her pot of grass and I somehow thought that this would create some kind of spren. I'm not sure how this would work, but when I was reading thats just what I assumed would happen. On the other hand, I dont know if she really has to become a radiant, the larkin makes her pretty special already. But I am on board with her becoming a Willshaper, I do think the order fits her well.

What kind of bothers me is that they are watching Szeth. Why? He isn't a budding Radiant like the others. Yeah he's been making a lot of noise across all of Roshar but why would the Sleepless lump him together with the other Radiants? It seems like they would know about him being Truthless and his Oathstone and probably that he has an Honorblade if they've been watching him. So either they really do think he's a Radiant if they don't know he has the Honorblade or they think he may redeem/destoy them because of something non-Radiant related.

Wasn't it theorized that Wax's incredibly good/lucky aim could have been his resonance? I agree it's not a super obvious thing and as far as I know there's no confirmation, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

The first time I read it I was sure that Ym (and Stump too since their spren are described so similarly) was an Edgedancer. Their actions do line up nicely with remembering/helping those who have been forgotten and ignored. @Amanuensis, that's a good point, but the Edgedancer spren could have sent more of their kind since Wyndle bonded Lift. He says that a motivation for bonding her was her connection to the Old Magic, but that doesnt mean that different Edgedancer spren wouldnt then later bond the other candidate(s). I dont think that only because Edgedancers amd Truthwatchers share a surge, they necessarily have similar ideologies. Windrunners and Skybreakers seem to have very different views on what is right, for example. Also, seeing that the Truthwatchers are opposite to the Bondsmiths, it has been theorized that they both bond special spren or have god-surges. Assuming that Renarin really is a Truthwatcher (which I'm not sure about if I'm honest), it would be weird to suddenly have so many others like him.

It's been speculated that Denth's extreme speed and Tonk Fah's suddenly bulging muscled are the results of feruchemical steel and pewter. But those things could also be because of some shenanigans with breath/godbreath that we don't understand yet. I think it's been confirmed that the five scholars based their idea for Nightblood on Shardblades so it is entirely possible that they visited Scadrial at some point as well.

Isn't it weird that the most 'honorable' order, the windrunners, were one of the first to abandon their oaths?

Awesome quiz! 56% Willshaper, 44% Edgedancer, which I'm really happy with

Someone once asked Brandon how high a Windrunner could go, and the reply was that since the surges are pressure and gravity, he could exit orbit. So I definitely agree that there's more to Adhesion than Kaladin knows. Adhesion is way less flashy than Gravitation from what we've seen but I bet Brandon will do some cool things with it along the road

I agree. I feel like SA 5 will end with Odium being freed from Greater Roshar and goes off to fight the greatest threat to him, i. e. Harmony. Maybe with some help, who knows? It fits timeline-wise as well, since Trell/Red-Fog arrives on Scadrial just after SA 5.