Spoolofwhool

Maybe. Don't have a copy so I can't confirm. I believe so though. I remember reading somewhere that he said that Hoid was busy somewhere else at the time, and it wasn't in the WoBs on Theoryland so I guess it was in the intro.

I never thought of this, but it honestly is very believable. Using lightweaving to disguise himself just so he can keep messing with people is definitely something Hoid would do. The only problem with this is that it could possibly attract attention to himself, as people around could've noticed it.

Yes. Very much so.

Okay, thanks. I don't really mind since I'm probably not going to read Secret History until the Arcanum Unbound comes and I've seen enough information about it around anyways.

So Leras being able to hurt Elend was special because the Well was there?

I thought it was said that it was the Mist Spirit cognitive shadow of Leras who attacked them so they would stay away from Ruin's shardpool. The pool described being Ruin's Shardpool This would be in the same manner it attacked Elend at the Well of Ascension to force Vin into using the power of the WoA instead of releasing it.

Listeners can mate in multiple forms; mateform is just specialized for mating. So slaveform and a few others can. .... And Yata ninjas me while I'm looking for WoBs in the matter. Typical.

They were desperate and willing to try anything with the hopes that it would work. If the emperor became confirmed dead and another faction took controlled of the empire, then they would lose their positions. Also, my opinion was more of that fact that they didn't quite know that the emperor wouldn't have his soul until after they resealed him.

We don't know how long it was between the Last Desolation and the Recreance, though it is estimated to be a few millenia. During that time, the KR were likely just governing Roshar, and as implied by certain epigraphs in Wok\K and WoR, slowly becoming more corrupt.

There is this WoB, which says that Sazed created the Elendel Basin as a center for life. It doesn't say how it is a basin of life, though I have been under the impression that he just created really fertile soil and set up all the necessary resources for advancement in that area. It's possible though that there is a shardpool, though nothing is stated.

In which case I wonder why they would bother taking a shardblade as well. Seems like a fair assumption that if they took shardblades from Roshar they would use them. That in turn would spawn stories. Since there are no stories or mentions, and they likely, as you say, have methods of defending other than using a shardblade, why bother going through the effort of taking a shardblade in the first place? It wouldn't be easy to get one.

True, but if they were really out there they we would've probably heard some explicit mention of them. I don't think stories of people carry 6 foot magical swords or tons of bodies with burnt eyes and no visible wound could remain hidden that well.

Fair point, considering, in theory, you could use awaken anything for a shardblade. I wonder if it would be even possible to make a shardblade lifeless. Edit: Bit of thought into a shardblade lifeless. It sounds really dangerous. Well more dangerous than a hemalurgic construct.

The thing is that a shardblade by general definition doesn't need to resemble a shardblade from Roshar in shape or effect. It does not even have to be a sword or weapon. It's been indicated that all it has to be is a heavily invested magical object. If you crammed enough investiture into a stone and shaped the investiture, it could be considered a shardblade.

I was under the impression that the Rose sub-continent was never controlled by Fjorden. This is mainly because there was a map in Elantris which showed that an area questionably labelled "Rose barbarians?" showed the area to be north of Teod, past a thick mountain range. I'm more of the opinion that the Moon Scepter isn't a literal Rosetta Stone which translates languages, but more of a key which allows someone to use the types of Sel's magic outside of their specific regions. So AonDors outside of the Aonic sub-continent and Teod, using a different source point.

I don't think it was the arrow to the head. It was probably the resealing which mended the wound which damaged the soul. I haven't seen anything which indicates that Frava was in on it. Nothing at all. If you could quote a passage which does, I would be grateful. The thing about your thought is that if Frava was really in on it, the risks far out-weighed the rewards, in my opinion. Consider: if the entire plan had worked, Frava would've essentially been the shadow king of the empire. However, failure would've been a massive demotion in position, essentially undoing years of work. In addition, both success and failure both carry the additional risk that the essence mark would be uncovered. If it were, then Frava would be prosecuted and the empire could possible crumble. In any case, success hinged on the fact that Frava's forger would've been able to make a usable essence mark on 3 months, which was very strongly indicated to be otherwise. Also, if Frava were actually planning the essence mark control from before the assassination, then it would've made more sense if she had arranged to have essence mark practically finished beforehand. The fact that she needed, and suggested that Shai make the entire thing implies that she didn't have anything prepared ahead of time. Once again, I don't think the second-most influential person in the empire wouldn't have that foresight. There is also one other point. Frava mentioned at the end that she had been carefully meeting with the emperor and nudging him towards removing Gaotona as an arbiter. If she were actually preparing to take control using an essence mark, why waste time in all those private meetings manipulating the emperor instead of just concentrating all efforts on the essence mark? Anyhow, tl;dr: Nothing in the book, as far as I could tell indicates that Frava was in on the assassination and was planning the essence mark control as a part on it. Furthermore, to believe that she was would require acknowledging that she made no proper plans for it past the assassination, and that she was fairly incapable of conducting a proper risk-rewards assessment.

No problem. Glad it could be cleared up. Question though. What did you mean when you said "the nature of Awakening allows for enough variance that comparing one to Shardblades be a bit of an ordeal."? It sounds like you're saying that using just awakening to make a shardblade would be hard.

I don't think the Aonic sub-continent has room for another Elantris-style AonDor amplifier, considering it take 5 cities to do. On the other hand, it would be interesting to see if you could build something similar, but on a smaller scale nearer to the edges of the AonDor source's range to see if you could amplify the range of the source, and use it further abroad.

No, no, no. Nightblood is a shardblade made using awakening. That, there is no doubt and I said so. What my point is that it isn't a shardblade that was fully conceptualized and built using awakening. Rather, it is a shardblade that is conceptualized using sprenblades as a model, simply using breath as a source of investiture and awakening as the method of shaping that investiture. What I was saying in the sections you two quoted is that if you made a heavily invested magical object using just awakening, it would be considered a shardblade as well, but it wouldn't necessarily look anything like a sprenblade or honorblade nor have similar effects of cutting through multiple realms. I'm saying that a true awakening-based shardblade would be a lot more efficient than Nightblood in terms of use, but at the same time, a lot less powerful. Part of the hack that Vasher did to emulate sprenblades resulted in a huge increase in power, with a proportional decrease in efficiency.

I disagree, I think it will be, at some point in the future, feasible to make a shardblade using any of the manifestations of investiture, without using another system's shardblade as a model. I do agree though, that at this point, only Nalthis and Roshar have the resources and knowledge to feasibly do so. If I had to guess, I'd say that Sel would be next-in-line for making a shardblade, though their's would have severe limitations on usage, but have the potential to be quite powerful as a result of the ambient investiture. In any case, I wouldn't call Nightblood an awakening shardblade. It's a shardblade that's a twisted bastardization of knowledge of Rosharan investiture and Nalthis investiture. I think it will be possible to create an entirely different type of shardblade, just using awakening, without modeling it on another system's shardblade, that would be a lot more efficient, though probably less powerful than Nightblood.

Sel systems seem to have their access to the Dor concentrated at a certain geographical point. This means that the power to fuel the specific magic system can only be obtained when you're within X distance of that point. The map located at the start of each symbol chain for an effect is just a link to that source, it doesn't control where the source is. In other words, the source of the Dor for AonDors is in the Elantris area. The fact that the Aons contain a map of that area is how it connects to the source. If you tried making Aons with the shape of MaiPon, they wouldn't work, because MaiPon doesn't contain the source for AonDor, only the Aonic continent does.

That's not what happened. The arbiters were just trying to take advantage of the fact that the emperor had lost his spiritual. None of them set up the entire assassination in order to gain more power at the end. This is made clear in the prologue, when the arbiters are discussing Shai's fake painting and how she could help them fix their mess [emperor having no soul]. Contextually, it seems clear that she was caught after, or right around when the assassination took place. Unless somehow Frava had complete foreknowledge that Shai was going to be caught and would agree to make the essence mark, there would've no way she could've or would've arranged the assassination. It has been made clear that none of the other imperial forgers were capable, and there is no way she would've chanced something like that, considering how rare the art of making essence marks appears to be.

I feel like it is mainly an ignorance of the fact that tools of shardblade-level power and investiture can be made. The only shardblades we know of were all descended from the Honorblades in design, which was from Honor. Since none of the other shards seem inclined to demonstrate shardblades, people just haven't tried making them, since they don't know anything on that level is possible. Also, it's probably due to the fact that most worlds aren't as invested as Roshar.

I assume that you are talking about Rosharan shardblades, ie. Sprenblades (my term) and honorblades and no one taking them. I imagine the reason that honorblades have been kept on Roshar is because they have been well protected by the Stone Shamans, and the others are fairly lost. Regarding sprenblades, there is, of course, the fact that the ruling powers who possesses them keep a close eye on them. However, I have no doubt that a skilled worldhopper could integrate themselves into a society and win one, then manage to escape off-world. I'm not too sure why this hasn't happened, though I imagine that it is as Yata says, where the spren forming the blade is strongly connected to Roshar, and some sort hack would be needed. Regarding the more general sense, of shardblades being heavily invested magical objects. We have seen a shardblade off-Roshar: Nightblood on Nalthis. There will likely be a point where other shardworlds develop their own shardblades using their own manifestations of investiture. They will all likely share effects of around the same level of power as Rosharan shardblades (though Nightblood is magnitude stronger), though their effects may not all be offensive in nature. Makes me wonder if shardplate could actually be termed as a shardblade under the general definition.

Forgery rewrites an object's spiritual components, which then, by extension, changes the physical and cognitive. As a result of the arrow wound healing, the emperor's spiritual part was mostly erased. This means that any connections he had to anything was erased, so he couldn't recognize anyone, or have any likes or dislikes. Neither his physical nor cognitive were affected. What Shai's forgery did was reapply a new spiritual to him, one based off of what she knew about him. As such, the new connections applied as a result of the essence mark were very similar to the ones he had before the attack. The mark didn't really change his physical or cognitive since there was no need. Technically, I think she did create an essence mark which reset him to just before the attack. The main purpose though wasn't to change his physical or cognitive though, just his spiritual. Hopefully this makes sense the second time.