Exalted

And sacrificing themselves to the Voidbringers is essentially what the Heralds were doing with the whole Oathpact thing...not for knowledge, per se, but for the safety of mankind. We know that other Rosharan cultures revere the Heralds under different names, so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume that the same thing is happening here.

I'd assume something like that, yeah. I'm also assuming that this has been RAFO'ed at some point in the past, so we're left to speculating about it?

*groans at the rapidly-rising number of Ruin puns* Please, let's all just forget the cookies and live in Harmony.

Since Elantris happens "far earlier than Hero of Ages", that means the Scepter would be

Ooh, nice line of thinking...do we know when Emperor's Soul takes place in relation to those events?

Considering that (BoM? I think? spoilers):

Hmm, okay, that makes sense. Random thought: could you Forge a Savant to take away their Savantism when the drawbacks get to be too much and break the seal to regain the powers when needed? (I.e. can you remove Investiture with a Soulstamp and siphon it somewhere?)

Oh, no. A Surgebinding sword? That can alter its gravity to fly directly at other people?? It wouldn't even need a wielder to do anything, because it could absorb Stormlight for Investiture on its own!

My question wasn't about adding more powers; it was about altering Mistings--since the type of Misting they become is encoded into their Spiritweb, not based off of their life experiences (as opposed to, say, the KR), wouldn't it be impossible to Forge a Misting to alter their Misting type?

But Forging changes things in an object's past, right? Can you go back before birth and alter someone's Spiritweb so that they wield Investiture differently after they Snap?

Hmm...now I'm tempted to build a Stormlight M:tG set for WoK and WoR and send it to Brandon for next year's Koloss Head-Munching Day festivities. Of course, I don't exactly have the time to do that, so...probably not.

I noticed the Aon thing, too! And got so excited that I told my friends, which got the responses of "Huh? What's an Aon?" (3 people) and "But none of the Eastern countries are shaped in the pattern of the base symbol..." (1 person).

Happy Koloss Head-Munching Day, indeed. In light of Brandon's gift suggestion (foil M:tG Kaladesh cards), I've made this: Which, unfortunately, is not standard-legal. And also probably not balanced, but whatever.

*groan* I see what you did there...

I would disagree on the "combining Shardic magic is dangerous/unstable" part, in part because of Surgebinding, which I understand to be of both Honor and Cultivation (although I've seen references of it being of Honor only, so I'm not really sure of this). Also, there's Feruchemy, which is of both Preservation and Ruin, and it's arguably the most stable of the Scadrian magics (built-in failsafes, no net power loss). I agree, however, that the Dor is both unstable and dangerous, but I think that's more due to the fact that it's situated in the Cognitive realm than the fact that it's of two Shards. And as funny side note: whenever I read "D&D" while scrolling through this thread, my brain defaulted to "Dungeons & Dragons", and I had to remind myself that the topic of discussion was not the Shards of Adonalsium playing TTRPGs.

Hmm. I never would have made the connection, myself, but this seems like it could have some merit to it. It wouldn't be terribly surprising if one of Odium's creations were to turn against him, considering how volatile his Intent is.

So if spren actually are responsible for Shardplate, does that mean a KR can't summon his/her Plate while in Shinovar?

I'm away from book right now, but doesn't Vasher Command his sleeve tassels to "Become as my fingers and grip on my call"? Although "extend" may be too foreign of a concept for a Command (since "grip" mimics a human function, while "extend" doesn't).

"Become as a switchblade and extend on my call." Bam, instant shard-lightsaber. Or close enough, anyway.

Well, you do have a point there. The easiest ("easy" being relative) way to go about it would probably be to attract one of the spren naturally (there are four possible orders there, so chances are at least one of them could be construed to fit your personality) and steal the Honorblade for the other surge. But again, easy is relative...

The Abrasion and Gravitation surges together have some insane potential for abuse--a constant acceleration that's potentially incredibly high in any direction you want, with no fear of terminal velocity or burning up if you Slick yourself to avoid air drag. And since it's Stormlight, you'd be able to heal as well. I'd argue that it's even better than Twinborn steel if you can learn how to control it properly (and have enough Stormlight to get up to an acceleration value comparable to Feruchemical steel), but stopping would be a real issue. Unless you're okay with slamming into things really hard...

Doesn't the sunlight from Taldain's sun recharge the sand with Investiture? Which (assuming the Investiture is coming from Autonomy) would make Bavadin's touch on the story literally light?

*Walks up to [person of interest], hands said person a handkerchief* *Walks away*

When you make a Shard account solely to post on this thread. When you wonder whether it would be possible to create an electromagnetic glove powerful enough to duplicate the external physical metals (minus the part about not having to move your hands, of course). When you always have a Sanderson book in your backpack "just in case".