Wandering Investor

To be clear, I was referring to the magic systems that covers the entire planet of Sel. It has a lot of different variations, and the AonDor practiced in Elantris is only one of them. And the other notes you made refer to how difficult it can be to enter the magic system, which is true, and the location and energy requirements, which can be problematic, but that has nothing to do with the capabilities of the system. As long as you know the correct symbols, a lot can be done, a larger variation of actions can be performed than any other system. Also, becoming an Elantrian is not totally random, the chosen tend to be devoted to something, so only mostly random. Technically, the largest gas station award goes to Sel with the Dor. And even Allomancy has direct access to the spiritual reserves of a Shard, so more fuel than what is loose on Roshar. Roshar's fuel pumping rate is way higher than the others though, except maybe Sel if you can figure out how to channel the Dor.

As others have pointed out, there are fundamental differences between stormlight and breaths. While both are investiture, its similar to how iron and oxygen are both matter, they're very different. Stormlight acts like a storm, its full of movement and wild energy. Breaths on the other hand are basically miniature souls. In awakening, there are several things that happen. A command, visualization, and color are fed to an intelligence, which then carries out the command if understood using internal power. In this case the breaths provide both the base intelligence that carries out the commands and the power source. While stormlight can function as a power source, it cannot provide the mechanism to carry out the commands. Now, could you give a command to a spren?

Most flexible/capable: AonDor and company, as proper knowledge of the systems can allow for very complex instructions.

It would depend on whether the oathgate spren consider Tanavast the Father or the Shard Honor as their Father. The details on how shattering works is unknown, but may result in chunks of powers, so Dalinar could have ascended to parts of Honor in the very least. Also, Odium stuffed Devotion and Dominion into the cognitive realm in order to prevent them from gaining sentience or some ascending to them. With Cultivation still around, Odium may not have been able to do that with Honor, and since the Cognitive realm doesn't seem to be stuffed full of shard corpse, Honor's power may still be in a position where people can ascend to it.

Feruchemy can store investiture in nicrosil. This includes the different Allomantic powers, so it very likely includes powers from other worlds. You could very likely store the investiture from Nathis or Roshar. For Roshar it would probably take the form of storing separate surges. Nalthis would be a bit more complicated, I'm not sure if it would store the breath, or the side effect of the breath such as health, life, lifesense, color bending, etc. @TheInbornSon Duralium stores connection, did you mean nicrosil? Nicrosil can be used to store innate magic abilities. So you could make a nicrosil-mind to store pewter-burning for instance, and another for tin. You can only store one power per metalmind though. As for how it works with raw investiture, stormlight and what not, I'm not sure.

I suspect he was a normal guy that either gave up hope once everything went downhill, or never really believed in the first place but couldn't say so without be shunned or worse.

I recall seeing somewhere that Rosharan's grow biologically at the same rate as other humans, so they experience puberty and pregnancies at the normal rate, even if they're years are different. But Brandon tries not to get bogged down over the details of when characters hit certain age milestones, notably between 10-8. I can't find the exact one I'm thinking of, but this one covers it kinda. So Dalinar would still be a 60 year old man. In surprising health considering his past. Sure, he's fit, but he's also received a large number of injuries that should be almost crippling at that age. But Roshar is a high investiture environment. Crem in particular is indicated to be infused, or at least connected to Investiture, so some of the more elderly SA characters that act younger than expected could possibly be explained by having a diet of plants watered with crem, or even drinking crem water on occasions.

@Calderis @The One Who Connects It occurred to me later that stormlight healing is based on your spiritual aspect, so stormlight healing would not stop the spiritual warp. But it is still unclear when and how the consequences for too much investiture, either at once or over time, will manifest. Feeling like stormlight is about to tear you apart and actually being torn apart are too different things. But if Brandon does go that route, then I would suspect the Heralds would be resistant to warping, considering they're probably already warped.

Another thing important to note about the heralds is that they likely didn't suffer negative effects from large amounts of investiture usage. This one is a little fuzzy since Brandon is still making the rules, but the original intention was to have Investiture savantism be both good and bad. Using large amounts of investiture would warp the soul, allowing greater use of the investiture but with damaging consequences. Think Mistborn 3 and you'll understand what the original intent was. The non radiant soulcasters that slowly become the element they soulcast is another example. But as time went on other people ended up using this power without too much side effects. Mistborn 2nd Era, one of the characters is definitely in the savant realm, but no negative side effects. Szeth is described as having to use dangerous amounts of stormlight while wielding the honorblade, but isn't shown to have side effects directed from the blade. During the battle of Thaylen, Jasnah notes to herself that the body wasn't capable of holding that amount of stormlight for long without consequences, but its not clear what those consequences would be. Its also a little confusing since stormlight is suppose to heal the user, but other the same time can warp the soul/mind/body? And shards are basically the ultimate Savant, although I guess in their case they have to deal with the Intent as the side effect. But considering the heralds are cognitive shadows forged by Honor, they can likely handle amounts that no one else on the battlefield would be capable of handling, no matter radiant efficiency. Mistborn Second Era Spoiler WoB:

When I read the title, I was like "what, that's silly". But after reading the post, you might be on to something...

I got that far into the list before I had to stifle my laughs since I'm at work. Part of me is upset with you for killing the vibe, and the other part just imagined an intense scene where they decode one of the gemstones and it says that. That would be epic.

Ati's imprisonment was not the normal prison. Preservation disrupted Ati's ability to wield his power. So Ati could still view the world just fine, he just couldn't touch it. So beyond the annoyance of not being able to destroy, I don't think Ruin's imprisonment would have negative mental consequences. Alot of the shards essentially live in isolation when you think about it.

Very sharp, reasonably strong, so they make good weapons. Supply wise, Scadrial has plenty. Not made of metal, so no allomancer pushing. And they're black, so not only do they look cool, they blend into the night for sneaking.

It depends on the purpose of the metal in the fabrial. If the metal only serves as structural support, that is just holding the gemstones, then probably not any problems. If the investiture of the gems at any time runs through the metal, then there is a problem. Investiture resist other forms of investiture, so the invested metal will resist the stormlight trying to go through it. There's the third option that if the contact of the metal with the gem is what causes the fabrial to start working, in which case I don't think invested metal will cause a problem, but maybe. In any of the scenarios, the magic of the fabrials and invested metals will likely not combine. Using invested metal will either cause no change, or stop the fabrial from working.

During one of the first meetings, after Kelsier has a private conversation with Marsh, he burns iron/steel, and can "see" the lines pointing at metal on her person, even though there is a wall between them and he didn't know she had metal on her. Throw in the constant references to vin pushing and pulling on things behind her, and especially the abilities of the inquisitors. It is pretty clear that iron/steel burning allows direct sensing of the lines to all metals in range, not just through eyesight. As for being described as "blue", its probably a visualization thing for the reader. But it still makes sense. Any time I try toimage something something in my head, a layout for instance, my brain creates the lines in with some color, in order to create distinction. I couldn't even say what color it is, just that it is different from the black background. That's just how brain visualization functions works. Or at least mine anyways.

I do not think so. The spren(higher spren) are described as being shaped by either the shards or other spren, not spontaneously gaining sentience. And lesser spren seem to be a feature of the expanse that Roshar occupies. So I do not think a metalmind could gain sentience. Maybe is it was big enough, but the amount of investiture that would require would be massive. Probably one of those, its possible but not plausible.

Shardplate, the alive version, can be dismissed and re-summoned. This is shown in Dalinar's visions where the Radiants dismiss their helmets and talk about dismissing the full suit, although the dismissal and re-summoning isn't shown on screen, as that might hint at what shardplate is. So I'm not sure how accurate a comparison to parshendi plating is. Its much more similar to a shardblade. I subscribe to the theory that the armor is made of lesser spren. OB sploiler: This quote indicates that the armor is truly seperated from its previous master and still functions. This aligned with the radiants that abandoned both their blades and armor long ago. And I'm not sure there is any evidence for the ancient radiants to be alive. Radiants are long lived, but not immortal. Plus, the SF and other spren would likely know of them.

That actually raises several questions #theorytangents. Was disease based magic always on Ashyn, pre-shattering of Adon or pre-Cataclysm? Will massive changes to a world impact magic systems based on that world? As I understand it, magic is created based on the interactions of a shard and the expanse, or maybe cognitive realm, of a planet. So I don't think physical changes to a planet will impact magic; see Scadrial. Further thoughts on the subject From what we know, the disease magic system on Ashyn is based on bacteria(or some other microorganism) evolving(how long would that take without artificial interference?) to grant users(infected) powers. It was sold as, you can infect yourself with a horrible disease, but get an awesome power. So something of a trade off. But it also appears that Ashyn is the original source of the dawnshards, and we also know that they currently live on floating cities. With that in mind, why accept the risk of a horrible disease if you can use it in a mechanical fashion, or if there is another system available. But there is a story about people using the diseases. This would indicate that two systems did not exist together at some point, or the mechanical use of diseases was unavailable, otherwise why use the disease one? I see three solutions to this. In the first two, it is assumed Ashyn started with a disease-based magic. The first solution is that people eventually learned how to use the diseases in a mechanic fashion, using external tools instead of using their bodies. The second is that at some point, possibly even before the catalysm, the disease magic was altered, or a new system was introduced, possibly by H&C settling on Roshar or Odium coming to Ashyn. The third solution is that a different power system existed first, then come Odium and the cataclysm, the old system stopped being usable, with relics like the dawnshards and whatever keeps the cities floating still around, and the disease magic was introduced. Another tangent, if the cities use magical means to float, how much investiture would that take? What's the powersource?

Sorry, I should have expanded. The Elantrian's ability to suffer without dying means no resets. Every wound adds up and never stops. But the heralds might reset/die/heal. It depends on what form the heralds take, to understand what kind of torture they can experience.

I'm under the impression that healing through stormlight and progression work in similar ways, with hints that progression can be pushed further with skill. Lopen's arm healing is from his not accepting the loss of his arm. The people not regaining their arms/legs already accepted the loss.

Not quite what I meant. I meant the Elantrians don't have an option to lose consciousness. It appears the only way for them to do so is to fall asleep, which they cannot do while in so much pain. So the Hoed physically can't become unconscious. But buried under a mountain of pain they can't think either. Taln's condition is slightly different. In his scenario, his body is capable of healing himself, and the pain as (probably?) stopped, but his mind was broken quite thoroughly. So even though the pain is gone, what little mind was left was barely able to function. But as for the Hoed, its likely that if the pain stopped, they'd return to somewhat normal if worse for wear, as shown by Spirit. Taln's condition would probably be more similar to the broken Elantrians that served... forgot her name, but the animalistic ones. In those ones, something broke. That depends a lot on how exactly they were tortured. The Hoed can receive life threatening wounds without the dying. But it is unknown what form the Heralds took on Braize. But yeah, I'd say the Heralds are probably a lot tougher due to natural stability, they were chosen on purpose, and due to their abilities.

That likely has to deal with the fact that the Elantrian's cannot die and are essentially forced to maintain consciousness, but due to the pain have no room for conscious thought. So the last thought they had before going Hoed is repeated over and over.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for free will marriage. It is just that in these settings, arranged/political marriages make for a lot of sense. I suspect as we watch the cosmere go into the future, it will shift away from this. Plus, I would not count Wax/Steris or Shallan/Adolin as arranged marriages. They were not brokered by third parties with all the authority. Was/Steris came together willingly to fix this house problems, and Jasnah might have hooked Shallan up, but Shallan was all for it. As for not doing the legwork for some of these relationships... yeah. But they're not romance novels, they're novels with romance, so I can kinda ignore when things work out better than they probably should as long as its a reasonable possibility, but I also can understand being annoyed by it.

We see Nale after the battle and he didn't seem very effected, plus Shalash didn't seem effected by the perpendicularity very much.

For these two at least, it ties into the background of the world Brandon built. Raoden and Serene exchanged letters a fair amount before they met, so they already knew and liked one another through that. Sazed and Tindwyl had a long history together, that part was a surprise, but didn't feel rushed to me. I won't touch the SA love triangle. And as for the arranged marriages bit, most of these stories take place in what could be considered a high fantasy medieval setting. Important part of that is power being concentrated in nobles, and since the main characters are important, they also tend to be noble in some way. Nobility comes with high authority and high responsibility. The responsibility part makes arranged marriages a lot of sense. I think it is interesting to see people drawn together by duty come together with a good relationship, not a bad thing.