alder24

It's the same. Awakening changes something in the soul of the object used as a color fuel. That's what the Vivenna's blade is doing. Shardblades do the same, severing the soul. There is a clear connection between those two. Yes, you can put more Breaths into a Lifeless body when it's too broken. It will fix them.

Look at the WoB below, Herald body is created for them when they return. A new one. It can still work if their body isn't the primary source of Connection to PR. But this Connection must be severed by trapping Heralds in gems, as that's what killed Jezrien. Every time they return their Connection to PR creates a new body for them, now they have a different Connection between their body and their soul, separate from their Connection to PR. When they die, their Connection to their body is severed, but their Connection to PR is unchanged. Their body however must be separated from their soul. Not like Shardblades and spren, but just like in a normal person. Yeah, it was just a thought that came to me at that moment. Sounds nice but falls apart when you think about it more.

I don't think so, because a Shardblade killed corpse can be turned into a Lifeless. Shardblades also severs a soul turning cut off limb gray. And Vasher made a gray squirrel into a Lifeless.

I based in on Warbreaker. It's the way I understand it based on how it was explained in books. That's a good point. That password isn't a security phrase, but one might be used to set a new password. There might be a way to make a type 3 entity with a security phrase. Or that lock's visualization included a way to change a password only for a person owning/connected to this lock, which wouldn't require any security phrase.

This: He would be very unlikely to Return, he has no tie to Endowment. Hard to say, investiture resists investiture. Good point. SA 5: Not in English. Translation, Ch 3.2: Yes, that must be the case. But why medallions can't grant Allomancy? It's weird, as you should only need F-nicrosil portion and give it Allomancy to store. Is there some weird interference between Allomancy and Feruchemy that prevents it from working? If yes then how were the Bands made?

I want to clear things with this reply. Firstly we know why Returned can worldhop - Endowment's investiture is attached to the identity of a person, the same is true with Divine Breaths, they're more physical, strongly attached to the person's identity. That's just the nature of Endowment. Divine Breath is basically a supercharged normal Breath. However even for Returned it might be hard to worldhop - the trick then is likely to suppress their Divine Breaths, like Vasher is doing this constantly. Can a different CS do the same? Unlikely, because that's the nature of Breaths that no other investiture has. Secondly we know why Kelsier can't use Allomancy - his connection to his body is removed, and Allomancy apparently needs that (after all you physically burn metals in your physical stomach). Most invested arts are based on connection which is severed in the moment of death - Radiants lose their spren bond, Aviars are connected to a person, Elantrains are connected to Arelon. Because in the moment of death their body, spirit and mind is separated, they lose all that connections. And this is when someone can become a CS. Kelsier isn't even stampled to his own body - he's using a Mistwraith who consumed his bones. Identity of his body doesn't match his soul's identity. There is no strong connection between those two. Returned are different. Endowment's invested art can be performed by anybody, as long as they have Breaths. If an Awakener dies and Returned, he can still access his Breath that were used to Awaken things before his death. Breaths are bound to identity. That's why Endowment's magic system is different. No connection to this magic is removed in the moment of death. But they can gain new access to invested arts. CS can bond sprens. Even Returned or Kelsier can do that. It's hard, because investiture resists investiture, but possible. The decision is left solely in spren's hands. Every CS would be able to get his hands on Breaths and use them, there is nothing that would prevent them from doing that. Most would likely be able to burn Lerasium to gain Allomancy - they have their own body, Kelsier doesn't. Heralds are different again - they're connected to Honorblades, and this connection isn't severed when they die or move to Braize. This is likely because of the Oathpact rather than Honorblades themself (Szeth in first version of WoR was killed by Kal and Honorblade appeared next to him, which by WoB is still canon). Moreover Nale has never lost his spren bond, when he died - Heralds are just weirdly different, mainly because of Oathpact. I think their physical body is their investiture manifesting in PR, just like spren manifests as a Shardblade or Fabrials, Heralds manifest their body this way - in that way their connection to PR is never severed when they die. But then there are Fused. They are also CS with access to invested art. But they don't require a spren bond - their own investiture gives them ability to use Surgebinding. I also want to point out that on Threnody, where no Shard exists, there is a way to become a proper CS, using some special rituals - as Nazh said in SH. How they work is unknown - but also we know no Shard intervention is required, sometimes being heavily invested in the moment of death will make a person into CS. Regarding Elantrians, they aren't CS, they are something different. They didn't die. I don't think Kel was ever able to use Allomancy after becoming CS. Hard to say. Medallions are said to work like Honorblades, they have an identity of their own and this might allow Kel to use them. But if they worked on him why don't he use them? Why did he leave the Bands in the temple (granted they aren't like medallions).

No, because a Shardblade isn't bound to one's identity, but it's Connected to his soul. You can't tap Shardbearer's identity and summon his Shardblade. If a Shardbearer were to store his Connection to his Shardblade in unkeyed duraluminmind, give it to somebody else, then maybe that person would be able to summon Shardbearer's Shardblade.

Is Cultivation all about positive change? Odium thinks otherwise. She cultivated Dalinar who was at high risk of falling into Odium's hands, which would result in very negative change. Even Cultivation said "all things must be cultivated". OB ch 114: OB ch 57

It's a decent way to explain this, I mostly agree, but I think you're missing an important part of this war. For the last 5 years before WoR Alethi were fighting a war of attrition with Parshendi. Gemhearts were important for both sides and were used to grow food, which is something Alethi assumed about Parshendi correctly. They need to get to a chrysalis first, before Parshendi arrive, or at least get there at the same time. If they are too slow, Parshendi will extract gemheart and leave the plateau without any fight. But if Alethi are fast, they can secure a plateau without any fight, which in consequence would cut their losses to minimum or sometimes to nothing. By this logic, being as fast as possible is the best tactic, as any battle that can be avoided is saving lives. But this doesn’t work if a battle is very likely to happen - if a chrysalis is spotted far away from camps. In that case Parshendi will always arrive first, and exposed (or even armored) bridge crews and soldiers would suffer heavy casualties when assulting the plateau, as seen from Kaladin’s PoV. In this situation Dalinar’s slow moving bridges are better, because they shield troops from volleys of arrows. However Dalinar risks being too slow, allowing Parshendi to escape with gemheart without any fight. While Dalinar stopped caring about Highprices’ competition for gemhearts, this slows down their war of attrition. Any gemheart which Parshendi take, prolongs the war. To win this war of attrition it’s far better to use faster bridge crews and fight for every gemheart. Parshendi are already low on numbers, they suffered extreme casualties and are left with only around 30k people. They need to grow food using gemhearts otherwise their crops would be too small to feed them. But this is something Alethi didn’t know. If they knew how close they were to win the war, they might double down on Sadeas’ tactic. In Dalinar’s case, who wants to cut his losses to minimum, it might be better to use bridge crews for close chrysalis, as he has better chances at arriving first and avoiding battle. However this is a gamble, Parshendi still can arrive first and a battle will happen, then Dalinar will have much greater casualties, or even, if enough bridgemen are killed, complete collapse of his assault with even higher casualties. This risk is something that Dalinar is not willing to take. He doesn't put lifes on the line for a shiny stone. Dalinar’s bridges are unstoppable, they will always be deployed and can cross a wider gap (which gives him a bit greater mobility, as normal bridge crews have to find a narrow gap, Dalinar’s army can move at a straighter line than others) and they provide full protection to soldiers standing behind them. If battle is unavoidable, Dalinar’s bridges are better. To summarize, Sadeas’ bridge crews are the best way to win the war of attrition, while Dalinar’s are the best way to minimize casualties in the event of a battle. Sadeas will engage in battle more often than Dalinar, and more often than Dalinar will Sadeas arrive at the plateau first. But there is more to this dilemma. Sadeas is using cavalry and light infantry, while Dalinar is using heavy infantry. Sadeas is improving his mobility, which likely makes his bridge crews the slowest part of his army. But his lightly armored troops are weaker in combat, and are described to have low discipline and worse training, which puts Sadeas at disadvantage in a battle. Because of that, using faster bridge crews is ideal for Sadeas, as sometimes he can arrive before Parhsendi can, claim the gemheart and much needed victory, improving morale of his troops. Dalinar’s slow moving bridges allow him to ignore the marching speed of his troops. Moreover his troops are the best in the entire Alethi army - they have more discipline, morale and are better trained than any other soldier of any other Highprince. Sadeas compensates for his inferior troops with fast bridge crews, Dalinar doesn’t need that.

Humans are sentient and sapient, and they are relatively low invested. For investiture alone, sapience is gained over a longer time period, not immediately. For invested objects it would be likely the same. The more investiture there is, the faster it could gain sapience. So the amount of investiture determines how fast investiture will gain sapience naturally. But likely there is a level when a sapience/sentience of something too little invested is marginal. But that's naturally gained sapience, if you want to make something sapient you for sure need that thing to be sufficiently invested.

What? No. He was supposed to be sentient. That was the whole idea of this. They were trying to create a sentient sword but they weren't sure if this could be done. They didn't understand what had happened, but that was their intention from the beginning. Ch 51: That isn't what I meant. No conscious decision would be made by Shards. They wouldn't even be aware of that. It would be decided by their nature, how their nature allows others to access their power, and this is a full unconscious decision. Like Ruin's nature allows Hemalurgy to be used anywhere by anyone, because that's his nature. But the nature of different Shards, like Odium who is by nature very selfish, might not be so universally focused and reachable by anyone.

I don't really care? Journey before destination! I think if in the end of Cosmere Adonalsium will be reunited, then Shards on Roshar must be at least partially united. This will put Roshar in conflict with Scadrial in the space era. But I am sure it won't happen in KoW. Even before Taravangian's Ascension, I knew merging two Shards that early would be wasteful. If this were to happen it would be at the end of the whole series. At best we might get a return of Honor in KoW. But I'm wouldn't mind War Shard happening. And Dalinar has all forshadowing needed for this. Maybe it's too obvious, like therunner said, but it still might happen. Shard of War is a combination of Honor and Odium. Dalinar from flashback wouldn't be suited for it, because he lacked that level of Honor, he wasn't that honorable like he was since WoK. He was certainly passionate, and that is something which is still with him. Likr understanding of Thrill allowed him to trap it, and he still has a very deep connection to Odium and his Passions. Current Dalinar knows both Shards so well that he is suited as a Vessel for both of them. And he knows there is a need for war, defensive war for example. He understands that war in some cases is necessary. He seeks for the opportunity to make peace and unite, but when there is none, he fights. That what Dalinar as the Shard of War would do, put an honorable reason for conflicts sparked by passion.

I phrased it badly. I wanted to say their nature might prevent this. Not that Shard's power would be taken and used somewhere else. but that corruption would create their power in a place that they have no control over (that's the point, they wouldn't have control over that power, maybe even would be fully unaware of it, because their minds don't reach that far). Ruin doesn't care, as long as it cause destruction. Others, like Odium or Autonomy might care, as their nature might not like something like that.

@ftl made a great point. It's unlikely for me to join the second order, but if I was given that opportunity, I would likely try, only because based on the quiz I'm most fitted for Truthwatchers and Skybreakers just behind them. One is about seeking truth, the other is about justice. I think they could synergize quite nicely.

I don't remember any mention of magnets in Era 1 except for compasses in WoB posted above. Magnets have been used on Earth since ancient Greece, but they were found as a vary rare natural material, lodestones, they weren't manufactured. It's likely they would be known on Scadrial, but still be rare. Magnets are metal, made out of alloy of iron and nickel, and in the case of lodestones it's magnetite. Using them for a Mistcloak would not be advised. But there are some knots that can be undo with a single pull, I always imagined they used them.

I don't think this would work. This would require a really strong magnetic field, which would be detectable form Lumar, and this would mess Lumar quite a lot. But there is something that is known as Roche limit, which specify the closest orbit around a planet that a moon can orbit, without being ripped to pieces by tidal force of planet's gravity. Lumar's moon, taking 1/3 of the sky, are far below this limit. We just need to accept this is magical world and it doesn't work with our physics TotES spoiler WoBs about moons:

No. Memories fade. It would be weird for sure but it would fade eventually. And they both have their own identity (we don't know if storing identity works like F-copper or other metals), their own connections, and their souls are different. But that's possibly a way of experiencing for a short time what someone else is. Especially if those memories would be in a vision, like Kelsier's one in BoM.

Mural in Akinah suggests those groupings exists. And this WoB confirmed this and said it's relevant, at least for us, nerds.

Another thing that you would want to consider is how much power Shards are willing to give in places they're not invested. What I mean by that is that Ruin especially doesn't care where his essence (and Hemalurgy) is used as long as it result in a rise of entropy. Odium on the other hand would be very unlikely to share his power in places other than Roshar, he is selfish by nature and even if that were to propagate hate across Cosmere, he wouldn't want to split his power, even a tiny bit, and give it to someone outside of his control. Honor and Cultivation might be similar. Autonomy is unknown, Bavadin is a control freak, so she might not want to share her power, but on the other hand she creates Avatars left an right so she might be willing to gain another pawn. I'm not saying it would be a conscious decision of a Shard, but rather unconscious one, decided by the nature of given Shard. Therefore no matter how hard you would try, you wouldn't be able to create "hateful sword", because Odium by nature doesn't want to share. No, his 1000 Breaths with which he was Awaken won't get leaked for sure. They are tied to the sword with Awakening.

You're right. WoK ch 4: Would this prevent winds from toppling the wagon? If they're chained from the top on each side/corner, so tension would work, then maybe.

Yes. Not what we saw. It's the other way around. Bondsmith needs to touch not only that person, but also the ground to connect them to the ground. If Bondsmith would want to connect somebody to themself, they would need to touch that person and later themself. Read RoW. It's hard but Lightweavers can do that too. That's the nature of Soulcasting. This is separate from Allomancy.

They're connected. The command to destroy evil gives Nightblood personality. Which is why he constantly encourages people to use him and to kill everyone. But the command fully takes over when he’s unsheathed. That's why if Nightblood doesn't consider investiture evil, then him storing it is just a side effect. Likely. There is no rule like that, but yes, Ruin wouldn't want to settle alone. And investing alone in a system, then leaving is not an easy process. It either involves leaving behind part of Shard's power, or ripping that power out of the systems. Both are very tough to do. I'm not so sure if Ruin would be able to destroy any planet he wants without investing even more in that system - except Scadrial planets aren't composed mainly out of Ruin's investiture and that may be important. Based on another WoB, if Scadrial were to be destroyed, Hemalurgy wouldn't stop working, which for me suggests that part of Ruin's investiture would remain in the Scadrial system, even if Ruin were to leave. And reply to the whole, long last part. I don't think simply changing command will create similar effect to Nightblood. Endowment was involved in his creation more than usual. Creating another weapon aligned with other Shard might be impossible without Endowment intervention. And there is a WoB that said it would be very hard to make another Nightblood, so I don't think a simple command is enough to create Nightblood-like weapons (in terms of Shardic commands). And I think most of those weapons might have unforeseeable effects, not as bad as Nightblood, but still not something you want your weapon to have. I don't think it's a good idea. Yes, it's small, but over 300 years it accumulated a bit. If Atium made the difference, and Preservation's fragment in people's soul, Nightblood might make a difference as well. I'm not suggesting it's the driving factor, but just another one.

Bondsmiths also need to touch. Very unlikely it would work just like that. But there might be something that can be done with it: It's less about connection it's about physical touch. But it might help. I don't think so. That's an Aether. No. Spren don't have Allomancy.

Nohadon was a Dawnshard - that's very likely (Here is the topic about it if you want to read). Then I think he hid his Dawnshard in the vision that Dalinar entered at the end of WoR. But Dalinar hasn't become a Dawnshard yet. Nor was he one during the OB battle. That wasn't Dawnshard (because Odium's words "we killed you" wouldn't make any sense). He either partially Ascended to Honor (which is the most prominent theory) or did something else, maybe related to Adonalsium himself. The power that Bondsmiths used to have is likely Perpendicularity, not just Dawnshards (Ishar created Perpendicularity without any Dawnshard). When somebody Ascend, it's about Shards, not Dawnshards. You don't Ascend to a Dawnshard, you become one. If Dalinar was a Dawnshard the change would be very visible. He would exhibit Heightening-like attributes. Not to mention holding a Dawnshard would warp his soul in such a dangerous way that it would likely hurt Stormfather or change him. Rysn was forbidden to bond a spren, not just because she would access Surgebinding. No. Brandon RAFO if Rysn would have the same Torment as Hoid. But we know different Dawnshards have different effects, and one is very different from the others, so it's likely that Torments are also different.

I'm not sure, Stormfather isn't a Vessel. For a moment isn't the same as stopping it fully. He is unable to fully resist the intrusion of another Shard. He can't do the same as Vin and Ati. RoW ch 71? He didn't. He moved against the wind, while the Highstorm continued forward. He took some control over parts of it, blowing winds on his own, yes, but this might be because of his relation to Stormfather, just like Navani is aware of the Tower mechanism and networks, she felt them, was moving within Urithiru like Dalinar within Highstorm, and maybe even she can turn on and off fabrials in the Tower herself. I think this is similar for all Bondsmiths. If so, this was previously locked for Stormfather's Bondsmith. And this is very dangerous. Dalinar shouldn't do this. Stormfather clearly warned him against taking actions like this. RoW ch 107: That's Bondsmithing, he was riding the storm, which provided his mind access to that location and connection to Kaladin. He reached into SR and forged a connection. I wouldn't say this is because of his bond with Honor, rather this is Bondsmith unchained in action. Accepting Kaladin's Ideal was reaching into Honor's pieces. I'm not talking about acting against Shard's pawns, I'm talking power vs power. Sazed was blinded by Autonomy's pure power. Better example, Ruin and Kel/Vin fighting. They were throwing pure power at each other. This is what I'm talking about. At best, Dalinar and Stormfather would be able to resist only as long as Stormfather was able to resist Odium intrusion into visions. Without Dalinar's direct Ascension, I don't think they can do better. Yes, but Stormfather isn't Honor's Vessel. He's Honor's Sliver and his Cognitive Shadow, not a Vessel. Sure he can do more, but is still bound by his nature of the Storm.