alder24

I'm not talking about regular Splinters, I'm talking about the Stormfather who isn't like a king but is like a regent - ruling in the absence of the king. The king who abdicated has no power and no claims to rule. He's far below the regent and has to obey the regent's laws. And no, the king who abdicated is not above the law, he has no special rights, privileges and no authority anymore. He no longer can order people around. A farting pancake named Doug, the ultimate god of Cosmere, is also theoretically possible and the existence of such entities was confirmed in Tress. The pancake-god has more legitimacy than the God Beyond. You should include him in the S tier. That was a joke - you see the problem here? It's not about what's possible, it's about what is measurable. The God Beyond is not measurable. He doesn't belong here. Either you're making the list based on investiture and continuity or based on belief systems. The God Beyond belongs only to the latter. Is it easy? Normal Marsh belongs there, yes, but what about times when he is being invested so much that he basically mini-Ascends and transcends the Realms, meeting dead people in CR? That's not normal for any (im)mortals. And what about Dawnshards and Dawnslivers (former Dawnshards)? They have a considerable amount of power, power so great that it can threaten Shards and was once used to kill Adonalsium himself. Where would you put those people?

No, a Sliver is a former Vessel of a Shard which still exists. And as I said before, a Sliver will die normally and fade into the Beyond if he choses, they hold no powers. A Sliver is a king who abdicated - continuity of his reign and his claim to the throne ended with his abdication. The Stormfather is on the other hand not only a large Splinter, greater than True Spren, but also a CS of Honor. He is above Slivers. He is a regent. So it's not about beliefs but you include the only entity in Cosmere whose existence will forever be unconfirmed and based only on people's beliefs? His continuity is ambiguous at best. What makes you think Adonalsium was created? It was said Adonalsium created Cosmere. I highly disagree with including the God Beyond because it doesn't make sense if it's about "investiture and continuity." He doesn't fit both of your own criteria. He is the "subject of beliefs." You can't claim this list is about measurable quantities like investiture and continuity and then include the entity that can't be measured, can't be known for sure if he exists at all and is fully based on people's beliefs. What about Marsh? He is quite powerful for a mortal, but he is invested considerably by Harmony from time to time and acts as the Death - thus both his power and continuity can be measured. Where would you place him on your list?

It's not in the spirit of the agreement. The sole purpose of the contest is for the champions to decide which side will win and bring peace no matter the outcome. If one side will start killing on the day of the duel it would be either in violation of the contract, or the attacked side would be able to defend themselves and kill the aggressor without any violation. Odium's champion is meant to fight Honor's champion, not slaughter innocent bystanders. OB ch 122: Why? Roshar without Highstorms is a better place for humans than with them. It's easier to live without a massive hurricane that destroys you periodically. The lack of Stormlight is a problem though, more for life on Roshar in general than for humans. TLM spoilers aren't allowed here. This is the SA forum only. Please edit your post and put this in the spoilers box. TLM spoilers: Reading spoilers: Breaking the oaths would not kill-kill the Stormfather, it would turn him Deadeye. So nothing will be released. This is a normal Bondsmith power. No bond, no perpendicularity. No. Dalinar is bonded with the Stormfather who holds the biggest piece of Splintered Honor, he's Honor's Cognitive Shadow. That's why there are some weird things happening between them. Dalinar with no bond means Dalinar with no direct access to Honor. OB ch 57: The Sibling can generate their own light, without any need for Stormlight. There is also an Oathgate there. If something were to happen to the Stormfather, Urithiru will be totally fine, able to sustain themselves and the people living there. No need to escape.

And that's something we don't know. We don't know if Returned are more invested than Heralds thanks to their Divine Breaths, or if their Divine Breath alone is more invested than Heralds. It doesn't seem to be that way because Returned need a constant feed of investiture to sustain their Divine Breath, Heralds don't. Heralds (and Fused) seem to be more invested than Returned. Without their Divine Breath, Returned don't exist, without the Oathpact and Honorblades Heralds still exist. RoW ch 15: Yes, a Divine Breath is a Splinter but that alone tells us nothing about how they compare to other CS. I would not separate Returned and their Divine Breaths into different categories. Returned seems to be weaker/"stronger ones" CS by Vasher's words, while Heralds/Fused are the strongest. Edit: Lesser Avatars?

For sure entities like Stormfather or Nightwatcher are above Slivers. Slivers don't really have anything special about them except that they don't phase into the Beyond when they die, and they do die normally like any other person. Only in combination with Invested Arts Slivers (and admittedly any person) can cheat death and become "a god" like Rashek did. But what about Elantrians? They aren't CS, they aren't Splinters or Slivers and they are more invested then Returned. They are more invested then Heralds too. Yumi spoiler WoB: I mostly agree, however I wouldn't place Returned above Heralds, they should be equal. Also if you consider Avatar Vessels, then why not Shard Vessels? The mechanics of those are more or less the same but Avatars are on a much smaller scale. Avatars, Splinters and CS are on a spectrum, some have less investiture, others have more. The problem with your scale is that you kind of switched into measuring investiture level, not divinity - who would consider people with Aviars or Spore Eaters to be gods? But how do you @bmcclure7 measure divinity? Is it about how invested they are or how they are perceived by people? Because if it's by perception, then Heralds are about the Stormfather in general (but by what religious practice?). How do you define divinity? There are gods on Scadrial that probably never existed and yet they were worshiped. Should they be on the list? Returned are worshiped as the highest divine authority, only surpassed by the God-King, who is below Vasher - should Vasher be S tier? Basically all those religions are incompatible with each other unless you measure divinity by investiture and that means this isn't about gods and divinity anymore. You can't make a "hierarchy of divinity," because that's subjective, based only on your personal beliefs. If you think a farting pancake named Doug is the ultimate god of Cosmere then he is S tier for you and nothing will change that. But if you measure it by investiture, then there should be no God Beyond on the list, as we don't even know if he exists. Adonalsium is the maximum.

Kind of. It depends when the Connection to the body is severed. When the heart stops? When you lose consciousness? When your brain dies? Even later, after some time has passed? Which one of those things is the actual death of the body? It seems the Connection is severed at least when your brain dies, and your brain can survive a few minutes after your heart stops. So there is a considerable time window when your body is basically dead, but your connection to it is still not severed, thus Taravangian was killed and while still Connected to his dead body, he Ascended. We saw this in SH with Goradel. Goradel was decapitated by Marsh, his body was massacred by his uncontrollable rage, then Marsh read the message on the metal plate and left, and only after all of this happened did Goradel's mind appear in the CR. His body even got slowly covered by ash in the meantime. That's a lot of time, several minutes after his body died. SH ch 6-7: HoA ch 69:

Death is a two stage process in Cosmere. First a body dies, then its Cognitive Manifestation - the mind - fades into the Beyond (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/183/#e3910). Odium pulled Taravangian's mind into his vision. At the same time Szeth was killing Taravangian's body. But his mind was binded in the vision or didn't have enough time to fade, thus it was enough for him to Ascend in the meantime. I see 3 options that might have happened to his body. It's possible that just as Taravangian was dying, he Ascended before his Connection to his body was fully severed, thus his body vanished at the same time as Rayse's corpse appeared. Second option, Szeth killed him, severed his Connection to his body, but because Taravangian's death was just so recent, Ascension kind of snapped back/healed his Connection to his body (I don't think that would work tbf), or lastly his connection might have been permanently severed and his body was consumed by Nightblood instead (so Taravangian would be like Kelsier holding Preservation). Because of the quote posted by Starwatcher, I think the first option is the one that happened - as Nightblood was feasting on Odium, Taravangian was dying, but didn't die yet, his Connection to his body wasn't severed yet when he Ascended. Keep in mind, visions like this can cause time dilation (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/508/#e15849). What Szeth saw was Taravangian grabbing Nightblood, Nightblood's smoke obstructing his sight, Taravangian's body disappearing and then he saw a skeleton under his feet which he assumed belonged to Taravangian. Szeth likely jumped away to avoid being stabbed by Nightblood, thus releasing him from his hands so he wouldn't be able to focus on his body clearly. The quote in RoW ch 114 implies that Szeth has fallen to the ground, thus supporting that he probably jumped away from Taravangian when he grabbed Nightblood, which is the most reasonable thing to do (Szeth killed Taravangian while holding him against the wall, not on the ground): I don't see any mistakes in the summary. Szeth was killing Taravangain at the same time he was Ascending. Edit: @Argenti They shouldn't. The Connection was severed.

Silver used to be an Allomantic metal, but Brandon swapped it for Tin when writing Mistborn. But both silver and aluminum have special properties in Cosmere, just like other metals. Iron pulls on Aethers not because of Allomancy, it's the opposite, A-iron pulls on metals because in Cosmere iron has special properties and Allomancy is reaching into that. Silver's ability is to disrupt investiture. We still don’t know exactly what silver does tbf. Here are some WoBs about this: Aethers are investiture. They are physical manifestations of investiture not associated with Shards. Spores grow into Aether essence by pulling investiture from SR. Tress ch 28:

I'm gonna quote what @Duxredux wrote here: https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/174107-more-fuel-for-the-fiery-redhead-shallans-mom-sa-5-prolgue/ While I wholeheartedly subscribe to the "Chana = Shallan's mother theory," this isn't very obvious for an average reader. I think it's far more likely that in this WoB Brandon was simply talking about Shallan's mental health problems and her DID, which is obvious and started to be clearly shown as early as WoR (with the creation of Veil) rather than Chana. The WoB quoted by Duxredux is confirming mental health problems allow one to peer more into SR and feel the future/present through Connections. Well, that won't work anymore. We know what's happening to Heralds trapped in the gemstone - they fade into the Beyond. RoW ch 91-93 epigraphs:

What if they weren't shaped by Singers' perception but by Shardic perception? Both Cultivation and Honor have Vessels which use human form primarily and they were the ones that created True Spren (yes, she was a dragon but human form is natural to her, look up recent WoBs on dragons). They might have shaped True Spren in their image, not Singers'. Spren's perception of themselves also matters and if Honorspren (and other True Spren too) view themselves as the closest to Honor, they might have taken the form of the human because Tanavast was a human. Edit: Honor was literally the one who was creating new Honorspren, OB ch 108: Still, at least for Lesser spren, it takes hundreds or thousands of years to change their form - it's a long process.

We've already seen two of those god metal alloys - Atium and Malatium in Era 1. Atium was an alloy of pure Atium and electrum, Malatium was an alloy of pure Atium and gold. WoB: TLM spoiler WoBs:

What fundamental force is the Change Dawnshard? Dawnshards are the Commands, not forces. Fundamental Forces are actually represented by Invested Arts. Invested Arts, like Surgebinding or Metallic Arts, are the way people are accessing fundamental forces in Cosmere, and those forces are a bit different than those in our universe. 10 Surges are basically representation of fundamental forces of Cosmere, or rather what people perceive to be fundamental forces in Cosmere - perception matters. The last WoB states that Dawnshards aren't directly related to what people perceive as fundamental forces, which means Dawnshards aren't based on the idea of fundamental forces. WoBs:

It's a combination of two Surges, Adhesion and Gravitation. If Yelig-Nar can access Adhesion, they yes, if not then no. And we don't know which one is true. "Mythica" said Yelig-Nar has access to all Surges. However the book is a recent work and Raboniel claimed Adhesion isn't a true Surge. It is also unavailable to Odium's servants, which Yelig-Nar is. But there is also a WoB which said Fused are biased, so everything is possible. You can probably make a Fabrial that can use Reverse Lashing, just like other Fabrials using Surgebinding powers.

It's too hard to choose, there are so many of them. I would begin by dividing this into two categories - individual fights and big battles. Battles first, they are easier. I think for me the number one choice is the Battle of the Tower. Do I even have to explain? It's just brilliant, from the set-up till the aftermatch it keeps on changing, growing, shocking and squeezing my heart. The second place are both the siege of Kholinar and the Battle of Thaylen Field. But I miss the siege of Luthadel on this list, it was good too, one of the rare moments in Brandon's books when somebody from the "main crew" actually died. Individual fight scenes are far more complicated. Kelsier vs inquisitor is brilliantly written. I love every single fight involving Awakening. Adolin&Kaladin vs 4 Shardbearers is fantastic. Szeth fights are just great. Adolin vs Tukari in RoW is amazing. I can't choose just one of them, I love all of them, I'm too indecisive! I have to settle on something I'm sure of and thus my favorite battle is the Battle of the Tower.

Mistborn RPG is not canon. We don't know what happens when you store investiture in F-nicrosil. However we know they are not storing raw investiture like Stormlight, but the ability to use investiture, like Allomancy or Feruchemy - a part of your soul, which is called innate investiture. F-nicrosil works also a bit differently and is less restrictive than nicrosil in Malwish medallions. The one in medallions works like storing memories in a Coppermind. My best guess on how this works is that F-nicrosil allows you to store your invested abilities just like F-steel stores your speed. You can store your Allomantic ability of steel for an hour, when you basically aren't an Allomancer, and then tap it for an hour to have twice as strong steelpushes, or stronger in shorter time if you tap at higher speeds with diminishing returns. But again, this is just my guess, we have only sparse information about F-nicrosil, Brandon wants to save it for later. We only know for now that in F-nicrosil you store abilities, part of your soul that gives you invested arts, not raw investiture, so the answer to your second question is it doesn't work like that.

Hello, welcome to the Shard. Well, this is not a place where Brandon will answer you, but I can try as a fan. Firstly it's morally questionable to hold a Mistwraith as a pet. They are like mentally-stunted people. You can train them and achieve what you want (with no full sentience) without any need for a spike and that would cause you no problems, which I will talk about soon. Here is WoB for you (Words of Brandon): We've already seen what's happening to a Kandra/Mistwraith with one spike. Have you read Mistborn Era 2? If yes look in the spoiler box below: Picking up a random Blessing from the ground would not work. A Mistwraith has to have spikes made specifically for them, not attuned to the Identity of another Kandra. A Mistwraith would just push it out of his body or else face insanity. A regular Hemalurgic spike isn't Kandra Blessing, it wouldn't give a Mistwraith any cognition. Even if you consider Hemalurgic decay, the Identity issue will still remain. It can't be a random Blessing of another Kandra. Moreover Hemalurgic decay is mostly a problem in the beginning of spike's existence. That's when it decays the most. Later on it's not that big of a deal, it decays only a little bit. We see this with Vin's spike, it was years outside of her body before TFE and yet it was still potent enough to make her A-bronze almost twice as powerful. Hemalurgic decay would still not fix the problem of Identity of this spike, identity won't disappear. WoB: What I would do is change your story a little bit and get rid of the spike as that wouldn't work as you want it to. I would make this Mistwraith to escape a noble, who tries to train Mistwraiths, and thus this one has learned how to keep only one form, like Kandra. He found the dog's body and took up its form, met your character and has followed him ever since. No spikes needed, just smarter than average, trained Mistwraith. When is this happening? Era 1 or Era 2? Because in Era 1 people don't know Kandra exist, those who know them know also that they can't kill or harm, in Era 2 they all know Kandra can't harm. Mistwraiths are feared a bit.

If it's a solid investiture, then yes, it's a god metal.

10 days is far too little for Odium forces to make any push in any direction. His army was just repelled fully from Azish territory and there is no way for them to get back and conquer a significant portion of it. Odium's army is in no position for a rapid invasion anywhere, they aren't prepared and they can't prepare for something like that in just under 10 days. The only place where they can strike is the Shattered Plains, which are still weeks away from Alethkar - too far for Odium's army to march and strike there in 10 days. Plus there is an Oathgate there, Dalinar can react fast and send reinforcements immediately. Fighting on plateaus was already proven to be very difficult in WoK and WoR, this time Alethi control both the outskirts and the center of the Plains and they are quite fortified there. The only way I can see Odium pulling off something like this is by sending all his Heavenly Ones and Skybreakers, with Lashed Fused of other types, into one of Dalinar's most valuable positions, like Azimir or Thaylen City. They only need to take full control over the city for 10 days at most, which is hard without any support of regular troops but possible if they aren't facing any Radiants. They would need to immediately seize and destroy the Oathgates to prevent any Radiant reinforcements from arriving. The problem with Azimir is that there is a huge Dalinar's army in Emul stationed right now, full of Radiants and mobile troops, they would react fast and aid the city's defenses. The city itself is also probably full of reserve units and recovering troops, all armed to the teeth. Azimir would be a tough nut to crack for his Fused, the defenders can easily delay Fused long enough for help to arrive. A push for Thaylen City already failed once so I doubt Brandon would try the same again, but since there is no army nearby, it's more likely to succeed. However both of those positions would be unsustainable for Fused. They won't be able to bring any reinforcement even after the Contest, any food or supplies, they won't be able to hold onto those positions, they would have to abandon them or face massive population revolts. It's also too risky to throw everything at such a gamble. It only takes defenders to fight for every single building to successfully delay Fused enough for Windrunners to arrive and for the Contest to happen, thus successfully denying them control over the city. Dalinar would have no reasons to break the terms because he knows Fused would have to either abandon this conquered city or just be trapped there forever with a hostile population. Shardbearers can’t hold positions. I deem this tactic can’t achieve any measurable success for Odium, it would just bind him and waste his time and Fused for no gain at all. This is not the way.

Odium can't do that if they act on their Passions. Leshwi acted just like that and betrayed Odium and yet Odium couldn't kill her on the spot, or deny investiture to her. I think it makes perfect sense that Odium might want to threaten his Fused to prevent something that Leshwi did from repeating again. Not to mention Pursuer disobeyed Odium too, Raboniel as well, Sja-Anat is almost in the open rebellion. Fused and Unmades aren't as loyal as Odium wants them to be, he needs them to remember where their place is, and this demonstration serves this purpose perfectly well. From all the reasons listed in this topic, the one proposed by bmcclure makes the most sense to me.

We don't know what type of investiture it is - gas, liquid or solid. I think it makes the most sense if they're solid. They are described as wire-like, hanging in the air without any support, from thick to thin wires, motionless - it sounds like a solid metal to me. But truthfully it can be any of those 3. Only if Hion is gaseous it can be trapped in a gemstone.

That's right, but Raboniel turned against Odium in the very last moment, it might have cast a shadow of doubt and distrust on her actions and they wanted to confirm that this really works as she told them. If they only wanted to know if they made anti-light, it would be much faster to just mix it with Voidlight. That's why I think they really wanted to confirm it kills their souls permanently and Raboniel didn't trick them (like maybe by trapping her soul in a gemstone for example). Otherwise why would they kill Pursuer just to test if they have anti-light?

Right, why didn't I understand you earlier... But there is a problem with this Death Rattle. In this context choosing not to be Anakin is the choice of honor, but it means freeing Odium, it means "death" not "life." It's an honorable choice, but worse than killing kids. But the night will indeed reign if kids aren't killed.

Not really. if this was about a bomb, the same result would be achieved if he mixed anti-light with Voidlight. He wanted to specifically test if Pursuer's soul will return or not. If Anti-Light kills permanently. Not really. Fused can fly - they can use limited amount of daggers and kill a lot of spren this way. It can end up both ways, it depends on how Odium will act. Spren are very fearful of death and another Recreance. If he targets fractions that are fully on the Radiant side, other True Spren might conclude that it will be safer to side with Odium than with humans. They are already talking about it.

While yes, Dalinar killing Odium's subjects won't break the terms, but Dalinar can kill them, he won't be counted as Honor's representative anymore, he would be Odium servant - his Fused. Dalinar killing kids under Odium's rule won't break the terms. Or do you suggest that Dalinar will refuse to kill kids because of his moral code, and thus he will disobey Odium's orders and break the terms as he was meant to be Odium's servant by those terms? Possible? But how much agency will Dalinar have after becoming his Fused? His soul would be filled with Odium's investiture and that might influence his mind, making him like Moash with no feeling or morality. But that's possible.

Wouldn't that mean it was Taravangian who broke the terms because it was his servant who attacked and broke the promised peace? I don't think it would count as Dalinar/Honor breaking the contract, because Dalinar will obey Odium's commands. But it can still work like that, but not directly. If Taravangian gives Dalinar some vague orders, and Dalinar interprets it as he can kill innocent thus start a war on Odium's behalf, Dalinar might face a dilemma - either start a war and make Taravangian break the terms, or not.