Duxredux

I'll chime in on a couple of these. Back at Kalad's Phantoms vs Koloss, I'd argue that Koloss with their giant swords are actually one of the best groups to fight Kalad's phantoms. They use huge metal swords used to bash stuff to pieces. They will have a massive reach advantage and don't need much finesse, and I'm guessing the Phantoms will be strong but likely less agile than ordinary soldiers since they can just tank most close combat weapons. That said Vasher will be the absolute best when it comes to giving them commands to take others down, and if you gave him 50,000 Breaths then he can start remotely Awakening Koloss loincloths (not sure if he'd want to) and Marsh's clothes. I did a check to see if Vasher could Awaken fallen Koloss, but the Hemalurgy doesn't play well with Awakening. I'd still lean towards Vasher winning, but I'm not sure how many Phantoms he'd have left. As for the Fused, others have said good stuff but I'll add in a few things. There may be setbacks due to the nature of their serial reincarnation by taking the body of another Singer. That might reset their muscle memory, though their Surgebinding generally is top notch. I'll also note that the Heralds, even before the formation of the Knights Radiant, beat the Fused every single time. They only really lost when it was 10 vs all of Braise. Furthermore the Fused to this point have not been directly powered by Odium, whereas for most of the conflict Honor has directly powered the Heralds and now the coalition has Dalinar's Perpendicularity. Even in the stories, they really just excel at prolonged wars of attrition and provoke questions of whether or not to commit genocide. I'll point out that the average age of Olympic athletes is mid to late 20's. There is variance by sport, some older, but for humans that is the prime of physical speed and power. Don't forget that Rosharans are slightly older than on paper due to their calendar system. But yeah, I agree, the stakes in SA are weird and the Fused don't really add that much tension with so much healing available. It feels pretty heavily that for someone to die the wavy dagger of plot and treachery must have their name on it and a lot of things need to conspire to make it happen.

@The Titan God and @Argenti, you're not the first to wonder about Aon Ati. Pretty sure it's completely unrelated to the Vessel Ati because we know where that name comes from in Elantris. Spoiler for the short story The Hope of Elantris: I'm with alder24, Aons are a language. Of course it will have words for fundamental concepts of the universe. However, there may be important ramifications if Aons can directly invoke a Shard's influence.

Hopefully this doesn't derail this thread, but I've seen this a few times and I'm not sure this is what that WoB means. My take on Dalinar's Perpendicularity is that he is using Spiritual Adhesion to forcibly bind each of the three Realms together. This Spiritual Adhesion is not self-sustaining, and requires constant effort on Dalinar's part. For that matter, the rate that Stormlight comes through the Spiritual Realm may be related to the "contact patch" of his hands (since as we learn from Aon Dor, size does directly affect the power of the Aon, first with Aon Ashe and later Aon Rao). In the case of Nightblood, I think he fed on the Spiritual Adhesion that was keeping the Perpendicularity open, not drawing at a higher rate than the output of the Perpendicularity. This is similar to how if you try to feed Nightblood with an Aon, he will feed on the structure of the Aon itself. This isn't to say that Nightblood's feeding rate isn't higher than the Perpendicularity, I don't know that, but I do think collapsing the Perpendicularity is by a different mechanism. For example, when Nightblood was starting to feed on Szeth and Lift, the Perpendicularity opens, and the gems light up with Light. It is from these gems that Szeth screams and puts Nightblood into a rather drowsy state. That was immediately after the Perpendicularity opens and that was a fraction of the Light-infused gems in the field. To address the OP, I think it clearly indicates when Dalinar closes the Perpendicularity. Pretty sure it was before he gave orders to the assembled Radiants. When Kaladin was almost getting killed he was surrounded by a wealth of Stormlight during that fight, yes, but the range that he can draw in Stormlight from the gems littering the field is limited. Kaladin had been in a highly mobile battle up until that point, but once restrained and immobile, that was when he was limited to the gems in his immediate vicinity. Once those ran out, he was as out of Stormlight as a dying fish mere feet from the ocean.

There needs to be some more context to this. Are they defending Thaylen City as Odium who has somehow brought the army of Koloss to defeat them and stirs them into a frenzy with the Thrill? Are the Radiants traveling around and just come upon the army? Kaladin can just fly them out if they don't need to fight them. There are options to decoy them away as well. Jasnah uses the spren to scout the Koloss army encampment and identify the psychology and behavior of the Koloss, probably forcing a grumbling Shallan to take notes. The spren, particularly Syl note that there is something seriously wrong with the Koloss (due to the hemalurgic spikes). After identifing the behavior of the Koloss, Shallan Lightweaves Kaladin to look like a really ugly Koloss while Jasnah and she become much more proper and lady-like Koloss. Kaladin beats up the biggest Koloss and gains the respect/deference of the army. Kaladin then proceeds to get too invested in their well-being and Jasnah and Shallan have to drag him away before the Koloss army gets adopted into Bridge Four and start flying around as Windrunner squires.

Here's my starting point: A year or two ago I theorized what would happen if someone was an incomplete Hemalurgy donor, if the correct Intent was activated so the spike would pierce the Spiritual realm and then was rammed into them and then just left in the body. F-Gold medallion to make it survivable, basically allowing someone to sign up as a hemalurgic donor like someone signs up as an organ donor. One objection to this was that the bind point for harvesting does not necessarily match the bind point for the recipient. I've recently been thinking about that and have a few thoughts. This mental model might be totally off, but I assume the anatomy of a Spiritweb to be similar to a physical body. Different parts of the Spiritweb correspond to different functions of the soul. When you rip out a chunk of soul and graft it onto another Spiritweb, assuming the recipient was healthy, then by nature you almost always would need to place the graft somewhere that still gives it access to components to let it function, but not disrupt the existing soul (as much). For example, think about how complicated it would be to say, graft an ear onto your leg and get it to actually function. Highly complicated rerouting of the nervous system would have to be done, and there would still be a slight delay in transmitting sound to your brain compared to the other ears. That third ear would also have issues based on the cochlea and inner ear fluid that would be disturbed whenever you moved your leg. There's also whatever background sound your leg makes, creating all of these issues compared to their natural isolated position on the head. You however would gain a third point to triangulation sound, and it seems as if this would allow for potentially greater ability to spatially place sound. I'm guessing it's not exactly like this, since adding Invesiture is raw power and the three Realms are based on the Platonic idea, in that there is such a thing as "strength" or "weight" that can be separated from an individual somehow and still allow that person to function relatively normally, as seen in Feruchemy. However IRL it is possible to graft toes as replacement fingers onto a hand and get them to function much more like a hand then you might expect. In essence the thought is that Hemalurgy in most cases has to place the spike in the recipient in a location that allows the Spiritweb to gain access to the charge, but generally can't be in the natural location from the donor because it will disrupt the existing soul. Think trying to graft an ear - over an ear. Or a hand onto the wrist when a hand is already there. No one would do that because you wreck the existing power in the process. As the spike has to be placed in a suboptimal location where it likely doesn't have any support from the surrounding Spiritweb like it would in the natural place, this in addition to any decay from the spike being outside of a body is a possibility for why Hemalurgic spikes never give as much power as the donor had. They aren't as efficient as a natural ability could be. This also illustrates just how necessarily accurate Hemalurgy must be to get the desired effect - it has to perform the exact and precise change to the Spiritual Ideal to get the right result. The followup thought is that perhaps if somehow someone had damage to the soul, a Hemalurgic spike charged correctly and placed back into the damaged spot that it may function at a closer to normal level. Say someone got A-Pewter and while carrying a F-Gold Medallion got their ability spiked out and survived. The idea is if they later got an A-Pewter spike back (maybe even their own spike) and put it right into where the ability was spiked out that the ability would be usable and that it's possible the level of power accessible would be closer to the norm. Think an amputee getting a limb graft versus someone who decided they wanted an arm growing out of their forehead. One is properly placed and supported by the rest of the body, the other is not. There may be adjustments the Thug has to make if the spike came from another person, just like how there may be adjustments from IRL organ donations, but I think this is plausible. As Scadrial gets more technologically advanced and Hemalugy can become more surgical in nature, I think we might see details like this. Thoughts?

@Trusk'our I found this when looking up other stuff for Hemalurgy. It's from the HoA epigraphs talking about Koloss. Looks like either Hemalurgic Shardblade isn't a thing or Sazed was deliberately obfuscation information. Probably the first.

@Frustration I want more than one word responses, because that doesn't give me any details whatsoever. My copy of WoR is audiobook, so I hope you'll forgive me for not looking it up.

I'd vote MeLaan as taking out most 1st Order Radiants, especially if she's using her Aluminum True Body. Mostly because they wouldn't know how durable and dangerous she is and that they can't use methods to out Lightweavers on actual shapeshifters. Kaladin in particular would be really vulnerable in the first attack, because he knows exactly what should be a lethal hit, right up until MeLaan gets back up and stabs him with her Aluminum arm blade. Gravitation and Tension might give her trouble if they just toss her a couple miles away or bury her. I wasn't sure how a kandra would manage Division, but Division actually isn't accessible to any first Order Radiants. Both Dustbringers and Skybreakers gain access to Division later. (Side note, it was probably quite deliberate on Brandon's part that the two Orders who turned Traitor were the two who had access to Division, which seems opposite Adhesion the Surge closest to Honor). Seriously? OP, Ham vs Lift? It's a draw and they agree to go steal stuff. Ham wouldn't beat up a kid, especially if he didn't need to, and Lift is not a combatant. Have we seen her hurt, well, anyone? (not counting trying to bite Mraise) If it came to a fight, Lift would try to steal something Ham was guarding and then run and be incredibly difficult to catch, Ham would end up giving up until Lift snuck back and ate his lunch. So, from a certain perspective, Lift wins. Now a Thug versus a Edgedancer, I'm not sure. Remind me. Have we seen Edgedancers use Progression at a distance? What level of control do they have over the things they grow? Can they really grow vines from seeds fast enough to overwhelm a uncooperative combatant flaring Pewter? Tripping with slick patches not withstanding, the Thug will be in motion and should just slide to the edge of the slicked patch. I'm not convinced.

So... at first glance my reaction to Kaladin as precog was pointing out that the Knights Radiant, spren and Roshar in general really don't trust future sight. This is reiterated time and again, that seeing or even predicting the future is of Odium, and why Renarin's abilities are so troubling. I had assumed Kaladin's fight to be a high sensitivity to the air currents and pressure around him, maybe even something to with Syl's bond to him and her affinity to wind that gave him additional spatial awareness, maybe even the winds deflecting or altering his opponents' attacks. Actually, that match reminded me of some of Spook's fights and his ability to use air pressure to detect attacks. Except... there are cases here and there of Radiants, even without Enlightened spren foreseeing the future. If this is drawing on Fortune, I think there may need to be a layer to figure out why Radiants can do that now when it seems they could not before, unless it was always an ability that got surpressed.

I will point out that if a population is generally healthier due to environmental Investiture, like Roshar, on average the lifespan will be longer just due to less diseases killing people, even if there is nothing that specific addresses aging. I thought about it, and immortality seems like it would intrinsically be difficult to measure or validate. Immortality versus 1,000 - 2,000 year lifespan for someone that is carrying around "giftable" everlasting life (and there's been threads looking at obtaining said everlasting life through... nefarious means), may be difficult to differentiate. And yet somehow they have a method to measure it in some level of granularity: What exactly are they measuring here? What is this "resistance to aging"? Presumably they don't just have upper Heightening individuals drop by a clinic for a physical every decade or century. The fact that Silverlight has a metric to measure this presumably means it has to make a impact on something that can be identified physiologically that confirms that an individual is functionally immortal and does not age versus ages really, really slowly. Knowing the items (characteristics? Not sure on the right term) they measure to draw this conclusion would give a big leap towards understanding what enables resistance to aging. I don't think it's general Investiture in the body or environment, I think there has to be something that specifically addresses the Spiritweb's "internal clock", whatever that is, that determines the Spiritual ideal age for a person, and that whatever it is can be measured by someone with Silverlight's knowledge and resources.

From the OP, my assumpion was always that life extension was just an intrinsic aspect of Breath, particularly Breath donation. It's BioChroma, the power that is the pattern of life. It literally creates zombies by Commanding the dead to live. The Command to give another person Breath is an actual Command related to life, not just handing over a sack of cash or a sphere: "My life to yours, my Breath become yours." 5th Heightening is approximately 2,000 people Commanding their life unto someone else or 1 Shard replacing your soul with the actual power of life. I'm not sure if I follow the main concepts of the Realmatic Theory right now when I'm this tired, but Breath looks like it has a lot going for life extension that could make it a major exception for theory crafting. I'll look more closely at the rest later.

What would be the memories of a healed Lifeless? Is implied that they can be healed: It occurred to me that there's a very good chance that Lifeless can learn and grow and change after being Awakened. For example, considering the Hallendren Army is 40,000 Lifeless, I assume that most were not originally soldiers or trained to follow military instruction or march in ranks. We also know that the skill of the deceased affects the skill of the Lifeless. So... if you gave a F-Gold Medallion to a Lifeless and they stopped being a Lifeless, what do they remember? Memories of the deceased, memories after being Awakened, memories from the who was first born with the Breath used to Awaken the Lifeless? If memories are retained, where are they kept? The brain? The Breath(s)? If a Lifeless stops functioning, gets repaired and another Breath added in, what is retained? As a side note is there a color change to a Lifeless that has to be Awakened a second time?

If we're going alternate history, Szeth post-assassination of Gavilar has his Oathstone traded across owners and ends up going through Shadesmar. Eventually his Oathstone lands in the hands of Wyrn, Wulfden the Fourth (assuming the Honorblade can worldhop which is highly unlikely, and however worldhopping actually works for Sel. But then, Rashek as a Sliver probably can't worldhop either). In the process of the destruction of Elantris and bringing all people under Lord Jaddeth, Szeth is enhanced in the Dakhor monastery and gains the ability to fuel the Honorblade with the Dor and to choose to negate other Invested abilities. After the conquering of Sel and subsequent subjugation of the Ire near Sel and Wyrn processes the information of the Ire and looks to the broader Cosmere. Szeth, Truthless, Dakhor Monk, barely sane, is further enhanced by Ire AonDor, and goes on to conquer Shinovar and claim the remaining Honorblades. That Szeth might be a match for Rashek the 5th Order Skybreaker. Maybe. On a side note, one of the scarier things about Rashek the Skybreaker is that he would have squires. Likely Inquisitor squires. They most likely wouldn't ever get spren to bond to them with their Hemalurgic spikes, but I think they would be able to use Lashings and fuel their Allomancy and Ferchemy with Stormlight.

Oh, I think aspects of this process does help, but more than just making the skills of a Forgery permanent and no longer needing a stamp. I think gaining real experience allows the soul to more plausibly go from an average practitioner to a master. Shai's ordinary lockpicking skills aren't shabby but with one of her Essence Marks she's incomparable. Spending lengths of time practicing probably also gives a solid core of plausibility to the Stamps. For someone like Shai who literally carves Stamps to relax while doing the most insane speed Soul Stamp research project ever, this strategy would be helpful to get to the point of high competence in a short time and then carve Essence Marks that give her 10,000+ hours of experience. There's a limit to what you can achieve without an Essence Mark unless you put in consistent time. I've had a lot of roles and professions in my life, and while I'm sure I could pick up them up again pretty quickly, as of now I don't remember most of what I learned from my physics class, CNA training, or vehicle safety regulations. A stamp would work to get my mind and body back to a state where I was doing that kind of thing on a daily basis, though it can't give any advancements in those fields. For that matter, that kind of Stamp might help you practice as if you hadn't just taken three months off to carve a soul.

TLM spoiler for an idea related to:

So here's what I started with. I had to think a bit to deal with the necessary quarter-turn when using a Stamp or an Essence Mark. You have a sledge hammer and a stamp. You tap a wall with the sledge hammer and then stamp the wall with something along the lines of "that person with a sledge hammer decided to take a full swing at me and knocked me in". Does it work? How permanent is it? Shai stamps a door and weakens it before kicking through it, but she doesn't stick around long enough for it. Alternately, you are working on a demolition crew. you knock down one wall and then stamp the others with a stamp that goes along with "the demolition person started with me first and now I'm broken". Next scenario: You have a stamp made into basically a signet ring. The stamp rewrites the immediate history of "that person just punched me in the face hard enough that I was knocked out". You punch someone anywhere with skin contact and do the necessary stamp twist on contact. Does it work? Next scenario: You have a spear shaft with a stamp on the end of it. At home you have a regular, high quality spear. The stamp rewrites history with "that person didn't grab the stamp on the end of stick this morning, they grabbed the spear next to it instead and they just stabbed me and now I'm bleeding out". Next scenario: You are a battlefield armorer. You have a selection of more general purpose stamps for armor that rewrite history 5-30 minutes previously with things like "the soldier that was wearing me was smart enough to duck" or "today I was issued to someone on guard duty, not that poor sucker on the frontlines". Do they work and is this a good idea or a bad idea to repair armor, considering it will take even more damage to break the repair seal? Next scenario: An assassin has a single stamp. It rewrites history with "I just barely had a sudden stroke and I'm dying". Can it cause permanent death, if so, what would the autopsy show after the stamp degrades? What if the assassin breaks the seal after 5-10 minutes? Thoughts? This might not be that important since Moonlight can make portable doors, but it's an alternate methodology and idea.

You do realize you just reinvented magic "fake it, 'till you make it" right? If you calculate in the amount of time to build the stamp (unless you're willing to go to the risk of commissioning one and put your soul at risk), research the topic to be able to get sufficient skill to describe it accurately in the Forgery (presumably if you gave yourself techniques that are incorrect, practice won't necessarily make you better), and then start stamping yourself, that might not get you too far ahead from just doing it the normal way. Facetious opening remark aside, a simple stamp that helps you be more motivated and not get discouraged by constant practice is a magic of its own.

I'm sure Division can do far more than we've seen so far, so this topic is highly speculative until SA 5 at least. If we're looking at current Roshar, I'm leaning towards Skybreaker in general at present but mostly because of the current history of each Order. Skybreakers have combat exercises and millenia of practice and training methods. Even just that some of them have worked with as experienced a warrior as Nale and have recently been trained systematically to find and take down Surgebinders (granted generally budding Radiants). They will likely know more about general Surgebinding then nearly anyone as well as proper techniques to counter them. Kaladin is a good trainer, but he doesn't have that history. That said, he recruited heavily from the Alethi war camps so that combat experience among the Windrunners will help in general compared to an Order that have primarily been lawkeepers. If we're permitting Windrunner squires, they definitely won't have any Plate to protect them from Division. That said, Skybreaker squires don't have access to Division until Oath 3. If we're talking SA right now, then hands down Windrunner, 'cuz that only leaves Kaladin and eliminates Nale as a candidate from the Skybreakers. Not necessarily in all his abilities, but Kaladin is an outlier in terms of combat skill in so many ways it's ridiculous, even if he barely has any squires anymore.

No idea if this idea has already been presented, but I have an Identity and Connection theory as to how unkeyed Investiture works, why Fuzz even in a crippled state could appear to people passing away, why Investiture "degrades" and why certain people are having issues leaving their planets. It also has to do with why many Cognitive Shadows need to consume Investiture to persist. And I think the very first clue is in Hrathen's trunk in Brandon's first published book. I think it all has to do with Connection and Identity. Living beings have valid connections to all three realms. I was reading @Trusk'our's post on Unkeyed Dor and BioChromatic Breaths, particularly about why a human can seem to hold a seemingly indefinite amount of Breaths while Nightblood leaks, and I had this idea. In essence it has everything to do with what makes a good vessel for each kind of Investiture and to an extent how strong the Connection is to both the vessel and the Shard the power came from. In essence, to get unkeyed Investiture, it's more of a matter of placing the Investiture in a vessel that allows it to persist to a valid Connection to the vessel, but isn't so Connected that it can't be retrieved. The main "aha" is that Investiture doesn't degrade. Investiture unless it is in a vessel that can appropriately hold its power, is drawn back into the Spiritual Realm by its Connection to its Shard. It's why Breaths can persist for hundreds of years in a body but degrade after a week in an Type 3 Awakened Object, or why an 300+ year old Inquisitor has abilities as strong as ever, and why Stormlight dissipates so fast. Let's start with Breaths. Breaths are the easiest to move off world, to the point that even Returned are able to casually wander around and explore the Cosmere. They are of Endowment, and must follow the function of Endowment, of giving away power. It is also the power of Life, and living beings are the ideal vessel for Breaths. The reason why Susebron can hold over 50,000 Breaths compared to leaky Nightblood is two-fold. First, Susebron was given each of those breaths, and as a healthy living being he is the ideal vessel of the power of life. Nightblood is not in the form of a living being, does not have the accompanying Identity of a living being, and other than the initial Breaths that were used to Awaken him, he was not given any of the other Breaths, they were forcibly taken. All this adds up to why Breaths are easy to move off world - they have a strong Connection and Identity paired with the person carrying them, even more than to Endowment. Next, Scadrial. Metalborn can world hop fairly easily (with the exception of a certain Scadrian who happened to dunk his Cognitive self in the Well of Ascension Connecting himself to Preservation). This is because they have relatively little Investiture that is not keyed to themselves - the metals are catalysts that unleash the power of Preservation in a specific manner. Metals, seem to have been intentionally Connected to the power of Ruin and Preservation, the abilities of Allomancers and Feruchemists is directly tied to metals. This is why Metalminds make fantastic vessels for the Investiture of Feruchemists and do not degrade, even if a Feruchemist takes off his Metalminds while considering the religions of his world. This is also why Hemalurgy does not follow the same pattern - because it is a fragment of soul that is Connected to The Beyond and is drawn there when it has no valid Connection to a living body. Unlike a Returned, Kelsier as a Cognitive Shadow did not need to consume Investiture to persist because I believe he was directly Connected to Preservation, and let's just say that Preservation is good at making things stick around. On to Sel. I think Aon Rao really is just a way of Connecting a location to the Spiritual Realm - particularly to the Cognitive Realm-locked Dor that pools into Arelon. What Moonlight did on Scadrial was to use Unkeyed Dor to jumpstart a Connection through the Spiritual Realm from Elantris to the Basin. Elantrians by the Shaod or some other means becomes Connected to the city Elantris and by extension to the Dor, so long as they have a valid (or strong proximity in terms of Cognitive space if not using other shenanigans) Connection to the city. Seons were not transformed by the Shaod - not unless the one they were bonded to was also transformed, making them an invalid target for AonDor. Back to what I alluded to at the start, I think Hrathen's Seon wasn't Passed to him. I think it was Passed to it's box, and through the Connections made valid through Devotion, there it stayed. I think that Devotion to the object or container rather than a person makes it far easier to transfer a Seon off world. In fact, I suspect it's not hard at all to move a Seon off planet. Moving on to my theory about the jars of Unkeyed Dor, I think it's really just an ordinary glass jar bought from the Ire that have an Aon Rao drawn on top of a picture of the jar itself, making the jar itself a valid vessel for the Dor, just like what Moonlight did. Next, Roshar. Honor lives in the hearts of men (and near copies in the form of gems similar to gemhearts). In Roshar at least, Honor and following bonds and oaths makes them a more valid vessel for Stormlight (and maybe Dalinar with his strict observance of the Codes allowed him to become a slightly better vessel for Stormlight, allowing him to heal even without a bond). Many Spren consider themselves to be of the planet itself, that everything has spren as is the natural way of things. Honorspren consider themselves to be of Honor. These Connections prevent the spren and by extension the Radiant Connected to them to leave Roshar. Heralds can't leave, because they only persist because of the Connection formed by the Oathpact, binding them to Roshar. Cut that Connection, and they have no valid ties to the Physical Realm and they fade to the Beyond. The main thing that I'm not sure on is why Stormlight in Gemstones can't be taken off Roshar. Maybe it has to do with a component of there not actually being any Honor in sitting in a gem? Maybe it's that gemstones on Roshar are grown by Cultivation - either in gemhearts or in the rock formations and they're Connected to Cultivation and no one thought that it might make a difference if you used a non-Rosharan gemstone? I don't know on this point. Spoiler for First of the Sun book 2: Lastly, Cognitive Shadows are beings made of Investiture that now need added Investiture to resist being pulled through the Spiritual Realm back to their Shard. Kelsier in particular may be an oddity because of his interaction with Preservation. tl;dr I think Unkeyed Investiture is just a matter of finding a valid vessel that will hold the Investiture more strongly than it is Connected to the Shard(s) associated with it, but not so strongly Connected that you can't easily retrieve it. The extent that the Investiture the Shard comes from is associated with a beings Identity might have something to do with this as well. What constitutes a valid vessel varies from type to type as well.

@Matt Mills in reference to the original post, I agree with @Treamayne assessment that this is probably a Horneater disguise. If this was Tonk Fah and Brandon was intentionally leaving clues, I think there would be something more distinct, such as the guard having some sort of odd pet on his person, possibly a cremling. That or the guard making a Tonk Fah style intimidation joke about killing or torturing Shallan rather than a relatively reassuring line about eating two breakfasts. Maybe it's just my perception of him and the Ghostbloods, but Tonk Fah doesn't seem specially talented enough for Mraise to recruit or keep around. Brandon does hide a lot of people in relatively plain sight though.

The thing is I don't think it's just Nightblood consuming Investiture that is dangerous, it's also the black smoke that he puts out. At the very start of the Battle of Thaylen City, Szeth cuts a Thunderclast in half and the whole thing burns up, not just where it was cut. The soldiers that Vasher annihilated were destroyed with just a nick and he was vaporizing entire walls. Anything resisting Nightblood needs to not only avoid being consumed directly, but also... whatever that is, that corrupted Investiture that pours off. I assume a solid object will resist a highly caustic vapor far better then a gas or fluid just by nature of the relative contact area. As for collapsing a Perpendicularity, I assume it's the same principle as to why Aons aren't great at fueling Nightblood. Nightblood consumes the structure that opens a conduit to the Investiture, and I assume Investiture is needed to open a Perpendicularity. Edit: when I started, the one I was quoting was the most recent post.

Very good point. This might make fighting Nightblood with a dead Shardblade very risky if it means Nightblood will just absorb it if it gets knocked out of the Shardbearer's hands (though if the Shardbearer is disarmed at all, they're probably dead regardless). It's probably just as well that Honorblades aren't automatically dismissed when dropped, or Roshar might be down one Honorblade.

I think it could go either way, though it's a closer fight than first glance. Dead or living Blade? If it's dead, then if it gets knocked out of their hands, it needs to be resummoned, and Nightblood hits a lot harder than most would expect. If it's a Radiant Blade, I'm willing to bet that not every spren will be able to withstand getting hit by Nightblood and not get scared or lose resolve - particularly if they're not used to pain. It's terrifying to face an unleashed Nightblood. That said, Radiants can flicker their Blades, so that's a serious advantage and capitalizes on the longer reach. For that matter, it's hard to fight calmly and cleanly when Nightblood is roaring in your head.

The Hemalurgic Beaver.

Huh... thought about Scadrian slaughterhouses and realized that under the right circumstances someone impaling themselves and transforming into a minotaur is a possible workplace accident (assuming someone was accidentally triggering the right Intent to activate Hemalurgy). Scadrian workplace safety regulations particularly around butcher shops is probably going to end up really weird.