KandraAllomancer

I'm fairly sure the answer is no. The 17th Shard is affiliated with Frost and shares his non-interventionist policy. The three members of the organization we meet in the Way of Kings are all Invested and, based on that philosophy, would extremely likely refuse a Dawnshard (they would try to hide somewhere though, given the chance).

As for Khriss, I find it hard to imagine that she would be so irresponsible to run around Cosmere with such a powerful weapon; she would quickly become a target for forces such as the Ire

Unlike with previous books, there's a year long gap between the events of Oathbringer and Rhythm of War, which might be significant here

Why? Because they made a binding Oath that none of them would pick up a Dawnshard.

That makes a lot of sense: they were about to kill Adonalsium with them and knew how powerful they are. There were sixteen of them and just four Dawnshards; clearly some of them would end up with an extremely unfair advantage over others if they didn't decide to never use them again. It would also explain why Honor and Cultivation apparently didn't use them against Odium directly (I think the Oathpact might have Dawnshardic origin though). If this post turns out to be significant, then another Dawnshard might be on Scadrial (Leras did mention a buried weapon in the Secret History...) and, once again, it wasn't used against Ruin.

If that is the case, then Odium cannot be a Passion Dawnshard as I previously suspected; it would, however, provide an explanation for him being terrified of Dalinar Ascending at the end of Oathbringer, as he could possibly combine Honor's Investiture with a Dawnshard (Unity?) now

The one remaining question would be if Autonomy's Avatars can become Dawnshards; if so (which I think is believable) then they would be an excellent villain for the space-era Cosmere

During my re-read of Dawnshards I realized something I missed the first time: just before becoming a Dawnshard, Rysn was holding a spear. Nothing special on its own, but it gets so much weirder when compared with other evidence.

As discussed in this great post:

the Sovereign's Temple in Bands of Mourning did have a mural that bears strange similarity to the one in Akinah (indicating that Kelsier might actually be another Dawnshard) and a statue holding a long spear.

Then we have this Death Rattle:

Quote

"He must pick it up, the fallen title! The tower, the crown, and the spear!"

It obviously refers to Dalinar, but only the tower (Urithiru) and the crown (king of Urithiru, Bondsmith and leader of the KR) make sense. Why the spear? Unless the spear refers somehow to Dalinar becoming a Dawnshard of Unity as the next step of his fight against Odium...

Using a spear as a symbol of a weapon that killed a God can be a reference to the Spear of Destiny from the Bible. And, as an additional extra-crazy bonus, other names of the Spear are Holy Lance or Lance of Longinus and (Perfect State spoilers)

I really hope that's not a true connection

22 hours ago, Leuthie said:

Narratively, having a "shattered" Dawnshard would just be overuse of a theme. Sure, he could do it, but I hope he does something less repetitive with the Dawnshards. 

I couldn't agree more. Also, there are at least two additional hints in the books:

1. Dawnshards (plural) were used to destroy Ashyn, so there's at least one intact Dawnshard besides Change somewhere around

2. Dalinar seems to be on a mission to find the true God - and the Almighty doesn't count since he could die. The problem is, so could Adonalsium, so, unless we include the God Beyond (who will definitely not make any appearance in the books), we're out of Gods, so to speak. Dawnshards being eternal, unchangeable pieces of divinity solve this apparent contradiction

There's one terrifying realization, though - if Dawnshards cannot be destroyed or splintered, what happens if a Dawnshard is killed by Nightblood? Would Nightblood become a Dawnshard then? How powerful could it get? If Odium really holds some Shard-splintering Dawnshard, as some of us (including me) believe, it could actually become a plot point for the Arc 2

I agree on the inherent differences between Rosharan magic and that of Nathis and Sel, but I'm not sure if such Commands would always require language rather than simply visualizing the result in your mind. The way I see it, the most powerful magic a mortal can wield (without full Shardhood) requires some kind of temporal Ascension, either due to holding a massive amount of Investiture or combining it with a Dawnshard. I think it happened just a few times is Cosmere history (usually with terrible side effects): using the Well of Ascension, destroying Ashyn, the Shattering, probably creating the Oathpact as well. In all cases the people involved didn't probably need some proper wording or formulas, just the Intent and a clear image if what they wanted to achieve. Dalinar might have access to something like this (one of the Sleepless actually states explicitly that he is more dangerous by siding with Honor and remaining a Radiant), but he's not aware of that fact yet, so the Intent isn't there

7 minutes ago, CosmereComrade said:

Sure, in Scadrial the knowledge of how to obtain it (as in, hemalurgy) is lost, and due to the loss of power through the different generations it's more difficult to acces from birth (as in being a full feruchemist + full mistborn), but that doesn't make it inherently more difficult per how the magic system works.

I does, however, have significant side effects (if we're talking about hemalurgy) and, besides, the whole process requires atium which is very hard to come by in Era 2. Both Sel and Nalthis have some stable population of immortals worshiped as gods, while on Scadrial and Roshar immortality is mostly reserved for semi-mythical figures, at least when we're discussing humans

11 minutes ago, CosmereComrade said:

When we meet people from the south in scadrial we see that it is kind of easy to make such devices given to have the knowledge to do so. The same can apply to the magic system on Sel, wherein, if you don't know the Aons, you can't make any device capable of such things. On Roshar it also seems to be constantly improving in making it easyer to manufacture such devices (though i see the clear difference with Nalthis's system)

Southern Scarian technology relies on Excisors, whatever they are. I'm not sure if the could have been created before Era 2 and harmonium. Roshar is more complicated. Surge Fabrials seem to require some very esoteric knowledge and abilities. Regular fabrials are easier to produce, but I feel like they belong in the minor Shardworld magic category - their creation might've been possible before the Shattering given that there were Highstorms, spren and Singer forms on Roshar back then. They also don't replicate the more powerful forms of local magic. On Sel and Nalthis, on the other hand, a magic user can create a magical object for someone else with just Command or proper Aon

23 minutes ago, CosmereComrade said:

Here I just don't see the difference. For as we see Susebron accomplishing great things with just access to an inmens source of Investiture but no real experience in it (since of how much breath he has, his commands just don't matter).

And in the other 2 worlds I also see how much knowledge, experience and skill matter in your power. Vin was an inmensely powerfull mistborn, I'd say that she would be more powerfull than Elend even if he had more "raw" or "base" power to start. That is because of her experience and knowledge on how to use her powers (as in the way she found out to "fly" on terrain that had no metal nearby). Same goes for Roshar's system in my opinion. A well experienced Lightweaver will accomplish much more than a newbie.

I agree on Susebron, but he's just cheating

A skilled Radiant or Mistborn can do a lot with the powers they have, but they don't get completely new skills (unless you count Oaths). An Awakener can discover a completely new skill (Vasher learnt how to erase memories, for example), very skilled Elantrians can create matter from pure Investiture etc.

29 minutes ago, CosmereComrade said:

I think this is the same on any given planet with one or more shards Invested in it (or, as Sel, where Shards were Invested and now only their raw Investiture remains).

For example, the Returned become that way because access to raw Investiture from Endowment. (by her Endowing this on them). In Sel we just cannot see such things because those Shards are shattered and we still don't know if there are any residual pure or raw sources of Investiture that they could have possibly left on the planet. Still could be a possibility tho.

That a fair point, but the way I see it, it really comes down to scale. You need 2,000 Breaths for the first truly overpowered Heightening, while a single nugget of lerasium can make you a Mistborn capable of controlling kandra or koloss, for example

This is more an observation than a full-fledged theory yet, but I found an interesting pattern amongst the magic systems on major Shardworlds.
Before we start, a few caveats:

• This post contains spoilers regarding most Cosmere works
• It relies heavily on a speculative assumption that each of sixteen Shards can be mapped to one of four Dawnshards and the existence of a Unity Dawnshard encompassing Honor, Devotion and Dominion
• I excluded two important Shards based on their atypical situation: Autonomy (seems to have Invested on Taldain's sun rather than the planet) and Odium (prefers corrupting local Investiture to Investing on a planet, currently forcibly bound to Braize)

The remaining four major Shardwordls can be divided into two groups with many shared characteristics:
Nalthis & Sel

• Planets that have either one Shard (Nalthis) or two Shards belonging to the same Dawnshard (Sel)
• Magic is based on commands expressed through spoken language (Nalthis) or symbols (Sel)
• Said commands can be combined together to obtain more advanced effects, leading to almost limitless number of potential applications
• Individual experience and skill have huge impact on what you can achieve with magic given enough Investiture
• Immortality is easier to obtain and more common than on other worlds
• Overpowered artifacts (Nightblood, Elantris) are easier to create
• Magic users can easily create items or devices usable by other people

Scadrial and Roshar

• Planets with two Shards most likely belonging to different Dawnshards
• A small set of clearly defined powers whose number has some Cosmere significance
• Fewer possible interactions between powers, but they can be quite powerful (e.g. Compounding , Bondsmith synergy with other Orders)
• Overpowered abilities can be obtained through contact with pure Investiture of a single Shard (lerasium, atium, Honorblades, Old Magic)
• Magitech that can replicate the effects of the main magic system(s) seems to rely on Investiture from both Shards (harmonium and, I'm assuming, spren in Surge Fabrials)

I'm not sure what to think of it, to be honest. It could be random, given that it's just four planets we're talking about. If not, maybe different Shards are attracted to different planets, possibly following unknowingly some plan devised by Adonalsium? Or do planets, and by extension magic systems, behave differently depending on what set of Shards (and corresponding Dawnshard affiliations) Invest there?

3 hours ago, Honorless said:

The 10 thing is present across all the Rosharan system except Braize and Oathgate equivalent is how the Ashynites got to Roshar but Spren on Ashyn? I haven't seen that WoB.

It's relatively new and apparently the disease magic uses "spren-like Investiture":

Quote

Vanahian

Brandon has said that the Ashynite Disease-Based Magic was related with the Old Magic. Did he mean it in a direct way? Like this magic from Ashyn was a branch or a variety of the Old Magic system?

Brandon Sanderson

I do have to RAFO this, for the most part. Suffice it to say that the disease magic is related to a symbiotic bond between spren-like investiture and microorganisms.

General Reddit 2020 (Sept. 24, 2020)

On 13.11.2020 at 3:39 PM, Honorless said:

It seems that the definition of a "Surge" is just a worn out path that Investiture often likes to take. An overarching type of magic, basically. So Surgebinding on Ashyn meaning something different is as good as confirmed. Then again the whole idea was that they used the Surges via the Dawnshards and those turned out to be something very unexpected.

I'm not that sure about Ashyn. We have WoBs confirming that the magic there used the same principles as Rosharan Surgebinding  and was 10-centric; that there were (and still are) spren on Ashyn and Oathgates were possible there. Plus, (RoW spoilers)

Given the similarity between the powers of the Fused and KR Surges I would assume that the Surges are similar in the whole Rosharan System

15 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Well Hoid still had his Yolish Lightweaving left over, was he somehow using that back then to power his Dawnshard?

Definitely, but would that level of power be enough to Shatter Adonalsium (or even splinter a Shard)? Dalinar seems to be a good candidate for another Dawnshard and if he was aware of the full extent oh his powers he could probable do some truly amazing stuff (e.g. replicate the Oathpact). Still, I doubt that it would be enough to splinter Odium, for example

I think there's a possibility that the difference is that three Dawnshards are currently located on Roshar: Change, Unity and some unnamed destructive one (Rayse or, less likely, Nightblood). If this theory turns out to be true:

then the fourth one would be Kelsier and bound to Scadrial for now

Hoid used to be a Dawnshard in the deep past and probably isn't any longer:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid was a Dawnshard at some point in the deep past, and the reason he (even still) cannot physically harm people, or even eat meat, is related to the changes this made to his spirit. (Consider this the same fundamental principle as savanthood.) The few of you who have read Dragonsteel know that him being a Dawnshard was also the source of his immortality in that book, though the terms were different back then. (The word Dawnshard was never mentioned, for example--though the primary story of Dragonsteel (which is no longer cannon) was about several people who unwittingly become Dawnshards.)

And a preemptive RAFO to all questions on this point.

Dawnshard Annotations (Nov. 6, 2020)

Hoid's Dawnshard must have been used to Shatter Adonalsium; since he refused divinity at this point, he probably lost the Dawnshard as well. That leads to another question though: if bonding a spren is enough to devastate a planet, what level of Investiture is enough to perform the Shattering? It seems that the original Vessels, Hoid and possibly Frost must have already been at a level at least comparable to the Tenth Heightening, right?

4 hours ago, Potus said:

Someone asked him on Reddit if the warm golden light that Dalinar has dreams about is similar to what Rysn feels. 

He replied with "RAFO but it is a worthy line of conjecture" 

Yeah, here is the exact WoB:

Quote

Dalinarium

While reading Dawnshard I remembered something...Dalinar's odd dreams about warm golden light that is very similar to what Rysn experienced.

Is there any connections? Maybe Dalinar is connected to another Dawnshard?

Brandon Sanderson

I will RAFO this, but it's a worthy line of conjecture.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 11, 2020)

22 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

It must be a pretty small group of people.(my guess is cultivations magic)

Cultivation is also a possibility, but I see two problems here:

A. The WoB that @mawaschwa mentioned:

Quote

alercah

The Sleepless presumably do not want her to swear a Radiant oath because she would be able to use the Dawnshard in conjunction with Surgebinding, and we know that that combination already destroyed one planet in the system so it's pretty understandable.

But there were a bunch of Soulcasters lying around and they didn't seem bothered. So is this one of the differences between Radiant Soulcasting and Soulcasting via the fabrial? That the Dawnshard cannot be used alongside the fabrial?

Brandon Sanderson

So, the Sleepless ARE capable of Radiant bonds. (I believe the back jacket of the first book implies as much, if I remember correctly.) However, things they at first thought were great are making them increasingly worried, for reasons that will come up (not related to them specifically) in this book and the next.

Soulcasting via a fabrial is way, way less dangerous than Radiant Soulcasting--which is in turn far less dangerous than unbound Soulcasting (meaning without oaths.)

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 6, 2020)

So, in terms of danger, we have:

Fabrials < Radiants < Honorblades

Fabrial magic system being are of Cultivation implies that this order would correspond to:

Cultivation < Cultivation & Honor < Honor

Why would pure Cultivation's magic be the safest if her Shard seems to be associated with the Change Dawnshard? Shouldn't the results be strengthened even more?

Also, the Oathgate spren seem to have been forbidden by Honor to give access to Shadesmar to humans and (RoW spoilers)

This seems to imply Honor's involvement in the magic system.

B. We're running out of groups of people who are associated in any way with Cultivation and could create the Surge Fabrials. Aimians apparently didn't do it; Horneaters don't have access to Soulcasters - which leaves with people of Purelake, which also seem unlikely

Wow, that's a great catch! I need to re-read that part of BoM

That idea crossed my mind, but fabrials are supposed to be the part of the third magic system on Roshar:

Quote

rags

You have told us there are more than 30 magical systems on Roshar. I am assuming there are 10 Surgebindings and 10 Voidbindings. Do the next 10 belong to another such classification? If yes, can you give us the name for it.

Brandon Sanderson

Fabrials are part of it.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012)

and I'm not sure if using Dawnshards should be classified as magic system. It seems more like a unique magical effect, like Odium creating Vyre's knife. Also, I guess figuring out the origin of Soulcasters will be a major plot point in Rhythm of War and Dawnshards will probably remain a secret for the main characters for at least a while.

According to Ars Arcanum the third magic system is even more esoteric than Voidbinding... whatever that means. Maybe their creation is related to some advanced Bondsmith powers and/or the Sibling? That's probably my number one question for RoW

19 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

If this is a recording of the Command, it would have to be a Yolish language, as the Dawnshards predate the Shattering.

That would be my guess as well. And it makes a lot of sense - every major magic system we've seen so far shares some elements with the magic from Yolen (minor spoilers on Yolish magic):

Sel uses symbols/shapes/form as a Focus of all types of local magic, so I would assume some kind of magical language or symbols must have existed on Yolen

5 hours ago, Glarg said:

What would happen if Zahel or Hoid (or anyone else) gave her breaths? As we have previously seen with Vasher's dueling, this can be done against someone's will and quite easily. It seems to me like Rysn just became a world shattering weapon that could be unlocked by someone with easily transferable Investiture and a bit of knowledge. Hoid terrifies me now, as a person who states he'd burn the world to get what he wanted, and has previous knowledge of the power involved and a potential way to trigger it. 

In theory she could become an unstoppable force of destruction, but Chiri-Chiri would probably devour the Breath instantly

Nice catch!

9 hours ago, Child of Hodor said:

The Unity and Passion shard groupings makes sense. Passion can't be the name though. "The Dawnshards are Commands, Rysn." Nikli in DS ch. 19.  Passion isn't a command. That doesn't invalidate this grouping though. 

9 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

One thing is that these are Commands and not Shards, so the naming conventions need to be different. Passion doesn’t work as that term isn’t a command. These titles need to be more like verbs.  

To borrow some analogy from Christianity: the Great Commandment is to love God and your neighbor, which leads to further commands (the Decalogue), but can also be easily summarized by the name of the associated virtue: Charity/Caritas. That's how I see Passion: as a virtue associated with following the Dawnshard/Command that (among other things) makes people fight for what they believe in, live free and express themselves. And it would still be just an approximation, as these Commands are probably too complex to be simply expressed by words

9 hours ago, Child of Hodor said:

I could see Ruin Change category shard. Sometimes you have to break a bone to set it straight, slice into someone to alter their health for good or ill. The death of a person or a planet exploding is a change to the state of that matter. 

Sometimes yes, but Ruin's attitude hardly matches this description. He didn't want to make things better, he wanted them to be annihilated. If there was anything wanting to improve the world in Ruin, it probably came from Ati, not the Shard. And he explicitly mentioned Passion, as Odium often does

6 hours ago, *{kara}* said:

I’m still a bit confused by what Huio’s 3rd ideal was, exactly. Could someone spell it out for me? Thanks

My guess while reading was something akin to "I'll protect even those that annoy the crem out of me"

Besides the obvious mind-blowing Dawnshard revelations:

The Third Ideals of Windrunners keep getting better and better

"It’s only a contradiction if you think about it." - finally a Lopen quote I can use in real life

I hope Rushu gets to lie on a huge pile of gemstones in the end

And the most important question not directly related to Dawnshards: if people got their Soulcasters from Aimia, and Aimia got them as gifts for the Ancient Guardians, then who created them in the first place? And how?

My proposition would be:

Change: improvement and growth

Shards: Cultivation, Endowment

Current holder: Rysn

Unity: unification of people, ideas, Shards etc.

Shards: Honor, Devotion, Dominion

Current holder: Dalinar

Passion: the will to fight and the ability to destroy

Shards: Odium, Ruin, Autonomy, Ambition

Current holder: possibly Rayse, who uses it to splinter other Shards

Survival: creating and protecting life. Possibly Hoid's Dawnshard

Shards: Preservation, Survival Shard

Current holder: my best guess would be the Survival Shard. Or maybe it's hidden on Vax

5 hours ago, Jaustin89 said:

I ended up circling back to my initial impression of the mural being strikingly similar to the allomancy table; what if we're dealing with something similar where there's internal external pushing and pulling pairs here? Something like Change generating Ruin (reduction of something else), Cultivation (growth something else), Preservation (reduction of yourself), and Ambition (growth of yourself).

Brandon's original plan for Scadrial was for the significant number to be four, not sixteen, so you might be onto something:

Quote

King of Herdaz

Roshar is themed around the number ten. Scadrial and the cosmere as a whole is themed around the number sixteen. Are there any other planets themed around certain numbers? And if so, where and what are they? Or Read and Find Out?

Brandon Sanderson

Read and Find Out for that, but yes, this is a thing that I wanted to do at the beginning of the Cosmere and really leaned into in a couple of them. Honestly, with Mistborn, sixteen became the thing, but I was planning to lean into four more than sixteen for that series. But then sixteen became so important to the whole cosmere, and I wasn't sure... let's just say, four is where I was gonna go with that one.

But yes, there are others. Whether I'll actually really lean into them or not remains to be seen. But yes, I have plans.

YouTube Livestream 13 (July 23, 2020)