KandraAllomancer

On 20.09.2020 at 5:55 PM, beewall said:

Also, anyone have any idea where the theory that Dawnshards made the Soulcasters came from? No idea where I saw it the first time.

As far as I can tell it's never said explicitly, but the correlation between a Dawnshard located in Aimia, Soulcasters only being created there and modern artifabrians being unable to replicate them is rather striking. I would be extremely surprised if it wasn't true

On 20.09.2020 at 5:55 PM, beewall said:

An Ashynite Bondsmith made the Dawnshards. Power over Connection seems like a good way to make things that bind things.

Given the enormous power of the Dawnshards, I think the other way around seems more likely: Bondsmiths were Dawnshard users

On 20.09.2020 at 5:55 PM, beewall said:

The old Ashynite magic system was used to create the Dawnshards in the first place. Otherwise, where would they come from?

My best guesses would be splinters from a Shard (an Avatar of Honor and/or Cultivation maybe) that was Invested there and responsible for the original, Surge-based magic, or remnants of the weapon that killed Adonalsium

On 20.09.2020 at 5:55 PM, beewall said:

The first Nahel bonds were made using the Dawnshards. Syl says a Bondsmith created or discovered the bond. I have no idea what this could be referring to. And that's not sarcastic, I've got no storming clue. So maybe Dawnshards? But I don't really believe that. Maybe a Bondsmith was just the first Radiant, who knows.

The Bondsmith here was almost certainly Ishar, who had great knowledge about Connection and bonds in general, allowing him to figure out the details of bonding spren on the new planet

On 20.09.2020 at 5:55 PM, beewall said:

Dawnshards were used to create, or at least enhance, the disease magic. After all, they were used on Ashyn, which so far as we know, has no spren.

We know from Eila Stele that humans used the powers of "Surge and spren". With spren being ubiquitous on both Roshar and Braize, I think it's very likely they were also on Ashyn when there was a Shardic presence there. Disease magic, on the other hand, uses local organisms as a focus of magic, which is a feature of magic systems on minor, Shardless worlds (e.g. First of the Sun). It also shares the "boon and curse" paradigm of the Old Magic, another minor magic system from the Rosharan system. The simplest explanation would be that disease magic originated when all Shards (the original Shard providing the Surge magic and/or Odium) left Ashyn

On 12.09.2020 at 10:04 PM, Bzhydack said:

We have only 9 types of Inteligent Spren, Radiants Spren. Bondsmith Godspren are not "type" every one of them is unique. So should be one more type of inteligent spren.

We have a WoB cofirming that they are "kind of" one type of spren:

Quote

MoriWillow

So I was looking back through the scene where Shallan and gang is hunting the Midnight Essence and they come across that room covered in art, and I noticed something.

Shallan says there are murals that depict 10 kinds of spren and guesses they're for each Order. There's just one small issue. There's 12 Radiant spren. The Bondsmiths have 3 unique spren.

The passage in question with the relevant portion bolded.

Gorgeous, intricate pictures of the Heralds---made of thousands of tiles---adorned the ceiling, each in a circular panel.

The art on the walls was more enigmatic. A solitary figure hovering above the ground before a large blue disc, arms stretched to the side as if to embrace it. Depictions of the Almighty in his traditional form as a cloud bursting with energy and light. A woman in the shape of a tree, hands spreading toward the sky and becoming branches. Who would have thought to find pagan symbols in the home of the Knights Radiant?

Other murals depicted shapes that reminded her of Pattern, windspren...ten kinds of spren. One for each Order?

So what do y'all think? Is there a representation of just one of the Bondsmith spren? Is it an abstract representstion of the idea of a Bondsmith spren? Is this a writing error and there was supposed to be 9, with the glowing cloud, tree woman, and figure in front of a circle intended to be the Bondsmith spren? Perhaps the Bondsmiths were supposed to be unrepresented?

Brandon Sanderson

If you were to see this picture, the painting of the three spren to make Bondsmiths were made to make it visually clear they're the same kind of spren--and they KIND OF are.

The three you note above are not depicting the three spren of the Bondsmiths. One is depicting a perpendicularity, and the other two depicting Honor and Cultivation. These aren't the Bondsmith spren, but distinct and separate pieces of art.

General Reddit 2020 (April 3, 2020)

Also, there are non-Radiant, sapient True Spren:

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Pagerunner

The mistspren, who crewed the Honorspren ship. Are they Radiant spren?

Brandon Sanderson

No they are not.

JordanCon 2018 (April 22, 2018)

The Soulcaster spren don't seem to be the same type as the Oathgate spren, Inkspren or Cryptics - otherwise Navani would surely recognize them. My best guess is that they are another type of sapient non-Radiant spren.

As for their motivation, I have my own theory: what if being in a fabrial allows spren to explore the Spiritual Realm, just like with Nahel bond and Physical Realm? Soulcaster spren are "sleeping" (seeing into the SR), but they must be awake at times (Kaza feels their presence when she uses the Soulcaster), which would explain the Oathgate spren being responsive when there are humans around. That would also work quite well with the Ars Arcanum, which states that the third magic system (clearly fabrials) is even more esoteric than Surgebinding and Voidbinding, despite the fact that regular fabrials work in a way that is extremely logical and scientific

On 11.09.2020 at 8:55 AM, Eluvianii said:

The point, Spanish is a weird language, I don't know what they were thinking while creating it, I'm derailing this thread, sorry, and I wish there was a way to translate Orders names into single words without sounding like walking memes.

Just for fun, I tried to do the same with my native language (Polish), and I'll tel you this - in my case single words are exactly the weirdest 

Here we go, starting with the simplest translations:

Bondsmiths ---> Smiths of Bonds

Edgedancers ---> Dancers of Edges

Lightweavers ---> Weavers of Light

Then there are some slightly off, but still recognizable:

Stonewards ---> Rock Guards

Truthwatchers ---> (the Ones) Seeing the Truth

Some get shortened:

Willshapers become simply Shapers

Releasers remain Releasers, but Dustbringers are translated as Dusters. At least that's consistent with Voidbringers becoming Voiders in Polish translation

And finally, the big trio:

Skybreakers are translated as... the Heavenly Ones (or 'the Ones of the Sky', it's one word for both heaven and sky). That's going to cause problems for translating the names of the Fused Orders  

Windrunners are translated into a weird neologism ('Wiatrowi'). Winders? The Ones of the Winds? The Windy Ones? Anyway, the name sounds really cringe-worthy to me

Last but not least, the Elsecallers, translated into Transmitters It was clearly meant to mean something like Transporters/Teleporters, but the word ('Przenosiciele') still clearly means Transmitters

On 21.08.2020 at 0:59 AM, tanceflam said:

I wonder - book made by Brandor are published and then translated? or they are given to translate even before they are published in US/UK? does anyone knows that?

They are given to publishers before the official release, but the translation might take time. The Polish translation of Oathbringer was divided into two parts: the first was released in November 2017 (same month as the English release!) and the second in April 2018. I would assume something similar for bigger books (e.g. RoW). Novellas, on the other hand, seem to get much lower priority. Snapshot, for example, will be officially released in Poland at the end of this month

On 3.09.2020 at 0:27 AM, Harrycrapper said:

I do consider the bond part of the definition, it's important.

Honorblades are pieces of Honor's soul and are bonded by individuals, so the bond is here - just not a Nahel one. But I agree, the definition gets fuzzy in this case

On 3.09.2020 at 0:27 AM, Harrycrapper said:

I still say what Syl is referring to is Ishar bonded to Honor, though I suppose it is possible his pre-Oathpact powers came from a Dawnshard.  However, we know Ishar was bonded to Honor in some way before the Oathpact and the forming of the Heralds. We also know Ishar was the Herald who helped create the Oathpact and organized Surgebinders into Radiant orders when the Heralds discovered them, so I doubt she is referring to someone else there. 

What she says is definitely mostly about Ishar, but (RoW spoilers)

I think that's how Navani could become a Bondsmith without bonding the NW or the Sibling

2 hours ago, RazeU said:

Where does this information come from? Never heard that before but a lot of WOBs slip by me.

Syl's Interlude, from one of recent newsletters:

1 hour ago, Harrycrapper said:

However, at one point there technically could have been 5 Bondsmiths. Three bonded to the Stormfather, Nightwatcher and Sibling respectively. One - specifically Ishar - bonded to Honor. And then possibly another bonded to Cultivation.

If we consider a (Nahel or otherwise) bond to be part of Bondsmith definition then the cap is obviously 3. I use a broader definition here - a Bondsmith is a person with access to both Tension & Adhesion, including their Spiritual aspects. Ishar's Honorblade apparently provides that, so I'm willing to use the name here. It's not as powerful as what Dalinar has, obviously, but I believe a person wielding this Honorblade could, for example, imprison an Unmade.  The same applies to (RoW spoilers)

18 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

They didn't seem especially shocked by the concept of Azure being from another world, and Azure can't possibly be the first Worldhopper to be less than subtle about the whole thing; stories about other habitable worlds being out there somewhere must've leaked into their folklore at some point. 

There is also the Iriali concept of  "Long Trail" - not to mention the recently deciphered Eila Stele

29 minutes ago, Kalaksbreath said:

I know and I did think about that my only possible reason for this is that when they fall asleep something weird happens to them so they become a sleeping humanoid. Maybe their Connection to whatever shard they were connected to vanishes at their radiants death and they just become semi-conscious free floating investiture and they lose their normal spren shape and just become this humanoid thing Navani describes.

The deadeye spren had some portion of their soul ripped off and they still retain their original appearance, so I doubt it. I wonder however, if the weird spren would act (and look) differently if another Soulcaster was nearby. Like, what if a person had Soulcasters in both hands, mimicking the Oathgate situation? Maybe that would change something

It's an interesting theory, but the problem is that the other spren from Surge fabrials we know (Oathgate spren) behave completely different. They are definitely not sleeping and come in pairs, looking kind of similar to Inkspren. The Soulcaster spren, on the other hand, seems to be singular and of unknown type - it's not a Cryptic (having eyes) or an Inkspren (since Navani must know how they look like). We're missing something bigger here, I think, but it's hard to say what exactly at this point

As much as I'd love it to be the Sibling, my best guess is one of the Sleepless. I find it very hard to believe that they would let the expedition leave Aimia without having some high-ranking spies amongst Team Radiant and it would be extremely easy for them to sneak in the ruby. Navani seems to be on the right track to figure out the Spiritual Realm and the origin of Surge fabrials, which likely leads to the Dawnshards - and these are extremely dangerous. The Honorspren are probably not to be trusted because they believe that Roshar is doomed anyway, while the Dysian Aimians are still willing to fight for it

There's a WoB about that:

Quote

holdencaufld

I feel like society on Roshar would develop a bit differently because of emotion spren. You'd have to be very careful talking/ interacting with people since you can't hide things like fear, anger, awe, anticipation, joy, passion and shame. Imagine going through high school having to deal with them...

The_Bravinator

I have to imagine it alters things like, say, the concept of masculinity. Obviously the Alethi have very strong ideas about masculinity, but attracting fearspren/feeling fear doesn't seem to be a negative within that like it would be in our culture. Men attract fearspren all the time, and it's totally fine.

It also seems like it might be taboo to mention someone else's emotion spren. People are constantly noticing internally that other people are attracting them, but they NEVER EVER comment on it (until the part in OB where they're investigating it in Kholinar). There must be a really strong boundary around commenting on other people's spren.

It's one thing I did want to ask Brandon about if he does another AMA--how emotion spren affect Rosharan culture.

Brandon Sanderson

This is some good theorizing here. I'd agree with what /u/The_Bravinator says.

The effects are all over the place, but they are just how life is on Roshar, so I rarely point them out. For example, the classic Alethi sort of idolizing being "straightforward" with people. No assassinations. (Well, supposedly.) You're used to being able to see people's emotions, so you take it for granted that only hyper untrustworthy people do things in ways that don't expose emotions. Emotions aren't bad, they simply are, and everyone has them. Views of masculinity are certainly changed.

The_Bravinator

Is it taboo to mention emotion spren that other people are attracting, or do people just not generally think to do so?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on the situation, really. Not exactly the same, but note how in Earth societies the different responses to something like passing gas, depending on context, culture, etc.

General Reddit 2018 (Feb. 3, 2018)

25 minutes ago, Invocation said:

I'm still hoping Rlain ends up a Bondsmith, honestly.

Me too

11 hours ago, ftl said:

To fight off Odium, it seems like our heroes would need to complete the order of Bondsmiths - get all three. And man, that would be awesome.

For some reason this is something that never seems to be discussed (at least I've never seen a thread about it), but technically up to five Bondsmiths could exist simultaneously on Roshar. Three get their powers from godspren, one from Ishar's Honorblade and Syl's Interlude seems to indicate that (RoW spoilers)

For a lack of a better word they are usually referred to as stormstriders and we know very few things about them for certain:

Quote

GreenRover

During the storm that Kaladin was in with Shallan in book 2; those two massive walkers we saw--are those Parshendi, Unmade, or spren?

Brandon Sanderson

Spren, with the caveat that might not mean they aren't Unmade, because that's not an either-or.

Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)

Quote

Questioner

...Can the Storm Striders move when a highstorm is not passing?

Brandon Sanderson

No... Can is a strong term. They do not, how's that?

Skyward Atlanta signing (Nov. 17, 2018)

Quote

OrangeJedi

In several instances of the highstorms, several characters mention seeing large creatures walking in the highstorms; they don't seem to be super fazed by this. Do they know these creatures exist, is it part of their lore?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. But you've got to also remember that people who are out in highstorms, they expect it to be... they expect to see odd things. When you're out in a highstorm, it does not faze you in the same way that if you go to a horror movie, you expect something horrific to happen.

OrangeJedi

Do they have a name for said creatures?

Brandon Sanderson

There are names in various parts of the lore, but there is no one name.

OrangeJedi

Could you give us one of them?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Skyward release party (Nov. 6, 2018)

The Fused are pretty much made of Odium's Investiture and so is the Everstorm, so I don't think Braize would be so harmful to them. Also, if that was be the case, Taln's sacrifice should have had a huge impact on the Fused and for now we don't have any evidence for that.

For the record, according to the Stormfather, "each rebirth further injures their minds", so it's entirely possible that it's possessing the Singers that's harmful, not the death itself. I would also assume that the Fused that are still lucid at this point are the ones most resistant to the negative effects of their, let's say, "lifecycle", so the effects of death and rebirth are lessened to some extent

41 minutes ago, Danthemystic said:

So, we all know that Knights Radiant Orders can create Squires which allow others to access Surgebinding while not having a Nahel bond themselves. My question is: is it possible to become a Knights Radiant of one Order and then become a Squire of a different Order? Like, if Kaladin was still a Windrunner and went and tried to become a Lightweaver Squire, would he be able to? 

Renarin didn't become a squire despite being in Bridge 4 for quite some time, so it's probably very hard or impossible. We don't have a direct confirmation for either, but the content of the WoBs below makes me think the former is much more probable:

There are ways to become a squire to two different Orders:

Quote

Questioner

I know Hemalurgy [has to go to mix and match powers], would it be possible to use Feruchemy for Connection to hack into multiple Knights Radiant, kind of act as a Squire to more than one at the same time.

Brandon Sanderson

Great question! I think you could make this work. I think it would take a little bit of legwork, but I think what you're wanting to do could indeed work. More likely in that case though, you could probably be a Squire to multiple Orders. *Hesitantly* Yeah...I think that would work, but I don't think it's the easiest way to do what you want to do. I think there are easier ways.

DragonCon 2019 (Aug. 29, 2019)

You can theoretically bond two spren:

Quote

Questioner

Could someone bond with two spren and wield two swords?

Brandon Sanderson

It is theoretically possible, but the spren aren't going to like it.  So you are not going to see it very often.

Firefight Seattle Public Library signing (Jan. 7, 2015)

This WoB is quite old, but it might actually refer to Renarin's new abilities:

Quote

phrakture

You seem to be adept at creating interesting magic systems for your worlds - what is your creative process for creating something of this sort? Any hints as to what the next one might involve?

Brandon Sanderson

Next two magic systems you might see:

1) Disease magic. Bacteria have evolved to the point that they try to keep their hosts alive by granting them magical powers while you have the disease. So, you catch a cold, and can fly until you get over it.

2) I've got a a very cool 'throwing spheres of light' magic that I'm working on...which, when you break it down, was inspired by seeing how accurate baseball pitchers were and thinking about how that could be weaponized in a fantasy world.

3) That guy with his ice soap has me thinking about "freezing stuff in water" magic. Like, potions that do things only after they thaw...

/r/fantasy AMA 2011 (Sept. 1, 2011)

On 6.08.2020 at 9:46 PM, Quantus said:

Sorry, but where did we learn this? I though I was up to date on the preview chapters but missed this somehow.

Syl's interlude, from the previous newsletter email (the current one has the prologue for Dawnshard)

Syl says this to Dalinar:

Quote

Your abilities are what made the original Oathpact,” she said. “And they existed—and were named—long before the Knights Radiant were founded. A Bondsmith connected the Heralds to Braize, made them immortal, and locked our enemies away. A Bondsmith bound other Surges and brought humans to Roshar, fleeing their dying world. A Bondsmith created—or at least discovered—the Nahel bond: the ability of spren and humans to join together into something better. You Connect things, Dalinar. Realms. Ideas. People.

I definitely agree that it looks very much like Transportation, and it seems to me that the difference between the KR and Fused version of the Surge is that between general relativity (miniature perpendicularity, essentially a wormhole) and quantum mechanics (quantum teleportation, transmitting the exact state of teleported object instead of actual matter)

33 minutes ago, Skaromas said:

Based on what you have said I guess it makes more sense, but voidbinding so far has been limited to the fused, because surely if it was accesible to regular singers or even royals then they would have a lot more than just the shown fused, there could be a way involving spren and gem hearts but the unmade are similar in size to the Bondsmith spren in terms of power (sometimes) and seem way more powerful than any of the radiant spren, Bondsmith fits well but they definitely wouldn’t be called that (as you said above).

I don't think that what the Fused do is Voidbinding - they get one Surge instead of two and their Illumination creates illusions instead of seeing the future. Their abilities seem like a version of Surgebinding. Many Regals also wouldn't qualify (e.g. Stormform) based on the fact that we haven't seen Voidbinding before Oathbringer:

Quote

Questioner

How many magic systems are in The Stormlight Archive, and how many of them haven't been seen?

Brandon Sanderson

I would say the only major one you haven’t seen is Voidbinding, it depends on how you count them. I count fabrials as one, Surgebinding as one, and Voidbinding as one. And then the Old Magic is kind of its own weird thing.

Calamity Seattle signing (Feb. 17, 2016)

The only confirmed Voidbinding ability is Renarin's futuresight (and quite possibly the Nightform), but that was obtained via indirect methods (e.g Glys' corruption)

Given the new evidence from chapters 7/8 I wonder if the new Voidish fabrial might actually use Cohesion - affecting the space around it, like @Ixthos theorized, and weakening the bonds in the process

I voted for Gavilar, but seriously, it made me think of this

39 minutes ago, Watchcry said:

So why send Shallan and Adolin to visit the honorspren? Why not send Elsecallers since they are the primary liaisons?

The only Elsecaller the KR seem to have for now is Jasnah and the Inkspren as a whole aren't exactly eager to increase their ranks. She's now a queen and, well, she's not exactly the most diplomatic person on the planet... Shallan, on the other hand, still officially pretends to be an Elsecaller

On 22.07.2020 at 2:34 PM, Skaromas said:

There is one major problem with the theory, which is that the knights radiant order are a combination of Honour and Cultivation so no part of odium should be part of the original orders.

They are, but the Voidbinding chart has pretty much the same structure, so I assume that the Voidbinding orders/levels would kind of correspond to the KR Orders, justifying the usage of terms like Bondsmiths, Truthwatchers etc. (though the names might turn out to be different in the end)

On 20.07.2020 at 11:09 PM, PiedPeterPiper said:

Babylon soon fell to the Persian empire, which occupied basically the same territory as Assyria. My guess is that this is what will happen to Alethkar. It falls in SA4 (we know it's already at the end of its rope from the Lirin chapter in the newsletter), and it's reconquered by not quite the same people some time in the back 5.

Yeah, this is a very likely fate for Alethkar. I wonder if the same could apply to Urithiru - Odium seems very interested in it and there are some interesting facts about the Night of Sorrows

This thread probably belongs in the Cosmere Discussion rather than here.

The answer is definitely yes for duralumin:

Quote

Paladin Brewer

If a person had the power of Mistborn and other powers like Surges, could he use duralumin to power the Surges?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible.

Skyward Houston signing (Nov. 19, 2018)

Aluminum goes without saying, as it works as an Investiture sink all over Cosmere