Yumiya

Too bad. I was playing with the idea of 12 being SP1's number.

I agree that Frost is a likely possibility.

Pretty sure Hoid picked up some breath in Nalthis. Still missing some Feruchemy or some other aspect of Ruin. Missing Aviars, though I guess he could have one flying around and us not know. Regardless, we know (or that Hoid thinks he knows) from a WOB that it will have some effect to get all the types.

It seems like individual shards have associated numbers. I have not seen a full list complied, so I attempted here. Please respond with suggestions or corrections. Dominion (Shu-Dereth idea of uniting all under one nation) Cultivation (Boon/Bane) Ambition ( Simple Rules, number of the "Greater Good") Ruin ( Number of Koloss spikes and Kandra blessings) Endowment (base Heightening level for a returned) Devotion (number of days in weeks and months in year) ? Autonomy (number of sand master ranks) Odium (number of unmade) Honor (number of surges and orders of knight radiant) ? ? Virtuosity (teased theme from Fibonacci sequence) ? ? Preservation (well, did you read Mistborn or not) Hard to fit fit in Mercy, Whimsy, Valor, Intervention, and the last unnamed shard fit in, as we just don't have enough information.

I don't remember this character and cannot find anything searching my e-books. Can you give chapters where he is referenced?

Well, then why doesn't Nomad just put Aux out in the sun? Aux is neither concerned about dying and also seems to be the one gathering the investiture. Seems like the sun would definitely kill Nomad. And Nomad is unable to absorb the investiture from the ember man because he was not actively trying to do so. He may have still been disoriented from the skip and so not thinking about that. He seems to need to the stormlight "breathing in" trick, at least physiologically. Other wise he needs Aux to do it.

There are a number of theories floating around about who/what Aux is. We know a couple of things for sure: Auxiliary claims to be dead Auxiliary is referred to as a spren Auxiliary acts as a living shardblade by changing shape Auxiliary is probably not a bonded cognitive shadow of a dead knight radiant (WOB) Auxiliary refers to himself as knight and Nomad as a squire Auxiliary can absorb and then use multiple types of investiture Auxiliary can manipulate spirit webs with what looks like Spiritual Adhesion Auxiliary can initiate a Skip to transport Sigzil, assuming he has enough investiture Before I really get started, there is a WOB that is brought up frequently in these discussions: I think the intentionality refers to the clause "at one point", as in Sigzil held the dawnshard prior to this book but after SA4. And there is no additional implication. We know that Sigzil no longer has the Dawnshard: " An after-effect of the burden he’d once carried, the thing that had given him his Torment." This is important, because it means that all the abilities Aux shows are innate as are Sigzil's. As a couple of other posts have deduced, Bondsmith surges seem very similar to Aux's abilities. Spiritual Adhesion to allow Connection between Nomad and the planet and between Nomad and Hoid. Aux can also fuel Skipping, which seems similar to how Dalinar summons perpendicularity, though Brandon did confirm that skipping doesn't require the use of a perpendicularity. So, I propose that sometime before SP4, a new Bondsmith was added to the order. We are led to believe it is possible in Words of Radiance, in Epigraph 44. The name itself is most reminiscent of the unique spren that Bondsmiths bond. Auxiliary as in "a person or thing providing supplementary or additional help and support." Makes sense that if a new bondsmith was created, that it would because help was needed. Even Sibling was created with the specific purpose to oppose Odium. Why not a 4th in the most desperate times? Not sure who would bond Aux but maybe someone we have not met. Now, Auxiliary claims to be dead. When a radiant abandons the oaths, the spren turns deadeye, and deadeyes are not vocal like Aux. So what happened? There is a WOB that might shed a little light. So, what happens to a spren that has completely melded into one with their radiant if that radiant dies or forswears? Could the mind of the radiant persist as a sub personality of the spren while the spren gains the ability to manifest without an additional bond (given that they are still basically bonded to the dead knight)? The knight's mind and the spren's body. If this is true, it would explain the odd third person dialog from Aux. It would also explain why he refers to himself as a knight. But why is Nomad a squire? He was a knight radiant last we heard, a windrunner. We do know that Bondmiths have squires: Well, maybe Sigzil, being apart of the Bondsmith's retinue qualified him to being both a squire and a knight, at least in Aux's mind. Now, what about Nomad's lack of oaths, oaths ended and forgotten. Oath's that were suppose to override part of the Torment. Lets say that Wit convinces or tricks Sigzil into picking up the Dawnshard while still bonded to his Honor spren. We know that it could cause problems and that something did/is happening with his spren because of the Dawnshard So we know that having a bond with a spren means that their essence is filling in cracks in the spirit web. Holding a Dawnshard does the same thing. What happens when those two forces start overfilling the cracks or even worse, fighting over the space. I cannot imagine anything good for the Radiant or the spren. So Sigzil and his spren mutually decide to end the bond. But, that time while being bonded and holding the Dawnshard has greatly increased his Torment. So, now lacking a blade of his own, Sigzil and Aux (now the semi-deadeye) teamup and the resonance between Aux's surges and Sigzil's investment from being a Dawnshard for a time, allow for skipping.

After re-reading Oathbringer, I started wondering about the old magics. So I went and looked it up on the coppermind where I found that Lift's bane isn't listed. That made me think some more. It seems that the boon/bane effect is mostly physical with the Nightwatcher. She tried to convince Dalinar to choose a physical boon, either an object or physical enhancement. In addition the boon and bane can be completely unrelated: see Av's father who got a heap of good cloth in exchange for seeing the world upside down. The three times we have seen Cultivation step in, the boon/bane seems more cognitive/spiritual. More important they seem to be the same thing. The boon IS the bane, with a little added flair from Cultivation to influence the world without anyone knowing. To get what you want, you have to take all of the result. Like the old adage. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. If you eat it, you also have to lose the cake and potentially add a pound. Think of Dalinar: Boon - Loss of Spiritual whispers and guilt for the murder he had committed. -Cognitive loss Bane - Loss of all memories relating to Evi -Cognitive loss Cultivation's meddling: Allowing Dalinar to grow strong enough to resist the call of the Thrill and being used by Odium Now, the boon could not exist without the bane. If Dalinar could remember her death, the boon would be ineffective. If Dalinar could remember her enough to ask about her death or, really, have any meaningful conversation with other about her, her death would be brought up eventually. So Dalinar could not remember her and grow the way he needed to become the "good" Dalinar of present day. So it was all boon, just with side effects. Next, Taravangian: Boon - The intelligence to keep Kharbranth intact while Rayse was Odium and the capacity to become the Shard's new Vessel -Cognitive enhancement Bane - The inability to have both intelligence and compassion at the same time -Cognitive enhancement Cultivation's meddling - All of it really. Mostly replacing a dangerous enemy with a potentially more amenable one. Note: The boon and bane descriptions come from the coppermind oldmagic article. I would disagree a bit there. Taravangian needed BOTH intelligence and compassion to be able to do what he asked which was "Capacity. Capacity to stop what was coming. The capacity to save humankind." So, Cultivation gave him the capacity he needed: mental capacity and emotional capacity. She even made it inverse, which seems wise. It is very had to strategically plan knowing you will cause thousands of deaths and even more suffering if you are also being compassionate. At the same time, you need have time to be compassionate to be able to remember why you are doing what you are doing and relate to the people you are saving. You really cannot have both at once. If you really want to keep the boon/bane mentality, then I would say the bane was the unpredictability of the effects. But even then, someone smart enough to make the Diagram would figure out the pattern and design a way to work around the compassionate side. Like Dalinar, seems like all boon, just really annoying side effects. Now for Lift: Boon - Produce Lifelight from mass; using Lifelight to Surgebind, being partially stuck with the Cognitive Real, vision manipulation Bane - unknown Cultivation's meddling - Experimentation of creating her own kind of Radiant Note: As with Taravangian's section, I pull the descritions of boons and banes from the coppermind. That list of boons seems pretty long, doesn't it. Not really Cultivation or the Nightwatcher's MO, giving so many boons but no obvious banes. So lets theorize a bit here. Producing Lifelight from mass and using to surge bind are not part of the boon, but what Cultivation was trying to obscure with the granting of the boon. The boon it self was "she was suppose to stay the same and the world was supposed to change around her". So Cultivation uses this ask to change her spirit web to use Lifelight which pulls her partially into the cognitive realm. This in turn grounds her mind in how she sees herself ( ie not more than ten) cognitively like spren are controlled by perception. So she keeps her mental age, but her physical body continues to age. (Though I kinda like the idea of her being more like Returned, where when she hits a certain age, she will stop aging). Being partly in the cognitive realm allows her to interact with it more, hence touching of spren and vision manipulation. But there are what could be called banes or side-effects. Imagine being a child in a grown woman's body. Imagine being on the brink malnutrition constantly. Definitely down sides. But Cultivation doesn't have a storm. How else could she have gotten light to her budding Radiant? I went on this particular tangent because of a WOB: Note that he mentions boons and curses from the Nightwatcher. In reference to Lift, it is just a boon. Now this is some what proven to be an omission as in a different WOB he mentions both a boon and a curse: But I wonder if someone could actually use BOTH lights, or if the process of changing the spirit web makes that impossible or at least very unlikely. Note that he also calls it Stormlight here even though we now know it is Lifelight. Final supporting WOB: So, to sum up. Cultivation doesn't really give boons/banes. She sees a request that she can do a single cognitive/spiritual manipulation that will provide an effect at least correlated to the request but also serves to influence the world the way she wants.

Yes Hoid did say that. He doesn't say that Odium was not involved. There are a couple of ways that Hoid's statement could be true even if Odium played a part. Hoid was using a turn of phrase, like "Get yourself killed". One can "Get oneself killed" or splintered in this case by acting rashly, such as going up against a more powerful shard alone. Virtuosity did splinter herself, but as a last ditch effort in the fight that did not go quite as planned. Virtuosity did splinter herself, but as a strategic move in the fight. If she had a plan in place to have her shard reformed, then the shard would be safe from Odium as he thought her shard gone, though the Vessel would be suiciding in this case. We know that splintering a shard does not have to be permanent. Virtuosity did splinter herself, to prevent Odium from corrupting her entire shard, wanting part of her to survive in a pure form. Virtuosity did splinter herself, but only after Odium influenced her into apathy or depression, both emotions are common in the art world. Not wanting to continue in a world where she would never see anything new (as she saw it) she suicided. We just don't have enough information from Hoid to know what is the truth.

I must of missed that. Where was that stated?

Unified Theory of The Nature of Nightmares on Creation, Behavior, and Destruction Introduction This theory seeks to describe a cosmerically sound explanation for everything currently know about Nightmares. Some of what is mentioned here may have been mentioned by other users, but this is my take. It uses a base assumption that Nightmares are cognitive shadows. Creation There a couple of ways that cognitive shadows (or similar beings like spren) can be created. The most likely is a direct infusion of investiture at death. While it is possible that free investiture became sentient, I don't think that is what happened here. 1700 years ago, Virtuosity splintered near painter's planet. If we assume that this splintering was similar to Ambition's, chunks of corrupted Virtuosity would have fallen to the nearest planet during the battle with Odium. These pieces of investiture, a mix of mostly Virtuosity but some Odium, fell on Painter's planet, leading to the accounts taught in school about the nightmares originally coming from the sky. One account said "I watched it rain the blood of a dying god". Frequently the shards are referred to as gods, so this matches. When this highly corrupted investiture made contact with humans, it changed some of them, investiture is known to do. "I crawled through tar that took the faces of the people I had loved. It took them. And their blood became black ink." Now, this investiture tar did not take everyone, as not everyone had enough cracks in their spirit web to hold the investiture. "He doesn’t know why he was spared." This tar became the shroud, similar in nature to the mists or a highstorm in that it is the "gaseous" form of investiture. At the same time the hions were created (by some process unrelated to this theory*) which pushed back against the shroud making pockets of shroud free areas. In these areas uninvested humans survived, but those taken by the tar were so warped that they now relied on the investiture in the shroud and retreated to its depths. In the shroud, these people died and created the cognitive shadows known as Nightmares. Behavior The traumatic and corrupted nature of their conversion to Cognitive Shadows, wiped the Nightmare's minds. Now they resided mainly in the Shroud when in the physical realm, tied there as it is their source of investiture. Occasionally, they will be attracted to nightmares of those in Hion protected cities, as artistic representations of their last moments living. Remember that their investiture is of Virtuosity so artistic appreciation is inherent. Feeding on that artistry allows them to have a stronger connection to the physical realm, the same way Syl says that spren feed off humans, giving the sapience and form. Potentially, it is even ripping off parts of the victim's spirit-web like Hemalurgy, tacking on a connection to the physical. The more they do this, the more stable they become, becoming fully stable after the 13th feeding, as 13 is important to Virtuosity. When they are not stable, they are constantly leaking investiture until they no longer have enough to prevent being pulled into the Beyond, similar to how the Returned must consume a breath once a week. Returning to the shroud then refills their investiture, preventing death. Once stable, they then must continue to feed to prevent destabilizing, causing them to ransack cities. Destruction To kill a cognitive shadow, you must destroy their connection to all three realms. Painting does those in a couple of different ways. It works of some of the same principle as spren being locked into the physical attributes that they are perceived as. Painters fundamentally alter what the Nightmare is in a way that is opposite of their spirit. This is similar to how a Knight Radiant harms the spirit web of their bonded spren, creating deadeyes. This damage to the spirit-web breaks any cognitive and spiritual connection. Once trapped in that form, the rate at which they loose investiture is greatly accelerated, breaking the physical connection and killing the Nightmare. Killing a fully stable Nightmare likely includes additional steps. Conclusion I would love to hear other's thoughts, any gaps I missed, or inaccuracies in how the cosmere works. I will edit if I made a mistake. Notes: * This maybe caused by Virtuosity's splinters being on two planets after the shadowing and the connection between them created a current of investiture between the two, aka the hion.

I think that Odium is what caused the shades on Threnody. It is stated in the Arcanum Unbounded that Ambition and Odium fought in that system. During that battle, "the waves of destruction - carrying ripped-off chunks of Ambition's power - twisted both the people and the planet of Threnody". These chunks of Ambition would be pure investiture and be what allows the creation of the shades, as "A spirit infused with extra Investiture will often imprint upon that very power". I think it very likely that Odium, or another shard, did something similar to Virtuosity, for a couple of reasons. Odium has done it before, with Dominion/Devotion, Ambition, and Honor. Threnody's star is red, just like Torio's "dominate red-orange sun" that makes the landscape "Like the result of a bloody massacre". We know that red is associated with corruption, of " an outside influence changing the Spiritual nature of the soul". This implies that something corrupted Virtuosity in a way similar to what happened in Threnody, but not in a positive sense. The nightmares are reminiscent of Nightmare Essence (which was done intentionally) and to the Shades of Threnody. Both of which are related to Odium's interference and corrupted investiture. The Hijo are clearly splinters, most likely of Virtuosity ( We will set aside how they came into being for now), given that Hoid called them "self-aware invested beings". Having done further reading, I find it unlikely that the two planets were initially one that was split. Instead, I think that Virtuosity was on both planets (maybe as a full shard on Torio, and as a self-created splinter on Painter's planet). We know from Sanderson that Virtuosity was not keen on settling in one place for too long. This means that Virtuosity moved around fairly frequently. It could have just been hopping back and forth from the 2 planets. The fragmented stories about the nightmare's origins don't really feel like a planet splitting. "The nightmares had originally come from the sky." and "I watched it rain the blood of a dying god" (which I assume was a corrupted Virtuosity) and "I crawled through tar that took the faces of the people I had loved. It took them. And their blood became black ink." (Note that the nightmares were probably human once, like the Shades of Threnody). If a planet split, I image we would have descriptions of earthquakes and lava. Instead it sounds more like a corruption from ripped-off chunks of Virtuosity. Theoretically, there would need to be some Connection between the two planets. Now, this COULD be fulfilled by them originally being part of the same planet, there seems to be a large difference of Identity that makes it less plausible. If both planets contained Virtuosity, either as a Shard or Splinter, then there would be an inherent connection between pieces of the same shard. Counter Theory: Virtuosity, loving creativity and artistic expression, purposely patronizes multiple planets so it could enjoy multiple forms of creative outlets. Enter Torio and Painter's planets. Virtuosity would travel back and forth between the two (maybe more) worlds as the artistic muse struck. Odium, ever on his quest to destroy other shards, locates Virtuosity. They do battle, but because Virtuosity has split their power between two planets, Odium is able to completely splinter and corrupt the main Shard of Virtuosity. These chunks of Virtuosity fall from space on to Painter's planet, creating the Shroud (which we know to be investiture) and the nightmares and perpetual darkness. Un-corrupted parts of Virtuosity fall on Torio, leaving splinters and creating the heat prevalent on the planet. Virtuosity's splinters on Torio gain self awareness as the Hijo. This relates to a phenomena seen on both worlds (Note that lots of this is speculative and NOT canon) : Torio is the only light that can penetrate the shroud. The light from an invested world would be more likely to penetrate a mist/highstorm like manifestation of investiture. The distant Hijo that talks to Yumi is the uncorrupted fraction of the still sentient sliver of Virtuosity on Painter's planet. It wants help to be freed from the corruption and to reform the Shard (which we know is possible). The Hijo are splinters of Virtuosity that Chosen have a high Connection with and therefore communicate with. When a Chosen makes a request of a Hijo, the Hijo is dividing itself into a Investiture rich half and a Investiture poor half, like two magnetic poles. This creates opposite forces, represented in the physical realm by dualities. Light/Dark, Heavy/Light, Male/Female, etc. This in response creates a direct current of investiture that is seen on painter's world as twin lines of pure energy, the hion. There may be a location based component to this, localized to The Place of Ritual. As the Hijo's strength weakens, the bonds in the stacked stones weaken. The ability to split a Hijo is inherent in the stone arrangements. The heat on Torio is similar to in a way to the mists or highstorm. A source of investiture that strengthens those that are invested with Virtuosity. See quotes below (emphasis my own): "A furious, superheated cascade which reached forty feet at its highest—a gift from the spirits deep below. " " The stone underneath, warm and vibrant, the source of all life, heat, and growth." "Here, heat was sacred. " "People on other worlds don’t know what they’re missing; there’s a unique comfort to being able to lay down, drape a blanket over yourself, and bake in the floor’s own radiance. It was almost like the planet itself was feeding you life and strength." I will do nightmares separately as there is a lot to unpack here: Nightmares are corrupted Cognative Shadows like the Shades on Threnody. However, they differ in that they directly feed off humans instead of killing them. Nightmares seek out strong emotions, generally negative, created by the sleeping mind. More fully formed Nightmares can feed on terror from a waking mind. "The nightmares, like many predators that fed on minds, could sense emotions and thoughts. They searched for the most powerful, raw ones to feed upon. " An interesting parallel to nightmares being interested in powerful raw emotion but seeking out what Hoid describes as creations of self punishment/hatred is how Odium names himself as Passion (strong emotion) but acts as hatred. "The child had given the thing shape and substance, ripped directly out of his deepest fears." This sounds a LOT like emotional damage to a spiritweb. This is reinforced further by Hoid's commentary about normal nightmares. "It fill the nooks of the soul like spilled water filling cracks in the floor. Nightmares are a seeping chill, created by the mind to punish itself." We know the "Snapping" is the process of harming the spiritweb or soul, creating cracks that investiture can enter. What if it can go the other way? Cause cracks that inherent investiture or pieces of spiritweb can be removed from, like Hemalurgical spikes, just emotional instead of physical? In this way, the nightmares gain an identity and sapience. Nightmares are created by the mind, a source of, while negative, artistic expression of one's fears. This matches perfectly to a corrupted appreciation of art, or Virtuosity. I am probably missing a lot. And I have a bunch more thoughts but this might be enough of a wall of text for now. Please let me know what you think.

There seem to be a lot of opposites in Secret Project 3. I think this hints at the nature of the two planets and their source of investiture (Virtuosity). TLDR: Similarities of opposites between the two worlds might suggest that a single world was created and then "bonded" in to two mirror type worlds by virtuosity during her shattering, which also created the hions, spirits and nightmares. Between worlds: Male/Female (yumi vs painter) Light and hot/Dark and cool (shroud vs star?*) Guilted into working too hard because no one else can do it /Shown to be only a replaceable cog in the machine (Liyun vs Sukishi) Revered Profession/Menial Labor (priestess vs janitor) Overachiever/Underachiever (37 spirits vs only bamboo paintings) Ritualistic/Secular Ancient/Modern (in terms of technology) Rural/Urban (at least in the areas we have seen) Nightmares Evaporate/Spirits split into opposites (cases of potential investiture usage being opposite to the world***) Underground/Below ground (spirits vs nightmares as sources of investiture) Torio: Fire and water. Liquid and light (As Yumi's description of bathing ritual) One vaguely male, one vaguely female (Difference between halves of bound spirit) Blue/Orange (as spirit colors**) Kilahito: Teal/Magenta (as hion colors**) * Sanderson has directly mentioned the shroud and that it causes the darkness, but had not really mentioned anything about the day star other than it is red-orange (which is cooler than the earth's sun) and closer than the listener's sun. If it is closer that might cause higher temps, but there are also references to water not being rare on Torio. Instead it is "concentrated, centralized, elevated". Maybe water in the atmosphere is causing the intense heat, like a clear version of the shroud. ** Sanderson has answered questions about the presence ( or lack ) of yellow (search yellow on words of sanderson on the coppermind) It is therefore notable that the color pairs would be opposite if they did not shy away from yellow. Blue should go to yellow but goes to orange. Magenta should go to green but goes to teal. *** So it water being dropped on the floor in Torio will evaporate. Similar to the description of the nightmare vanishing. (Instead, like water trapped on a hot plate, it just…evaporated.) Yet, when Yumi makes bonds with the spirits they split, like hions (twin bands of pure energy). Maybe banishing a nightmare creates a spirit and bonding a spirit creates hions? Two sides of the same coin. Want to dig into the golden rule/fib seq wrt art and virtuosity. Also the idea of the extent of world hopper influence and colonization.