Windrunner

She could have named her Sisirinah, which is Siri's full name. That's a bit too odd though. Anyway welcome to 17th Shard! I hope you'll like it here. Also Joe definitely has some experience with the admins spiking people. That's how they made Joe a Worldbringer. Occasionally he summons enough will to warn the new members to escape, before the admins reassert their control. It's probably because he has less spikes allowing him to warn others like TenSoon warned Sazed that he was about to strangle him.

I don't know that a spren is aware enough to want a physical aspect. The reason I think that a spren brings a cognitive aspect is that having enough of one aspect makes you have a shadow on the other two. So even though a spren is made of physical power, it will be shadowed in the cognitive realm, even more strongly, then it appears in the physical realm. So even though it isn't much cognitive energy, it's more then the gemstone on it's own has so it allows the power to be channeled. I'm not sure I agree with the way you explain spren, Telcontar. I think that once a piece of wood burned, the cognitive aspects would be split among the new components, the gases and ash created in the burning, or whatever other products that are created. Also I'm not sure what you mean by binding to Honor's energy, that would be Stormlight correct? And spren appear in places with no Stormlight. Also I don't think it works well with emotions. That would mean that a human was shooting off parts of it's cognitive aspect every time a human felt an emotion. I'd say that fabrials are invested objects in the same way that metalminds are. To use your term, it would be a secondary investiture, a human using spiritual energy on something else. Did I get that right?

I personally think that Dakhor involves a lot of Dominion. If I'm not mistaken Dilaf mentions having to kill men or Dominate them to gain his Aon negation abilities. I could be wrong though. It was good of you to put the Elantris spoilers in the tags. I'll edit the title of the topic so people will know what to expect and we won't have to use spoiler tags. Also welcome to 17th Shard! If I'm not mistaken your relatively new here, and I don't believe we've met thus far. I hope you're enjoying it here.

It's an interesting idea Droz, I only have one problem with it. Oaths seem firmly in Honor's domain to me, so I don't think they'd be a way to access Cultivation's power. However I can see where your coming from with the Oaths making you better but I still disagree. Also I'm not quite sure what you mean by Kaladin not using Surgebinding after saying his Oath. From what I understand it just made him more efficient at utilizing Stormlight, and possibly unlocking other Radiant abilities we haven't seen yet. I'm not sure what you mean by making him better at everything. Stormlight makes you better, but it did that before he spoke the Oath too. My personal Cultivation theory is that the farmers in Shinovar use it. They are Cultivating plants first of all (not that I believe that you have to Cultivate plants to get the magic). Also they are so revered in Shinovar, it makes sense as a potential explanation that they have powers. @Aethling I don't really understand what you mean when your talking about the hurricanes on Nalthis. I'm sure natural hurricanes happen on every Shardworld, and probably every world with liquid water in the whole Cosmere. Is it a "stretch" to say that Preservation was responsible for the mists on Scadrial? Mists are a natural phenomena too, but these have unnatural behaviors, coming every night only at night, snapping people, and swirling around those using Allomancy. In the same way Highstorms have very unnatural behaviors. Coming at fairly predictable times, spewing stormlight all over the place, not to mention the giant head that appears in the clouds who talks to Kaladin and mentions not one, but two different Shards. It seems definitely the result of Shards to me. If I had to pick a Shard I'd say Cultivation since it refers to Honor and Odium as if it is not them. But then again Cultivation is a girl, and the if I'm remembering correctly the face was masculine. Maybe the potential third Roshar Shard people have been speculating about. Just because it mirrors a natural phenomena doesn't mean it wasn't caused by a Shard. Does that make sense to you?

This is literally the most ridiculous thing that I've ever heard! Asking you to come back almost full time months after you quit? I can't even believe that there are people out there like this. I thought when you mentioned this in the chatbox you were being sarcastic but this is just awful. Don't feel guilty about telling them you quit, they've treated you like trash so they don't deserve your sympathy. I'm sure they'll be calling you before long after you quit again. Also not hiring guys? For what reason? That's just stupid, maybe if they had accepted applications from males they still wouldn't be attempting to fill a position three months later. I'm so sorry that they do this to you.

This is how Nightblood works. So basically once Nightblood determines that the person who wields him isn't trying to hurt anyone, Nightblood leaves it up to the wielder to decide what to do with him. I hope this helps, and welcome to the forums lil_literalist!

Well the way I read it, the pattern of Stomlight through the gem is what gives the gem it's power. So the patterns aren't a result of a fabrial, but a necessity for one to be made. Navani says that the emotion bracelet is made of ten fabrials working together which can be read either way, as part of a whole, or each detecting an emotion so you can see all of what they're feeling. It makes sense to me that fabrials would be able to be created that work with other fabrials to create a certain affect. It's mostly speculation, but presumably Soulcasting something complex works the same way, requiring the invocation of multiple Essences to create something that isn't one of the Ten Essences. I don't think that the setting plays any role in keeping the spren held. Shallan's fabrial had no spren held within, as it had no permanent gemstone, and it ceased to function when damaged so it couldn't have been a loss of spren that is to blame. I think you and I view fabrials a little different. The way I see it, Shallan's Soulcaster not having a spren isn't because it is older and better. In my opinion it's because since it requires a person to function, there is no need for spren to provide a cognitive aspect to control the power or to provide a connection to Honor presumably required to utilize Stormlight. A person has both those things in far greater capacity then a spren. That's why spren fabrials are also so constrained, able to do one specific thing, a spren's cognitive aspect can only handle one task at a time. Perhaps Shardblades and Plate are fabrials, but I prefer to think of them as spontaneously created fabrials when a person has become a Radiant. It doesn't make sense to me that they would create their own Shards. Though admittedly this is more based off of gut feeling then anything else. The biggest evidence I have is that no one in the past apparently knew how to make fabrials according to Dalinar's vision. Also, the Radiants are quite happy to invite Dalinar to "try out" to become one of them which they wouldn't do if there was a shortage of them. Both these points can be reasoned around, but I really feel like the Plate and Blade were personal items to the Radiant, and not things that were just passed around. Also, can you imagine a Soother and/or Rioter with an emotion fabrial? The result would be frighteningly devastating.

Some people have talked about this before, but there's no consensus yet. If you could perhaps invoke Devotions physical aspect on Sel, like the pool or another physical component like lerasium on Scadrial. There are strange burning rocks on Sel and the Elantrians also burn unusually well. If I was going to guess though, I'd say that these rocks would be of Dominion/Jaddeth since he was originally god of the rocks below the ground. It appears to me that although Korathi and Derethi people claim to worship the same god they actually worship Devotion and Dominion respectively. Some people have wondered if that split came about because of some schism between Aona and Skai which seems a very real possibility. What I want to know, is why some Aons appear to have some minimal function when they are incomplete but others have no affect at all. The only idea I've had is those that predate the Reod kept some small connection to the Dor so the Shaod could still take effect, but none of the other Elantris Aons seem to still have any power. Maybe a large size and power as well as predating the Reod allowed it to continue to have a minimal function. And Dilaf's wife's transformation could be explained away by him being a Dakhor. Does anyone else have any ideas why some Aons function but others don't?

You mirrored my thoughts exactly Telcontar, I see that as being the only way that highstorms could have predated Honor while still containing his power. Minor Mistborn Spoilers Have I missed a quote where it says that Voidbinding is powered by Stormlight? Because I've never seen that spelled out anywhere, and it seems unlikely to me. I think that Stormlight, powering what is in my mind indubitably Honor's system, must be of Honor. So it wouldn't power Voidbinding because that is of Odium. It would be like Preservation powering Hemalurgy; possible but expending power in a way that Shards are hesitant to do. If you follow the Principle of Intent then it would be inefficient, requiring more power with the power taking longer to return to the Shard. If anything, it could be related to the dark sphere Gavilar handed Szeth, containing "Voidlight" perhaps? I can't say that it never would have rained on Roshar before Cultivation made highstorms, as they seem responsible for its variable weather patterns. Is it possible that Cultivation could have been trying to make as wide a variety of life? Traveling the worlds creating new and unique organisms. Perhaps one of the reasons the highstorms were set into motion was to create a dramatic new ecosystem for life to evolve in. But then again, a lot of Shards aren't consciously responsible for the things that their presence brings into existence. Preservation probably didn't choose to be mists. It might be more likely that the highstorms are a natural reaction between Roshar and the Shard's power, and Cultivation just ran with it.

This is a good point Chaos, I certainly don't think such sales would be very common. If there ends up being a black market it would probably be made mainly with stolen spikes or those made of unwilling victims. Since Allomancy is becoming more and more common it would be easy to find someone who wouldn't be missed. I think it could happen once in a while though. Especially if people aren't well informed on what happens to the donor. Some kid in China just sold a kidney in an illegal operation for an iPad, so there are some nuts out there.

I'll start off by saying that I agree with you 100% about two Orders not sharing a body focus. I was suggesting that maybe one of the Inhalation and Exhalation Orders are tied to the diaphragm, and possibly the other to the lungs, probably Windrunners. I think you and I view Surgebinding differently. I see the spren being attached to a point on the Spiritweb, just like a Hemalurgic spike is, except without requiring a physical spike. The spren can be gained but also be lost just like a spike, the effect isn't permanent so the spiritual aspect isn't actually made more powerful, just added on to, like a branch being grafted onto a tree. Now back up to those images Satsuoni mentioned. If you want to see the text with the images, look here.(Are we allowed to put the translated images up on the Coppermind instead of just the text? The pictures make it clearer) Fabrials work in concert in the emotion detection device, each appearing to detect something different. Also I found something really interesting. So the way the gem(s) are arranged determines what power is used, apparently not the the cut. Funnily enough these patterns are symmetrical, just like the Vorins believe to be a sign of the Almighty/Honor. So this is how it appears to work. Specific gems are chosen Gems are cut into the proper shape to attract a certain spren Gems are arranged on the fabrial to create the desired Stormlight pattern Gemstone is charged with Stormlight Fabrial begins working The only thing that we haven't really analyzed is what affect the holder of the gemstone has. They must have some function, or else they wouldn't be needed for Surgebinding, and Shallan's would have worked just fine after it was repaired. The only idea I've had is that perhaps the Shardblade damaged the spiritual aspect of the fabrial somehow. Another weird thing is that the Soulcasting fabrial doesn't appear to have spren trapped in it, just infused gems. The fabrials that need spren appear to be the ones that don't require humans to consciously use them. That's why I think the spren provide a Cognitive aspect to be used. They are primarily Spiritual entities but their power in that Realm would be enough to give them a limited aspect in the other two realms.It's also probably why most fabrials don't appear to be as strong as the abilities of regular Surgebinders. The fabrials only have small pieces of Honor inside them, but the Radiants had the Nahel spren so they had a much more powerful connection and a greater ability to use Surgebinding. The point that Satsuoni brings up is an interesting one I'd been considering myself. What does the gemstone do, if not determine which type of spren can be trapped in it? Flamespren would fall under the essence fire whose gem is ruby. Emerald isn't even the opposite of ruby on the chart. So I feel like we're missing the how exactly the gem is involved in the attraction of spren. So random revision of theory. The cut attracts the spren, the gem type restricts the powers somewhat, and then the placement of gems in a pattern defines it even further, allowing spren to provide extremely specialized effects by utilizing the Stormlight. That seems to be why Navani's emotion detection device is more complex then the Alerter. They both detect certain things. However the Alerter is more powerful, it can detect anything within a certain range because of the large gem allows it to be more powerful. However Navani's is more complex, allowing it to just detect the presence of certain emotions. I'd hazard a guess, that since it appears that any spren can be trapped in any gem, that both the Alerter and Navani's emotion detection bracelet contain the same type of spren. If I'm right about this, it works similar to AonDor. The gems are like the Aons and the patterns like the modifiers. If people seem to think I'm making any sense with all this I might write it up as a proper theory, since my original hypothesis has been proven flawed.

I really think people are involving Cultivation in Surgebinding too much. I see it as just Honor's system with no other Shard involved. Syl is an Honorspren, you can't get any closer to the intent of Honor then using the word honor. You don't Cultivate something to gain Surgebinding, you swear and Honor oaths. I just see no reason to involve another Shard into a system that seems to not contain any evidence or necessity for Cultivation to be involved. Stormlight is weird, and I'm not going to speculate on it. It's part of the highstorms and powers Honor's magic but also seems to predate his arrival. We need more information on Stormlight.

Hmm in my opinion it was a couple of things. One was that the Lord Ruler hated the non-Terris people of the world before his Ascension. He felt that Terrisman should be dominant because of the their Feruchemy. So when he founded the Final Empire, he was getting revenge on the people of the world for their supposed "crime". Of course he then went and oppressed his own people even worse. I don't think he wanted to though, he was just afraid of facing someone who could challenge his rule, so he ultimately loved his power more then his people. It is interesting to note though that it would have been far easier for him to have just committed genocide and wiped the whole population of Terrismen out rather then slowly breed it out of the population. He just wanted to get rid of Feruchemy in them, not destroy them. It's possible that if he ever actually managed to breed out their magic then he would have began treating them better, and perhaps favoring them like he did for nobles. He was intent on no skaa-noble breeding because he was worried about the power he gave his allies getting into the hands of his enemies. Allomancy is part of his "divine" powers, so if the skaa understood what he was doing with Allomancy, then they might be able to figure out how to counter it. That is also the reason he obfuscated it's abilities so much, so even skaa with powers might not know how to use them, and wouldn't recognize, that he, the Lord Ruler, used the same magic. Also it kind of undermines his divine reputation. Wouldn't a god be able to keep the power he gave his friends out of the hands of his enemies? People would doubt his power and rebel if they thought he couldn't even control who used the magic he gave them. Does this help?

Well we seem to agree on most of what's being said, which is a good thing. Let me explain my rationale behind why I think cut determines, somewhat, what the spren do. If the only thing that affects what the fabrial does is the spren, it means that every type of spren would only grant one power. Flamespren would only make heat, and etc. But what if you wanted to do something else, like create a jet of flame. That would require a different type of spren. Or anticipationspren for example. A fabrial made with using one of them might be able to detect someone feeling anticipation. But what if you wanted a fabrial that could make someone feel anticipation? How else could you differentiate aside from cut? Fabrials seem to have many variances, far more then seem accountable by the relatively few number of common spren we see. It seems to me at least that there should be another way to shape the power a little more complexly so it could be utilized in multiple ways. You seem to be under the impression that I don't understand that Stormlight is just the spiritual fuel of Surgebinding, similar to the Dor or Preservation. I'm sorry if I gave that impression but I agree with everything you said above about it. I was thinking that perhaps either inhalation or exhalation could be tied to the diaphragm, which is responsible for both those processes. Body focuses seem like they have probably been warped somewhat by Vorinism, but are actual representations of something important to the magic system. I think of spren as grafts onto a spiritweb, because they aren't really making your aspect stronger, but rather attaching to you, forming a connection that can be broken. Increasing a spiritual aspect seems rather permanent, much like decreasing one via Hemalurgy. The most ready explanation is that the attachment forms at certain points on your Spiritweb, which is probably also the place that you would place a Hemalurgic spike if you wished to steal a spren from someone. Brandon has said that he pictures the Spiritweb as a series of connections inlayed over/in the body, almost like another set of nerves or blood vessels, He based the idea of of chi points. Does this help you visualize it better? Thank you for taking the time to respond, I always enjoy debating things with you.

Well the shape of the Soulseal is still very important. As far as we know it's crafted to specify what shape the Forgery will take, at least to some extent. It seems like Awakening, it cannot be performed without the Command (or Soulseal) but the Cognitive impulse or visualization (knowledge) has more affect on what the magic does.

It scares me though. If enough people realize how Hemalurgy works before they have enough technology to save the lives of those spiked, we could be looking at a metalborn Holocaust. Also there will always be those who won't care about being gentle and keeping those they stole from alive. To the power-hungry they've already served their purpose. However, I do agree with you that Hemalurgy could possibly be legal if performed in specific ways. Such as powers only being passed by consent, no extortion allowed, as well as the more obvious no killing. I can see a black market developing, selling spikes that were made illegally from Allomancers who sold their powers, similar to selling organs.

You're right, Allomancer's electrum is 45% gold and 55% silver. I think Brandon might be simplifying alloys to just make them pairs. In AoL Wayne mentions bismuth and cadmium in reference to bendalloy with no talk of lead or tin. On the other hand it could just be because those two are easier to get his hands on.

Well, I thought that the Splinters of Devotion and Dominion are the Seons and Skaze, neiher of which appear to be powerful enough to fuel a magic system, let alone such an apparently complex and powerful system like Forgery. Do you think that there's possibly larger Splinters powering it? Well, from what I'm thinking, couldn't each race have a distinct cocktail of Devotion and Dominion in them, allowing them to access the Dor in different ways? So every race would have their own distinct powers. I wonder if the Emperor's people have any magic? They consider Forgers to be heathens so maybe they have magic that they think is "holy".

Thanks Finallity! From listening to it, it seems to me that Brandon is refers to Dragonsteel as different "universe" he really means that it occurs on a different world. I think he's trying to explain to those who aren't accustomed to the idea of the Cosmere that while Dragonsteel is a prequel to Elantris they don't occur in the same place. At least that's what it sounds like to me.

Haha, something tells me that if Pemberly was writing the Cosmere books, we'd have far more RAFO's

@Nightfire Did he really say that? I missed it! Do you know at what point in the interview he said it? It's odd because Hoid comes from there. Maybe he considers the cosmere pre and post Shattering to be different universes? Liar is the earliest known cosmere book at this time, and we don't know where the main Dragonsteel sequence falls yet. Thanks for telling us!

Well you're right about that. Brandon has confirmed that already.

I put this topic here rather then the SA thread because it has minor Elantris spoilers and I wanted to be careful. So I’ve been batting this theory around for a while. This isn’t anything earth-shattering, just the consolidation of some fairly basic speculation. I’m going to stay away from how the Radiants use Surgebindings for the most part, and focus more on how fabrials focus Stormlight. My basic for this theory is, that at least in fabrials, Surgebinding is form based, just like AonDor of Sel. We know the cut and type of the gem attracts different types of spren, which come together to create some sort of magical affect. It’s just like AonDor and modifiers. The gem and cut specify what power is used, and spren provide the connection to Honor, so that the Stormlight can be utilized without having to have a Surgebinder. This also allows the powers to be more expansive, because they aren’t confined by having to go through humans. We know that Allomancy was confined by a human body so Vin was vaporized, fabrials don’t have that confinement. That’s why so many powers, that aren’t Surges, are possible. The Stormlight that powers the fabrial utilized through the spren and shaped by the cut of and type of the gem. It’s also possible that spren provide a limited cognitive aspect, which has been present in all other magic systems. It also seems that the affect the fabrial produces should tie back to the essences and/or Soulcasting properties in some way. The question then becomes, is the Surgebinding’s used by the Radiants form based as well? I think it was confirmed somewhere that the symbols on the Radiant’s plate were similar to AonDor, but that just might be my addled brain. Are spren grafted onto certain places in a Radiant’s Spiritweb? I would say it was the body focuses, except Soul, Inhalatation and Exhalation aren’t body parts. I suppose that could be an in-world misconception but who knows?

Why would it have to be a Splinter of Dominion? The whole Shard is on Sel, it could easily power multiple magic systems. I doubt it's all Dominion though. You need Devotion to learn everything about an object's past.

Nope that was the first time it was confirmed anywhere, it was CrazyRioter's question. We were just freaking out in the chatroom, we had all pegged it as an RAFO. How wrong we were. Nahel spren are probably the big Splinters, in my opinion.