Underwater_Worldhopper

WoK Ch.60: I would agree, but what little we've been told directly of how they work is that they work entirely separately from regular Shardplate, mostly because Shardplate isn't a Fabrial and so its effects can't be recreated directly the way Artifabrians think. Besides, Navani got access to and sent the designs of the Half-Shards to Azimir with Dalinar. They've had conversations with Spren about the ethics of Fabrials before, and it seems unlikely to me that the Half-Shards use True Spren, else they would have protested against their imprisonment. The Stormfather at least would have said something about it, given his reaction to Ishars experiments, especially since Brandon has RAFO'd whether something terrible happens to the Spren when a Half-Shard breaks. The fact that it may be a Radiant Spren was said to Dalinar's face, and yet neither he nor the Stormfather react to it. The Coppermind notes that Taravangian may have been lying when he says that. Despite all that, if they simply resist Shardblades by virtue of Investiture alone, then just having a gemstone stuck onto the shield would be enough, since that would count as a Fabrial and Invest the shield. Yet, Half-Shards are specifically called Augmenter Fabrials, which use Pewter Wirecages. They're grouped with Grandbows, which also use a Pewter Wirecage Fabrial to increase durability. That suggests that Investiture alone is not what's sustaining the Half-Shards. Where are they described as Invested as a whole? And the Fabrial cage is dependent on the metal touching the gemstone. They just can't tape a little piece of metal onto the Fabrial, so they have to construct cages of the wire to make sure enough of the right metal is touching the Polestone in the right places. The cages then also double to protect the gemstone. To perform a quick experiment, you could just forgo making a cage and simply use rods of the correct metal and touch the gemstone with them in the right places to make it work. The Shields have a specific steel box in the back where the gemstone is housed, so it may be that the actual Fabrial is in there, and it's just attached to the back of the shield, which may not be part of what makes the Fabrial itself function. Even if it is, it is never mentioned anywhere that the shape of the metal affects how the metal affects the gemstone, and since only part of the Shield is ever in contact with the Fabrial, you could technically cut out the entire shield save for the part in contact with the Fabrial and that lone piece of metal should still work as a Half-Shard. I agree, this seems to have to do with how a Shardblade is harming the object it's attacking. True, but Iron is the only one that works this way, and we don't actually know what the Malwish do with the Iron as it fills up. Having a giant block of Iron on-board would defeat the purpose of making the ship lighter, so they might actually be discarding it somehow. I'd like that picture for confirmation. Also, remember that it's not exactly 13, though that is a funny coincidence. There have to 2 versions of all the arm and leg parts. Partly because they're still Connected to each other, and partly because they don't appear to mind being Shardplate, as you said earlier. Do we know for certain that its metal wiring is the Shield itself? It's an Augmenter Fabrial, which require Pewter Wirecages. And the metal doesn't have to be in the form of a cage, as the Shield itself proves if it is indeed part of the wiring, and that means that only the part that's touching the gemstone counts as part of the Fabrial. Everything else is not strictly necessary. That's true. What I'm suggesting only works if the Fabrial itself is fine. We see the whole breastplate shatter at once, and Every time we see a Shardbearer suit up, it's referred to as a single breastplate. The fact that one section of it breaks for Gavilar seems to prove that it's made of several Spren. Do we have a real-world counterpart for Shardplate that we can compare it to?

That doesn't change the fact that there were much better examples that would be much clearer, easier to understand and draw parallels between, and that would avoid this very confusion. I very sincerely doubt he meant regular matter being made from Investiture. More and more, that does seem to be what the current iteration is leaning toward, but this is just one of the things we don't have any concrete evidence for despite it being likely. The "breathable air" WoB isn't convincing to me in this regard, and we have a WoB that's leaning heavily towards them being God Metal analogs. So while You have convinced me in large part, I'm still going to go forward with the understanding that Aethers are physical Investiture like God Metals until we get some more concrete evidence. Fabrials use their subject Spren to create effects. The Half-Shards could be using some method to create an effect that can repel a Shardblade by manipulating the Spren it has trapped. Aluminum and Investiture, as you said, are the only two known ways of resisting a Shardblade. There could easily be more. Here's the scene from The Way of Kings when Szeth attacks the king of Jah Keved. Here's how Shardplate shattering is described: And here's how a Half-Shard breaking is described: The shield is never described as shattering into molten metal, so the pieces must remain. And since the actual Fabrial is embedded in the back, whatever piece of the Half-Shard is still attached to the gemstone still works, even if the majority of the Shield has been stripped away. If the Shield itself has anything to do with the Fabrial, a small piece of it still being connected to the gemstone should be enough to keep it working, and if it isn't needed for the actual Fabrial, it should still work regardless. This is because the type of metal is what affects the Fabrial, not the shape of said metal. Having the majority of the Shield shatter and become disconnected shouldn't change the resistance of the piece still connected, because that piece was the only part actually touching the Fabrial. The Fabrial should continue to work so long as the gemstone itself is fine. Turning into molten metal is a feature of Shardplate only, because it's made of Spren that stop manifesting when they become too damaged. Charging enough metal to make a whole set of armor out of it would take ridiculously long for most Feruchemical powers, whereas you can summon and maintain Shardplate easily once you reach the requisite number of oaths, provided you have to Stormlight, and then you'd have to maintain that set of armor against people who have massive shapeshifting swords and supernatural strength. Metalmind armor could work much better, but it would take a LOT of time to create, and then you'd have to make sure it's usable through all the damage it sustains. But independent of what you were saying here, I've just realized I've been thinking of Aluminum this whole time. Considering that Shardblades attack the Spiritual Aspect of things too, it probably would shatter. Probably, if you hit it really hard. I've just spent some time squirreling around in the Arcanum and have found this: So yes, it would break. That's honestly a good point, I'm sold. But that's due to it being made of a Spren, which does not like being hit. When it shatters, it's the Spren being too damaged to manifest anymore. In contrast, God Metals, even God Metal Alloys, have been said to make good weapons against Shardbearers, so if they break, it'll take a lot more than the standard 2 or 3 hits. I think that's just flavor text. In the very next line, it says: We know from Shardbearers suiting up that Shardplate doesn't separate into nearly so many pieces: Shardplate is separated into these pieces: Sabatons Greaves Cuisses Culet Faulds Skirt Breastplate Rerebraces Vambraces Gauntlets Gorget Pauldrons Helm That's far from the "Dozens" that are described. And in this case, Kaladin isn't commanding it to be transparent. As the Shardplate forms, it becomes opaque, and only after he grabs Lirin does he make the Plate become transparent. Quote again: So it seems like any one piece is a whole Spren all on its own, but rather multiple working together through Connection. Here's Jasnah fighting in Emul/Tukar: Here, we see that the Plate can feel pain. Since Jansah's Shardplate is living, it can drain her of Stormlight to heal itself, but regular Dead Shardplate would be unable to heal itself nearly as quickly, and neither is it Connected to the Surgebinder, so it requires the extra Stormlight spheres to even function. If the Spren were too damaged, they will just leave, and then drawn back through Stormlight, once again through it's Connection to the rest of the Plate. Clearly, a single section is not the same as a single Spren. You're going to have to provide a citation for the content with itself bit. And I was not saying that the Radiant has subjugated them, I was just comparing them to how Inquisitors and Koloss, who do get subjugated, can break out of control with extreme emotions. Given the fact that they come willingly to the Radiant, they become even less obligated to stay with them under pressure. Here's a longer version of the quote I cited above: Given that they can be hurt, and that in Deadplate the Spren cannot immediately heal themselves, they can stop manifesting and are eventually drawn back by the Connection they willingly formed, which now keep them there, possibly trapped against their will, in Deadplate. If a Radiant couldn't heal them, I suspect they'd begin to break and vanish then too, no longer following the Radiants Commands like how Kaladin controls them during the battle in Urithiru. Oh, not specifically against a Shardblade? It's a lot more interchangeable in that case, save maybe that Roseite would be a bit more durable since it's a crystal as opposed to something like sedimentary rock. In light of that WoB, I agree, Roseite would probably shatter in two or three hits. Getting Dor into Shardplate wouldn't even be that hard, since you can trap Dor in a gem quite easily. If you're using Living Plate, it can heal itself through just the Stormlight in the Radiant. A Shardbearer would likely win against any opponent with equal amounts of Investiture. I thought the question was having a regular Shardbearer in Deadplate with a Deadblade vs Prasanva with a jar or two of Dor.

My proposal and Invested Arts have nothing to do with this. I'm asking why Brandon would refer to something so obscure (and unpublished, at the time) when there are so many other, much more well-known instances of Investiture becoming regular matter. It very heavily implies that he was talking about Invested physical matter rather than regular matter created from Investiture. Add to that the fact that the conversation started from God Metals, and it starts seeming very weird if Aethers aren't Invested God Metal parallels. Perhaps, but the air WoB isn't enough evidence for me. The Harmonium-Water reaction WoB makes it clear that God Metals themselves are regular metals that have the Spiritual Aspect of a Shard. That's why, when the Spiritual Aspect is separated through something like the Harmonium-Water reaction, the leftover metal is actually something else. Being air doesn't preclude the Zephyr Aether from being Invested. It could just be Invested air, where it acts like Gaseous Investiture, but by being used in a chemical reaction like respiration, the Investiture is released and the actual particulates left are air molecules. You say that like you know exactly how Half-Shards work when that information has specifically been said to be not revealed yet and will be focused on in future books. Shardblades and Shardplate resist each other because they are Invested, as you said. Shardplate breaks before Shardblades because they're less Invested, as you said. We know for a fact that Half-Shards can resist Shardblades based on a different design function than regular Shards. That means they cannot possibly be resisting Blades because of sheer Investiture, because then that would be the exact same thing that protects regular Shardplate from Shardblades. That it would, but the "shattering" effect of Shardplate is unique to it, nothing else does that. Roseite would resist because it is Invested, but it would not shatter into molten metal, it would shatter just the same as if you took a chunk of it and slammed a hammer against it. If they don't cut it simultaneously, then what's the point? You're stuck in two different modes of attack, which are dependent on your target rather than the effect you want. You can't physically damage a living target, and you can't spiritually attack a non-living target. Attacking cognitively is up for debate, but that arguably isn't happening in either circumstance. I'm sure it has to ability to cut on all three Realms, but the fact that it's not simultaneous makes that factor irrelevant to discussions like this one. We know that only for Shardplate. Half-Shards shatter, but any chunk of it still attached to the Fabrial in the back should still work. Metalminds are a different magic system, so they probably won't shatter, but rather the magical cutting would be eliminated, and it would then be like trying to split the metalmind with a regular sword. If the Metalmind doesn't have enough Investiture inside it, the Shardblade will still cut it supernaturally, it'll just encounter resistance as opposed to cutting seamlessly. Again, not necessarily, because that kind of destruction under a Shardblade only affects Shardplate. I suppose that makes sense. That's once again a false dichotomy. It would be like trying to shatter the Roseite with a regular sword. You could still shatter it either way, but the mechanism is different, and that's important. And it seems like you're suggesting a God Metal would Shatter under a Shardblade. A God Metal would be totally immune to a Shardblade, since it's made of the same material, only aligned to a different Shard. WoB maintains that even a God Metal alloy could resist a Shardblade. That's because it's made of a bunch of independent little animals, basically. You've essentially taken a bunch of Lesser Spren and bound them together around you. With each hit, they get more and more alarmed, more and more resistant to your Connection and Command for them to stay there, and once they get damaged enough, they're too frantic to obey you any more and scatter. Roseite would defend you as we're theorizing right now. Stoneward-created armor would be utterly useless unless it's still actively infused during the fighting, and that necessarily makes it malleable and fluid, which would let Shardblades through rather easily. If it isn't, it's just a bunch of rock, and Shardblades can cut through those effortlessly. It would provide no more protection than any other type of regular armor, but it would also slow you down a lot, tire you faster, and unless it's made very specifically with very highly engineered joints, you couldn't even move in it. Compared to that, Roseite is actually Invested and so can resist Shardblades, can be actively altered and repaired, and you could change it to fit your needs. It's made of Lesser Spren bound together by the Radiant's will; the more they get damaged, the more frantic and nervous the Lesser Spren get. After a certain point, they're just to frenzied to control anymore, like how Koloss and Inquisitors can break out of otherwise complete mental subjugation during a Blood Frenzy. That's interesting, but that may be a side effect of how it works, and since we don't know what that is, we can't really say with any certainty. Why would rock be resistant to a Shardblade? But I agree, if a rock was Invested, it would act like Roseite would.

The WoB about the Harmonium-Water reaction says that the trace metals left behind from the reaction will not be Harmonium; That the actual Investiture is used up in the reaction and the material left behind is a different, unInvested metal. The same could be the case here. Exactly. There are so many cases of Investiture turning into regular matter. Why then, does Brandon draw a connection between God Metals and Aethers, instead of any of the things you mentioned here? And just for clarification, although in hindsight it does seem like I'm saying that, I did not mean to say that regular matter can't be made from Investiture, just that given the fact that it's possible, why not mention them instead of Aethers specifically? We can't reasonably assume that Half-Shards breaking works under the same principles as something like Shardplate breaking, since it's specifically said that the Half-Shards' blocking of Shardblades works under a different principle. I'll accept that explanation for Shardplate since it's composite of Lesser Spren and so it would be less Invested, but we can't hold that as a rule of thumb for things that aren't specifically Shardplate/Shardblades, such as Nightblood, Half-Shards, and Roseite, since those work under fundamentally different base concepts. I don't think this is the case, although you aren't too far off. The cutting on all three realms thing is a bit misleading because Blades appear to only ever cut on 1 or maybe 2 realms at a time. For non-living things, it cuts on the Physical Realm only. For living things, it seems to cut on the Spiritual Realm only. You could argue that both cases are cutting on the Cognitive Realm too, but there isn't much in the way of concrete proof of that. If they truly cut on all three realms, that should mean that someone's limbs should be cut off every time you swipe at the regardless of whether they're alive or not, but that is clearly not the case. Only Nightblood seems to cut on all three Realms, because a wound inflicted by him destroys the body, mind, and soul simultaneously. Beyond that, I don't get what you mean by destroy. Shardplate explodes into molten metal, but that's because it's actually a bunch of Connected Lesser Spren. Half-Shards just break, cracking, or shattering. If Roseite can resist being cut supernaturally, the Shardbearer will have to break it as if with any random tool, not a Shardblade. Roseite does seem brittle, but at that point, you'd be just as well off trying to smash it with a Shardhammer as you would be with a Shardblade. Just because Shardplate can resist gunfire while Roseite gets chipped by it does not mean that a Shardblade could destroy Roseite easily. A Shardblade swung with not enough force would not damage Roseite. A bullet has a lot of momentum delivered in a localized area, and it just barely chips Roseite. You'd need quite a lot of force to shatter Roseite as easily as you're suggesting. Shardplate will make it far easier, but it still won't be easy. It won't be particularly hard either, but it's not as easy as you seem to think so, and even then you need to shatter it faster than the Aetherbound (who has Dor in this hypothetical fight) can replenish it. Keep in mind that Roseite won't shatter like Shardplate either, where an entire chunk will just disintegrate immediately. You'd be cutting through Invested rock. Unless you bank very hard on the Shardplate's extra strength, you'd be better off using a Shardhammer, since shattering huge chunks of crystal would be more efficient than a sword, even a large one.

They aren't consuming the Investiture itself, they're breaking down the structure the Invested particles have formed together for energy, and the Investiture itself escapes. But they can't be. Back to the WoB, if Investiture can be turned into regular matter, why not talk about Scadrial and Scadrians instead of Aethers? It implies that Scadrial is inherently something different than what God Metals and Aethers are. That's a false dichotomy. More Invested does not guarantee the ability to damage something less Invested. There is no reason to believe that a steel sword Invested with Feruchemical speed would be able to damage a regular steel sword any more than any other regular steel sword could. Nightblood can damage an Honorblade because it's in his nature to destroy, and his immense amount of Investiture allows him to express that Intent extremely powerfully. A Half-Shard can deflect a Shardblade because of an entirely different design principle than what regular Shardblade/Plate resistance is. There is no reason to believe that it can deflect a Shardblade only because it's Invested; rather, it has to do with the type of Spren that's been trapped in the fabrial connected to the Half-Shard. I do agree that Roseite is definitely not nearly as Invested as a Shardblade. However, that affects its ability to cut it cleanly. How easily Roseite breaks once it can't be cut supernaturally is a separate matter.

Good catch!

On Sel, there is some evidence that the potions Hrathen uses to turn himself and Sarene into Reod Elantrian-look-alikes were Invested, and that's theorized to be the Hrovell Inveted Art, so if you really want to stretch it, you could say that Amaranta might have been a Selish Worldhopper who figured out a way to get her hands on Unkeyed Dor or something. But most likely she was just a really skilled herbalist.

Right, but i don't think we see any of that on-page. Could be the case, but we haven't observed it firsthand. Maybe she was talking about Spren in the Shinto "Everything has a soul" way and not Spren (the Splinters) as we see them. She might just be referring to the Cognitive or Spiritual Aspect of objects. Maybe those have some sort of inherent identity of masculine or feminine.

I don't think so. For lesser Spren, who don't really reproduce sexually, what's the need for a gender? True Spren are modeled after humans and Singers, so it'd make sense for them to have genders despite not needing to/being unable to reproduce sexually. The point being, even if they do have gender, if it serves no purpose and is unrecognizable, does it even exist? Well, a Spear is a weapon, and they tend to be personified as women a lot, so I could see a Spearspren having some concept of gender, just not the more animalistic Lesser Spren, since there are Spren for all sorts of things that don't generally get personified as people, let alone with gender. I was mistaken, I just remembered Leshwi saying something about betrayal vaguely and thought that the Singers abandoned the Singers for Odium, but apparently, it was the Spren who betrayed the Singers.

Lesser Spren don't have gender, as far as I'm aware. They're animalistic, the idea of gender doesn't apply to them. Gender would only apply to True Spren. My interpretation of what Syl said was that Honorspren from back when Singers were the dominant species. Do we know for sure that True Spren only became a thing after Humans replaced Singers as the dominant species? Leshwi asks Venli to ask Timbre whether or not she knows a specific Honorspren. It could have been an Honorspren she befriended after becoming a Fused, but as far as I'm aware there isn't any proof that Honorspren did not exist before Odium and the Desolations. Do the Spren not mention a betrayal before the Recreance, one of the Singers?

I am aware That's actually an interesting theory. Well argued, you make excellent points. I don't know that a Shardblade's cutting edge works that way, it would encounter the same amount of resistance each time. So it would have to be somewhere on the spectrum between completely immune to being Shardblade cut and completely susceptible to it, and that result would be repeated every time. However, I do think it chafes a little against the WoB. Presumably, Scadrial and everything on it was made of Investiture turned into matter, but that acts as ordinary matter and isn't any more Invested than any other Di-Shardic Shardworld. That's matter made from Investiture, but it is not the same as a God metal. If Brandon truly meant regular matter made from Investiture, would he not have referenced Scadrial instead? It's a bit misleading otherwise. That's only the case if Scadrial was made that way, which I'm not 100% sure of, and if it isn't, then the theory checks out. I still like the idea of Aethers as God Metal correlates that just aren't metals since it sets the Aethers apart in a very niche way, but I'll accept your theory if nothing ends up lining against it. This is why need more Alder on the Shard

That's still not good enough. You need the Investiture to be suffused into the soul of an object/creature. Yes, but to an extent. the Dor will resist a Shardblade very well; it just can't be put to use as a liquid. On the flip side, you can be solid but not be Invested enough to resist a Shardblade. You need to have a balance of both being solid and Invested. I'm having a bit of trouble understanding what you mean, but the base concept is this: The Dor will itself be fine from Shardblade attacks, but to transfer this immunity to other objects, it needs to be injected into the soul of the object. Where is the Investiture going in a Radiant? Not just their body, but it seeps into their very soul and mind. In the soul, it can repair wounds that the soul may have endured. In the mind, it creates that feeling of energeticness that Radiants describe, the "storm" that forms in them. And in the body, it heals wounds. Being physically inside something won't be enough, it needs to become one with the soul of the object. It would take a lot of Breaths, and even then the Shardblade will still work like a sword and probably shear through the cloth as a normal sword would. In the Vasher vs Kaladin fight, Kaladin cuts several Awakened clothes without noticing any particular resistance, so a lot of Breaths would be required. A Dor-soaked sponge would act like a sponge and Dor in the same place, and the sponge would be cut while the Dor would not. To make the sponge resistant, you need to Invest the sponge, that's the crux of what I'm getting at. Having the Investiture inside an object and Investing the Investiture into the object are not the same thing. Feruchemical charges are low-Investiture, but a Metalmind can hold a lot of it in a relatively small amount of metal. You'd need to store a lot to make it properly resistant, otherwise it would resist a little but still be cut. Aether comes from Investiture, but their Investiture is just different from Adonalsium's. Just like how you can use Dor to fuel Allomancy by providing raw, Unkeyed Investiture, you can also use it to create and maintain an Aether. The main thing I think you're not quite getting here is that physically having Investiture inside you and actually being Invested are two different things. Think of it like wearing heat-protection gear as opposed to just holding it. One will protect you from heat and fire, and one will not.

And each instance is also about turning food into Investiture. Turning regular matter into Investiture would undoubtedly take something like Shardic Intervention or an Invested Art. But digesting Aether vines should be a pretty easy thing to do. The vines take the form of organic plant matter, which our bodies can digest. Just because the atoms are in some way different doesn't change the fact that our bodies know how to break down the structure they form when they're together. Creating Investiture from matter is like building a very tall but thin tower out of incredibly tiny blocks. You need to understand the nuances of balance and support, not to mention have the precision to stack them neatly, to be able to build it. However, breaking down matter to release energy is like toppling the tower by providing a tiny push. Anything can do it, provided it can move and apply force. Just because the blocks are made of Investiture made physical doesn't change the mechanics of how they fall. As for the pure energy bit, I meant in terms of things like heat. We already had the energy conversation on a different thread. And respiration isn't? Just as Harmonium reacts with water and then the Investiture itself is used up while leaving regular material behind in its place, the Aether vines could be broken down into pieces that can be broken down in respiration, and during the actual process of respiration the Investiture would be used up. There would still be ambient amounts of Investiture, and we see that those ambient Investiture levels can spike a little in certain places, enough to kick start lesser forms of Investiture, such as the Aviar bonds on First of the Sun. That's tangential though, I'd expect anything that can digest plant matter could digest Aether vines, despite being made of Investiture. I was under the impression that air is a gas. If it is perhaps a liquid instead, then perhaps I really am mistaken. The questioner asked whether all Investiture in physical form being metallic is intentional, and Brandon says it is. The questioner then asks if we'll ever see non-metallic solid physical Investiture, and Brandon responds with "What do you call the Aethers?". It's quite clear, if you don't think so, that's your opinion, we'll just have to agree to disagree. Not necessarily. Aethers are attracted to Iron and repulsed by Steel, so they do have some things in common with Shardic Investiture. Besides, Investiture is still Investiture, and some properties are universal. Endowment's Investiture, for example, doesn't maintain a Connection to Nalthis. It can be taken off-world easily, which is why Returned can worldhop when no other Cognitive Shadows are able to. Investiture has different properties and rules that they play to when it comes to their Intent. But some things go beyond those differences. One of those rules is Investiture resists Investiture. That's a good point, but nothing has outright contradicted that the Aethers are physical Investiture. The WoB you keep citing about Zephyr spores does not say that it is not Gaseous Investiture, only that it is breathable air. You don't have to agree, but until I see the books or a WoB give strong proof that the Aethers aren't physical Investiture, I will continue to believe they are, because that's what the WoBs we have right now say. That's the thing though. If you were to take a bit of Investiture out of Ruin's Perpendicularity on Scadrial (The Black Lake from the Logbook), I doubt it would be as Invested as the Dor, because the Dor is a finite substance that has had 2 infinities worth of Investiture squeezed into it. That's why I posited on a different thread that the Dor is actually more Investiture-Dense than other Investitures, even liquid ones. That could be one reason why Roseite would seem relatively Investiture-Light in comparison. You don't need to be as Invested as a Shardblade to be able to resist it's cutting edge. The only instance in which a Spren was harmed by a Shardblade was in the Physical Realm, where Spren don't manifest heavily. They're partly in the CR, so the Shardblade would only vaguely hurt them but not harm them. When a Spren is truly in the Physical Realm (Such as being a Shardblade), they then do resist Shardblades. That's literally the main way we see Shardblades be resisted; through Shardblades and Shardplate. Nightblood is not a good model to use for Shardblades. He's far more powerful, not to mention unique, made from a different magic system, and with direct Shardic Involvement. Just because Nightblood can damage an Honorblade doesn't mean any Shardblade can. Ishar has used his Honorblade for centuries, and yet was so disturbed by Nightblood's damaging of the Honorblade that he immediately evacuates. He previously dueled Sigzil and the other Windrunners, and their Blades do nothing of the sort. Using Nightblood as justification is like saying a bunker can't withstand a firework because it can't withstand a nuclear bomb. The two are vastly different in power. My bad, I pulled it up on the Arcanum but forgot to include it: A liquid Dor balloon would not, as the balloon itself would not be Invested and the Shardblade would shear right through it. Investitures don't react quite so much like magnets. Investiture just resists further attempts to become Invested unless it's of the same type. A bath in Dor wouldn't help you much either, since the passing of the sword would just shove the Dor to the side since it's liquid and doesn't hold a definite shape. If you used Dorium though, that would be a really good thing to use to resist a Shardblade, but Dorium is likely as reactive as Harmonium, so maybe not.

Well, Syl outright says that some older Spren have four genders, so I don't know if I agree. Koravellium is a dragon, yet there aren't any Dragon True Spren. Just because they're made of a specific Shard's Investiture doesn't mean they have to bend to the specific Vessel's species. If forces were personified into True Spren, they would adhere to the perceptions that created them first, and then bend to the Self perceptions they develop. It's a bit like the Returned, who are also Splinters. They can change their appearance with a little practice, but their default form is determined not just by how they view their own self, but also how they view societal beauty standards. That said, that's for if Spren developed naturally. If Honor and Cultivation hand designed them, then maybe Tanavast made them as human, but given the way Cultivation designs the Nightwatcher, I'm sure she wouldn't stick only to humans

Read my last post replying to therunner, I explained the gaseous Investiture thing there. The WoB does not reference normal at all, but rather that it is breathable. The golem only takes half a jar of Dor to make, and we don't know how much Twinsoul uses to actually maintain and move the golem to get outside. Investiture does seem to be required to move the golem, but in the case where the Dor was fueling it, the Investiture was also the thing sustaining it.

Generally, it seems that there would be far fewer malen or femalen Spren because they're from a time when Singers were far more abundant on Roshar than humans, but over time (and after the Recreance), most malen and femalen Spren would have died or become Deadeyes and been replaced by male and female Spren personified by Humans. It's hard to tell though, how would you know whether a Spren like Syl is female or femalen? The two are virtually the same, femalens just can't reproduce, and the same goes for male and malen Spren.

It's not so unprecedented. Investiture turning into energy, Investiture being turned into oxygen, and Investiture turning into calories and vice versa have a surprising amount of examples in the Cosmere. A Bendalloy Feruchemist can turn calories into Investiture and back, and a Cadmium Feruchemist can turn oxygen into Investiture and back. The Harmonium-Bavadinium reaction shows that Investiture can be turned into pure energy. Lift can metabolize food into Investiture. The Harmonium-Water reaction doesn't act like regular chemistry, it doesn't create a Harmonium Oxide. The metal itself just channels energy from the SR, getting used up in the process (kinda like Allomancy). The same could be the case for the Verdant Aether. Once its growth has peaked, the body could metabolize it directly into usable energy, using the Investiture up in the process, which returns to the SR. Same for the Zephyr Aether, maybe it's just Gaseous Investiture that can be breathed in, be used to respire, and is then used up as a result of the reaction it just made possible. Clearly, something is different about Atheric Investiture. It doesn't form as a God Metal for one. It predates the Shattering and allegedly Adonalsium itself, or was at least conceived at the same time. The Investiture isn't aligned to any of the Shards and presumably wasn't Adonalsium's to control either. I don't really see the problem. The Investiture is known to be weird and out of place, and there are already instances of food/oxygen being turned into Investiture and vice versa. On top of that, Lerasium can be burned by anyone (and so can all God Metals, depending on how Brandon decides to make that work). All those factors taken together, is it really so strange for a similar physical manifestation of Investiture to be digestable by everyone, or breathable by everyone? No Investiture would even be wasted, since Aether spores and the Aether they create decompose after a little while. Here's the Harmonium-Water reaction WoB that gives us a bit of insight into the chemistry of God Metals: Besides, it doesn't really matter how it's done, there's a WoB that outright says that the Aethers are physical Investiture, calling the Verdant Aether out in particular. The rest is just us guessing and extrapolating about the exact mechanics. WoB says it's Investiture, so it is. You can't really disagree with the person who determines how it all works. But if you're still disenfranchised by it appearing to work against previously understood mechanics, think of it this way. Their existence could be motivated through plot devices rather than thematically. If it supplies an easy explanation for breathing in Space and emergency rations, then it does, and the handwaving required for making it make sense is an afterthought. Why does Wax's Harmonium-Bavadinium reaction produce Atium and Lerasium when the Set's hundreds of experiments didn't? It's never explained, it's basically deus-ex-machina without even God knowing how it was done. Will it be explained later? Most likely, that's Brandon's specialty. Does that change the fact that it's essentially a plot device right now? No, not really. But we have hope, and we can theorize in the meantime. This is a far, far better point. Roseite indeed seems to not be very Investiture-Dense, although that could just be because the Dor is very Investiture-Dense, as I theorized in a different post, and the contrast just makes Roseite seem less Investiture-Dense. It comes down to two different versions: Either the Roseite is decently Investiture-Dense and it could withstand a Shardblade attack (Magically. The sword would still damage the Roseite if it's brittle enough), or it isn't and the Shardblade could cut it, if inefficiently. However, I don't think the second one is likely. Even if the Roseite is as Investiture-light (as in opposite of dense, not Light light) as it seems, it's made purely of Investiture. That alone should make it immune to a Shardblade's cutting edge, even if it's not that Investiture-Dense. A weapon made of an Atium Alloy can block a Shardblade, and the alloy would have its Investiture diluted by the presence of a different metal. Something made purely of Investiture, even if the Investiture isn't that great in quantity, should be totally immune to a Shardblade, or nearly so, like Aluminum. Also, I forgot to answer this bit. I don't think you can shrink the Roseite other than by making some of it decompose and disintegrate, but that's slow enough that Awakened ropes could easily keep hold of it. The vines depend on whether the vines are actively constricting or not, but theoretically, you could escape that way.

Liquid Investiture is really Invested, and the Metallic Arts are relatively low-Investiture. F-Bendalloy is a relatively easy one to fill up though, but it doesn't end up comparing to something like the Dor. At most, it just gets rid of the hassle of carrying around lots of water. However, Compounding is where it gets interesting. Given that Compounding gives exponential returns, you could get more Roseite growth out of your Bendalloyminds than you could witha jar of Dor. It would still be limited to the regular water growth rate, but in the long term you could produce more Roseite than someone with just a jar of Dor. The Aethers are Investiture in physical form. They're the same thing as God metals, they're just made of Aetheric Investiture, so they manifest as something other than metal. They use water as a conduit to pull Investiture into the Physical Realm to grow. In an Aetherbound, that means water from your body to create Aether in a controlled way. For the strain of Aethers on Lumar, that means that any amount of moisture will act as a catalyst and the Aether will grow incredibly rapidly once it comes into contact with it. In both cases, Investiture is directly becoming matter. It's a little weird considering what certain Aethers become, but that's how it works. The air made by Zephyr spores is technically Gaseous Investiture. WoB:

Twinsoul himself wasn't doing any of the lifting, he was controlling the Roseite. It was moving itself, and so extra strength wouldn't be needed on the Aetherbound's part, assuming Roseite's capacity for generating force is proportional to its mass, enough to move itself. However, this may be dependent on having Investiture as fuel, so he may not be able to construct moving Roseite objects with only water. Regardless of being Invested while fed, Roseite is made from pure Aetheric Investiture, so it would be difficult to Soulcast regardless. Whether or not it could escape hardened earth depends don't two factors, one being the tensile strength of the hardened earth, and the other being Roseite's ability to grow when there's no more space left. The first depends on whether it's just the weight of the dirt on top of it or if it's been turned into stone or something, and the second is that Roseite just may not be able to grow once it runs out of space. Most likely though, it would either be unable to break free if the strength of the material around it is too strong, but it should be able to so long as said force isn't that strong. I could see it breaking out of several feet of packed earth and certain minerals, but not something like metal. Theoretically it could, so long as they understand the mechanism of what they're making and have enough fuel. Size will matter because it determines how well the Shardbearer can maneuver their massive Shardblade, and how much Twinsoul can grow his golem (and therefore how much force it can exert). Shardblade should theoretically be unable to cut the Roseite, magically, although Roseite may be brittle, which a Shardbearer can take advantage of if Twinsoul can't regenerate the Roseite quickly enough. If Twinsoul can become sufficiently large, at some point he could just squash a Shardbearer, or just destroy their Shardplate decently efficiently with something like his mace. If Twinsoul is using water only, he'll be at a severe disadvantage. Not only would he not have enough water to keep the golem last very long, but the lack of pure Investiture fueling its movement would also slow him down or even prevent him from being able to move the golem, and regular water-based Aether growing takes time. With a large jar of Dor, or two of the ones the Ghostbloods had, I'd say the Aetherbound is more likely to win, but without it the Shardbearer is almost guaranteed to win.

Silajana is still back on the original Aether planet, so far as we can tell. Twinsoul can just talk to him because he's his Aetherbound and has a Connection to him. Twinsoul would look the same in the CR, but if you looked at him on the PR from the CR, the bud on his hand may look different to the rest of him.

Right, thanks for clarifying, It's been a while since I last read Warbreaker. The Dor glows on its own too, even when it isn't being used for Invested Arts. You could a Dor-infused sphere (It's possible, WoB below), A Light-infused sphere, and a Breath-infused Sphere to make the comparison (also possible, this one is easier to wrap your head around but I'll include the WoB anyway), with the Investiture measured into equal amounts through White Sand to make the test fair. Gems may not be the best apparatus to use since they seem to produce light more intense than what the Investiture alone could manage though, but it'll be difficult to hold Stormlight or Breath in one place long enough to be able to measure it's light output. It comes down to what we're trying to find, though. For measuring the different rates of Investiture-Energy conversion, your outlined experiment is fitting. But we're trying to compare how sentience affects the "glow" of Investiture, which isn't what's being measured here. You could maybe use it to extrapolate the correlation between sentience and glow, but nothing direct, and that opens a hole in the experiment, since correlation doesn't always necessarily mean causation, and other unknown factors may be affecting the light output. We just don't know enough about Investiture to be able to say, but it's as good a starting point as any. You would also need to devise a system for measuring sentience in an objective, quantifiable way. There's also another problem, in that the glow of Investiture may not actually be Investiture escaping as energy. Stormlight in perfect gems still produces light, even though the Stormlight cannot escape: So measuring Investiture-Energy conversion may not actually give us the right results to answer the question we're asking. The results would just show how good different Investitures are at channeling the SR, since the glow evidently isn't the Investiture becoming energy at all but rather illumination being filtered through from the SR using the Investiture as a conduit. This presents yet another problem. Since they're all different Investitures, we've added another factor other than Sentience that can affect the results, so the test is unfair. Ideally, we'd require differing levels of sentience in the Investiture in a form that can be stuck inside a gemstone. Theoretically, regular Dor, a Spren made out of Dor, and a True Spren made out of Dor, possibly a Seon, would work the best to get the relevant result. All those kinks aside though, this experiment should technically work to prove or disprove the theory. Nice job. One problem I've come across while deliberating on this though: Stormlight isn't sentient, but it glows rather spectacularly. That's a point against Alder's Theory. It's a comparison, it doesn't say it outright. I realize it's a small issue and it probably is Dor, but it technically hasn't been explicitly confirmed, unless I'm missing something. Edit: Forgot the WoBs:

:0 It's that easy??? I just downloaded it, thanks so much :DDDD

Oh, sick. Provide the WoB please, I haven't seen any WoB talking about it before. I assume you mean take the Investiture out of the Metalmind with a Raysium wire? You could maybe make that work by using Raysium to transfer the Investiture into a Primer Cube, but I can't think of any other way you can make that work. Raysium is also a very difficult metal to come by. It would work, but it'll be beyond the means of regular people, and it would be hard to standardize.

That's reasonable, that might actually answer the whole question, but would Investiture Axi even have charges? Again, it could be, but it's two whole Shards' worth of Investiture. One Shard is already said to have an infinite amount of Investiture, having two infinities is just an absurd amount of power. Given that it will have settled in the depressions of Sel's landmasses, I'm not convinced that that much Investiture could fit in such a small space and not be incredibly dense, or denser than any other equivalent mass of Investiture in a similar state at the very least. I think you misunderstood me here. If you had Dor in liquid form, like the Ghostbloods, that should make a Perpendicularity, if in the same amount as the stuff in Devotion's Perpendicularity. Its natural form on Sel is indeed Ionised and not liquid. That's why I specified Liquid Dor :) I think it would be, for the reasons above. That's a different scenario. Harmonium, Lerasium, and Atium could theoretically have any Density of Investiture because there is no requirement on how much Investiture they can or cannot have, whereas the Dor has to include all of the Investiture of two whole Shards. But for the sake of argument, it doesn't seem too outlandish to me that Harmonium would be twice as Investiture Dense as Atium. A lot of Harmonium together in one place forms a Perpendicularity, which needs a lot of Investiture. It requires so surprisingly little of the Harmonium that people are warned not to store even small amounts of Harmonium together. The Trustwarren, in contrast, held nearly all of the Atium produced by the Pits over a thousand years, and it doesn't form a Perpendicularity. Granted, the Atium produced was an alloy and the Trustwarren was not one massive object, so it probably didn't count as very Investiture Dense, but the fact that Harmonium put close together does hints that it's very Invested. How or why that is, I haven't the foggiest, but it does seem to be the case. It would be the most Investiture Dense form of it, but how much Investiture does it have? The beads are small, so it's not unreasonable that they wouldn't have enough to produce a glow. But there are still visual clues. Vin leaks the Mists (so do people using the Bands) because she's oversaturated with Investiture. I honestly don't know anything about White Sand beyond what's been observed of it in other Cosmere books because I can't get my hands on the White Sand books, so I can't say much about that. But from what I do understand of it, the sand is white because of the lichen that grows on it, and that lichen may be glowing to produce the white effect. I can't say that with 100% certainty though. Nightblood has the color-enhancing aura I believe, but when he's truly supposed to shine (literally) is when he's unsheathed, but we end up at the same problem in that he's black. He also leaks Investiture like Vin, but that's black too. How fitting that he's so Invested that he shows all three signs of it. The one where Vin is thinking about it is her thinking about what she's read from the logbook, so it does indeed refer to the lake as black, just off-page. The description of glassy and metallic isn't mutually exclusive with the color black. My point exactly, thanks for compiling all of them It was a valid theory to make, it's just very unlikely as we understand it right now. That's generally a good thing to do, but there's a big gray area where WoBs near-confirm something but not entirely explicitly, so sometimes that's easier said than done. Like I said just above, when Vin refers to the lake as black, she's thinking of the logbook. You have made me question though, do we know that the epigraphs are unaltered? I had always assumed they were the exact same, altered or not. That's actually a really good idea, that could totally be the case! I went for a quick break and have come back, and after ruminating on it for a while, it's not as bulletproof as I originally thought, though it still has merit. My problem is, The Dor isn't very sentient. It can barely be classified as such in Elantris, and even that by the very loosest of terms. Its sentience is defined mostly by wanting release. But where is the line between something wanting to do something and something inclined to do something as a feature of its nature? A ball rolls downhill on a slope. If the ball becomes sentient and wants to roll down the hill, what's the difference? You get the same result either way. Can the Dor truly be called sentient when it's only expressed feature of sentience is "wanting" to do something that it would be inclined to do by its nature anyway? That's mostly just philosophical rhetoric because I love psychology, but the problem is this: The Dor is not very sentient. It is, but barely. Yet it glows very brightly. Sprenblades, which are fully sapient, don't glow nearly as intensely. Edit: I just noticed you called Autonomy's Perpendicularity the Dor. We don't know if it's necessarily purified Dor that they're using.

I did not, but it makes the same point. I'm beginning to think it was a Thread here on the Shard rather than a WoB, because I haven't been able to find it so far. I'll add it here as soon as I find it. That's exactly it, thanks for finding it. And you're right, it's not as poignant as I was thinking, I only had a vague recollection of it and assumed it was a WoB, but since it isn't it isnt nearly as bulletproof as I was assuming. I don't know that the WoB debunks it, but it certainly isnt as big a possibility as I had initially thought. I like this idea, but like Alder has pointed out, I don't think that's how Perpendicularities work. It may be that it does touch the SR and the absence of Devotion and Dominion's Investiture is what causes it to seemingly not reach the SR, but that's just speculation. Thanks to Treamayne, It's clear now that what I was referencing was actually Khriss's Essay on the Selish system and not a WoB, and even that was just a theory. Im not quite as confident that this is how it occured, but as it stands right now it could be that Odium just shoved the Investiture out of the SR and didn't bother with where it went after that. It may have just landed straight away in the CR, or it may have splashed back and forth, perhaps even into the PR, before eventually ending up in the CR. It could have happened, and the 'disastrous things' could be Investiture burning across the Physical Realm. It would have separated due to things like CR Geography, yes, but surely within one isolated chunk of Dor the movement would have caused a Perpendicularity to form. Its two whole Shards' worth of Investiture, even a separated portion of it should form a Perpendicularity. The Pool on Elantris isn't very large, so the same amount of liquid Dor, which should be twice as Investiture-Dense as regular Devoted Inevstiture, should also be able to make a Perpendicularity. Yet, nowhere in the Dor does a Perpendicularity form. I know that the Dor is Ionised and so would be less concentrated in any given spot, but if its moving around in a storm, it should by random chance alone at least come close together enough for a Perpendicularity to form occasionally. I'm starting to think the answer may just be Cognitive Realm weirdness, possibly because space is weird in a Realm shaped by thoughts. The Atium we see was an alloy, and so wouldn't be very Investiture-Dense. We never see a big amount of Lerasium in once place either, only ever beads. Same for Harmonium, Raysium and Trellium. We never see a truly large amount of God metal together, save for the Atium cache, which is made of an alloy and so diluted. The Mists are hardly concentrated, they're spread out over the entire Final Empire, and before that, maybe the world. It forms as mist too, so it's just water molecules suspended in the air, which aren't all that concentrated either. They're not truly gaseous, since when it rains the Mists get beat down and the regualrly cause condensation. Ruin's Perpendicularity is described only 3 times: Once in a stained glass window at a noble's keep, once when Vin is thinking about the logbook, and once in an epigraph taken from the logbook itself. 2 out of those 3 times, the Lake is described as dark: Given that Ruin's Investiture is Black, his Perpendicularity may just be black too, so it wouldn't "glow" the way we expect. The Well also only held a fraction of Preservation's power. It's a lot, yes, but it by no means held an "immense" amount of Preservations power: The only odd one out is Patji's Eye, and that one is a weird one from the get-go. Yeah, I think that whole idea was to explain this exact thing. As for the pool near Elantris, I'm sure it's been confirmed somewhere that the pool is Devotion's Perpendicularity (The Coppermind says there has to be another one for Dominion somewhere), and I always interpreted the Voice as an echo of Devotion, for much the same reasons as Alder. The Pool is pure Devoted Inevstiture, and most likely existed before the Splintering. The Dor doesn't factor into any of it, as of Elantris it's only just begun to form a rudimentary consciousness, and all that developing consciousness wants is release. It can't be the Voice, and since the Voice's actions don't seem to align with what Dominion hypothetically would be like, some echo of Devotion is the only viable option left, through process of elimination. I won't be weighing into the the debate about how Perpendicularities work, since we just don't have enough on them to say anything definitively. However, just to throw my two cents in, I will say that I was always under the impression that just as an immense concentration of Investiture causes time dilation the same as a large amount of mass would, a large enough amount of Investiture would also generate a metaphorical gravity that pulls the Realms together at a single point, like how enough mass forced into a small space will eventually crush itself under its own gravity and become a singularity, around which a balck hole forms. This was largely because of something Khriss says and what Dalinar does when he creates a Perpendicularity.