Underwater_Worldhopper

Kelsier says it himself in TLM, the spike is stapling him to a body

This is such a great concept, I love it a lot. No questions or nitpicks this time, it's just a really cool world Didn't you say there was gonna be a magic system? Also, would it be accurate to your vision for this world if Passion + Whimsy = Hedonism? This one was particularly creative and honestly, I don't see how no one else has thought of this before. Absolutely amazing, unquestionably flawless worldbuilding and logic, I liked the culture and uniqueness of it especially. To be frank, I think we've peaked with this one. You just can't do better than this. Take my rep, you've genuinely earned it.

@Frustration Also that could also be true, there was a different thread discussing whether Elantrians would have Heightenings and that scene was brought up, but we didn't consider (to my knowledge) that Riino could have had Breaths.

Ah alright I'm just pointing out that their Immortality isn't a product of their Investment, not directly

That was before things like Heightenings being granted by general Investiture were canonised, we see in RoW that Riino detects Kaladin's presence in an uncannily similar way to Life Sense. It could be played off as not applying during the Reod and then the characters being too distracted to notice in the events afterwards. Yumi could have Heightenings too, but doesn't notice them as out of the ordinary or worth mentioning because she's had them since being chosen, which was within a year of her birth at most.

I'm not sure if you mean that some Shards have less Investiture than others, but there are WoBs saying all Shards were originally equal in power. Also, in RoW Ash says that Ishar was the one who made the Heralds immortal through Bondsmithing.

This just made me realise something. Kelsier is a Sliver, he probably has enough Investiture in him to make a body he possesses look like him. Does that not mean he could have possessed any random body (or living person if he wants to emulate the Fused, but I'm not sure if that would be possible) and not a Mistwraith with his bones specifically? We don't even know if Mistwraiths survived the Catacendre, technically.

It depends. We assume that the Intents have something to do with the Dawnshards, but nothing's been confirmed as far as I know. I personally think it was due to the people that were there, since we have WoBs saying that Adonalsium could have been Shattered into a different number of Shards, that the Intents of the Shards could have been different, and that changing the people who were present, including how many were there, would also have counted. This one isn't as relevant, but there are some implications that the kinds of people the Shatterers were might have affected what Shards were produced (and by extension that other Intents were possible if the people were different): Found one that outright affirms the implications the WoB was making: Another one that reaffirms this, slightly: And another one that says the same thing: Here's a fun little possibility: So it's likely that the Shatterers weren't intending to create Shards with specific Intents, though it's likely possible they could've if they tried. Instead, their personalities and perhaps end goals likely had some influence over what Shards were produced.

It probably was just how Invested Yumi is. The fact that she didn't have an actual body and how Invested she is probably caused the majority of the side effects. Maybe her Invested Spiritual Aspect just supercharged the Connection, and her nature as a CS initiated the body jumping. I'm certain that wouldn't have happened if Yumi had an actual true physical body.

I don't know that Cognitive Identity (with a capital I) is a thing. They had their personalities all along, even if their minds weren't in a proper state to think clearly or express it. Nightmare Painting isn't an Invested Art, it isn't really doing anything using Investiture, which would have been required to reConnect them to their Identity, if it even still exists somewhere in the SR or Beyond. I think it's more that his Painting them into their actual forms is mimicking what the FM was doing: keeping a grip on them to make them manifest as they should be (original personalities, bodies, etc), but allowing them to go about as they would have of their own volition. By forcing them into their actual bodies, he was helping them remember who they are and think clearer. They were already stabilized by the FM, but since his attention wasn't on them, they could act for themselves, once Painter reminded them who they really are. Alder described it really well, he was reinforcing their personality with his own perception, and since the FM had given them substance but wasn't forcing his own will on them, they basically reverted back to normal people, if Cognitive Shadows.

A Hijo did it, the one that escaped and contacted Yumi the night before they started swapping. It's not really unchained Bondsmith level, Honor wouldn't have put a restriction on creating a bond between two people like that, nor would Connecting people like that use much Investiture (which doesn't really matter regardless since apparently, the Hijo can draw Investiture straight from the Spiritual Realm). Design, despite not being a Spren that grants Adhesion, can still mess with Yumi and Nikaro's Connection, and we know that Worldhoppers have some way of using Connection to learn different languages, so it might be possible to just manipulate regular Connections on your own, and what Bondsmiths do is that but far more powerful. The intent was only to have Yumi be anchored to something physical which would allow her to keep the memories of the simulation that were being repeated excised from her mind, the swapping was an unintended side effect, probably caused by the fact that Yumi didn't have a physical form. If manipulating Connection isn't just something general you can learn to do, then we have to assume the Hijo have the ability to manipulate it like Bondsmiths, although that wouldn't explain how design could mess with it.

The Daystar, aka UTol, is a planet, not an actual star. I think you're a bit off with Silver, we don't really know what Silver does except that it can be used to drive away/hurt Shades on Threnody + Might be able to anchor someone through a Cognitive Anomaly, so we can't say with certainty that it counteracts or pierces Investiture. Instead, the light coming off of UTol is probably Invested in some form, which is why it can pierce the Shroud. It is similar to how, since Yumi was a Cognitive Shadow made of the Shroud, she could see in the Shroud perfectly clearly, as if it wasn't even there. Mistborn Spoilers, in case you haven't read those: So most likely, UTol is just radiating Investiture, which is able to pass through the Shroud, and how that Investiture got on UTol probably has to do with Virtuosity's death.

Thanks, but if anything, I'm stubborn as hell. I'll rewrite everything, even if it's missing a lot of details from the original that I can't recall anymore. Hopefully, it'll go faster this time around, since I have a fixed plan instead of making it up as I go along and adding whatever catches my fancy.

Whimsy and Passion sounds like a really good one to explore, I'd love to see that one. And for anyone who cares, the Mercy Shardworld I've been working on for several hours every day for a week just got the vast majority of it erased because my laptop died. I'm sure it'll come out in the next several hundred years or so (╥﹏╥)

Revenge >:) What you're saying makes sense. It would be way easier if both were blanked. I don't know about the Command-Breaking part, unless you're breaking the "Your Breath to Mine/ My (not Joe) life to yours, my Breath become yours" Command that tied the breath to them. I don't think that'd be necessary. You don't have to break that Command to Awaken something, and you don't have to break the Command you give to an AC to retrieve the Breaths. They allow for Commands of their owner to overrule whatever else they're currently doing. And once they aren't keyed to anyone, they can be Commanded by everyone, including a "Your Breath to mine" Command from someone else.

It depends on what the wording of the contract between them was. Hoid isn't harmed in any way by the loss of his Breaths, so maybe TOdium just found a loophole. It's insufficient knowledge to be able to confidently say that Breaths are that far separated from the holder. They wouldn't be re-keyed through normal Awakening, the Breaths remain keyed to the original holder. We know that they can be taken by anyone from the AC, so they must be Identitiless even while in the person. I think they must count enough as part of them for their Identity to be drained from the Breaths. As for not being able to store 100% of your Identity, It hasn't been confirmed. You can't store all of some things like weight (which has been confirmed) and others like strength because it would straight up kill you, but blanking Identity seems like one that you could safely get rid of completely for a while. Connection isn't confirmed to be needed to Command the Breaths at all, and the Returned keep their Identity. You can't take a Breath away from a Lifeless, but you can plainly detach them from someone living, so I think that's the deciding factor that makes a difference here. They're still attached to your soul, and they get unkeyed once you store Identity, so I think you could. You might to check out this thread:

I can see where you're coming from, but I think there isn't enough evidence to be able to say that lack of Connection would make the power not work (or nearly that) altogether. It's an interesting thought experiment though. Is it even possible to form a Connection with someone when they're stuffing as much of it away as possible? I don't think the Connector needs to be in the Aluminum field for the Connection to be nerfed. If you were entirely surrounded with Aluminum and a Connector tried tapping Connection to you, it wouldn't do anything no matter how close or far they were. We know that for a fact. It's just a matter of if you can do that without entirely surrounding yourself.

It's worth noting that it hasn't been confirmed that F-Duralumin is what Marsh is doing. Could he have gained another spike for that post-Catacendre, after Hemalurgy was nerfed? Or did Ruin give him that one? We really need to map out what powers he has. Do you have a WoB saying that Connection is needed? I thought EA worked by lapping at someone's Cognitive Aspect. That's only been confirmed to apply to the Divine Breath, not regular Breaths. We were just discussing it on another thread the other day, you're not likely to be able to replicate that with Breaths, since the two are fundamentally different. So, do you think he's using them together or is it F-Duralumi until someone pushes past that, and then he drops that and engages the EA? I don't think that would work without Duralumin Flaring the EA every time, meeting the specter of death isn't likely to be a forgettable experience regardless of what you're feeling unless it's combined with F-Duralumin. Also, as Aluminum becomes more and more common, what does that mean for Marsh? And if you're wearing enough Aluminum, can you become immune to the effect of storing/tapping F-Duralumin, and thus resist any manipulation people attempt using that?

I don't get what you mean by "requires a gem housing to provide Stormlight". That's needed in neither the Tradition Fabrials nor the Modern ones, it's the gemstone that provides the Light in both cases. The gem housing determines the effect of the Fabrial, again in both. The Traditional ones use Shardbladium to create Surge Fabrials, like the Soulcasters, Oathgates, and (although this one isn't outright confirmed, it must also be a Surge Fabrial of some kind) Suppressors, and the Modern ones use Allomantic metals to manipulate the Spren inside to create effects. The Raysium dagger doesn't have a spren in the ruby, so it isn't a modern Fabrial, and the gem housing is a regular metal alloy, ruling out Traditional Sapient Fabrials.

It technically does. Traditional Sapient Spren Fabrials are metal housings for replaceable regular gemstones. We know that the housing for the gemstone is a nickel alloy that doesn't affect the effect of the dagger. And, looking through RoW to check some things, Raboniel outright says that they've been using Raysium daggers for several Desolations to drain Radiants of Stormlight, and that they'd never at all realized spren could be captured in gemstones until BAM got imprisoned. That rules out Sapient Spren Fabrials, and with the lack of a Spren in the gemstone, it isn't a modern Fabrial either. I get that there's no direct proof for the Raysium, but unless there's something entirely novel going on that we've never been shown before, we can rule out all other options except that maybe all the Raysium we've ever seen has been altered in some way to conduct Investiture one way, which is unlikely, though still possible.

That's what it says on the Coppermind, and the Dagger isn't really a Fabrial. It doesn't use any of the 16 Allomantic metals for one, there's never any Spren in it for another, and the Fused are shown to be behind the humans in terms of their understanding of Fabrial Science. They know how to make Sapient Spren Fabrials like Soulcasters or Suppressors, but that was about it. They only learned that a soul could be captured in a gemstone as an extrapolation once the Radiants captured Ba-Ado-Mishram into a gemstone. As of the True Desolation, they have learned to Corrupt Spren so Fabrials work on Voidlight instead, but they're still just profiting off of what humans have discovered. With how quickly they were able to put together Raysium spears and such before we see them experiment with other Fabrials, we have to assume they've been using Rasium weapons from before. As for when Raboniel flipped the metal around, she does nothing else to the dagger, yet that was enough to reverse the effects of it. That wouldn't have been the case for a Fabrial. It could be that not all Raysium has a polarity like that, and the stuff in the spears and dagger is specially treated to act that way, but I don't think any of them are Fabrials. Navani assumes they are in the Fabrial Lecture Epigraphs, but that's an assumption based on the idea that the Fused have access to the knowledge of how ancient Fabrials are made, which although true, isn't nearly as extensive as she assumes.

Raysium has a natural polarity along which it takes Inevstiture, it only ever steals in a single direction, so there's no risk of it going the wrong way if you put the correct end in yourself. You could steal Investiture a person was holding this way, such as Dor or Light, but not Breaths. Those are Keyed to Identity, at best they'd enter you but you'd be unable to use them (and the person you stole them from could Command them to come back through "Your Breath to mine"), and at worst they'd be pulled along the Raysium but unable to enter you at all. This wouldn't be a viable way to steal powers, except maybe Breaths if you can find a way to Unkey them, because powers are part of the soul ans Raysium can't affect the soul. "What?", you might be thinking. "Why can't it affect souls? We see it do otherwise." No, we don't. We see Jezrien get sucked up into a Sapphire, and Raboniel mentions specifically that The dagger she gives Navani doesn't have enough Raysium to be dangerous to her. Yet, Raboniel mentions that the dagger doesn't have enough Rasyium to steal a Herald's soul, and therefore can't be used against her. Fused and Heralds are the only ones (I guess not the only ones, it would work on other Cognitive Shadows, but you get what I mean) whose soul can be taken through Raysium, because they're Cognitive Shadows puppeteering replacement bodies that aren't truly theirs. Heavenly Ones regularly stab Windrunners with Raysium spears, and while that sucks out their Light, we never hear anything about a Windrunner's soul getting sucked out. I was briefly concerned about what would happen if you sucked someone's soul into you through the Raysium, but I'm confident that you can't do that to a normal person. If you did it to a Fused, they'd probably possess you like they do the Singer bodies, and you would effectively die, and it's possible that the Herald's would work the same way. I don't think you could use Raysium like Hemalurgy, unless you steal whatever it is that Raysium specifically steals, because Raysium does not tear the soul the way Hemalurgy requires (on its own). Something fun you could try doing with this is stealing the Charge from a Hemalurgic spike and trying to put that into yourself. Is that a way to permanently get that power? Or will it fade away immediately (or near-instantly, but quickly nonetheless) as soon as it leaves the metal and is no longer held in the right vessel? You could definitely try this slightly differently by sticking a Raysium needle into yourself, then Hemalurgically stabbing someone with a Raysium spike that's connected to the needle via a Raysium wire. Do you reckon that would work? Also, a clarification on Nightblood, he eats the Investiture so the Breaths he steals don't need to be reKeyed to him.

I don't think that's necessary. The attachment is weak enough that the Awakeners Intent and Command can make the Breaths defy the attachment and leave. Breaths can be Commanded, Joe's Breaths lack Identity and so have no reason not to obey the Commands of others, so you could touch Joe and retrieve his Breaths just like you could take any Identitiless Breaths. I'd argue that strength converted from literally someone's actual body would be more a part of them than Breaths (which are made to be easily given or taken), yet you can easily use someone else's strength if their Pewtermind is Unkeyed, so it follows that you should be able to take someone's Breath too, if it's all unkeyed and you have the right Intent and Command.

I think your post cut off. Anywho, you're focusing too much on the idea that it's inspired by anime to add another layer of implausibility on. Even the op mentions when talking about the Spren section of the theory that cartoons could also be an inspiration, and while Brandon evidently doesn't watch much anime, he does have children who he's probably been exposed to cartoons through, if he wasn't already. So none of these are linked directly through the idea that it's solely extrapolated from anime, anime was just also mentioned in the section of the theory about spren because its a similar medium that uses the same or similar techniques to visually represent some concepts that would be hard to visualise otherwise. Where anxietyspren are concerned, you mentioned that you imagined them as two parts twisting around one another as if to denote the tightness in your chest that anxiety can make people feel. The vein thingy is supposed to represent pulsing veins, and your heartbeat does pick up just as much in anxiety as it does in anger, probably more. As for Concentrationspren, I see what youre saying, but it just doesn't match the context of where we see them. Not even speaking comparatively, think about it. Yes you can argue that they could have been derived from the same inspirations as Azir, which is one of the places we see them, but meditation doesn't tonally fit with the context they manifest in in the books. So unless Brandon took just the idea that inspired that particular visual out of its context of peaceful and calm meditation and reappropriated it to furious scholarly thinking, I don't see why that would be the case. And if that is what you're trying to say, then that same concept could be used to justify the black cross veins that show up as Anxietyspren. Not to mention, connecting them through Azir's inspirations is a stretch too, considering ALL scholar-related Spren are more common there, because they as a country value and express scholastic thinking more than the Alethi, which we follow for the largest part of the story. On it being a false premise, I argue that it isn't based on anime at all, but rather cartoons, which Brandon will have seen his fair share of (even unwillingly) because kids. Again you're focusing too much on the idea that it's Japanese derived specifically. Windspren being lines of light, Logicspren being literal brainstorms, that's at least 4 that can be argued as cartoonishly inspired. I see what you mean about distrusting theories that make logical leaps without much evidence, but that's usually more fitting for a more technical theory. There's a spectrum of theories that range from intended as serious and being heavily grounded in the Canon of the story, with implications for other mechanics if it's true (where pointing out holes in it is very important), to fun theories that have little evidence but also minimal impact on the story and the mechanics of the pseudo-science going on behind the scenes, which is in the realm of headcanons and such. Some theories are just meant to be fun and nonserious, where picking out holes isn't necessary because the theory isn't supposed to be that serious.

I don't know about that. I've seen plenty of black anger-vein thingies, and I don't watch anime, so I've mostly seen it in other animated shows, like cartoons. As for why they show up this way, Like you said later, they're influenced by people's perceptions but not totally defined by them, so the in-world reason could be that's just how their true forms in Shadesmar look like, and they can be seen as an allusion to the angry vein thingies from a Doylist perspective. I always imagined them as an outline of a "+" that spin vertically, and this theory of them made pretty good sense to me, given how I'd imagined them. Again, haven't seen much anime, but I've seen visual effects like these in cartoons, and it makes sense to me. I was initially also supportive of your idea of them being inspired by meditative imagery, but upon mulling on it a bit more, I don't think it makes sense for the context we see Concentrationspren in. Meditation is about a relaxed kind of focus, whereas in the series we see them show up more around Scholars who are heavily engaged in active thinking, something that's more in line with people trying to focus hard and use psychic abilities than meditation. This one I agree with you on. I always imagined them as really small streamers that spin vertically around music. I suppose one could make the argument that they could represent the way Rosharans write musical notes, but that's a really big stretch with basically no evidence. I'm not too pressed about it, I personally think of spren as not entirely determined by humankind, so the little quirks of how they appear that aren't linked to specific ideas relating to the thing they're attracted to can be assumed to be inspired by real-life things. Most of these make sense to me, even though I've never watched anime or seen these sorts of depictions in them, so for me, it works.