Rand-Al-Thaidakar

Thanks! Sorry about that!

Hi! This is something I have been thinking about since finishing Isles of the Emberdark, and wanted to share it with y'all to see what you think. I think it's really interesting that in Isles of the Emberdark, Dajer talks about the Battle of Alehela, and how his lungs were permanently injured due to the sky being set on fire (presumably by the surge of division, similar to the way that Alaswha was made uninhabitable, and caused the mass exodus to Roshar-- but on a smaller scale hopefully). I think it's so interesting because Alehela is only one letter off from Alethela, which was a Silver Kingdom, the predecessor of Alethkar on Roshar. After looking at the Coppermind, it seems to be likely that Alehela is Rosharan settlement, or at least a settlement (wherever it may be) that was founded mainly by Rosharans, because of the symmetrical name and because Dajer mentions that the Scadrians are at war with the Rosharans. I know that there are quite a few Skybreaker worldhoppers, (seen in Mistborn Era 2, in Isles of the Emberdark, and in a different way in The Sunlit Man), so it's not unthinkable that the Battle of Alehela or its division-surge-fire took place on a Rosharan-controlled satellite planet or within the Cognitive Realm in some fashion, but I just think that these pairs of symmetrical names and events could be a clue to something, or that some hidden piece of lore is hiding within there. This isn't really a theory or a question, but just something I have been wanting to investigate a little more and hear some of your thoughts on. At the time in which Isles of the Emberdark takes place, Dajer speaks about the Battle of Alehela being within his lifetime, and the Kingdom Alethela would be thousands of years old, even older than it was during Stormlight Era 1, when it was already at least 2,000 years old, so they obviously aren't the same. But the symmetry between the fire at the Battle of Alehela and the fire at the expulsion from Alaswha, alongside the near-symmetricality of the names Alehela and Alethela seem to be hinting at something to me. What do y'all think?

Thanks for the insightful comments, Trusk'our and alder24! Yes! I know that people born on shardworlds all have innate investiture. Nalthians simply have more investiture than people native to other shardworlds due to Endowment's endowment. I agree that the sword is consuming their innate investiture, although I hadn't considered that it would also consume their spiritweb. Good thing TLR didn't have one! I just simply didn't realize that people across the Cosmere could even become Drabs- I guess I just thought that was a Nalthis only occurrence, and was about their Breath, not just about their innate investiture. This is questionable. Breaths in type 3 objects aren't kinetic - they are either static or innate - because a Seeker can't detect them. That means they shouldn't need to consume any investiture to work. This is super interesting- I didn't make this connection when reading TLM. I'm coming to the conclusion that the removal of investiture at a large (for that person) scale also removes color (of a person/object) across the Cosmere. I wonder if the opposite could be true- could the addition of investiture to a person increase their vibrancy/depth of color outside of Nalthis? This obviously happens on Nalthis, exemplified by Susebron's color aura, but I'm questioning it on a larger scale now! If that does happen, it also makes me wonder if people of the perfect color recognition (third) heightening could act similarly to seekers then- seeing if someone is more or less colorful than they should be or than they were yesterday, and tracking investiture in that way? Obviously when a Radiant intakes a lot of Stormlight they glow, but there are many times when Kal or Shallan only take in a little bit so that they don't glow or so that they glow so little that people don't notice. I wonder if someone of the third heightening could see the change!

Hello all! This is my first real post here (so I'm not sure how/if I need to block out text that is spoilery- let me know if/how to do that if so). I'm sure this has been spoken about before, but I wanted to talk about it because I've been thinking about it a lot. I'm re-reading Stormlight in preparation for SLA5 in December, and I'm currently about 3/4 through Oathbringer. I'm in the part currently where Highmarshal Azure (who we know is Vivenna from Warbreaker) joins the gang and helps storm the palace at Kholinar. I've been trying to pay special attention to her sword this readthrough. (I read SLA 1-4 first, then Mistborn 1-3, all the other Cosmere novels, and then Mistborn 4-7 last on my first Cosmere readthrough, so I didn't clock anything at all about Azure or her sword the first time.) This time, with the knowledge I have about Vivenna/Azure, Warbreaker, Nightblood, and all of the interlinking parts between Roshar and Nalthis (including Zahel and his role in all of this), I have both been really enjoying and wishing I had more information about Azure and her sword (can't wait for the Warbreaker sequel!). Kaladin, Adolin, and everyone else who sees it being used describes it as a Shardblade (Rosharan bias, obviously), but because of who she is and where she is from, alongside the fact that her blade is so different than all the other Shardblades, I feel that it's safe to assume that it's another Awakened blade, similar to Nightblood. I assume there's a WoB that confirms this, but I don't have the willpower to dredge it up currently. I've seen some speculation about how she Awakened her blade, and the Command used to do so- some simple things like "be a sword" being an option, although I believe Brandon probably wouldn't go so simple. I'm not ultra concerned about the Command right now, (but I'll talk a little about this at the end of the post) though I do think that it's a super interesting dialogue and that Nalthians (esp. ones who know/are associated with/are a member of the five scholars) probably learned to go with simpler things after Nighblood's creation, but anyway- to the meat of the post and my question. In Chapter 83 "Crimson to Break," Adolin describes Azure using her blade thusly: This is why I came to create this post: it seems to me that her Blade is turning the people she kills with it into Drabs as they die. I think there's one of two things that could be happening here- either the sword is using/consuming that investiture to increase in strength, similar to Nightblood, or that Vivenna is somehow using the sword as a conduit to transfer the investiture from the people she kills into herself to power her other Awakening abilities (she uses her Awakened cloak in the fighting at the palace on the page following the quote above). But here's my question- how would that work? I believed that only people who had BioChromatic Breath, given to them by Endowment, could become drabs, due to them having a higher-than-average (at least on a Cosmere-wide average) amount of investiture, and due to Endowment giving them BioChromatic Breath. Anyone with a normal amount of Breath on Nalthis can use the Commands to give away their breath, and they do, but would that work with native Rosharans too? If not, how is her sword seemingly making them drabs? Would that have to be in relation to her Blade's Command? "Consume the Breath of the people you impale?" Do all awakened blades need to keep consuming investiture to stay "alive," similar to the Returned? Anyway- let me know what you think! Edit: I should also say- I know that Awakened objects (specifically Type III invested entities), as a rule, consume investiture to follow out their Commands, and that acting uses investiture, which runs out over time and as the objects do things. I assume that it works similarly with the swords (but I guess none of us really know how it works with Type IV invested entities, which I am posturing that Azure's sword is) but I'm interested to see what everyone has to say about it.

I'd say the Horneater Peaks, but if that isn't big enough to be a whole country, probably Herdaz.

Can we fit coins in here? It's covered under "et al," but seems like it would be common enough to be worthy of being named.

That sounds delicious! I'd love a cookie.

Depends- what kind of sprinkles/spikes are in/on it? Asiago! Or any bagel with an egg and cheese

I believe hemalurgy is important, and I'm really excited to see how the hemalurgy tech progresses in future Cosmere novels. I love magic system interactions and I think hemalurgy is going to be super useful for these. I wanna see some powerspikes! My hair is brown red.

Hello people! I have been reading Cosmere books since 2021 (started with TWoK) but am now caught up on the Cosmere minus the WaT prelude (and many WoBs). I've been browsing here for about a year. I'm really excited for the Stormlight TTRPG, Wind & Truth, and having some cool discussions with y'all about all the stuff.