skaa

It's good that we have a written (and updated) form of the excerpt Brandon read a while back. This particular bit seems to be the most interesting: The "grand" hunt of gloomspren obviously happens on Shadesmar, where spren seem to be much larger than they are on the Physical Realm. The gloomspren's "real" form is probably monstrous enough in size that it's easy to compare them to greatshells. As for "her", that spren who Syl remembers as a gloomspren-hunter, I'm wondering if she's another female "megaspren" or at least a high-ranking spren, but different from the Nightwatcher. I mean, I guess she could be the Nightwatcher, but I don't think she's the hunting type. I'm thinking the hunter spren might be aligned with either the Spark or the Foil Essence, since Surgebinders of those Essences seem to be the type who'd go out of their way to track down and kill non-sentient monsters.

In case anyone was wondering, I'm still here, checking the forums almost daily. I'm currently not motivated to do any theorycrafting, but I'm sure I'll get back to it once we get new interesting WoBs.

Storm it! This whole thread started and ended all while I was asleep! Curse you, timezone difference! Anyway, I like how Horneaters are part Parshendi. Perhaps that's the real reason behind the persecution that eventually led to them living in the mountains. The hatred against Voidbringers might have pushed the Alethi into attacking the Horneaters. (Not that such a rationale would have been justified, mind you.) By the way, I had the impression that Brandon has never considered the possibility of Feruchemical gold users healing Hemalurgic wounds before today. I wonder how he feels about this, and if he'll utilize this in a future Mistborn book.

Thanks, Khyrindor! That's kind of confusing. Does it mean that Adhesion and Progression are similar to the God Surges, but not quite identical to them? Oh well. I'm going to have to revise my Essence-Surge theory in light of his answer to the Surgepair question. Maybe next week. Thanks again!

If this is true (and that's a big if), then thank the Almighty that the adult form of larkins don't seem to eat Stormlight, otherwise Shallan wouldn't have been able to Lightweave in front of it.

@Moogle: You make a good argument, but I personally like the original post, not as a theory, but rather just a cool connection discovered by Horatio between the three known "mega-spren" and the major Olympian gods. As some of you know, I'm fond of looking for things that influenced Brandon's fantasy concepts. Some of them came from Greek philosophy and metaphysics (e.g. the Elements, the Realms) so I wouldn't be surprised if Greek mythology was also an influence.

Given that "to dine with the Nightwatcher" is an ancient Rosharian euphemism for death, I think you're spot on. A thousand upvotes to you, sir!

Great discussion, guys! I like Argent's term "Stormstrider" very much, so I'll use it from now on. I still don't have a strong opinion on what Stormstriders really are. I started this thread leaning more towards the "some sort of spren" option, but the discussion has moved me just a bit towards "some sort of animal". Actually, Eshonai went into the storm with her eyes closed, only opening them when the Stormfather arrived. It's possible the Stormstriders have already come and gone by then. Of course, given how big the Shattered Plains area is and how few humans there are staying outside during highstorms, it's not very likely for two Stormstriders to be spotted even if they're not consciously avoiding people.EDIT: I was trying to upvote one of hoser's posts above, but accidentally downvoted it. I kinda hate my phone's tiny screen now. Please correct my mistake, guys. Thanks!

I also agree that something similar to duralumin-boosting happened. I'd also like to point out that we've seen duralumin-enhanced future-sensing Allomancy in HoA, and its effect is to let the user know the ultimate long-term result of certain actions. I believe that showing Dusk and Vathi their own corpses lying around everywhere they look was the way Sak's ability presents the grim future of Patji (and likely the whole First of the Sun) now that their civilization is on the fast track towards advanced Realmatic knowledge and having to deal with the nastier forces of the Cosmere. That was my interpretation when I first read the story, and I think it's sort of backed up by Brandon's essay afterwards: Could Sak show the corpse of the island? No, she can't. She can only show the corpse of her host. A warning about a larger existential threat, like the death of the island and the "dusk" of everything, can only manifest via the imagery of her host's corpse. Hence, corpses everywhere. If the Realmatic Theory presented in the machine's manual is detailed enough, the company's scientists might be able to find clues on what kinds of Invested effects to look for in their minor Shardworld. Given the information Vathi got from Dusk, the solution would be obvious: send chicks of every species of bird they have to Patji, create as many types of Aviar as they can, study each type of Investiture these new Aviars can bestow, and see which types of Aviar Investiture can be used in ways described in the manual. Heck, the manual might even contain clues as to how Invested living things could bestow their power to non-living things (e.g. Aviars granting powers to ships). In other words, Aviar technology. Even if they don't find an Aviar that could grant space-faring ability (like, if Aviars can only grant Cognitive abilities), they might still find one that can grant the power to enter Shadesmar, and that would be enough to travel across the Cosmere. Anyway, I liked the story a lot. I can understand why Brandon had to leave out details like what other known Aviar powers there are, why the Ones Above are only mentioned but are not seen, and why the machine wasn't turned on. These are things that had to be sacrificed to keep the story focused. Even without those things, we've already read enough fantasy books (certainly enough Cosmere books) to get an idea of the possibilities for the Aviar powers. If Brandon wants, he could take this short story later on and make it a chapter (or two) of a full novel set on First of the Sun. But I think the short story already works as it stands. About the machine, we know from Vathi that they had already used it before, and it didn't seem to cause the same disturbance as when Winds opened it in the story, so we can conclude that the machine was designed to work exactly like a harmless mapping machine as long as its machinery was left unopened. So if Winds really turned the machine on (as Dusk assumed) instead of opening it as he actually did, there would have been no "duralumin" effect, Sak wouldn't have shown Dusk the "death of the island", and Vathi wouldn't have had to talk about the alien machines at all. The activation of the mapping function was a red herring. It was the opening of the machinery that was important to the story.

So, Weird Al Yankovic has a new song out called FOIL, a parody of Lorde's Royals. Here's the music video. I'm sharing this with you all here because the "tinfoil hat" concept has a special place in our Cosmere-loving hearts and the second part of Weird Al's song is all about protecting your mind with aluminum foil. I think Mr. Suit would approve. (I tried replacing Weird Al's lyrics with something more Cosmere-themed, but failed. Maybe someone else wants to take that challenge.)

Hey, Chaos. Might I suggest we rename the Steelheart forum to Reckoners instead? That's the official title of the series, right?

The party was quite awesome, Quitecontrary. Thanks for dropping by! Oh, and I'm back! Now if only I could manage to force these new theories of mine into shape. So far I've given up on one and asked for help (WOR spoilers!). I'll try to post something coherent next week. Meanwhile, let me see if I can contribute in some new discussions.

Edit: Changed topic title from Stormgiants to Stormstriders, as per Argent's excellent suggestion. And I'm back! I'm still trying to decide which oversized theory to post next on the 17th Shard. For now, let's me just do another round of "theory gathering" wherein I present a currently-unsolved Cosmere mystery and you guys try to convince all of us here about your theory (or your favorite theory from someone else) on the matter. Today let's look at a mystery we encountered in Words of Radiance, Chapter 74: So there were some huge, glowing things (let's call them "Stormstriders" for now) walking on the Shattered Plains during that particular highstorm. I don't think we've seen anything like this back in Way of Kings (there were mysterious flashes of light during Kaladin's storm dream, but those didn't have distinct creature-like forms). Other Sharders noticed these Stormstriders pretty early on and a few have posted about them within a month of the book's release. Some (including hoser) think these are the larval stage of chasmfiends. Flatline thinks they are voidspren, and some (like WEZ313 and Patrick Star) even think they are Unmade. None of these theories have convinced me so far. Here are some facts that may or may not help you in your theorycrafting: The glowing Stormstriders appeared before the highstorm started infusing things on the Shattered Plains with Stormlight. We know this because Shallan's dun sphere did not "recharge" until after Kaladin's talk with the Stormfather later on in the chapter. This gives us three possibilities: (A) the Stormstriders don't require Stormlight to glow, perhaps because they are spren, (B ) the Stormstriders have been traveling in the highstorm even before it reached the Shattered Plains, or (C ) both (A) and (B ) are true (e.g. the Stormstriders are some sort of spren that exist inside highstorms). Soon after Kaladin sees the Stormstriders, this happens: What was that chanting, and is it connected to the Stormstriders? How about the appearance of voidish Stormspren? Both seem to point to Stormform Parshendi. Were the Parshendi trying to control those Stormstriders somehow? Or are they doing something completely unrelated? Way back before the Stormstrider scene, in Chapter 49, Shallan seems to detect something inside an oncoming highstorm: Are those "shadows of life" the same as the Stormstriders that Kaladin would later see? They don't seem to glow by themselves as the Stormstriders did. Are they some other type of creature? Happy theorycrafting, everyone!

I like what happened to her in this story much better. HPMOR spoilers: It's in Chapter 26, but it's a bit subtle. You'll have to read Chapter 25 to see the clue that makes it much more obvious what happened.

Hey guys, I'm just dropping by to say something real quick. NOOOOOO!!!That is all. *returns to self-imposed Cosmere break*

I'll just use Quiver's thread to announce my two-week break from writing Cosmere theories starting from today. I might still check the forums from time to time, but I have to focus on some real-life things for a while.

Moogle brings up an interesting issue, though. Do we even know if people without Breath can detect the presence of auras? I mean, aside from those with Investiture-detection abilities (e.g. Bronze Allomancers, etc.).

Nightblood's sheath was described on multiple occasions as being "silver", not "silvery", "silver-like", or anything that might make it more ambiguous. Here's just one example from chapter fifty-five:

Holy crap! I totally forgot that Nightblood's sheath is made of silver! *tries to upvotes Tempus more than once*

The main gist of this theory was started by Tempus in my "Self-Awakening" thread, but I've decided to expand on it a little bit. My interpretation is slightly different from his, but he was the one who thought of the basic idea first. On two separate occasions, we see that Nalthians who are about to die have a "flickering" or "pulsing" Breath: Lightsong describes this flickering as the Breath getting weak. Tempus interprets this as the Breath becoming sub-divided, losing part of itself. While I agree that this flickering phenomenon has something to do with the Returned's weekly Breath requirement (and I applaud Tempus for that breakthrough), I don't think Breath is being subdivided at all. Let us go back to Lemex's pre-death Breath-pulsing. If the pulsing is due to the dwindling of Breath, then he should have had less Breath to give away in the end. And yet we don't see any indication that the amount of Breaths Vivenna received was any less compared to what Lemex supposedly had. If that doesn't convince you, then let us now look at what a typical Halladrien god experiences on his feast day, when he is in danger of dying unless he receives a new Breath: If the weakness that Lightsong experiences every feast day is due to his Divine Breath steadily sub-dividing, why do we not get any indication that his aura was diminishing? In fact, he never even mentions any decrease in Heightening. Now, you might say that the sub-dividing of Divine Breath is simply not enough to make a noticeable effect on his Heightening or his aura. But if the sub-Breath loss is that small, how does that explain his very noticeable weakness? And how does that explain how a single regular Breath from a normal child is enough to put him back to his full strength? Here is my solution: There was no sub-dividing of Divine Breath going on. Lightsong's Divine Breath wasn't getting less itself. What is getting less is the strength of the bond between the Divine Breath and Lightsong. In other words, the Breath inside a dying person behaves erratically because it is starting to weaken its grip from his body. Words of Radiance spoilers: So, to tie this back to the topic of "Self-Awakening" (or "Manifestation of Self-Transformation in a BioChromatic Host" ), it seems that using BioChromatic Investiture on yourself tugs at your Breath. Do this often enough, or with enough Power, and your Breath will be pulled completely off from your body. I think the reason the Returned can't hold on to a Breath for long is because they are (unconsciously) performing a constant self-transformation on themselves. Now, the Divine Breath (being a Splinter of significant power) is probably strong enough to withstand the pulling force experienced during this self-transformation to some extent. But after a week of this going on, even the strength of the Divine Breath will not be enough. It will start separating from the Returned's body. I can think of two ways to prevent this. One is to make the Returned pause his self-transformation somehow (more on that later). Another is to receive a regular Breath, which will be used for a second type of self-transformation, one with the Intent of bringing the Divine Breath's bond back to full strength. This re-bonding self-transformation effect will of course tug at the regular Breath, causing it to be pulled away. This is why a Returned will need at least two Breaths per week to actually grow his Investiture; because one Breath will have to be expended ("consumed") each week just to keep the Divine Breath bonded to the Returned. Now, let's go to some half-serious, crazy speculation. *start of half-serious, crazy speculation* I mentioned above that a Returned can also prevent losing his Divine Breath and dying by simply pausing his self-transformation. If you think a Returned couldn't function without the constant self-transformation he's unconsciously performing, you'd be correct. Doing what I suggest would make a Returned's movements very, very limited. But how do we go about doing this? A Returned can't just stop his self-transformation on his own. Heck, the Five Scholars were able to suppress their Divine Breath, but were still incapable of completely stopping its activity (notice how Vasher's hair doesn't grow even in his "suppressed" state). The solution is actually pretty simple. As a matter of fact, we have seen a Splinter-level BioChromatic manifestation that could transform himself (turning himself into a very angry weapon of mass destruction), but whose self-transformation and Breath-consumption is often held at bay: Simply put, Nightblood doesn't need Breath as long as he is locked inside his metallic sheath with its latch on, during which he's not nearly as insane or powerful as when his sheath is unlatched and when he is drawn. Now we know what to do: Lock the Returned inside metallic coffins until they are needed! *end of half-serious, crazy speculation* So, why does self-transformation tug at one's own BioChromatic Investiture? I suspect it has something to do with the Intent of Endowment. Self-transformation is obviously something allowed by the Investiture interactions on Nalthis, but using power for yourself is contrary to the purpose of giving something away (i.e. endowment). I think this is why the most stable forms of BioChromatic Investiture are those where Breath is only given to some object to animate it. I think Endowment has intentionally made it so that people accessing BioChromatic power through her system will have to pay a penalty for using the power for themselves, and that penalty is the weakening of their bond to their Breath. Not that it's always wrong to use power for yourself. Sometimes it's even necessary. After all, Endowment herself is the one responsible for the existence of Returned, who are the epitome of self-transforming Investiture on Nalthis. But even the Returned were meant to give their Divine Breath away. Their Divine Breath is an endowment, but not really for themselves, who are essentially already dead. Their Divine Breath is an endowment for the living. Steelheart spoilers:

I'll do a Vasher and call it Manifestation of Self-Transformation in a BioChromatic Host.

It is not a matter of replication. All Shards are part of the same whole. It is only their Intent that is keeping them from giving their creatures access to the same exact set of powers. I suppose the Shardworlds themselves might also have a hand in the specific way power is accessed by people (as I discussed in another thread), but my point is that the powers themselves, apart from the specific system used to access them, are not necessarily Shard-specific or Shardworld-specific. It's just that certain Shards prefer certain powers, and certain people have a particular Innate Investiture that can only interact with Shards/Splinters in a certain way. In other words, Roshar Lightweaving and Yolish Lightweaving aren't just similar powers. They are the exact same power accessed differently (one via Stormlight, the other via... whatever Hoid is using). In the same way, every single Invested power specifically aimed towards destruction is actually the same power accessed differently. And every single power that binds things is the exact same power accessed differently. You get what I mean? So, now that Nightblood, a Splinter with a destructive Intent, is on Roshar, the rules affecting the Innate Investiture of Rosharians will now take into effect once he bonds with a human. He is now a spren (or at least, the Breaths forming his consciousness are), and so he can do whatever it is that the Nahel spren did to grant powers to humans, though perhaps he'll do it a bit differently since he's not of Honor.

@Tempus: Thanks for the quote! Didn't Vivenna imply that she only saw a single Breath in the girl? The one every Nalthian receives at birth? So the girl did not give any Breath away. I stand by the theory I stated above, that using BioChromatic Investiture on yourself weakens your connection to a Breath. Do this enough times and your connection to the Breath is severed completely. That, I think, is why the Returned lose a Breath each week.