Jult

WaT Spoiler: I do think all of the above are rare occurrences though. And I think you're right that, in the books, enhancing and healing feel much more subconscious and involuntary. Whereas not doing those things always felt analogous to holding your breath - it's possible, but it's resisting the natural actions that your body would have taken. They likely designed the game to give players more agency with these abilities because otherwise they would have been constantly keeping track of their ever-depleting Investiture, which doesn't sound fun. Imagine playing a Sorcerer in DnD, but you automatically lose spell slots every turn that you exist and automatically lose them even faster every turn that you are injured. You'd barely get to cast anything. The Cosmere RPG gives you 2-3 actions per turn, so you could constantly spend 1 action to 'Breathe Stormlight' and replenish your Investiture IF you had a steady supply of charged spheres. Which would sort of fix the active draining issue, but you'd probably come out feeling weaker than a non-Radiant who just used all of their Actions to hit stuff instead of blowing an Action on breathing. The devs probably sacrificed this little bit of accuracy for better game balance and a better player experience.

You could always borrow a bit of inspiration from the upcoming Cosmere RPG. Upon starting your Radiant path (before speaking the First Ideal), you gain Investiture as a new resource. You begin with a maximum Investiture of 2+ your Awareness or Presence (whichever is higher). Other RPGs probably don't use Presence and Awareness as stats, but you could likely find something comparable. You also get 3 new Actions (paraphrased from memory): 1. Breath Stormlight - draw Stormlight from infused spheres or other sources. If enough Stormlight is present, recover Investiture up to your maximum. 2. Enhance - Spend 1 Investiture as an Action to become 'Enhanced'. While 'Enhanced' you have +1 Strength and +1 Speed. On subsequent turns, you can spend 1 Investiture as a Free Action to keep this effect going. 3. Regenerate - At the start of your turn, spend 1 Investiture as a free action to recover 1d6 + (your character level) health. This can be used even if you are Unconscious or otherwise prevented from taking Actions. You also get access to your applicable Surges, which also cost Investiture to use. Right now, the beta version only includes Windrunners and Lightweavers (though there are teaser images of the Willshaper tree as well). If you want to use Surges outside of those 6, you'll need to either make them up or wait for the full release. But you said you're not looking at those yet anyway. One other note: upon swearing an Ideal, you temporarily become 'Empowered'; which gives you advantage on all tests and instantly refills your Investiture to max at the start of each of your turns for the remainder of the current scene.

Shu-Dereth on Sel (a heavily-implied but unconfirmed Autonomy front) has been around for 300-400 years on Sel. Which may not sound like much time, but the Dor seems to cause some manner of time dilation on Sel relative to the rest of the Cosmere. So, from the rest of the Cosmere's perspective, that scheme has also been in-progress for a long time. I made this argument recently in another topic, but the Hierocracy does feel very much like Autonomy's MO. That being said, I think the rest of your theory works with or without Taravangian taking over Vorinism. He already has Connections to most of the strong fighters on the planet since all Radiants (except Lift) are Connected to Honor and all Fused are Connected to Odium. Giving all of his soldiers the 'Gavinor treatment' might be the best way for him to deal with the time crunch that he's on now thanks to Dalinar.

True. I think I was misremembering this WoB when I claimed Siah were native to the Rosharan system: On re-reading it, it really only confirms that they were created by the same person (presumably Adonalsium) - not at the same time/place. I still wouldn't take them out of the running for being Cultivation's backup plan (if she has one).

To me, "push the Heralds harder" implies that Tanavast had already given the Heralds as much power as they were comfortable accepting. I'd speculate that the heralds didn't want the maximum amount of power allowed because it would have required them to be bound by stricter limitations. But, at this point in the story, Tanavast convinced them that leveling up was worth the cost. As you said, some of her power went to the Radiants. Some also went to the Spren; especially to the Sibling and the Nightwatcher. She also seems to have some impact on the Purelake and the Horneater Peaks (though the latter is probably only due to her perpendicularity). I'd agree that none of that adds up to the amounts of Investiture that Honor and Odium spent. I have a personal suspicion that Cultivation has a connection to the Siah Aimians. It seems odd to me that the Shards got so involved in the development of the Humans and Singers but just left this third native sentient race alone. Plus, Axies the Collector has some odd abilities that aren't associated with any methods of Investiture that we've seen so far. Maybe the immortal, blue, shapeshifters can account for a chunk of Cultivation's Investiture? I guess it's also possible that Cultivation was just less generous with her Investiture than Honor and Odium.

I think you could make an argument that it wasn't a very direct action. Odium didn't open the perpendicularity to the Spiritual Realm - Dalinar did. Odium didn't force Gavinor into the Spiritual Realm - he just got sucked in when Mraize disrupted Dalinar's perpendicularity. They basically giftwrapped Gav and brought him to the place where Odium was most powerful. Odium did create a duplicate of Gavinor and swap it with the real Gav. That was probably his most direct action. But it was a very small and subtle action. Almost certainly more subtle than the Kharbranth shuffle that he pulled earlier in the book.

I'd echo epl2. Love the idea. Especially this line: I could see a scenario where something is created by pure belief in the Cosmere. We've seen things that could support this on a smaller scale. However, I don't think Adonalsium or the Shards were created in this way. In addition to the points epl2 already made, I'd consider Hoid to be a big problem for this theory. He claims to have been there for the Shattering and shows regret for choosing it. The other Vessels pose similar problems as they have memories that pre-date the Shattering. I guess you could argue that they were also dreamed into existence, but that feels unlikely; especially for Hoid. I think this could be a good theory for the origin of other major Invested entities. Like the Evil from Threnody.

That makes sense to me. I also subscribe to the opinion that Autonomy is a bigger threat than Retribution. And I agree that Battar is up to some shady business. Kind of a side note, but I also have a hard time trusting Kalak. The Sons of Honor did some messed up things on his orders. And his main goal was essentially to find a way to abandon Roshar. I think he makes a decent Autonomy candidate too. But let's give it to Battar for now. So, if I'm keeping up, we now have Harmony - Chanarach Cultivation - Vedel Endowment - Pralla Autonomy - Battar Invention - Ishar Mercy - Kaladin Valor - Taln Whimsy - Kalak by default Reason - Nale Virtuosity - Shallash I tried to do some digging on Virtuosity's timeline to see if she would be alive for all of this. But it didn't really go anywhere. She Splintered herself 1,700 years before Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. But it's hard to tell when that book takes place. We know it's in the far future. But it would have to be very far future for the timelines to work out in our favor. Which, I guess it could be. Or there could be some timey wimey shenanigans going on with time dilation from her Splintering. Maybe it's felt like 1,700 years for that system, but it's been a shorter time for the rest of the Cosmere?

Well, Kalak's name was changed to Kelek'Elin in Vorinism due to linguistic drift. So, in a weird and confusing turn of events... Kalak'Elin is available.

True. Of the two of them I do think Nale makes the most sense for Mercy. I just couldn't bring myself to saddle Ishar with Whimsy. Maybe he could give his spot to someone like Lift instead?

I took a stab at this. Some are pretty tenuous because there are lots of Heralds and Shards that we have very little info on. Harmony - Chanarach: Dustbringer ideals line up nicely with the Ruinous side of Harmony. And their focus on self-control to prevent Ruin seems to correspond well with Harmony. Cultivation - Vedel: Edgedancers bond Cultivation spren Endowment - Pralla: Pralla is associated with the attributes of Learned and Giving. She is also associated with the number 5 (which is suspected to be Endowment's number) Autonomy - Kaladin? : Forges his own path against conventional norms <- Not sure about this one. Invention - Kalak: Kalak is associated with the attributes of Resolute and Builder. Loose logic on this one, but this was the last pairing I made so the choices were pretty slim at this point. Mercy - ??? Valor - Taln: Did. Not. Break. Whimsy - ??? Reason - Battar: Elsecallers tend to be very logical. Virtuosity - Shallash: Shallash is associated with the attributes of Creativity and Honesty. Plus, Lightweaving fits Virtuosity pretty well. I'm left with Ishar and Nale taking up either Mercy or Whimsy. Whimsy has been a problem for me in multiple discussions today. I'm starting to hate Whimsy.

Wow thanks for finding that! They dug into this thoroughly. I'm more convinced than ever.

So, I always viewed Harmony as 'incomplete'. Sazed is actively trying to keep Ruin and Preservation from combining even though the Shards seem naturally attracted to each other (in the way that magnets are naturally attracted to each other - not the Intents of the Shards). If Sazed was not actively resisting, I think he would have become Discord immediately. In other words, Discord, to me, seems to be the 'true' form of this dishardic combination. Taravangian didn't do the same thing. He did not resist. He allowed the Shards to combine. Which might mean that Retribution is already the 'true' form of this combination. Although both Odium and Honor have some pretty big splinters of themselves all over the place. So, maybe Retribution is bit unbalanced (i.e. it may be made up of more Odium than Honor; especially considering the chunk of Honor that split off right before the merge). If that's the case, I could see Odium begin to dominate Taravangian's decisions; which would probably lead to him breaking some oaths and fully destabilizing. I think a more odious form of Retribution would be something like 'Condemnation'. Or perhaps 'Damnation', since that word has more symbolic value on Roshar.

I do agree that she's the biggest threat. I just don't think Taravangian will go for her first. I think he'll lose if he rushes into conflict with her. So, it would be smarter for him to go after weaker targets before her. Also, this may or may not be relevant, but we know from the below WoB that Odium and Autonomy had some kind of agreement: This might be void now that Rayse is out of the picture. But if Todium is in anyway still beholden to this agreement, Honor may not let him break it. Fair. I really struggled with Whimsy's placement. If their Intent is as chaotic and unpredictable as I'm imagining, I feel like they could pop up anywhere at any time. I do think you're right that no one would actively target them for a while since they don't feel like an active threat to anyone. But, at the same time, if they just whimsically choose to pop in and say 'Hello' to the newest Vessel on the block... well... that could end poorly. Wildcards be wild .

I said "Shunned or abused". "Shunned" referring to places like Idris where they consider their Breath to be intimately linked to their soul. They consider holding the Breaths of others to be sinful. Using them to Awaken is considered to be an even greater sin. "Abused" referring to places like Hallandren where Breaths are hoarded and a super unbalanced class system has been built around them. I guess my main point was that most Nalthians don't love Awakening as a system and probably wouldn't be eager to help Edgli.

Looking at the original 16 Vessels, there are: 8 confirmed dead (Aona, Skai, Leras, Ati, Rayse, Tanavast, Uli Da, and the unnamed holder of Virtuosity) 1 probably dead (Medalantorius) 3 confirmed alive (Koravellium Avast, Edgli, and Bavadin) 4 probably alive (Chan Ko Sar, Euridrius, and the unnamed Vessels of Mercy and Whimsy) I personally suspect that all 16 of these Vessels will be dead by the end of the final book. Assuming this is true, I'm curious to see everyone's thoughts on which of the remaining 7 surviving will be next to fall. Here are my thoughts in order of who I think is most likely to fall. Edgli - It may be surprising that I have her first. But Edgli just has a lot of small factors that don't add up in her favor. She's isolated and refuses to work together with other Shards As far as we know, she's pretty immobile and remains in the vicinity of Nalthis at all times The people of her planet barely know about her and have little reason to follow her Her method of Investiture is either shunned or abused on most of Nalthis This one is very speculative: but I think she's an easy target for Taravangian because her Splinters that reside in the Returned could make her vulnerable to some kind of Oathpact-type tactic Koravellium - My argument for her is much shorter. While she may have some more cards up her sleeve, I don't think she does. I think she played her whole hand and lost. And now she doesn't have anything left to defend herself with. Euridius and Whimsy's Vessel - We know so little about these 2 that I don't really know how to rank them. So, I've put them together in the middle. Chan Ko Sar - We don't know much about Invention's Vessel either. But we do know that they've been cooking up something big in the form of the Grand Apparatus. Based on that and pure gut instinct, I'm saying they have a better chance than anyone above them. Mercy's Vessel - I have Mercy's Vessel down low on this list mainly because of a personal, tinfoil hat theory. I think Mercy is going to be an antagonistic force in the future. I think in the same way that Ati willed Ruin towards being the least harmful version of itself, she has willed Mercy into being the worst version of itself: Euthanasia. And that her first victim was Ambition. This idea is mostly dead due to some bragging from Rayse to Tanavast in WAT. But since when is Rayse a perfect source for truth? Anyway, IF my crazy ideas are right, then she'll be a villain, and I think she'll be alive long enough to earn that title. Bavadin - I think Bavadin will be the last original Vessel standing. She's stacked so many resources and avatars in her favor. AND she's made it difficult to reach Taldain at all. She's got a powerful offensive and defensive strategy and she's been preparing for conflicts since day one.

That would be awesome! It would give us the ability to play around with unexplored combinations in the Cosmere RPG. Brandon has suggested before that most of the magic systems imitate some inherent Cosmere mechanics that haven't been fully explored. Maybe if we learned more about these underlying mechanics, we'd be able to map Resonances a bit more.

There are almost too many ways to mix and match. Brandon has confirmed before that resonances can even exist between power sets from different planets. So, by my understanding, unsealed metalminds in the hands of a Radiant should also create new combinations. Or Honorblades in the hands of Ferrings and Mistings. The number of potential combinations gets so high that it's almost sad to know we'll only ever see a small percentage of them.

I think the 3rd makes the most sense for me. At least for people create by Adonalsium or the Shards. There's the unusual case of the people of Dhatri who claim to be created by the Aethers. If all Investiture comes from Adonalsium, and the Aethers claim to co-date Adonalsium, then do Aethers and Aether-people even contain Investiture? A God Beyond and an Afterlife Beyond wouldn't add anything meaningful to the story in my opinion. If anything, it would take meaning away. Plus, I like the idea of a self-sustaining universe that just keeps recycling the same matter/energy/investiture on loop. And rebirth is a very common theme in the Cosmere. I think Brandon is for sure making the right choice by never answering questions on the Beyond. There's not an answer that's going to satisfy everyone.

Splitting molecular bonds could be used for some pretty cool things if the Surgebinder had enough accuracy/control and scientific knowledge. Some ideas that may or not be entirely scientifically sound: Breaking down safe compounds into dangerous components. (e.g. turning water into highly combustible clouds of hydrogen and oxygen; turning table salt into Sodium which violently explodes when wet and extremely toxic Chlorine) Removing impurities (e.g. perfect metals for Allomancy; perfect gemstones for retaining Stormlight and capturing Spren?) Breaking down harmful things into harmless components (e.g. breakdown toxins or poisons to render them harmless; break down tumors or blockages without invasive surgery being required Tee up chemical reactions. They can't force things together, but if they isolate the right elements, physics should just take its course, and they'll react like they would in any other circumstance.

I think any agents that were still in Kharbranth when Taravangian destroyed it are dead. But it's unlikely that she sent 100% of her agents in there. They must still be around somewhere. The only real physical descriptor we get is "People with faintly blue veins beneath the skin". This is most likely unrelated, but in WoK, the women of Babatharnam are described as having prominent blue veins due to inbreeding with the Siah Aimians. That's a tenuous connection at best.. But Babatharnam does have some interesting things going for it: The people of Babatharnam would be ethnically Selay (a race we've seen very little of). Babatharnam borders the Purelake; which doesn't feel fully explored (at least to me). Babatharnam has an Oathgate. Sigzil has been there and explained quite a bit about their political system and general history in WoK. They were conquered by Singer forces, so probably weren't fans of Odium

I've seen theories in other places about him being a kandra. And it makes sense to me. The fact that he shaves his head and eyebrows is unusual for a Thaylen. But it wouldn't be weird for a kandra since replicating hair is very difficult and tedious for them. There's also a lot of WoBs about kandra being present on Roshar. Whatever he is, I did think it was an odd choice to offscreen his death.

I think I was thinking of this quote when I said visions of the future: Which, funnily enough, is on the same page as the passage you're describing where the prophesies were discovered to have been made up. So, I guess I should have just read the page before asking the question. It's like 2 sentences later: I do think Vorinism is going to have a tough time recovering. But I don't think it is fully dead yet. Religions are hard to kill. And the general population of Roshar probably has very little information about what actually happened. I imagine the church will deny and cover up as much as possible. They may even align themselves with Retribution (or at least against Urithiru). I'm not sure how much the Kholin's have in the form of hard evidence to show that the church's tenets have been disproven. It will probably come down to the Kholins' word vs the church's word.

Probably true. I mean the Heralds' minds are mostly broken. And Stormfather and the Sibling's memories have been spotty (sometimes intentionally). So, Brandon could get around it. But it's definitely not my preferred scenario. So, I'm not sure how to work Lifebrother into this particular theory. My preferred scenario would be that: There was a 4th primeval spren (Day/Water/Whatever - I'm just going to write #4 from now on). It was associated with the 4th Tone of Roshar and completed a quartet with Wind, Stone, and Night. Then 'something' bad happened to #4 resulting in the destruction of its moon and making it some kind of deadeye type entity. Then Cultivation, Honor, and Odium arrive (completely unaware of #4's existence) changed the whole system. The entirety of Era 1 happens So, basically #4 would be dormant or wandering in Shadesmar somewhere like the deadeyes were. I don't want to make too many deadeye connections because they were obviously created through a different process. But I do think #4 will be analogous to them in the sense that it won't just be gone. I think it will still exist in some very difficult to restore form.

We learned a lot about Roshar's history in WaT. But we didn't touch much on the (relatively) more recent Hierocracy. What do we actually know about it? What I recall about the Hierocracy is that the Ardents took over a good chunk of the continent; claiming that they were instructed to do so by visions from the Almighty (which is extra weird because visions of the future is taboo in Vorinism). And that they cut the Heralds out of the majority of Vorinism; while essentially setting up a direct hierarchy of the darkeyes<lighteyes<ardents<curates<Almighty. I believe it's been said that the Hierocracy was somewhere in the last 500 years or so. Whereas a lot of the events we covered in WaT were much farther back in time. They also intentionally buried a lot of Roshar's knowledge relating to the Cognitive Realm and the Knights Radiant. In my opinion, they're largely responsible for why Roshar wasn't fully prepared for return of the Fused. Were these 'visions' that the Ardents claimed to see made up? Were they Stormfather's first attempt at finding Honor's next Vessel? If they were, then could someone point me towards where that is stated? If they weren't, well... My tin foil hat might be showing a bit here... But does this not sound exactly like Autonomy's MO? Take control of a religion, establish a hierarchy reporting directly to one of her Avatars, and start hoovering up every bit of Investiture-related knowledge you can? Is Vorinism just going to be the next Trellism or Derethi? I don't particularly like this idea, so I'm hoping someone can disprove it for me.