Tanabig

Brandon has said it is a cultivationspren. People guessed it because of a description of his sword forming involving vines.

You are correct. That's why I wanted to ask the question in the first place. But I think Kelsier must have just contained it, because otherwise he would have taken up the shard and Vin couldn't have taken it, right? Or was he in a way the one responsible for Vin being the only one who could take it up?

Thanks for the responses! Perhaps I should clarify in the first question... Brandon has mentioned things in the cognitive realm really only having 'shadows' in the other realms. Could things like this take up a shard? I'm assuming not, because although Kelsier seems to have done something to help contain Preservation after he died, he didn't fully take up the shard. I'm assuming because he couldn't. Anyway, thanks for the response. It makes sense that natural existence in all three realms would be required. Also thanks for the clarification on the second part. I assumed that's what it was, but after hearing the cognitive realm referred to as Shadesmar so many times I started to wonder...

Oh goodie! A place to dump all of my questions that I have been creating. I don't believe any of these are duplicates or things we already know.... Also, I tried to group them by the place they would go in the OP, but I'm not quite sure on a few of them. Cosmere Does hemalurgy require metal on Scadrial because that is the focus of that planet? Would it be non-metal on other planets? Do you have to exist in all the realms (before taking up a shard) to hold a shard? Do some types of worldhopping take longer than others (on the magnitude of hours to days or days to months or months to years)? Is Hoid’s relatively fast? Within days? Does how taxing the method of travel is relate to the speed? As shown by Vin, one doesn’t have to really be aware of what one is doing to pick up a shard. Could Odium be tricked into picking up another intent? Or is he too cosmologically aware? Does creating a splinter (a la Endowment creating Returned) reduce the power the shard itself still holds? If splintering a shard is like a small-scale shattering of Adonalsium, can a splinter be splintered? Also do the intents of the splinter have to match or extend from the shard they came from? Is Hoid a Sliver? You’ve said Adonalsium was opposing some force before it shattered and that that force is still around. Was it shattered or weakened in a similar manner when Adonalsium shattered? Or is it something the cosmere should be worried about…? Does Odium know about this other force? Does Hoid? Is the map of Shadesmar we got in tWoK the majority of Shadesmar? Or is it really mainly the Roshar part of it? Roshar Did highstorms exist before Odium splintered Honor (or before the pseudo-ending of the Oathpact)? Did each order of the Knights Radiant have a special type of shardblade? (And plate? Especially when considering windrunners using their magics inside of plate…) Is the dark sphere given to Szeth by Gavilar native to Roshar? Does Roshar look like Shadesmar? Or does Shadesmar look like Roshar? (Or is it a chicken and egg sort of thing?) Is the large white rock expanse with the black sky that Dalinar briefly sees the spiritual realm? Or a part of Shadesmar?

With Awakening the world just seems so... beautiful. I love many of the other magic systems but Warbreaker had the first magic system that stunned me in its potential for beauty. Or, to re-use the pun on the cover, it took my breath away.

Off-topic and nitpicky correction, but worldwide we have more slaves today (by number, not percentage of population) than at any other time in history. On-topic: I like the idea of the void spren (or whatever you want to call it) forcibly bonding to the Parshendi just like how it bonds with other things to create creatures like the thunderclasts as we see in Dalinar's vision (assuming that is what it was doing). However I do think it would be good to note that apparently the escort or bodyguard of the fish/face/void spren was what appeared to make the thunderclast.