RShara

Weird. You should let Mestiv know.

Very few things in the cosmere are end-negative. Power being *used* isn't the same as power being lost. As Weltall said, hemalurgy is end negative because it's stealing the part of the spiritweb that enables usage of a power, but the ability is always going to be weaker than the original person who held it. Ability is lost, not investiture (since investiture that's used goes back into the system).

Nightblood can kill anything, pretty much, until you get to large Splinter/Shard levels of power. If you hit the Copy button on Arcanum, it does all the formatting for you, so that your Paste looks nice and neat

Hmmm. Weird. I thought it followed the inverse square law. .7

It would be nice if we could But while Ashyn would have a lower amount of overall investiture, there's still a few people who can use enough to cause disasters. You don't need a lot to do some serious damage if you have the right power and know how to use it. And yeah, I think Odium arrived and gave some of these powers a boost or created a new strain of disease, or something. He didn't invest, but he definitely meddled, and they ended up screwing up the planet. As to his motive, it could be a number of things. Maybe he wanted to use them as distractions to better surprise attack Honor and Cultivation. Two Shards that are together and not in opposition are definitely more dangerous to him than two Shards that are kind of opposing (D&D). Getting humans to do some of his dirty work would seem to fit in with his character.

First of the Sun has an Avatar in residence (something like a Splinter?), not a full Shard, which is why I mentioned it Yeah, I guess that's possible. I still think the magic has changed since the disaster and emigration, though.

Threnody, Ashyn, and First of the Sun are all worlds that don't technically have a Shard in residence. I agree that it was probably not completely disease based, but that's an example of a magic system where there's no Shard in residence.

No one is arguing against this. No one said another Shard we haven't seen. We said Odium wasn't really worshipped by humans as their god. And that their powers could just be how magic from H+C or even Adonalsium manifests on that world, as we know a Shard doesn't have to be intensely present on a world in order for it to have magic. And that it's likely Odium did something that caused them to destroy their planet, but probably was not on Ashyn long enough to Invest in it.

As I said, surges are what the Dawnsingers called the powers that they saw. They may or may not be like the surges as they currently exist on Roshar. Being able to fly sounds like the surge of gravitation. Changing the color of a liquid can look like Soulcasting.

I never said surges don't use investiture. I said surges don't necessarily mean the use of spren. Right now, on Ashyn, they are disease based. Yet they have powers like flying, changing liquid colors, and some that were "very, very dangers." Whatever they had at the time could resemble spren-granted surges enough to be called that without needing spren. I also never said that the Dawnshards couldn't have been involved with binding Odium. I said we didn't know if they had.

I don't see what your argument is. Can you state it along with your copy? We've already established that the Dawnsingers were likely wrong about them worshipping Odium. They describe things according to their understanding. "of spren and surges" because that's the only way the Dawnsingers knew surges worked. That doesn't mean that's how they worked exactly on Ashyn.

All that implies is that the Dawnshards are powerful and would help them against Odium. Not that they were used to bind or constrain him.

Honor and Cultivation (and Odium) permeate the system, as does Adonlasium's power. Remember that the entire system was created by Adonalsium on purpose. H&C are focused on Roshar, but I believe some of their power and influence would be felt on all the other planets of the system. We've also seen several planets that don't have Shards in residence, that still have magic systems. The surges wouldn't have worked on Ashyn exactly the way we're familiar with. No spren, for example. They were likely weaker or harder to access. But H&C not being there doesn't mean that surges couldn't be used. We don't know the mechanism by which Odium is bound on Braize. Odium could have lost a contest, or something. Not enough data to hypothesize at this time. Calderis already answered the last question. I mean, it's possible some people made deals with Odium, and that's how they destroyed the planet. I just don't think those would be the same people as the Heralds. I don't see Honor looking favorably on people who deal with his enemy.

That's basically what the current theory is, though most think that there are spren involved as well. There's a couple threads floating around that have some good speculation in them.

No, the Fused returning are what caused the Desolations. The Heralds and the Oathpact were to bind the Fused to Braize. Whether there was a previous deal with Odium or not, it wouldn't involve the "Heralds" as we know them. It would be very strange to have the same people who made a deal with Odium go to make a deal with Honor? The stormfather explicitly states why the Heralds formed the Oathpact and what it does in chapter 38. It's too long to post but here's a snippet.

Because the spren isn't alive enough to a degree that it would be able to grant surges. It doesn't have enough of itself left to bond to your spiritweb and change it to grant surgebinding. The gem allows you to Connect to it enough to revive it a tiny tiny bit, is all.

...I mentioned this 2 posts later?

I don't think he is a sand master but he definitely has sand from Taldain.

Whoa.

Brandon has said that humans weren't.....exactly of Odium originally. Some of them listened to him, and he was important to what happened on Ashyn, but he wasn't really their god. Also, the Heralds formed the Oathpact after the Fused started returning, so they definitely post-date arriving on Roshar.

Yes, there could have been a number of things linked to the event. But it was Honor's and Cultivation's power, and whatever they did is what trapped Odium. My point was that the Heralds had nothing to do with it.

Odium Splintered D&D way before Elantris was originally built. Possibly before humans even populated the planet (think hunter-gatherers). It's definitely in human pre-history on Sel. I don't see why Odium would pick some random primitives to assist him, when he finds ready fodder just about anywhere.

I think the focus on Nalthis is actually color, rather than command. If we take the comparison to metal, the color is what's used up, and works as a key, of sorts, to unlock the investiture. On Roshar, I think we have the focus and the investiture as the stormlight. It's used up, but is the actual investiture at the same time. Overall, I'm uncomfortable discussing focuses because we don't know if that's really a good term for it, or if that's even in the ballpark. Fuel could work just as well as a description. Feel free to theorize in peace, I'm just here to point out discrepancies

Mmmm I never got that impression. Every time someone says something about a person with Shin-eyes, we basically assume they are a worldhopper. Remember that Azure and Vasher can change their appearance to a degree. Riino, in the lighthouse in Shadesmar, is an Elantrian, Demoux is described as "having something wrong with their eyes". I'm not sure about Galladon and Baon, but Galladon, at least, might be wearing an illusion.