Ari

Do we know that any such distinction between ways power is invested actually exists? Spren are splinters. Brandon has previously referred to nightblood as a "robot spren". I'd say he's something pretty close to a splinter at the least. I'm not sure I'd necessarily call individual breaths Splinters, however. To be a splinter, Investiture needs to develop sentience on its own. That's the whole reason Returned are something distinct from (normal) Splinters.

He said there is a specific hack they used to make the medallions work, which will be revealed in a later book.

Wow so I entirely missed this thread. I'm not sure why you're all so set on explanations that don't fit the one piece of evidence the text actually give us. (that the being's eyes glow red) No other aspect of their appearance is described. There is only one being we know fits that kind of description, and that's a Voidbringer. We don't know that the being was possessing someone else's body, and we don't know exactly why Miles likens their species to the Kandra when he says they have their own Faceless Immortals. (It could be due to voidbringer forms, it could be due to shapeshifting, or it could simply be due to the being displaying nonhuman abilities) I don't particularly buy the explanation that these beings are kandra spiked with the "trellium" alien god metal that Paalm used. I'm not sure they could keep a sufficiently low profile given the psychological effects for Kandra of living with a single spike, and having two spikes would make them vulnerable to Harmony, and the Set has (for obvious reasons) been averse to opening themselves to his influence. We have no evidence that any mind control is going on, so the only explanation I'd buy for Svrakiss being involved is if that's an Selish term for Voidbringers. Otherwise there is no direct evidence, or even reasonable supposition, to support Svrakiss as a candidate for Suit's visitor.

Yeah I was talking about the creature that visited Suit, not the one in the boardsheet, I thought it was pretty obvious from the narrative that the broadsheet was actually referring to southern Scadrians. I'm really not sure what else would fit the description of the being that visited the Suit other than a Voidbringer. Looking at the BoM forums there seems to be a bunch of baseless speculation about Svrakiss or Kandra spiked with alien god metals, or something we've never even heard of that works like a Kandra- I can't see any reason to suspect the Svrakiss, (the floated rationale that they can take over bodies doesn't gel, as we don't even know that that was what was going on) and any kandra would need to be just as insane as Paalm was at the end to function without Harmony seizing them. The only evidence we got given was glowing red eyes, which we know Parshendi Voidbringer forms possess. If the Svrakiss are involved, it's because they're a Selish name for Voidbringers IMO.

Right, but that's transformation too.

Thanks for the correction. Maybe he just meant to say they were nearby but not in the same system and it didn't come out clearly? *shrug*

That's hardly a fact about Hoid, Brandon just confirmed he hasn't become a vegetarian or anything. Hell, I'm a vegetarian, and I still understand why people love bacon so much.

There's always the possibility that Hoid alloyed at least some of the Lerasium with, say, Harmonium, to utilise the spiritual rewrite side-effect into making himself a Feruchemist. He also seems to demonstrate Allomancy in WoR when interacting with Shallan during her flashbacks, so I'd consider it highly likely he has access to both magics.

I've generally seen it as "Yolish", which makes sense IMO. How would we reconcile this with Hoid's statement about not being able to hurt people? Do you think this is the "change in form"? It just seems like such a convoluted way to refer to a person and Brandon doesn't try to actively throw people off track, just RAFOs or uses any latitude given by overly general or poorly-phrased questions.

It is technically possible for it to have been a Dragon who ascended to become a vessel I suppose. I also guess it could be arguable if someone is still a human/dragon/etc... after they ascend, too, and assumed that if it were a Dragon who was also a Vessel that Brandon would have either said "both" or RAFOed the question. I have no idea if this is true or not, but I had assumed some of the people who had read the BYU draft of Dragonsteel encountered Frost in that book and his character there informed their conclusion that the Dragon recipient was Frost. I've been referring to the recipient as Frost ever since because hey, it's helpful to have a name to put to said lizard. But yeah, we can definitely rule out anyone that isn't(/wasn't) a Dragon.

So Shards are something very different to Spren for one big reason: Shards are power held together and directed by a pre-existing mind. Spren, however, are pieces of a shattered power that gained sentience after it was no longer significantly held together by a pre-existing mind. (And presumably there are also some equivalents out there that exist from innate investiture gaining sentience too, as Spren apparently already existed when Honour and Cultivation showed up on Roshar)

It could be a "net loss" in the sense that the investiture is conserved but moves into something like a heat-death phase where it costs more energy than it's worth to recover investiture that Nightblood has spent/"lost." Brandon has previously said that Investiture doesn't break thermodynamics or anything, so "net loss" can't mean any investiture is actually DESTROYED destroyed, but it could be transformed in a non-helpful way, either rendered functionally inert or polluted.

Do we know that for sure? Atium is certainly a wildcard for Scadrian abilities but it might actually be that it's limited to Allomancy and Feruchemy. (It *probably* isn't, but...) The Intent part is pretty key though. Unless Odium starts manipulating people to spike other people, it's pretty much going to need worldhoppers who've met someone unscrupulous (like say, the Set) in order for hemalurgy to start being practiced on other worlds.

Do we even know of anything else with glowing red eyes? I mean, it might not be a Voidbringer, but to date Voidbringers are the only thing that would be a candidate for what it is...

Nope. Electrum shows your actual future. Gold shows your alternative past. Showing your alternative future would, I guess, make sense. Although it wouldn't protect you against Atium like base Electrum does.

Yeah Brandon hasn't talked about wave-particle duality to Investiture at all, so that bit is unconfirmed.

It's a theory so good it's already been confirmed by WoB. (He's talked about how Investiture is just an extra force to physics in the cosmere, and that it has its own fundamental particle(s)) Still deserves an upvote for a really elegant explanation though IMO. I especially like your analogy of focusing the investiture from the Mists using will as filtering white light.

Would make the title Brightlady sound really funny when applied to her though, right?

Yeah, I hadn't spotted that part of the table for the initial post but it clarifies a few things for sure. There's definitely some reorganisation of the table going on for the atium alloys though, as Malatium is either switching its internal/external factor, or its pulling/pushing one when the Atium is alloyed in.

So I went back and re-read Shadows to refresh my memory, and I think it's worth pointing out that the migration Silence refers to is the migration to the current continent, not a migration to Threnody as a whole. So while the Evil can't be the Shattering of Devotion and Dominion, that can totally still be the reason her people migrated to Threnody. (although perhaps the detail that Theopolis is the villain may be suggesting that the Threnodites were chased off Sel by Elantrians, instead) edit: spelling

Kal became a full Radiant as soon as he swore his second oath iirc. But yes, there are more oaths he can swear to become stronger. There were Knights that fought with kings and Knights that would almost never be called to battle. Both were "full knights," same deal with Radiants that have more oaths to go. Maybe the eye colour will last longer from when he uses his powers as he does so, eventually becoming permanent. Maybe not. *shrug*

I like to think that Nalan has correlation confused with causation. He's noticed that always there's a burst of new radiants before the desolations. He thinks maybe that by killing them off he can prevent this one. He's never actually realised that the new Radiants are a reaction to the desolation, not the other way around. Oh, and yeah, he's got some issues to boot.

Great speculation and question, well done on figuring out where they came from! This brings up some interesting questions- the most obvious is why would the investiture in the Cognitive Realm make shades in the Forest, but not on the rest of Threnody or on Sel? There's something more going on there, but knowing that the loose investiture is around explains part of why it's so much easier to turn into a shade. The most obvious answer is that the loose investiture around the Forest is somehow set up to be easier for spirits to become cognitive shadows than the rest of it, but I don't know exactly how that works. Have to agree that it's still pretty open as to what The Evil is, but knowing they've also experienced the Shattering in their past makes a lot of things make more sense.

Have you seen any siege weapons on Roshar? In many ways Shardbearers fulfill the same role in Alethi conflicts, determining the ultimate momentum of their armies. The only ranged weapon they've mentioned are archers. Indeed. Having Shardbearers isn't going to stop these developments, because there's always an incentive to develop novel weapons of war. But it will remove many of the incentives to figure them out as quickly as we did.

Probably humans if they're hemalurgically spiked for any reason, and Koloss-blooded if they're not. I always thought of Scadrial's Cognitive Realm as the Plane of Mists myself. Scadsmar is waaay too similar to Shadesmar to be recognisable is different IMO.