The Nature of Nightblood and Ruin

Underwater_Worldhopper · June 13, 2023

So, I've noticed a lot of Nghtblood-centric threads on this forum (as there well should be, given that Nightblood is the singular most Invested object in the Cosmere and one of the most unique), and it got me thinking about how it works and what it really is. After leafing through some other theories and looking through the Arcanum, I think I have an idea.

So, a quick refresher on how Nightblood was created:

Quote

Nightblood was created in collaboration between Vasher and Shashara, Returned lovers and two of the Five Scholars. Shashara, a very talented Awakener, has some feelings of envy after Yesteel invents ichor-alcohol, so she begins experimenting with steel. She eventually discovers a method to Awaken steel and give it sentience, although she and Vasher do not fully understand how this is possible. She reaches the Ninth Heightening and uses a thousand Breaths and a very difficult visualization to Awaken a sword with the Command "Destroy Evil." However, the sword had no concept of evil, and so the Breaths it inherited decided evil was "someone who would try to take the sword and use it for evil purposes, selling it, manipulating, and extorting others, that sort of thing."

Upon being Awakened, the entire sword turned black and began leaking black smoke.

So, Nightblood is an Awakened Steel sword with the Command "Destroy Evil"

Now, take a look at this WoB:

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Walin

Does Nightblood contain any of Ruin's Investiture? Like, not atium, but...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, technically; and I'm not wiggling around that, because technically, location in the Cosmere and who belongs to what gets really weird, right? Because Ruin's Investiture is everywhere--but I'm not talking that way. I'm talking the way you actually mean it.

Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)

Nightblood, a regular Steel sword that was mined, smelted, alloyed, and forged on Nalthis, and then imbued with Breaths, which is Endowment Investiture, has Ruin's Investiture in it. Why?

Well, my theory is as follows:

The Breaths in Nightblood were given a Command, which became the sword's Intent: "Destroy Evil". And what happened when this Command was given to Nightblood?

Quote

Upon being Awakened, the entire sword turned black and began leaking black smoke.

Does that ring a bell?

Quote

WoA, Ch.58:

A second, slightly smaller cavern that was clogged with a thick, dark smoke. It didn't seep out of the cavern, as it should have, but billowed and churned upon itself. Vin stepped forward. The smoke didn't choke her, as she expected.

...

The floor was rough and uneven, and his lantern seemed dim—as if the swirling black smoke were sucking in the light.

The Command breaks down into two basic concepts. "Destroy," and "Evil".

I think that, upon receiving the Command, the Breaths were corrupted with Ruin's Intent, that of Destruction, which essentially makes the Breaths part of Ruin's Investiture. All of those Corrupted Breaths, now being forced into a single sword, oversaturated it with Investiture, and so it started leaking it, letting those Corrupted Breaths dissipate. However, here's the problem: Investiture can't be destroyed. The closest it can come to being destroyed is when it's exposed to Anti-Investiture, where the Investiture simply becomes energy, which can presumably be turned back into Investiture. So, how can the Breaths follow their new Intent? The closest it can come to 'destroying' Investiture is Corrupting it and keeping it stuck in the sword, forcing it to stay out of the Investiture systems for as long as possible.

Nightblood is, functionally, a prime manifestation of Ruin's Intent, doing its best to destroy Investiture by Corrupting it and trying to keep it compressed within the sword. This is why Nightblood has grown in power over the centuries; it absorbs the Investiture from everything and everyone that it possibly can. The "Destroy" half of the Command essentially dictates the method by which the sword works.

All this is separate from the "Evil" part of the Command. That part forms the basis of Nightblood's 'test'. If you want to use the sword for personal gain, extortion, killing your enemies, etc, you will be drawn to kill others with the sword, and then yourself. If not, you feel nauseous. Use the sword and you become Bonded to it, and you become immune to the test.

"Evil" determines the test by which the sword decides whether someone is evil or not, and the "Destroy" part ordains how it will kill someone who is decided to be evil. The fact that Nightblood-inflicted wounds cause blackness to form on the corpses through its Aluminum sheath just goes to show how powerful it is.

It suggests that Ruin's magic system could have been far, far darker than Hemalurgy. Had Ruin settled on a planet other than Scadrial, alone, it could have resulted in a magic system more like a twisted, nightmarish version of Breaths and Awakening: A world where you can kill other people and suck their Investiture out as they die, with more Investiture gained the more the agony the victim is in as they pass. Collect enough Dying Breaths and you can create creatures or constructs out of Midnight Essence. Infect someone with Dying Breaths and you can possess them through an Entropy Bond, controlling them like a puppeteer, their eyes leaking black smoke all the while. Each use of Dying Breaths expends Breaths in a way that they can never be recovered, always driving people to kill more to gain more power. The more Dying Breaths you have at any given moment, the more sadistic and masochistic you become, reveling in pain.

Luckily for the denizens of the Cosmere, Ruin never gets a chance to truly express his Intent, beyond wanting to destroy Scadrial. Nothing we see him do is unique to him; Any other Shard could recreate those effects, Intent notwithstanding. Nightblood is a tiny window into the truly destructive power Ruinous magic systems can have.

Thoughts?

Edited June 13, 2023 by Underwater_Worldhopper

Argenti · June 14, 2023

1 hour ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

So, I've noticed a lot of Nghtblood-centric threads on this forum (as there well should be, given that Nightblood is the singular most Invested object in the Cosmere and one of the most unique), and it got me thinking about how it works and what it really is. After leafing through some other theories and looking through the Arcanum, I think I have an idea.

So, a quick refresher on how Nightblood was created:

So, Nightblood is an Awakened Steel sword with the Command "Destroy Evil"

Now, take a look at this WoB:

Nightblood, a regular Steel sword that was mined, smelted, alloyed, and forged on Nalthis, and then imbued with Breaths, which is Endowment Investiture, has Ruin's Investiture in it. Why?

Well, my theory is as follows:

The Breaths in Nightblood were given a Command, which became the sword's Intent: "Destroy Evil". And what happened when this Command was given to Nightblood?

Does that ring a bell?

The Command breaks down into two basic concepts. "Destroy," and "Evil".

I think that, upon receiving the Command, the Breaths were corrupted with Ruin's Intent, that of Destruction, which essentially makes the Breaths part of Ruin's Investiture. All of those Corrupted Breaths, now being forced into a single sword, oversaturated it with Investiture, and so it started leaking it, letting those Corrupted Breaths dissipate. However, here's the problem: Investiture can't be destroyed. The closest it can come to being destroyed is when it's exposed to Anti-Investiture, where the Investiture simply becomes energy, which can presumably be turned back into Investiture. So, how can the Breaths follow their new Intent? The closest it can come to 'destroying' Investiture is Corrupting it and keeping it stuck in the sword, forcing it to stay out of the Investiture systems for as long as possible.

Nightblood is, functionally, a prime manifestation of Ruin's Intent, doing its best to destroy Investiture by Corrupting it and trying to keep it compressed within the sword. This is why Nightblood has grown in power over the centuries; it absorbs the Investiture from everything and everyone that it possibly can. The "Destroy" half of the Command essentially dictates the method by which the sword works.

All this is separate from the "Evil" part of the Command. That part forms the basis of Nightblood's 'test'. If you want to use the sword for personal gain, extortion, killing your enemies, etc, you will be drawn to kill others with the sword, and then yourself. If not, you feel nauseous. Use the sword and you become Bonded to it, and you become immune to the test.

"Evil" determines the test by which the sword decides whether someone is evil or not, and the "Destroy" part ordains how it will kill someone who is decided to be evil. The fact that Nightblood-inflicted wounds cause blackness to form on the corpses through its Aluminum sheath just goes to show how powerful it is.

I agree completely with how Nightblood's command shaped his abilities; it's a very logical conclusion from the information we have. It makes a ton of sense.

1 hour ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

It suggests that Ruin's magic system could have been far, far darker than Hemalurgy. Had Ruin settled on a planet other than Scadrial, alone, it could have resulted in a magic system more like a twisted, nightmarish version of Breaths and Awakening: A world where you can kill other people and suck their Investiture out as they die, with more Investiture gained the more the agony the victim is in as they pass. Collect enough Dying Breaths and you can create creatures or constructs out of Midnight Essence. Infect someone with Dying Breaths and you can possess them through an Entropy Bond, controlling them like a puppeteer, their eyes leaking black smoke all the while. Each use of Dying Breaths expends Breaths in a way that they can never be recovered, always driving people to kill more to gain more power. The more Dying Breaths you have at any given moment, the more sadistic and masochistic you become, reveling in pain.

Luckily for the denizens of the Cosmere, Ruin never gets a chance to truly express his Intent, beyond wanting to destroy Scadrial. Nothing we see him do is unique to him; Any other Shard could recreate those effects, Intent notwithstanding. Nightblood is a tiny window into the truly destructive power Ruinous magic systems can have.

Thoughts?

Like above, I'm sure most of us have come to a similar conclusion where Ruin steals magic. I would only say that Ruinious investiture probably decays, so people, even when not using their power, would lose it over time, which would force them to kill to keep their power up. Ideally, this would also extend their lives, although when it runs out, they turn to dust. (Investure vampires!)

alder24 · June 14, 2023

12 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

So, I've noticed a lot of Nghtblood-centric threads on this forum (as there well should be, given that Nightblood is the singular most Invested object in the Cosmere and one of the most unique), and it got me thinking about how it works and what it really is. After leafing through some other theories and looking through the Arcanum, I think I have an idea.

So, a quick refresher on how Nightblood was created:

So, Nightblood is an Awakened Steel sword with the Command "Destroy Evil"

Now, take a look at this WoB:

Nightblood, a regular Steel sword that was mined, smelted, alloyed, and forged on Nalthis, and then imbued with Breaths, which is Endowment Investiture, has Ruin's Investiture in it. Why?

Well, my theory is as follows:

The Breaths in Nightblood were given a Command, which became the sword's Intent: "Destroy Evil". And what happened when this Command was given to Nightblood?

Does that ring a bell?

The Command breaks down into two basic concepts. "Destroy," and "Evil".

I think that, upon receiving the Command, the Breaths were corrupted with Ruin's Intent, that of Destruction, which essentially makes the Breaths part of Ruin's Investiture. All of those Corrupted Breaths, now being forced into a single sword, oversaturated it with Investiture, and so it started leaking it, letting those Corrupted Breaths dissipate. However, here's the problem: Investiture can't be destroyed. The closest it can come to being destroyed is when it's exposed to Anti-Investiture, where the Investiture simply becomes energy, which can presumably be turned back into Investiture. So, how can the Breaths follow their new Intent? The closest it can come to 'destroying' Investiture is Corrupting it and keeping it stuck in the sword, forcing it to stay out of the Investiture systems for as long as possible.

Nightblood is, functionally, a prime manifestation of Ruin's Intent, doing its best to destroy Investiture by Corrupting it and trying to keep it compressed within the sword. This is why Nightblood has grown in power over the centuries; it absorbs the Investiture from everything and everyone that it possibly can. The "Destroy" half of the Command essentially dictates the method by which the sword works.

All this is separate from the "Evil" part of the Command. That part forms the basis of Nightblood's 'test'. If you want to use the sword for personal gain, extortion, killing your enemies, etc, you will be drawn to kill others with the sword, and then yourself. If not, you feel nauseous. Use the sword and you become Bonded to it, and you become immune to the test.

"Evil" determines the test by which the sword decides whether someone is evil or not, and the "Destroy" part ordains how it will kill someone who is decided to be evil. The fact that Nightblood-inflicted wounds cause blackness to form on the corpses through its Aluminum sheath just goes to show how powerful it is.

Why are there so many Nightblood threads recently? I love Nightblood but why?

Yes, this WoB made me think the same, Nightblood converts everything into Ruin's investiture, and that's corruption. Or at least it's a mixed investiture with most of it being turned to Ruin's one. The blackness he leaks is Ruin's investiture.

I don't think Nightblood purposefully keeps investiture inside of him as long as possible. The way you describe it sounds like Nightblood would have to consider investiture itself as evil to make it work like that, but per WoBs we know that's not the case. He just trusts his wielder to make a judgment and he converts to Ruin's investiture everything he touches - and that's his way of destroying evil - convert it into investiture. The command "destroy" makes it Ruinous, as Ruin is about destruction. But his goal isn't to keep that investiture away from the system, it's just a side effect (likely because Shashara never thought in her visualization what to do next with that investiture). Nightblood doesn't want to destroy investiture, because investiture is no longer evil.

And yes, the investiture in Nightblood is leaking and is returning to the SR. Which makes me wonder if that additional Ruin's investiture is making Ruin constantly stronger? Is that a contributing factor to why Harmony is getting more and more unbalanced? Nightblood creation might coincide with Catacendre.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Anyway, Nightblood is named for the smoke he leaks, and he originally had a different name when he was created. Vasher himself dubbed the sword Nightblood after he had used it to kill the woman he loved. The blackness that leaks out is actually corrupted and consumed Breaths, the ones that Nightblood leeches off anyone who draws him.

Warbreaker Annotations (April 25, 2011)

No, it does not. Nightblood has trouble deciding what is evil. It is getting better, more and more, but it wouldn't view Investiture itself as evil.

FanX 2021 (Sept. 17, 2021)

Spoiler

[...]

uchoo786

So just for clarification, once Nightblood consumes investiture, that investiture gets recycled? That's what I've always assumed. That it enters the cognitive/spiritual realm?

Brandon Sanderson

The investiture he consumes is not gone forever--it's not leaving the system, so to speak.

General Reddit 2015 (Dec. 14, 2015)

12 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

It suggests that Ruin's magic system could have been far, far darker than Hemalurgy. Had Ruin settled on a planet other than Scadrial, alone, it could have resulted in a magic system more like a twisted, nightmarish version of Breaths and Awakening: A world where you can kill other people and suck their Investiture out as they die, with more Investiture gained the more the agony the victim is in as they pass. Collect enough Dying Breaths and you can create creatures or constructs out of Midnight Essence. Infect someone with Dying Breaths and you can possess them through an Entropy Bond, controlling them like a puppeteer, their eyes leaking black smoke all the while. Each use of Dying Breaths expends Breaths in a way that they can never be recovered, always driving people to kill more to gain more power. The more Dying Breaths you have at any given moment, the more sadistic and masochistic you become, reveling in pain.

Luckily for the denizens of the Cosmere, Ruin never gets a chance to truly express his Intent, beyond wanting to destroy Scadrial. Nothing we see him do is unique to him; Any other Shard could recreate those effects, Intent notwithstanding. Nightblood is a tiny window into the truly destructive power Ruinous magic systems can have.

Thoughts?

Yup, I agree. If Ruin settled alone his magic system might be far more destructive. It wouldn't be based on Breaths (that would likely be the case if he were to settle with Endowment) but it wouldn't be based on metals too (likely). But everyone would still be able to use it to destroy, anywhere in Cosmere, as Ruin doesn't care about it, he just cares about increasing entropy. This is scary. This might be the reason why Ruin simply can’t settle alone, as everywhere he invests alone, people would gain access to far more destructive invested art and will just kill each other until no life remains. Then Ruin would be bound to a lifeless planet which he can’t leave without leaving a chunk of himself there.

Now I wonder, how would an Awakened shield with a command to "Preserve life" act? Would this turn 1000 Breaths into Preservation's investiture? How would it interact with other investiture? With what Shard is Vivenna's blade associated, if at all? If Shashara were to choose a command that isn't aligned with any Shard would they make Nightblood the way they intended?

Spoiler

Questioner

If Vasher and Shashara had Awakened a non-weapon in exactly the same way as Nightblood (say a shield), would the object exhibit the same properties as Nightblood?

Brandon Sanderson

So, if you said "destroy evil" to a shield... no, it wouldn't be exactly the same. The Command is the most important part of all of this, but the shape, how the weapon perceives itself, how you perceive it, is all gonna play into this. They're playing with some real dangerous stuff when they made Nightblood. And it didn't go as intended.

San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020 (July 23, 2020)

Underwater_Worldhopper · June 14, 2023

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

Why are there so many Nightblood threads recently? I love Nightblood but why?

Domino effect, I'd imagine. I came up with his one because all the other ones inspired me to finally write this idea down, so they also probably saw one and did the same thing.

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

I don't think Nightblood purposefully keeps investiture inside of him as long as possible. The way you describe it sounds like Nightblood would have to consider investiture itself as evil to make it work like that, but per WoBs we know that's not the case. He just trusts his wielder to make a judgment and he converts to Ruin's investiture everything he touches - and that's his way of destroying evil - convert it into investiture. The command "destroy" makes it Ruinous, as Ruin is about destruction. But his goal isn't to keep that investiture away from the system, it's just a side effect (likely because Shashara never thought in her visualization what to do next with that investiture). Nightblood doesn't want to destroy investiture, because investiture is no longer evil.

I doubt Shashara even wanted Nightblood to absorb Investiture in the first place. All she wanted was a Shardblade, which was already such a massive undertaking that wanting to go beyond even that wouldn't be practical for a first experiment. She just chose a bad Command for it, and the rest is just side effects. And as I understand it, all this Intent stuff is separate from the personality and consciousness of Nightblood when it's sheathed. You could be right in that after the person/object is dead Nightblood doesn't care about the Investiture, but I had thought that the sword was just trying to complete its Command to the best of its ability and trying to wholly destroy the entities it kills, but since Investiture can't be destroyed, it just does the next best thing and tries to keep it out of the Investiture systems for as long as possible. Eventually, he leaks it back out, as per WoB, but it does try to keep it out of them for as long as possible. Or not, like you said, but that's how I had originally thought of it.

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

And yes, the investiture in Nightblood is leaking and is returning to the SR. Which makes me wonder if that additional Ruin's investiture is making Ruin constantly stronger? Is that a contributing factor to why Harmony is getting more and more unbalanced? Nightblood creation might coincide with Catacendre.

This is a point of some contention, I think. It depends on what you think is going on with Corrupted Investiture. My first instinct is to say that the Investiture is at a base level still what it was pre-Corruption, so it would return to its original Shard; i.e., the Corrupted Breaths are going to Endowment, not Ruin. However, we see with Navani's Anti-Investiture experiments that for Corruption to be possible, you need to first erase the original Rhythm and Intent of the Investiture and then replace it, so the argument could be made that the Investiture is being changed at even the most base and fundamental level, in which case it would go to the Shard it's been made to match with. Still, Corrupted Investiture often takes on a red hue, so there is some difference between Investiture that was Corrupted as opposed to regular Investiture of the same Intent. It could go either way, but for now, I personally believe that it would return to its original Shard.

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

Yup, I agree. If Ruin settled alone his magic system might be far more destructive. It wouldn't be based on Breaths (that would likely be the case if he were to settle with Endowment) but it wouldn't be based on metals too (likely).

It near definitely wouldn't be based on Metals. All three Scadrian Invested Arts use metals as a focus, so It's pretty safe to say that the hell-bent focus on metals is a feature of Scadrial and not P&R themselves, even if they determine what the actual Arts are and do. And yes, it wouldn't be based on something so similar to Breaths, it was just a neat parallel I was making since Awakening and Breaths are such a consent-based system.

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

But everyone would still be able to use it to destroy, anywhere in Cosmere, as Ruin doesn't care about it, he just cares about increasing entropy. This is scary. This might be the reason why Ruin simply can’t settle alone, as everywhere he invests alone, people would gain access to far more destructive invested art and will just kill each other until no life remains. Then Ruin would be bound to a lifeless planet which he can’t leave without leaving a chunk of himself there.

I don't think it's a rule that he can't settle alone, but for practicality, he never would for the exact reasons you outline. His Intent isn't very conducive to civilization and growth. There's a reason that Rayse thought he would implode. But it isn't as big of a problem as it seems to be at first glance. He can Invest in a Shardless planet with humans or other sapient life on it, then either actively destroy it himself or let the natives use the magic system that arises and have them finish each other off. After the planet is barren, he can just destroy it, releasing all the Investiture he Invested in it, then move on, skipping through planets and leaving destruction in his wake. It's not hard to unInvest yourself from a planet, it's just time-consuming (Or at least that's what I've assumed in the past. As of writing this, I'm a little unsure, but a cursory look through the Arcanum hasn't shown me anything contrary to it, so I'm still sticking with this idea. If you have any ones that say or imply otherwise, I'd love to see them)

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

Now I wonder, how would an Awakened shield with a command to "Preserve life" act? Would this turn 1000 Breaths into Preservation's investiture? How would it interact with other investiture? With what Shard is Vivenna's blade associated, if at all? If Shashara were to choose a command that isn't aligned with any Shard would they make Nightblood the way they intended?

With a Command similar enough to Preservation's Intent, it should indeed Corrupt the Breaths into Preservation's Investiture. It probably won't do much though. The concept of Preservation is clear enough, and what is and isn't alive is apparently pretty unambiguous in the Cosmere (despite the fact that all things have a Cognitive and Spiritual Aspect) because Shardblades can apparently tell the difference easily. So it wouldn't do anything too crazy. It would probably act as just a Shardplate-like version of a shield, with a "Robot-Spren" consciousness like that of Nightblood when he's sheathed. I think most Type IV Awakened Entities with Shard-like Commands would end up this way, Nightblood is most probably just an outlier due to the inherently destructive and unchanneled Intent of Ruin. It probably wouldn't interact with other Investiture.

Vivenna's Blade seems to act just like a regular Shardblade, so its Command is probably just something like "Serve Me" or "Be As My Sword/Weapon and Do As I Do". Not the most creative of Commands on my part, but you get the gist of it. Something that doesn't require much of anything from the sword and just lets it be an Invested Blade that someone (or maybe specifically only Vivenna) can use. That is, most likely, what Shashara was trying to do. If Shashara had chosen a Command that wasn't in line with a specific Shard, it would just act like a regular Shardblade that has a quirk or extra ability based on its Command.

Actually, I'm pretty sure she would have ended up with a nearly normal Shardblade if she had used any Command that didn't emulate Ruin, even if it mimicked the intent of a different Shard.

Some would be quite compatible: Devotion or Dominion would have been good choices, Devotion to make the sword loyal to you, or Dominion to make it want to best other people, which would be a good quality for a weapon. Preservation would make it want to defend you to preserve you, Cultivation would make it want to help you become your best self, Honor would make it want to help you do what is right and honorable, and this one I think would be best because like Nightblood the sword itself wouldn't be able to tell what's right and wrong, so you could use its full capabilities however you wanted with no nightmarish side effects. Valor could work really well too, similar to Dominion.

Some Intents wouldn't be all that good or bad: Ambition might make the sword turn on you if it feels that you're not a good enough master and that it could do better, although the number of things it could do to sabotage you probably wouldn't be that numerous given that the sword can't do much on its own. Endowment works similarly, where the sword would probably want to be gifted and given around, though what the sword could do to achieve that is beyond me. Autonomy could make it want to either help you in battle to protect your autonomy, which is good, but it might just as easily make the sword want to sabotage you and any other master in a bid for its own autonomy, though what it thinks it could do on its own is once again beyond me, although given that Nightblood can perform some Rioting-like effects, I'm sure neither Endowment, nor Autonomy, nor Ambition would be very good Intents to instill your superweapon with. Whimsy, Virtuosity, and Invention don't really have anything in particular that sticks out to me in terms of what they would make a sword do, so I'm putting them in this category.

There are some Intents you really don't want to use though, unless you want something really specific: Ruin, obviously, because that ends up with Nightblood. Odium wouldn't be very good either, but I think that would be one of the hardest ones to make work on a sword since Odium is an emotion and the sword won't really know what that is from the outset, but if it does figure out and manage to express the Intent, it would be very bad. The final known Shard also goes under the bad Intents, and that is Mercy. You might end up with a Shardblade that can cut through all inorganic matter as easily as a regular Shardblade, but one that doesn't hurt anything living at all.

All in all, other than some specific Intents like Ruin, it won't really affect the Shardblade that much. The most important part of the Awakening would be the visualization to make it work like a Shardblade, and the rest is just extra things on top of that, like Nightblood's Corruption of Investiture and his test. You could make super cool Shardblades that have extra powers on top of acting like a Shardblade, but that would take specificity.

Leuthie · June 14, 2023

7 hours ago, alder24 said:

And yes, the investiture in Nightblood is leaking and is returning to the SR. Which makes me wonder if that additional Ruin's investiture is making Ruin constantly stronger? Is that a contributing factor to why Harmony is getting more and more unbalanced? Nightblood creation might coincide with Catacendre.

The amount of Investiture being corrupted is imperceptibly small compared to the amount of Investiture a Shard is made up of. I would be very surprised if it turns out it's creating an unbalanced condition.

alder24 · June 14, 2023

1 hour ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

And as I understand it, all this Intent stuff is separate from the personality and consciousness of Nightblood when it's sheathed.

They're connected. The command to destroy evil gives Nightblood personality. Which is why he constantly encourages people to use him and to kill everyone. But the command fully takes over when he’s unsheathed. That's why if Nightblood doesn't consider investiture evil, then him storing it is just a side effect. Likely.

1 hour ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

I don't think it's a rule that he can't settle alone, but for practicality, he never would for the exact reasons you outline. His Intent isn't very conducive to civilization and growth. There's a reason that Rayse thought he would implode. But it isn't as big of a problem as it seems to be at first glance. He can Invest in a Shardless planet with humans or other sapient life on it, then either actively destroy it himself or let the natives use the magic system that arises and have them finish each other off. After the planet is barren, he can just destroy it, releasing all the Investiture he Invested in it, then move on, skipping through planets and leaving destruction in his wake. It's not hard to unInvest yourself from a planet, it's just time-consuming (Or at least that's what I've assumed in the past. As of writing this, I'm a little unsure, but a cursory look through the Arcanum hasn't shown me anything contrary to it, so I'm still sticking with this idea. If you have any ones that say or imply otherwise, I'd love to see them)

Oathbringer Leeds signing (Dec. 1, 2017)

25 minutes ago, Leuthie said:

The amount of Investiture being corrupted is imperceptibly small compared to the amount of Investiture a Shard is made up of. I would be very surprised if it turns out it's creating an unbalanced condition.

Yes, it's small, but over 300 years it accumulated a bit. If Atium made the difference, and Preservation's fragment in people's soul, Nightblood might make a difference as well. I'm not suggesting it's the driving factor, but just another one.

Underwater_Worldhopper · June 14, 2023

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

They're connected. The command to destroy evil gives Nightblood personality. Which is why he constantly encourages people to use him and to kill everyone. But the command fully takes over when he’s unsheathed. That's why if Nightblood doesn't consider investiture evil, then him storing it is just a side effect. Likely.

Here's something weird I just noticed. I had thought that the whole test and magical destruction/Corruption thing was the Command, and Nightblood (the personality) was just a side-effect of having so many Breaths in one place. I had speculated that the personality would be influenced by the Command, but not wholly dependent/resultant from it. But, rereading Warbreaker, it does indeed say that the Command lay the foundation for Nightblood's personality, which neither Vasher nor Shashara knew the cause of, as nothing about the Awakening would have caused it to become sentient.

The only other Type IV Awakened Entity we've seen, Vivenna's Blade, doesn't seem to be nearly as sentient. When the Honorspren draws it on the ship in Shadesmar in Oathbringer, all she reports feeling is a "Tingl[ing]". No voice, no personality, nothing. And that's after it's been drawn half an inch or so out of its sheath. Nightblood can talk to people right through the sheath, and even to people not currently holding him or having drawn him. Either this is based on some rules about Commands, Intent, and Awakening that we just don't currently know about, or this is what Endowment did through her meddling; create a consciousness beyond what should have normally been possible for Nightblood.

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

There is no rule like that, but yes, Ruin wouldn't want to settle alone. And investing alone in a system, then leaving is not an easy process. It either involves leaving behind part of Shard's power, or ripping that power out of the systems. Both are very tough to do. I'm not so sure if Ruin would be able to destroy any planet he wants without investing even more in that system - except Scadrial planets aren't composed mainly out of Ruin's investiture and that may be important. Based on another WoB, if Scadrial were to be destroyed, Hemalurgy wouldn't stop working, which for me suggests that part of Ruin's investiture would remain in the Scadrial system, even if Ruin were to leave.

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Questioner

When one of the shards, like Odium, move from world to world in the cosmere, does their presence, like the metals they leave behind and their magic, leave with them?

Brandon Sanderson

Odium never really settled on a planet. He is now settled on Roshar and his magic has permeated things. Leaving would be very difficult for him. It would either involve leaving behind some of his power or ripping that out, which would be a difficult process. So yes it is very tough to leave.

Phoenix Comicon 2013 (May 24, 2013)

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asmodeus

You've said before that a lot of the magics we see across the cosmere come from an interaction of Shards and their Investiture with the planets they Invest in. What does this mean practically? If Scadrial explodes tomorrow, will Hemalurgy stop working across the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgy wouldn't stop working, most likely, but it could. There are ways that you could make it stop working. I kind of mean that the Shards are an innate part of physics in the cosmere, and the magics that arise are an innate part of physics because of that. Like atium seeped out into the Pits of Hathsin, in the same way, these magics are just gonna leak out, and different places are going to affect them. You'll see Lightweaving happening in different places, and the way the Shard is interacting with the local... The way the Shard is is going to affect how Lightweaving is administrated in the various magics, but it's still gonna be there. Hemalurgy is kind of a similar thing to that. You will see Midnight Essence, you will see some of these recurring ideas popping up, and these are like natural parts of the physics, but they're influenced by the Shards on the local planets.

I don't know if that answer, that's gonna be a really fun one for them to transcribe into the Q&A thing, because I go around in circles on that question a ton. Put this part in when you do it.

Footnote: It was a really fun one.
YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

He implies that certain things could indeed cause Hemalurgy to stop working, so maybe certain criteria need to be met for things like that to happen.

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

And reply to the whole, long last part. I don't think simply changing command will create similar effect to Nightblood. Endowment was involved in his creation more than usual. Creating another weapon aligned with other Shard might be impossible without Endowment intervention. And there is a WoB that said it would be very hard to make another Nightblood, so I don't think a simple command is enough to create Nightblood-like weapons (in terms of Shardic commands). And I think most of those weapons might have unforeseeable effects, not as bad as Nightblood, but still not something you want your weapon to have. I don't think it's a good idea.

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OrangeJedi

When Nightblood created, was Endowment involved in any way more than normal?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question, you qualified that the right way! I would say yes, but maybe not to the extent you're thinking.

OrangeJedi

Normal being using Endowment's Investiture to Awaken. There's something special.

Brandon Sanderson

I would say, there is something special.

Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)

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Megasif

In London I wanted to ask about Nightblood. The way he is Invested, is that a one-off-case kind of thing, or is it possible to do another of that level?

Brandon Sanderson

It was really bizarre, and I will explain it eventually and that will let you know why. It's theoretically possible to do almost anything so it's theoretically possible to do what he did but it'd be very hard.

Oathbringer Leeds signing (Dec. 1, 2017)

You may have a point here. Awakening works by giving a fake soul to an object and giving it a Command, which becomes the Awakened Construct's Intent. It should theoretically be possible to Corrupt Breaths into other Investiture just by giving it a Command, given that it would mean stamping an Intent onto Investiture, but the extent of what Nightblood can do shouldn't be possible with only a human giving it a Command. Shashara and Vasher, two of the most capable Awakeners, couldn't understand how Nightblood became cognizant, so something is clearly unusual about him. I'm thinking Endowment supercharged his Command somehow, or something of that nature.

Still, creating a Shardblade that has extra abilities due to the Command it's trying to follow should be possible without Shardic intervention, as evidenced by Vivenna's Blade, even though it doesn't have a true mind of its own. The extra abilities would essentially act like Resonances, since it's an imitation of another magic system by Awakening, so something like a weak after-effect attached to a Shardblade. I imagine that would be doubly true if the Command was close to a Shardic Intent, so long as at least some Investiture gets Corrupted. The other Type IV Shardblades won't have minds or be nearly as powerful as Nightblood, but I think those Shardblades would still be superior to Sprenblades, save for the fact that Sprenblades can be dismissed and also change shape.

therunner · June 15, 2023

I would point out that apparently the black smoke is specifically corrupted Breaths (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/250/#e7374).
Additionally, per this WoB it might be better to describe what is happening within Nightblood as mixing of Investitures, not changing one into another

Quote

Blightsong

How does corrupted investiture work, like Nightblood?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, Nightblood. Again, this is a definition of what somebody feels is a corruption. For instance, there are spren that people would feel are corrupted. But that's corruption where the mixing of different Shards has changed things, and I think a lot of times when people say corruption, what they're meaning is the mixing of Shards' powers.

Blightsong

So is there a mixing of Shards' powers happening with Nightblood?

Brandon Sanderson

*smirks* RAFO. That's the natural question, I'm glad you asked it.

Blightsong

Ok, uhhh, so something similar is happening with Gavilar's sphere, right?

Brandon Sanderson

*contemplative silence* RAFO.
OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)

So I don't personally think Nightblood converts consumed Investiture into Ruin's, but instead that:

He contains some Ruin's Investiture, that was most likely drawn into him during creation. This is part of what makes him so 'extra' when it comes to destroying stuff.
Consumed Investiture then comingles with his own Investiture, and is leaked out. So the leaked out black smoke is not just Ruin's Investiture, but commingling of the Ruin's Investiture he has access to and the Investiture he has consumed.

Underwater_Worldhopper · June 15, 2023

52 minutes ago, therunner said:

I would point out that apparently the black smoke is specifically corrupted Breaths (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/250/#e7374).
Additionally, per this WoB it might be better to describe what is happening within Nightblood as mixing of Investitures, not changing one into another

So I don't personally think Nightblood converts consumed Investiture into Ruin's, but instead that:

He contains some Ruin's Investiture, that was most likely drawn into him during creation. This is part of what makes him so 'extra' when it comes to destroying stuff.

Consumed Investiture then comingles with his own Investiture, and is leaked out. So the leaked out black smoke is not just Ruin's Investiture, but commingling of the Ruin's Investiture he has access to and the Investiture he has consumed.

That could be the case, though it doesn't change much in terms of functionality. What I want to know is, if I were to unsheath Nightblood and leave him on the side somewhere, would he eventually just leak all the Investiture in him away?

therunner · June 15, 2023

45 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

What I want to know is, if I were to unsheath Nightblood and leave him on the side somewhere, would he eventually just leak all the Investiture in him away?

I don't think so.
He would leak away some, since the reason he leaks is the fact he is 'super-saturated' with Investiture, having more than the sword can hold. Basically he leaks nearly the same way Radiants do. At least that is my interpretation of the following WoB.

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lucagreene18

If Szeth were to have drawn Nightblood immediately after he had consumed Rayse, would he still have drained Szeth's Stormlight? As it said he seemed like he had eaten as much as he could.

Brandon Sanderson

At that point, Nightblood had entered into essentially a food coma... Well, no, the food coma one came when he was drawing from the perpendicularity. I don't think he was in food coma mode at that point. I think that he could still have drawn more at that point, I'd have to go look at exactly what I wrote, if I'd put him into food coma mode or not. It is possible.

This is one of the things I wanted to answer with the book. A lot of people have been theorizing, could Nightblood eat an entire Shard? And indeed, Nightblood could not eat an entire Shard. That is not within his capability. In fact, one of the reasons that he leaks Investiture is: he's too stuffed full of it. There is more Investiture in the sword Nightblood than it can actually hold, it's supersaturated. And it leaks Investiture (that it's done some weird things to). But it is constantly hungry for more and constantly leaks it, but it definitely can get full for a time, and it could not eat an entire Shard.

I did see questions about that from people floating around, and it's something I'd been meaning to get to eventually. Nightblood is definitely relevant to things that are happening in the Cosmere, but it is not as simple as grabbing the sword, sticking it into a Shard, and defeating the Shard, unfortunately. Though, as you see in this book, there are reasons for a Shard to still be afraid of Nightblood. It didn't destroy Odium, but Rayse still really had a bad time.
YouTube Spoiler Stream 1 (Dec. 17, 2020)

So I think he would leak until he is 'only' Saturated, but he would never leak all, because he is fully sentient entity in vein of CS or spren.

Underwater_Worldhopper · June 15, 2023

11 minutes ago, therunner said:

I don't think so.
He would leak away some, since the reason he leaks is the fact he is 'super-saturated' with Investiture, having more than the sword can hold. Basically he leaks nearly the same way Radiants do. At least that is my interpretation of the following WoB.

So I think he would leak until he is 'only' Saturated, but he would never leak all, because he is fully sentient entity in vein of CS or spren.

Reasonable, but what effect would losing all that Investiture have on him?

therunner · June 15, 2023

59 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Reasonable, but what effect would losing all that Investiture have on him?

Unknown

He might be weaker? He got stronger since Warbreaker, and he is at his strongest when is fully consuming Investiture (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/222/#e5617).
But he would still be stronger than any other Shardblade.

alder24 · June 15, 2023

11 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Still, creating a Shardblade that has extra abilities due to the Command it's trying to follow should be possible without Shardic intervention, as evidenced by Vivenna's Blade, even though it doesn't have a true mind of its own. The extra abilities would essentially act like Resonances, since it's an imitation of another magic system by Awakening, so something like a weak after-effect attached to a Shardblade. I imagine that would be doubly true if the Command was close to a Shardic Intent, so long as at least some Investiture gets Corrupted. The other Type IV Shardblades won't have minds or be nearly as powerful as Nightblood, but I think those Shardblades would still be superior to Sprenblades, save for the fact that Sprenblades can be dismissed and also change shape.

Another thing that you would want to consider is how much power Shards are willing to give in places they're not invested. What I mean by that is that Ruin especially doesn't care where his essence (and Hemalurgy) is used as long as it result in a rise of entropy. Odium on the other hand would be very unlikely to share his power in places other than Roshar, he is selfish by nature and even if that were to propagate hate across Cosmere, he wouldn't want to split his power, even a tiny bit, and give it to someone outside of his control. Honor and Cultivation might be similar. Autonomy is unknown, Bavadin is a control freak, so she might not want to share her power, but on the other hand she creates Avatars left an right so she might be willing to gain another pawn. I'm not saying it would be a conscious decision of a Shard, but rather unconscious one, decided by the nature of given Shard. Therefore no matter how hard you would try, you wouldn't be able to create "hateful sword", because Odium by nature doesn't want to share.

3 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

That could be the case, though it doesn't change much in terms of functionality. What I want to know is, if I were to unsheath Nightblood and leave him on the side somewhere, would he eventually just leak all the Investiture in him away?

No, his 1000 Breaths with which he was Awaken won't get leaked for sure. They are tied to the sword with Awakening.

Underwater_Worldhopper · June 15, 2023

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Another thing that you would want to consider is how much power Shards are willing to give in places they're not invested. What I mean by that is that Ruin especially doesn't care where his essence (and Hemalurgy) is used as long as it result in a rise of entropy. Odium on the other hand would be very unlikely to share his power in places other than Roshar, he is selfish by nature and even if that were to propagate hate across Cosmere, he wouldn't want to split his power, even a tiny bit, and give it to someone outside of his control. Honor and Cultivation might be similar. Autonomy is unknown, Bavadin is a control freak, so she might not want to share her power, but on the other hand she creates Avatars left an right so she might be willing to gain another pawn. I'm not saying it would be a conscious decision of a Shard, but rather unconscious one, decided by the nature of given Shard. Therefore no matter how hard you would try, you wouldn't be able to create "hateful sword", because Odium by nature doesn't want to share.

I don't think that works that way. Odium won't be sharing his Investiture, but rather Breaths would be being Corrupted to his Intent. Odium doesn't even need to be aware its happening. If anything his power is being increased, since he can now control Investiture that previously was not his.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

No, his 1000 Breaths with which he was Awaken won't get leaked for sure. They are tied to the sword with Awakening.

That's true. He might just pose everything but those original 1000 Breaths.

alder24 · June 15, 2023

11 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

I don't think that works that way. Odium won't be sharing his Investiture, but rather Breaths would be being Corrupted to his Intent. Odium doesn't even need to be aware its happening. If anything his power is being increased, since he can now control Investiture that previously was not his.

I phrased it badly. I wanted to say their nature might prevent this. Not that Shard's power would be taken and used somewhere else. but that corruption would create their power in a place that they have no control over (that's the point, they wouldn't have control over that power, maybe even would be fully unaware of it, because their minds don't reach that far). Ruin doesn't care, as long as it cause destruction. Others, like Odium or Autonomy might care, as their nature might not like something like that.

Underwater_Worldhopper · June 15, 2023

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

I phrased it badly. I wanted to say their nature might prevent this. Not that Shard's power would be taken and used somewhere else. but that corruption would create their power in a place that they have no control over (that's the point, they wouldn't have control over that power, maybe even would be fully unaware of it, because their minds don't reach that far). Ruin doesn't care, as long as it cause destruction. Others, like Odium or Autonomy might care, as their nature might not like something like that.

Ah, that makes more sense. Still though, just because it's aligned with their Intent doesn't make it any different. Nightblood was Awakened using Endowment's Investiture, and it ended up killing a Vessel. A Shard wouldn't want something like Nightblood existing, regardless of what it's made of. Rayse wouldn't have liked Nightblood, given that that's what he ended up dying to, but he had no power over it. But if Nightblood were made of his Investiture instead, he might have been able to control it. If I were a Shard, I'd take the chance of me being able to control a weapon of mass destruction over not being able to control it at all.

All this to say, something powerful is being created. At that point, whether it's made of your Intent or not shouldn't make a difference in how you view it, beyond the possibility of controlling it.

IlstrawberrySeed · June 16, 2023

On 6/14/2023 at 4:08 PM, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Still, creating a Shardblade that has extra abilities due to the Command it's trying to follow should be possible without Shardic intervention, as evidenced by Vivenna's Blade, even though it doesn't have a true mind of its own. The extra abilities would essentially act like Resonances, since it's an imitation of another magic system by Awakening, so something like a weak after-effect attached to a Shardblade.

The extra abilities are also dictated by material, likely having something to do with fabrial mechanics. I wish we know what Vivena's sword was made of, if it's not allomantically viable, that could play into the whole "not conscious" thing.

Underwater_Worldhopper · June 16, 2023

4 hours ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

The extra abilities are also dictated by material, likely having something to do with fabrial mechanics. I wish we know what Vivena's sword was made of, if it's not allomantically viable, that could play into the whole "not conscious" thing.

That could play into things, but I doubt that's the root cause. Nightblood wasn't supposed to be sentient, that happened outside of Vasher and Shashara's control, and that's what I suspect Endowment had a hand in, since she was also involved in its creation.

It does make me wonder though, what effects woukd an Awakened Sword of other Allomantic Metals produce? What parallels can we draw between what we've seen Steel do in the Cosmere vs Nightblood and its effects?

alder24 · June 16, 2023

2 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

That could play into things, but I doubt that's the root cause. Nightblood wasn't supposed to be sentient, that happened outside of Vasher and Shashara's control, and that's what I suspect Endowment had a hand in, since she was also involved in its creation.

What? No. He was supposed to be sentient. That was the whole idea of this. They were trying to create a sentient sword but they weren't sure if this could be done. They didn't understand what had happened, but that was their intention from the beginning. Ch 51:

Quote

That was the great crux of the problem, the issue that had dominated most of Vasher’s life. A thousand Breaths. That was what it took to Awaken an object of steel and give it sentience. Even Shashara hadn’t fully understood the process, though she had first devised it.
It took a person who had reached the Ninth Heightening to Awaken stone or steel. Even then, this process shouldn’t have worked. It should have created an Awakened object with no more of a mind than the tassels on his cloak.
Nightblood should not be alive. And yet he was. Shashara had always been the most talented of them, far more capable than Vasher himself, who had used tricks—like encasing bones in steel or stone—to make his creations. Shashara had been spurred on by the knowledge that she’d been shown up by Yesteel and the development of ichor- alcohol. She had studied, experimented, practiced. And she’d done it. She’d learned to forge the Breath of a thousand people into a piece of steel, Awaken it to sentience, and give it a Command. That single Command took on immense power, providing a foundation for the personality of the object Awakened.

Spoiler

Fluffy (paraphrased)

When the Five Scholars traveled to Roshar, this happened post Recreance, so most Shardblades would have been dead, how did Nightblood gain sapience?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Shardblades weren’t the only Blades around that were active, there were Honorblades. Honorblades are self-aware, but do not manifest a spren in the Cognitive Realm.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 15, 2022)

16 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Ah, that makes more sense. Still though, just because it's aligned with their Intent doesn't make it any different. Nightblood was Awakened using Endowment's Investiture, and it ended up killing a Vessel. A Shard wouldn't want something like Nightblood existing, regardless of what it's made of. Rayse wouldn't have liked Nightblood, given that that's what he ended up dying to, but he had no power over it. But if Nightblood were made of his Investiture instead, he might have been able to control it. If I were a Shard, I'd take the chance of me being able to control a weapon of mass destruction over not being able to control it at all.

All this to say, something powerful is being created. At that point, whether it's made of your Intent or not shouldn't make a difference in how you view it, beyond the possibility of controlling it.

That isn't what I meant. No conscious decision would be made by Shards. They wouldn't even be aware of that. It would be decided by their nature, how their nature allows others to access their power, and this is a full unconscious decision. Like Ruin's nature allows Hemalurgy to be used anywhere by anyone, because that's his nature. But the nature of different Shards, like Odium who is by nature very selfish, might not be so universally focused and reachable by anyone.

Koloss17 · June 16, 2023

On a side note: we know that the more Invested something is, the more sentient it will be, but does that work the other way around? Do sentient things need to be sufficiently Invested?

Underwater_Worldhopper · June 16, 2023

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

What? No. He was supposed to be sentient. That was the whole idea of this. They were trying to create a sentient sword but they weren't sure if this could be done. They didn't understand what had happened, but that was their intention from the beginning. Ch 51:

My mistake, I misterpreted that.

Quote

That isn't what I meant. No conscious decision would be made by Shards. They wouldn't even be aware of that. It would be decided by their nature, how their nature allows others to access their power, and this is a full unconscious decision. Like Ruin's nature allows Hemalurgy to be used anywhere by anyone, because that's his nature. But the nature of different Shards, like Odium who is by nature very selfish, might not be so universally focused and reachable by anyone.

Ohhhhhhh, okay. You're right, that checks out, the Intent itself might reject it. But I still don't think that should stop it. Allomancy is powered by Preservation, yet it can still be used to kill. The Intent stops mattering when it's used to fuel an Invested Art. Awakening a sword with an Odious Command should still Awaken it and Corrupt the Breaths.

20 minutes ago, Koloss17 said:

On a side note: we know that the more Invested something is, the more sentient it will be, but does that work the other way around? Do sentient things need to be sufficiently Invested?

I believe so. Your Spiritual Apsect is tied to your Physical Aspect and your Physical Aspect tries to constantly match the Spirtual Aspect. Just by developing a larger brain or other physical changes required to produce the necessary Cognitive complexity needed for sentience or sapience, your Spirtual Aspect, the Spiritweb, will need to grow more and more Connections will need to be made first, or at least at the same time, which increases your ambient Investiture. Less sentient creatures have simpler and less Connections making up their Spiritweb.

Note though, I say Connections here, but we don't know for sure what exactly is coding for things in your Spiritweb, so Connections are just my stand in at the moment.

Conversely, removing Investiture from a Sapient Entity has devastating consequences. Drabs are far more susceptible to not only illnesses but become irritable and can become victim to depression much faster as well, and that's only in people whose souls were literally made to be detachable. Imagine the effects of surviving Hemalurgy without regrowing your Spirtiweb.

alder24 · June 16, 2023

17 minutes ago, Koloss17 said:

On a side note: we know that the more Invested something is, the more sentient it will be, but does that work the other way around? Do sentient things need to be sufficiently Invested?

Humans are sentient and sapient, and they are relatively low invested. For investiture alone, sapience is gained over a longer time period, not immediately. For invested objects it would be likely the same. The more investiture there is, the faster it could gain sapience. So the amount of investiture determines how fast investiture will gain sapience naturally. But likely there is a level when a sapience/sentience of something too little invested is marginal. But that's naturally gained sapience, if you want to make something sapient you for sure need that thing to be sufficiently invested.

Spoiler

PrinceofMagnets

What is Cosmere sentience? By this I mean what does it require and what does it entail?

Brandon Sanderson

In the cosmere, most things are sentient on some level. Basically, anything with even the smallest amount of investiture. (Which is all matter, and most cognitive creations.) Sapience is something different, of course.

/r/books AMA 2015 (May 16, 2015)

Spoiler

Argent

You've said that Investiture tends to develop sapience on its own. Is this a function of the amount of Investiture alone (i.e. any pile of Investiture large enough will develop sapience eventually), or does the process require extra effort (e.g. a Command from an Awakener, an action by a Shard, etc.)?

Brandon Sanderson

Under the right circumstances, a pile of investiture will eventually become self-aware. But there is no specific timing. The more investiture clumped together, the more likely--and the closer to human-level intelligence it is likely to obtain.

Of course, if you leave matter alone long enough (on a galactic scale) it will eventually end up becoming sapient too. So this isn't that different. (Well, okay, it is.)

Boogalyhu34

Are humans already sapient and intelligent because their Spiritual DNA tell their innate investiture what connections to make or what weird soul pattern to go into.

Brandon Sanderson

Let's RAFO that for now.

Stormlight Three Update #4 (Oct. 4, 2016)

Spoiler

Questioner

If someone were to create a human shape, with full articulations, made out of the four Feruchemical Spiritual metals and copper and do like a full dump into them, would it be able to-- I mean, Investiture attains sapience on its own. And then with-- If those were mixed with the memories in the copper would it be able to effectively become an android of the person who created it?

Brandon Sanderson

So we got a couple of issues you have to overcome in creating this. Number one, the memories are not going to attune to the Investiture itself, they're going to be attuned to you. The Investiture as it attains sapience is gonna create its own Identity, which is then going to be a mismatch for those memories. So you would have to find a way to get those memories to work for that creation.

Questioner

It wouldn't tie with the Identity that was stored in the aluminum?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it would not... The other thing you were getting at there though, is that just Investing it alone, you would have to leave it alone for a long time, naturally, for it to start developing anything. And so we're looking at thousands of years, probably. There are ways to speed that process along, but just doing that and leaving it, it's gonna take a while.

Skyward San Diego signing (Nov. 7, 2018)

Walter The Moral · June 17, 2023

I always assumed that it contains Ruin's Investiture because Ruin is Entropy, so anything that is destroyed is through him. The Shards are all pieces of the power used to make the Universe, so each Shard's Intent is in line with an entire Universal Constant. Anything honorable is of Honor, any invention is of Invention. Just because the Shard isn't aware of it, that doesn't mean it isn't part of that Shard's power.

I don't know if that makes a lot of sense, but that's how I viewed it.

Underwater_Worldhopper · June 17, 2023

2 hours ago, Walter The Moral said:

I always assumed that it contains Ruin's Investiture because Ruin is Entropy, so anything that is destroyed is through him. The Shards are all pieces of the power used to make the Universe, so each Shard's Intent is in line with an entire Universal Constant. Anything honorable is of Honor, any invention is of Invention. Just because the Shard isn't aware of it, that doesn't mean it isn't part of that Shard's power.

I don't know if that makes a lot of sense, but that's how I viewed it.

It's up to interpretation, but I don't really see it that way. The Shards aren't Gods, they don't represent the forces of nature or universal constants. They're just a lot of power that's been polarised to one random Intent. Someone giving you a gift on Rohar isn't invoking Endowment any more than you hating someone who wronged you is invoking Odium. Invention will want to inspire new technologies and creations, but not all technology comes through him. He just happens to have an Intent that encourages new ideas. It's not like Odium, Honor, and Ruin are fundamental parts of the fabric of the Cosmere, they're just random attributes of a God-like being that were turned onto each other and then torn apart. The fact that their Intents can be reinterpreted in different ways that can allow the Vessels to do different things supports this because if it was a fundamental part of existence, it would be a bit more set in stone.

You are, as a person, made up of many different qualities. But suppose I was to somehow split you into two people, one whose entire being is dedicated to Wrath and one entirely centered around Vulnerability. If that were to happen, it doesn't necessarily mean that you, as a person, are fundamentally composed and able to feel only Wrath and Vulnerability, those were just the two things I happened to split you into. Just the same way, the original 16 Vessels split the divine being of Adonalsium into 16 random parts of himself. Only in this case, those 16 pieces each held a portion of the power of creation, each stamped with one of those 16 attributes, where the very power itself is being driven to exemplify and spread that one single Intent, which determines what the powers can and cannot do. This is separate from the people who take up (and eventually become slaves to) the powers, and those concepts overall. Killing someone isn't magically invoking Ruin, or being driven by a universal truth about the necessity of entropy. It's just you killing someone, and there happens to be a Shard who is polarised to a very similar thing.

That's the entire point of why Nightblood is so special, and why his being able to channel and be fueled by Ruin's Investiture is so special, because he actually is invoking Ruin. Somehow, using an entirely different Shard's Investiture, Nightblood is using Ruin's powers, and to devastating effect. Not all destruction is through Ruin. In fact, only a very small fraction of destruction is through him, because he's been trapped on Scadrial for so long. Yet, what Nightblood is doing is clearly through Ruin. That was why I made this thread.

Being honorable has nothing to do with Honor until you start using his Investiture and making actual, magical contracts. You can be Connected to a Shard by exemplifying their Intent, but that's only after you've been born on a planet where that Shard was/is in residence. Honor would fawn over a very honorable Scadrian, but they don't have an actual link between them, nothing magical like Connection connecting you to him. Had the people who killed Adonalsium done something differently, they would have gotten a different set of 16 Shards. Had the process been the same, but with different people involved, the Shatter would again produce 16 different Shards. There's nothing inherently special about the Shardic Intents.

Or at least that's how I view it.

Let me know if you guys think of it differently, this is one of the semantic differences in views about the Cosmere that really interests me.

WoBs:

Quote

Eric

If Adonalsium Shattered with intent, would he always Shatter with the same Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

It is plausible that it could've gone a different way.

Eric

So it could've been different Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's plausible.
Words of Radiance Chicago signing (March 22, 2014)

Quote

James Furr

If, instead of the 16, there had been 20 members at the Shattering of Adonalsium (with the same level of involvedness)...could it have Shattered into 20 pieces?

Brandon Sanderson

It's quite possible that a different number could have ended up working.
Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 5, 2018)

Quote

Paladin Brewer

Was it necessary that Adonalsium split into sixteen Shards, or was it happenstance?

Brandon Sanderson

I will RAFO that one.

Paladin Brewer

Would the number or intents have been different, if there were more or less people?

Brandon Sanderson

That's all wrapped up in that RAFO. Let's say it's conceivable that the split could have happened in different ways.
Oathbringer Houston signing (Nov. 18, 2017)

Quote

askthepaperclip (paraphrased)

If Adonalsium were to shatter in a parallel universe, would it divide into the same 16 intents?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Um...it...Adonalsium could have been shattered in other ways.

askthepaperclip (paraphrased)

Was there a force determining which way it shattered?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes!
New York Signing (Nov. 16, 2013)

alder24 · June 17, 2023

37 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

The Shards aren't Gods, they don't represent the forces of nature or universal constants

They kind of do:

Spoiler

Pawell2812

Cultivation, Ruin, and Preservation seem like aspects of Adonalsium's cosmic nature rather than personality traits like other Shards. Is there a fourth Shard that is cosmic in nature?

Brandon Sanderson

I think they all are cosmic in nature. Even Honor, like you could say that's a personality trait, I don't think it is, I think it's a cosmic sense of justice and order, if that makes sense. We're phrasing it as a personality trait but that's not really what it is. There are those who would argue that the Shard of Honor is what makes things fall to the ground when you drop them and obey natural laws.

Ben Epic

Assuming the Dawnshards each represent four Shards, and considering their Intents seem to be similar, are Endowment, Cultivation, and Ruin all from the same category? Are they all Change Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, I get what you're saying. I'm going to RAFO that for now.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

Spoiler

Questioner

Shards. We started with fairly obvious ones, magic wise. Trying to keep this spoiler free, so: Ruin, Preservation, this kind of thing. Then we get the weird ones. Why do we have Shards that can only exist in the mind of a sentient creature? ...Like the concept of Honor can only be done when it's carried out, essentially, by a sentient creature.

Brandon Sanderson

So when I split Adonalsium I said, "I'm going to take aspects of Adonalsium's nature." And this involves personality to me. So the Shattering of Adonalsium was primal forces attached to certain aspects of personality. And so I view every one of them this way. And when I wrote Mistborn we had Ruin and Preservation. They are the primal forces of entropy and whatever you call the opposite, staying-the-same-ism-y. Like, you've got these two contrasts, between things changing and things not changing. And then humans do have a part, there's a personality. Ruin is a charged term for something that actually is the way that life exists. And Preservation is a charged term for stasis, for staying the same. And those are the personality aspects, and the way they are viewed by people and by the entity that was Adonalsium.

So I view this for all of them. Like, Honor is the sense of being bound by rules, even when those rules, you wouldn't have to be bound by. And there's this sense that that is noble, that's the honor aspect to it, but there's also something not honorable about Honor if taken from the other direction. So a lot of them do kind of have this both-- cultural component, I would say, that is trying to represent something that is also natural. And not all of them are gonna have a 100% balance between those two things, I would say, because there's only so many fundamental laws of the universe that I can ascribe personalities to in that way.

So I find Honor very interesting, but I find Autonomy a very interesting one for the exact same reason. What does autonomy mean? We attach a lot to it, but what is the actual, if you get rid of the charged terms, what does it mean? And this is where you end up with things like Odium claiming "I am all emotion." Rather than-- But then there's a charged term for it that is associated with this Shard. I'm not going to tell you whether he's right or not, but he has an argument.

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 (March 1, 2018)

But that doesn't mean that every act of destruction involves Ruin or every invention is due to Invention. That's not the case, they’re more like embodiments of those fundamental laws of Cosmere. Shards are omnipresent but their mind isn't infinite, they aren't aware of that power.

Yes but he just can't do that, right? Like, he's not infinite. The Vessels are not, even if their minds are enormously expanded by holding a Shard, they are not infinite. The Connection is all there in the Spiritual Realm

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

4 hours ago, Walter The Moral said:

I always assumed that it contains Ruin's Investiture because Ruin is Entropy, so anything that is destroyed is through him. The Shards are all pieces of the power used to make the Universe, so each Shard's Intent is in line with an entire Universal Constant. Anything honorable is of Honor, any invention is of Invention. Just because the Shard isn't aware of it, that doesn't mean it isn't part of that Shard's power.

I don't know if that makes a lot of sense, but that's how I viewed it.

I think you're wrong, because the WoB specifically said "Nightblood contains Ruin's investiture in the way you mean it". So it's in a more meaningful way.

The Nature of Nightblood and Ruin

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