cris34b Posted February 18, 2014 Report Share Posted February 18, 2014 Inspiration for this idea goes to xbauks. So, everybody has been looking for the Shardpools of Roshar's splinters. But think about this. Within greatshells, gemhearts can be found. Gemhearts that grow very slowly and, though they renew, can be used up. These gemhearts can be used to do extremely powerful soulcasting. I think these gemhearts are a strange form of Shardpool. Perhaps they are Cultivations, since they seem to grow within creatures that have to age and live first. I don't know, all speculation. But I really like the idea that gemhearts are shardpools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Hoodie Mistborn Posted February 18, 2014 Report Share Posted February 18, 2014 So you're thinking the gemhearts are more like Atium than a Shardpool then? I like the idea, but not sure it'll pan out to be true. Atium was solid Ruin... but the stormlight in the gemheart is what powers soulcasting, not the gem itself... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zenith Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 We have this WoB about gemhearts, though: ViperOk. The gemhearts/stormgems/whatever that are grown inside the beasts in Way of Kings ... is that the same as the way Atium is grown inside geodes in the Pits of Hathsin? Brandon SandersonIt's similar. The pits are an area where there's like a leak from the spiritual realm into the physical. That's what happens there. From here: http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=949 This means there similarities with the spiritual aspect of gemhearts and atium, but I doubt they're exactly the same. I think the idea is very plausible, but on the power aspect, I'm not sure it matters, but it is a point. Anyway, for whatever reason I've never liked how everyone assumes most of the shards have shardpools. It seems off to me; do we have WoB on it, or is Atium enough of a counterargument or...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PorridgeBrick Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 The reason we all assume that is because so many have had Shardpools, or likely candidates for them, so far. There's Preservation's Well, Ruin's metallic lake, Devotion's pool, some heavy hints to Endowment's pool, and even a rather suspicious body of water in Roshar in the form of the Purelake. As for the OP: what you're describing is not a Shardpool, mainly because it is solid. However, I do agree with the general idea that gemhearts are the body of a shard, and most likely Cultivation's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beef man Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 Could the shard pool be the Storms? All the stormlight comes from the storms, The storms seem to be connected to spren, and the storms are basically traveling liquid walls that keep getting recycled. Not a lot behind that thought but it is a thought. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkarma Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 The storms could be how Honor's power has been manifesting. Cultivation's being the gems and Honor's the storm. Given that there is nothing carrying or controlling honor's power, that explains the energy behind the storm itself and why its so potent. Someone turned on the stove and broke the knob off. However the shard pool for honor? My guess is we haven't seen it. Even the shattered shards and the shard that were being held all had shard pools. Purelake makes sense for cultivation. My bet is the origin of the storms comes from Honor's Shard pool. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AerionBFII Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 At first i thought it was the cavern pool Kaladin discovers (the glowing one) while training Bridge 4 to fight because i think the Shatterd Plains were originaly Urithiru but now i think it is the storms as i think they are also connected to the spren. damnation you @Darkarma you have persuaded me... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moogle Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 The storms could be how Honor's power has been manifesting. Cultivation's being the gems and Honor's the storm. Given that there is nothing carrying or controlling honor's power, that explains the energy behind the storm itself and why its so potent. Someone turned on the stove and broke the knob off. They apparently had highstorms long before Honor was ever Splintered, and Brandon has been coy about whether Highstorms were there before Honor and Cultivation came to Roshar. I'd honestly give some serious weight to the theory about it being Adonalsium's Investiture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Hoodie Mistborn Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 Another piece of that puzzle, we don't know if the highstorms generated/contained stormlight prior to Honor or their power relative to the ones we see in tWoK. Could be they were in existence prior to Honor, but Tanavast decided to harness those for his power. While he was around to control it they were powerful, but not out of control. Now that he's dead, maybe they are more powerful in the same way that the Dor is kind of out of control on Sel? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asha'man Logain Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 I also think that the gemhearts are the body of a Shard. However, it seems most other here believe that there is another, normal, source of gems. Is that the consensus? I've always thought that gemhearts were ONLY found in shelled creatures (so all of them?), but that the Greatshells of various forms had likewise giant gemhearts. I've always thought that this was the reason gems cannot be soulcast, because the gems only work or form from the hearts of shelled beasts. If it was merely a specific configuration of rock (as our gemstones are here) then they should be easily soulcast. If however they are a form of investiture, or only organic, then of course you cannot more of what you are using to soulcast. So, rambling aside, who think gems are mined in a normal fashion on Roshar, and who thinks they are only from gemhearts? (maybe we should make a poll) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PorridgeBrick Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 With the sheer amount of gems they have, the greatshells would be long extinct. And the Alethi would have likely started farming the greatshells instead of hunting them if they had such a reliance on them for gems. So I do think the gems are mined. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asha'man Logain Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 (edited) No,no. I mean all the shelled animals. Lets say from an axehound you'd have a gemheart that starts at the size of say a broam whereas chulls would have one that could be split into many broams. The Greatshells are special not because of the gemheart but because of the SIZE of the gemheart. If I'm not mistaken doesn't an Alethi comment on that. That it was the size of the things that made war so lucrative? EDIT: Farming response, I kinda just jumped right in and posted. But they would 'farm' so to speak for the regular ones. Axehounds, chulls etc when they die are harvested. But being a warlike people and loving competition as they do, they would still hunt the greatshells and Whitespines (or something like that) just for the Thrill of it. Edited February 19, 2014 by Asha'man Logain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Hoodie Mistborn Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 No,no. I mean all the shelled animals. Lets say from an axehound you'd have a gemheart that starts at the size of say a broam whereas chulls would have one that could be split into many broams. The Greatshells are special not because of the gemheart but because of the SIZE of the gemheart. If I'm not mistaken doesn't an Alethi comment on that. That it was the size of the things that made war so lucrative? Well, and the associate implications of a larger gemheart... can store far more stormlight, which leads to more powerful/larger soulcasting, etc. which is where the real value comes in to play. Do we know what type of gem is generated in a gemheart? Are they emeralds? different per chasmfiend? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swimmingly Posted February 19, 2014 Report Share Posted February 19, 2014 I think it's pretty random? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cromptj Posted February 20, 2014 Report Share Posted February 20, 2014 I think that the gemhearts in chulls were mentioned and they were more valuable in the chull than outside. So the size of gemheart in a chull is probably about as big as a mark, because stealing a herd of chull got someone enslaved but if they were valuable that a broam each, the man almost certainly would have been killed. Assuming that the size of gemheart was roughly proportional to body size, the gemhearts in axehounds would be tiny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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