ccstat
Are spren equally visible to native Rosharans and worldhoppers?
Brandon Sanderson
Are they equally visible-- It is cognitive things that pull them out, not the native investiture of the people who live on Roshar.
Found 754 entries in 0.135 seconds.
Are spren equally visible to native Rosharans and worldhoppers?
Are they equally visible-- It is cognitive things that pull them out, not the native investiture of the people who live on Roshar.
Could you use AonDor to manipulate Connection? If so, would a real AonDor smarty be able to do something similar to a Bondsmith?
The short answer to your question is: yes. Let me give some explanation.
Even when you are seeings some things happening in Elantris itself, you are seeing them manipulate Connection. It is mostly reinforcing Connection, but it is, in a way, manipulation. Rewriting Connection, rewriting Identity are both things that they can do. So with enough power, with enough smartiness, what a Bondsmith can do can be done.
In fact, we have seen short-range Elsecalling done by… Obviously Elsecalling’s not Bondsmithing, but you know that a Bondsmith powered a big Elsecalling [to migrate from Ashyn], one of the big things you’ve seen a Bondsmith do is get people between planets. And you have seen people use AonDor to Elsecall. You’ve seen them Lightweave, you’ve seen them do a lot of these things. They also could do some of this same stuff.
Basically, rule of thumb is: almost anything in the cosmere that is possible can be replicated with AonDor with the right program. But you may need an injection of Investiture in certain ways.
From what is described in the end [of Dawnshard], are all the forms of Investiture derived in some way from one of the Dawnshards?
RAFO. (Sorry.)
Do the scholars in Silverlight understand the Realmatic difference between a Shattering of a Shard and the unique hypercompression of Devotion and Dominion's Investiture in the Selish Cognitive Realm?
They do. Do they fully understand? No. But do they understand better than anyone else in the Cosmere who is not a Shard? Yes.
Who is more invested, Susebron or Nomad?
Nomad- uhhhh. Oh oh, that's a hard one. Nomad was, but is no longer. So Susebron. I was gonna say Nomad, but he doesn't have the Dawnshard anymore. So not anymore, Susebron would be more invested than he would be at this point. But Nomad can feed upon Investiture, so he could overtake that threshold in the right circumstances. But not currently. Currently he can't even get himself Connected to the planet to speak the language, so.
So we know how some people can enter Shadesmar, or the cognitive realm, how do other places, like- we haven't seen anything for the Mistborn series. Do we know how they can enter.
Read Secret History.
I did read that, but it didn't really say much besides that one special case.
Right, Hoid talks about Perpendicularities on Scadrial, if you go look at that there are certain places he talks about that. Let's just say that large concentrations of Investiture will cause a puncture through the spiritual realm straight to the physical realm, that if you know how to use it, you may transition. That's not the only way but is the primary way.
And of course you can Soulcast [Elsecall?] to get there.
Yes.
Now that's a very interesting analogy you just made, you said "punctured" almost as though it were a spike.
Yes, yes, that was intentional.
Is the dying process - death, to Cognitive Realm staging area, to the Beyond - a universal process in the Cosmere?
Yes. it is a universal process. People don’t always hang out as long, depending on how much Investiture is around.
What the heck is [Feruchemical] Investiture?
I’m not going to say that because it would be a spoiler for those who haven’t read the Ars Arcanum yet.
When a Returned who has lots of extra Breath gives them away without suppressing his Divine Breath, does the Divine Breath stick to the regular Breath as they are transferred to the receiver? Will the receiver find himself suddenly possessing a Divine Breath? Or does it still vanish after healing the receiver?
Divine Breaths don't work quite like others. However, losing one is kind of a "Last resort." You'll give away all the others first, and then, if you push you can give it away as well. It never sticks around and makes the person you choose returned.
Could you use it to heal Preservation's mind? (potentially with the Well)
Depends on what you mean by "Preservation's Mind." Do you mean Leras? During the events of Well/HoA he's WELL beyond the help of such a small bit of investiture, as available in a single Divine Breath. With the help of the Well itself? That's more realistic, but the real reason that he was suffering from such degradation was due to persistent attacks by Ruin.
One of my favorite things about the cosmere is the mixture of science with magic. I was theorizing on ways you could do the space travel with spaceships between planets. My theory is that you could... we know ways that you could store Investiture in things, we know ways you can shield that as well. I was thinking if you put, like, a super-Invested object at the front of your ship and opened it up, you're basically creating a perpendicularity, put the whole ship into the Cognitive Realm?
Very interesting theory. RAFO.
I really like that you can theorize along these lines. Not to say too much, but people have been able to figure out how I'm going to do it, because the fundamentals of the magic are there. And that just tickles me. It makes me excited.
Would a lifeless Koloss still be super strong?
You see, what is happening to create a koloss is a human soul is taken, sliced up, and sutured back together--with the spikes being the "stitches" that holds it all together. That's a problem, since the various forms of investiture don't play very well together. In Awakening, you're basically giving something a counterfeit soul. (But without the skill or knowledge of something like an Essence Mark.)
This means that in investing the corpse of the koloss, you have troubles. It's going to want to snap back to the original human shape and strength. If you COULD overcome this, then yes, it would be stronger.
Can you tell us something about the magic on the Darkside?
Not nearly as explosive and obvious as the magic on Dayside. Most of the Investiture you’ll find is on Dayside, but there is some stuff going on over there.
What benefit does an aluminum savant get? Yes, I know this would normally never happen because aluminum burns itself up. Suppose a mad scientist with a willing Mistborn test subject shoved a feeding tube down the Mistborn's throat to pump in a continuous stream of aluminum, replenishing it steadily so there's always a new unburned supply. Add another tube to pump out excess water if necessary. What would he discover? Alternatively, what would Sazed with his Shard-granted knowledge know?
Ha, that IS a little silly of a method. However, on the extreme end of aluminum, I have in the notes the possibility of cleansing the spirit of unwanted effects of other Investitures. You'd get really good at this, and maybe even be able to cleanse the body of other impurities.
Are the Ten Essences related to the Ten Shardworld's Form-of-Investiture
They are not as related as philosophers from ancient days, who created those tables, thought that they were.
Didn't Hoid take the Moon Sceptre from Sel, which acts as a Rosetta Stone for Investiture conversion? Why then is he unable to convert Stormlight into Breaths?
The Moon Scepter is a small piece of a much larger puzzle.
Why are Seons stuck as floating balls of light in the Cognitive Realm, while true spren get to be people shaped? I feel that is unfair.
That is a little unfair isn't it. Boy, Sel has all sorts of unfair things going on. But they can leave Sel, so there's some sort of clue there. But lots of unfairness to everybody from Sel in various ways. But the thing that is not unfair is: they're able to get places.
Just gotta escape the deadly plasma, you know. No big deal.
If they can escape the deadly Investiture plasma covering the Cognitive Realm... not even covering, like... suffusing the Cognitive Realm where they are, the Expanse of Densities. If they can escape that they can go places.
I'll be honest. I couldn't decided if I should use a seon there at the end or a Tamu Kek. In one draft it was a Tamu Kek, and then I thought, "Eh, seons are way more interesting because they have volition. Tamu Kek is just a bone." It was a Tamu Kek originally, and then it was a seon, then back to a Tamu Kek, and then I released it as a seon.
Would Stormlight healing, Progression, or Feruchemical gold healing count as some of the ways that a transgender person could change their body to match their identity?
Yes. Those would work. In fact, that's kind of the main way that you would make that happen. Injections of Investiture making the body match the Spiritual and Cognitive.
How much Investiture is located in the planet-like object in the Threnody system named Purity?
*chuckles* RAFO.
So, Miles Hundredlives. If you were to spike his Allomantic gold out of him, would that change his Identity such that he could no longer access his metalminds?
That would not necessarily change his Identity, but it would change his Investiture. So if you took off the piece of his soul that could do Allomancy, and then gave him his metalminds. Well, no... No, this is more complicated than I was assuming. So you're saying if someone took away his ability to do Allomancy, could he still access his Feruchemy metalminds. Yes he could. He could still do that. That should work just fine.
Do the metalminds kind of have a pointer to his Identity, they don't have a copy of his Identity that they're keyed to?
Yeah... he is still him unless you spike him and do something with the Identity specifically.
So you could potentially steal his Identity.
That strays into RAFO territory, so we'll go ahead and give you a RAFO card. But simply taking it away would not change his Identity to the point that it would prevent-- Good question. Very detailed.
If a Radiant went to Taldain's Dayside, would they be able to '"recharge" from the sunlight?
They would be able to draw some Investiture from the sunlight.
What other magic systems - because it seems unique from what we have seen - what other magic systems have that same, kind of, "If you use it a lot it gets better?"
So, imagine this way-- You're making a metaphor-- It is a little bit more like wedging open cracks in the soul by letting the flow come through, and the investiture comes in.
So it seems that in Allomancy, it seems to maybe enhance those cracks--
It can open the cracks more.
Are there other magic systems like that?
Yes.
Will we see those anytime soon?
Maybe. Anytime soon? Let me RAFO that for you.
Nightblood has more Investiture than any other being, right?
Not every other being, but definitely one of the most highly Invested individuals that we have seen.
So Nightblood, he was used to wound Odium. Is Odium now weaker than he was before?
Not in a relevant way. Technically, yes. Not in a relevant way. The amount taken, compared to how much there is, is pretty small. And a whole bunch of what happened there was focused on the Vessel, not on Odium itself.
Could Nightblood consume Odium?
Nightblood would get full before consuming even the smallest fraction amount of Odium. As you saw, Nightblood kind of got full in that instance. Actually, it was with the perpendicularity, it would be similar to that. So for those who are wondering, no, you can't stab Nightblood into the planet and absorb the planet. Nightblood is really dangerous, as we've seen, but we're not talking "absorb planets" dangerous.
(Disclaimers so that you can't say, like, "well if a Shard...") If a regular Awakener, just a mundane Awakener with nothing more than a few hundred Breaths and not any other outside influences, is there some Command they could give a blanket to get the blanket to turn warm? Generate heat; is that a normal thing you can Command?
Not in just a normal situation. I mean, technically, you could tell the blanket "start rubbing one part against another part" or something like that, or "set yourself on fire," right? But that's not what you're asking. For Awakening to work, you have to work within the intrinsic properties of the matter you're making, except it can move around a bit and with a few little other things it can do.
It's not outside the realm of possibility you could activate those Breaths as Investiture to do something else, but you would need more than just the simple magic system of Awakening.
If you used Stormlight to Awaken, would you drain color or create frost?
You'll have to see if this happens in the future! (Note that mixing the investitures is usually not easy to do.)
If Nightblood was to be used by a Scadrian, would that person have to be an Investiture ferring?
No, you could be burning any metal, and Nightblood would co-opt it and feed off that.
*inaudible*
Yeah the Divine Breath is a gift of Investiture directly to the...basically they are being given a large Splinter of Endowment.
But is it the size?
The size is important, to make that happen, yeah.
To make it happen?
To make it happen, yeah. To make them come back and to do the things but...there is obviously some leakage there when they basically taking a Cognitive Sh...they have to create a Cognitive Shadow of the spirit, right. Which requires some work, and then to push that back into the body and get it to stick requires some work as well. You'll see that with Szeth it isn't sticking very well.
*inaudible*
Yeah Szeth is not a Cognitive Shadow, he actually got stuck back in but the soul is not sticking very well to the body
*inaudible*
That's what she's saying.
Let's say I had a really hard/special/magic metal file. I took it to Roshar and started shaving pieces off and catching them in a bowl. Would they dissipate and kinda puff into embers like the Shardplate does in places or would I actually have a bit of metal? If I did, would that metal shaving be able to be burned by a Mistborn? I won't ask what it would do, as I know that's a RAFO, just, would it be possible?
Yes, this is possible. Shardplate that grows replacement parts and/or heals itself (through using stormlight) is converting investiture into metal. So, in your theoretical world with a file that could file some off, you'd end up with a substance that you'd call a metal, though not one we have on earth.
I'll RAFO if a Mistborn could burn it, but what you want to do here could be done. This is assuming that you're using a suit of dead Shardplate, as is commonly seen in the books so far.
My other question is related to the Honorblades (and is most likely a RAFO for sure). Talenel's blade at the end of Way of Kings is described spike-like. We've seen that the magic systems are similar (especially with investiture) across the different cosmere worlds, even though they have different things that make the magic happen (Stormlight vs Breath etc). With this similarity, do the Honorblades imbue similar effects? I mean, the blade is not of Ruin (or is it? lol), but as a spike, does it imbue similar powers to Hemalurgy - without the obvious need to be stabbed with it heh?
The reference is intentional, as a call-back, but it is not the same mechanic. Remember, Szeth's blade is an Honorblade, and doesn't look like a spike. There is some similarity here, but it's minor.
Does the plague on the Purelake has anything to do with the fact that the magic fish form symbiotic bonds with spren?
No, worldhoppers brought a disease to Roshar that they didn't have before. It's the common cold. Rosharans' Investiture makes it so they're usually a healthy bunch so something like the cold is kind of frightening. "It's a plague of the sniffles."
Another person asked about the plague in the Purelake.
Turns out, that was a pathogen introduced by worldhoppers. People on Roshar normally have greater health than elsewhere in the cosmere because they are more Invested (Stormlight and all that). This plague was what we call… the common cold.
In Scadrial the amount of investiture in humans from Preservation, aka, the amount of Mistborn and mist powers, is that decreasing or just being diffused among the population?
That power is being diffused among the population, though everybody has some of it already. That power is not.
Cosmere is a dwarf galaxy. Does Investiture exist in other galaxies? Do those galaxies have their own Adonalsiums?
That is beyond the scope... that's a RAFO, but not a RAFO I'm going to answer, that is a RAFO that we are concerned only with the cosmere.
So we know that you can't just have someone-- If someone were to do something similar to Hoid, he can't just pop and go "Oh look, I can now do Allomancy or I can now do Surgebinding". What about Breath? If someone could somebody get Breath-- Maybe not *audio obscured* Could they still get the benefits of--
Oh, good question... Yes you can, actually. Breath is-- Once it is given to you, it is being keyed to you. Your Identity. So that transfer makes it yours to use however you want.
So you could Awaken?
You could Awaken. If you-- If you were to somehow make it there, you would be able to Awaken. It's the easiest of magic systems to get the magic from, and then to manipulate. Because it has keyed into it Identity.
*audio obscured*
Yes, you can take Breath onto another world. In fact, you've seen characters do this.
*audio obscured*
It would work, yes.
*audio obscured*
Yes, it would work the same way.
The only magic that is location-dependent-- The ones who aren't interested in this, just hum to yourself, okay? *laughter* You don't need to know any of this stuff to enjoy the books, okay? I write them so that you could just-- each series can be read independently, and enjoyed. There is behind the scenes stuff, and if you want to dig, it goes pretty deep.
So on Sel, we have AonDor. AonDor is based on the fact that the Dor, which is an amalgamation of Dominion and Devotion, has been pressed together and stuffed into the Cognitive Realm by Odium who didn't want it to gain sentience, as Investiture will do if it is left alone. It will either seek someone to be its Vessel or it will gain sentience. He pressed it in there; he pressed it together, which creates the violent reaction, because those two intents are opposed. And that is the foundation of the magic. Because it's stuck in the Cognitive Realm rather than the Spiritual Realm (the Spiritual Realm is location-independent; Cognitive Realm is location-dependent), it makes the magic on Sel only work in close proximity to what is keyed through there to the location they're keyed to. This has to do with Identity and Connection. Mostly Connection. So that means you can't do AonDor on another planet, but you can do other magics works anywhere, because they're drawing the magics specifically through either the place, or they're end-neutral, like Breath is, and you don't need any extra power.
If a coppermind was to be split in half, would the contents of it be destroyed? Or would there be, in the two separate halves, <of different contents?>?
You should err on the side of being destroyed, though not permanently, is what I would say on that. There are ways to approach it that wouldn't, but generally if you're ruining a metalmind, the Investiture will stay in it, and if you know what you're doing you can make use of that, but in most cases, it's not gonna fare well.
If a Mistborn were to burn a metal that's been Forged by a Soulstamp, is there a different effect from another, or?
So they Forged it from one metal into another metal?
Yes.
So once they started to burn it, it would break the Forgery and it would turn back into its original metal. So you'd have just the briefest moment of getting what it said it was and then it would go back to the other and then if you were a Misting of the wrong type, you would get no more from it.
What about Feruchemy or Hemalurgy?
So Feruchemy and Hemalurgy. You would have a lot of trouble Investing it because it's already Invested. So you would run into troubles right away trying to Invest it, because it's already got all the Investiture messing with it. You could theoretically make it happen, but it would take enough work and conniving that it just wouldn't be worth it.
Hemalurgy is mentioned as something that has "broad implications." But that's of Ruin, right? (Or now it is of Harmony.)
Yes, but don't take the "of Ruin" and "of Preservation" too strongly, but yes.
But, I mean, somebody couldn't just walk along with a metal spike on, say, Nalthis, and stab 'em and now they have the power, could they?
If they knew where to stab them, yes, they could.
Anywhere in the cosmere?
Yes.
You can stab someone and get their power?
Hemalurgy has been built in such a way that it rips off pieces of the soul. If you can rip off the right piece of the soul and attach it to somebody else, it will change your Identity, and it can rewrite anything that's attached to your soul. Identity, Connection, it can rewrite Investiture, all of this stuff it could potentially do.
And do the things you stab people with—are they always metal or does that depend on the planet?
No, that's metal, that's—
*inaudble*
Well yes, you could make it do something like that. That is totally possible. But the metal— Yeah. Anyway.
With the other Shards you kind of have to be near that Shard to get that—there's no Allomancy.
To get it, yes. To have that part of your soul. But, for instance, Allomancy would work on other planets. The only one that's going to have trouble working on other planets, right now, are the ones on Sel because of the way that the magics are built.
So, initially spren had imitated the heralds which then brought about the Knight Radiants and granted them similar powers. Can a spren, upon seeing worldhoppers like Vasher using biochromatic breaths, learn to imitate those as well over time? For Vasher can gain access to stormlight, so I'm wondering if spren can somehow also be able to access different investiture.
There is something to this theory, but I need to RAFO details.
Theoretically, would it be possible to form a new shard from splinters of multiple other Shards? Could I have posses enough investiture from Honor, Cultivation, and/or Odium and effectively become Unity, without holding the entirety of those shards?? I’m really just curious haha.
What you want here is theoretically possible, but more difficult than it sounds.
You suggested Secret History gave the definitive explanation why Vin didn't meet Hoid but many years ago you hinted at something different (that something he does spooked her and she is too observant for her own good). Can you reveal what the original reason you had intended was? (My favorite theories were eerily skillful humming and her picking up very faint pulses from his Investiture usage.)
I went back and forth on this one, honestly. I knew Kelsier would be involved, but one thing I was really worried about with Secret History was undermining Vin's story or her agency. While I liked Ender's Shadow, the closest parallel I knew of to a story like this, I didn't like how it weakened a lot of what Ender accomplished and gave it to Bean instead. (I think I've mentioned this in conjunction with Secret History before.)
So I wanted something to have stopped Vin, regardless of whether or not I ever wrote Kelsier's behind-the-scenes story or not. The official answer in my head is not that it was anything specific, but that the whole package that Hoid was presenting was WRONG to her. Her instincts picked up a dozen subtle cues that he was more dangerous than he seemed, and that made her freeze and assess. And that gave Kelsier the chance to nudge her away.
I wasn't trying to lead people to figure out a specific answer, with those comments. I was trying to hint that something was wrong, and Vin didn't quite know what set her off--because it wasn't one thing, but many. So I don't have a smoking gun, so to speak, of things Hoid was doing to drive her off.
I'm trying to understand the relationship between Hemalurgy and the Shard Ruin. Most of the Invested Arts involve inputs of energy of the Shardic Investiture that corresponds to it. That doesn't seem to be the case for Feruchemy and Hemalurgy. So I'm wondering what the relationship is between the corresponding Shards and those two Metallic Arts.
There's a whole lot going on here, and I'm not sure how much I can get into right here. But one of the basic concepts I built for the cosmere, way back when, was that a lot of the different magics would be showing up in different systems. And there are certain underpinning fundamental rules. And this is why you'll see Lightweaving working the same way across three different magic systems; I think you've seen it in three different ones so far. Elsecalling's gonna work the same way. Hemalurgy is a thing that is, like, part of the nature of the cosmere, that the Shard simply knew and was able to tell people how to do
So is it of that Shard? Well, yes, because you would have to be following that Shard's Intent in order to use it. But it could be discovered on other planets, as well.
And independent of Ruin's presence, really, except for as Ruin affects the cosmere as a whole?
Yes. Exactly. You are correct.
Is there any systems of Investiture of magic that you thought of and discarded?
Yes. I tried for a long time to do one that was sound wave based. And I couldn't find anything that felt interesting to me. Maybe eventually I'll manage to make it work. The problem was, everything I came up with either had been done a hundred times, or happened too much in a way that was only in the character's head, and I couldn't actually write about in an engaging and interesting way. So I discarded that one. The Rithmatist magic was originally cosmere, and then moved out of cosmere, because there were certain things that were breaking continuity, and I just decided I can't have that in the cosmere. So, I do that occasionally, where something that was meant for the cosmere goes out of it. But equally often, I start writing something, and say "Hey, this magic would benefit from the underlying rules of the cosmere," and so I move it into the cosmere.
If I remember correctly, Allomancy is from Preservation, Hemalurgy is from Ruin and Feruchemy is from both Preservation and Ruin.
This is correct. It isn't caused by a shard, but the interaction of two opposing shards
Would something like that happen between honor and odium?
I just read WoK the other day, I have yet to start in on WoR. That said, my speculation is possibly, but I don't think so. It sounds kind of like Odium isn't from Roshar. Maybe I'm wrong there, but I got that impression. That would mean his form of investiture is somewhere else.
Also, I think that the reason Preservation and Ruin have Feruchemy is also that they worked together to create. There has to be some reason that they interacted while others didn't, and I would guess it is probably their working together
Edit: We could summon [Brandon] but I am almost positive this would get RAFO'd
...RAFO.
Why did Hoid in Secret History have to ride on another person to get to the Well, when that person could float on--
Sooo, what he's floating on is a Cognitive Shadow. It's a spirit, it's not an actual person. He is floating on someone who is--
Do we know them?
You did not know them, don't worry about them. But see, he's using that as a boat because it's easy to sink through the mist. And if you notice, he has to coat his oar with Investiture in order to move him. So yeah, he's floating on a person's soul... It was so much easier with the Pits, but that's because there were boats and things.
At the end of Words of Radiance, when Hoid met Jasnah, he said he wasn't scared of the Shardblade at all. Is that just because he has enough Investiture to heal himself or is there something else going on?
There's multiple reasons but you're theorizing along the right terms.
Could Lift convert food from other cosmere worlds into Stormlight?
Yes. Lift's Spiritweb has something changed about it to allow converting mass to Investiture directly.
Someone brings a server and computer plus monitor to Roshar and uses AI to create AI art. Would creationspren or any other spren gather?
No, because it is emotion and perception of the person doing the creating that is drawing the creationspren. However, do that long enough, and there's a decent chance that a sufficiently strong AI would start gaining sentience in the cosmere, because of Investiture and the way things work.
So what about logicspren?
Logicspren are drawn to people's arguments. It's the person's emotion and thoughts that draw the spren, not the activity necessarily, in most cases. Some of the more... There's a division line. The spren that are a little more on the Cultivation spren, they can be drawn to just... Lifespren and rockspren, they're not looking for the human emotion, necessarily. But things like creationspren and logicspren are.
One of the things I really appreciate about your series in general is the depth of your magic systems, whether it's Investiture or-- Whatever the rules are, they're very detailed, very internally consistent. There's never anything where I can point out "Oh that contradicts something that somebody said two books ago". To what degree do you come up with--I guess--the universe before you write the novel or the--
Good question! So he's talking about my magic systems and how internally consistent they are. And the question is, do I do the worldbuilding first and then write the novel around it or do I do it the other way around. And the answer is: Yes! Which is one of those unsatisfying authorly answers. It depends on the story. For instance with the Wax and Wayne books, I already had the world built and so in that I'm building a story around a setting that already existed. With The Reckoners what happened is, I had the idea for people who gain superpowers all going evil and that concept spun me into building a story about it. And so that's more of an idea that spins a story rather than a setting.
Sometimes I've had a character that I really want to tell a story about, like Raoden or something like this, and then I build magic to match. It happens all different ways, and really what it is is a give and a take. Once you start with a character, you start building a story around them, and then you stop and work on the magic for a while and then you go back to the character and then you go back to the magic and then you go to the setting, then you go to the plot. As you build an outline you weave all these things together, you're not just spending time on one until it's done, and then the next 'til it's done, and then go. But it's happened all different ways for me.
I just read Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell and loved it. How did the first shade come to be? Are there shades in other worlds? Do shades have bones?
Shades are what we call "Cognitive Shadows" in the cosmere. They're basically "spren" or "[seons]" created from human souls. (Where Investiture--or magical power--keeps a consciousness alive after it has lost its Physical connection.) Yes, shades all once had bodies.
Think of them like petrified souls, where instead of stone replacing the tissue of a corpse, magical power replaced the parts of a soul that connect that soul to the Three Realms.
For one of the Unmade to be classified as Odium’s Unmade, must it have been made by another Shard or Investiture first before it became Unmade?
Excellent question. RAFO. We’re gonna delve into the Unmade quite a bit in coming books, so I’m RAFOing right now.
Is it possible for a Knight Radiant to become a kind of Drab if they use too much Investiture?
No, you can't really burn yourself out that way, no. I mean, it's possible for drabbery to be mimicked on other planets, but it wouldn't be through that method.
Is there a thing which determines what kind of spren is a higher spren, and what is, like, a basic...
Amount of Investiture, the way they're regarded, and a few other minor factors.