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Quick question on genetics and investiture on Scadrial. Is it weird that Wax would have a different Allomantic power than his predecessors, or does it only matter that you have the ability in the first place, and then it takes different forms generation to generation?
Great question! I don't think anyone has asked it.
It is the second of your two theories. The power manifests differently in different people; specific powers are not hereditary.
How much more powerful is Nightblood than a regular Shardblade?
I haven't actually quantified that in my own mind so can't give an accurate comparison at this point. I will say that when he is fully consuming Investiture he can do some really freaky things.
Soul Forging. Emperor's Soul. If one created the stamp properly, could you, using it, say, Windrunner you stamp, rewrote past to be Lightweaver. Possible?
That is possible and a little easier than a lot of other things. It's gonna run into problems... in that the Oaths are gonna be hard to align.
Probably require some very fine crafting on the stamp.
Very fine crafting on the stamp. And there are certain people that they're just gonna have a hard time fitting into certain Orders. This is a lot easier though than just taking a random person and making them into one, because you're gonna already have Investiture that they've got.
And have the basis of the First Oath.
Yeah. So this is not as hard as it might at first sound. It's the sort of thing that people in the cosmere are looking at. Like, being able to transfer magics between-- and things like that is one of very much interest in the cosmere.
Why are Ryshadium cooler than regular horses? I suspect a spren bond.
There is Investiture involved.
So I was reading that one of the worlds, I think it was Yolen, is going to be a disease oriented magic?
It's not Yolen, it's Ashyn...
How does that work?
Viruses and bacteria, various strains of them, have evolved in-line with the Investiture on the planet to grant you a magical ability when you catch the disease, because they want you to stay alive long enough to--
To transmit it.
--o transmit it. So it becomes part of the transmission vector. So you have superpowers or whatever-- You can fly as long as you have the common cold, but when you get over it, you can't anymore.
If Hoid collects a form of Investiture from every planet, will it grant him special effects?
He hopes so!
He's asking if a larkin is capable of pushing Stormlight into someone as well as drawing it out.
Ahhh, that's an excellent question. They actually feed on Investiture. Like some other people and things that you've seen. *laughter*
So is that a yes or no?
That is more of a no than a yes. *laughter*
So that's highly unlikely that that's how Szeth was resurrected.
That is correct... You did see how Szeth came back foreshadowed earlier in the books. So if you watch for it, the means by which that happens is in there.
How early? *laughter*
When Hoid says that Virtuosity Splintered herself, does that mean "left a lot of Investiture lying around" or full-on "the Shard is no more" Splintering?
RAFO
Shardblades cut organic and inorganic matter differently. How would they interact with an animated construct like an Awakened straw man? What about a Lifeless?
So I walk kind of a fine line here. Something that's animated as a construct, like an Awakened straw man, is likely going to block the Shardblade to some extent, as powerful Investiture would. A Lifeless is probably just gonna act like it was a living being.
I have it cutting right now, but I don't know if I can have it actually completely cut because we slide it through the rock and things like that, right? So it's gotta be that, like, atomizing a little bit into Investiture or something like that. Because I use it in a way that they just-- but there's not really friction on it, so mathematically I'd probably have to say that something is vanishing... I don't want it to but I probably have to.
Yeah, I was just sitting there, thinking about Dalinar getting that trench. That would be difficult.
RAFO. RAFO for you, sir.
Brandon has said that the Ashynite disease-based magic was related with the Old Magic. Did he mean it in a direct way? Like this magic from Ashyn was a branch or a variety of the Old Magic system?
I do have to RAFO this, for the most part. Suffice it to say that the disease magic is related to a symbiotic bond between spren-like Investiture and microorganisms.
*Written down* Cracks in the Spiritweb can be filled with investiture, granting powers. Are the Drab on Nalthis considered damaged enough for this process?
They are something else entirely. So that, in world, they would say no, something else has happened.
We see the concept of savantism in First Era of Mistborn books. What does that look like on other systems of Investiture, more specifically Roshar?
So on Roshar, I'm going to RAFO this one for now. It's a little harder to make happen on Roshar for various reasons, but I'll give you a card. I'll just RAFO it.
Is Marsh a worldhopper? Can he worldhop? Does he have the ability?
Ah, yes, yes.
Will we ever see him do anything on the other worlds?
That's a RAFO. There's your card. But yes, no his Investiture would not prevent him from going offworld.
So, we know that things can be Soulcast into aluminum. But can aluminum itself be Soulcast into something else?
It resists all forms of Investiture trying to change it to things.
Q1: Can synthetic diamond contain Stormlight?
Q2: if yes, can a perfect gemstone that never loses Stormlight be made of synthetic material?
Q3: Has anyone already tried bringing synthetic diamond to Roshar at this point?
Q4: Is the increasing heaviness caused by Connection limited to Shadesmar, or does it also apply to the Physical Realm?
Q5: Will Mraize ever say, “He who controls the Stormlight controls the Cosmere”?
Answer to one is yes. Answer to two is, "Never is a LONG time." Three is not yet. I'll RAFO the other two.
Do diamonds have to be clear to hold Investiture, or can they be of any color?
On Roshar, part of the definition of a diamond would be that it's clear.
Which is a nice segue to Shards Investing into Shardworlds, that I've been meaning to ask. So is it kind of a passive-- The more a Shard stays on a world--
Yes.
--the Investiture kind of seeps--
It does. Once you've got a Perpendicularity, you are starting-- That's trouble for going other places. But you've gotta remember, going other places means multiple things to someone actually holding a Shard. They can exist in the Spiritual Realm, where all things are one. And they can even kind of comprehend it...
Can a Shard choose to just instantly invest in a place?
Yeah, they just need to start making some stuff.
Kaladin's fight with the [Pursuer], his eyes are described glowing a color not quite the same as usual for corrupted Investiture. Is this supposed to be that he's burning a different Light?
No, it’s more he's on the border of some dangerous stuff.
How does [Bloodsealing] actually work with [the skeletals]? Does it trap something inside the bones like a Command?
Yeah, it works very similar to making Lifeless. Slight variations, but you are basically animating the bones by using Investiture that doesn't actually belong to them and tricking them into thinking that it does for a little bit of time and making it think it's alive again. And the fact that it's bones is really important for that, for Bloodsealing. But it's working in a similar way. The distinction is that with Lifeless you are actually using part of their own soul, right? And with Bloodsealing you're not.
Has Kelsier done any worldhopping?
Kelsier is bound to Scadrial the same way that a spren is bound to Roshar, because of the level of Investiture and the type and the way it happened. It is possible to get off-world but he does not know what it is.
A full-blown Radiant can heal almost anything (cut from a Shardblade included) because of the way the magic works--their soul is literally bonded to Investiture, and it suffuses them in such a way that even the soul is very resilient to damage.
Honorblades are what you'd consider a "prototype" for what eventually happened with Shardblades. An Honorblade can be used by anyone, without need for oaths, which makes them very dangerous--but since the bond isn't as deep, they are far less efficient. They use more Stormlight, for example, and can't heal to the extent that a Radiant can.
So the difference is not in the device that did the damage, but in the method using to heal. Over the course of the first two book, the reader should be able to subtly pick out differences from what Szeth says is possible (in more than just healing) and what Kaladin experiences.
Um, Dawnshards. So, they obviously predate the arrival of humanity on Roshar. Are they of Odium? Are they Odious Investiture?
I will RAFO Dawnshards.
In a way I felt that The Emperor's Soul was a bit post-singularity - in the sense that humans were capable of downloading new identities and histories. I know you've planned on doing FTL cosmere work, but have you any interest in doing post-singularity cosmere work? I'd be fascinated to see 'multiple-consciousness beings' using breath or soul stamps. Seeing human development push the boundaries of the shards would be quite intense, and I'm tickled pink at the notion of humans bamboozling the rules of [Shardic] Investiture - how far can Spiritual or Cognitive Identity stretch?
tl;dr - do you have any plans to bring post-singularity stories to the cosmere
I have plans for some of this, but the main-line cosmere stories I'm planning seem to adapt better to grand space opera than true post-singularity stories. That said, I've certainly got some short story ideas that will play with this. (And you'll see more hints like this even in the mainline books that I think you'll like.)
Feruchemists that can store Investiture, would they be able to then use that to power Allomancy with say Stormlight?
RAFO.
How long after Warbreaker do these events take place?
We have numbers in the wiki. We haven't canonized a lot of them in the books yet. Because my original plan for the cosmere involved more space between the series than I'm probably going to eventually do. What I've said is, that basically the books that have been released have all been chronological except for White Sand, which takes place before the other books chronologically. Wax and Wayne takes place after Stormlight Five, but before Stormlight Six. And that's all I'm saying about how far apart things are right now.
One thing you have to remember is, also, time dilation is a thing in the cosmere that comes up a lot more often than it does in our world, for various reasons, because of the way I am treating Investiture. So treat that how you will.
Does silver break Connection or bonds? If silver does have this effect, does it get used in the creation of unkeyed metalminds?
These are good questions. Silver, as I have it right now, is not capable of that. What silver's doing is is disrupting. It's more like interference. You know how, in White Sand, people can have these columns of sand. If you swiped silver through that, they would fall; but then they would be able to do it again. It's this little nullification for a short time. It's very dangerous to things like shades, and stuff like that. It's more disruptive. If you hit a spren with this, it would be like hitting them with a Shardblade. They're gonna come back together. They're not dead; they're gonna reform eventually, and probably won't take too long. So it's not severing Connection; you're gonna need anti-Investiture to do really destructive stuff. But you can disrupt with some silver. It's specifically bad for Shades for reasons maybe I'll get into someday.
Are we going to learn the similarities between the two people, the surgeon's first words when they were born... <Demid> and Taravangian? The cord around their neck?
I'll just say, I didn't intend that to be something you look at and say, "Oh, it's the same!" What I mean that to mean is bad medical care. All three of my children would have died in childbirth if we didn't have modern medical care. My first one had the cord around his neck. The doctors have told us they would all be dead. I just think that's very common in a society like this. The things going on with Roshar is, Rosharans are innately tougher because of their Investiture, so they're more likely to survive traumatic experiences. It's not meant to say you should be looking for any other connection in something like that.
Given that Stormlight healing matches to mental self-image (as shown by both the Lopen and by the Reshi monarch), could a really powerful hypnotist change someone's self-image in a way that would affect Stormlight healing? Could a powerful hypnotist use Stormlight healing to change a human into a listener?
Theoretically possible...to an extent. There is a limit to this, but the limitation is the amount of Investiture you have and access to Stormlight—or you know, Voidlight—can evidence this. Transformations that are happening in the storm to the listener forms are involved in this. That could theoretically happen to a human as well. But you would basically—what most likely would happen is it would have to involve a specific set of circumstances and then entering the storm, and then exiting as a listener—that could happen. You guys ask some farfetched things—that one's not so farfetched. It does require some specificity, but it could happen.
I’ve noticed that in Stormlight and Mistborn, there’s kind of a money equals power theme...
Yes.
Is that intentional?
Yes. I think that the-- In the Cosmere, sources of Investiture or relationships to the magics are going to be-- have an economic force and will naturally start to fall into that. So I’m making a point of-- It happens in Warbreaker too, Breaths have an economic value.
I've been trying to figure out how the Fused and the Regals get their Voidlight. Heavenly Ones seem to be able to levitate indefinitely unless they heal, which presumably expends their Light. But then the Pursuer needs to go get spheres. And then there's the Song of Prayer, which I don't understand at all.
All of the Fused have an active and an inactive way to use their Voidlight. For some of them, one is way more dramatic than the other. So you should be watching for the different brands of Fused to each have that. If they don't use it actively, they get a passive effect. And if they do use it actively, it runs out. So watch for that with them.
They each only have one power, as opposed to Knights Radiant, but they have the staying power of consistency depending on what they are.
The Song of Prayer. Let's just say that Odium likes his Fused being reliant upon him. Does that make sense?
I think it does. My assumption has been that anyone can just sing the song and ask for Investiture.
Yes, this is true, because most of the time he's not going to be paying direct attention, and it's just going to... yeah.
The gems on Roshar, are they the same as the gems you and me know, or are they a byproduct of Investiture?
For the most part they are the same as the gems we know, which will ask the question, "Since most of them are chemically identical, other than color, what differentiates them?" and in the cosmere, color is very important, so I'll just leave you at that, but most of them are going to be gems like we have. If you took a ruby from our world to Roshar, it could be Invested by the highstorm.
And spren?
We will RAFO that for now.
What happens if there was a Feruchemist who was an Elantrian? Could they store Elantrian abilities into a nicrosil metalmind?
I'm RAFOing most of the stuff, but that one's a RAFO just because I am leaving nicrosil Feruchemy far away until I get there... I'm basically RAFOing everything about Investiture and Connection metalminds and things like that...
Ancient glyphs. If they are drawn with the proper Intent, do they provide some form of Investiture? Is that where the modern idea of glyphwards and burning prayers came from?
Oh, I get where you're going. I'll RAFO that.
When Kaladin jumps in to help Adolin, and he's fighting and he says he feels like he can fight with his eyes shut. Is that just Kaladin being cocky? Or is that Investiture related? ...It reminded me of atium.
There's a little more going on there, but it's not as far as you think.
In Way of Kings, one of the interludes we see the Purelake--
Yes.
--and I've thought a lot about the fish.
Yes.
He mentions that one of them has healing effects and potentially that's--
The lore of the area states that fish have healing-- some of them--
I was wondering of your thoughts. Is that Investiture in the fish or just local superstition?
Well that is the question of the scene, so that's also a RAFO. I will say that there is still superstition, Roshar in particular. And it doesn't necessarily mean that everything they say is magic is. But there is a good chance.
One last question, why do gems crack when Stormlight is drawn out of them quickly?
When the Stormlight is coming out--you'll notice that there's the slightest physical presence of lots of spren, seons. A lot of this Investiture does have a physical side to it you can feel and that much Stormlight coming through... like when it's leaking out, it is generally going through micro cracks in the structure--where the crystal lattice didn't line up or flaws in the structure--and it coming out quickly like that, it's like hitting it with a hammer from inside along those fault lines. Much less likely to happen based on how good your gemstone is.
1) Is Ashyn still operating on a sickness-based magic, as indicated in the readings you've done previously? Or are you not ready to canonise that?
2) Assuming it is, was the use of Investiture on Ashyn always sickness-based?
3) If someone who is sick on Ashyn leaves while still unwell, would they still have powers? How about any people they infect on the new world?
1) Ashyn still has that magic, though I've gone a lot of directions on how I want the culture to feel, so I wouldn't consider that canon yet.
2) No.
3) The powers come directly via the micro-organisms, similar to other symbiotic relationships in the cosmere.
What Investiture is Auxiliary most linked to?
RAFO
Assuming you have a way to siphon out a Vessel from a Shard, how much hemalurgic metal would be required to contain that Vessel?
An astronomically large amount. Oh, the Vessel? Or contain a Shard? The Vessel, just a little dude... not that much. Basically, like a decent-sized gemstone would hold an Unmade, and that's more Investiture than we're talking about.
Can hemalurgic metal hold around the same amount of an Invested creature as a pure gemstone?
No, gemstones can do more.
Using Hemalurgy, could you steal the boon from the Old Magic?
Oh, from the Nightwatcher? This is theoretically possible.
Would that take the [curse] with it as well?
*Hesitantly* Yes. Though it's also theoretically possible to split them apart, that would be a lot harder. Getting the boon, if you knew what you were doing, would not be that difficult.
Now, what Cultivation would do to you when she found out that had happened is another thing entirely. Because those are willful grants of Investiture.
Similar to Endowment's with the Returned?
Yeah, things like that. When you get a Shard involved and the Shard has.. power to... Same thing like...it's on a much grander scale what's happening with the spren bond, right?
When Hemalurgy does spread, most Shards will not be happy about this, right?
Yes, that is correct.
So I was wondering how you'd spin Szeth's new sword into The Stormlight Archive's narrative. I know it's very similar to the Shardblades, but its differences are going to be worthy of explanation, if the new sword is going to appear as frequently as a planned Szeth-centric book suggests.
So, if I am not missing anything, either the differences 1) will be explained vaguely, or 2) will be integrated into the greater lore (Cosmere/Zahel), or 3) will be somehow integrated into The Stormlight Archive's own magic system.
And since the sword's emitted Investiture is black and compared to stormlight by Szeth, this is my question: is the blade's "corrupted stormlight" related to anything else we've seen so far in TSA? (e.g. Gavilar's sphere...)
RAFO. :)
Can emotional Allomancy or Feruchemy affect animals, or not-humans? Is it only if they're spiked?
So, emotional Allomancy requries a certain level of <Investiturance>. So, the closer to being sapient something is, the more that emotional Allomancy could have an effect on it.
So if I'm a Surgebinder, I have my own Cognitive entity with me. Can I go off-world with that and will everything continue to work in exactly the same way? Because we've seen Cognitive entities that don't--
So taking a Cognitive entity off-world is hard. So, Surgebinding, if you can find out how to make it happen, remember, the Investiture is keyed to Connection. This is why Kelsier is-- Oh, sorry, spoilers! When a certain somebody *laughter* had trouble getting off Scadrial, because he basically was a spren by that point so--*laughter* ...So, yeah Surgebinding would work off planet, but you'd have to get the spren off-planet first. That's hard to do. Cosmere-wide it's not hard hard but it is-- You'd have to know some stuff. You could learn how.
There is that scene where Kaladin takes a sharp turn at high speeds and he almost blacks out. That is normal for jet pilots, since they experience high G forces when their airplane tries to accelerate them by their backs and bottoms.
But Lashing doesn't work that way, it generates fake gravity. Accelerating your whole body shouldn't cause you anything, you can't even feel it.
Is this something that is an admitted physics hiccup or I misunderstood this kind of Investiture usage?
This one is actually in the process of flux, as I do more research on the effects of acceleration (including interviews with fighter pilots, which has been fun.) Basically, I realized I needed to beef up my understanding of all this, and then make some decisions on exactly how this all works, because I've been relying on instinct too much in some of these sequences.
So...that's a RAFO, I'm afraid. More because I'm still tweaking some of the little details of how I want this all to work. (In ways that become increasingly relevant as I look forward toward things like Windrunners in space.)
There are a ton of details to consider, even if I eventually hand-wave some of it with the magic. (For example, the heart pumping blood in a high-g environment. How does that interact, if at all, with stormlight? And the direct oxygenation of the brain implied by not needing to breathe while holding stormlight...)
We have several very large math-ish projects going on behind the scenes.
I think it depends on if lashing independently impacts each atom within your body simultaneously, or if it is only a subset.
There's one important fact you're not considering, but which is vital: reader expectation.
One of the questions I have to ask myself is this: What will the reader expect to happen? How will they expect to feel? Granted, none of us have ever flown like this before--but we generally imagine similar things, similar feelings.
As a writer, one thing I need to balance is when I go against reader expectations and when I don't. Going against the expectations can be interesting, but often takes a large burden of words and explanation to keep reminding them something is not how they'd imagine it to be.
For example, it took a relatively large amount of reader attention (and explanation) to keep reminding people in Mistborn that plants weren't green and the sky wasn't blue. In many ways, making something new (like a chull) is easier on readers than making something familiar into something strange (like the horses in Dragonsteel, which were smaller than Earth horses--and kept causing confusion problems in my alpha readers.)
As annoying as this example can me, this is why Lucas had sound, fire, gravity, etc in space. Starships banking in formation felt real to the viewers, even if it didn't make sense in context. I hope to not go that far, but these questions are something in my mind.
I try to be careful not to remove the sensations of magic, in order to keep the movements of characters grounded. Windrunning has left me having to decide how far I want to go with things like this, in order to preserve the visceral feelings for the reader.
Is there a maximum amount of Investiture Nightblood can take? So like if he were to be thrown into-
RAFO.
When Lift eats food, does she convert it directly into Stormlight, or some other form of Investiture?
RAFO.
If a Cognitive Shadow or a Splinter gained Connection to the Physical Realm, could they just transition through a perpendicularity to manifest a physical form, or is something else required?
Something else would be required, because you're... But that would take you a long way. It's going to depend on the situation, right?
Because Ishar was doing something where like he was Connecting spren...
Yes, Ishar was doing something, and so for instance, spren are gonna be played a little differently than a Cognitive Shadow would be played. Like, Cognitive Shadows, that's just not gonna be enough. But spren is much closer. This has to do with how much Investiture's involved and how they're Connected and things like this, but it's not quite enough. In most cases.
So Ishar was doing something in addition to just Connecting the spren to the Physical Realm?
Yes. He was indeed doing something more.
*inaudible* [I asked if it would be possible to recall Breaths from an object that you had not placed there if the Awakener who did place them there had no Identity at the time.]
So, this is a very detailed, specific question, if you didn't hear it. It's dealing with the idea of Investiture and Identity, and things like this. If you can unkey the magic with Identity, for almost any case, it's going to make it much easier for other people to use. That's gonna be a blanket statement through the cosmere. If you can blank your Identity, it's at least gonna be able to be used by someone else with a blank Identity. Sometimes it's keyed, so the blank will not work with somebody who is themselves keyed. But if you can blank and they can blank, you can almost always guarantee the magic will be able to be used.
Can the gems on Roshar store other types of Investiture?
RAFO.
In theory, could you create weird structures or even alloys [with Forgery]?
Two scenarios: using Forging how you might use Soulcasting, such as turning something into wood, bending and carving it to make a new shape, then breaking the seal so it turns back into the original material without changing shape.
Second: Forging one metal into another, and forming an alloy to reduce operation costs. For example, tungsten has a melting point of about 3.5k C, but it's useful as part of a steel alloy for certain applications. Could you Forge it into, say, zinc, which has a melting point of about 500 C, create the steel, then turn it back into tungsten? Presumably the investiture would adjust the molecular structure so it acts as if it has been alloyed with tungsten originally too, otherwise the same process happening with food could be deadly.
Yes, this is in theory similar to Soulcasting. The difference is that a Forged object, upon "Forgetting" the rewriting to its spiritual nature is going to try to snap back and match what it "thinks" it should be like--which isn't going to lead to as much stability as Soulcasting, where the actual soul is changed. The object is going to try to get back to the way it "should" be, with varying results.
The reason the Lord Ruler aged hyper-quickly is related to this as well.
