There should be sentient Spren of every shard.

[Yerland]

Friend of mine mentioned the idea that there should be 16 different types of spren capable of Nahel bonding. One for each shard, as every magic system in the cosmere seems to be dividable 16 ways. Though this would bring up the problem of where are the other 6 types of spren and why aren’t they bonding humans on Roshar, perhaps their intent is incompatible with the ideals of the Knights radiant (Give me a whimsy Radiant lol). Also, I have trouble figuring out which shard each spren would be associated with as there seems like there could be alot of overlap with intent. For example, Ruin might be associated with ashspren given their fondness for destruction, But Ruin is also often associated with blood, which in the Rosharian magic system is connected to inkspren. Thoughts?

[Frustration he/him]

6 minutes ago, Yerland said:

Friend of mine mentioned the idea that there should be 16 different types of spren capable of Nahel bonding. One for each shard, as every magic system in the cosmere seems to be dividable 16 ways. Though this would bring up the problem of where are the other 6 types of spren and why aren’t they bonding humans on Roshar, perhaps their intent is incompatible with the ideals of the Knights radiant (Give me a whimsy Radiant lol). Also, I have trouble figuring out which shard each spren would be associated with as there seems like there could be alot of overlap with intent. For example, Ruin might be associated with ashspren given their fondness for destruction, But Ruin is also often associated with blood, which in the Rosharian magic system is connected to inkspren. Thoughts?

There are only ten. Sixteen is a thing for the whole Cosmere, and for Scadrial in particular, but Roshar is specifically ten centric.

[Yerland]

There are only ten discovered so far. Remember in mistborn they only had 10 metals at the start, then Kelsier discovered the 11th metal and Vin found other metals in the lord rulers stashes. There could easily be more spren hiding or in small numbers somewhere in the cognitive realm. 

[Frustration he/him]

29 minutes ago, Yerland said:

There are only ten discovered so far. Remember in mistborn they only had 10 metals at the start, then Kelsier discovered the 11th metal and Vin found other metals in the lord rulers stashes. There could easily be more spren hiding or in small numbers somewhere in the cognitive realm. 

There are only ten.

Spoiler

Questioner

I'm just curious, there are 16 Allomantic metals, 16 Feruchemical metals, there are 16 Shards of Adonalsium. Are there 16 surges?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Questioner

So there's no correlation?

Brandon Sanderson

10 is an important number on Roshar.

FanX 2018 (Sept. 7, 2018)

Herald (paraphrased)

Is there more significance to the 10 other planets around the Rosharan star system and them being gaseous? We know that Roshar's moons have unnatural orbits; so there seems to be some astronomical manipulation in the system.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes there is significance of 16 in cosmere and 10 in Rosharan system.

Herald (paraphrased)

The outer 10 gas giants in the Rosharan system suggest a tie to the number 10 that predates the arrival of the current Shards. Is the prominent numerology we see around the cosmere an inherent property of the planets, rather than the Shards who invest them?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Big RAFO.

Herald (paraphrased)

Would Ashyn/Braize share the 10-centric numerology of Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes 10-centric is for the entire Rosharan planetary system...wait Braize is 9-centric.

Arcanum Unbounded San Francisco signing (Nov. 30, 2016)

 

[mathiau he/him]

No there should not, not on Roshar at least.

[Cosmere]

Spoiler

Other Shards have sprens of their own on their planets, Dom and Dev have Skazes and Seons for example

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

There are only ten. Sixteen is a thing for the whole Cosmere, and for Scadrial in particular, but Roshar is specifically ten centric.

There are more than ten sapient sprens types on Roshar, and they are able to create a Nahel bound (eg. Oathgate Sprens). I'm doubt doing so could give a pair of Surge that's not one of the ten already available

[+Bzhydack he/him]

On 2.03.2022 at 7:47 PM, Frustration said:

There are only ten. Sixteen is a thing for the whole Cosmere, and for Scadrial in particular, but Roshar is specifically ten centric.

I think he dont thought about Ten types of Rosharan Radiant Spren. I think OP thinks that every Shard can form Spren... And he is right, but Spren is specific Rosharan term. More general term is Splinter, and indeed, every Shard can form Splinters, and we even know about them - Seons are Splinters of Devotion, and Skaze are Splinters of Dominion. But they can be named Spren in some circumatances (Shallan even did that), as well as Nightblood.

BTW, is Nightblood Splinter of Endovment? or Ruin? or both?

[mathiau he/him]

4 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

I think he dont thought about Ten types of Rosharan Radiant Spren. I think OP thinks that every Shard can form Spren... And he is right, but Spren is specific Rosharan term. More general term is Splinter, and indeed, every Shard can form Splinters, and we even know about them - Seons are Splinters of Devotion, and Skaze are Splinters of Dominion. But they can be named Spren in some circumatances (Shallan even did that), as well as Nightblood.

BTW, is Nightblood Splinter of Endovment? or Ruin? or both?

Nightblood probably started as either a Splinter of Endowment or of Endowment+Ruin

[cometaryorbit]

I think Nightblood started as sort of a Splinter of Endowment, but an artificial one (Brandon compared him to a 'robot spren'), and has eaten lots of other random Investiture since.

[+Harrycrapper]

Technically, there could be hundreds, thousands, maybe even an infinite amount of different types of spren that could be created by combining Investiture from different shards. And then there's also the possibility that Sja-Anat can change(corrupt/enlighten/whatever) any of those to something different. 

As it stands on Roshar, there are really 12 different types of Radiant spren; the 9 from ordinary orders and the 3 Godspren for Bondsmiths. Then there's ostensibly 9 additional spren that can form Nahel bonds; versions of the 9 spren from ordinary orders that Sja-Anat corrupts. 

 

[Yerland]

11 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

I think he dont thought about Ten types of Rosharan Radiant Spren. I think OP thinks that every Shard can form Spren... And he is right, but Spren is specific Rosharan term. More general term is Splinter, and indeed, every Shard can form Splinters, and we even know about them - Seons are Splinters of Devotion, and Skaze are Splinters of Dominion. But they can be named Spren in some circumatances (Shallan even did that), as well as Nightblood.

BTW, is Nightblood Splinter of Endovment? or Ruin? or both?

I think Rosharian sentient spren are splinters of shards given the capacity for growth from cultivation, the capability of forming bonds from Honor. But only honor spren and cultivation spren are specific to those two. The rest are splinters of other shards given capacity for growth from cultivation. Then named locally because the rosharian didn't have reference point of the other shards to name them.

[mathiau he/him]

34 minutes ago, Harrycrapper said:

Technically, there could be hundreds, thousands, maybe even an infinite amount of different types of spren that could be created by combining Investiture from different shards. And then there's also the possibility that Sja-Anat can change(corrupt/enlighten/whatever) any of those to something different.

Considering almost all sprens of Roshar are a mix of Honour and Cultivation, an infinite amount seems like the most logical amount

Quote

As it stands on Roshar, there are really 12 different types of Radiant spren; the 9 from ordinary orders and the 3 Godspren for Bondsmiths. Then there's ostensibly 9 additional spren that can form Nahel bonds; versions of the 9 spren from ordinary orders that Sja-Anat corrupts.

There's also Yelig-Nar

[+Oltux72 he/him]

(a lot of worlds)

Spoiler

• Skaze
• Seon
• Voidspren
• The Mistspirit Preservation made

You can argue that every Shard has the potential, but needs to execute it only if local preexisting conditions already feature Spren or it loses control of its faculties.

Just like every Shard can make Cognitive Shadows (indeed has no choice but to enable its holders to become one), but some make tens of thousands of them, others none.

 

Edited March 5, 2022 by Oltux72
typo

[mathiau he/him]

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

(a lot of worlds)

  Hide contents

• Skaze
• Seon
• Voidspren
• The Mistspirit Preservation made

Spoiler

The mist spirit is not a Spren, it's Lera himself

Though Kel is basically a Preservationspren by now

 

[Kandrafish]

1 hour ago, mathiau said:

  Hide contents

The mist spirit is not a Spren, it's Lera himself

Though Kel is basically a Preservationspren by now

 

Spoiler

You could argue that Leras himself is a special case. Being preservation would make it very hard for him to splinter himself, break off a piece of himself, change a part of himself or do whatever he needs to do to make a spren. The intent of Preservation would likely hold him back.

 

[mathiau he/him]

1 hour ago, Kandrafish said:

  Hide contents

You could argue that Leras himself is a special case. Being preservation would make it very hard for him to splinter himself, break off a piece of himself, change a part of himself or do whatever he needs to do to make a spren. The intent of Preservation would likely hold him back.

 

Spoiler

Preservation's intent is mostly to preserve other things. Which is why he could generate a magic system were people basically feed magic of him

 

[DiePie]

The problem with this is a fundamental misunderstanding your friend had, Rosharan "Spren" are specific to Roshar. The term is only ever used to refer to the investiture-given-thought found on Roshar, and specifically shaped by Honor, Cultivation and Odium. The reason that there are 10 Radiant spren (categorizing the Bondsmith Spren as being the same type) is because the Radiant Spren were specifically created by Cultivation and Honor, and Honor's number (or maybe the Rosharan planet/system's number, I've heard the arguments and even if I disagree there's definitely a case to be made for the numbers to be thematically tied to planets not shards, but that's irrelevant to what I'm saying) is 10, thus the 10 types of Radiant Spren. Spren, in the way we think of them, aren't manifestations of shards' power, but a specific manifestations of a few shards' powers.

20 hours ago, mathiau said:

  Hide contents

The mist spirit is not a Spren, it's Lera himself

Though Kel is basically a Preservationspren by now

Getting into the alternative debate that has evolved in this thread as to what counts as a Spren, I would first like to clarify what I consider to be a spren (since the Rosharans cannot be trusted. I'll be using Vasher's definition for "Type 1 Invested Entities", i.e. investiture that is concentrated enough to form a personality of its own, on it's own. The ahem "Lord of Scars" isn't a Spren but instead a cognitive shadow (A "Type 2 Invested Entity"). A person's mind that has enough investiture to resist death, which is then (optionally) tacked on to a body. I would also refrain calling the mist spirit because it is created using the mists (Preservation's "body") and has no mind of it's own (is commanded entirely by Preservation). The way I see it, calling it a Spren would be like calling your bicep a person because you flexed it.

Nightblood is a... special case, but Vasher classifies it as a "Type 4 Invested Entity" and, seems to differentiate the two upon learning of Rosharan Spren, so I would trust him on that. I assume the differentiation would be that Nightblood was created with a specific purpose, while Spren consciousness rises on its own? I can definitely see the argument as them being he same. Also on a side note, it's resemblance to ruin is probably more to do with the fact it's command contains the word "destroy" (meaning the two share similar intents) than it being a a splinter of Ruin. Or maybe the intent makes it a splinter or Ruin despite containing probably very little investiture from the shard?

On 3/4/2022 at 7:02 PM, mathiau said:

There's also Yelig-Nar

We also know that Nergaoul forms a bond with people feeling the thrill (though I can't seem to find the WoB), and for that reason I see no reason Moelach doesn't either. There's also popular theories going around about Ba-Ado-Mishram is probably the best candidate to give radiant-type powers (their whole thing seems to be pretty connection-y, so they would make a god candidate for an Odium Bondsmith Spren).

[cometaryorbit]

Some Rosharan spren are really Splinters of Adonalsium, but even those became 'of Cultivation' after the Shattering.

 

[Anomander Rake he/him]

On 3/5/2022 at 4:23 AM, Kandrafish said:

  Hide contents

You could argue that Leras himself is a special case. Being preservation would make it very hard for him to splinter himself, break off a piece of himself, change a part of himself or do whatever he needs to do to make a spren. The intent of Preservation would likely hold him back.

 

HoA spoilers

Spoiler

a tangent, but is that not exactly what Leras did in the past with ruin?  Broke off / used a part of himself when he trapped Ati in his perpendicularity.  Maybe he was able to do it since he believed it would end up preserving Scadrial in the end?  ...shard strictures are weird XD

 

Edited March 7, 2022 by Anomander Rake
punctuation

[apepi]

I actually agree with you, Voidspren do exist. I think people are forgetting about this.

Some people could argue that they are not spren and Rosharan's are bad at names, I disagree.