Shardblade minus the blade?

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

I was thinking about wolverines bone claws and I couldnt help but to think about awakening them.  

If you were to command them to "sever spirits"  or something along the realm of "break that which would break you" how would they react?

Since they were bones and a part of a person they should be far easier to awaken than metal... 

How much influence can the investiture have on an items structure.  If you cram investiture into a bone and slap it with a shardblade would the shard blade have to hit it multiple times like plate to drain the investiture before getting through?   

Or even a wooden boken given the destroy evil command.   Was it something special about the plain steel that allowed nightblood to be created?  I know hemalurgy played a role in his creation but just a a spike in general or because he was a new alloy entirely?  Do we have any WoB indicating if Vivenna needed to spike anyone for her blade or if the breaths alone gave it the properties of a shardblade?

At first I was convinced that 9th heightening was a must to make a soul severing weapon that resists other soul severing weapons.  However I feel, now, that you could end up with soul destroying weapons of other materials if the command and the mental imagery were correct.  A sharpened bone would be easier to awaken even than a stick... How much does the original intent of an item effect its ability to be awakened and changed into something else?  

Awaken a femur telling it to "decimate that which you hit" while picturing the action of swinging it head first into something being destroyed... 

Awakening is just too open ended for my brain to imagine balance outside of the box that was created in Warbreaker.   

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I know hemalurgy played a role in his creation but just a a spike in general or because he was a new alloy entirely?  Do we have any WoB indicating if Vivenna needed to spike anyone for her blade or if the breaths alone gave it the properties of a shardblade?

Where did you get this? The only reference I know of crossing Nightblood and Hemalurgy is:

Quote

Coppermind:

Upon being Awakened, the entire sword turned black^[60] and began leaking black smoke. Nightblood was not originally a metalmind or a Hemalurgic spike.^[61] If a different Allomantically viable metal had been used, Nightblood would have likely manifested different powers and capabilities.^[62][63]

60:

Spoiler

Comatose

Was Nightblood black before being awakened by Shashara?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

61: 

Spoiler

 

Questioner

Was Nightblood a metalmind or a Hemalurgic spike originally?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Great question!

 

62:

Spoiler

 

asmodeus

If the only variable we change, during the creation of Nightblood, is to use a different Allomantically viable metal (say, iron or bronze instead of steel), but keep everything else constant (the same Breaths, same people doing the same visualization, and whatever other factors were involved), would it have manifested different powers/capabilities?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Most likely.

 

63:

Spoiler

 

howtofall

We know that the effects of various magic systems are changed by their interactions with metals (Scadrial’s three obviously, as well as fabrials on Roshar). So my question is: when a piece of metal is Awakened, does the type of metal change the nature of the Awakened object in any meaningful way?

For example, If Nightblood had been made of iron or tin rather than steel...

Brandon Sanderson

It would most likely change what is happening with Nightblood to use different materials, and that includes different types of metal.

 

 

Keep in mind that we don't truely know what aspects of Nightblood's awakening were a "feature" and which were a "side effect." Vivena's awakened rope is easily cut by Denth and rendered harmless (two pieces too small to "grab when thrown"). I would guess that the resilience (and soul severing) is part of the amount of breath used in awakening a Type 4 Sentient entity - so even if you used materials other than metel/stone; you would still probably need to be 9th Heightening and use a lot of breath. 

Edited April 11, 2022 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Duxredux he/him]

@Tamriel Wolfsbaine So... I will note a few things about the stuff you're talking about Nightblood and Awakening in general. The creation of Nightblood was weird, really weird. Things happened very oddly to have the result we got. Whatever Azure did to get her blade, that's probably a safer way to do it, and I'm guessing there are reasons for why they do it with metal swords and not just random femurs. Here's my notes:

• The shape and the way you perceive an object, how it perceives itself, those all have an impact on the result of Awakening. if Shashara and Vasher had used a shield instead of a sword, it wouldn't have turned out the way it did. 
  • 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)

    A femur probably still thinks of itself as something used for walking, not bashing stuff over the head. Similarly, a wooden bokken is considered a training weapon specifically meant for practice without killing someone. If you are familiar with how those things are supposed to be used, I could see it unconsciously affecting your Command. I don't know if it would make it fail, but it would probably affect it. 

• Nightblood's aluminum sheath contains him and somehow he doesn't need to follow his Command in the same way as when he's drawn. I don't know if that's simply because that's a property of Aluminum, or if the way we think of a sword is that it is dangerous when it is unsheathed and that the killing is done when it is back in its sheath. I'm not sure if this would work if you were to try to do this with a weapon that didn't have a sheath. Imagine if you couldn't actually turn off Nightblood trying to absorb all the Investiture from you or anything around him. So, embedding Nighblood-style weapons in your arms? That seems like a really, really good way to get yourself killed. Using a weapon that doesn't have a designated and generally accepted "this end -> safe", does the whole thing start trying to sever souls without a safe way to hold the thing? Kaladin uses the entire spear when fighting This is really, really dangerous stuff, and you can't turn it off once you Awaken it, I don't think.
• We don't know if Azure's blade draws on Investiture on use. Nightblood certainly does. Again, probably a bad idea to imbed things that will suck you soul in your arms.
• Steel was relevant as the material, but we're not sure how. 
  • Spoiler

    asmodeus

    If the only variable we change, during the creation of Nightblood, is to use a different Allomantically viable metal (say, iron or bronze instead of steel), but keep everything else constant (the same Breaths, same people doing the same visualization, and whatever other factors were involved), would it have manifested different powers/capabilities?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes. Most likely.

    YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

    
     
• Endowment was involved in Nightblood's creation, more than the normal amount. Not to a huge extent, but more than normal, and we don't know what that means.
  • Spoiler

    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)

     

Now it may be possible to create hacked Shardblades easily without the 9th Heightening, but if it ever becomes common knowledge then Nalthis is probably going to get devastated. Again. There would be huge consequences in the Cosmere, especially if they are easy to create and move between worlds, which they seem to be, unlike Shardblades. If this were to happen in-world you probably would hope that they would: never speak of it again like the Mythbusters did. The presence of Azure's blade on Roshar can have really scary ramifications.

Edited May 13, 2022 by Duxredux

[+ShardlessVessel]

On 11/04/2022 at 7:24 PM, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I know hemalurgy played a role in his creation

The actual WOB is that there is some of Ruin's Investiture in Nightblood, not that hemalurgy was involved.

Spoiler

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)

That does not mean hemalurgy - in fact, there's little reason to think spikes contain Ruin's Investiture to begin with. That's kind of the point: Ruin does not give you Investiture like Preservation does; you have to steal it from other people.

On 11/04/2022 at 7:24 PM, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

If you cram investiture into a bone and slap it with a shardblade would the shard blade have to hit it multiple times like plate to drain the investiture before getting through?

That should work. Invested objects resist Shardblades. Shardblades are very Invested, however; I'm not sure how many Breaths' worth of Investiture would be needed to stop one.