Invincible Nomad

[Trusk'our he/him]

Nomad has the ability to consume Investiture, potentially even allowing him to surpass the Hallandren God-kings in raw power:

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/494-secret-project-4-reveal-and-livestream/#e15609

College_advice12

Who is more invested, Susebron or Nomad?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Essentially, it seems like he can just keep absorbing available Investiture and further Investing himself beyond even what his Skipping requires. 

He also can now strip his Torment away with his newly found Sunheart, allowing him to fight.

So basically, if Nomad ever Skipped to a location where Investiture was easily accessible in large quantities, could he just consume hundreds of thousands of BEUs (or more) and become virtually unkillable, even to the Night Brigade?

Harmony was skeptical of Telsin even being vulnerable to death as an Avatar of Autonomy, even though Wax had aluminum weaponry.

I suppose that the Night Brigade has at least some knowledge of Hemalurgy, and anti-Investiture weapons also likely exist at this point in the Cosmere, but it just seems like Nomad could tank most of those long enough to blow their ship to smoldering bits if he got lucky on one of his Skips and had the mind to do so.

But, perhaps I'm over estimating Heightening-like effects and under estimating the Night Brigade. 

Thoughts?

[Quantus he/him]

I mean, as a former Danwshard Hoid is nigh unkillable even to a Shardblade, so probably. But "The Right Circumstances" can be pretty esoteric and hard to arrange, and as the last line points out he's (in some ways) incredibly limited right now compared to even compared to the average worldhopper.  

[Trusk'our he/him]

4 hours ago, Quantus said:

But "The Right Circumstances" can be pretty esoteric and hard to arrange, and as the last line points out he's (in some ways) incredibly limited right now compared to even compared to the average worldhopper.  

I think Brandon was talking about him needing a source of Investiture to feed off of in order to Invest himself. 

For example, Nomad didn't have a lot of Investiture when he first Skipped to Canticle,  but he was able to absorb Investiture from the light reflected from the planet's rings as well as from Sunhearts.

Plus, if we're talking about his limitations in regards to his Torment, he's overcome that by leeching the Investiture from him via Sunheart. It doesn't even seem to weaken the boons of being a Dawnsliver either. 

[+hwiles]

If he managed to find a shardpool or stood in a highstorm or breathed in the mists of Scadrial, then yeah, I would assume that he could make himself the most Invested mortal in the cosmere more or less instantaneously. There's risk in that though; drawing in too much investiture too quickly has been previously demonstrated to destroy a person's body. So...he might still have some serious challenges to sustainability if raw power is all he wants from the rest of his arc. I know of no reason that he couldn't return to Roshar or even Scadrial and be welcomed with open arms at this point though, considering what he has learned as a worldsinger.

[Trusk'our he/him]

52 minutes ago, hwiles said:

If he managed to find a shardpool or stood in a highstorm or breathed in the mists of Scadrial, then yeah, I would assume that he could make himself the most Invested mortal in the cosmere more or less instantaneously. There's risk in that though; drawing in too much investiture too quickly has been previously demonstrated to destroy a person's body. 

Hadn't even thought of Shardpools, but that's an excellent point; step inside a Perpendicularity and he's probably set for a mini-Ascension.

As for Highstorms and the Mists, maybe that wouldn't be doable, as with Canticle's Invested sunlight, it may be too much in one unit to safely absorb at once.

[Duxredux he/him]

Hm... here's the thing, I'm not sure what more Nomad actually can do as a former Dawnshard. Aux offered himself up as a final burst of power to give Nomad temporary access to the Surges of a Skybreaker. He may have lost access to the Surges and we learn from the novella Dawnshard that bearers of Dawnshards are only so dangerous when held by someone with Invested abilities. That said, Nomad's adoption into the Beaconite society seems to have granted their ability to absorb and give Investiture, so he's not totally without access to an Invested art. Otherwise, what does he have? He has Connection abilities to link himself to the locality, healing, strength enhancement, durability enhancement, an Auxblade, Skipping and maybe Shardplate but I'm not sure on how permanently he can summon his Plate. Teleportation via Skipping is pretty useful, but it seems too costly and poorly directed to be using repeatedly, even if you had access to a Shardpool equivalent of Investiture. He might be tough to kill, but I don't think I've seen anything in his powerset to suggest that he's significantly more dangerous than a typical Stormlight-infused 4th Order Radiant, and he'd probably still get pounded into the dirt by any of the Heralds in their prime. Sure he can absorb and store Investiture on his person to rival the Godkings of Hallendren, but that doesn't mean he can effectively use it. I wouldn't say that as he was at the end that he was dangerous at the scale of depopulating entire planets - which we know is something the Night Brigade has done. This isn't to say that Nomad can't get more powerful, particularly if he gets access to other Invested arts, it's just that what he currently has by himself doesn't seems overtly dangerous, even as an Investiture battery.

Heightening-like abilities may not be too powerful compared to the utility offered by some of the Invested arts. It's worth noting that in TotES, Xisis as a Dragon with the Tenth Heightening, was afraid of the Sorceress.

Edited Thursday at 01:18 PM by Duxredux
added thought

[alder24]

22 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

So basically, if Nomad ever Skipped to a location where Investiture was easily accessible in large quantities, could he just consume hundreds of thousands of BEUs (or more) and become virtually unkillable, even to the Night Brigade?

You forgot the Night Brigade is using Hemalurgy, your art? If Nomad can remove his Torment, they can probably take away what allows him to feed investiture in the first place, if not they can just take a nicrosil spike and remove all of that investiture Nomad holds. It's such a simple solution I'm surprised you didn't think about it. TSM ch 28:

Quote

In the case of the Night Brigade, he’d completely missed the danger. He’d soon learned that, with their twisted arts, they could kill him and fashion a spike from his soul that would lead them to the person he had given the Dawnshard. To them, Nomad was a crucial link in a very important chain. And he was far more useful dead than alive.

Not to mention they can just use A-chromium or a larkin to suck up all of that tasty investiture. Just being invested isn't a problem for the Night Brigade.

 

22 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

But, perhaps I'm over estimating Heightening-like effects and under estimating the Night Brigade. 

Yup, they can obliterate entire planets, Nomad can only run away from them. Raw investiture won't make him invincible, at best he could heal a lot of damage before running out of power.

 

22 hours ago, Quantus said:

I mean, as a former Danwshard Hoid is nigh unkillable even to a Shardblade, so probably. But "The Right Circumstances" can be pretty esoteric and hard to arrange, and as the last line points out he's (in some ways) incredibly limited right now compared to even compared to the average worldhopper.  

Sig is not like Hoid, Hoid was holding a Dawnshard way longer and that affected him more than Sig. That's why Hoid is almost invincible. Investiture alone won't make Sig like that. TSM ch 34:

Quote

His master, who had held the Dawnshard far longer, could never die. Nomad was far from that level

[Quantus he/him]

35 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Sig is not like Hoid, Hoid was holding a Dawnshard way longer and that affected him more than Sig. That's why Hoid is almost invincible. Investiture alone won't make Sig like that. TSM ch 34:

That's a fair point and you are entirely right.  So on that note, please indulge me in a tin-foil tangent:  If it's purely a matter of Time Held to gain that level of invincibility, could a hypothetical Dawnshard (not even Sig specifically) artificially accelerate themselves with an application of a speed bubble to accelerate his subjective Timeline and probably some cognitive protect to survive the process without going mad (enforced magical sleep, maybe?).  Or is it like Savantism where actual USE of the power is the key factor rather than simple Influence-over-time

[alder24]

2 minutes ago, Quantus said:

That's a fair point and you are entirely right.  So on that note, please indulge me in a tin-foil tangent:  If it's purely a matter of Time Held to gain that level of invincibility, could a hypothetical Dawnshard (not even Sig specifically) artificially accelerate themselves with an application of a speed bubble to accelerate his subjective Timeline and probably some cognitive protect to survive the process without going mad (enforced magical sleep, maybe?).  Or is it like Savantism where actual USE of the power is the key factor rather than simple Influence-over-time

I think it's just about holding the Dawnshard for longer, so yes, your hypothetical scenario with a time bubble would work. WoBs talk about just holding a Dawnshard, not using it - Rysn can't use it, yet she already is affected by it in some way. 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Let's talk about the Torment for a second. Hoid would not call what has happened to him a Torment. Hoid, by holding a Dawnshard, was made permanently unable to cause physical harm to other beings. Eating meat makes him nauseous (if he is somehow able to eat it, and a lot of the times he just can't). That is because of the nature of the Dawnshard that he held actively warping and changing his spirit. He would not name it this. Nomad has named what has happened to him, a Torment. This is not a term that you can universally apply as a magical aspect of something. This is Sigzil saying "this terrible thing happened to me". And indeed what is happening to Sigzil is on a level beyond what happened to Hoid. So therefore perhaps other arcanists would say, "Yes, these are an aspect of holding a Dawnshard and Torment is the right way", but that word is loaded. That word has meaning, and someone is naming it this. You are not gonna run into a large set of people- there are only four Dawnshards- and you're not gonna run into a large set of people that have held one, so there may be no consensus even in-world to what these are called, and if they are Torment or blessings or what they are. Holding a Dawnshard will warp your soul. It's so much Investiture, it is so powerful, that you cannot hold one even briefly without it having a permanent effect upon you. 

Secret Project #4 Reveal and Livestream (March 29, 2022)

 

[+hwiles]

59 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

...

He might be tough to kill, but I don't think I've seen anything in his powerset to suggest that he's significantly more dangerous than a typical Stormlight-infused 4th Order Radiant, and he'd probably still get pounded into the dirt by any of the Heralds in their prime. Sure he can absorb and store Investiture on his person to rival the Godkings of Hallendren...

...

I understand and agree with your points, but I feel like you're still failing to appreciate that you're comparing Nomad to Endowment's personally selected and LITERALLY 'groomed-from-birth' Godking who can telekinetically awaken objects to kill souls and command the dead with his thoughts and 4th order Radiants...4th order radiants are very rare, essentially unkillable during storms and, as far as we know, not able to travel outside Roshar because of how it would dissociate their spren.

That puts Nomad in at least the top 0.0001% of most powerful beings in the Cosmere by my figuring. And maybe better...

[Quantus he/him]

44 minutes ago, hwiles said:

I understand and agree with your points, but I feel like you're still failing to appreciate that you're comparing Nomad to Endowment's personally selected and LITERALLY 'groomed-from-birth' Godking who can telekinetically awaken objects to kill souls and command the dead with his thoughts and 4th order Radiants...4th order radiants are very rare, essentially unkillable during storms and, as far as we know, not able to travel outside Roshar because of how it would dissociate their spren.

That puts Nomad in at least the top 0.0001% of most powerful beings in the Cosmere by my figuring. And maybe better...

He could be that or he could just be the convenient prop of an out of control priesthood.  Endowment is known to be erratic, and the Intent itself is very much about a Hands-Off approach to most things (or at least a "Cast the Dice and see how they land" sort?)

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Hm... here's the thing, I'm not sure what more Nomad actually can do as a former Dawnshard. Aux offered himself up as a final burst of power to give Nomad temporary access to the Surges of a Skybreaker. He may have lost access to the Surges and we learn from the novella Dawnshard that bearers of Dawnshards are only so dangerous when held by someone with Invested abilities. That said, Nomad's adoption into the Beaconite society seems to have granted their ability to absorb and give Investiture, so he's not totally without access to an Invested art. Otherwise, what does he have? He has Connection abilities to link himself to the locality, healing, strength enhancement, durability enhancement, an Auxblade, Skipping and maybe Shardplate but I'm not sure on how permanently he can summon his Plate. Teleportation via Skipping is pretty useful, but it seems too costly and poorly directed to be using repeatedly, even if you had access to a Shardpool equivalent of Investiture. He might be tough to kill, but I don't think I've seen anything in his powerset to suggest that he's significantly more dangerous than a typical Stormlight-infused 4th Order Radiant, and he'd probably still get pounded into the dirt by any of the Heralds in their prime. Sure he can absorb and store Investiture on his person to rival the Godkings of Hallendren, but that doesn't mean he can effectively use it. I wouldn't say that as he was at the end that he was dangerous at the scale of depopulating entire planets - which we know is something the Night Brigade has done. This isn't to say that Nomad can't get more powerful, particularly if he gets access to other Invested arts, it's just that what he currently has by himself doesn't seems overtly dangerous, even as an Investiture battery.

Heightening-like abilities may not be too powerful compared to the utility offered by some of the Invested arts. It's worth noting that in TotES, Xisis as a Dragon with the Tenth Heightening, was afraid of the Sorceress.

True, Nomad no longer has access to Surgebinding come the end of TSM, but if there isn't a limit on his Investiture consumption, it's still overpowered in my opinion. 

Because, the thing is, if you consume enough Investiture you essentially Ascend, and at that point you're basically wielding the power of the Well of Ascension. 

Move planets, rewrite a species into semi-immortal shape shifters, comprehend the vastness of the Cosmere, you name it.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

You forgot the Night Brigade is using Hemalurgy, your art? If Nomad can remove his Torment, they can probably take away what allows him to feed investiture in the first place, if not they can just take a nicrosil spike and remove all of that investiture Nomad holds. It's such a simple solution I'm surprised you didn't think about it. TSM ch 28:

First, ow, my fee fees.

But second, yes, I know they have Hemalurgy. I just don't know if it would work.

At a fundamental level, I think it makes total sense that you could rip apart even a Shardic Vessel's Spiritweb, but it feels like if the scenario ever came up there would be a mechanism that would complicate it, such as the 500,000 BEUs of Investiture confusing the spike and it targeting the wrong thing, kind of like how Yumi's Spiritweb muddled Design's perception of her Connection. 

It's also possible that even if the spike could target properly despite overwhelmingly large amounts of Investiture present, it may not be an instantaneous process, which means you may extract something like 0.002% of the Investiture and be left with an angry god to contend with.

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Not to mention they can just use A-chromium or a larkin to suck up all of that tasty investiture. Just being invested isn't a problem for the Night Brigade.

I mean, yes, those technically can work to remove Investiture, but even if it was only 50,000 BEUs I don't think it would be remotely quick enough to properly counter Nomad. 

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Yup, they can obliterate entire planets, Nomad can only run away from them. Raw investiture won't make him invincible, at best he could heal a lot of damage before running out of power.

I was thinking more along the lines of Nomad traveling to a place with abundant Investiture, like Roshar, then gathering hundreds of thousands of BEUs to unlock near Shardic levels of insight and power.

The more Investiture you have, the more it makes you like a Vessel, and the better you can Command it to do other things, such as mimicking other powers.

[alder24]

5 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

At a fundamental level, I think it makes total sense that you could rip apart even a Shardic Vessel's Spiritweb, but it feels like if the scenario ever came up there would be a mechanism that would complicate it, such as the 500,000 BEUs of Investiture confusing the spike and it targeting the wrong thing, kind of like how Yumi's Spiritweb muddled Design's perception of her Connection. 

It's also possible that even if the spike could target properly despite overwhelmingly large amounts of Investiture present, it may not be an instantaneous process, which means you may extract something like 0.002% of the Investiture and be left with an angry god to contend with.

What do you mean "the spike targets?" It doesn't target anything - you do with your intent. The only thing that matters is to have correct intent and all that wealth Nomad holds is gone. And if the Night Brigade can spike him once that means he's tied to the Hemalurgic table, unable to do anything - they can spike him as much as they need to drain all of his investiture - or just use Larkin/A-chromium.

All Nomad can do is punch with more strength. His incredible investment would give him no more power than that, no fancy destruction will come out of his hands, no Surgebinding, just some extra strength, speed and lots of healing - that's it. The Night Brigade has to just restrain him with some Awakened ropes and all his investiture matters no more. They have Shades, they can swarm him with Shades and drain him out of investiture as he tries to heal himself from the withering, until he loses all of his investiture and is vulnerable again.

In short, Nomad has some pretty handy defensive capabilities from being more invested, but except for extra strength and speed, he's devoid of any extra offensive powers. The Night Brigade can still deal with him easily, without sweating, no matter how invested he is. And I doubt he can casually get to the levels of the Well of Ascension, there is a limit of how fast he can consume investiture (the sun on Canticle would kill him if he were to consume investiture from it) and what he can do with it. Even Ascension seems to be off the table as it requires certain circumstances - at best he will Ascend like Dalinar in OB, but not like Vin/Rashek with the ability to move planets. It's also possible that holding that much power as a Dawnsliver has some unwanted side effects, as that's the reason Hoid didn't want to hold the power of the Well:

Spoiler

Phantine

We know Hoid stopped by the Well of Ascension. Would it have been possible for him to take up the power while he was there? Or is it limited to guys created out of preservation and ruin?

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid had no interest in holding that power in the state it was in.

/r/fantasy AMA 2013 (April 17, 2013)

 

5 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I was thinking more along the lines of Nomad traveling to a place with abundant Investiture, like Roshar, then gathering hundreds of thousands of BEUs to unlock near Shardic levels of insight and power.

The more Investiture you have, the more it makes you like a Vessel, and the better you can Command it to do other things, such as mimicking other powers.

The only thing he could do with it is to Awaken without Breaths, but there is nothing in TSM that suggests he knows how to do it and is capable of it. If that's off the table then he can't do anything with all that investiture except for healing and Skipping. He has no other invested ability, no Surgebinding anymore, he can't mimic other powers as that's just raw investiture - he won't become a Shard and be capable of what they are. He's just stupidly invested and that's it.

I don't think Nomad will have enough time to drain all the Mists before the Night Brigade comes after him (not to mention doing this would be like placing a giant, glowing arrow above his head, screaming "I'm here"), or Harmony says "wait a minute, you can't do that" and redirects all the Mists away from him. Planets with the most investiture around are the major Shardwords inhabited by Shards, who would be deeply displeased if Nomad tried to destroy all this fancy investiture system they've set up and mess up their plans set up millennia ago. Perpendicularity alone won't be enough to give him that much investiture as only the Well held that much power, regular perpendicularities are much less invested - they can supercharge invested arts but that's it. Vin literally had to consume all of the Mists on Scadrial and that's such ridiculous amounts of investiture that he won't find it anywhere else that easily.

Sure, in theory Sigzil might be able to Ascend if he draws enough investiture, but in practice I don't see any reasonable set of circumstances which would lead to this and his Dawnsliver status probably complicates things more than we know. 

[+hwiles]

On 6/27/2024 at 11:38 AM, Trusk'our said:

... 

I was thinking more along the lines of Nomad traveling to a place with abundant Investiture, like Roshar, then gathering hundreds of thousands of BEUs to unlock near Shardic levels of insight and power.

The more Investiture you have, the more it makes you like a Vessel, and the better you can Command it to do other things, such as mimicking other powers.

Well, his Skips seem to be pseudo-random in nature and weighted towards Investiture-rich planets so...he could definitely end up on a world we've seen before for a cameo if he keeps nomading long enough! I'm gonna break the rules of immersion for a second here though (Sorry!!) and just assert that, in accordance with the principles of good storytelling, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that Sanderson will write a book that shows Nomad Ascend; there's just no way to make it fit into the overarching narrative given that he's Connected to virtually everyone everywhere now and actively worldhopping. It would be like if the United States elected a random homeless man for President instead of any specific candidate; is it possible? Yes, totally. Would it ever be accepted even if it happened and was legit? Absolutely zero chance. I wouldn't be shocked if we eventually see Nomad pass through future novels, if only briefly, with literal millions of BEUs though. He seems to be biologically immortal, able to access basically any Investiture system and speak any language, and, as long as he has at least 20K in BEUs in his pocket, able to avoid any immediate threat. Honestly, I was disappointed by how focused his book was on fighting; the man deserves peace, even if he is nigh unstoppable.