Crafting Honorblades

[Bridge𝜋]

This is my theory on how to create more honorblades. I’m basing this off the assumption that all Stormlight is investure connected to Honor, and that the Honor’s investure makes up the honorblades.
Could you potentially use Forgary on the Stormlight to make it think it was the investure Honor used to make the honorblades? Thus making a new blade with surges? This would require background knowledge about the honorblades, but I think this is feasible with a skilled Forager. 
 

Problems with this theory: What’s the median you can use to forage the Stormlight? Maybe if you could store it in gemstones, and then stamp it, but I’m not confident about this. 
 

Other applications: If this method works, could you create honorblades with different combinations of surges? Or possibly have more than 2 surges in one honorblade?

Any thoughts on this theory’s feasibility would be appreciated! 

[Wadders]

Were the honor blades made soley by honor or was cultivation involved as well? I'm sure I've read somewhere that the shardblades associated with the radiants are a mixture of cultivations and honors investiture with the mix depending on which order they are in. The honor blades might be similar.

What would be interesting is if someone made new blades with a mix of odium, cultivation and honors investiture and would they grant the same powers as the enlightened spren.

[TheSurvivorofDeath]

16 minutes ago, Wadders said:

Were the honor blades made soley by honor or was cultivation involved as well? I'm sure I've read somewhere that the shardblades associated with the radiants are a mixture of cultivations and honors investiture with the mix depending on which order they are in. The honor blades might be similar.

What would be interesting is if someone made new blades with a mix of odium, cultivation and honors investiture and would they grant the same powers as the enlightened spren.

Honorblades are pure Honor. Modern Shardblades are a combination of Honor and Cultivation because modern spren are made of both shards. When Honor forged the oathpact, he used pieces of himself to form the blades for the Heralds. This gave the Heralds a direct conduit to Honor while he was alive. 
I do not believe the original method of forging Stormlight would work, since I don’t believe you can properly forge raw investiture in the first place, much less the gaseous form. I’m sure there is some method to consolidate investiture into its solid form, as we know that is a natural manifestation. That seems to be the only way one could accomplish this, and even then I’m not sure it would grant surges without even more tricking the system. You could consolidate warlight or life light or tower light or any other combined light into a blade as well, but I also doubt those could grant surges. Maybe the blades could gain sentience, but that might take time. It’s an interesting possibility, but difficult to manage if possible at all.

[Wadders]

I'm guesing the intent when creating the weapon will be the key componaent to creating something like the honor blades rather than the daggers that the fused used (I believe they are made of raysium). Whether that invloves a Command or something similar we have not yet seen.

Nightblood is a heavily invested blade that shares a lot of properties with the shardblades and honorblades but does not provide any abilities to the user. This might be due to a more limited Connection between the user and the blade?

Also, if the honor blades are pure tanavastium will the surges for the radiant orders more closely associated with cultivation express differently to how the radiants get them? We have seen that windrunners surges and the honorblades surges are the same but they are both closely related to honor. I'm thinking about how Renarin's use of illumination is very different to normal truthwatchers.

[Trusk'our he/him]

5 hours ago, Bridge𝜋 said:

This is my theory on how to create more honorblades. I’m basing this off the assumption that all Stormlight is investure connected to Honor, and that the Honor’s investure makes up the honorblades.
Could you potentially use Forgary on the Stormlight to make it think it was the investure Honor used to make the honorblades? Thus making a new blade with surges? This would require background knowledge about the honorblades, but I think this is feasible with a skilled Forager. 
 

Problems with this theory: What’s the median you can use to forage the Stormlight? Maybe if you could store it in gemstones, and then stamp it, but I’m not confident about this. 
 

Other applications: If this method works, could you create honorblades with different combinations of surges? Or possibly have more than 2 surges in one honorblade?

Any thoughts on this theory’s feasibility would be appreciated! 

I'm not sure if Forgery would be well suited to this task.

As you mentioned, a medium needs to exist that can be Forged. Since Honor created the Honorblades directly, even having sufficient Stormlight available to fuel the process wouldn't have a way to be stamped into existence; there's just nothing to stamp that would have the prerequisite spiritual Connections. 

I think you could, for example, Forge a regular sword to have been Awakened Nightblood style, but it would be very, very Investiture expensive and it's only possible because it already has a medium to stamp.

However, you can create Godmetals, such as Tanavastium, with Soulcasting. This would likely require so much Investiture even a Bondsmith couldn't conventionally fuel it, but it is theoretically possible with that power. 

This would just be Godmetal though, and not a true power-granting Honorblade.

To create a true Honorblade from Tanavastium, you likely need a way to program the Investiture. Perhaps if you understood fully what Navani's method of overwriting Investiture's Rhythm, you could use that to encode whatever power you wished in it.

Edited July 2 by Trusk'our

[alder24]

20 hours ago, Bridge𝜋 said:

This is my theory on how to create more honorblades. I’m basing this off the assumption that all Stormlight is investure connected to Honor, and that the Honor’s investure makes up the honorblades.

That's true. However Stormlight is gaseous form of investiture, while Honorblade are solid. Honorblades are vastly more concentrated and denser than Stormlight is. Plus Honorblades are self-aware, they aren't just raw investiture.

Spoiler

Fluffy (paraphrased)

When the Five Scholars traveled to Roshar, this happened post Recreance, so most Shardblades would have been dead, how did Nightblood gain sapience?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Shardblades weren’t the only Blades around that were active, there were Honorblades. Honorblades are self-aware, but do not manifest a spren in the Cognitive Realm.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 15, 2022)

 

20 hours ago, Bridge𝜋 said:

Could you potentially use Forgary on the Stormlight to make it think it was the investure Honor used to make the honorblades? Thus making a new blade with surges? This would require background knowledge about the honorblades, but I think this is feasible with a skilled Forager. 

Unlikely. Investiture resists investiture, affecting something that's pure investiture will be hard with Forgery. And it would require a massive amount of Stormlight - even with Dalinar's perpendicularity you're unable to access enough investiture to create a god metal, which Honroblades are. Forgery doesn't juggle with such amounts of investiture.

Spoiler

Questioner

Could a Forger, like, reforge a Shardplate to look differently?

Brandon Sanderson

So here's the thing... Um, yes, *but*... Anything that is Invested is-- resists all of the forms of Investiture. And the level of Investiture in it determines how hard it is. Forging is one of these things that-- It's very hard to reforge things that are Invested. Not impossible though. So yes, *but*... Do you see what I'm saying? There's that-- there's a pretty significant "but" on that one.

Calamity release party (Feb. 16, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Haylo_Alex

You've said before that Soulcasting can't create atium or lerasium which makes sense since they're made of Investiture from other Shards. But could a Soulcaster, perhaps in the proximity of Dalinar's perpendicularity, provide enough Stormlight to Soulcast something into Honor's Godmetal (tanavastium)? What about Cultivation's metal, or an alloy of both, like Shardblade metal?

Brandon Sanderson

So, creating a God Metal is not something that's done easily in the Cosmere. HOWEVER, it is possible. You'd need a ton of Investiture, and being near Dalinar's perpendicularity is unlikely to be enough. I'd say Soulcasting, or something akin to it, has the means to do this if it could obtain the proper power charge.

Footnote: The questioner is mentioning this WoB.
General Reddit 2020 (Sept. 4, 2020)

 

Spoiler

rani

Any kind of Investiture to make a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

Not any but there are multiple methods.  Some work better than others.

rani

Can you Forge a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

To Forge a Shardblade, meaning make a regular sword through Forgery into a Shardblade, would require so much Investiture it’s like asking if we can make lead into gold using a particle accelerator.  Yes but it's horribly, horribly, horribly inefficient.

Calamity Seattle signing (Feb. 17, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

What if you Soulstamped a city?

Brandon Sanderson

Soulstaped a city... So if you're a really good Forger-- It is possible to do things like that, but it requires a lot of work and time. Just one thing to keep in mind with Soulstamps, and anything that does this, rewriting your spiritweb, right, like, requires Invesiture. A lot of Investiture. And so, for instance, what Shai can do is really cool, but what an Elantrian can do is gonna look a lot more dramatic, right? Shooting a column of fire, you would say "Which takes more power, making the wall have flowers on it or shooting a column of fire?" Making the wall have flowers takes way more Investiture. It's a lot easier to pull off some dramatic effects with others, but the actual changing of the soul and overwr-- ...So just keep in mind the extent-- This is why you don't see Shai Forge it so the whole building disappears. Right? And stuff like this. Which is not outside of reason for a couple of Elantrians with the right program to put into place. But I mean effectively-- They could blow it up, essentially, that's what they would do

Bystander

Make a new hole, rather than making one that has existed.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Exactly. Do keep in mind, people like to ask, you've probably seen people ask, "Could I rewrite myself to be a Knight Radiant?" Right? WELL... There are certain things that you just-- you can't fake without enough energy that it becomes impractical. Usually what I use as an example to that is: Yes, we can turn hydrogen into gold, if we wanted to. Right? We can do that! It might take more energy than the earth creates in an entire year, but we can do that.

I get a lot of questions with this that I'm like "is it possible?" and I'm like "Guys, is it possible?" ...You should probably be like, "Is it possible, with reasonable amounts of energy provided by one Invested person".

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016)

 

Spoiler

DTF_20170515

Why refrigerate food when you can just stamp spoiled food so that it was stored properly before?

Aurora_Fatalis

You'll have to ask Brandon how that'd interact with gastric acid breaking down the stamp. Or how porous/loose material interacts with stamps in the first place.

Come to think of it... There's a WoB saying the Nightwatcher could change your species, but have a hard time making a spren bond to you. So... could the Nightwatcher turn you Scadrian and make you eligible for Allomantic powers? Or does the Nightwatcher's boons operate on soulstamp principles?

Hell, let's say you bought a vial of the wrong metal on your field trip to Sel. Could you pay a Forger to stamp the vial into being a vial of the right metal (it's believable that you would check before such an important trip) and then drink the metal contained in the vial to fuel your Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

All right, all right. Let's see... /u/Aurora_Fatalis, changing metals around with other forms of Investiture is generally going to work, according to how I view the magic right now. The power is there, you just need to align the matter the right way. So forging new metals: not too difficult. This is because Allomancy isn't actually using Investiture in the metals, but using it as a key to get power from somewhere else.

Forging a sword to be a Shardblade, however, would be very, very difficult for multiple reasons. The most obvious one is that the Investiture required would be enormous. A Shardblade is a highly-Invested object, with its own self-aware soul.

If you could overcome the initial resistance invested objects have to being influenced by other magics (something that Forgery is particularly good at doing anyway) you'd theoretically be able to change Shardblade/spren's personality like you could a person's.

Fooling the magic via Connection and Identity is not so hard, under the right circumstances, so making a Forger into an Elantrian (or an Allomancer) for a short time is plausible. Making yourself into a Radiant, however, would be more difficult--because the limitations placed on that magic have to do with persuading a sapient being you are worth the bond.

Aurora_Fatalis

How about regular food? If I stamp a pineapple pizza into a pepperoni pizza and eat it, what nutrients do I end up with?

Brandon Sanderson

The way I have it working now, I believe (though I'd have to do some double-checking, as it's been a while since I've been working on Sel) soulstamps are more fragile than things like Aons, and it would be very hard to eat something with one without breaking it. But assuming you could, you'd get nutrients from what it had become--but those would change back once the stamp broke or ran out.

It is possible to go so far down this rabbit hole, however, that the chemistry of Forging (like the physics of Allomancy) it just can't make sense any more. So be aware.

Oversleep

With things like Stamping metals for Allomancy, you have said that it'd be possible for short time, but then burning it would break the Seal and metal would revert back.

I guess it would be similar with food, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's the big problem with Forging. Getting the stamp to stay in place once you start to change the object that has been stamped.

General Reddit 2018 (Aug. 27, 2018)

 

20 hours ago, Bridge𝜋 said:

Problems with this theory: What’s the median you can use to forage the Stormlight? Maybe if you could store it in gemstones, and then stamp it, but I’m not confident about this. 

Yes, that's a problem. You can try overcoming it by Forging a normal sword to be a Honorblade, but as previously stated, this sort of things would require massive amounts of investiture (probably doesn't matter what kind, it can be Stormlight, it can be Dor), it's so difficult that nobody can do that. 

 

 

17 hours ago, Wadders said:

Were the honor blades made soley by honor or was cultivation involved as well? I'm sure I've read somewhere that the shardblades associated with the radiants are a mixture of cultivations and honors investiture with the mix depending on which order they are in. The honor blades might be similar.

They are pure Tanavastium. Made 100% by Honor. Shardblades are different because they are Spren's bodies, which are a mixture of Honor and Cultivation's investiture.

Spoiler

NeedsToShutUp

What would happen if Hoid tried to burn the shard that came off Ishar's Honorblade?

Brandon Sanderson

If you were able to get a hold of that piece and burn it, it would act like burning... You would be burning a very pure form of a God Metal, and those have some very interesting effects. RAFO.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

 

Spoiler

Alpharho

The metal of Shardblades. Cultivationspren versus honorspren, for example. Are they different metals?

Brandon Sanderson

No, but good question.

Alpharho

Are all orders the same alloy, essentially?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. There's a little asterisk on there, but not in the way you're asking... You could call those all the same alloy. Because the mixture to different spren is different, I think that you could argue that each one is its own alloy.

Alpharho

So, different proportions of tanavastium?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but it doesn't quite work that way with these magics, right? I'm going to say that's up to the individual cosmerologist who is in the world, the arcanist, defining it. You would be able to find enough differences to legitimately call them different alloys if you wanted to.

Alpharho

Would you say different ratios of the same two metals?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. They are not going to have a third one in them, if that's what you're asking. But it doesn't quite work that way. Like, if you were going to take brass, you could measure the exact percentage. In this case, it is a thing; it's not like you could divide it up and split them apart, because they are a thing. And that thing would be called one thing.

Alpharho

But you won't say what that thing is called?

Brandon Sanderson

No, I won't say what that thing is called. But I think you and the 17th Sharders and folks that are dividing them would prefer to call them ten different things, and I think their nomenclature would be relevant.

Skyward Denver signing (Nov. 15, 2018)

 

17 hours ago, Wadders said:

Nightblood is a heavily invested blade that shares a lot of properties with the shardblades and honorblades but does not provide any abilities to the user. This might be due to a more limited Connection between the user and the blade?

There are some benefits (like speaking to the mind of his wielder, sensing where he is, immunity to his "evil test" and some other unknown powers) , Nightblood does create a bond between him and his user. But Nightblood wasn't made to grant any powers unlike Honorblades. 

Spoiler

Argent (paraphrased)

How is it that Nightblood, who is merely a near-sentient awakened object, was able to read minds, something a Shard like Ruin was unable to do?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It requires bonding (with the person whose mind is to be read) to read minds.

Steelheart Chicago signing (Oct. 1, 2013)

 

Spoiler

bubblebooy

Could one negate the negative effects of wielding Nightblood with an aluminum gauntlet?

Brandon Sanderson

*hesitantly* This is theoretically possible, but you also wouldn't get some of the benefits. But many of the benefits are not being utilized by people who draw Nightblood. So to some of them, it would be... you wouldn't be able to notice the difference.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Another note here is that Nightblood can sense where Vasher is. This is because Nightblood has ingested and fed off Vasher's Breaths in the past. When he does that, it connects him to someone. It's also, by the way, one of the secrets as to why Vasher doesn't get sick when holding Nightblood, even though he's a good person. It's not simply familiarity (though that is part of it). Nightblood has a built-in test. If he feeds off you and you survive, then you become somewhat immune to his powers.

Warbreaker Annotations (June 22, 2011)

 

17 hours ago, Wadders said:

Also, if the honor blades are pure tanavastium will the surges for the radiant orders more closely associated with cultivation express differently to how the radiants get them? We have seen that windrunners surges and the honorblades surges are the same but they are both closely related to honor. I'm thinking about how Renarin's use of illumination is very different to normal truthwatchers.

No, Surgebinding is both of Honor and Cultivation. They can both access it and fuel it alone. 

[Bridge𝜋]

That was all interesting, and the WoB about forgery make me agree that there would be so much investure involved it’s probably not feasible. 
The whole goal of marking more Honorblades was in the back of my mind a way to access surges without a spren bond or the original Honorblades. Does anyone have ideas about of how a person could do this? Maybe awaken an object to mimic surges when given to investure/fuel. 

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, Bridge𝜋 said:

That was all interesting, and the WoB about forgery make me agree that there would be so much investure involved it’s probably not feasible. 
The whole goal of marking more Honorblades was in the back of my mind a way to access surges without a spren bond or the original Honorblades. Does anyone have ideas about of how a person could do this? Maybe awaken an object to mimic surges when given to investure/fuel. 

Easiest way I can think of is to find out how the Malwish medallions are made, then replicate the process, but for Surgebinding. Those should be permanent, only needing Investiture to fuel the actual abilities. 

Or, convince a Surgebinder to use an Unsealed Nicrosilmind to store access to their Surges for later use, then Compound that Nicrosilmind to create temporary (yet rechargeable) Surgeminds.

[Bridge𝜋]

2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Or, convince a Surgebinder to use an Unsealed Nicrosilmind to store access to their Surges for later use, then Compound that Nicrosilmind to create temporary (yet rechargeable) Surgeminds

That makes lots of sense, and I think there is a WoB confirming it somewhere. However, do you think my idea of awakening something to mimic surges would work? If you had lots of knowledge about the Nahel bond, could you create a command to replicate it?

[Trusk'our he/him]

53 minutes ago, Bridge𝜋 said:

However, do you think my idea of awakening something to mimic surges would work? If you had lots of knowledge about the Nahel bond, could you create a command to replicate it?

Theoretically, yes.

Investiture really works by having the correct Instructions, so if you could understand the mechanics of what you were doing very, very specifically and combined that with enough Investiture you could do pretty much anything that Cosmere mechanics will allow.

I think that this is at least part of how Dawnshards do their thing; a highly advanced, godlike understanding plus Investiture equals the ability to use it in whatever way you can imagine, basically. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/522-dragonsteel-2023/#e16264

Questioner

If you were divesting yourself of all Identity, and then tapped a massive amount of Connection and Investiture, would you be able to instantly have access to, say, the Surges on Roshar without oaths?

Brandon Sanderson

So, you wanna get the Surges without oaths? What you're saying is you divest yourself of Identity, you highly Invest yourself... You're still going to need something that's gonna tell that Investiture what to be and how to manifest in yourself. And so if it's the right Intent then maybe, right? 'Cause you can have both Identity and Intent on Investiture and you can unkey it to one or the other or both. And so that might be... But the thing is, you're still gonna have to know... This is a step toward getting what you want, but there's still gotta be something that tells it... "You're holding a massive amount of Investiture, what do I do with this? Do I teleport you across the Cosmere to another planet? What do I do with it?" And you're gonna have to have something to give structure to that Investiture. You're missing a step.

About Nalthian Awakening specifically, it's probably a little more complicated. 

It usually only allows an object to function as it would normally (which is why Nightblood is so weird), so for example Commanding a rope to start a fire wouldn't cause it to smolder and spontaneously burst into flames, but it could rub itself to create friction and generate heat as a side effect. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/472-jordancon-2021/#e14944

Questioner

(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?

Brandon Sanderson

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. 

So, with just standard Awakening I would say you'd need some extra steps, maybe by harnessing a Nicrosilmind or Fabrial containing the desired Surge or at least something similar, which can then be built upon via Breaths.

Edited July 4 by Trusk'our

[alder24]

18 hours ago, Bridge𝜋 said:

The whole goal of marking more Honorblades was in the back of my mind a way to access surges without a spren bond or the original Honorblades. Does anyone have ideas about of how a person could do this? 

Fabrials. Oathgates are giant fabrials for the Surge of Transportation, Soulcasters are fabrials of the Surge of Transformation, Nale had a fabrial for the Surge of Progression. There are fabrials for almost every Surge. Just use them, they were common once. 

Spoiler

ebilutionist

Regarding Soulcasting, I have a question - why do people continue to use it post-Recreance? Would it not have been seen as a betrayal, given that the Radiants abandoned them? Why this Surge but not others? Was it simply the only Surge available and people would have kept using the others anyway? I guess it's a matter of practicality but given how devout Vorinism can be it does seem odd.

Brandon Sanderson

Good question. You'll notice that Soulcasters aren't the only fabrial that access a Surge, however. They're just the one most commonly used.

There are plenty of rationalizations. But it comes down to this: they are too useful to give up.

ebilutionist

Ah yes, now that I think of it Navani's conjoined-gem fabrials seem to utilize Gravitation and perhaps the heating one uses Abrasion(?) to produce heat. Or are there others I did miss?

Brandon Sanderson

I was referencing a Regrowth fabrial, actually, which I believe has appeared several times.

ebilutionist

Isn't the Regrowth fabrial incredibly rare? I was under the impression it disappeared with the Recreance and only Nin's reappearance brought it back. AFAIK, only a Radiant in Dalinar's vision and a Herald have actually used it so far.

Brandon Sanderson

Their rarity depends on the time period in question. But yes, I'd list them as incredibly rare.

Stormlight Three Update #4 (Oct. 20, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Is, like, fabrials that can imitate, I mean, very specific forms of Surgebinding... Are there fabrials that can imitate the Surge-- <stages> of Voidbinding?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. That is theoretically possible.

Calamity release party (Feb. 16, 2016)

 

Spoiler

kvancleeff21

What was the fabrial used by Nale to completely revive Szeth at the end of Words of Radiance? That seems like an immensely powerful fabrial, and I don’t think it has been mentioned since.

Brandon Sanderson

During the last days of the heights of the Knights Radiant, they were figuring out how to replicate most Radiant abilities with fabrials. This is where... the Oathgates as a guide for that sort of thing. So you're just seeing a fabrial that can replicate what an Edgedancer does, or a Truthwatcher. There were fabrials created that could do this for all ten Surges. Okay, nine of the ten Surges. Bondsmithing is its own weird thing, as usual. So yes, it's a very valuable fabrial to have, and that is why you haven't seen much more of it because it is in the hands of the Skybreakers, and we aren't spending a lot of time with the Skybreakers. But yeah, it is a thing they have. And there are fabrials that can replicate the other eight as well. You've seen several of them in the books already.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

 

18 hours ago, Bridge𝜋 said:

Maybe awaken an object to mimic surges when given to investure/fuel. 

It's really hard to fake Surgebinding because bonding a sapient piece of Honor and Cultivation is the key part of this magic. When Awakening you're using Breaths - Endowment's investiture - thus you won't receive Surgebinding powers from that because it's not the right type of investiture. You can try to use Stormlight, but most likely you will end up with something like Nightblood, rather than a proper spren/Honorblade. You won't get what you want that way. Surgebinding is probably one of the hardest invested arts to fake your way into, because it involves Oaths and sapient spren. 

Spoiler

Djarskublar

So, say you have a gold/gold Twinborn and they worldhop to Roshar and they study the magic and do the whole Khriss and Nazh thing for a while so they know a lot about the magic, but they've also left themselves a lot of options with what they can do. So then they manage to pull up a gold shadow of them having actually become a Surgebinder and then kind of meld themselves with that shadow a bunch, could they change their Cognitive Identity enough so that they could, like, tap a lot of gold and grow the spren and actually be a Surgebinder?

Brandon Sanderson

Unfortunately, no. It's a good question, but no. That won't work for a couple of reasons. One of which is, simply creating Investiture is not something that can happen, right?

Djarskublar

They are a gold Twinborn, so they can tap a lot of gold...

Brandon Sanderson

They can tap a whole bunch, that's true, they can do that, but simply having it is not gonna create a spren because the spren is from a different god, right, a different Shard.

Djarskublar

So if they had Regrowth cast on them, would that do it?

Brandon Sanderson

*hems and haws for a second*

Djarskublar

A really, really big Regrowth, like in the middle of a Highstorm.

Brandon Sanderson

Hmmm, this, you are getting to the realm of plausibility at that point. I still don't think gold is the way to do it. I think you just get all that Investiture. It would become sapient by you sticking a whole bunch of Investiture in, and then you can bond to that. But it's not like people gain what you would have done. Does that make sense? That's just what's going to happen, is you're gonna, you can create a, potentially create a spren that way, but you are more likely to end up with something like Nightblood. But you could potentially create a spren, but I mean you're just gonna end up...

Djarskublar

So there are other, more optimal ways to do that?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, go bond a spren. (evil grin of course)

Djarskublar

But you can't easily bond multiple, and if you did this you could maybe get multiple.

Brandon Sanderson

Nyeaaahhh... The spren still has to choose. If you want to be a Surgebinder, the choice is being made. You can't fake your way into it. Decision and Honor are too much a part of Surgebinding for you to be able to fake your way into that. Other magics you might be able to do that. Other magics that don't require, like... Surgebinding works because a piece of Honor or Cultivation or a mix has chosen you specifically. There is will from the actual Investiture involved in it in Roshar. So it's not something you can cheat your way into, right. But cheating your way into Breath might be easier.

Arcanum Unbounded release party (Nov. 22, 2016)