Bondsmith abilities

[Naurock]

What's the odds the Stormfather will allow Dalinar to bind with the Honor Blade that Paladin got off of Szeth? Since the Stormfather refuses to be beckoned like a normal spren blade why not let Dalinar have a weapon to defend himself?

[Landis963 he/him]

2 hours ago, Naurock said:

What's the odds the Stormfather will allow Dalinar to bind with the Honor Blade that Paladin got off of Szeth? Since the Stormfather refuses to be beckoned like a normal spren blade why not let Dalinar have a weapon to defend himself?

This is the Stormfather we're talking about.  The guy who, when the good guys tried to act on the warning that he passed along, sent a highstorm to kill them all.  The odds are much slimmer than logic and reason would dictate.  

[Stormgate he/him]

It would be interesting to see a character with three Surges. However, it will really make it difficult to figure out the Bondsmith's perk.

[Landis963 he/him]

7 minutes ago, Stormgate said:

It would be interesting to see a character with three Surges. However, it will really make it difficult to figure out the Bondsmith's perk.

Assuming that the "perk" gained from mixing Investitures doesn't alter itself once the 3rd Surge is added (and another instance of the 2nd Surge, really, via the Honorblade), we can compare it to Kaladin, and then any magical stuff that they had in common we can remove.  (This would also help nail down what Kaladin's perk actually is.)

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

I believe their perk may revolve around reshaping/reforging bonds (eg. the shardblade he unbonded instantly upon swearing the oaths) + the Ishar epigraph and the one about that Bondsmith doing something to the Voidbringers, upon his realisation about an alternate option.

[Xaklys he/him]

On 7/22/2016 at 11:23 AM, Brackcha said:

I was reading through WoR and I noticed the chapter 44 epigraph said there where only 3 bond smiths. And storm father had previously said he was honor's spren could that mean that each bond smith bonded one of the shards godspren? Another interesting bit is that their trait is pious. All together it makes me think the bond smiths could commune with the shards and tell them to make more splinters smithing bondable spren does this make sense?

I did not read the whole thread but I do have an point about the Bondsmiths.  From what I understand, Bondsmiths are meant to be leaders, so it somewhat makes sense for them to form a bond with godspren.  The ideal, "I will unite instead of divide.  I will bring men together." supports the idea that they are leaders, kind of like the role that a "godspren" would play (The Stormfather being the father of honorspren like Syl).  That's just my analysis though.

[b4dave he/him]

On July 22, 2016 at 0:02 PM, Kelsier Kenobi said:

Since Dalinar is a Bondsmith we will no doubt find out more about them in Book 3 and I'm very curious.  I get bonding the Spren of Honor and Cultivation, but Odium?  That really doesn't add up for me.  I really want to know why there were only 3.

It kinda makes sense when you remember that Odium may be bound to act through a champion as per Honor. It seems feasible that a bond smith could bind the spren of odium since the Stormfather was more or less bound against his will. 

Edited September 15, 2016 by b4dave

[Savanorn he/him]

1 hour ago, Xaklys said:

I did not read the whole thread but I do have an point about the Bondsmiths.  From what I understand, Bondsmiths are meant to be leaders, so it somewhat makes sense for them to form a bond with godspren.  The ideal, "I will unite instead of divide.  I will bring men together." supports the idea that they are leaders, kind of like the role that a "godspren" would play (The Stormfather being the father of honorspren like Syl).  That's just my analysis though.

This I like. 

I sort of imagined the bondsmith as the visionary, the king, the prophet sort of role whereas Windrunners are better as squadleaders, lords and generals. Like the two sorts of leadership. 

I mean, Dalinar can and does lead men, but I actually think he may be shown to be better at leading many highprinces than a single army. 

Like among the Heralds I could see Jez leading the group, but Ishi as the one with vision and goals.

[Xaklys he/him]

1 hour ago, b4dave said:

It kinda makes sense when you remember that Odium may be bound to act through a champion as per Honor. It seems feasible that a bond smith could bind the spren of odium since the Stormfather was more or less bound against his will. 

The Stormfather didn't have to do it, he was reluctant but he acknowledged that Dalinar had spoken the words and made his vow.  He chose to do it because... wait for it... it's what is RIGHT!  Haha, because, ya know?  He is the spren of Honor.....

[Oversleep]

It's impossible that a Bondsmith was bound to a godspren of Odium.

For starters, all Radiant spren are a mixture of H&C Investiture (in various percentages). Bonding one of Odium just doesn't fit.

Furthermore, Odium has more godspren than one - it's the Unmade (I'm not sure how many they are, ten or more).

[PantsForSquares he/him]

1 hour ago, Oversleep said:

It's impossible that a Bondsmith was bound to a godspren of Odium.

For starters, all Radiant spren are a mixture of H&C Investiture (in various percentages). Bonding one of Odium just doesn't fit.

Furthermore, Odium has more godspren than one - it's the Unmade (I'm not sure how many they are, ten or more).

My personal theory is that the three Godspren are one of Honor (the Stormfather), one of Cultivation (Presumably the Nightwatcher), and the third is of Adonalsium - and predates the Shattering. There isn't much to back it up, but the only alternative is having a Bondsmith bound to Odium.

There should be ten Unmade, given how the number 10 is fairly significant in Roshar. Presumably, they correlate to the Ten Deaths like the Heralds do to the Orders of the Knights Radiant.

[PallonianFire he/him]

8 minutes ago, PantsForSquares said:

There should be ten Unmade, given how the number 10 is fairly significant in Roshar. Presumably, they correlate to the Ten Deaths like the Heralds do to the Orders of the Knights Radiant.

IIRC Brandon said there weren't 10 Unmade, after the RAFOlympics at JordanCon. But I definitely might be making that up (my head was swimming with all the WoBs, at that point)

 

EDIT: Not the JordanCon quote I'm thinking of, but there aren't 10.

Quote

QUESTION

Is the number of the Unmade fixed?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes.

QUESTION

Is it ten, is it ten, is it ten, is it ten, is it ten?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Is it ten? No, it's not ten.

 

Edited September 15, 2016 by PallonianFire

[PantsForSquares he/him]

Huh. I stand corrected. It's strange that it isn't ten, though.

[Oversleep]

WoB time! WoB WoB WoB!

Quote

Question

Is the number of the Unmade fixed?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Question

Is it ten, is it ten, is it ten, is it ten, is it ten?

Brandon Sanderson

Is it ten? No, it's not ten.
source

Quote

Khyrindor

Are the Unmade and the Stormfather the same "class" of being?

Brandon Sanderson (Paraphrased)

Technically no, but they are on a similar level. It is a good analogy.
source

 

[Garglemesh he/him]

Doesn't the Stormfather talk about how he's the idea of Honor, of the Almighty, that everyone still holds to? If you went around preaching a new religion that worshipped unicorns and got enough people to convert and believe in the Omnicorn, would they create a spren in the cognitive realm that embodied their ideas of what the Omnicorn was? Would that spren somehow eventually become a possible bondsmith candidate? We know certain religions revere Cultivation right? Others, Honor. I wonder if some other "godspren" would exist by mixing that strong cognitive identity with investiture. 

[Savanorn he/him]

2 hours ago, Garglemesh said:

Doesn't the Stormfather talk about how he's the idea of Honor, of the Almighty, that everyone still holds to? If you went around preaching a new religion that worshipped unicorns and got enough people to convert and believe in the Omnicorn, would they create a spren in the cognitive realm that embodied their ideas of what the Omnicorn was? Would that spren somehow eventually become a possible bondsmith candidate? We know certain religions revere Cultivation right? Others, Honor. I wonder if some other "godspren" would exist by mixing that strong cognitive identity with investiture. 

Praise be the Single Horn That Banishes the Dark.

I'm not sure, to be honest, it'd be interesting to see for sure. Like...do new types of spren become born as ideals change and develop?

[+hwiles]

18 hours ago, Savanorn said:

Praise be the Single Horn That Banishes the Dark.

I'm not sure, to be honest, it'd be interesting to see for sure. Like...do new types of spren become born as ideals change and develop?

I assume the process of creating a new spren requires both a significant collective cognitive presence among many conscious individuals in the physical realm, as well as free investiture that can be molded into a new spren.

Kaladin encounters what is believed to be an "incarceration-spren," and Axies the Collector seems to locate ale-spren (though this one is less conclusive).  I think it's a safe bet that, yes, a unicorn Godspren could be created if everyone wished really hard for it, but there would have to be a suitable pool of free investiture that could be molded into the shape, and there's probably a luck element as well.  They'd also have to overcome the planet's cognitive identify which would almost certainly reject the creation of something so silly; if Stick doesn't want to become Fire, then I think it's safe to say Roshar probably doesn't want a Unicorn-God.

Quote

Book of the Unicorn, Hymn of Salvation - Paragraph 42

And lo, the Great Horn led us forth to fertile pastures of great frolicking,

With nary a nay-sayer in sight. (lol, see what I did there?)

The Great Horn shelters us and shields us, stomping out the dark light of our odious enemies 'neath mighty hoof.

All glory to the Great Horn!

 

[Argel he/him]

 

 

[Eki]

23 hours ago, Garglemesh said:

Doesn't the Stormfather talk about how he's the idea of Honor, of the Almighty, that everyone still holds to? If you went around preaching a new religion that worshipped unicorns and got enough people to convert and believe in the Omnicorn, would they create a spren in the cognitive realm that embodied their ideas of what the Omnicorn was? Would that spren somehow eventually become a possible bondsmith candidate? We know certain religions revere Cultivation right? Others, Honor. I wonder if some other "godspren" would exist by mixing that strong cognitive identity with investiture. 

Well... it seems like the Stormfather is a merging of the spren that controls the highstorms (who we tend to call the Rider of the Storm), and the Cognitive Shadow (pretty much the Cosmere version of a ghost) of Tanavast. I think that's what the Stormfather meant when he said he's the memory of Honor - he's the ghost of the one who held the shard.

As to your actual question, I guess it's possible, but I think there would need to be Investiture available, as you mention at the end. Maybe spren can convert to other types, and stuff? When double checking the information above, I noticed that during Eshonai's interlude, when she goes into the storm, it says that the Rider was not always in the storm. (I don't know the literal quote, just what the Coppermind says.) How the Rider was created, we don't know. Maybe as you say, or he was just created by Honor or Adonalsium, or something. But if something on Roshar could gather a critical amount of Cognitive mass to create a spren (if that is indeed possible), it would be the highstorms.

[Djarskublar he/him]

Avoiding spoilers here with ambiguous language.

Speaking of creating new spren from new religions... Survivorism. Nuff sed.

On that note, does that mean that if there was created some powerful survivorspren, would the Survivor's cognitive shadow meld with it automatically? Easier than normal? Not at all?

I consider this thread officially highjacked!

Back to topic (sorta). Would this survivorspren be bondable for Bondsmiths?

[Garglemesh he/him]

On 9/16/2016 at 0:51 PM, hwiles said:

I assume the process of creating a new spren requires both a significant collective cognitive presence among many conscious individuals in the physical realm, as well as free investiture that can be molded into a new spren.

Kaladin encounters what is believed to be an "incarceration-spren," and Axies the Collector seems to locate ale-spren (though this one is less conclusive).  I think it's a safe bet that, yes, a unicorn Godspren could be created if everyone wished really hard for it, but there would have to be a suitable pool of free investiture that could be molded into the shape, and there's probably a luck element as well.  They'd also have to overcome the planet's cognitive identify which would almost certainly reject the creation of something so silly; if Stick doesn't want to become Fire, then I think it's safe to say Roshar probably doesn't want a Unicorn-God.

 

All I'm saying is that if you took a Ryshadium and drove a hemalurgic spike through its head, and if that hemalurgic spike happened to be 

Spoiler

forged from the bands of mourning

then you would have a pretty deific being on your hands, land of disgusting crab things with seventeen legs aside. I'd be really curious as to what would happen in that case. Anydangway, you're right that the people of Roshar may struggle to accept that as easily as a weather-god they hide from weekly-or-so but Ryshadium are native to Roshar (or are they?) or at least accepted where they're known of. So I contend it's not such a stretch. 

 

On 9/16/2016 at 10:18 PM, Djarskublar said:

Avoiding spoilers here with ambiguous language.

Speaking of creating new spren from new religions... Survivorism. Nuff sed.

On that note, does that mean that if there was created some powerful survivorspren, would the Survivor's cognitive shadow meld with it automatically? Easier than normal? Not at all?

I consider this thread officially highjacked!

Back to topic (sorta). Would this survivorspren be bondable for Bondsmiths?

As far as Survivorism goes, is it confirmed then that 

Spoiler

Kelsier is a cognitive shadow? Or does he have a separate cognitive shadow created by those who worship him? I would think the cognitive belief of who the Survivor is/was is quite a bit different than Kelsier himself. 

It doesn't... well... alas, poor Tanavast. We never knew him, Hoid. So we can't say if his "true personality" melded with the spren of the Stormfather or not. That's an interesting thought though.  Like a man slipping into a fancy mech suit fashioned after him, you would gain no little access to investiture and great power. Maybe all this is bubkis. When the Stormfather nixed Dalinar of his shards, was it because such a shard would rob the planet of its life-giving light? It sounds more like he accompanies the storms instead of being them himself. So maybe he said no because he feels bound to watch over mankind from the skies. What if the three spren are those of the Earth, Sky, and Sea? Sigh. Perhaps unlikely, due to no obvious sources of investiture from the same. Well. The Nightwatcher might could be Earth. Maybe water worm guy IS the third, though I'd previously rejected such a notion. Meh. /rant

[The Sovereign]

On 7/22/2016 at 11:10 PM, AnanasSpren said:

IIRC from a recent signing WoB, the Stormfather and Nightwatcher are just a level or so above Cusicesh, with the Unmade either the same as Cusi or inbetween. Given we don't know when Honour died exactly, especially in regards to the Recreance, it's hard to say what effects taking up and dispersing a Shard's power does, let alone a spren with a presumably already defined personality possibly absorbing traits from another

On 7/22/2016 at 4:22 PM, Chull #445 said:

There might be other dead godspren of Honor, who sprendied when the Radiants broke their oaths. And Stormfather is the last of a kind.

Stormfather himself tells Dalinar that he "will not be bound in any way as to kill me."

So whatever spren the Bondsmiths bonded, they are probably sprendead by now. And they were not Stormfather.

I suspect that Chull # 445 is correct here, although only in part. I would guess that Cusicesh was at one point on the same level but was "killed" by its Radiant and its current state is the result.

Quote

 

The below WoB getting RAFOd make me think this may be the case.

Interview: Mar 21st, 2014

WOR Signing Table Q&A (Verbatim)

Rhandric

Have the Bondsmiths ever had a Shardblade? Have any other Bondsmiths had Shardblades?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO! Good question. Good question.

Tags

bondsmiths, shardblades,

 

Also, not related but I didn't see this WoB in the thread and it is pretty important to the subject as a whole:
 

 

Quote

 

Interview: Mar 21st, 2014

WOR Signing Table Q&A (Verbatim)

Question

Before the Recreance, there were three Bondsmiths. Did they all bond supersprens, or is Dalinar an exception?

Brandon Sanderson

They did something similar.

Question

Can the Unmade be bonded?

Brandon Sanderson

Wow...plausible. Er, possible, I should say.

 

 

[marianmi]

Number 10 is important I think for Honor. If you want to know how many Unmade are, you gotta find out what's the important number for Odium (9?)

There are similarities and differences between the Unmade and Stormfather. They are similar because they are on the same "level", meaning they are big "splinters" of one of the 16. The differences is that the Unmade are "full" splinters, whereas Stormfather was created in a somewhat different way - so "technically" they are different kind of spren.

Bondsmiths - if you look at the chart, they are very close to Honor just as Truthwatchers are very close to Cultivation. However, Truthwatchers are not binding Cultivation-god-spren, but I think they bind "normal-level" spren. So basically I think the "special" ability of Bondsmiths is to bind higher-level spren (not necessarly "god-spren"), that is not a "certain type". So I don't think that those old 3 bondsmiths were all bound to the same spren, but rather they were bound to 3 different types of "big-level" spren. So how all windrunners are bound to the same type of spren - honorspren - the bondsmiths basically are jokers allowing *something else*. E.g. a bondsmith would be able to bind an unmade? or a void-spren? i guess the big question is - what do they get from that connection? some spren-specific power... ?

 

 

[Oversleep]

@marianmi, I doubt Bondsmiths are "jacks-of-all-trade". Specifically because their requirements for attraction of spren are the same (exhibit Order's traits) and because their Surges are determined to be Adhesion and Tension. The Surges are tied to the spren, so it cannot be random.

[marianmi]

3 hours ago, Oversleep said:

@marianmi, I doubt Bondsmiths are "jacks-of-all-trade". Specifically because their requirements for attraction of spren are the same (exhibit Order's traits) and because their Surges are determined to be Adhesion and Tension. The Surges are tied to the spren, so it cannot be random.

i don't actually think that the requirements for attraction of spren are the same, because bondsmiths clearly attract different types of spren. e.g. there was no stormfather bonded to the 3 bondsmiths before, there were another spren(s), possibly not of honor. and i don't think all those spren are "attracted" by "i will bind, and not divide" - not even stormfather was "attracted" by that (even tho` he's the one sending the "you must bind them" message - because he's required to, not because he agrees, as he said) - but rather stormfather <agreed> to be bounded and accepted those words for a level-up.

EDIT: he was like: fine, i'll let you bind me, and you'll be a "bondsmith" - because you can't be any other type of KR since i'm not in the "type" chart.

windrunner: honorspren

lightweaver: cryptics

...

bondsmith: any other type of spren (that can bind, called probably traitor gods by parshendi)

 

Edited September 24, 2016 by marianmi