Awaken Returner she/her Posted October 27, 2021 Report Share Posted October 27, 2021 Shower thought: Breaths are the substance of Endowment, and she invests every person born in Nalthis with a single breath. Should Endowment, for some reason, distill her Investiture across trillions of souls in an ecomenopolis future Nalthis such that she would essentially lose her Shard to the invested populace and each invested individual were to store their Breaths into a single inanimate object, a stick for example. Would that stick ascend into Godhood or would it simply store the Shard of Endowment? We know even "littles pieces of divinity" tend to come alive as Investiture "wants to live", that inanimate objects have "spirits", and highly invested objects become sentient ie. NightBlood, could an inanimate object become a vessel? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honorless he/him Posted October 27, 2021 Report Share Posted October 27, 2021 (edited) Brandon's RAFO'd this, especially and specifically with Nightblood, eg: Quote Oudeis16 We've seen people Ascend. If it were in the position to do so, could Nightblood take up a Shard? Brandon Sanderson This is a RAFO, as I'm not specifically willing to comment on whether or not power that has become self-aware (Seons, Nightblood, Spren) can Ascend or not. /r/books AMA 2015 (June 24, 2015) Edited October 27, 2021 by Honorless 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elegy he/him Posted October 27, 2021 Report Share Posted October 27, 2021 As per WOB, spren can't become vessels: Quote Questioner What happens when a... spren picks up a Shard? Brandon Sanderson What do you mean picks up a Shard? Shardblade or Shard of Adonalsium? Questioner Picks up a Shard of Adonalsium. Brandon Sanderson A spren is a Shard of Adonalsium so it just-- Questioner Picks up one of the big ones like could a spren do the same thing that Kelsier's spirit did after he-- Brandon Sanderson *hesitantly* It's like you're asking if electricity can gain a charge of electricity and get electrified. Does that make sense? I mean-- It's a question that doesn't make a lot of sense. If a Shard were to somehow-- They would just combine into a bigger Shard and get larger-- if that makes sense? Questioner The foundation of that question was I thought that maybe the Stormfather spren was basically doing what Kelsier's spirit did. Brandon Sanderson Oh, um *sighs* Not really... It's really a not really There's some similarities but it's a not really. It's not quite a RAFO though. more of a-- Questioner More of a "doesn't quite work that way". Brandon Sanderson --doesn't quite work that way but you're thinking along the right lines? Bands of Mourning release party (Jan. 25, 2016) But Nightblood is a different case. We don't know what would happen there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frustration he/him Posted October 27, 2021 Report Share Posted October 27, 2021 6 hours ago, Awaken Returner said: Shower thought: Breaths are the substance of Endowment, and she invests every person born in Nalthis with a single breath. Should Endowment, for some reason, distill her Investiture across trillions of souls in an ecomenopolis future Nalthis such that she would essentially lose her Shard to the invested populace and each invested individual were to store their Breaths into a single inanimate object, a stick for example. Would that stick ascend into Godhood or would it simply store the Shard of Endowment? We know even "littles pieces of divinity" tend to come alive as Investiture "wants to live", that inanimate objects have "spirits", and highly invested objects become sentient ie. NightBlood, could an inanimate object become a vessel? That's a bit like worrying that people breathing will bring about the heat death of the universe. Eventually it would, but Endowment has so much investiture it doesn't even matter 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quantus he/him Posted October 27, 2021 Report Share Posted October 27, 2021 8 hours ago, Awaken Returner said: Shower thought: Breaths are the substance of Endowment, and she invests every person born in Nalthis with a single breath. Should Endowment, for some reason, distill her Investiture across trillions of souls in an ecomenopolis future Nalthis such that she would essentially lose her Shard to the invested populace and each invested individual were to store their Breaths into a single inanimate object, a stick for example. Would that stick ascend into Godhood or would it simply store the Shard of Endowment? We know even "littles pieces of divinity" tend to come alive as Investiture "wants to live", that inanimate objects have "spirits", and highly invested objects become sentient ie. NightBlood, could an inanimate object become a vessel? Breaths that are used up or "destroyed" return the spiritual and her, so it would be really hard for her to loose a significant portion of it. But assuming a store of them could be created and maintained enough to get an actual relevant chunk of the shard, it would be more or less like when the Lord Ruler took up the Well: Ascending to phenomenal cosmic power, Temporarily. But they presumably would not actually take the Shard from the current Vessel any more than the Lord Ruler did. Given enough time INvestiture can gain sentience, and given enough investitrue things can tend to become more sentient than otherwise. But Nightblood was Awakened with way more Intent and a specific Magic system. It doesnt appear that a physical Object is going to awaken to sentience on it's own (which do not have Spren or anything, that different). otherwise Sel would be talking by now. Quote Questioner Would it be possible for an inanimate object that was invested to the point of sentience Ascend to Shardhood? Brandon Sanderson To become a Vessel of Adonalsium, or become a Shard through...? This is a tricky question because the power left alone will become sapient. And at that point, the distinction between being a Shard and a Vessel is fine but still extant. And I would say the power could not become a Vessel in the same way because it's defined as something different. But it is possible for the power to be left alone and to gain sapience on its own. Questioner The example we were thinking of was Sel. It was stated in Arcanum that the landscape itself was invested to the point of.. Could the planet of Sel be the Vessel of Devotion? Brandon Sanderson At this point, it's playing semantics, and I would say no. But there are people in-Cosmere that would argue that the semantic distinction is irrelevant and that it is the same. Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018) Quote emailanimal From a very recent signing, we have this new Word of Brandon... chasmfriend's son: Is there a finite amount of Investiture? Brandon: Yes. chasmfriend's son: So is Nightblood consuming it? Brandon: Yes. Very, very slowly. This worries me somewhat because of the following observation. Nightblood consumes Breath (and other Investiture, but let's limit ourselves to Breath for a second). Every person on Nalthis is born with one Breath. Populations tend to grow. Which means that under normal rules of demographics, population of Nalthis should keep increasing. This in turn means that under normal circumstances the number of people with Breath on Nalthis should be growing. I can see the following possible explanations to this: Endowment can give Breath to many more people than are currently living on Nalthis. So, the exponential population growth has not yet reached the level at which Endowment's ability to award a Breath to each Nalthis-born human is seriously challenged. When it happens though, things will not go well. There is some built-in mechanism controlling population growth on Nalthis, making certain that the population stays within the limits. Nightblood's consumption of Breath makes these limits smaller, and overall may lead to Endowment's inability to grant Breath to Nalthis-born, but not for a while (essentially, Endowment controls population trends at she sees fit). Thoughts? Brandon Sanderson Just as a point you should understand, the amount of MATTER in the cosmere is finite too. As is the amount of energy. Worrying that Endowment will run out of Breaths to give is a little like worrying that the amount of carbon on Earth will run out because people keep being born. uchoo786 So just for clarification, once Nightblood consumes investiture, that investiture gets recycled? That's what I've always assumed. That it enters the cognitive/spiritual realm? Brandon Sanderson The investiture he consumes is not gone forever--it's not leaving the system, so to speak. General Reddit 2015 (Dec. 14, 2015) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.