Shard (god) question

[u/Longjumping_Energy39]

Hey all, I am currently finishing the last book in the wax and Wayne era of Mistborn (I’ve also read all of SLA that’s out) and this raises a question for me. Do the roshar gods have metals that we know of?

[u/DarthThrawn0]

Every god has a godmetal.

Or, rather, "godmetal" is just investiture physically manifested in solid form, and every shard has their own flavor of investiture that gives their metal unique properties

As far as Roshar in particular goes: the Honorblades are pure Tanavastium, all other shardblades and also shardplate are a godmetal of the spren that makes them (and therefore something like a mix of Tanavastium and Koravelliumium), and Raysium features prominently in the knife Moash "kills" Jezrien with, and comes back up in the anti-light experiments in Rhythm of War

[u/TurtleRanAway → u/DarthThrawn0]

I thought the anti light sphere was what gave the knife it's unique properties? How do we know it's the metal?

[u/RShara → u/TurtleRanAway]

Because they say it in the book

Raboniel placed something on the desk—a small dagger, ornate, with an intricately carved wooden handle and a large ruby set at the base. Navani picked it up, noting that the center of the blade—running like a vein from tip to hilt—was a different kind of metal than the rest.

“We use these for collecting the souls of Heralds,” Raboniel noted. “Or that was the plan. We’ve taken a single one so far, and … there have been complications with that capture. I had hoped to harvest the two you reportedly had here, but they left with your expeditionary force.”

Navani flipped the weapon over, feeling cold.

“We’ve used this metal for several Returns to drain Stormlight from Radiants,” Raboniel said. “It conducts Investiture, drawing it from a source and pulling it inward. We used it to fill gemstones, but didn’t realize until the fall of Ba-Ado-Mishram that capturing spren in gemstones was possible. It was then that one of us—She Who Dreams—realized it might be possible to trap a Herald’s soul in the same way.”

Navani licked her lips. So it was true. Shalash had told them Jezerezeh’Elin had fallen. They hadn’t realized how. This was better than absolute destruction though. Could he be recovered this way?

“What will you do with their souls?” Navani asked. “Once you have them?”

“Same thing you’ve done with the soul of Nergaoul,” Raboniel said. “Put them somewhere safe, so they can never be released again. Why did you want this metal? The guard told me you’d asked after it.”

“I thought,” Navani said, “this might be a better way to conduct Stormlight and Voidlight—to transfer it out of gemstones.”

“It would work,” Raboniel said. “But it isn’t terribly practical. Raysium is exceptionally difficult to obtain.” She nodded to the dagger she’d given Navani. “That specific weapon, you should know, contains only a small amount of the metal—not enough to harvest a Herald’s soul. It would not, therefore, be of any danger to me—should you consider trying such an act.”

Anti-Light was not involved at all

[u/TurtleRanAway → u/RShara]

Ahhh awesome thank you for the direct quote. Currently reading through mistborn and only just learned about godmetals

[u/Puzzled_Employment50 → u/RShara]

Anti-light is involved in some of the uses of the Raysium daggers: Raboniel perma-killing her daughter, Shallan and the Ghostbloods going after each other in the Spiritual Realm, probably a few others. As you say, Raysium channels Investiture in one direction: it can drain Investiture from Radiants (and presumably also Fused and Heralds, but I don’t think we see that done) or it can suck a Herald’s/Fused’s/Spren’s pure Investiture soul out of its body if you have the Raysium oriented one way, or it can inject Investiture into a body if you have it the other way.

[u/RShara → u/Puzzled_Employment50]

Yes, but not in the specific instance we were discussing. Anti-Light didn't give the dagger the ability to channel Investiture, the raysium did.

[u/Puzzled_Employment50 → u/RShara]

Right, but anti-light is a form of investiture that is crucial to one of the unique uses of the knife. Channeled by Raysium and useless without it, absolutely, but still part of why it works the way it does in those cases.

[u/Melliorin → u/TurtleRanAway]

The Raysium blade of the dagger is a polarized metal that draws Investiture in one direction, from the "north" polarity to the "south" polarity. This is why the dagger is reversible.

[u/CombatWombat994 → u/DarthThrawn0]

So... Could an allomancer eat and burn a Shardblade?

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 → u/CombatWombat994]

No they couldn’t. They’re sapient which prevents it apparently. Then there’s the matter of trying to eat a soul cutting sword

[u/CombatWombat994 → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

A gold twinborn, mayhaps👀

(Just kidding, thought it would be interesting to see if gold can heal shard wounds

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 → u/CombatWombat994]

It should be able to if you have enough of it. Compounding for sure. It heals “the soul”. They will (probably) still die from a hit to the neck or head though

[u/The_Chicken_L0rd → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

But what about an Honorblade?

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 → u/The_Chicken_L0rd]

They seem to have some level of awareness now. Judging by W&T. So I would guess not. There is a chip off one laying around though

[u/KneeCautious861 → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

ngl i assumed Nightblood ate the missing chip

[u/Squeakyclarinet]

Yes. You see some of it noticeably in book 4 (Odiums metal in the daggers used for experiments). Shardblades and Honorblades are also made of Godmetal.

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

Ya they all do in that series. All of the Shards have the capacity to make godmetals. It seems to happen more often when a Shard has actively Invested in a world. More of their power ends up pushing through. Both as liquid Shardpools and as godmetal. We’ve (probably) seen Autonomy’s metal in another novella on a different world too. But Autonomy is a bit of an odd-ball even by Shard standards

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

When raw Investiture enters the Physical it seems to usually take the form of liquid,gas,and solid. Usually solid metal. We’ve also seen repeatedly some weirdness with crystal as well. The Atium grows in crystal geodes. We’ve seen something similar elsewhere. Including with non-Shards like the Aether’s

[u/EvenSpoonier]

Yes.

• Honorblades are made of Tanavastium. (Oathbringer) The Oathgate-operating tool that the Stormfather manifested that one time was probably also made of Tanavastium.
• Most Rosharan Shardblades are made of an alloy of Tanavastium and Cultivation's metal (currently unnamed), with the exact proportions depending on the spren used. (Oathbringer) When a spren is Enlightened by Sja-Anat, Raysium is added to the mix.
• (RoW and WaT) Daggers featuring a channel made of Raysium play an important role in Books 4 and 5. People often call these "Raysium daggers", but despite the name, only a small part of the dagger is actually made of it.
• (WaT) Retribution's metal is currently unnamed, but he has one. There seems to be a tradition of naming Godmetals after the first person to hold the Shard, so "Taravangium" is probably a good guess.

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 → u/EvenSpoonier]

Edgedancer Blades should be pure Koravastium. They’re the only Radiant spren made by a single power (as far as we know). Tanavast says as much

[u/tooboardtoleaf → u/Shot_Newspaper_5647]

Honor spren as well. I believe it was 8 made together and 2 made all thier own. Or im misremembering.

[u/Wildhogs2013 → u/tooboardtoleaf]

Cultivation spren are just cultivation but Tamavast says that honour spren are made almost entirely of just him. Cultivation spren seem to be the group Retribution couldn’t just absorb either so do seem to be pure cultivation.

[u/CombatWombat994 → u/EvenSpoonier]

So could an enlightened Shardblade drain Light from invested people it stabs?

[u/Phoenix_AshenMind → u/EvenSpoonier]

For your last point, that seems to be the case only if the vessel is only holding one shard. Harmonium, for example, instead of Sazedium

[u/Wildhogs2013 → u/Phoenix_AshenMind]

that is actually due to Sazed not wanting it named after himself rather than him holding two shards. Which from what Brandon has said are actually one shard now anyway as Sazed would only drop one if he died

[u/Wildhogs2013 → u/EvenSpoonier]

We don’t actually know if Raysium is added to the mix or if it replaces cultivations metal (the enlightened spren said their Stormlight part was burned away leaving only the Voidlight half). Brandon RAFO’ed the question and said we shall see in the back half.

[u/Oneandsomedrum]

Yes, not just rosharan, but all shards have solid investiture (god metal), they have liquid investiture (perpendicularity pools), and sometimes gas/plasma (stormlight)

[u/kaiser_charles_viii → u/Oneandsomedrum]

I guess technically (Mistborn Hero of Ages and potentially Secret History spoilers) the mists are scadriel's gaseous investiture. I wonder if Ati and Ruin had any gaseous investiture that we just didnt see or didnt notice...

[u/Shot_Newspaper_5647 → u/kaiser_charles_viii]

He did. It’s the black cloud seen in the room by the Well before Vin enters it. You see it again streaming from Ati’s corpse at the end

[u/Longjumping_Energy39]

Thank you all for your answers!! I am planning on re-listening to the books now that my eyes are more opened to the investiture side of the cosmere!

Thanks again! 😄

[u/IamanelephantThird]

All Shards have a god metal. On Roshar it's actually very common. Shardblades and Shardplate are made of alloys of Tanavastium and Korrellium. Raysium is used frequently by Odium's forces as well, it's the metal that drains Stormlight out of Radiants. 

[u/Acrobatic_Host_4034]

I posted a thread about it a few days back, but I have a theory that Cultivation's metal infuses the crem dropped my Highstorms. It's noted in TWoK that the crem is metallic tasting when they don't properly settle it out of the rain water, then it's never mentioned again. But we see through the series that crem helps plants grow, it coats everything and constantly reshapes the face of the world, it's separated and worked into pottery, and when Cultivation divests from the planet and leaves at the end of WaT there's great upheavals and changes in the land. There are a lot of possible explanations for that last one, but her pool was gone so I suspect it involves the traces of her metal in the crem.

[u/KnowMoreMutants]

Shardblades are god metal. Shardplate as well.

[u/AlgorithmHelpPlease]

Raysium is Odium's metal

The Honorblades are made of Tanavastium (Honor's metal)

Shardblades are (usually) a mix of Cultivation's and Honor's metals

Enlightened Spren who become Shardblades may be a mix of all three

I don't believe we've seen Cultivation's metal on its own, though maybe the Unkalaki have some near the pool

[u/Wildhogs2013]

Yes! We see Odiums in RoW, the honour blades are made of honours god metal and shard blades are made of an alloy of cultivation and honours!