Shardblade

A Shardblade is a magical sword of extraordinary power, one of the most coveted weapons on Roshar and a central element of the warfare and politics of The Stormlight Archive. Shardblades can cut through nearly any physical material with ease and, most chillingly, sever the soul of a living being without leaving a mark on the body.

Description

Shardblades are large, often ornate swords that can appear or vanish at their bearer's will, summoned from thin air over the course of about ten heartbeats. They can be made to take almost any size or shape by their original wielders. A Shardblade does not cut dead matter and flesh in the ordinary way against the living: striking a living person, the blade passes through without bleeding but kills or burns out the soul, slaying instantly or leaving limbs withered and dead.

Origin

Shardblades originate as Spren. A living Shardblade is the physical manifestation of the sapient spren bonded to a Knight Radiant; when the Radiant summons a weapon, the spren takes the form of a blade. The "dead" Shardblades carried as heirlooms across Roshar are the corpses of spren that died when the Knights Radiant abandoned their oaths at the Recreance. These dead Blades scream in the mind of anyone who bonds them, a cry that the living are largely deaf to but the bonded learn to ignore.

Bonding and Use

A dead Shardblade is bonded to a wielder by being in their possession over the course of about a week, after which it can be summoned and dismissed at will. Such Blades make their bearers into formidable warriors capable of facing armies. Living Shardblades, by contrast, remain bonded to their Radiant and cannot be stolen.

Significance

Together with Shardplate, Shardblades define the military aristocracy of Roshar. Their possession can determine the fates of nations, and their true nature as fallen Spren is one of the tragic revelations of the saga.