Taravangian (The Stormlight Archive)



"I am the monster who will save this world."

- Taravangian to Szeth

Summary
Taravangian is the king of Kharbranth and Jah Keved, and the leader of the secret society known as The Diagram, and eventually the Vessel of the Shard Odium.

History
He was born with a nuchal cord, and his doctor reported publicly that he would have diminished mental capacity and should be kept to the outer estates. Such a lack in capacity was not present, but the reputation would follow him for the rest of his life.

He was a mastermind working behind the scenes to actualize the plans he wrote out in the Diagram, which his group believes the truth and the path to human salvation and unification lies in the set of predictions and instructions he laid out on the day he was a genius beyond compare.

In the year 1171 he began to have his group collect various Death Rattles that began to occur around the world, recording what the victims stated in their rattles. Hoping to get information about the future from them.

This Diagram also led him to hire an assassin, Szeth, to assassinate various world leaders, and do other such manipulations to bring about his desired future.

In 1173 he took advantage of the succession war in Jah Keved caused by the assassination of King Hanavar, which led to all of the Highprinces being wiped out. The survivor was Highprince Valam, who Taravangian met on his deathbed, Valam, before his death, gave the leadership of Jah Keved to Taravangian. He was likely poisoned by the Diagram in order to bring about his death.

One of the Diagrams interpretation results in the request to kill Dalinar and Taravangian sends Szeth to kill him. However, this attempt failed due to the protection of Kaladin. Shortly after, Szeth discovered he was not Truthless, and forsakes his Oathstone, breaking his allegiance with Taravangian. Following this failure, Taravangian decided to move closer to Dalinar.

After the rediscovery of Urithiru and the refounding of the Knights Radiant, Taravangian along with the higher ranking members of the Diagram went to the city-tower, and became an integral member of the Coalition of Monarchs, being the first king to join into the coalition. Although he worked against them in secret.

After betraying Dalinar Kholin and his army during the Emul Campaign he was imprisoned, but his manipulations continued, planning to use  Szeth and  Renarin Kholin in order to kill Odium, taking advantage of their unique natures. Thus he worked to get Szeth to go out of line and kill him, thus attracting Odium for Szeth to attack with Nightblood.

This came to pass, and he was pulled out of the Physical Realm by Odium in order to save him from Szeth. Though Taravangian used the Cognitive Aspect of Nightblood in order to kill Rayse and  due to his rampant emotions during his period of compassion, take up the Shard of Odium in their aligning Intents, becoming its new Vessel.

Despite this, his physical self died, while his mind and soul expanded to take on the Shard.

Personality
Taravangain is a very utilitarian man in terms of his morality and his view on leadership, to an extent that many would consider quite dangerous.

When he poses a moral dilemma, asking what to do if three of four men are guilty of murder and one is unsure which is innocent, he says "To prevent murder to happen again… I must hang them and weep." However, on his most intelligent of days, he lacks empathy to the point of psychopathy, and easily speaks of killing singing children that he was finished with.

He believes religion fills gaps and brings a sense of comfort which prevents understanding. He trusts only the Diagram, which is the result of his raw intelligence. He would consider himself an atheist, but his belief in the Diagram is to such an extent that it is practically a religion to him.

During his periods of low intelligence he is incredibly emotional and can be quickly led to tears or ecstasy at the slightest provocation. He also tends to feel a very deep sense of shame at his uselessness and stupidity during the lowest of these lows.

Powers and Stats
Name: Taravangian, Vargo | Odium

Age: Early 70's (Late 80's in Earth Years)

Gender: Male

Classification: King of Kharbaranth, King of Jah Keved, Head of The Diagram | Vessel of Odium

Powers and Abilities:

Base = Superhuman Intellect Odium = Superhuman Intellect, Power Bestowal, Teleportation, Precognition (Type 2) (He is able to see all the paths that the future can take, and make very accurate assumptions as to what path the future would take), Immortality, Limited Omnipresence, Soul Manipulation, Telepathy, Madness Manipulation (Through revealing his true essence, he can easily break the minds of people and drive them to madness), Empathic Manipulation, Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Abstract Existence, Resurrection, Avatar Creation, Corruption, and many more

Attack Potency: He is a very weak old man in his late eighties in earth years, he is physical infirm and experience joint pains and can sometimes find it difficult to get up or move around. | As the Vessel of Odium he has access to an extreme amount of Investiture, however due to mental constraints he is not able to use all of the power contained within the Shard at one time. However this does not mean he is weak. Vessels are able to to move planets through the sky with ease, or reduce them to dust. The Investiture contained within Odium was compared to the heat of a thousand burning suns.

Durability: Very Low, simply walking around causes him joint pains. He has the constitution of an octogenarian. | Unknown, far greater than before

Speed: As an old man, he is not capable of moving quickly. Having to slowly move from place to place in order to not hurt himself by pushing himself too hard. | Can teleport around Roshar, moving faster than anyone can through physical movement.

Stamina: Very low, he quickly gets tired from physical activity. | Practically Endless, as a Shard he does not require sustenance, and all Investiture that he uses ultimately flows back to him, and along with this he has an incomprehensibly immense amount of Investiture to pull upon. Making him unable to ever truly run out of Investiture.

Intelligence: Due to his curse and blessing from the Nightwatcher, his intelligence varies greatly from day to day. At his best he is able to make accurate predictions of the future spanning years and make entirely functioning languages in a single day. He was also capable of solving the Fabrisan's Conundrum, a problem that had never been solved before him. He is also able to solve various complex mathematical and logical questions and puzzles in a short period of time. His level of intellect is far, far beyond that of any normal human, near the point of near incomprehensibility, becoming like a god among men with his intellect, even when compared to Roshar's best and brightest. He is fluent in many languages and is highly literate despite Vorin culture forbidding it. At his worst his mind functions slowly and he is barely able to piece together thoughts, even taking a few minutes to read even a few words, but still faces difficulty parsing meaning. | As a Vessel he gains a deep knowledge of the Cosmere and the more hidden aspects of it, and gaining the ability to understand its complexities. Along with this he gained knowledge of how to use all of the new powers granted to him. He also gained the ability to see into the future, seeing innumerable possibilities spreading out into the future, far more than he could possible have seen or predicted as a human, even at his greatest levels of superhuman intellect. He even sees many possibilities which not even Rayse could see when holding the same power before him. This also grants him the capacity to take in, process, and understand the veritable infinity of information that flows through him as he looks into the future. He does not appear to have the limitation of his intelligence fluctuating by the day as it did before his Ascension.

Weaknesses: Due to the nature of his intelligence, it varies from day to day. This means he is not always at his best, and also means that at some times he experiences an incredibly low level of intelligence that can, at its worse, leave him barely capable of functioning, both due to a lack of intelligence, logic, and problem-solving ability, but also due to being overly emotional and prone to breaking down in fits of manic emotion at the smallest provocation. Physically he is very weak as a result of his age. Leaving him unable to do any strenuous physical activity, and oft experiences joint and bone pain. | As with Rayse before him, he is still bound to the Rosharan system and is unable to go beyond it. He also should have a weakness to Anti-Voidlight, due to being almost entirely composed of Voidlight.

Base =

Rosharan Physiology
Due to a higher amount of innate Investiture afforded to all Rosharans, he is more resistant to sickness than a normal human.

He is accustomed to a gravity of ~6.864 m/s.

Intelligence
Due to the effects of the Old Magic he was left with a fluctuating level of intelligence every day, regardless if asleep of awake he would experience this change. At times he is a genius beyond any human levels, and at other times he is mentally infirm and can barely think or sort out his thoughts. This does not just adjust his mental speed, but rather does so for all forms of intelligence.

At his highest point he was capable of writing up the Diagram, a piece of literature which contained countless accurate predictions for the future of Roshar, enough so to impressive even Odium. While imperfect, various predictions in it failing to come true or manifesting in a slightly different manner, a significant portion of its predictions have come true or have yet to come to pass. This is not born from the ability to see the future, but is rather the result of raw intellect.

Alongside this, he was capable of creating his own fully functioning language and countless codes and hidden messages in the text.

Though no day has he ever reached this incomprehensible degree of intellect. But he was still capable of reaching levels beyond any other human. At one point even able to solve seemingly unsolvable problems such as the Fabrisan's Conundrum.

During these periods of high intellect he can be almost entirely lacking in compassion to the point of irrationality, easily talking about killing singing children due to being done with their performance.

During his times of low intellect, he has trouble sorting out his own thoughts or processing the words of others. Barely able to have intelligent conversation and at times barely able to think at all. Yet it is during these days that his compassion is at its highest.

As one would assume with such a thing, it is distributed in a Bell Curve. Meaning that the far ends of either side of the scale get rarer and rarer depending upon their intensity. With the median intelligence being the mode of the data set.

Physical Infirmity
As an old man, well into his eighties in Earth Years, he is very weak physically and suffers from aches and pains, at times leaving himself unable to get up for walk without assistance.

Odium = He has shown little ability thus far as the Vessel of Odium, though we can assume his attributes and abilities via the traits held by other Shards.

Future Sight
As a Shard he is capable of seeing into the future, and all the possibilities spreading out into infinity. The exact extent to which a Shard can do that differs from Shard to Shard, his exact ability in this is not yet known for sure, except that it is superior to that of his predecessor.

However, we know that the future is hard to see for Shards, or for any version of future sight, when faced with another being capable of seeing the future, and that the further one looks the harder it is to make out the future.

Immortality
As a Vessel he gained a form of Immortality, never ageing and exceptionally difficult to kill. Shards have been shown to be able to live for thousands of years if no other being comes to kill them.

Movement and Bilocation
He is capable of manifesting himself wherever the Everstorm passes.

Voidlight
He has access to a essentially endless supply of Investiture known as Voidlight, which is manifested in the Everstorm and given to the Fused. As with all Investiture, whenever it is used it would be filtered back to the Spiritual Realm for him to use once again. However, it is finite

This is used to power all of his powers.

Misc.
He was capable of excising Breaths from  Wit, particularly removing those that stored his Short-Term memories, in order to get rid of the suspicion that he held for him, and redo their conversation in a more effective manner in order to not hint to him that he wasn't Rayse.