In the final book we finally get told how to make angreal by Rand.

“Here," Rand said. "The gift I mentioned." He pushed the pouch toward her.

She looked at him, curious. She untied the strings, and took from it a small statue of a woman. She stood upright, with a shawl about her shoulders, though she did not look like an Aes Sedai. She had a mature face, aged and wise, with a wise look about her and a smile on her face.

"An angreal?" Elayne asked.
"No, a Seed."
"A . . . seed?"
"You have the Talent of creating ter'angreal," Rand said. "Creating angreal requires a different process. It begins with one of these, an object created to draw your Power and instill it into something else. It takes time, and will weaken you for several months, so you should not attempt it while we are at war."

A Memory of Light, To Die Well

What can be deduced from Rand's statement about a seed...?

1. To make an angreal possibly requires the Talent of making ter'angreal at some stage, but not initially.

2. the process of making an angreal is lengthy.

3. You are weakened for months after making one.

4. The seed draws your power for the purpose of putting it into something else.

There are many possibilities here. The seed seems to be a ter'angreal of some sort. Why is the process lengthy? By the sounds of it Elayne would perhaps initiate some sort of link or bind herself to this ter'angreal and it will slowly draw off her power. This process takes time. Alternatively she would need to channel into it actively during moments of solitude or boredom.

Rand said that the process 'begins' with a seed, it implies that the seed eventually gets saturated or becomes complete in some way. At this time a channeler like Elayne would be needed (a Talent for Ter'angreal). Two things can then happen. Elayne could possibly then alter the seed and turn it into the completed angreal. The fact that it looks like Moiraine's original angreal is not really a coincidence, otherwise a seed might have merely looked like a marble or something more practical to carry around until it was full. Then again, everything in the AOL was beautiful.. I'm sure a trashcan looked glamorous . The second option is that she links the seed with an object and it slowly transfers its stored power into the object of her choosing. A seed being a ter'angreal may have only one function, namely the transfer of Power, much like a well but not quite. Both theories have merit.

My feeling is that anyone can initiate the link with the seed and that it drains your ability until it is full. At this stage the angreal may be partially finished and used as it is, or any channeler can initiate a further link to another object to start the transfer into the final inanimate object. However, after this it then requires the channeler with the Talent to stabilize the object and add physical and mental buffers. My instincts tell me that because the seed resembled Moiraine's first angreal so much, that it is the eventual object as well as the seed, and that you can use it with risk until the Talented individual comes. The Talent seems to be scarce which explains perhaps why a hundred women filled the seed to become Vora's Wand but no one could be found to stabilize it and make it safe during such a chaotic war. Same with Callandor. I would hazard to guess that both sides would kill individuals with the known Talent as sa'angreal seemed to be prized and could turn battles.

The fact that the channeler is weakened temporarily makes sense to me, because I do not believe that the seed absorbs and transfer power - it absorbs ability, much like the Finns did to Moiraine. This explains why strong channelers get more out of an angreal than weaker ones. I've always believed that the True Source runs over the Pattern and channelers are like funnels. Weak channelers are like small dips in the Pattern and strong ones are large funnels. An angreal builds onto the top part of your potential and thus the bigger your original surface area, the bigger the gain. That's why we can't say that an angreal would (for instance) add 2 levels to someone, because weak channelers would get 2 and stronger ones perhaps 3. Ultimately I think the seed builds layer upon layer inside itself until it forms a type of crystal lattice in the form of a partial inverted pyramid. The lattice is a part of a channeler potential, which is why you pull the Source through the angreal and don't merely hold it like with ter'angreal. The angreal lattice then builds onto the channeler's top base and the gain is then proportional to their strength in the Power.

Elayne has an angreal that she describes as 'not strong' but that makes her twice as strong as Nynaeve. Let us say for the purpose of this discussion that Elayne has a strength of 89 and Nynaeve 97. The angreal therefore provides Elayne with 105 Power. Imagine this seed provides such an advantage. How would it work? If average channelers walk around with the the seed, do they wait for their strength to go from 50 to 40, and then give it to someone else until the seed is full? It's not like the seed needs to get to 105 strength because we know that Nynaeve could gain even more, and someone like Morgase much less - it's more like the seed needs to get to 100% and depending on how much you are willing to contribute to filling this thing personally before you pass it on or consider the angreal to be finished. If an average woman has 50 strength, how much strength is needed to get an average seed to 100%? If my funnel theory is correct then someone would have to be at least as strong as Elayne to build on top of her potential to make her twice as strong as Nynaeve. Graendal's small angreal pushes her into the male levels apparently - so this seems like something one average woman could make perhaps?

It's strange though that the Forsaken never consider that Cyndane is Lanfear because she is weaker in the Power. I doubt they thought she was making an angreal, but it wouldn't be a complete waste of time if you think about it, especially if Rand is on your ass. This to me indicates that someone weakening in potential was unheard of in the AOL. The implication of this perhaps is that you initiate a link with the seed that is difficult to break (or perhaps it ruins the seed). The seed then visibly diverts a portion of your power into its self. People who can channel will see this, and because it takes months, you will be able to access less of your ability, but your potential will remain the same.

One also has to ask why people would make angreal if it weakens them. There are several options here. Firstly, it could be that people did not often use their full potential so losing a portion of their strength was immaterial for a few months, especially if it gained them a useful trinket for times when they needed more strength. It could also be for charity or a gift. I can imagine a strong mother making her very weak daughter an angreal so that she could at least be more functional as a channeler.

Moving on, could one hasten the filling of a seed? Imagine the Choedan Kal was a giant seed that could multiply Rand's powers by a thousand times. Would it help if a thousand men camped around the statue for a few weeks during the War of Power and it sapped them simultaneously. This sounds unlikely because if you visited someone and you had a seed you were filling I doubt they would be happy if you left and their potential was less. Perhaps all these men linked like I suggested to the CK? Could hundreds of channelers perhaps have filled individual seeds and all arrived at a place to divert their full seeds into the Choedan Kal? Another rather neat hypothesis is that the access keys were the seeds and they drained into the statue, and were also altered by the channeler with the Talent to make the use of the statue more practical. Perhaps the access keys (seeds) made their rounds through the ranks of the light to try and drain as much as they could, or to spread the draining around so as to not weaken individuals too greatly.

With all this in mind let me provide examples of how I think this works...

Let's assume that a woman of 50 wants to make an angreal that allows her to get to 80 because it's inconvenient for her to link with her husband every time she wants to Travel. She gets a ter'angreal made in the shape of a turtle brooch. They have saved up for this for a long time . When she gets home she initiates a link with the brooch in some way and it immediately starts to pull off 20 of her strength. This draining is permanent until the seed gets to its designed strength of 80. She hides the glow and inverts the flows so that her family aren't driven mad. The ter'angreal maker tells her that once she initiates the link the seed will fill with 20 potential per month, so at no stage will she be able to channel more than 30 saidar for the next four months. If she breaks the link the seed will need to be restarted or used as it is. After four months the seed is full and she takes it back to the shop. The man with the Talent then adds the buffers and she can use the turtle to Travel. For four months she was weakened but her strength was always measurable to other women as 50.

For sa'angreal it probably took more effort and groups of people with a singular goal. It's logical then why they were so rare. Rand said that Callandor made him at least as strong as ten men, maybe a hundred. I'm sure 50 males had better things to do than walk around with seeds for months so that one dumbass could raise mountains.

Thoughts on this topic?