alder24

49 minutes ago, Metalmapper said:

You have an Inkspren who, for whatever reason, ends up in either Arelon or Silverlight.

Just to point out, a Spren leaving Roshar is a very hard thing to accomplish. They are bound to Roshar, just like Heralds are. 

51 minutes ago, Metalmapper said:

Once on that world (we'll say Scadrial for simplicity), they decide that giving up the immortality they would have had if they stayed in Elantris was a mistake, so they decide to get themself some Investiture.

I'm not sure if they lose immortality without Dor. Sure they got weaker and fragile, Ire in SH had to drink Dor to sustain themselves, but I don't think this is confirmed that they will become mortal or age without Dor. They will stay Elantrians even far away from Elantris, but some visual characteristics of their Elantrianess will fade. Is immortality part of their "staying Elantrians," or "visual characteristics" - I don't know. But they do need Dor daily in some way to function. 

43 minutes ago, Metalmapper said:

My theory is that Elantrians never run out of Dor because their source of Investiture is one Realm removed from them (in the Cognitive) not two (in the Spiritual) like on most worlds.

Technically speaking investiture in the Spiritual Realm is infinite, anyone who can tap into SR taps into an infinite source of investiture - like Allomancers who also never run out of investiture as long as they have metals to burn,  or Heralds who were powered directly by Honor through SR. They didn't need Stormlight before they broke the Oathpact. This is also just a part of Selish magic. Their investiture comes directly from SR. Elantrians are more invested than Returned, they likely have a direct Connection to Dor that sustains them. They are more similar to Cognitive Shadows than to normal Invested users like Surgebinders or Alloamncers. Because they have this Connection to Dor, their strength fades the further away they are from Elantris. Elantrians existed before Splintering Aona and Skai and that's before Dor existed in CR. So the fact that they never run out of investiture isn't unique to them, this also happens in other magic systems, so this isn't because Dor is in CR. 

47 minutes ago, Metalmapper said:

This Elantrian Elsecaller go into Scadrial's Cognitive Realm to be closer to the Investiture of Harmony

This doesn't matter. Being in CR doesn't make you any closer to Investiture. You are on Harmony's planet, his investiture is everywhere around you. The only place where you can be closer to Harmony's investiture is in a perpendicularity, where you can peer directly into the Spiritual Realm which is where investiture is. But to actually tap into Harmony's investiture, you need either a strong Connection to him. 

56 minutes ago, Metalmapper said:

Would this bring enough unkeyed Investiture into the Physical Realm for an Elantrian to stop their own aging and/or draw functional Aons? If so, would they be able to power Surges with that Investiture? 

 Yes, once they figure out the correct Aons/the way to hack the system, they will be able to draw investiture for AonDor and be at full strength - as seen in TLM. Shay-I drew an Aon based on the Elendel Basin and she feared she will stay as Elantrian indefinitely - this means she isn't just feeding on the jar of Dor she consumed when transforming (this jar most likely fueled her transformation only), she is constantly Connected to a source of investiture that will power her almost forever. I think that's just Dor. She hacked the system to feed on Dor from that far away and we know there is another way to do it - by tapping Connection to Elantris an Elantrian would be able to use AonDor outside of Sel.

So your Elantrian won't use Harmony's investiture, you don't need another source of investiture, they can tap directly into Dor like Shay-I did. This isn't unkeyed investiture, but it might be possible for that Elantrian to use that Dor to power their Surges as it's keyed to their identity, or something else might be needed to that Dor for it to fuel Surges (like fully unkeying it). We don't know. Mixing magic systems is generally hard in Cosmere and we don't know what needs to be done for this to work. If it's just the identity of the user, meaning as long as Dor is keyed to you, you can fuel other Invested Arts you have access to, then your Elantrian won't have much problems in fueling their Surgebinding with Dor. But if it's something else, maybe if it needs to be keyed to a specific Shard, fully unconnected, or some other things, then they need to do this before they would be able to use Surgebinding. We don't know. 

1 hour ago, bmcclure7 said:

when did she say that?

RoW ch 30:

Quote

Light shimmered in the strange cube, seeping through at the corners as Mraize spoke. Veil watched, and suddenly felt disjointed—trapped between two moments.
This experience … she’d done this before. She’d been here, kneeling on the ground, holding a cube that glowed from the corners. Exactly like this.
She reached to the top of the cube, feeling the smooth metal, and expected it to be dimpled. She cocked her head, inspecting her fingers as she lifted them up and rubbed them against her thumb. This was wrong.… She glanced over her shoulder, and saw the enclosure beneath the tarp.
She was on a mission into Shadesmar. Why should she expect to see gardens behind her? Her father’s gardens?
[...]
She’d trained with Pattern as a child. She’d spoken oaths. She’d summoned a Shardblade and struck down her own mother, frantic to survive. And—she looked back at the cube—she’d held one of these?

6 minutes ago, Arkangel said:

When you put it that way, it makes a lot of sense. Another option (and I hate to suggest it) is have the question be a part of the top crowdfunding tier. I wouldn't suggest charging more just to have a question but make it another limited level at the same price (for example, $650 from the WoR campaign). Say the first 100 backers have the chance to send in a question.

Another idea is to just have a straight lottery. They open a contest period, everyone enters, RNG selects 100 winners, a team filters the questions, Brandon answers.

Agreed, those sound like good compromises. While the random selection defines the purpose of "Brandon answering questions he wants to answer," when you have 100,000 questions you have to bring your expectations down a lot. 

19 hours ago, Shoots said:

Picking an order of the Knights Radiant for the Words of Radiance leatherbound campaign has me thinking about when i switched orders during the Way of Kings leatherbound campaign. I'm curious to hear other's journey to their current order of Knights Radiant. so... 

Have you ever switched orders? What caused you to switch? Are you happy you made the switch? How likely are you to switch orders again?

I first chose Stonewards as my favorite order after WoR for their focus on dedication & loyalty. Plus Taln is obviously amazing. When I took the official radiant quiz released with the WoK leatherbound campaign, I was surprised to get Skybreaker as my top result (and still do), whereas Stoneward is never higher than middle of the pack for me. Brandon also told us a little more about each order as part of the campaign. I put a lot of thought into my order at the time because picking an order is fun and I wanted to get swag for the right order. It was a close call between Skybreaker, Stoneward, Windrunner, and Truthwatcher, but I ultimately did decide to go with the quiz result and switched to Skybreaker.

I've been very happy with the switch so far. Stonewards have gotten very little screen time so far, and it might still be a few books until that changes. (after OB, the lack of stonewards made me theorize all modern peakspren were refusing to form radiant bonds - turns out that was actually the inkspren minus ivory.) Skybreakers, on the other hand, pop up all over the place (even if it's often as the villain!). Szeth and Nale are both interesting/cool characters, and I enjoy learning more about Skybreakers through them.

Now that I've committed to 2 Skybreaker swag packs, it would take a lot to make me switch orders again! the biggest threat is probably from the orders that haven't shown up too much yet, like the Elsecallers or... Stonewards.

I'm not that attached to a certain order to pick one as definitely mine. The idea of Radiant orders is that you can choose the one that you like the most, even if it's not the one you're the most fitted to based on your personality - a person can be fitted to many orders at once, they change and aspire to be worthy of being a Radiant of that particular order. I would advise you to go with what you love, not necessarily with what the quiz assigned you to.

The last time I've done the quiz it was a year ago, I'm 80% Truthwatcher and 58% Skybreaker on the second place by the quiz results, and I agree with them (4 other orders follow just 1-4% below Skybreakers so that's not really a solid second position). They both fit me well. I would add Lightweavers as the third order, I think I would benefit a lot from their Ideals, even though they are in the middle of the quiz list. While the core ideology Truthwatchers is a good choice for me, my problem is that we've actually never seen Truthwatchers in action, it's hard to say how they progress and improve, what their Ideals are, or what they can do with their powers. We don't have a full picture of all orders for now and that's why I'm not attached to one specific order. I'm waiting for more data to make an educated decision - a very Truthwatcher thing to do.

13 hours ago, Treamayne said:

The example was illustrative, not proscriptive. I really dislike the idea of fans having any vote in what gets answers  - the core of the idea is Brandon being able to answer the things he thinks deserve answers and will not be covered in future Stories (RAFO). Also, that's why I said "team," For example:

You do realize if you want Brandon to answer questions he specifically wants to answer, then he himself must read most of them to choose those questions himself? His team doesn't know what Brandon knows, sure they know a lot, but not everything, they don't have to know what's fascinating for Brandon to answer, Peter knows the most but he still isn't Brandon. And he and his team also don't know what question he answered in the past in WoBs, which Brandon often tells when somebody asks him about what he said in the past. They might remember a question that is often asked, or a very significant question about some interesting theory, but generally speaking they have no idea what he answered - there are hundreds of WoB answers each year, 15,000 WoBs in total on Arcanum and not to mention Reddit. Nobody can remember them all and searching for them is out of the question, as that's even more time consuming. 

Assuming that each question is 10 words long (which is a very generous assumption), all questions asked would be 1 million words in total - more than twice the word count of RoW. That's just too long for Brandon and his team to just read through all of them. It would take days or weeks to do that and this time could have been better spent on writing books - and his team has their own work to do, they also don't have time for this at all. 

Sure, I agree, it would be fun to hear a question Brandon has chosen to answer, but on the scale of crowdfunding campaigns, this is simply not feasible when you have 100,000 backers. 

Brandon now is doing what you are proposing but on a much smaller scale - he can now see questions people ask him in the chat during live streams and answer those he finds interesting. This is manageable, but 100,000 questions, 1 million words or more, that's simply not gonna happen even with his team engaged.

8 hours ago, Heilven said:

I was under the impression that you didn't need to be *born* in Arelon, you just needed to grow up there and have some kind of connection. For instance, part of Shai's forging to make her an Elantrian was her and her parents moving to Arelon. So even in her forgery she wasn't born there. This is a very small nitpick but I think it gets to some aspects of how connection works

I was simplifying things a little bit. You need to have Aonic descent and live within the borders of Arleon or close by. You need to have a strong Connection to Arelon, which generally speaking means you have to be born there. 

7 hours ago, Heilven said:

oooh wait you might be right I would have to check it. That absolutely could have been what she said

Quote, TLM ch 53:

Quote

“I might not have all my memories,” Moonlight said. “This will completely rewrite my past. My soul will think my parents moved to a different kingdom on my homeworld, and that I was born and raised there. I will change personalities entirely. I wrote it all out, but … well, I’m never quite sure how an Essence Mark will function until I try.”

5 hours ago, Treamayne said:

In my "magical happy christmas dream-land" Team Sanderson would add a Q&A Blog  to the "Kickstarter" projects. Each backer gets to submit 1 question after the window closes (as part of the backer survey) and as part of the rewards he publishes a Blog entry answering, say, 50 non-RAFO questions from the collected submissions. It would allow him and the team time to find the questions he wants to answer and craft the answers exactly how he chooses; while offing hope to those of us that don't have much chance to ever ask a question directly. . . 

Fun idea indeed, but there were 102,000 backers. It would be too time consuming to just look through all those questions. It might be more manageable if each backer were given to opportunity to submit a question AND have 5 votes to choose 50 question that Brandon would be answering, delegating this task of looking through questions to fans - which is often happening with live-streams, as fans are posting questions and voting on reddit.

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

But that's not what happened? Weren't the first Mistborn the 8 kings who chose to support him? And nobles in general the descendants of people who supported his conquest of what became the Final Empire? While those who opposed him and their descendants became skaa. 

That was the myth Rashek spreaded to hide the fact that his friends were Feruchemist and he was as well. The epigraph from my post earlier is clear on that - Rashek held the power, created the race of nobles and when he started to conquer Scadrial, he offered a few monarchs Lerasium and they joined him. The simplest explanation is that those monarchs were already nobles, that Rashek changed pre-Ascension nobility, or those with a high social status into the race of nobles. The whole thing about supporters and opponents turned into nobles and Skaa respectively is most likely a fabrication. The class of nobility had to be made during his Ascension and the only nobles that survived his conquest were those who supported him, the rest were most likely killed until their children supported him, or entire bloodlines were ended.

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

So yes, there are some contradictions in the canon concerning the Balance.

None of which has anything to do with Rashek's pals or Terris in general, because we know what happened to them, and that they didn't become nobles. I am not sure why you brought them up.

I don't really see any contradictions. We know Rashek held the power and that's when he created nobility and Skaa. Because he couldn't have known who would support him and who would oppose him, he had to do this by some arbitrary or random rule and when his conquest began, the entire population had to be already divided into Skaa/nobles. We know the origins of the race of nobles - the Well - the modern nobles are just those who survived Rashek's conquest and supported him. Nobles who opposed him most likely perished, or were forced into being Skaa while also being genetically superior, which might have been the catalyst for diffusing the differences between those two groups.

And I'm bringing Rashek's friends because we know that this part was a false flag, so the stories of the first nobles might have been also partially untrue. What is credible is Sazed's words and based on that we can figure out what had to happen.

36 minutes ago, Isilel said:

@alder24:

But this quote about Balance, while canonical, is a bit self-contradictory, isn't it? Given that the nobles were the descendants of people who sided with TLR's conquest. Which only began _after_ he had done his modifications and released the power of the Well. 

I don't see it as contradictory. When Rashek held the power, he divided the population into nobles and Skaa, but he probably turned those who already had a high social status into nobles, such as aristocrats or kings who were later offered Lerasium. I think those first Mistborns founded the first Great Houses. The story of the first nobleman is a fabrication - it was said his friends became the first nobles, not just those who sided with him. The kings and rules who sided with him became the first Mistborn in reality. It's most likely that not all of the nobles he made sided with him, but those would have been dealt with - killed. HoA ch 62:

Quote

TenSoon fell back on his haunches. "It strikes me as odd, Terrisman. There's one great inconsistency in this all, a problem no one has ever thought to point out. What happened to the packmen who traveled with Rashek and Alendi up to the Well of Ascension?"
Rashek. The man who had become the Lord Ruler.
Breeze stood up straight. "That's easy, kandra," he said, waving his cane. "Everyone knows that when the Lord Ruler took the throne of Khlennium, he made his trusted friends into noblemen. That's why the nobility of the Final Empire were so pampered—they were the descendants of Rashek's good friends."

19 hours ago, hwiles said:

Okay, so imagine a protoradiant was simply hellbent on bonding two spren. I would think it would be conceptually easiest for a Skybreaker initiate to wrap their head around simply because they have the nature, order, and quantity of oaths explicitly explained to them upfront, meaning they would be well positioned to intuitively understand other Order's oaths.

 

So my question is: what would be the best way to go about doing it?

Would it be easier to progress through oath number 5 then loop back around and start at number 1 with a new order? Or would progressing through the first 2 or 3 oaths in parallel with eachother with two non-fully-aware baby-spren be fundamentally more achievable?

What orders would pair well with eachother and allow the spren to get along well enough to not tear their radiants mind apart with contradictions and competing priorities??

Asking for a friend...

Once you are a Radiant go to Shadesmar and just talk to other True Spren, trying to find a one that is willing to bond, but also fits your personality. Make sure your spren and that willing new spren are on good terms (and that your spren is willing to share you at all) and try to persuade the new True Spren to bond with you, explaining the benefits of this for them - they don't have to lose their mind in transition to that extent, they can just immediately anchor themselves to you which would ease their mental degradations, you have a fitting personality, you already know a lot about progressing as a Radiant, so while you on a different path now, you know you shouldn't be doing to not harm the spren and stuff like that. The best chances you will have if you find a friend of your spren - they already like each other, they might be willing to work together more than with some unknown spren. A Highspren and a Honorspren are unlikely to bond the same person, the same goes basically for any Cryptic (although one Inkspren was a friend to Testament so Cryptics aren't that isolated) and Honorspren as they both have a bad reputation in CR and other spren just don't like them. Lightspren and Peakspren are both travelers and sailors, so they seem to be a better fit to each other, but Willshapers and Edgedancers seem to be more in line personality wise - one cares about those imprisoned, the other about those who are forgotten and those often are the same people.

Overall I think there are many good pairs of Orders whose personality would fit together, but the hardest part is to convince spren to bond you and share you. You need to find two spren that can accept to be in crowded Nahel Bond and if your first spren is unwilling to share you at all, you have no chances of becoming a dual Radiant (you don't choose your spren, they chose you). Once you are a Radiant, the best way to find a new spren to bond is to talk to meet as many spren as possible in CR and persuading them the benefits of choosing you. You are unlikely to attract a spren by just waiting, you have to talk to them. I don't think it matters that much if you are an Ideal 3 or 5 Radiant, as long as you are officially a knight, you've proven yourself enough.

20 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

On the topic of Metallic Art genetics, I recall the concept of Mistborn Snapping letting in more Preservation to make them more powerful, despite the fact that both Mistborn and Mistings come from the same blood lines and therefore have the same genetic potential. 

That was only the case for when Mists were Snapping people, I don't think it was said this was also happening naturally. But truthfully it makes sense for Snapping to invest people, otherwise unsnapped Mistborn would be as invested as Snapped Mistborn, which feels wrong.

20 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Anyway, branching off from this, do you think this would possibly imply that a Mistborn may actually introduce a boost of power to the lineage as opposed to if they Snapped and just became a Misting, or is it not how it works?

Spook's bloodline was strong in Allomancy for a reason - he was a Mistborn. First Mistborn created very strong Allomantic bloodlines because they were Lerasium Mistborn. The likelihood of becoming a Metalborn is increased for a Mistborn's bloodline for certain, the boost in power should also happen. Here is even WoB that confirms that certain mixing can increase the power of a Metalborn.

20 hours ago, Returned said:

We don't have any evidence suggesting that two Allomancer or Feruchemist parents are (at this point) more likely to produce an Allomancer or Feruchemist child than one parent with a normal Scadrian, which is one of they key concepts behind such a scheme.

I think that's a pretty reasonable assumption. If one Metalborn parent increases chances of Metalborn children, then two parents should increase it even more. And the proof you're looking for is right in the WoB above.

20 hours ago, Returned said:

We have excellent evidence for general heritability of Feruchemy but the WoBs regarding the dilution of that trait seem to relate to interaction with Allomancy, not necessarily mixing with non-Terris people.

The Allomantic genes were present across the entire population of Scadrial except for Terrismen. They have always kept themselves separate from other nations and thus from Allomancy as well. Terrismen were not being Snapped by Mists - only them.

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

Regarding nobles - weren't TLR's alleged  changes to them revealed as mostly sham and propaganda?

No, they were real. But after 1000 years of mixing, those changes became negligible. HoA ch 25 epigraphs:

Quote

The Balance. Is it real?

We've almost forgotten this little bit of lore. Skaa used to talk about it, before the Collapse. Philosophers discussed it a great deal in the third and fourth centuries, but by Kelsier's time, it was mostly a forgotten topic.

But it was real. There was a physiological difference between skaa and nobility. When the Lord Ruler altered mankind to make them more capable of dealing with ash, he changed other things as well. Some groups of people—the noblemen—were created to be less fertile, but taller, stronger, and more intelligent. Others—the skaa—were made to be shorter, hardier, and to have many children.

The changes were slight, however, and after a thousand years of interbreeding, the differences had largely been erased.

7 hours ago, Farre said:

MAJOR SPOILER DISCUSSION
Can we view Hoids orginal story regarding the Uvara and their dead emperor as a metaphor for the Knights Radiant and Honor? Meaning, the Knights Radiant discovered Humans were, in fact, the Voidbringers and that Tanavast was dead (and Honor splintered), thus their war against the Singers unjustified and immoral? They were, as the Uvara were, the true perpetrators of the murders they enacted and they could no longer pin it on the “greater good” (Honor and Cultivation's will)?

If so, another example of Hoid, as always, knowing all the going ons of the Cosmere.

I haven’t thought of that interpretation of this story before, but it seems to fit a little. However the fact that humans were the original Voidbringers was only one of several reasons that lead to Recreance. Earlier Radiants did know that as well, but Honor was always there to assure them their actions are just. Another big reason was fear of destroying Roshar with their Surgebinding powers, just like their ancestors did on Ashyn - this doesn't fit Hoid's story about Uvara. 

5 hours ago, Rune said:

Alright, so Dune’s been a bit popular lately and it sparked a thought as I was reading a thread discussing Breaths. Essentially, I am asking if there would or is a “best” planet to be born on. Replacing genetics with Connection here and imagining some hypothetical group as a parallel for the Bene Gesserit and their breeding.

Unfortunately, Connection is not hereditary and is entirely reliant on the individual person (as far as I know) which removes the possibility of a “natural” tricking of a planet into believing that someone has a Connection with it (from their parents Connection, allowing for natural access to its magics) rather than being reliant on methods like Hoid’s to artificially manipulate Connection. We do have an example of someone gaining access to almost all forms of Investiture in Hoid and could use him as a case study but for the sake of making this interesting rather than just saying “do what Hoid does” we can restrict it to planetary magics. Meaning that your stuck to using whatever is on your planet.

This does allow for magics that enable a person to manipulate Connection to do whatever shenanigans they want to in collecting as many magics as they can. Simply put, what would be the best planet to start from and with what magic system?

Connection to Shards is hereditary, a Nalthian or Scadrial born outside of their planet will still have their native Shardic investiture in them, thus Connection to them and even Breath - though it might not last for many generations if they dilute their genes too much (WoB, WoB). I feel like Connection to land will also work like this. 

One of the hardest Invested Arts to gather is possibly Scadrian Metallic Arts, because you have to be born with those genes in you - if you don't want to use Hemalurgy. If you are willing to use Hemalurgy, then it doesn't matter where you are born. But Hemalurgy aside, becoming a Mistborn or a Feruchemist if you are not a Scadrian is incredibly hard. You have to use Lerasium to become a Mistborn (which was in a very limited amount during Era 1, now it's not available almost at all) and use some combination of Scadrian god metals to become a Feruchemist. So assuming getting god metals is impossible as for now, you either have to pass on those Invested Arts, be or be born with them.

But there is one other group of Invested Arts highly dependent on your Connection - Selish one. To be an Elantrian you have to be born in Arelon, you have to have a strong Connection to the land itself. The same goes for every other magic on Sel. Those two types of Invested Arts are the hardest to get if you aren't native to the land, but once you have them, things get a bit easier.

Starting as a Forger is a great way to gain access to many Invested Arts, if you know how to and have enough pure investiture. You can forge yourself to become a Mistborn, or an Elantrian, so if you don't need to have all powers all the time, this is a great substitute. AonDor can basically replicate everything any other Invested Art can do, it's the most versatile magic in Cosmere so being an Elantrian alone would be enough to do anything you want.

But if you really want to play Pokemon with Invested Arts and catch them all, both Feruchemist and Elantrian are a great starting points as can manipulate their Connection and Identity and that might help acquiring other genetic magics from Sel or Scadrial, however it might require some non-standard workaround (WoB). You can also technically try stealing Band of Mourning and be a Fullborn as long as you have them, but that's not making you into actual Fullborn spiritually. Breaths can be bought and taken off Nalthis with little to no problem, once you have them, you are an Awakener. To become a knight Radiant you have to just convince a spren to bond you, a Connection manipulation might help (WoB). Sand Mastery from Taldain is a bit harder, we don't really know how to get them, it seems one have to be invited by the Master to become one yourself - so it might be possible to for an outsider to become a Sand Master by just getting a proper invitation - the same actually goes for becoming an Elantrian, as seen in Tress (thus starting as a Full Feruchemist is a better option as it's a little harder to become one than to become an Elantrian). To become an Aetherbound you probably need to find an Aether, be willing to serve them and be worthy of becoming their servant. Aviars are relatively easy to get, we've seen non-native people having those chickens, so they aren't really problematic to get for us. Ashyn magic is disease-based, you catch an illness, you gain powers. It might be limited through Connection, but it seems easier to get than others. Yolenish Lightweaving is probably out of your reach, we don't know anything about it except that Hoid has it. Yoki-Hijo seems to be hard to get as you have to be chosen by Spirits at birth, but maybe Connection manipulation can overcome that.

4 hours ago, Rune said:

Essentially, the metal arts are spiritually genetic (ignoring you hemalurgy) I believe which could allow for some breeding. We see that the metallic arts have become watered down among the population esssentially removing the possibility for mistborn or full feruchemists but what if, with careful breeding, there could be a way to bring these power sets back into being outside the use of godmetals like Lerasium. Would this sort of breeding allow for a Fullborn perhaps? I do recognize that these people would most certainly not come close to the power level of an original allomancer or feruchemist but that is not quite the point. Perhaps you could strengthen the power level of people with this but the first priority I’d assume is giving someone a greater skill set in metals. What do you guys think? Am I missing some important info that would throw all this out the window?

Yes, it is possible for a Fullborn to be born naturally, but that's highly unlikely. It's possible through breeding to select specific genes and strengthen the bloodline so more Metalborn will be made - Spook's bloodline is a bit stronger and that's the reason Vanishers targeted people related to Spook, the Set try to breed Allomancers with those people, Rashek did the opposite with Terrismen, trying to get rid of Feruchemy through selective breeding, modern Terris try to bring back a Full Feruchemist by trying to bring the purest Terrismen together. It’s possible for a full Mistborn or a full Feruchemist to be born out of this, in fact the plot of Era 3 might be centered around catching a full Mistborn criminal. But a Fullborn, while it’s possible to get naturally, it’s highly unlikely to be born because Allomantic genes interfere with Feruchemical genes, breaking them apart, which resulted in Ferrings and Twinborns. But it’s still possible to mix them together and get a Fullborn  - that was what Rashek feared, that’s what Sazed fears. 

BoM ch 3:

Quote

"A Full Feruchemist is bound to be born among mankind eventually —particularly with the Terris elite working so hard to preserve and condense their bloodlines."

I saw you've posted the same topic in the General Brandon Discussion subforum - that's unnecessary, please avoid double posting or reposting the same topic in a different section. You can edit your post to change or report it and ask mods to move it to another section if you wish. Both options are available if you open the three-dots menu in the top right corner of your post.

Now back to the topic:

4 hours ago, KalSpear said:

I am curious to see which books are more popular. My personal favorite is Rythm of War.

Warbreaker. I simply adore Awakening. Its versatility and  limitations are fascinating to me, the idea of magic based on recreating life and utilizing colors is amazing. It's always fun to imagine what can be done with Awakening. This magic system is not as combat oriented as others in Cosmere, but it can offer a great advantage for those with good imagination. This is my favorit magic system. And I love the story and all the characters - Vasher especially. For me it's the best book. I'm often catching myself rereading some parts of the book just when I wanted to grab a quote or check some detail. It grabbed my heart and doesn't let go of it. 

2 hours ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

TLM was not a Wax and Wayne book at all. it was just a cosmere book with wax and Wayne as side characters. the Wax and Wayne books before TLM were about Wax's story. TLM sidelined Wax's story and did a half pass on Wayne's story while focusing on Marasi (not saying I didn't like her storyline, her storyline was phenomenal.) It completed the over all plot, but most of the character arcs were completed in Bands of Mourning. TLM was only necessary because of the loose ends for the plot, and for giving set up for era three. TLM is also the book where we get the most rough separation of the Sanderlanche, splitting it up in ways that felt unnatural for a Mistborn book. 

You’ve nailed it. While I personally like TLM, I felt something was off and that's a great description of its problems.

6 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I don't know, the WoB that says a Dawnshard protects itself seems to be kind of flimsy as to whether it's the Sleepless guards or some Invested effect that makes the Dawnshard "self-protect".

  Reveal hidden contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/509-youtube-spoiler-stream-5/#e15937

learhpa

If someone (with the appropriate knowledge of where to place the spikes to be successful) were to spike Rysn and try to steal the power of the Dawnshard, what would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

A very bad time, for the person attempting it. Dawnshards self-protect.

Bennet Alterman

If Dawnshards self-protect, what's the need for larkins and Sleepless?

Brandon Sanderson

They do self-protect. The larkins and Sleepless are there! You're assuming the larkins and Sleepless aren't there because of Dawnshard influence. Which is a false assumption.

TSM spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

I also know that Nomad was able to "skip" with the aid of a Dawnshard to protect it, but he also had access to Surgebinding and used his Spren's Investiture to do so. 

As such, I'm not sure Rysn has a lot of protection from the Dawnshard except from the Sleepless (though that is probably quite potent itself, as they're nearly unkillable and can drain Investiture from opponents).

Sleepless are only one layer of protection. The question in the WoB is clear - if a person had an opportunity to spike a Dawnshard out, it wouldn't work because Dawnshard self-protects. Sleepless and Larkins would have denied that opportunity in the first place, but Dawnshard can protect itself even without them. Not just Rysn's Dawnshard, but any Dawnshard, and as far as we know only the Change Dawnshard is protected by Sleepless. TSM spoilers:

32 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Ah, but can she use it?

Furthermore, she does have the Sleepless protecting her, but they do not serve her, unlike with Jasnah's, Taravangian's, and Ishar's kingdoms.

Well, there is a certain assassin in white who showed rulers that they can't rely on the protection of their guards and soldiers. Rysn on the other hand is now basically unkillable - Dawnshard self-protects - even if she doesn't have any usable powers from her Dawnshard. Sure, there might be ways to extract her Dawnshard, but that's not something people on Roshar would know.

17 hours ago, KalSpear said:

Dalinar Kholin would be my choice for the most powerful in the series. He is a bondsmith(most powerful of the Radiants). He is an extraordinary warrior without stormlight. Finally, he is the King of Urithiru, making him the leader of the world. I'd love to debate this. 

Dalinar is not the leader of the world, in fact most of Roshar follow Odium, not Dalinar. Only the Azish Empire and Thaylenah, plus all Alethi people that are on the Shattered Plains or in the Tower are now a part of the Coalition. Alethkar, Jah Keved, Herdaz and Iri with its conquered territories are now all part of Odium's side. Dalinar is constantly losing more land as the Desolation progresses. Not to mention that Dalinar is not an absolute leader of the Coalition - it's a coalition, all members decide on what is the next action they have to take, they all have to agree, Dalinar can't force them to act against their interest. His power is severely limited.

But in terms of being powerful, Dalinar is certainly close to the top. Excluding Shards (and Splinters), Ishar is even more powerful. Taln has proven to be an exceptionally skilled fighter, even in his current state of mind he still was capable of acting and protecting Amaram from darts. I don't really have anything more to add, as @Trusk'our listed all, except for Szeth. He's extremely skilled fighter, not as good as Taln or Kaladin, but still very good, he is highly knowledgeable about all Surges, their applications and how to counteract them, on top of that he has Nightblood - the only object known to us that can easily kill Hoid, the only man-made object capable of killing a full Vessel. Szeth is very dangerous, especially in combination with his mental instability. He deserves to be on the list. 

13 hours ago, KalSpear said:

I just read the rough draft of the prologue today and was confused. Thaidakar(Kelsier) is supposed to be a cognitive shadow stuck on Scadrial. How is he able to show up on Roshar? Anyone with answers pls let me know. 

That's 100% a Seon. They can show a face so why not an entire body and a cloak? It's just a type of Lightweaving. He didn't look normal at all - he was blue:

Quote

Thaidakar remained still for a moment. Then, with an audible sigh, reached up with gloved hands and took down his hood. Gavilar froze—for despite their several interactions, he’d never before seen the man’s face.

It was blue. Was he...Aimian? Natan? No, this was a softer, glowing blue. Like Thaidakar was made entirely of white-blue light. He was younger than Gavilar had imagined—in his younger middle years, not the wizened elder he’d seemed. And he had a large spike, also blue, through one eye. The point jutted out the back of his skull.

[...]

He was cut off as Thaidakar transformed. His face melted away, features withdrawing into his head—which became a simple floating sphere. Glowing, with some kind of arcane rune at the center. The cloak vanished into wisps of smoke that evaporated away.

Gavilar growled, hungry. That...that looked a lot like what he’d read of the powers of Lightweavers. Knights Radiant. Was Thaidakar—

“Deliver Restares to me,” the sphere said, vibrating—though it had no mouth. “Or else. That is my ultimatum, Gavilar. You will not like to be my enemy.”

The sphere of light turned nearly transparent, difficult to track as it moved to the door, then shrank, bobbed down and vanished through the crack underneath.

A glowing sphere with a rune at the center - that's Seon. RoW ch 115:

Quote

She removed her hand and situated herself at the desk. Adolin fell silent, waiting and watching as Shallan lifted the top of Mraize’s cube. With help from Kelek, they’d gotten it open without harming the thing inside: a spren in the shape of a glowing ball of light, a strange symbol at the center. No one here recognized the variety of spren, but Wit called it a seon.

11 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Now that I see the text again, I'm not sure this is conclusive on what is happening here. It seems like what this could be saying is that the motions before he cut it COULD be dismissed as the wind (but not to Kaladin), and that the shifting in the breeze was actual shifting in the breeze. This is indicated by the fact that anyone else would believe the entire thing was the wind. A piece of cloth that vaguely resembled a person came at him, was quickly cut in two, and then was shifting in the breeze. This doesn't seem to indicate to me that the cloth was still wriggling after being cut. I think, especially because he notes how weird the first part is, that the cloth is not moving on its own after he cuts it.

That means that after they finished fighting, Kaladin looked at cut and used sheets and saw them moving and shifting a bit. He thought that other people can dismiss that movement as the wind, but he knows the wind, he knows it's not it. It was the cut sheets themselves that were moving, not the wind. 

11 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Having been on Roshar in the past and having been there a good bit now already, I think its safe to assume Vasher knows what would happen to his breath when a shardblade cuts the cloth. Since Vasher is on Roshar for the free investiture it seems unlikely that he would waste any amount of breath for this interaction with Kaladin (assuming that cutting it degrades or removes part of the breath).

Agreed. He recovers them after all. He knows he's not at risk of losing any significant amount of Breaths, otherwise he would have not fought Kaladin with Awakening. 

11 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

I think there might be a power gap here if the cloth is still trying to enact its command. Does that mean that, with the right type of cloth, Vasher's awakened cloth 'soldiers' basically just become two smaller 'soldiers' when cut? Its kind of like a hydra, growing more heads the more you cut.

The key-word here is "trying." Sure they try, but they can't as the material is so damaged that it can't function as per its Command anymore. The more out of shape the material is, the more damaged it is, the worse it functions. A rope cut in half will still try to fulfill its Command quite well, but Awakened clothes won't work anymore if cut in half as the entire shape of it is broken. They might try, but they won't work well. The same thing happened in Warbreaker ch 56:

Quote

Denth reacted immediately, cutting the rope out of the air with his dagger. The pieces of it twisted and wriggled, but weren’t long enough to grab anything

11 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Since you mentioned that shardblades have to vaporize SOME material to do what they do, it occurred to me that healing shardblade wounds as a Radiant might not be an infinitely repeatable process. What I mean is the stormlight can repair your soul, but that part that was vaporized cant be regained. I dont know how many times it would take but I think you could degrade someones soul a LOT doing this. I imagine it would happen pretty quickly, actually.

But that's what the healing does, it fixes your soul, it reconnects cut off pieces with your soul. It creates a patch on your soul out of investiture. That may have some consequences, but in normal cases it's negligible. With healing flesh wounds it's even more obvious - investiture is used to recreate your body, even an entire arm can grow back. It doesn't matter what's lost, healing can restore that. 

11 minutes ago, KalSpear said:

Any news on Mistborn adaptations?

No news for now, but Brandon will be visiting Hollywood in following weeks, he said it in the last weekly update. Maybe something new will come from this. However Brandon keeps repeating that Hollywood is hard to work with, it takes time to do anything.

However the Mistborn movie is/was in the early stages of development, but it all stagnated as the writers strike started in previous year. If I remember correctly it got to the point where Brandon was seeing some casting, or some early scripts reading, or something like that. Brandon has a full insight into the development process and is in the position to be making demands and decisions - he wanted to have greater control over his movies for obvious reasons and he succeeded in that.

Here are two WoBs from the State of Sanderson 2022&2023. I'm pretty sure he talked about it in one of the recent streams as well - this is an often asked question so it repeats every few streams.

2 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

If a shardblade cuts a piece of awakened cloth, what happens? I can forsee a LOT of possibilities, some more likely than others. For the sake of argument the cloth was awakened with 1 breath. 

 

• cloth is not cut, just like a person, and the breath connection is severed
  • breath is recoverable because shardblades dont destroy investiture
  • breath is not recoverable because the connection to the awakener has been severed (breath without permission?)
• cloth is cut into two pieces with half a breath in each
  • follows the command just as two pieces
  • breaks command because identity of cloth is now different
• cloths 'soul' is cut, so half of the cloth cant act on the command, but the breath stays and it tries its best to complete the command

 

What do you all think? Given the scene we have from vasher using awakening when training kaladin, I think its possible to see this interaction, and potentially even likely. 

Of course it depends on how much it is invested. An Awakened cloth is still a non-living object, even if it's invested, it would primarily act like a dead piece of rock (which also has a soul and is cut by a Shardblade). So a cloth Awakened with only 1 Breath would not resist a Shardblade and would be cut into 2 pieces, with its Breath being cut into 2 recoverable halves. But I think some tiny bit of investiture would be lost as well, because of the way in which a Shardblade cuts non-living objects - it vaporizes some matter into investiture to allow a blade to pass through. A piece of Breath attached to that vaporizes part of matter would be lost, as that loss is how the Breath is cut into two parts. Something even more invested can resist it or even block it like a Shardplate/Half-Shard, taking a few hits before it breaks.

We saw Kaladin cut Vasher's Awakened sheets, they are cut and they still try to move after being cut. RoW ch 15:

Quote

A face and figure formed in a nearby sheet, puffing toward Kaladin as if someone were walking through on the other side. He struck immediately, driving his sword through the sheet. It ripped—the point was still sharp enough for that—but didn’t strike anyone beyond.
Syl momentarily became sharp—changing before he could ask—as he swiped to cut the sheet in two. It writhed in the wind, severed down the center.
[...]
Zahel stood and dropped the knife with a clang. Kaladin recovered it, sitting up, and glanced at the fallen sheets. They lay on the ground—normal cloths, occasionally shifting in the breeze. In fact, another man might have dismissed their motions as a trick of the wind.
But Kaladin knew the wind. That had not been the wind.
“You can’t join the ardents,” Zahel said to him, kneeling and touching one of the cloths with his finger, then lifting it and pinning it onto the drying line. He did the same for the others, each in turn.

1 hour ago, listerfeend said:

I think this gets even more interesting with Lifeless though. A once living body, reanimated with Investiture. Would a Shardblade cut it, or would it pass through severing Spirt Web connections? Because, I'm assuming the Spirit Web still exists. Brandon has said it is a quantifiable and measurable thing in the Cosmere, which indicates to me that it is a part of the body.

Lifeless would act like a living being, a Shardblade would cut its Breath, not the body - 2nd WoB. The difference probably is that Lifeless is almost alive compared to a type 3 entity like Awakened ropes. They are more self-aware than people think.

10 minutes ago, Experience said:

Okay. Interesting. 

This makes me wonder if a spiritweb is broken enough, would a shardblade just cut like a normal blade and not sever the soul because the soul is already so broken? 

Like koloss or inquisitors kinda thing? I imagine it would still function as normal, as they still have the soul however broken it may be.

Actually they are both invested with more investiture from spikes, so they would resist Shardblade a tiny bit more than a normal person. I think broken spiritweb wouldn't matter for a Shardblade - spikes held it together. A broken soul with no spikes might be a tiny bit easier to cut - if investiture is lost when cracks appear. But at those levels there would be no difference.

6 hours ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

Hot take: I love the gambit but the concept of atium Mistings is overly convoluted. I think the mistfallen should’ve been an army of Mistborn. The canon mistfallen had normal Mistings and atium Mistings. So why not create a bunch of Mistborn?

The answer is simple. Firstly there would be no number 16 in Mistsnapping, no sign that something weird is happening. Secondly it wouldn't have been an obvious sign that says "you can burn Atium now, that's what you need to do" as Mistborn can burn anything. Thirdly it would take much more power to make someone into a Mistborn than into a Misting. Mistborn are much more invested and those Mistings snapped by Mists were very weak, weaker than normal Mistings as many of them had barely any Allomantic potential in them. And it wouldn't have been beneficial at all - you can't win against Ruin by killing, you just have to burn Atium, Mistborn weren't needed. WoB:

6 hours ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

Theory: If malatium is much stronger at the moment of death, then the same should apply to electrum or atium - visions of a person’s possible future or a possible future of the entire world (à la Elend’s duralumin + atium). I think this is a possible way Preservation gave the Terris Prophecies. Maybe he gave visions of the future to dying Terris people during the moment of death.

Interesting theory, it might be possible, but kind of hard to write down the entire prophecy as you die. But you're right, the barriers between realms fade when people die and it's easier to reach into SR at this moment. Here is only a quote from a WoB with spoilers cut out: "Special things often happen in the cosmere when someone is very close to death, or undergoing intense pain (either physical or emotional.) Barriers between the realms weaken."

Love reading your reaction and thoughts about SH, can't wait for more!

10 hours ago, Koloss17 said:

For this question, I am asking not of the utility of an object, just the simple amount of force an awakened object can exert. Does it depend on the awakener? The object awakened? For example, if the basic command “hold when thrown” is used on a shirt, and said shirt lands on someone’s face, how much would they have to exert themselves to stop themselves from suffocating? Is it a set strength?

This seems to be a simple question, yet I can’t seem to find the answer to it anywhere.

Quite a lot I would say. A banner can lift a person, a cloak can stop blades, a shirt can hold and fight with a sword, tassels can hold almost the entire weight of a person by themselves, ropes throwing boulders like catapults, Sousebron's fabrics throwing bodies around like they were nothing. Vivenna's rope was suffocating Tonk Fah and no amount of strength was going to stop that - Denth had to cut it. 

Breaths act as muscles in an Awakened object, but the material from which it's made gives the limit of how strong it can get. Ropes by design are very strong, capable of lifting incredible mass, but a shawl or a banner twisted and curled into the shape of a rope can hold a surprising amount of weight - regular fabric can be strong. An Awakened material can exert so much force as it can withstand without it ripping itself to pieces. This does depend on visualization and Command, but not on the amount of Breaths per the Law of Comparability - the amount of Breaths needed for Awakening doesn't define how powerful the object is. But if you visualize a cloth catching people while spreaded wide open like a net, it would be easier to tear and get rid of than a cloth which you visualized to twist like a rope first then catch.

10 hours ago, Treamayne said:

• A short awakened cloth by Vivenna was barely able to bend a tree branch - but - 
• Another cloth by Vivenna was able to carry a full cup of liquid, then later was able to choke out Tonk Fah

A rope bend a tree branch (so strong it cracked wood), a cloth carried a water cup, a rope choke out Tonk Fah.

ch 46:

Quote

She held out the rope to the branch. “Hold things,” she Commanded, reflexively letting out some of her Breath. She felt an instant of panic as her sense of the world dimmed.
The rope twitched. However, instead of drawing color from the tree, the Awakening pulled color from her tunic. The garment bled grey, and the rope moved, wrapping like a snake around the branch. Wood cracked slightly as the rope pulled tight.

ch 49:

Quote

Vivenna repeatedly Awakened a strip of cloth, unaware of Vasher. She Commanded the cloth to wiggle across the room, wrap around a cup, then bring that cup back without spilling.

ch 56:

Quote

She Awakened a pair of rope pieces, telling them to grab when thrown. [...]
She tossed the rope at him, threw the other at Tonk Fah, then dashed into the room. [...]
The one she threw at Tonk Fah, however, hit. He cried out, waking as it wrapped around his face and neck. [...]
Tonk Fah made a gagging sound as the rope twisted around his neck, choking him. He struggled to pull it free with little success. [...]
Finally, Denth cursed and jumped over to cut at the rope on his friend’s neck.

13 hours ago, Quantus said:

Devil's advocate question:  Did his eyes change because he was meddling with his appearance via previously unknown Feruchemy, or did he just lose a Shard when he died and revert to his native (possibly dark) eyes?

I don't think Gereh had any Shards. He had Metalminds which were taken from him - his rings - and the chest wound sounds awfully like Hemalurgy. And since we know spiking any Feruchemical powers carries enough identity for the Hemalurgist to be able to use metalminds of the donor, it means his power was stolen (because why did Mraize steal the rings if he can't use them). We have no indication that he owned any Shards, he was an old man and barely appeared on pages - only during Navani's prologue in RoW as far as I remember. 

10 hours ago, Treamayne said:

but please notice that Felt also does not appear to have "shin eyes" when we see him on Roshar (though if appearing with his natural Scadrian Eyes, they would have been described as such) Dalinar remarks on his lack o fheight, but says nothing about his eyes. 

He does, but Felt, unlike Gereh, doesn't care if he stands out. OB ch 114:

Quote

Dalinar pushed open the door. Felt stood outside, a lithe man with long, drooping mustaches and pale skin. Had to have some Shin blood in him, judging by those eyes

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

Quick thought here;

If meddling with Connection can change your soul to think you've grown up in a different place, would a highly Invested person who meddled with their Connection physically change to fit said Connection?

For example, if a Connector Ferring were to somehow Tap Connection saying that they had been born Nalthian and they had already obtained lots of Breath to become highly Invested, would their appearance change to look like a Nalthian too?

I'm sort of basing this off of Yumi, as she was able to transform Painter's body when possessing it due to her high level of Investiture.

I know Identity and perception are going to play a massive role in this, but I'm curious as to what others think.

I think yes and I think we've seen this happening in RoW I-5:

Quote

He trailed off as they stumbled across the corpse.
It was an old Alethi man in robes. He’d been killed with some kind of knife wound to the chest, and lay—his eyes open—on the ground. Blood on his lips.
[...]
“Who was he?” she asked. “Wyndle, do you recognize him?”
“I believe I’ve seen him before. A minor Alethi functionary, though his eyes are different now. Curious. Look at his fingers—tan skin with bands of lighter skin. He was wearing jewelry once.”

That was Gereh, a Feruchemist: