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I live in South America but while on vacation here in the states got a chance to see Brandon Sanderson at his signing in Albuquerque NM. He said it was his last stop on the tour so apologized ahead of timed if he started ranting. However, he did an excellent presentation and admitted to having gotten a chance to edit a chapter from WoR just before the signing. As has been mentioned before, Sanderson has said that he hopes to have WoR out in November but couldn't promise anything.He also mentioned though that they were talking about a January release which would be a year from the day that a memory of light was released. Then he cracked an awesome joke about New Mexicans being use to waiting any way so we will be fine (Because G.R.R Martin lives in NM). Some one in the crowd asked about a possible Alcatraz 5 to which Sanderson responded that h'ed actually started working on an outline for it and a few chapters but it had been slow going because he had to buy back the rights for the book. Sanderson then proceeded to read am intro to one of his chapters that he refers to as an epigraph which was pretty funny. Some one asked if he planned to do more with Legion to which he replied that was working on something else and that he hoped to be able to turn Legion into a mini series like the BBCs Sherlock home. He also read a brief bit of the next Legion but stopped about two paragraphs in as he realized how unorganized he'd written it the rough draft and kept getting lost. I finally got to ask a question about the Stormlight archives that windrunner17 and Chaos helped me with which was: "Why Can Kaladin surgebind with any gem type but Jasnah and Shallan need specific types?" Later during the signing I got to ask two more questions which he kindly wrote into my books. The first was: "Is cultivation's holder still alive?" "Where Cultivation and Honor romantically involved?" So all and all it was a good first signing to go to and I'm glad I finally got to meet Sanderson, he is a passionate writer who is very inspiring and I encourage everyone to see him speak at least once.

Vapors has to be scandrial, I mean it's MISTborn for crying out loud. They've got ferucheMISTs, skaa live in constant fear of MISTwraiths, and when the Lord Ruler aimed the planet towards the right orbit he TOTALLY MIST.

I've theorized before, based on The Alloy of Law, that Gold Allomancy can be used to mix one's present Identity and past Identity. This allowed Miles to create an "alloy" of himself. It got me thinking about the Atium alloy Malatium, which mimics the effects of Gold, except the target is another person. In The Last Empire, Vin wasn't able to touch the Lord Ruler's Malatium shadows. That's probably because those kinds of shadows (let's call them "Identity Shadows") can only be touched by the specific Identity that owns them. What if Vin had touched the Lord Ruler himself at the time? Here's this post's theory#1: Malatium Allomancy allows the user to "alloy" his Identity with another person's Identity by touching him. There's a problem, though. When a Malatium Allomancer alloys his Identity with someone else's Identity, part of his Identity will have to go somewhere, presumably to the other person. If all of his Identity goes to the other person, they'd basically switch Identities. This may or may not be useful, but I'd imagine a person would prefer not giving part of his Identity to someone else. (Note that Identity is a Spiritual trait, so I'm not sure if Identity alloys would look physically different from their previous selves or not. Any ideas?) But what if the Malatium Allomancer can also store Identity in an Aluminummind? What if he's a Malatium/Aluminum Twinborn? This is theory#2: A Malatium/Aluminum Twinborn (let's call him a Vampire) can store an Identity taken via Malatium Allomancy into an Aluminummind, effectively stealing someone else's Identity without giving up his own. Here's some interesting possible implications if this theory is true: A Vampire would leave victims with absolutely no Identity. I'm not sure what this would look like, but I bet it won't be pretty. A Vampire can tap a stolen Identity from one Aluminummind while storing his own Identity in another Aluminummind, replacing his own Identity with the stolen Identity (with his own Identity safely stored). A Vampire that "wears" another person's Identity can touch that person's Identity Shadows. A Vampire that "wears" another person's Identity can use that person's metalminds. Edit: Come to think of it, a Malatium Allomancer can probably steal the contents of someone else's metalminds, though he'd have to steal back his Identity afterwards.

Happiness and Joy! Quote The WoB refers not to the microstructure of the metal, but rather to the molecular structure! Any and all angst has fled. There is proper consistency in my view of the Cosmere again! EDIT: Note, there is a vast difference between the fixed molecular structure of a metal (basically a bunch of atoms stuck together) and the microstructure of a metal (generally several orders of magnitude larger scale than the molecular structure).

I have an intersting case of a friend I got to read the mistborn trilogy. She claimed to like it, but she took, like, 4 months to read it, and she would oftenput it down to read something else. On the other hand, she showed actual appreciation for it, and she had no reason to lie to me, she showed interest when i mentioned alloy of law, so I believe her. She then picked up the way of kings, but stopped in midread claiming that the amount of bad stuff that happens to kaladin is too much and makes her depressed. I'm inclined to think that the steep learning curve of sanderson's books make them stuffy to her, even when she enjoy them. On the other hand, her son became a good fan of the books. Unfortunately I haven't been able to expand their cosmere culture because of several concurring factors - I read the books in english, but they are not comfortable with that and require the italian translation, so I can't just lend them my copies - books are incredibly expensive in italy. At least those books. I spent 30 euros to buy them TFE and get them intersted in the series. - apparently, italian libraries are ignorant of what constitutes good fantasy. Sanderson's books are difficult to find. Many libraries won't even have a single book by terry pratchett! Last time I went into one, three quarters of the "fantasy" section were filled with either werewolves/vampires stuff or elves and other glorified tolkien fanfiction. - my friend and her husband don't have a card for internet purchases. - she and her son are quite lazy when it comes to doing stuff outside of their routine (not that I am any better). The husband and other son are not intersted in reading. - italian translation sucks! Really, all the magic terms are translated in a totally unsatisfactory way. I read the first szeth scene from the italian version and was horrified by how stupid all the words sounded when translated that way (admittedly, it isn't easy to come up with better words). The funniest translation I found was in a piece of the wheel of time, where warder was translated of "protettore". While protettore means literally "guy who protects" and so could easily fit in the context, in everyday language it is most often use to refer to the male boss of a group of prostitutes (google translation gives "pimp" as the english term, but I don't know if it is accurate). I still laugh every time I think of that passage sounding as if moiraine was a prostitute under lan's patronage. So, for all those reasons I couldn't spread Sanderson's work much in my home country.

I've been trying to work out what it means to have a certain rank, I've done a particularly indepth search of the text, on the words nahn, dahn and lord. The goal here is determine what being of a particular rank means. Find out what that common occupations are done(not nesc. Callings, but actual jobs), how they live, etc. General Ranks are inherited. (When the army comes to recruit they promise an increase of 1 nahn, for "you and your children") If someone is of a particular rank, then so too are all there children and there partners. Darkeyes (Nahn) There are at least 5 ranks of Darkeyes, called nahn. The lowest rank refereed to is 5th I suspect that there is only 5 ranks, as 5th would seem to be pretty low. There is also Sas nahn, which is a slave. (though what sas means exactly I'm not sure, kaladrin has a slave brand with the glyph pair sas morom which is a district) At 2nd or 1st nahn has right of travel, and citzenship (not sure exactly what this entails). I guess below that is a more serf-like lifestyle. Master-Servants are of 2nd nahn, as is Lirin's family. the Kings master of the hunt is of 1st nahn. 1st nahn are able to marry into lighteye'ed family. Lighteyes (Dahn) There are 10 ranks of Lighteyes, called dahn. (We have confirmation that 10th is the lowest). I believe any of worse than 5th dahn have to work for a living. (We know at low enough rank some have to work for a living (they become soldiers), the exact rank isn't mentioned) 10th is stated to be only a little better than a darkeyes. Titles/Positions I believe the title Brightlord, is applied to any light eyes of 4th dahn or higher. A female is called "Brightness <name here>" and is a Brightlady It might be lower, I think we could establish a lower bound if we can find the rank of Matal or Lamaril Highprince is a thing, I believe they are all 1st dahn. Citylord appears to be any lord who controls a village or larger. I believe they are mostly 3rd and 4th dahn. house lord, is refereed to once: "...The landlords and house lords who played politics in court..." Not sure exactly what a house lord is Landlord is referred to quiet often, I believe it is the step below citylord. (I believe it has a slightly different meaning from its normal english use, and mean a lighteyes who a large area of land outside a city) Highlord is referred to 4 times. I believe they are all exactly 2nd dahn. Amaram is referred to twice as a Highlord (the rest of the time he is called Highmarshal, or Brightlord) They control a district, a large region in a princedom, I guess. Kaladrin is branded with a glyph pair indicating which highlord's district he become a slave in I don't know how citylords are decided within that region though since: Quote Lirin: "I still don’t know which highlord was behind sending him here to torment us" the term warlord is also used a couple of times, but never referring to any specific person, so i think it just means a leader involved in war. Military Ranks I don' think these are directly tied to particular nahn/dahn, but there is a correlation. I would like to line them up. Highmarshal - the leader of a large miliary force. "Bightlord Amaram is absendiar highmarshal of our princedom. He is in command of defending our borders while the king and Brightlord Sadeas are away." (I suggest 1st dahn, or delegated to 2nd dahn) Infantrylord, Calverylord - Dalinar has these, I don't know about other princes. In charge of all forces of this type. (I suggest 2nd dahn) Battalionlord - In charge of 1000 man, has many companylords underneath them(I'm confidant this is limited to >=4th dahn) Companylord - acts under a battalionlord CaptainLord - these exists in Sadeas's forces. Kaladin when under Amaram says he must report to one, so I guess these guys are 1 step above Sergeant. Captain - at the end of the book Kaladrin is promoted to Captain. It is implied to be the highest rank that is less than Battalionlord. (but then how does this compare to a CompanyLord?) What is the difference between a Captain and a CaptainLord? My theory is if they are of miliary rank X, and a lighteyes, they are refereed to as a X-lord. Matal is confirmed as being the new captain, when Lamaril is removed. This may be short for captain lord Sergeant - Gaz was a Sergeant(and a darkeyes) Squadleader - leads one of many squads under one Sergeant. (I believe the bridge leaders are roughly equal in rank, though not in status) --- So here is all my collected information. You can see I've made allot of guesses (most of them are clearly marked). I can provide arguments for all statements, I think, challenge me if you think I've made a mistake (or if I can't backup a statement) I would love some criticisms, and suggestions. I've left allot of open questions in there. It would be nice to tidy this up and put it on the Coppermind

I should warn you, I'm sleep deprived and I've had a few drinks, but I think this is a sound theory. Credits go to my friend Thorin for helping to develop it. Brandon Sanderson is a Twinborn, with DOUBLE SODIUM! He has hidden this from the readers, did not include it in Mistborn, but Sodium is Allomantic! This is the truth behind his salt addiction! Burning sodium pushes creativity, and Feruchemical sodium stores IDEAS! He's been storing ideas in Sodium, then COMPOUNDING IT, burning the ideas to create a GIANT EXPLOSION OF AWESOME IDEAS! That is how he creates such brilliant stories! You cannot dispute my logic. Still skeptical? Consider this: He lives near the largest salt water lake in the western hemisphere. An endless supply of sodium. I rest my case. Edit: Yes, yes, I know it's sodium chloride. Shut up.

HI all I have been a longtime Sanderson fan starting as soon as I heard that he would be finishing Wheel of Time so i promptly got Mistborn to check out he style....wow and I have since found his works are by far my favorite fictions, I have (obviously) read all his cosmere works some for the second and third time and through the help of these forums have fit as much of the "known" pieces into place on the cosmere scale. I have already got paperbacks of most of his works (all but Warbreaker) and just recently started ordering signed hardbacks from his website with the intention of getting a full Cosmere hardcover signed set , Now a very important questions for those of you in the know ...I have read here that the cosmere is apparently sitting at a planed 36 books total i'm guessing that's not counting novella like alloy of law or Emperor's soul so i'm assuming that Sanderson's Full epic is looking something like this so far. Stormlight Archive = 10 Mistborn Trilogy = 9 Elantris = 3 Warbreaker = 2 White Sands = ?? Dragonsteel = ?? Now with the "known" totals we at 24 that leaves 12 more books over 2 series ....This to me Feels very odd so if anyone knows if i have made any miss allocations of books in series or if the smaller novellas are going to be part of the 36 can some one let me know. Ps; Hi i'm new

We know from the Way of Kings, that glassbeads represent objects in the physical realm, in the chapter where Shallan accidentally travels to Shadesmar and performs her first soulcasting This is where my theory begins: objects in the physical realm have a cognitive aspect, because they are seen and perceived by humans, they give them their identity. So if there were no people, there would be no beads. Since the oceans (on Roshar even more so) are uninhabitated, there can be no beads because there are no people to accommodate the creation of beads, the result is "land" in Shadesmar. My interpretation is, that it isn't land like in the physical realm, but one enormous sphere (well, maybe not exactly spherical, but you get the idea). The reason for this is, that people tend to think of oceans as exactly that, one huge mass of water. Many people thing of them and they are always thought of as one complete entity. This theory has it's weaknesses, for example I can't explain why the clearlake is a mountain in Shadesmar. My only theory on that is, that more people think of the clearlake than of the oceans, because people live there. In the interlude with Ishikk you can see, that he thinks of the lake quite frequently, so maybe its cognitive aspect is even greater than that of an ocean. The fires in the cognitve realm are people and the sun is the representation of a shard. The fires could also be spren, invisible in the real world, but perfectly visible as tiny flames, since they are the represantation of a concept. Those last two are completely baseless, simply stated for the wholeness of my theory. I hope this theory hasn't been posted yet, if so I am sorry. So then, what do you guys think? Anything that is condraticted by WoB?

They are not. I added them for ease of reference and forgot to mention it. I have edited my post to include this.

Copied directly form the Table of Feruchemical Metals print. <edit>Forgot to mention: Allomantic quadrent names added by me for easy reference.</edit> note: the capitalisation of "Investiture" in reguards to nicrosil

Brandon stated that physics is normal in the Cosmere, magic aside. He said nothing about how the normal-working physics is accomplished. Everything has aspects in all three Realms, so shouldn't the physical reactions they all have to each other have aspects in all three Realms, as well? Couldn't the laws of physics be defined and regulated outside the Physical Realm? In fact, doesn't it make sense, from all we know, for all physical laws to be found in Spiritual connections?

Except that the quote I linked to at the beginning of this page, and that you pulled later, is in the context of Brandon talking to a fan about how it really works, not "well, they think..." That is interesting. Phantom, I have started far too many threads already: you are charged with this task. EDIT: Nevermind, I think the mystery we were supposed to unravel was the fact that Atium is a God metal, not Temporal

That's explained in my quote above. Koloss and Inquisitors have four and over a dozen spikes, respectively. As such, they've always got ruin influence even when they're not doing anything. Kandra only have two, so they're less vulnerable. I mean think about Vin - she never got hijacked by Ruin. He could mess with her emotions and talk to her, but he couldn't actually ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL. Same with Spook, Citizen USSR, and Penrod - they were being manipulated, but they weren't being puppeteered. The Koloss, on the other hand, get puppeteered easily, but Ruin still has a hard time keeping a grip on them when they're in the middle of a rage (but hey they're killing things anyway, so who cares). Kandra are actually a little more vulnerable than I'd expect them to be.

Could also have something to do with population densities. All the inhabitants of Scadrial are concentrated into two relatively small areas.

In describing a book you have to focus on the things that are interesting to them. You are interested in magic systems, they may not be. Plot lines and characters are a safer bet.

Vapors -> Breaths -> Nalthis Density -> Metals -> Scadrial Leaving Broken Sky as Sel

Well, he could just be making atium and hand-delivering it to Marsh to keep him ticking. And since preservation and ruin can fuel both magic systems, boring answer is that he just uses it to give people some extra allomantic power or whatever. Or I guess he could just be like blowing up a moon from time to time.

I'd swap Nalthis and Scadrial.

Ahha, I'm musing about the Expanses for nearly half an hour now. And nobody wants to begin ... so, I do: Expanse of the Broken Sky -> Sel Expanse of the Vapors -> Scadrial Expanse of the Densities -> Nalthis That's my first, intuitive ideas about it, I can't provide any reasons for them. As "we" are on Roshar when we see this (only one known to us) map of Roshar, logically there is no Expanse correlating with Roshar.

I like this idea, but I'm not sure I completley agree with it. The fact that there are (at least) two forms of the Dragon makes perfect sense. As for the Dragon being the myhtological origin of the creator, it could be possible, however I think it is made very clear in the books that the creator is responsible for making the world, which is never the reponsibility of the Dragon. This doesn't contradict the idea of there being no beginings or endings so long as he stands outside of the pattern and outside of time itself i.e. he creates all of time at once. I'm not sure if this makes much sense to you but it makes sense in my head.

A noble hero of reddit, ManceRaider, recorded and transcribed this excerpt for people. http://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/1ed373/went_to_rithmatist_launch_tonight_brandon_read_a/

I'd guess that much like Allomancers, Feruchemists have some limited protection from the toxic effects of the metals they use. Eating them would certainly be a bad idea: even Allomancers can be poisoned by metals they ingest but don't burn, and most Feruchemists don't have the burning option. It might even be a bad idea to handle their metalminds unless actively storing or tapping. But as long as they're engaged in Feruchemical stuff, they probably don't have to worry about toxicity.

Some awesomeness/craziness from Brandon on reddit (pure gold, really): So Amaram is "my friending" Dalinar. Was Kaladin off-duty that day, or is the next line "Amaram said, just before he took a spear in the knee"?

I was at this event. It was pretty fun and relaxed. He was numbering books, but since there were only like 40 people there, most of the numbered ones are still on the shelf. If people are interested in that kind of thing, they should call Books of Wonder in NYC. ALSO One thing from the reading that the post leaves out is that Brandon mentioned that the IQ flux was Teravangian's boon and and his curse all in one. I don't remember if that had been confirmed before. I think had been speculated that sometimes the boon and the curse were the same thing. If that's not news, my apologies.

This may be totally speculative right now and I posted this in the list of questions for Brandon, but I am curious to know what you all think. In the epigraph in The Way of Kings, what does the unnamed character write the letter with and on what is it written?

If this is true, then Shards, including Odium, would be unable to see waveforms, correct? The fact that the Alethi script was designed to look like waveforms could then be an attempt to blind Odium to their communications, similar to the prophecies inscribed on metal on Scadrial and the color-dot script used by priests on Nalthis.

Well, you see, when a mommy and a daddy shardblade love each other very much...

Since this is a thread about insanity, it seems appropriate to be far too linguisticy. Actually, it's really -um, and that is a Latin case ending for neuter nouns of the second declension. The i is part of the stem (so, Ati-um, Adonalsi-um, Odi-um, etc). For example, Adonalsium's proper declension is: Sg. Pl. Nom. Adonalsium Adonalsii Gen. Adonalsii Adonalsiorum Dat. Adonalsio Adonalsiis Acc. Adonalsium Adonalsios Abl. Adonalsio Adonalsiis Voc. Adonalsium Adonalsii Loc. Adonalsii Adonalsiis While Odium's is: Sg. Pl. Nom. Odium Odii Gen. Odii Odiorum Dat. Odio Odiis Acc. Odium Odios Abl. Odio Odiis Voc. Odium Odii Loc. Odii Odiis This ending is commonly added, even in the real world, to metals and elements (like einsteinium). For various linguistic reasons, -ium is usually added instead of just -um, but the quick explanation is that it helps the faux latin words to not sound too lame (einsteinium is much better than einsteinum, as americium is better than either americum and americaum). The curious thing is that most shards aren't Latin based. It's Ruin, not Ruina, Preservation, not Custodia, Devotion, not Devotio, etc. Odium and Adonalsium are the odd ones out. Pretty standard, really. H is a sad, pathetic letter that often gets left out of other languages, since really it just designates a heavy breathing sound, not a proper consonant or vowel. In Greek, for example, it is either left out entirely or signaled by a simple ' (as in ἱστορία, aka 'istoria, aka history). More relevant here, though, is the TH sound, which is technically a single letter in many languages (because they have a letter for it: it's a digraph in English), as is sh (I believe, I'm not as interested in that combination as I am in th). For example, theta (θ), eth (ð), and thorn (þ) can all be translated into modern English as th, and vice versa. So what is probably going on here is native linguistics being translated into English. H by itself probably doesn't always count as a letter, and its a part of a digraph in other places. So Valhav would be closer to Val'av, while Thalath is more of þalaþ, and Rishir is closer to I-don't-know-haven't-I-given-enough-useless-information-yet. *ahem* So, to bring this all around, clearly Adonalsium is related to consonant shifts between languages. Or something.

Thank you. As for Shadesmar, that is quite an interesting question. Either soulcasting doesn't always require a jaunt to shadesmar, since Jasnah basically did battle-casting in that alley, or jaunts to shadesmar are simply instantaneous. Soulcasters' unique access to Shadesmar may very well be because soulcasting is such a powerful system (powerful in terms of possibilities, as well as raw power). You're messing with the fundamental stuff of the universe and making of it what you will. All of Brandon's other magic systems so far have been fairly limited so far as the choice of the user goes. The Metallic arts are all choices of degree within a relatively limited system, Elantris's magic requires complex runes for every spell, and Awakening requires precise Commands (although I think Awakening may end up being one of the more flexible systems). Soulcasting, on the other hand, appears to allow conversion to and from just about everything at the will of the user. It makes a certain amount of sense that those kind of options would necessitate a richer control interface, a more fundamental access to the system which Soulcasting affects. Speaking of Awakening. . . Magic Analysis - Nalthis (Warbreaker); Awakening: Summary for the lazy and/or those with lives: Breaths are a portion of the power behind the Spiritual aspects of living beings, fuelling mainly Spiritual interactions (as well as Physical health, apparently), but are not actually peoples' "souls" in that they neither retain nor impart any sense of identity to their holders. I also briefly discuss purely Spiritual traits. Commands are comprised of two parts, Vocalization and Visualization, with the Vocalization defining a task and the Visualization laying out how to go about achieving that task, in the general sense. The act of Awakening is to copy some amount of your Cognitive aspect onto the Cognitive aspect of your target (the Cognitive transfer fueled by color-draining), the effectiveness of that Cognitive aspect determined by the precision and utility of your Command. Breaths, being Spiritual energy, give motive force to Awakened objects which then try their best to carry out their Commands. Poorly given Commands are those which cannot be carried out due to imprecision or logical errors, and result in the Awakened objects "erroring out" and simply eating your Breaths and copying your (flawed) Cognitive specifications without actually doing anything in the Physical realm (besides draining color as a side-effect). Main Block: Length is fun. /> EDIT: Edited a bit for clarity. Now I just need someone else to post, then I can ambush them with a 5 page analysis of why the flaws in my theory of Awakening aren't really flaws. Or, alternatively, someone could try and take a club to my theory and we could all have a merry time watching me try to salvage it, maybe refining it a bit in the process. EDIT 3: More stuff incoming! Side note: looking at the Warbreaker annotations, it's confirmed that Breaths affect Determination and "irritability" (Connection, perhaps). Ch 22.2 Annotation Summary for sake of time: I examine the discrepancy in the number of Breaths required to awake different objects and its possible cause, concluding that power is imperfectly transferred as a proportion of the "life-like-ness" of the target, while color drain ought to remain the same because the same Cognitive aspect is being transferred. Mostly just pulling quotes and tidying up corners that I hadn't gotten to before. The fun begins when I talk about the Lifeless and why they can be reprogrammed, pulling quotes galore (the PDF is nice for that) and concluding that Lifeless retain a large part of their original Cognitive aspect, if not their Spiritual aspect, and so provide a much firmer, more robust and flexible foundation for Commands than inanimate objects. The initial Lifeless Command, which awakens it, is thus mostly about buttressing the Cognitive aspect of the target so that it is intelligent enough to accept and adapt to new Commands. I then briefly address why Lifeless are necessarily colorless (because the Cognitive aspect you're tacking onto them is actually a revival of what originally attached to them) and move on to bang my head against Nightblood's weirdness, concluding that he (yes, he's a he in my mind) actually did successfully import a definition of "evil" from his Awakener, as evidenced by his perfect ability to judge people and attract/repel them accordingly based upon their "evilness." Everything else about him is nigh incomprehensible, though, so I'll leave Nightblood analysis to another day. Length is still quite fun. EDIT 5: I realized that I hadn't incorporated the fruits of my discussion with Nepene. They are as follows: 1) Instinctive Awakening as intuitive communication: 2) Breaths possible bring over some small smidgen of Identity.

Nope. Brandon is a sodium twinborn, Hoid is a dragonsteel compounder.