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I just saw the northern lights for the first time.

Here ya go:

Friend's: She cheated and used her graphics tab Mine: (with mouse -__-) I zoomed in to make it easier heheheh Yeah you can make straighlines if you rightclick start point rightclick end (lol)

LG33: Aftermath - Death (This was supposed to be put in a few turns ago but since I hadn’t done it until now, it might as well go here.) The Crockery stood bleak and cold on a sunny day in autumn, seeming to drain light from its surroundings. A solitary figure stole up to the building and knocked, making ripples of sound pass through the air, hollow and unheeded. “Yes?” the warden’s voice drawled. “Something for El’the Alveron, sir,” the voice replied softly. “Letter from his parents or something, not that he’ll be able to read it!” he snorted, and the warden laughed with him. “Come on, bring it in then,” the Warden said. “Mind your step, this way...” The Skindancer smiled, wearing a pretty little boy’s face, stolen off of the streets for the moment. Not like anyone would notice, or care. It followed the Warden down stone hallways, looking curiously around. It heard voices, coming through the walls all aroudn it. He even knew a few. Notable among them was Stryker Nox, whose voice was only recognisable through its unique timbre. Its words and tone were... “please, sir, help? I’m lost, I don’t know where I am. Can you help me? I’m lost...” It shook its head, moving onwards. Stryker might be recoverable someday, but unlike Locke, his insanity was fullblown and unusable to them, for the moment. Locke was the focus here. The Warden stopped and chose a ring without even loking at his ring of seemingly identical keys. He inserted it with a loud, metallic click into the door, and opened it cautiously. “Ah, come to rescue me from this poor excuse for a prison cell?” a voice drawled in a perfect, haughty nobleman’s tone. The Skindancer smirked. Locke had never liked his Cealdish body, and his mind had gotten a little confused in the transfer, so he simply remained very, very Vintish. “Letter from your parents, sir,” it said, hoping Locke would recognise him. Locke went still, then turned to meet its eyes. He nodded, once. Then he slapped his hand on the table. “Well? Bring it here, boy. I won’t get up on the whim of a servant boy!” It put the letter on the table, hesitating for a moment. The letter wasn’t important, of course. Locke had... a gift, perhaps, if one could call it that. His creation of insanity was focused, shaped. If played precisely the right way, he could shape others to his ends for a time, before anyone noticed they were insane. The price, unfortunately, was a bit of his own sanity. All Locke needed was for the Warden to enter the cell, pulling the Skindancer away from Locke. “Don’t go getting too- uuungh,” he said, eyes rolling up in his head. Locke glanced imperiously at the Skindancer, who backed away quickly, and then crouched over the Warden. “I am Vintish,” he said, words dropping unnaturally heavily from his mouth. “I am not insane, and deserve to be freed. I have far more power than you, and it would benefit you to release me.” He smirked and spoke normally to the other Skindancer. “See you in a couple days. Show yourself out, would you?” It grinned back and ducked out the door, soon skipping down the steps of the Crockery and into the world again, with nary a soul the wiser. After that, things started going downhill. Locke emerged, of course, victorious. But he found the University still, and quiet. Only a few students even attending anymore, so many were insane, dead, or expelled. In fact, he soon came to realise that he was the only non-Master at the school left. That wasn’t useful at all. He needed other students, people who would follow him, who weren’t ostracised or insane. And those were difficult to find. Naturally, they could still try to simply make everyone else go insane, but that was boring, and Locke preferred dramatic plans. Besides, the still-alive students were getting warier, staying in their homes and buying irritating amounts of protection. Finally, the last straw came. Cluny had been doing his best to keep Locke sane and on track, and reining in his megalomania. When Cluny, too, died... Well. Things got interesting. Locke was still an El’the, after all. And a Sympathist, too. Doors began to be stuck shut and unopenable but by carving holes through them. There were holes in the floor leading down to nothingness, fires bursting out of nowhere, water pouring from a solid ceiling in the middle of a meeting of the Masters. No one seemed to care, though. Or not enough. They were all in Imre, partying and not paying a whit of attention to the University. Well, except Chalks, who had wandered out when the Warden went completely insane and unlocked every prime-numbered door. (Fortunately, most of them were empty.) So Locke decided to be dramatic. On a cloudless night, one of the last warm days of fall, a barge sailed slowly down the river and moored just near the bridge in Imre. Every riverside tavern was full to bursting with expelled students and townsfolk celebrating the recent lack of deaths (mostly because they wanted an excuse to celebrate, in all honesty), but the river itself was dark and still. A glimmering was seen in the night. Or would have been, if anyone had been paying enough attention to notice. But no. No one noticed until the first boom split the air, and a stream of sparks soared high into the sky, heralding the golden outline of... a letter. L. Those who weren’t too drunk to do so rushed outside at the urging of their friends, staring up at the lines hanging in the sky. There was another boom, and another letter rose up in a stream of golden sparks. O. R. They stared up at the letters slowly joining the first L (which wasn’t even fading yet). LORD LOCKE ALVERON Then the letters exploded and blinded everyone looking at them on the riverfront, just for entertainment. There was, in fact, one sober person in the entire riverfront, who was shaking her head at the antics of the fireworks. “I think this has gone on rather enough,” she commented to the assassin sitting next to her, eating ice cream. “I’d rather agree,” he said, smiling. At first he’d been such a closedmouth boring person, but Dele had eventually gotten him to open up like she eventually did for anyone she came into contact with. “Be a dear and go deal with him, mister?” she asked. “Usual payment, plus smoothies afterwards!” The assassin laughed, looking down at the petite little heiress. At first, putting up with her antics had only been a necessary burden, but he was growing to enjoy them. “Smoothies it is,” he agreed, hoisting himself to his feet. “Mind giving me a lift?” She giggled and waved her fingers at him, speaking Wind through a mouthful of ice cream. He grinned, feeling the wind whisking him ofrom the ground. He absolutely loved this feeling of flying. When he touched down on the stones of the University, Locke was only just returning from his little expedition. He’d cleaned up - couldn’t bear to have the stench of soot and grime on him. It would not do for a nobleman to appear less than perfect. He’d decided, in any case, that that would be his grand finale for here. Once he left, the University would be entirely ruined, without a single student, and while it would recuperate, that would take months or years. And Locke had a different plan. Something far more important. He’d packed his bas last night, and soon enough he woul dbe off to Vint, to take power there and extend the power of the Vintish Empire throughout the whole of the known world! Unfortunately, he didn’t quite get that far. While he’d been preoccupied with imagining the glory of the soon-to-be-Empire, the assassin came up behind him and jabbed an iron dagger into his neck. The assassin stood back, watching with satisfaction as Locke dissolved into a pile of screaming ashes. “I do hope that’s the last of them,” he muttered. Louder, knowing Dele’s Wind was still nearby, he said, “Dele, dear? Those smoothies sound absolutely wonderful.” HE heard a giggle, and was whisked off his feet again. THUS ENDS THE SECOND INSTALLMENT OF HOLLY AND IRON Come back next year, for the third iteration! The Students have won! The Skindancers have lost! Orlok was killed! He was a Skindancer who had studied in Sympathy! Burnt was attacked by Skindancers, but didn’t die! Final Player List 1. Queensteph - Vintish Noblewoman Student Master of Archives 2. Randuir (Telar Pike) - Yllish Commoner Student 3. Hemalurgic Headshot (Noremac Quwester) - Aturan Nobleman Skindancer Master Physicker 4. Aonar (Aodhan Breacadh) - Edema Ruh Skindancer in Naming 5. Wilson (Sloan Walker) - Cealdish Commoner Student 6. Straw (Medicus Novis) - Yllish Commoner Student 7. Paranoid King (William Opuscule) - Yllish Commoner Student in Physicking 8. Ornstein (John Springer) - Aturan Nobleman Student in Physicking 9. Jondesu (Vell) - Yllish Commoner Insane Student in Archives and Sympathy 10. Drake Marshall (Greyson) - Cealdish Commoner Student in Physicking 11. Assassin in Burgundy (Jurdaan Longfell) - Yllish Commoner Student 12. Burnt Spaghetti (Dele Fajro) - Vintish Noblewoman Student in Naming 13. Orlok (Locke Alveron) - Cealdish Commoner Skindancer in Sympathy 14. Magestar (Magestar) - Vintish Nobleman Insane Student 15. Alvron (Stryker Nox) - Cealdish Commoner Insane Skindancer in Alchemy and Artificery 16. Arinian (Darian) - Aturan Nobleman 17. Stick (Stick) - Aturan NobleStick Student in Archives and Physicking 18. Darkness Ascendant (Balthazar Myrrh) - Yllish Commoner Student 19. Cluny the Scourge (Cluny) - Aturan Nobleman Skindancer Master in Arithmetic 20. Silverblade (Ryth) - Cealdish Commoner Student 21. Amanuensis (Esuan) - Yllish Commoner Student 22. BrightnessRadiant (Amelia) - Aturan Noblewoman Student in Rhetoric & Logic and Archives 23. Eolhondras (Eolah) - Yllish Commoner Student 24. STINK - Yllish Commoner Skindancer in Linguistics 25. Hael (Glavion) - Edema Ruh Insane Student 26. Sart (Titud) - Edema Ruh Insane Student in Rhetoric & Logic 27. Joe (Chalks) - Yllish Commoner Insane Student in Rhetoric & Logic and Linguistics Docs Master Spreadsheet Spec/Dead Doc Skindancer Doc Game Thoughts (more may come later but some explanations are needed now) GM Mistakes There were a lot of these, unfortunately. It’s a big game, and such things are bound to happen. Some of them were minor (like Drake PMing someone while he was expelled) and didn’t affect the game. I won’t mention most of those because there were plenty and I don’t think I could even remember them all. The major ones were as follows (in no particular order): 1. University actions allowed in Imre. By the time we realised that this wasn’t supposed to happen, it already had for about a cycle, unfortunately. This would’ve changed the game significantly - Burnt, for instance, could’ve either used Wind or amassed the protection she had. Not both, or not in such a short time. It might have also reduced the traffic in the Grey Man and overall allowed the Skindancers to have more of an advantage over the village in the late game. 2. Wind could spy on the Skindancer doc. This was a bad call, and I didn’t like it from the start. Let me clarify, quickly: Burnt asked to spy on anything Aonar said “not in public”. Which she didn’t actually intend to include the doc, but I read it as worded that way because she did want that. I vacillated a long time on whether that should be allowed at all, but finally allowed this: Each message of Aonar’s sent in the eliminator doc (there were about 15 of Aonar’s that turn, only 3 of which were truly incriminating) had a 5% chance of being overheard. Normal PMs had a 50 or 75% chance (can’t remember which, but it doesn’t matter enough to look it up). Burnt happened to roll one of those, and thus caught out Aonar. What Aonar pointed out later was that Burnt should’ve had to use Holly or Iron in order to spy on that doc, because the Skindancers would’ve been protecting themselves with Fae magic. This would’ve been a much better ruling had I thought of it, but I didn’t. Secondary note: Burnt only used that power once again (on a villager), and after that stopped doing so because she was uncomfortable with having that power. For which I thank her, and I agree. The reason I was so uncomfortable with this ruling is that it compromises the security of hte eliminator doc. This is a terrible idea, generally. One of the most important advantages the eliminators has over the village is perfect, non-public communication in which you can (usually) trust every member. Compromising that makes it much more difficult for the eliminators to do anything because they can’t communicate nearly as effectively. Thus, compromising the doc is a Bad Idea. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it turn out well, particularly when the evil team isn’t informed that they could be compromised (LG26 and Rae comes to mind, for instance). 3. Steph shouldn’t have been raised yet. This one is... complicated. Essentially, the first time Steph could’ve been raised to Master (assuming that there’s the same turn delay as with other elevations, which isn’t necessarily supposed to be the case) was when she was at the Grey Man in Imre, and thus not attending the University. Now, the rules state that if you’re not attending the University you cannot be a Master. You’re replaced with an NPC until you come back (or the next PC if there’s one available, and then you’re second in line). So, probably, Steph shouldn’t have been raised for another turn. If that had been the case, I’m nearly certain she would have been expelled by the Skindancers, who would’ve been (nearly) safe at that point. She wasn’t, because I (probably) mistakenly said that she should be raised anyway, thinking about how any other elevation can be raised while in Imre. This resulted in a few hours’ delay later on while I tried to figure out how to set it the most right. (I ended up just making her pay tuition, rather than deelevating her, basically because the call had already been made and while it was rather detrimental to the Skindancers as is, the call was done and I could’ve change it. Just like I couldn’t have changed the spy-on-Skindancers call after I’d made it. GMing is irritating like that.) Other Problems with the Game/Changes for Next Game First of all, yes, there will be another run of this. Come back in a year or so and play! Wilson and I have already discussed it extensively and started making the spreadsheet (which will be so much better than the current one is). Right. Problems we noticed with the game, some of which have fixes and some of which do not yet. Social Classes Vints have a lot of power. Seriously. A lot. And the 33% increase to tuition does nothing, particularly if they don’t even go to the University and just stay in Imre, spending substantially less than they would on tuition, and able to buy a great deal. So we’re introducing a 25% chance of being roleblocked each turn, unable to go to Imre and only having the general action period available. Hopefully that is enough. Similarly, Edema and Cealdish are very poor and it’s rather difficult for them to do anything. Particularly if Edema Talent Pipes stats are particularly low, which some were. That doesn’t exactly make sense flavourwise, so we’re adopting Hael’s suggestion of a base stat for them. They won’t be guaranteed to get the Pipes, but they’ll all at least have a decent chance. Cealdish have their discounts increased to 20%, as well, and I believe the Aturan detriment to arcane fields has been increased. If anyone has any suggestions on further improvements, those would be welcome! Cealdish, for instance, still only makes a difference in Imre, and otherwise has no effect. I’m not certain whether that’s enough for them or not. There’s also a question of how harsh those penalties should be just because of the question of how equal the game should be. Should every player be on equal terms, or is it okay to have some more powerful than others? Vints still are without doubt more able to do things than Edema Ruh, without worrying about money or having to deal with tuition reductions. Et cetera. University Fields So, the three arcane fields that aren’t Naming are all getting a boost. One person went into Sympathy. Orlok. Because there was an exploit (also getting fixed - you can now not take a loan out from Devi if you’ve defaulted already on one. He was going to become Master, give someone else Malignant Sympathy protection, and have one of them take out huge amounts of money and never pay it back because they didn’t need to worry about mommets.), rather than because he wanted it as a whole. So, this field needs a bit of extra attraction. A couple possibilities have been raised - the one I’m currently leaning towards is that mommets can target players, rather than only people who were killed. To use an Upgraded Mommet like that, though, significantly increases your insanity bonus (as you’d expect of something which can kill). Someone else raised another possibility, though, which I can’t quite remember right now... @GMs from last game? Nearly certain it was one of you three. Alchemy and Artificery were similarly underpopulated. These are difficult fields because not only do they increase your insanity, but also you can only practice them while attending the university and they don’t grant any additional action periods. Next time around, you’ll have a shared item-creation period, so that regardless of the general action you can always (while attending) be making more items. Arithmetics might also be changed, though we’re not certain how yet. It’s nearly entirely passive actions, which is boring for the Arithmetician. Naming is an interesting one. So... we ruled, this game, that you couldn’t learn new Names once expelled, on the basis that every other field can’t learn new abilities, so Naming shouldn’t be able to either. Which makes sense. The counter to this, however, is that it means that Namers can safely use all of their names without being afraid of more insanity. If Burnt had been able to learn new names, she would definitely have one by now. She used Bone four times, meaning a 100% chance of learning a new name, and so would have had at least a 1/12 chance of going insane for up to twelve turns. Maybe more, had she used the new Name and received more Names. If she had gone insane, the game would’ve been essentially won for the Skindancers. She is the only reason they lost. So that did have a material impact on the game. What it means in general is that Namers, once expelled, can use any of their names with impunity and not have any risk of going insane. I’m... not sure that’s any more balanced than letting them learn new Names. Thoughts on this would be appreciated. I’m not sure which way is actually better for the game. Also, not a problem, but I’m really sad no one got Plum Bobs or Bonetar. That would’ve been such fun. Imre Black Market First of all, two people placed contracts in the entire game. Two. And neither were taken. I am sad. Besides that, though, the Bodyguard/Assassin prices need significant tweaking. Or rather, the formula does. Because they remained too low for too long - had the prices been the same as last game, they’ve have been about 10 Talents higher. (They weren’t because base stock is based on number of players, and we had more this game.) So that was something of an issue with way too many Bodyguards and Assassins in the game. Oh, also. Bodyguards and Assassins will also probably have an upkeep fee. This’ll mostly come into play with Bodyguards, where you’ll have a (probably small) fee to pay each turn to keep them around. Apothecary There was a ridiculous amount of protection in this game. The Horse and Four’s increase to 40% protection, the lower price of Bodyguards, and Grams, primarily. So Grams are getting increased to 20 talents. Other than that, this is fine. Eolian The Eolian isn’t getting changed, but I’ll use this space as an excuse to point out that Lopen has horrible dice and the first four rolls for the Eolian were all failures. Including two who had a ridiculously high chance of success (12 or 13 out of 15, I think). Poor Wilson and Eol. Devi’s Was not used at all. Well... I think it was used once. Only change is that you can’t take a loan out if you’ve defaulted on a previous one. Gambling Den This is a new thing! To flesh out Imre, there will be a Gambling Den. (Credit goes to Alv for the idea.) Won’t fill out the details here, but it should be fun. Other That’s about it for problems with the game. The most major, I’d say, is that there was too much protection in the game. That made it very difficult for the elims late game - everyone had grams or bodyguards, practically. Burnt had two Grams. If she hadn’t been expelled, she’d have taken five turns to actually go insane. As is, it’d take three. Assuming she didn’t buy another bodyguard or gram before then. If anyone saw any other problems with the game or has any other suggestions, please mention them. Most of these were suggested by Wilson or Orlok, as they saw firsthand that these things were problems. More suggestions are always appreciated. Callouts Steph, for being the only Student to achieve Mastery. Randuir, for making ⅓ of the posts in the game when he was alive. (Seriously, you can see it recorded in the spreadsheet. It’s ridiculous.) Hemalurgic_Headshot, for being voted on a ridiculously long time after he became Master and uncomplainable. Aonar, for amazing RP and terrifying Naming suggestions that I’m sad I didn’t get to see. Wilson, for doing her own thing and ignoring the University despite her class. Also for being my surrogate mod and extremely helpful, after her death. And for creating this game in the first place! Straw, for original (if not terribly helpful) posts of graphs and pie charts. Paranoid King, for doing your best not to be a mayor. Ornstein, for... making no sense? Jondesu, for playing even while travelling/hospitalised, and doing pretty well until he went insane. Drake, for being the most involved in keeping to the spirit of the books. Assassin, for saying nothing and then dying. Burnt, for being the only person to stop the Skindancers from winning, and also for all of the ice cream dates with assassins. Orlok, for doing the absolute best he could with very limited materials late-game. Magestar, for a rather excellent character for me to play with. Alvron, for wanting his character to have the mind of an innocent child once he went insane. Arinian, for buying the only Bloodless in the entire game. Stick, for having an awesome death (and coming really, really close to surviving, too). DA, for an awesome character until he had to drop out. :/ Cluny, for somehow surviving almost the entire game despite heaps of suspicion the entire time. Silverblade, for being sabotaged first turn, escaping, and then doing nothing. Amanuensis, for being on the streets for the entire game (excepting Term 1), and somehow surviving every single time until killed by an Assassin. I dub thee Queen of the Mercenaries. Brightness Radiant, for learning a lot this game and learning that tunnelling is a bad idea. Eolhondras, for a fantastic music submission and hten not getting it anyway. Also for blocking an attack and knowing that Alv did that, and then neither you nor PK ever saying anything about it. >> Stink, for successfully and correctly calling out Cluny for being unsportsmanlike before I even knew there was a problem. Thank you. Hael, for being a good sport about being Edema Ruh and rightly calling out Jondesu for not realising that. Sart, for (along with Joe), going into Rhetoric and Logic. I was sad when you went insane, because R&L was mine last game and I wanted to see someone use the Law of Contraposition. Joe, for excellent order submissions even when insane. There’s a lot of chalk drawings inside the Crockery now. And to my co-GMs! Drought, for having slightly better dice than Lopen, adn staying up later than you should in order to help out. And finally, Lopen, who deserves more credit for running this game than I do. I made the spreadsheet and did writeups, but he’s the one who actually input and output all the PMs, dealt with Imre, and so on. He very likely did more work than myself and Drought combined, and I could not have run this game travelling like I am without him. Enormous thanks to Lopen for being a fantastic co-GM. Things I Learned Mods are nice. I’m getting a lot better about making calls, but I’ve now GMed or co-GMed 10 games (officially; counting what I did for LG32 and to a lesser extent LG18 and LG20-21, you could reasonably say 11) and I still used Wilson extensively once she died. Part of that was because she created this game, but part is also just because outside, unbiased advice is really, really helpful. Use your mods, everyone! That’s what they’re there for! Writeups were fun this game. I strayed away from the Life theme, which is rather sad. I should’ve used it for a QF, perhaps, with significantly fewer writeups than the ~20 required this game. Pity, that. I did like the tone of this game’s writeups, though, and the mix of seriousness and silliness. Sometime I’ll bring Varda back and flesh out her character a little more, because I was unsatisfied with it, but otherwise this game was good. I wasn’t terribly good at actually getting the writeups done on time, though. Which is okay, I know, but I dislike it immensely. There were reasons - mainly school and then travelling - but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a responsibility to get them done. So I apologise about that. Lastly, don’t GM games while travelling! Playing them is fine (for me, at least). I’ve done it plenty before. But the only other time I was travelling was for QF18, which was much less complicated and the writeups for the second half of that game never got finished. GMing while travelling is very, very difficult. Having to do a writeup late at night after seeing 2-3 attractions in a day is not something that I wanted to do, and often I just fell asleep instead. (As with this aftermath, for instance. I lay down to start writing, fell asleep instead, and woke three hours later enough to tell Lopen/Drought to say that the game is over, and I’d post the aftermath when I finished it.) I do not recommend it. At all. Well. I had a ton of fun this game, and I hope all of you did. There a lot of rough spots and mistakes in the game, but the ultimate aim is to have fun, and that much I hope was achieved. See you all next time!

Well, you're not dead nor are you locked away in the Crockery so I would say that you did survive. Where's the fun in that? My idea is more that the House uses a 1d20 and the player can pick up to five numbers. If they pick just one and win then they win 20x the amount gambled. If they pick 5 then they get 4x the amount they bet. Just having a 50/50 shot at winning is boring. Naming might be usable to stack the odds in your favor. There might even be different games of chance on different cycles. All depends on how it works out. I'm sure Wilson and co will do a great job of balancing it out. Just remember that I get a cut of all profits.

So I had this idea before Oathbringer excerpts were out, but I posted it here because i feel like the Soul Caster interlude supports the idea and wanted to include it. We know the 10 Heralds align with the 10 Radiant orders. We also know their were 10 Silver Age Kingdoms, each with a Capitol City and an Oathgate to Urithru. I believe (and think the literature supports it vaguely) that their are 10 Dawn Citys that have the resonate shapes from the Cynmatics (sp), and that these were/are the Capitols of the 10 Silver Kingdoms. So I kind of extrapolate that to mean each Capitol and each Kingdom has a Herald "patron". I think this can explain quite a few things and also might offer some possible reason but others. For example some reason use on Herald more than the others in their curses and lay terms. Some places are much more focused on one ideal/idea than others, such as Laws (Azir(?) / Nalan / SkyBreakers), or Leading and Protection (Kholinar / Jezrein / WindRunners), or Kharbaranth for Lightweavers (maybe). Anyways I havent sorted them all out and we're missing lots of data, but that's the concept. Now I wanted to take this a step farther and suggest maybe SoulCasters that aren't Fabrials (originals) were made in Aimia because their Patron Herald was ElseCaller (Battar). The reason they are so protective is they are only ones who know how to make the original type of Soulcaster, and they are protecting that knowledge (as suggested by others), and they have that knowledge because of their Kingdom/Capitols patron Herald. So perhaps the other kingdoms still have or had and are forgotten, things they can do that no one else can do as well becasue of who their patron herald was. Thoughts?

A SUHHHHHHHUHHHHHHHHHHHH DUUUUUUUUUUD

Hello! the joy to have found the 17th Shard! Definitely going to enjoy the journey through the Cosmere with all of you. I only started reading Sanderson last year and boy, was I disappointed in myself for not having discovered his works sooner. I have quite a bit to catch up on (Elantris, Warbreaker, shorts/novellas, White Sand,); fortunately, I grabbed the Hundle Bundle a couple of months ago . See you out there!

Welcome to Cosmere clickbait! A few of my favorites.. You'll never guess what we found on Roshar What really happened to Kelsier after his career Ten ways to know if you really are invested This five quotes will take your breath away!! Continue this shaders!!

Cycle 9: The Magic Inside of you As twilight settled on the eighth day, the remaining ponies gathered around Defecate Mac’s shack. He surrendered without making a fuss, but their departure was delayed slightly because he was just finishing baking a batch of cupcakes. He offered to share them, and the ponies munched on them as they escorted him to Zecora’s hut. On the way, Twilight Blossom stumbled over a root, but Defecate Mac was right there to catch her and help her back onto her hooves. They continued on, and as they did Defecate Mac chatted with Seeing Eye, reminiscing over the time they both got stuck in the mud trying to pull Seeing Eye’s cart out of it. Once at the hut, Defecate Mac politely held the door open for the mares to enter. Inside, he approached Princess Luna and said, “Well I reckon I better give this over to ya now. Wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to it.” He handed her a small pink gemstone in the shape of a butterfly. He turned and reached for the cup filled with the Elixir of Secrets… “NOOO!!!” everypony cried simultaneously. Defecate Mac turned to see everypony in the room diving at him with hooves outstretched to stop him from taking a drink. They all crashed into him at once, sending the cup in his hoof flying. He staggered back and lost his balance, and crashed into the large cauldron. The cauldron toppled, spilling Elixir all over the floor. The liquid flashed and began evaporating into mist almost instantly. The room grew very still, and Princess Luna spoke. “Defecate Mac! It appears that your kind deeds have won over the hearts of everypony here. However, we must still exercise caution. If nopony objects…” she paused and glanced around the room. “... then I decree that you will not have to partake of the Elixir. Go to your homes now, and be safe.” The ponies left, but as they did they all gathered around Defecate Mac, expressing their apologies for ever suspecting him and asking how they could make it up to him. After her first encounter with the Changeling in the Everfree forest, Prism had spent the whole next day researching and practicing magic spells. While many of the basic spells used by unicorns didn't work for her, she found that with the Element of Magic she was able to cast a number of powerful spells. By sunset of the next day she deemed herself ready. She set out into the Everfree Forest alone. She had considered bringing along a few other ponies, but she didn't want to endanger anypony else. Plus she still wasn't sure who she could trust or not. When she reached the spot where she had been ambushed by the Changeling she stopped and pulled an old book out of her saddlebags. She flipped it open to one of the pages she had marked and began reciting the spell written there. As she did the purple gemstone of the Element of Magic began to glow, and soon two sets of hoofprints appeared. One set glowed with a faint purple light- her own hoofprints. The other set glowed green- the hoofprints left by the Changeling. Resolutely she began following their trail. Sometime later she stood in front of a cave deep in the wilderness- the entrance to the Changeling hive. Two Changeling sentries stood guard. When Prism trotted up on of the guards hissed, “Who goes there? Show your true form, sister.” Prism responded by summoning up a blast of *magic- the same spell she had instinctively used on the Changeling that had ambushed her. The spell tossed the sentries back, stunning them as they smacked their heads on the stone behind them. Prism galloped past them and into the entrance cave. Her plan was simple- make her way to the heart of the Changeling Hive and free all the ponies that had been kidnapped. As she raced deeper into the Hive she prepared to unleash her magic on any Changelings she encountered, but the tunnels were strangely quiet and empty. Eventually the tunnel opened up into a large cavern, glowing with a sickly green light. The light emanated from dozens of pods stuck to the walls and ceiling. As Prism passed one clump of pods she peered inside and saw young Changelings, undergoing the metamorphosis from larva to full-grown Changelings. The metamorphoses were nearly complete. Prism gulped, scanning all the pods in the room. Soon the Changelings would have a small army ready to unleash on Ponyville. They had to revive Celestia and the others, and soon, or they would be in big trouble. Her eyes passed over a clump of pods, then she did a double take. Those weren’t changelings in those pods, they were ponies. And she recognized them. She saw Hidden Antler, and Schitzo and Jeeves. Oddly, one of these pods contained a full grown Changeling with a flower tucked behind her ear. She paused, resting a hoof on the pod that contained Ironpies. Her eyes continued onwards to the adjacent pods, and she gasped as understanding settled on her. She knew who the Changelings had been impersonating this whole time! I have to warn the others! This could be disastrous! She heard a pebble clatter behind her and she whirled to see dozens of Changeling creeping out of holes and fluttering down from above, and at their head was none other than Queen Chrysalis. The Changeling Queen chuckled, and said, “Thank you my little pony, for bringing me the Element of Magic. Now I only have to retrieve one more.” Prism cried out wordlessly, firing burst after burst of magic at the Changelings, but in the end she was no match for Queen Chrysalis and her swarm of Changelings. *NOTE for die-hard pony fans (minor spoilers for the last few episodes of season 6) Darkness Ascendant was lynched, but survived because he held the Element of Kindness! Brightness Radiant was kidnapped. She was a Village Pony with the Element of Magic! Now that the Element of Magic has been eliminated, all the other Elements lose their power- which in a nutshell means that Darkness Ascendant survives the lynch due to Kindness, loses her Earth pony ability along with the ability to cast votes, but then Magic is eliminated so she goes back to being normal. Player List EDIT: Forgot a vote tally! Vote Tally Darkness Ascendant (4): Bridge Boy, Paranoid King, Seonid, Brightness Radiant, Anonymous.

I... I'm sorry peeps, but there wasn't enough investments...and the bigger banks..they're monstrous...so sorry... *hangs closed sign

@Herowannabe, I'd just like to say that I love the writeups you've done this game. My internet access now is limited, but I've made time to read your writeups whenever a new turn is posted.

Not to contradict Chaos, but it wasn't quite "elegant." Simple, sure, but a bit unsatisfying since I'm still unsure of the root cause of the issue. There's something odd going on with the icons (which are technically characters in a custom font library, to give you a hint of how deep the rabbit hole goes) where they think they're much taller than they should be. Nothing could be done to convince them otherwise, so we just threw an overflow: hidden; onto the parent element and washed our hands of the matter.

I presume this dialogue section: The actual word is Brightcaller, not bright colors, so not as strongly pointed at Roshar. It's possible he's a worldhopper. Kind of weird that someone good enough to be a worldhopper would let themselves get stuck in a bridge crew. In any case, he apparently is from a place on Roshar called Rianal, though it's possible that he's lying about that.

Perhaps you'd get a malatium-shadow explosion, cosmetically similar to when two people use atium at each other? I figure he's so old and has had so many chances to remake himself, the normal two shadows would be insufficient. Follow up question, what happens if you burn malatium at a shardvessel?

Guys, fixing the Radiant icons on the main navigation is basically the best thing ever. I am so happy. Thanks @Kurkistan

Time for some much needed RP to liven up this sad and empty thread! I just finished watching season two of mlp last night, and I absolutely loved the finale episodes! So good! __________________________________________________ Prism had decided to do some research on changelings. She hoped that Twilight Sparkle wouldn't mind if she used her library while she was gone. She could've used Bracken's, but Wormy wanted to get out of the house and she didn't think he was ready to go back there yet. Later at the library... "Hmmm. Find anything yet, Wormy?" Prism was buried in a pile of books, and Wormy was pulling more off of the shelves for her. Wormy shook his head, and went back to pulling out books. "How come we know so little about Changelings?" She continued through her pile of books, until she came to one that caught her attention. It was an account of the last changeling attack on the kingdom! Written by Twilight Sparkle, herself! Prism squealed with joy! "I found something, Wormy!" She flew up by him on the ladder. "Listen to this. We were no match for Queen Chrysalis. In the end, we were only saved by the true love of my brother, Shining Armour, and Princess Cadence. I'm glad that the changelings didn't get a chance to infiltrate the rest of Equestria. I can't imagine how awful it would be if they were hiding amongst all of my best friends." Prism sighed. "I know what that's like." She continued to read the account of everything that happened leading up to the attack, and on to the end of the story. It was helpful how Twilight mentioned that the way she noticed that somepony was a changeling was because of how different they acted, but Prism hadn't lived in Ponyville for very long. How was she supposed to know if somepony acted different then normal, if she didn't know what their normal was? She supposed she could ask around, and see if anypony had noticed their friends acting strangely recently. Maybe they'd catch a changeling red handed. "Wormy, were going to do some investigating!" ________________________________________________ If anypony wants to be visited by Prism and Wormy, just go right ahead and add to the RP

They accepted the offer! I'm going to be a home owner!

I got my art book from Germany! They contain representations of paintings by a Michael Hutter! Wonderful paintings... unholy paintings! Woooo!

Hmmm, an idea for a win-condition for the limited god would be that he/she wants to be a king-maker. That is, you want to have the game end with yourself, 1 villager and 1 elim left. This in and of itself is tricky enough that you could probably drop all other restrictions. Suddenly, the god wants to keep his identity a secret,a s neither faction wants him to get close to achieving his goal. He also wants to be very careful with his knowledge, as he doesn't want either side to win too early.

I'm new to forums so bear with me here. Since this is my first forum EVER, I decided to make myself semi-known. To do so, I have made a personality quiz that determines what kind of Misting you are. I would appreciate some feedback and advice. Let me know if this is any good. http://goo.gl/Wni9WO Let me know what you get. Thanks guys!!

So, this came up in another thread, only it was fairly off-topic there, so it'd probably be better to open a brand new thread. [From the 'Love triangles parallel' thread, in answer to a post about Laral] This is actually my favorite Hesina theory. It is clear that she is more than she looks at first. Also, from WoK: It's made pretty clear that Hesina's parents didn't particularly care for Lirin. This is odd, to say the least - Lirin is a skilled surgeon, and a full citzien, and most people would consider him the ideal husband for a daughter. IMO the only reason why Hesina's parents would possibly have disliked her marriage to Kaladin's father is got to be that they considered themselves to have better social status. But Lirin is second nahn; and you don't go much higher than that. (We have a good idea of how lighteyes' dahn work from Shallan's POV in WoR - a brightlord's heir is the same dahn as his father, while his other children are presumably one dahn lower. I'm guessing the same goes for darkeyes' nahn - even if Hesina's family had been of the first, she would have been a second nahn citzien in her own right, making a marriage to Lirin's perfectly acceptable). Plus, there's the fact that Kaladin's parents wanted him to marry Laral to consider. From WoK: But they don't live in a large city and Laral is neither particularly poor (Roshone does marry her for her inheritance, in the end) neither that low ranked. In Words of Radiance, Kaladin refers to the citylord's family as 'middle-dahn'. Also, for what is worth (again from WoK): So, what I'm saying is that Laral's social status was theoretically much, much higher than Lirin's family, making such an union a preposterous idea, even of the paper. Even Lirin and Wistiow's apparent friendship wouldn't be enough for him to even consider marrying Laral to Kaladin - unless his family had some other social connection we weren't made aware of. Snote wondered if perhaps one of Hesina's parents was lighteyed. I don't think this is quite the case, because such a thing was bound to come up, especially by Roshone - but I think it's definitely possible one of her grandparents was. It makes sense. Rich merchant marries poor brightlady, or maybe the other way around; some of their children are lighteyed, some aren't. A brightlord/lady daughter and/or sister would have been out of question for a country surgeon, but a grandaughter, on the other hand.. I can perfectly see Hesina's parents as the kind of snobbish people who see themselves as 'better' than the rest of their social circle because of their lighteyed relations(heck, plenty of RL people are like this. I think I might have just described my boyfriend's parents...). Those people would look down on Hesina marrying Lirin, but would have no means to stop her from doing so (unlike a real noble family would). Also, for what is worth, from the same thread: So, what do y'all think? Of course, it might just be that Hesina's parents didn't like Lirin for some perfectly innocent reason, like he making a mess of their first family dinner, but what would be the fun in that?

So, this is an idea I've had for years now. I'm gonna go ahead and guess that I had the first inklings of the idea for this book about 4-5 years ago, before or right after I went into middle school, I think. It's gone through several phases, and the original idea is long gone (though it still sorta lives on), but I like where I'm going with it. This is gonna be a long post, probably, so I'm gonna split it up into some several sections. Magic: History: Prophecy: Story: Geography/Terminology: Order and Chaos:

I've finally emerged from the depths of what I like to call 'The Sanderson Sinkhole'! Having binge-read Elantris, the first Mistborn trilogy and the Stormlight Archives over the past few months, I think that I should be able to get by on the forums with relatively little exposure to spoilers while still answering some of my questions. Speaking of which, I just finished The Alloy of Law and now have something to ask: How practical do you think would aluminum bullets be? If they were possible, would they be pure aluminum or some sort of alloy? I haven't looked any of this up yet, but rather just wanted to know your thoughts on the matter. With that over, I'm off to start on Warbreaker (and to get over my fear of how large the Cosmere is turning out to be).

Oh yeah, duh. My mind was thinking towards the magic systems and Shards. Thanks.

I decided to give the FotoGenerator a try. Oh my Stormfather. I started out with my "go-to" doodle whenever I'm randomly asked to draw something: a simple cartoon owl. And then I decided to try something more ambitious... the Trollface. Is it not hideous?? XD

10 reasons to get Breath! #9 will shock you!

A group of bridgemen save a Highprince's life. What happens next will astound you! Murder and mayhem: what REALLY happened inside the Tower? Kaladin: "I don't care if she is betrothed to another man!"

I have recently installed Mint on my PC. I like it, but it is also a mess. I don't know how big \home directory should be (mine is like 70 GB), how big root directory should be, what about the other ones. As a newbie, it took me hours to install my first program, I think it was TeXmaker (Mint has LyX I think), and even then there were new problems, like texmaker saying log file not found. In windows there was a solution available, but for linux I didn't even know where to begin. I tried making a bootable Win 7 usb there, and again problem, UNetBootin won't recognise my USB (it was mounted btw). My mom has her own problems. Being a big Candy Crush player, she couldn't do it on Linux, somehow there's some Adobe Flash problem with it. I tried to install Chrome, but mine is 32-bit OS. In windows you can copy paste a file anywhere, but in Mint, I tried one drive (not the root one), but the option wasn't available. It automatically locks down when left idle (which is obvious), but when typing correct username and password, there was no change. It took me a good solid hour to work around this. And worst of all is the support system on the net. You have a problem, you look on mint forums, and they give you some codes for terminal, which work like black magic. I have sudo app install command pasted on my monitor. I think almost all of my problems are because of my inexperience (never used linux before), and some tinkering with it won't hurt much. But some book or reference will definitely be helpful. For starters, I have the official mint one with me.

Flash, I hope you're really learning from this game. Paranoid theories can be okay, but usually they just cost us villagers. In this case, a known and important role. Sure, he hadn't detained the right people yet (and I think he could have been more effective had he waited for better suspicions before detaining anyone), but he was basically proven village, and he essentially proved your Mistborn claim, which he wouldn't have had any reason to do if he was Elim. That almost clears you, though I'm wondering now if the Elims could indeed have a Mistborn. Giving them few other significant roles, and making the Mistborn a fairly new player, could certainly balance the game.

REJOICE all. I got fed up with this terribleness and finally asked for help, and @Kurkistan delivered. The icons no longer do this. If you were fed up with it, trust me, my neurotic tendencies of wanting everything on 17S to be perfect died every time it did it to me. My apologies on the delay. EDIT: Just to be clear, I did make several attempts and it was horrible, but thankfully Kurkistan had an elegant solution. I'm very happy.

Very interesting that you bring up robots, because it doesn't refute my argument. You are correct that Lifeless receiving a Command is not that different from machines getting a command, but on a different level. They are no different in that both have to understand what you want it to do in order to do it. The difference lies in how they are programmed to understand. Machines follow lines of code, while Lifeless are comparable to a human brain(another good comparison to a robot), which has to understand your words and draw meaning from them. No matter, I have another WoB that says interesting things. An Elantrian would have to connect to Investiture in order to not die from the soul-sucking, so I see no reason why this should not apply to everyone in the Cosmere.

So I've had this thought / view rattling around in my head for sometime and have been refining it as I reread books too. For me it's a little bit of head canon that helps me process things I read and makes them fit together. Arguably all I have is the same descriptions everyone else has and then some of my own brain storming on why, but anyways here goes. The Cognitive Realm (CR) is a place of the "ideas" of the cosmere's sapient lifeforms. The non-spren life forms with sapience such as humans and dragons, think about the things in the would around them and this forms in the cosmere as 'cognitive being' based on man's perception. I.e. Human see's a stick, has thoughts about the stick, and ideas of what it can and can't do an where it came from. All these thoughts related to that specific stick form the cognitive realms manifestation of the item. - That's kind of my back ground understanding to how human perception/ideas lead to CR 'creations'. Moving on to more of the actual theory portion: I believe that the sphere's we see in Shadesmar (Roshar CR) are all individual ideas of an object in the physical realm (PR). I think some people will say that's obvious maybe, but anyways. I think this is demonstrated when the Soul Casting CR sections where Stick is it's own sphere, same with the goblet, and so on. I'm of the opinion also that all items are separate, i.e. a chest on the boat was not 1 sphere, but 1 for the boat and a different one for the chest, even though the chest was "inside" the boat. This is because 'man' see's them as different items despite being housed in one or another. I think that the Shadesmar is a geographical opposite of Roshar because of the amount of ideas. I.e. Land is a sea of spheres, and ocean is relatively solid but squishy. This is because the land in the PR is full of physical objects all having their own idea/perception for 'man' so all needing a sphere. Every blade of grass, every insect, all of it, it all adds up to a giant "ball pit" of ideas. The ocean on the other hand is seen as 1 huge idea. So it's much more solid because it's a single idea spread over a vast area. Man still has ideas about fish and water plants, so those things still show up, but they show up as small sphere on a large firm squishy idea of an ocean. I feel like this is supported also by Kelsier's experience in the Secret history, and explains why Scadrial's CR is different than Roshars. That's because at the time Secret History happens, everything is dead and mostly covered in ash, so the humans of the region have significantly fewer idea/perceptions of the 'land" area so there are drastically less spheres. This leads to "land" being one huge idea, just like the ocean, and it its spread out and firm but squishy. Ash is an idea ll it's own and also spread over a huge area. So the only areas that get deep or turn into ball pits are those few areas where lots of ideas/perceptions of the PR are condensed, everything else is relatively empty. This same concept would also help explain the IRE and world hoppers abilities to move from planet to planet and why things are so "close" in the CR. Because 'man' also sees "space" as 1 big huge idea that is empty minus the other planets. So this to becomes "hard" walk-able area. Since majority of 'man' doesn't realize the vastness of space, the equivalent area in the CR is also smaller, matching in size to the limited perception of spaces vastness. (So basically if 'man' as a whole knew how fer things really were in space, I think everything between planets int he CR would be drastically farther, but cause the idea of vast difference is attached to the idea of space. Since it's understood to be big, but not truly known how vast, the space is still large but but in reality much closer and usable for traveling then true space is, for now.) So far this doesn't address spren, but i basically consider those to be idea spheres that receive a heavy investiture and/or have more significant PR cognitive force behind them. I.e. Cryptics and Honor spren are more advanced in CR because in the PR humans devote a lot of thinking/cognition/emotion to that specific idea, more so than a stick receives, or a chull. By that same thought though I do believe a CR sphere for a chull would be more 'advanced' than a stick if it was engaged in conversation by a soul caster. Basically your CR level of sentience is directly related to the amount of PR cognitive force/thinking done my sentient life in relation to that exact object or idea. I think that's it, sorry for the wall of text. TL:DR 1) Every PR object that is 'thought about' by a PR sentient being is an idea sphere in the CR. 2) PR areas with more objects perceived/thought about by humans = more idea spheres. 3) Large areas int he PR perceived as single thing (ocean) are a single sphere but spread out over more CR space in direct relation to how big it is perceived by sentient life. (Ocean is huge, so 1 huge spread out idea.) 3) Idea sphere's are physically firm to slightly squishy in the CR. This allows you to "walk" across the idea of the ocean. 4) Land on Roshar is a "ball pit" of idea spheres, so deep you can drowned because sentient life is aware of every stick, blade of grass, etc, so they all get to be an idea sphere. 5) Land on Scadrial during Secret History is firm and walk-able because humans only perceive, "land" and "ash" in most places, so in the CR it responds like the idea of the "ocean" 6) More PR thought or cognition about an idea = more CR sentience for the idea. I.e. A rock or a stick is quite dumb compared to Chull or a Boat. 6a) CR idea sphere's with enough Sentience either were invested by Honor/Cultivation, or reached a 'critical mass' that attracted enough Investiture that they became spren.

You made me realize of an added difficulty when it comes to the casting. I have been worried about casting actors which could realistically be father/son for Dalinar/Adolin, but I had not thought of Dalinar needing to be a realistic uncle to Jasnah, unless Gavilar was much older which we know wasn't. Obviously, this is also true for Navani whom ought to be a plausible mother for Jasnah, so not too young. Navani is actually closer to 55 than 45, so I'd say the casting ought to reflect it. For the rest, while it is common for readers to view Alethi as Caucassian due to it not being extraordinarily obvious within the books, we know they aren't. I feel we wouldn't be respecting the ethnicity of SA if we were to cast all roles with Caucassian actors. This being said, I am not convinced Asian is the right choice, I am leaning more towards Middle-East and I do think some Caucassian actors are best to portray characters such as Adolin and Shallan (because of the hair coloring). I unfortunately cannot support the choice of Keira Knightley or Natalie Portman as Jasnah, especially not the former. Not only does she not have the right coloring, she doesn't have the poised, elegant and refined vibe Jasnah does carry around her. She also is a white British actress which I think is exactly what we want to avoid for Alethi, especially full blooded ones considered to be the perfect representation of the physical ideal of Alethi. Also, Jasnah is curvaceous, not skinny: Alethi are curvaceous which is why willowy Shallan thinks she is an ugly duckling among them. Jasnah has to carry on an air of authority about her, she ought to be tall, imposing, even and utterly beautiful. Older than the younger characters (so she cannot look younger than Adolin and since female actresses often look younger, Adolin cannot look like he is 30), but young enough to be Navani's plausible daughter. Russel Crowe is not a bad choice for Dalinar, perhaps a tad conventional, but it definitely is a role he could pull off. He has about the right coloring, though he isn't ethnic, but may he could work. After all, the was "The Spanian" in Gladiator. Obviously, he'd have to put himself back into shape, but actors do it all the time, I see no issues here. I have also been advocating dropping in a few known names within the older roles could help the movie and well Dalinar is a prime candidate for this. Someone like Russel could be a nice compromise. They'd have to tan him some, but Russel tans easily, so a beach somewhere ought to do it.

I ran 2 D&D sessions in the past 24 hours, both went well

Exactly! Because the user would be absorbing the memory into their brain as if it belonged to them, I feel like there's a lot of room for exploitation. If someone were to store two memories at once together in a coppermind, for example: how to bake bread combined with a short list of reasons they believe all of society's problems can be blamed on the koloss-blooded, the person who tapped it might be so focused on the information they're intentionally absorbing that they don't recognize that there's some weird background information being pumped into their skull. Further, what if you had two people store everything they could into two large identitiyless copperminds...could they essentially swap bodies and pull some freaky-fridayish shenanigans?

Along the same line what if the person filling the metal mind had a vivid imagination and was tapping zinc could creating a false memory . Then in the false memory plant subconscious cues/triggers .

Would you then consider Nightblood to be his own magic system? Seons/Skaze? Lifeless? Chasamfiends? All of these are reliant on Investiture, but none are enabling magic on their own.

Me: "Can you give us a piece of dialogue from Honor to Cultivation" Brandon: "How long does security take around here? Get this maniac off of me!" Is Security a new shard? Let me know what you guys think. /s

Secret History 2 will be in libraries within a week Nightblood's Secret Revealed The intents of all the 16 Shards discovered!

WoB on Allomantic FTL!

If that's the case Shallan made a choice! The ships have sailed!

Is this supposed to be things sharders will click on or things people in the cosmere will click on? For the first one I have this. Adolin's Future Revealed!

The real reason the Heralds walked away. Cultivation's Secret Addiction Trell sex scandal! Edit : Are the Gods really Autonomy in disguise?

I'm no physicist, but isn't the sky blue because blue is a shorter wavelength and blue light gets scattered, making the sky around us blue (and it's less blue directly in the path of the sun because the blue is scattered away from the path of the white light)? And then the sea is blue on a sunny day because it reflects the blue light from the atmosphere. You can have a sky of a different color with a higher density of particles in the atmosphere, like we get at sunset. I think Venus has an orange sky? But them they've got crazy greenhouse gas effect so it's unliveable. How you can do it with a liveable planet I have no idea.

Okay. So. There are a couple ways to get them to appear different sizes, but it gets messy. If you have them locked in a giant plus symbol, all the same distance from the center of mass, then two of them will be the same distance from the third, and hence the same size. The fourth will be a little smaller. There are two ways to get more variation. 1) Make the planets different sizes. I'm not sure how exactly like Earth they need to be, but you could make some slightly larger or smaller than each other. This would work well with one of them having a defunct geo-magnet, as a smaller planet's interior would cool faster, and its interior would solidify, leaving it without a magnetic field. This is what happened to Mars's magnetic field. Note that this would cause the planets to have slightly different gravity and surface areas. The gravity you could mitigate by varying their density a little, i.e. the small planet could have Earth-like gravity by having an extremely large metal core. 2) Put the planets at different distances from the center of mass. This would get very messy very fast. Moon-planet systems are stable because one mass is much larger than the other. In cases where the bodies are comparable in size (Earth & Moon, Pluto & Charon) there are only two bodies with significant mass. However, four planets orbiting a mutual center of mas at different rates wouldn't even be remotely stable. It would fall apart within a matter of days. You would get the planets to have different sizes in each other's skies, but they would grow and shrink as they got closer and further from each other. I wouldn't really recommend this option. I don't know exactly how to make a planet's sky not blue without making it poisonous. You should probably have a chemist answer this question. I can tell you however, that without significantly increasing the cloud content of the atmosphere, you wouldn't significantly change it's appearance from space. The sea is blue because it sorta reflects blue light and absorbs everything else, not because it reflects the color of the sky. Again, you could in theory change the color of the sea with various chemicals, but I don't know how to do this without making it toxic to conventional life. Seriously, find a chemist if you want to pursue this line of reasoning.

(Wishful thinking, but) - The Doors of Stone, Patrick Rothfuss. We can always hope...