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Welcome to Benkinsky decides he wants to post his ideas somewhere before he gets sidetracked again. What is this? On a meta sense, it's what I thought of when we learned the names of shards that we haven't seen yet in RoW. I thought about how I imagined a world with Valor in presence, or in this case, Valor and Mercy. I know there's probably not another dishardic planet, and technically, Ilsaad isn't dishardic in that sense. Obviously, I don't think this is how we'll see Valor, but I just love the Cosmere framework so much and had a ton of fun inventing a planet shaped by the Shards Valor and Mercy. I will split this first post in three, and leave it up to you in what order you want to look at it. If you want to just jump into the story, start with the second part, Chapter 1. If you want the worldbuilding laid out for you, start with those. And if you want to go for the Arcanum Unbounded feel, start with the essay. Alright, that's the preface, enjoy. I look forward to questions and feedback and whatnot Essay on the Ilsaadi System: Blurb: Chapter 1 Ars Arcanum Worldbuilding/behind the scenes/Ilsaad as the Cosmere at large meets it. Actual spoiler/plot-relevant revelations. I think this is the longest post I've ever made anywhere. Hope you enjoyed it!

With the RoW chapters hinting at the capabilities of Logicspren Fabrials, and the knowledge that Hoid wants Instant Noodles to be a thing, I wanted to ask your opinions about the following: By the time of larger crossovers, whether that will happen in the Space Age or earlier, what do you think will be the planets main strengths and weaknesses? Not purely magical, but also technological. Scientific. What do you think might different planets have developed earlier than others, and why? What would say Sel bring to the table that Roshar doesn't have? A few thoughts from me, correct me on whatever I'm wrong with. What are the most technologically advanced societies we know of so far? - Scadrial, especially Southern Scadrial. They've already got flying vehicles, and Feruchemical devices can open up a lot of possibilities, and guns are a thing too. However, one of the real gamebreakers that Scadrian society has, is Canned Food. A huge gamechanger for feeding people. It probably won't be long until they have refrigeration, whether by conventional means or using feruchemical heat saving. - Taldain, or rather, Darkside. They also have guns, and as far as I know White Sand is one of the earliest stories, so by the time of Era 3 and 4 who knows what they have developed? Seeing how Magic is not a thing on Darkside during White Sand, I think they might get the closest to technological development how we know it on Earth. And even if we take Sand Mastery into account, I can't imagine nearly as many applications for it as with Feruchemy or Fabrials. - The Ones Above. Who are they? Nalthis, Scadrial, Taldain? They're definitely advanced. Was that a Fabrial they were using? And what about the others? - What might Nalthis come up with? Nightblood is 99% going to be a major component of the crossover stories, so there might be more coming from where he is from. Shardblade 3.0 might be the first of more... somethings. If you can create a sentient sword that is that destructive, lets pick up Dalinars thought of "why are there no Shardhammers? or tools? why just swords?" Or will Endowments Endgame focus more on certain Returned giving up their Divine Breath in key moments to do specific things? Also possible. Or maybe the existance of Breath will push Nalthian society somewhere totally else that I'm not thinking of. - Roshar. Fabrials. Computers? Flying ships? Long range communication. Easiest access to Shadesmar we've seen so far. Soulcasters (see what I said about Canned Food.). - Sel. Cosmere aware people will probably be interested in developing spacetravel, much more so than people from Roshar with their easy access to the cognitive realm. We already saw the Ire, but afaik we have very little knowledge of any exceptional scientific progress there. - Threnody. The Ire considered it a possibility that "the forces of Threnody" would join the game. Were they thinking of the people there, the shades... or the Evil? Nazh used a Shadegun... weaponised shades maybe? Or maybe my wild theory that Kelsier will try (and succeed?) to reforge Ambition, and that's Threnodies largest contribution to the Cosmere Endgame? - First (and second and third and fourth) of the Sun, Ashyn, Braize? I'm very exited to hear thoughts from others on what you think all of these planets might come up with by the time crossovers happen more and more, and where you think scientific development might go on planets that arent Scadrial or Roshar.

So I visited https://cosmere.es/, and they have a really cool wallpaper that shows five Shardworlds. The middle one is Roshar with it's easily recognizable supercontinent, the left one is probably Scadrial during the Final Empire as it's basically a hellscape but I can't figure out the rest of them. I'm barely a beginner in Spanish, so I can't quite navigate their site either (& not getting great connection in the monsoon season so the auto-translation isn't working well, & I'm slow at tech) If they do answer the question somewhere on the site itself could someone link me to that please?

Is there such a thing as a former major shardworld? As far as my understanding goes, A major shardworld is a planet with an active shard or a splintered shard or two. While a minor is one like Threnody where there is no shardic influence just the planets "natural" magic. Could a planet have had a shard on it at some point in time, but then it left to go and cause destruction (or create life) elsewhere?

A weird Scenario come to my mind an I want the other Sharder's opinions. What will happen if a Shard invested every bit of its power ? More in details I though about creating a whole planet and life in it. Of course for a Shard to running out of Investiture, the planet have to be huge, having many lifeforms and the lifeforms have to be high Invested (so Invested that, an Nalthis guy seems a Drab to them). It would be fashinating to imagine a world like that but my main point was. What will happen to the Shard and its Vessel ? Any Ideas ? Some outcomes that came to my mind are: - The Shard is so high spread that the Vessel in the end became a Sliver and lose the Shard. - Nothing happen but the raw power avaliable to the Shard is quite nothing PS: This idea come to my mind while reading the theory about Threnody as a memento for a dead shard. But it has moved away very quickly from that starting point.

In Moogle's recent thread about Focuses, I mentioned how I remember Brandon saying in a past interview that Shardworlds had a certain influence on how Investiture manifests on them. I couldn't recall at the time where I read that WoB, but after an hour of wading through every single mention of "planet", "world", and "Shardworld" in Theoryland's Sanderson interview archive, I finally found one piece of evidence that I wasn't just hallucinating: (Edit: I finally found a good WoB for this! Now, back to the theory. ) So it seems that both the Shardworld and the Shards have some say in what goes on Investiture-wise. Now, we know that Shards have a particular Intent through which they can shape their Investiture (e.g. Ruin prefers Investiture that ruins things). But how about Shardworlds? Do they have an Intent as well? For example, did the soul of Scadrial simply decide on a whim that any Shard that Invests in it shall have to deal with metals? Or is metal-based Investiture somehow integral to the nature of Scadrial? The idea of Scadrial being inherently associated with metal-based Investiture first popped into my mind several weeks ago while I was staring intently at the table of Essences for something like the hundredth time (don't judge!). I looked at the Essence of Foil, and my mind went straight to Scadrial. Well, I highly doubt Sanderson would make Kalak and his Knights use Scadrian Metallic Arts (though I certainly wouldn't complain if he did! ), but it still got me searching for patterns relating Shardworlds and Essences. Here are some other coincidences I noticed: The Essence of Vapor has the Body Focus of Exhalation. This reminds me of BioChromatic Breath on Nalthis. The act of speaking requires exhalation, which makes spoken Commands exhalation-based. Vapor also has "Just" as its Primary Divine Attribute, which I assume pertains to Skybreakers' devotion to man-made laws, which is basically what Commands are all about. Then there is the importance of the color black both to Nalthian Investiture (as the best color for Awakening) and to Vapor symbolism (as the color of smoke and smokestone). Also, we see in WoR that Nalan (the Herald of the Skybreakers and of Vapor) has somehow gotten hold of a certain BioChromatic Entity that he claims is a suitable tool for Skybreakers. The Essence of Talus pertains to rock and stone, which I believe can be interpreted as simply the solid landmass of a planet. Selish Investiture requires some sort of connection with a region of land, the shape of which is used in all the Form-based abilities there. Talus' Body Focus is Bone, and there are at least two bone-based Investitures on Sel. The Essence of Blood is associated with the Order of Lightweavers. There is another planet where one particular manifestation of Investiture is also called Lightweaving: Yolen. So basically my theory is that each Shardworld has an affinity to a particular Essence, and this affinity affects how Investiture manifests on that Shardworld no matter which Shard or Shards occupy it. Ten Shardworlds, ten Essences. I've proposed Essences for Scadrial, Nalthis, Sel, even Yolen. Now you might be wondering: What about Roshar? I intentionally left that Shardworld from the list above because it is by far the trickiest to analyze. The problem is that all ten Essences are involved in Rosharan Investiture. Heck, I even posted a theory once about how the ten Essences themselves are the focus on Roshar. How can that be if a Shardworld only has affinity to one Essence? In order to solve this puzzle, I had to figure out what all Rosharan Investiture have in common. I had to ignore distractions caused by Honor, Cultivation, and Odium's Intents, delve into more abstract Realmatics, and discover what Roshar the Shardworld really is all about. And when I tried to do that, the first thing that came to mind was one word: spren. We know now that spren already existed on Roshar even before the Shattering, so they must be the key to finding Roshar's Essence. And what are spren, again? Jasnah says spren are "fragments of the Cognitive Realm that gained sentience." And what is the Cognitive Realm? Shai from Emperor's Soul defines it as "how an object is viewed and how it views itself." In other words, the Cognitive Realm is where perceptions exist. Just as the Spiritual Realm is where abstract concepts originate, the Cognitive Realm is how those abstractions receive Identity by being sensed, both by themselves and by others. The Ten Essences, on their own, are just abstract concepts. In order for them to gain Identity in the Cognitive Realm, they need to be actualized into things that are more concrete and perceivable, like gemstones, or the Body Focuses, or the Soulcasting properties, or even the different types of spren. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed apparent that all types of Roshar Investiture deal with making the ten Essences perceivable in all sorts of ways. Imagine Roshar's soul as a glass prism for Investiture. Light (Investiture) hits it on one side, and a rainbow of colors (the Essences) appears on the other side. As it turns out, there is one Essence associated with glass prisms and perception. It is the Essence representing the glass Identity beads of Rosharian Shadesmar, as well as its obsidian land. It is the Essence with a Body Focus that can perceive things (the eyes). It is the Essence whose Latin definition pertains to being viewable. It is, I believe, the Essence of Roshar: the Essence of Lucentia. Interesting developments: (2014-04-09) I found a possible origin for the table of Essences, and it supports the Shardworld-Essence theory. (2015-12-04) Yata posted a WoB that seems to contradict the theory. (2016-02-29) After Mistborn:Secret History, I've decided to significantly revise my thoughts on the matter and create what is technically a brand new theory .