Darkside magic, will we ever learn more?

[BranSanFan]

Has Brandon ever said if we will ever learn more about the magic system on darkside from White sand, either in the graphic novel or a prose version?

I really want to know what's going on with scythe, he sounds very Lord rulery to me.

White sand (prose) is one of favorite cosmere stories and it ends on such a cliffhanger! I hope he goes back to the world some day.

[Weltall]

Brandon has plans for other works set on Taldain that would take place after White Sand, though what format they would be in is apparently up in the air. This would presumably include Darkside's manifestation(s?) of Investiture, though it's made clear from the essay in Arcanum Unbounded that whatever is going on there is a lot more subtle than Dayside's Sand Mastery.

[+Ark1002]

It isn't har to be more subtle then Sand Mastery. Mistborn power is more subtle. Almost anything is more subtle then glowing threads of sand flying through the air.

[Karger]

On 8/30/2018 at 3:41 PM, Ark1002 said:

It isn't har to be more subtle then Sand Mastery. Mistborn power is more subtle. Almost anything is more subtle then glowing threads of sand flying through the air.

Mistborn Spoilers

Spoiler

I did not anything anyone anytime would describe Wax as being in any way subtle.

 

[+Ark1002]

On 5/9/2019 at 7:41 PM, Karger said:

Mistborn Spoilers

  Hide contents

I did not anything anyone anytime would describe Wax as being in any way subtle.

 

He can be.

Fly through the air, but if on the ground no one needs to notice.

Maybe Elantrians are less subtle. Glowing skin, glowing symbols, changing materials.

[Elegy]

There's this WOB about Investiture on Darkside:

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Phantine

Is there more than one magic system in white sand?

Brandon Sanderson

Only one in the current outline.

WeiryWriter

Does the one magic have more than one variation? Because I got the impression that there was something going on on the Darkside? Though I guess the Sky Colors (I think that's what they're called, I read the draft you send out early 2014 so my recollection is a little fuzzy) don't have to be related to magic. Or you could have written them out if they were...

Brandon Sanderson

In intended the colors on Darkside to be more a matter of the ecology than the magic--though, on that planet, magic and ecology are very closely tied together. (Well, I guess most of the magics are.)

/r/books AMA 2015 (July 29, 2015)

While Khriss mentions that Autonomy Invested into Darkside, there's no mention of that Investiture being used by humans. It's more comparable to what's going on on First of the Sun, with Investiture manifesting in ecological processes.

That obviously raises the question: What's with Scythe ... I believe he doesn't need to be an outgrowth of a local magic system. It's more likely that he's a manifestation of what a Shard can do with its powers.  There are personas of Autonomy influencing the things happening in White Sand's story:

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Argent

I've also been talking with a couple of friends about Ambition, who happens to be a Shard I love unconditionally just because of his?her? mandate. So I should ask - how tight-lipped do you intend to be with information about it? Can we prod for a little bit of trivia, or is it too early for that?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to be pretty tight-lipped for now. Let's at least let White Sand finish first--you will find her in there, though her touch on the story (directly) is light. She prefers to allow her personas to become the focus of attention.

General Reddit 2016 (Nov. 28, 2016)

So it seems very likely that Scythe is an avatar (or at least a persona) of Bavadin. There are cases to be made for Heelis to be Scythe's Dayside equivalent, but those are not quite as convincing. So Scythe's supernatural powers are most likely because he's heavily Invested/an avatar of Autonomy, not because he uses a specific form of Invested Art.

[Thunder_93]

Question something of topic:
Who is that Scythe you guys are talking about? I didn't read the White Sand Comics yet, but I did read the unpublished book, and I really can't recall that name, and neither did I find anything on the coppermind when searching for that name...

Somebody care to explain? 

[Elegy]

10 minutes ago, Thunder_93 said:

Question something of topic:
Who is that Scythe you guys are talking about? I didn't read the White Sand Comics yet, but I did read the unpublished book, and I really can't recall that name, and neither did I find anything on the coppermind when searching for that name...

Somebody care to explain? 

Scythe is the emperor of the Dynasty who rules most of Darkside (with few nations still resisting). His policy aims at isolating the nations of Darkside and making travel as hard as possible (a very Bavadin thing to do). Gevin (and after him, Khriss) traveled to Darkside to find out if Sand Mastery can be used as a weapon to fight against Scythe. You could call him a "greater scope villain", since he's never seen, but they speak about him. Baon talks about his supernatural powers - ff you have the prose version handy, check chapter 24 in there, in the middle of that chapter there's that scene where Baon talks about it.

I guess he would have been the main villain of one of the two planned sequels, but since those presumably won't happen anymore, maybe Brandon will find other ways of implying how the resistance against him went along after the events of White Sand.

[Karger]

9 hours ago, Thunder_93 said:

Who is that Scythe you guys are talking about? I didn't read the White Sand Comics yet, but I did read the unpublished book, and I really can't recall that name, and neither did I find anything on the coppermind when searching for that name...

He also does not seem to age.

[Elegy]

Yeah, that's also noted in Baon's explanation. Scythe also seems to be able to control people in one way or another (but that seems very vague and could be just rumours. Also, the reason why any search on the Coppermind is fruitless is White Sand Prose not being canon and Brandon generally not wanting people to talk about it (and other unpublished stuff) outside of sub-forums that are specifically designed for it (like this one). I wonder if that will change once the Graphic Novels are completed.

[Karger]

1 hour ago, Elegy said:

Yeah, that's also noted in Baon's explanation. Scythe also seems to be able to control people in one way or another (but that seems very vague and could be just rumours. Also, the reason why any search on the Coppermind is fruitless is White Sand Prose not being canon and Brandon generally not wanting people to talk about it (and other unpublished stuff) outside of sub-forums that are specifically designed for it (like this one). I wonder if that will change once the Graphic Novels are completed.

Preaty sure all of the graphic novels will take place on dayside(if they are anything like the prose they will have to) and even those KEEP GETTING DELAYED.

Edited July 25, 2019 by Karger

[Elegy]

22 minutes ago, Karger said:

Preaty sure all of the graphic novels will take place on dayside(if they are anything like the prose they will have to) and even those KEEP GETTING DELAYED.

Yeah, the Graphic Novels won't leave Dayside. I meant that Brandon might allow White Sand Prose discussions on a more casual basis once all volumes are out, since the story will be canonized from that point on and there will be no reason to keep being secretive about it.

By now, I'm almost positive it won't be out until the date for the physical release at the earliest, so mid-September. I honestly have lost much of my eagerness for that release. I just want to see if anything strongly clashes with the prose canon and if I can keep that one as head-canon.

[Honorless]

What do we know so far of Darkside Investiture?

That it is called Shifting Colors, originally Skycolors. Sounds like a reference to auroras

That Darkside is pretty glowy

Quote

OlanValesco

I can't remember all the questions that were asked, but I did ask him about the cosmological feasibility of his worlds. He replied that in the Cosmere he could set up worlds so that they weren't feasible on a geological timescale, but so that they could still work on a million-year timescale. I asked how Darkside could be possible, and he said that Darkside is fueled by UV light. Everyone's fingernails, eyes, and teeth glow over there. The plants are adapted to live in this spectrum of light.

In reply to who his favorite character was he said, "I'll give the typical Robert Jordan answer and say the one I'm writing right now. And today I was writing—oh wait, that would be a spoiler."

That the colours can be manifested by humans, as Khriss wished for access to her colour as make-up and commented on Kenton's eye colour being very bright despite him not having a Skycolor

That Violet is the colour of nobility, though that might be societal rather than Investiture construct, but also note that Skathan (Scythe in the prose) has violet Skycolor.

I think I've mentioned this elsewhere but Skathan could also have done what the spren did on Roshar or the Five Scholars on Nalthis: discover Surgebinding and Awakening respectively. Basically that he found a way to tap into the natural manifestation of their Investiture system.

His possible abilities mentioned so far are agelessness, healing and mind control.

[Karger]

9 hours ago, Honorless said:

His possible abilities mentioned so far are agelessness, healing and mind control.

I personally doubt mind control.  At best he has some kind of soothing.

[Elegy]

On 2.12.2019 at 7:07 PM, Ookla the Prolific said:

I personally doubt mind control.  At best he has some kind of soothing.

The detail in the prose version that implied mind control was cut out in the GNs. Brandon either didn't want to give away too much information about him (unlikely since he knows a lot of people have read the prose version already), or he cut it completely. Either way, it's not canon as it is. The only "magical" thing about him that's still canon is his agelessness.

[Eternal Khol]

On 12/1/2019 at 11:07 PM, Dreamer said:

What do we know so far of Darkside Investiture?

That it is called Shifting Colors, originally Skycolors. Sounds like a reference to auroras

That Darkside is pretty glowy

That the colours can be manifested by humans, as Khriss wished for access to her colour as make-up and commented on Kenton's eye colour being very bright despite him not having a Skycolor

That Violet is the colour of nobility, though that might be societal rather than Investiture construct, but also note that Skathan (Scythe in the prose) has violet Skycolor.

I think I've mentioned this elsewhere but Skathan could also have done what the spren did on Roshar or the Five Scholars on Nalthis: discover Surgebinding and Awakening respectively. Basically that he found a way to tap into the natural manifestation of their Investiture system.

His possible abilities mentioned so far are agelessness, healing and mind control.

I think the Skycolor/shifting colors is just the color the darksiders fluoresce.

WoB says that their Hair, Eyes and Nail glow from the UV Rays.

Khriss notes on Kentons eyes not having Skycolor.

And Khriss says so in the AU:

"The ultraviolet light that shines through the ring causes a certain reflective luminescence"

In the prose khriss talks about replacing the sunlight with Skycolors.

I imagine in the twilight of Darkside, the glow from the people is probably brighter than the incoming light from the star.

Also speculating here but I imagine the colors would reflect back into the atmosphere to make a sort of Aurora like @Dreamer noted.