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Ah, but then we'd never learn calculus because calculus is a seven-book prequel series that won't get published for another few decades. And you can't ask the teacher questions 'cuz he'll just tell you RAFO.

I am a grad student. As such, I do a lot of reading. The books I read are….shall we say, less than interesting. I do my best to read them. I do my best to pay attention. Yet every time I get more than a few pages in, I find myself drawn, as if by a magnet, to more interesting works. Let's face it: Brandon Sanderson's works are addictive. Once they get going, it's nearly impossible to put one of his books down. And this is a problem for a student who just wants to finish her reading and pass her summer class. So. I have an idea. It's brilliant. It's crazy. And it's totally going to work. We get Brandon Sanderson to write our textbooks. I don't know how we'd do it. It'd involve a lot of fan letters, a lot of asking nicely, and probably a good deal of whining. But once he buckled down and did it—well, we'd have the perfect solution to grad school! A textbook that is nigh-impossible to put down—and a host of classes that are nigh-impossible to fail. There is no possible way this can't work, guys. It's foolproof.

Night 5: Celebrations The holiday of Bel Tine usually brought with it joy and festivities, when children could laugh and play in the Town Greens, young women would dance around the ribbon pole, and peddlers would bring tales of glee and fireworks to be launched into the night sky, amazing and dazzling the villagers with their magnificent displays. But the village of Drell's Crossing was in no state for celebrations, and the town square lay empty and silent, filled with the wreckage and debris that had built up in the town, the silence occasionally broken by the caws of crows as they gorged on the dead that lay in the streets. No. There was no happiness or celebrations in the village. Instead, there was the grim determination that the villagers had settled into, hoping beyond hope, trying to rid their town of the infestation of evil that had plagued them recently. The citizens of Drell's Crossing didn't know why the Shadow had chosen them to torment, but they would show they would not lie down meekly and let the Dark One win without a fight. Mayor Waes strode up through the village green, a solemn expression on his face as he visibly tried to ignore the taint of madness he was suffering from as a result of his work with Saidin. The fact that a male channeler was their leader was a sign of how desperate the villagers were seek out and destroy the shadow with. At first Waes thought it had just been his madness when the other villagers began speaking to him in strange tongues, making weird, guttural noises that sounded like long strings of numbers when they opened to mouths to talk, but he realized with horror that he could understand what was being said and respond in kind as well! Once the villagers realized what was going on, they were visibly shaken, but undeterred in their mission to hunt down a servant of evil, and with the setting sun, Bunnt was called up to the front of the crowd. Despite a quiet persistence that they had gotten the wrong man, the quiet farmer resigned to his fate and without a struggle let his neck be fitted for the noose. He lowered his head and quiet sobbing sounds could be heard. Waes had tightened the noose and was getting ready to pull the lever when Bunnt suddenly tossed his head back and everybody realized with horror that he wasn't sobbing, but laughing! "You fools! You think this is a victory, but I have watched as you have torn yourselves apart in your feeble attempts to find me! This noose, and all of you, have more blood on your hands than I do! Now watch! I may die, and you may feel a small, fleeting feeling of pride swelling up within you, but know that it is a hollow victory! Now go! Hide back in your homes and cower in fear, waiting for the Darkness to strike." He raised his hands up into the air and let out an insane, maniacal laugh. "And then, shall the Lord of the Evening come. And He shall take our eyes, for our souls shall bow before Him, and He shall take our skin, for our flesh shall serve Him, and He shall take our lips, for only Him will we praise. And the Lord of the Evening shall face the Broken Champion, and shall spill his blood and bring us the Darkness so beautiful. Let the screams begin, O followers of the Shadow. Beg for your destruction!" With a yank of the lever, the floor dropped out beneath Bunnt and with a grunt he fell through the hole and his neck snapped with a sudden, final crunch. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bunnt was a Regular Darkfriend! Lynch Tally: Bunnt (5) - Nath, Leas Fel, Erik, Witless(+1) Nath (1) - Khamsi Night 5 will last 48 hours and will end at 1:30PM EST Sunday, July 6th! Unable to get an exact count-up or player list over at the moment, I'll try and get it updated in later if I get a chance.

A month or two ago I saw an advert for Skittles on TV which had two distinct effects on me. You've probably seen it, the Midas themed one where the guy is depressed that he can't touch anything without turning them into skittles. He tries to answer the phone and it turns into a pile of skittles, he gets frustrated and touches his desk; it collapses into a cascade of coloured candy. First and most obviously it reminded me how much I love skittles, they're yummy. Normally I skip or mute all adverts but this one actually got to me. I've tasted many a rainbow in recent weeks (you know, the skittley type, not the other type... not that there's anything wrong with... you know what, never mind). Secondly though I was thinking 'So that's what its like to fall into Shadesmar'. Everything around you losing it's form as it collapses into a sea of tiny beads. Except of course a wee bit more colourful. So now I challenge you all to read the parts of WoR & WoK where Shallan or Jasnah find themselves in Shadesmar without thinking of magical skittles, cause I can't anymore. I can't say I'd mind drowning in Skittle Shadesmar all that much. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go to the corner shop for something.

With regards the Master... I have a story I would love to see happen. I doubt it ever will, of course... but I've been thinking that it would be a very cool situation if the Doctor restores Gallifrey, goes to meet his people, the High Council assures him they locked away/whatever Rassillion, and he is taken to mee the new leader. And sitting in the chair is the new High Lord President of Gallifrey: The Master.

"Few people have seen a High Epic in their glory. Fewer still have seen the glory of an Epic who is high."

Shardplate is a Radiant’s Spiritweb Introduction There’s been a lot of speculation about what Shardplate actually is made up of. I had posted parts of this in another thread, but I decided to take those parts and expand them out here. As noted in the thread title, I believe that Shardplate is actually composed of the Radiant’s spirtweb, made manifest in the Physical Realm. Logic We already know that a Shardblade is actually a spren in the Physical realm. When the Recreance happened, the spren “died” and were left as the Shardblades that are currently used in most of Roshar. These Shardblades act a bit different than the spren version we see Kaladin wield (they can’t change shape, need ten heartbeats to be summoned, etc). Shardplate acted differently in the times before the Recreance. They glowed with Stormlight and Radiants were able to manipulate the Plate at will, adding and removing their helmet in the blink of an eye, for instance. The Plate changed shape similar to how a live Shardblade could change shape. This changed during the Recreance as the Plate no longer could appear or disappear at will and no longer glowed with glyphs. In essence, the Plate died in much the same way that Shardblades died. So why do I think that the Plate was/is the spiritweb? First, take a look at how the Radiants acted directly after disposing of their Plate. The Radiant that Dalinar caught up with simply ignored him, not speaking to him. This is very similar to how a Lifeless acts. Vivenna notes that Clod had an “emotionless face”. The Lifeless have a bit of their spiritweb left[1]. The Radiants giving up their Shardplate would likely be in the exact same situation. The Shardplate has certain points on it that, in modern times, contain gemstones to power it with Stormlight. I believe that these points are the exact same points that would be the Hemalurgic points in the spiritweb. They are focal points for Investiture. Szeth noted that Shardplate would have interfered with his lashings[2], but we see a Windrunner in Dalinar’s vision that could clearly lash. Why? Because the Windrunner had his soul as his plate. Shardplate for Szeth would be another person’s spiritweb and would not work for him. When the Plate is cracked, the cracks show up as a web. This is circumstantial evidence, but I believe it serves to back up everything else. There is a reason it’s called a “spiritweb” after all. Additionally, Plate can be regrown from using Stormlight. This is very similar to what we see with Kaladin, healing his Shardblade severed limb with Stormlight, essentially reconnecting the Spiritual with the Physical. The breastplate, as well, mirrors this. A strike to the chest (or spine) with a Shardblade is a killing blow. Shardplate ceases to function when the breastplate is destroyed[3]. Each Radiant’s soul was unique. This would manifest itself in the different shapes and patterns of the Shardplate. The sets of Plate were unique enough that Dalinar could recognize Adolin’s set in the vision of the battle where the Dustbringer fought[4]. Finally, every order of the Radiants had access to Shardplate, even if they did not use it[5]. This, quite simply, is because each Radiant had a soul (spiritweb). I think this makes for a very nice situation where the a Radiant would fight using aspects of all three Realms. Physical with his body. Cognitive with his spren Shardblade. Spiritual with his spiritweb Shardplate. References Edit: Fixed typos

Solomon Grundy is the avatar, Ian is the real name. Became a fan of Brandon's writing through the Wheel of Time series, which I felt he finished splendidly and, though I'll probably be banished to one of the Nine Hells for this, I felt he was better with the material than the original author... In any event, I'm mostly here to get information on Stormlight glyphs and writing for a tattoo design I'm working on for myself, but if I don't alienate myself too quickly, perhaps I'll stick around and irritate you all for a time...

It's a holiday. There's a beach. There's socializing. All I'm thinking is "can I get back to my book?!" Introverted Sanderson fan. 4th of July freedom is turning the fireworks off and being quiet so I can read. Ha!

The blackbane leaf, which Syl gave to Kaladin at the chasm

I would take a class on surgebinding physics, cosmere biology(the section on kandra would be interesting), and the economics of allomancy.

"...And so the 2 used the power of the division Surge on the 4, by doing so it managed to split it´s very existenc in half, bringing them down to equal footing..." This might just work.

Since we're talking about dr who, and some people here are newer doctor who fans, i will assume that some people have not seen this. Thus, i present to you a comedy bit with rowan atkinson (mr bean) from the mid 90's or so, "Dr who and curse of fatal death"

This touches on the biggest problem with textbooks - they are infodumps, not stories. Stories are interesting; infodumps are not.

Gallifrey is mine, its sweets will obey me.

LOL...hilariously enough, I just looked it up and I was, in fact, born on a Monday...

I upvoted that. It was quite funny.

Just ride the winds of rep, Mat. Do not seek to understand or control them.

I recognize that! The Gunslinger, Jake Chambers Oh, and good duel you guys. Ought to say something remotely on topic, even if it is... out-of-character.

No. Source:

This is going to be pretty spoilery (but I guess we are in the Cosmere Theories section anyways… and the books were published ages ago…) 1. Um… I think there's a WoB that says that Vin was special so that she could take the mists in*, but I can't find it. Though the Preservation "approval" is a good idea. 2. Based on our current understanding, I think that a Misting would just be able to super-power his one skill. A Misting is someone who has Spiritual DNA written in such a way as to allow Preservation's power to take a certain, pre-determined effect when taken into himself. When the Misting Snaps, the cracks in his Spritweb allow Preservation's power in. Ingesting the Mists gives a LOT more power than a metal will usually give. This will give a lot of power to say, Steelpushing, if the Misting is a Coinshot. However, he wouldn't be able to use the power to change his sDNA to give himself different powers. That's one of the differences between the Mists (gaseous Investiture) and Lerasium (solid Investiture). Lerasium somehow affects the Spiritual Realm, while the Mists don't. They just amp up the Physical effects of the Investiture. While I'm writing this… I was doing some editing on the Coppermind when I noticed this, and I don't want to start correcting stuff that doesn't need to be corrected. I've noticed that some people talk about a "Surge of Growth", even though technically, that's part of the "Surge of Progression". Are both of them considered Surges (one being a sub-Surge of the other), or is only Progression a Surge? There isn't a Surge of "Basic Lashing", or "Full Lashing", only Surges of Gravitation and Pressure, right?

Listen to a song you've never heard before, preferably one without words, and write as fast as you can for the duration of the song. Expand on your ideas afterwards.

Nononono, he requisitions songwriters to put Steelheart propaganda to all the tunes, then plays the revised versions over loudspeakers so nobody can hear them without thinking of the Steelheart version first.

When you complain of stomach pains and your doctor finds coins in your gut. (Yeah! First popular post!)

The President solemnly dons an aluminum foil hat before every speech, polished to a gleam, to prove that he speaks for himself.

So, what I like most about dear Mr. Sanderson's books and by extension this forum, is the rules to his magic systems, and by proxy all the fun things that can be applied to them. I like taking fantasy magic or settings and see how they would interact with my day to day life. Since that is sort of where Brandon is going with the mistborn series I thought I would post some of the thoughts I had and see what everyone else has come up with as well. This is for general fun, and also allows for some speculation for the next trilogy. Some include are: How much does distance and mass affect pushes and pulls? To clarify I do not mean mass as your own, I mean how much does the stuff in the way between you and what you push or pull affect your push or pull? Same with distance. To the best of my recollection it has never been addressed. Wax has pushed and pulled through walls with no problem, but those have been wooden walls and one could argue given the time period, rather thin. What if a coinshot wants to fly down a street by pushing on underground sewer lines? Would how deep, or how much concrete in the way matter? If a lurcher uses light posts to pull, since the ENTIRE light post is made of metal, can the lurcher choose what portion of the light to pull on? Or does he or she have to pull on the ENTIRE post? if it is the former, does the light post have hundreds of allomantic lines streaming towards it when burning steel or iron, or does it have one giant thick blue allomantic line? Would pewter feruchemists, or pewter thugs potentially prevent the advent of machinery used for construction or the assembly line? Which is more cost efficient, building a machine (when it was first developed) to build a car, or pay a pewter thug an hourly wage to work long hours burning pewter. You could either replace machine parts, or switch off pewter thugs. Would this stunt the machine industry or would progress still advance the way it did in the real world? Though machines do need to be repaired, if programmed well, they don't make "mistakes" like a pewter thug might despite burning pewter. This also leads to another question I have had in my mind in instances like x-men, heroes, and also Sanderson's world. If you ran a courier business, and you had a choice between a person (whether normal or with a non applicable ability), a coinshot, or a steel ferring which would you chose to hire? Would abilities tend to pigeon hole individuals into certain careers? Physical disciplines for physical occupations (construction, fire fighters, police), mental disciplines for "mental" careers (zinc feruchemists for engineers or mathematicians for instance).Could every office or maybe even every occupation have their resident "company morale engineer" in the form of a soother or rioter to help make a "happy" work space? Would allomancers have to register their abilities? And in some cases register as a "human weapon"? This has come up in other works of fiction (x-men for one), what about in this one? Would a pewter thug fighting and killing someone while burning pewter count as the same as using a gun in the legal system? Breeze always joked that using his ability was no different than a very charismatic or charming individual. Would soothers and rioters have to walk around with some clear identifier so people would know that they could be manipulated? Would that lead them to be ostracized in modern society? Would it be criminal for them to use their abilities in bars or social situations (like drugging someone's drink), or would it be accepted as par for the course as Breeze presents it should be? Just another skill that a person can use. What types of technologies might be developed or used as result of allomancers? FTL travel has been thrown around a lot, but what about some more mundane concepts? One off the top of my head, though is a stretch could be wheel-less trains like the suspended high speed rails. Potentially if you strap in a whole bunch of lurchers (suspended track) or coinshots (ground track) and have them all push in tandem and timed, you could POSSIBLY have a train car that travels quickly and maybe even inexpensively. It would still rely on human error, but any ideas of other technologies that could sprout up? I realize this turned into a rather long post but these are just some general thoughts I had. Hopefully I am not alone in this lol.

I'm having a thought here. I'm not certain how many people know about Brandon Sanderson's creative writing course from BYU, but I've been doing some research on the class that he's made available online at Write About Dragons. So, a friend and I are going to be taking his course together, but I'd love to have some more people on board to write with us as we create our own 30k word novellas through the course. Here's the gist. We would start watching through the videos in two weeks (TBA) and each week watch 10-11 videos, here, while writing about 3000 new words each week. That's ten weeks. Then have two weeks of make up time at the end of the run, for finishing stories, catching up on critiques, etc. We'd keep track of our submissions through a group email, like we do here, and email our critiques directly to each other. Keep it simple and straight forward. At the end of twelve weeks, we've all written another story, gotten some education from Sanderson himself, and gotten to expand our network of fellow writers. I'm excited to get rolling and hearing what you all think!

I find it plausible that he would view a continuous series of Pushes as one Push.

At the very least it confirms Adolin was on the same level of the tower as Sadeas when he was murdered.

Only problem with this, is based on the last time the Kholin's have been investigated, it is pretty much guaranteed no soldier will say there was anything unusual about Adolin

i think it depends on the metal content of the ink. I have no idea what they put into it, but most dyes are metal complexes, so an inquisitor should sense them. Huh, one could make an ink only with non-metal dyes that would be invisible to inquisitors, or one with colorless metal salts that would only be visible to them

I do like your idea of slipping her a copy of Mistborn so she'll be too engrossed to bother about homework. Then again, she might turn it into an assignment. It's called "Information Seeking Behaviors," so she might have us do a report on Vin and Kelsier's quest for relevant information about the Lord Ruler. Actually, that might not be too bad.

That would be fairly awesome.

I just got I think 3 rep on a post I wouldn't expect to get one. Sometimes 17th Sharders confuse me.Just take the rep and run before the realise

Now, Let us take a look at each of the known magic systems. Some, notably Forgery and Awakening, provide incredible insights as to how the spiritweb works, or interacts with other things overall. I'll try to start my list with those that are most revealing: Forgery Biochromatic Breath

I get the feeling that either the Ghostbloods will tell her or that she'll figure it out on her lonesome, either way the revelation will probably spur her on to buy into the Ghostbloods for real.

"I am a Skit-- I mean stick."

This seems primed to be a...short lived church.

Suddenly it is revealed in book three that the cause of the calamity was the explosion that destroyed all the time lords and daleks that suddenly in fact actually didn't happen kinda.

I was actually going to use Powdermage Trilogy as an example of some of the newer fantasies that are starting to incorporate science with magic. (Of course, it should be noted Brian McClellan was a student of Brandon Sanderson). I actually can't think of too many examples of fantasies that don't have too much science going on, as I know I would not really enjoy them as much as the ones that I have read that do implement some sort of science/magic interaction. One thing that does bug with, is with stories that have people and factions capable of straight elemental magic manipulation....usually for hundreds/thousands of years. Think of the amazing technological leaps humans have made without any sort of magic! How can those not be discovered and used with thousands of years of unlimited possible applications. Fire: Um.... Perfect Steam-Engine, anybody? Why use that bulky coal-furnace that spits out noxious fumes when you can just use a Fire Mage to constantly power/control the temperature? What about perfect-forging techniques/welding? Wouldn't metal structures be way more common/practically used? Wind: Windmill powered electricity, much? What about masterfully built boats and crafts with wind manipulation in mind? Most average power wind mages should be able to control the small area around a boat to create the right drifts/drafts. Speaking of, Electricity: If you can control electricity, how has nobody ever thought to see what happens when you send some down a wire? So many unlimited applications. Scientific experimentation labs should be the most common things in any world where magic exists. Earth manipulation for mining purposes, looking for metals, or clearing, excavating areas. Controlling Water, you could set up an isolated pool or lake or something, use your Water manipulation to create some sort of current, install a Water Mill...and boom. Once again, easy, simple energy sources. Of course, that's just Classic Elemental Magic manipulation, and a lot of the newer fantasies have been branching out into newer interesting ways. Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles is a fantastic example. Has the old idea of True Naming, direct manipulation, but there's also Sympathy and Sygaldry, which are both very fascinating and cool in their own right. Of course, Brandon Sanderson is a great example, with Fabrials and all of his different magical and technological systems he uses.

I just went through and upvoted every one of the linked-to posts. I think my highest voted post was the Where's WalDo post, apparently for the title alone (since the thread itself failed to uncover definitive data). Honestly, I didn't feel particularly clever when I named that, and I frequently get zero upvotes for posts I find far more hilarious.

When you have to wear loose red robes because your bones are twisted and misshapen.

Shardpens can be tricky. If you drop it, you've got to wait ten heartbeats before you can start writing again. And if you absentmindedly chew on the tip, you can accidentally sever the soul from your lower jaw.

I'm sure it's on a lot of people's mind so I'll go ahead and nominate stick as the coolest inanimate object in stormlight. I mean, Shallan prides herself on her cleverness but stick soundly trumps her with his argument of "I am stick". Genius in its simplicity. Plus, he is about the only object with its own coppermind page so just saying... Edit: on a side note, I think that page really deserves an exemplary designation. It's about as well written and complete as they come.

Fluttershy. Those eyes.

Ha. I...really would rather pass on this one. Getting the Ketek right in KINGS took weeks of writing and rewriting. I'm not sure I'd like to try something, even for fun, in a quick forum write like this. RAFO. (But you will see it again.) The relationship is there, but it's not a very strong connection. There are metals which exist that any Allomancer can burn, regardless of their own orientation. Sadeas would make great use of Zane. Far better use than his father did.

Yes, I would think there are lots of racist jokes everywhere. It's more of a thing on Roshar, however, where the races are more distinct and rub each other the wrong way more often. Lots of things. There is a full society up there. Lots of small villages. The low end is bounded. You can pull out tons--but in filling, you can only go so far. I didn't ever explicitly talk about this in the series, but the implications are there. Not all have the same bounds, but in your example, the body just can't slow beyond a certain point. Think of it this way--you can only fill a weight metalmind with as much weight as you have to give. So you can become very, very light--but you only add to a time for doubling your weight. You can't make yourself 100,000 times slower and gain 100,000 times multiplication. You can give up all of your normal speed, and so when you tap that speed out you are at 200% for an equal period. (And that's a theoretical maximum; realistically, you can only go to down around 75% slower or the like.) As everything in Feruchemy, you become immune to the effects of the ability only. Like weight doesn't crush you, but at the same time doesn't have a net gain in strength. Growing colder, however, would be more helpful in this regard.

I'm curious what makes you guess that particular power.

They range between the size of a hand to perhaps the size of a small melon. You'll find out more about them eventually. Like most things from Aimia, they're pretty odd, and are also now very rare since the scouring. Yes. Good question. Interesting theory. Yes.