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Day 6: The Portrait of Lord Heron "Now who is this?" Bugsy asked, as he put both hands on either side of the portrait and gingerly pulled it down from the wall to have a closer look. "Lord Heron the Fourth," he read. "Well that's helpful, isn't it? Any more specific information for those of us who haven't followed every single damned thing they've done?" He turned the painting around and quickly examined the back. He smiled a little to himself as he noted the signature on the bottom right corner. Suddenly, he no longer cared for the history of the painting, and was now more concerned with how much Breath he could potentially purchase from it. Or anything else, even. He wasn't picky what he spent the money on. He turned around and examined the rest of the room. Honestly, it was a little creepy, this room. Thirteen eyes stared down from him from the walls (and he really didn't want to know what left that vicious scar on Lord Heron the Second), and he would swear blind that they followed him round the room. He replaced the portrait on the wall gingerly, careful not to damage his ticket to a fabulous lifestyle. He made a mental note that it was one he would definitely come back for, and went onto the next one along the walls. He took this one down from the walls, careful not to scratch the gold (probably gold leaf, he noted with some disappointment) frame, and turned it around as well. His eyes scanned it for a signature, but as his eyes flicked up to the nails that the portrait hanged (hung, he reminded himself. Pictures are hung. Yiferian was hanged) from, he thought he saw two pinpricks of light shining through. He put the painting down carefully and crept up to it. He brushed his finger over where he thought the light was coming from, and felt a pair of holes in the wall. He put his eye on the hole, closing his other in concentration to try and see through. There was red. Some pink. A body, he realised, in the walls. The clothing put him in mind of Quintus. "Blast," he muttered, looking around for some kind of weapon to try and destroy the wall. Finding nothing in the portrait room for this, he left to find the others and to procure some kind of heavy blunt instrument to get through. When the other explorers arrived, they attacked the wall with whatever they could find. The wall crumbled almost instantly, as though it was made of thin clay rather than brick. But behind it, they found no body. Just a bloodstain on the floor, through which something had been dragged through. They followed the trail of blood through the secret passage within the walls, until it suddenly stopped, as though a line had been drawn after which there were no stains. Quintus had vanished. Quintus (Jondesu) was an Explorer with a [Charged] Feruchemical Bracer! Character List Kasther's Pocketwatch

I'm going to throw my hat in the ring here just a little. I thought about writing some stuff about player demographics and designing games for a wide, varied audience, nicked from MTG, but I have decided not to. This is ground that is constantly being retrod. There are just two things we need to keep in mind here: Firstly, people play SE for different reasons, and secondly, other players are also people. It is possible to please everyone if we foster a sociable and friendly community, while also ensuring that the games we play are designed to allow people to use their skills to the fullest. Randomness and rules issues are what will annoy the 'Spike' demographic more than anything (and I say that as a GM running a game with randomness and hidden rules, though in my defence I did ask that people were fine with it before signing up). As long as you are playing the game to the best of your abilities and not working actively against your own team, then that's all I think we should ask for. We can't do this with rules; we need to do this through a community effort to encourage it. Splash upvotes around for roleplaying as well as analysis, for example, no matter how large or small. This leads me on quite nicely to what I really want to talk about which Meta briefly mentioned: The experience as a GM. Now, I love being a GM for you guys. I probably enjoy it more than being a player, as a matter of fact, and even after running so many I still have loads of games I am waiting to run (speaking of, I need to get back on the LG GMing list :P). There are many reasons I enjoy it - It lets me create a unique setting, allows me to do some writing, allows me to experiment with some different styles... But chiefly, there is nothing I enjoy more as a GM than seeing the players having fun with something I created. That is the biggest draw to me by far (if you're curious, my least favourite thing is coming up with titles for Turns >>). However. GMing is very difficult work. You need to create the game, you need to balance it, you need to set it up, and there is a lot of ongoing work that goes into the game too. I am rather grateful for Kas's aid on my current game, because rollover will take anywhere between one-and-a-half to two hours, with the writeup and PMing and so on. There's a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes which players may be intellectually aware of but not quite understand how lengthy it is. That amount of time will obviously differ depending on GM, game and how much they like doing writeups. But the possibility is there for it. Back in LG7, when I first GMed, rollover took a staggering 3 hours! Role madness takes forever. Some longer-term players who have been in several of my games will have noticed something though, which is that my writeups have become a lot shorter lately. Some of that, such as in my Shardship game, was experimenting with different writing styles and so on. The rest of it though is that writing takes a very long time, and I very rarely receive any sort of thanks for it. I don't write for my own sake, though I do enjoy it, and I do want to practice with a view to improving my ability to write, At the end of the game, of course, there are the usual posts thanking me for running the game, but that is often it. As an example, take LG28. I have so far written about 14 writeups, roughly speaking. I have had someone comment on them three times, I think. I'm not saying that I want people to stroke my ego, but I would like to know that they are appreciated. I want to know what you guys enjoy about them, and what you don't enjoy. I want feedback on it, and even if it's just a thank you or 'Great writeup Wyrm!', at least I know you've read it and I'm not just spending my time writing something no-one reads. The upvote system goes some way to fulfilling this, but doesn't exactly tell me much. I received 6 upvotes for Night 5's writeup, for example, from around 25 players still alive. What does that mean? Did 20 players not like it? Did only 6 players maximum read it? Am I spending an hour plus on something only 20% of my players actually like? I'm not fishing for upvotes here, but asking that a few people take the time to give some feedback once in a while. They are fluff, and unimportant to the game, but I spent time on it, and would like to feel it's not wasted. The same goes for players and RP, for that matter. The only way we will get more RP on the forum is if people respond positively to it, rather than not at all as it is at the moment. I am often guilty of this too. Wading back in to some stuff that has already been said, the issue of inactivity is also a problem from a GM point of view. Much much more than it is for players. I personally cannot understand why anyone would sign up for a game they don't intend to or cannot play. It also is rather aggravating when you have spent literally hours and hours balancing your game as much as you can, for a Coinshot or an Eliminator to never show up and throw everything out of whack. I am at this point considering creating my own personal banlist containing players I won't give important Roles to or make Eliminators. And I don't want to do that, because that makes things more predictable. I try to encourage that through cool and fun gameplay, but if LG28 is anything to go by... It is something that makes me question why I make these interesting games if the players don't bother. That is perhaps rather negative and defeatist, but it is a thought in my head at times. Now don't get me wrong. I enjoy being a GM, and I am certainly not going to stop any time soon. I like seeing the players run around in the game I have made and making use of all the things I have developed for them. I like doing writeups, and I like creating games. But I do feel that as GMs, we are taken a tad for granted. We are thanked, but it usually doesn't go much further than that. I would dearly love some thought-out feedback for any aspect of the games, as it's only through that I can improve as a GM. I think this is also valid for the players too; take a moment to upvote someone who has done RP, and let them know that you appreciate them taking the time to write it. Give them feedback to improve, if they want it. Critique them if they want it, but don't criticise them out of nowhere. I think a bit of positive community interaction would go a long way to making people feel more welcome here. TLDR: Put the effort in and read the above, or you're exacerbating one of the problems as I see it.

OMG SO GUYS Today was the best. Went to go see Moana with my sister, which was a lot of fun. Movie was great, went in some game stores, got compliments on my new long coat. Went in a little tiny music store. Played some Dawes on a Washburn electric-acoustic, and the store owner recognized it, so we had a discussion about Dawes which was awesome; we got my sister a guitar for a Christmas present and I'm gonna teach her how to play. Then I went to another game store and had a conversation about Sanderson with a clerk (because I asked about White Sand). She only knew him 'cause of Wheel of Time, so I recommended Stormlight and Mistborn. And then, AND THEN!!! I went in my local Books-A-Million to see about AU, and the person who I asked about it is apparently the biggest Sanderfan in Kingsport (behind only yours truly) and has a Syl tattoo. Basically, I had the most animated conversation that I've had in a week, and made a new friend. She said she is on this site, so shout out to you, person! Here is the tattoo. I'm still freaking out about this, guys. Whew. So yeah. Very good day.

Hello! I've been a big fan of Brandon Sanderson's books ever since I first read Mistborn. I've currently read every cosmere and non-cosmere book that he's written, (except for the prose version of White Sand). My favorite series is Mistborn, though Stormlight is a close second. I've been lurking on the site for a while, and I've finally decided to join, so prepare for a bunch of theories!

Frame him? Is he serious? Khaos had better things to do than frame people. She knew what she'd seen with her Tin (detect the action of target player), and that had been Professor Hae killing someone (namely Quintus, since Quintus was the only person to...you know....be attacked). Not that she'd really expected to see him kill someone. Sure, she'd thought he was a Traitor--his comments pushing people to be more suspicious and wary of her mindgaming were definitely something that seemed like he had an ulterior motive--but he had 5 other Traitors he was working with. What were the odds that he would actually be the one killing? Still, she'd decided to trail him, with Tin flared all night last night. And that was what she'd seen. The Professor could try to cast doubt on it, making her question her own eyes, but she wasn't that crazy. He'd killed Quintus. And he'd been caught doing it. There was no other explanation. And really, wasn't the Professor one of the last people to cause the death of poor Nightspud a few days ago? He'd been acting suspicious for days. It was really only a matter of time before someone called him out on it.

When you get shipped by your friends with the only other Sanderfan in your grade.

Jayjay leaned back in her chair and inspected the envelope. She held it with only his glove-covered thumb and pointer finger, so she could minimize skin contact. The envelope probably wasn't poisoned, but it was better to be safe than sorry. She wafted the air over the envelope to her nose, and took a cautious sniff. It smelled like ordinary paper. "Smells fine," Jayjay said. "Should be safe to open." Not yet, Jayjay insisted. Some poisons are odorless. Make sure there are no stains. Jayjay peered at the envelope, which was made of ordinary parchment. No stains. She took out her pocketknife and carefully opened the envelope flap. Inside was a piece of paper, which she gently eased out with her fingers. As she read it, her eyes widened. "Summitmist Manor! I've been invited to Summitmist Manor!" Jayjay said. She got up and pranced around her meager room in excitement. "Summitmist Manor! Summitmist Manor! I've been invited to Summitmist Manor!" Don't be foolish, Jayjay said. There's always a catch. Read over the invitation again. "Partypooper," Jayjay muttered. Still, she read over the letter again. Once in a lifetime opportunity, Summitmist Manor, secrets, lucky few, riches of her dreams, experience she'd never forget. It was the coolest thing she'd ever been invited to in her life. "I'm going," Jayjay said. You shouldn't, Jayjay warned. It'll be dangerous. "I don't care," Jayjay said. "This is too awesome to miss."

My subconscious is so weird. I have plenty of utterly bizarre dreams, but every once in a while I'll have one that's so mundane I start to wonder if it didn't actually happen IRL. For example: earlier this week I dreamed that I was trying to convince someone that Gogurt tubes were obviously superior to yogurt in a cup because they're far more convenient and less messy. And I was completely ruining the point I was trying to make by eating a Gogurt and dripping yogurt everywhere. XD

I don't fully understand this sentiment. Apps should have some features that make them deeper and better integrated than a mobile page is. However, 17S now uses a responsive design, and every feature on the desktop site that you could need is on the mobile version. That means that feature wise the site is set. Notifications would be basically the only benefit, and that's marginal at best. After all you can have email notifications in a very customizable fashion, which naturally you'd get on your phone anyway. Let me walk you through what I'd need to do for an app, because if I were to do this ever, I would want it done properly. That would mean I'd want an Android app and iOS and each of their UIs would need to be well designed for their platforms. I'd also need to go through the arcane lore of figuring out how the Invision APIs work, which I thankfully have not needed to deal with yet. I'd also need to acquire iOS devices and learn everything about it, as I'm an Android person. Oh, then I'd have to learn how to code apps. Yes, I suppose I could hire someone, but that's very expensive and we already make negative money on this site. Good app developers are pricey. Maybe someone would volunteer to make one. But I honestly wouldn't take them up on that offer. It's quite simple: it's not just making the app, but constant maintaining of the app. I have a difficult time just keeping the web version of 17S up to date. In a scheme with apps, you'd need to keep up with best practices of Android and iOS apps. Those standards are frequently updated, so that's more dev time and a lot of testing. Even more importantly, such a scheme is totally dependent on Invision Power Suite to operate. If I do site updates, would the apps break? More testing, more time to spend. Also, bugs become much more difficult to deal with as now there are essentially three versions of the site. This sounds terrifyingly awful to deal with. So I mean I'm happy to hear a good argument for an app but it has to be really good. The benefits are barely anything, so considering all that colossal work, it seems not worth it at all. I'd much rather spend the limited time I have on 17S/Brandon stuff on writing news articles for the site, working on the Coppermind, and keeping our one version of the site up to date. Oh, and then administration of the site and dealing with problem members. Maybe someday I'd have time to do theorizing too! But I am insanely busy.

Turns out Isaac is a little busy with a deadline right now, so he'll get back to me sometime after mid-next week. It's either that or I terrified him with the list of questions I sent him, and he needs time to recuperate.

Hey all, So I've been workshopping a vanilla character with @Chasmfiend, and I realized that although we encourage new people to make vanilla/human characters as well as epics, we don't really have a good list of suggested roles for vanillas to fill. Now obviously the roles available to vanillas vary city to city, so I'd invite the other G.M.'s (when they have time) to post a list of suggested roles here. Other players are also free to post suggestions as well, of course. I can copy and paste master lists into this post, if others agree, so that it's easy to find. Corvallis Vanilla Roles: I hope these help as a starting point. Individual players can give blanket consent if they want to people making servants or workers in certain sectors.

Ignore the fact that Albert has become psychic for the moment, and is currently communicating telepathically with Khaos, or some such thing... Maybe Khaos is psychic? Albert was deadly serious. He was being falsely accused by someone he respected. He thought maybe it had been a trick, a clever ploy to make him trip up if he was one of the monsters killing people. But Khaos wasn't letting up!? He figured maybe she had misunderstood his words the other day. People had had questions about her, and he wanted to offer a balanced opinion on the matter. For some reason, he found himself wanting others to respect her. It was an odd feeling. He acknowledge there was a hidden deviousness to Khaos that shouldn't be ignored, but he'd let everyone know that she had his support in his claims. Although that might be changing... He did think that maybe he could have vocalized those sentiments clearer and more concise though. He blamed having his nose in a book at the time. He wracked his brains for anything else that she could be concerned about. He guessed his decisions earlier that lead to the death of Nightspud could maybe be worrying her. But then he expected that to be the case when he voted, honestly being slightly surprised that it took this long for anyone to bring it up, but he wouldn't have changed anything. Doing the right thing in not letting a new player die for an innocent mistake was worth all the suspicion in the world. If that single action ended up being the sole reason for his demise, he would die have no regrets. There had been no reports of evil omens being found in the last few days, so it seemed unlikely Khaos had become a monster. He wondered instead if the monsters had decided to trick Khaos. He had found a Medical Fabrial, similar to one Yiferen was found with. And a bracer that seemed to have properties described as 'feruchemical' by his books had been left behind when Quintus' corpse had been stolen. There were some decidedly odd things in this house. He wondered if there were any devices that could confuse a tineye. His research implied that something like that could in theory be achieved through one or two feruchemical metals, and he wondered what other secrets the House held.

Albert almost had a heart attack when Hess came up behind him quickly and begin loudly badmouthing him. "Khaos saw me do what!?" He was incredulous. "How could she think such a thing!? I spent quite some time deliberating whether to seek out more of the House's secrets or to use my ancient healing fabrial to help heal her from her recent attack, and prevent further! What sort of repayment is this for causing the fabrial to break!?" *blinks*. Umm. Okay. I can't claim to have seen that one coming... You sure you're not the Spanish Inquisition, Wilson? Well, I guess I'll start by answering your questions? Nothing. Nothing... No time at all? And how about no? I assume you're claiming to have ‘scanned’ me last night? While I’m not who I’d have expected to be your first scan this game, I guess it could make some sort of sense - your connections with Seonid, El and Aonar are public knowledge, meaning maybe I’d be less likely to get random eliminator killed? But that doesn’t really help explain why you’d be trying to frame me? Unless this is the most elaborate poke vote that I’ve seen in a SE game... Edit: The thief strikes again! He took my lerasium-brass alloy...

Khaos hid in a room. She'd seen him. She'd seen the Professor sneak up to Quintus and kill him. And then, in her shock at watching a man be murdered right in front of her eyes, she missed Professor Hae hide the body away. What had he done with it? What had he done with all the bodies? And how long had he been going around murdering people? She'd known there was something off about the man. He'd probably been the reason she'd been attacked the night before. The only question was if he'd actually been the one to do the attacking. Not the Khaos cared about that. She was a little more preoccupied with the fact that she was shaking. Literally quivering in her boots. She lifted her hand in front of her eyes, and it shook uncontrollably. She took a breath. People had been dying, this wasn't like it was anything new. She just hadn't expected to see it. Breathe. When she finally got herself under control, she went to find the other explorers. The Professor couldn't be allowed to live through the day.

STINK sat down on his chair, turned on his desktop and opened his pack of salted sunflower seeds. After that, he did some stuff that you don’t need to know about, but it ended up with reading the same thread you’re currently reading. The first unseen post was by Hael, but more specifically this one: “I know that I've usually had multiple ideas for games at any one time, with varying levels of complexity, and I was under the impression I'm not unique in that regard. If that's true of many people, I don't think people will mind too much if they can't run some of their wilder ideas. I guess that's more something which would need to be surveyed. I'm aware that the mods are busy people, but I don't view the ideas I've suggested as anything you really have to monitor. If a rule is written out somewhere, there's a PM full of players who GM - they are just as able to say to someone who wants to GM "hey awesome. Have you checked out this link? It's got some helpful hints and tips for creating and running games, and some guidelines for how the game should work." If they choose to ignore all that, when it comes their turn to GM, you don't have to give them the go ahead to run their game until it's fine. I guess that last bit could be time consuming- curious, when people sign up to GM do most people keep to running the game they had in mind at the time? The other time consuming part of the process is the designing and writing of rules/guidelines/articles. But that's what this discussion is for. And I would be happy to help work on writing drafts of that stuff, once ideas had been decided on, and it's quite possible others would to.” STINK read this, and thought of the following things while reading: Hael is indeed not unique. Complicated games are over-rated anyway. People in the GM PM shouldn’t have to link people to the Art of Game Creation thread anyway, or was this taking into account that if it’s a post not edited into an OP, then it will eventually need to be linked as a post. I currently plan to run the games that I signed up with, and my QF was planned. As for checking the rules of a game, this has already been brought up but the mods don’t have to check rules, and other GMs should be able to check them before the game. Articles sound way more fancy than it should be for an internet forum game All in all, not many deep thoughts, but good enough reactionary ones. He was sure that the truly good thoughts would come at the end of reading the discussion. By this point, at least 6 seeds were gone, never to be seen again. STINK read Elenion’s post, and kinda mentally skipped over it. Sorry Len. And it was a post by Meta! Those were rare, or at least were before he made about 5 posts in 10 hours. Luckily for you readers, Present!STINK has decided to format Past!STINK’s thoughts, rather than throwing them all at the same time. “You see what you just did here? You prioritized winning over everything else. This is why things don't change; not because there's not enough rules and regulations in place. People could spend more time RPing or other stuff, but instead, the focus for the majority of people right now is on trying to win the game rather than having fun. That's a part of what made a lot of the earlier games so much fun in comparison. Sure, people were still trying to win, but there was just as much of a focus on interacting with the setting that had been created. That's why there was so much RP in early games in comparison to now. Now, if you're not contributing to finding the Eliminators, then you're doing something wrong and are killed off for it.” (whole colour scheme of SE posts don’t apply to this thread m’kay?) STINK read this and mostly thought that this is a content-heavy paragraph, which is always fun. He couldn’t be bothered to check if Meta was correct in saying that if people didn’t contribute they weren’t killed, so he just said it’ll be right. But on to stuff that STINK could actually comment on! First, “trying to win the game rather than having fun.” was a bit of a weird statement, after all, for some people having fun is winning the game! I guess for those people that don’t particularly care about winning the game then it mustn’t be fun for them. But STINK was pretty sure that most people enjoy winning the game, and at least want to contribute towards finding elims or killing villagers as elims. “You guys, the players, are dictating what kind of behavior and thus what kind of games you want via your actions. GMs rarely receive much in the way of feedback when they write up end-of-turn scenarios and no one interacts with their settings and events. Thus, GMs become complacent about even doing write ups as much as they used to. Everyone has to engage in the debates and investigation of other players or else be seen as suspicious and thus people that don't have much to say on that front (or are daunted by it) don't say anything at all; leading to more inactivity. The fact that everyone needs to be aggressively going after the Eliminators turns more passive players away; thus creating a breeding ground of only certain kinds of players.” Secondly, was Meta no longer playing SE? There was such a clear distinction between ‘players’ and well, Meta posting. But that’s more of a side-track compared to his three points. STINK could comment on the GM one, thinking that when he had GM’d a QF he had stuck to a write-up written every cycle, but that it took a lot of time. Was there feedback? No, but in STINK’s eyes that just gave him more freedom to write whatever he wanted to write. As for the inactivity, I don’t really see people going ‘give us your thoughts on this singular topic or you are evil’ often. It’s more of a ‘this person is either lurking or being inactive, so could you comment on a topic?’, then they usually respond with ‘oh I don’t know what topic to comment on’ followed by the whole suggesting a topic thing. And on to the final topic of aggression, isn’t Meta someone that aggressively goes after eliminators? STINK decided not to comment on the rest of the post, but instead move on as Current!STINK has realised that he is writing way more than he expected. So instead, know that Past!STINK agreed with the rest of Hael and Meta’s posts. And now Past!STINK no longer thinks, as we have reached current!STINK (who is still eating that same packet of seeds). ------------------------------------------- So yeah, there’s some truly meta-rp about the meta in response to Meta. Was 50 minutes spent writing all of this just so I could say that? Maybe. But I feel like it’ll help demonstrate my next point, that being that another issue with RP is that it takes time. If I was to write just a response to those two posts like normal, probably wouldn’t have taken me as long at all, but instead I spent more time thinking about how to phrase stuff as STINK looking back on STINK rather than just talking, and the same applies to games. And I know, some people dedicate an incredible amount of time to analysing posts instead of RP, and maybe you can go talk to them, but there are a bunch of times where I’ve made a post in about 5 minutes and I’ve only really had the time to vote for someone, short explanation of it and then off I go. So that post looks like I’m being aggressive and playing for the win, right? Also, the biggest problem with the whole ‘just let other people look at the balance of games’ is secret rules. So if we take a game such as LG26 where every single role is a secret and interconnected with every other role and needs a fair bit of balancing, what do you do then? In that case, just El and Nyali balanced as they were the GMs, and that was one of the most complex games recently. So there would need to be some people that could maybe look at secret games anyway, and be trusted not to leak anything and then not play the game as they have more information. Easiest way to do this would be through the mods choosing GMs that volunteer to do this to be on a pseudo ‘committee’ where they all discuss the game and stuff, as if being a co-GM is what allows you to balance, then complex games will end up with like 7 co-GMs. I still think that co-GMing into GMing with an experienced co-GM is the best option right now for anyone looking to run a game, and advise anyone who hasn’t GM’d yet but wants to run a game, to start asking to co-GM for another game before your own. The GM PMs are there for a reason! This is now 3 pages in a doc, so I’m gonna stop typing and let others respond so I can go back to my homework. Doesn’t look like I said much in here does it

I found Stormlight memes! If they are yours, thank you (especially Cosmere and OdiumReigns; y'all seem chill). I laughed way too hard at some of these. Images not working, so I linked to them: https://ifunny.co/fun/cm5LH0ZP4?gallery=tag&query=stormlightarchive https://ifunny.co/fun/fbKXKRHO4?gallery=user&query=Cosmere https://ifunny.co/fun/zPqNKyvE4?gallery=user&query=Cosmere https://ifunny.co/fun/01Sjw2pD4?gallery=user&query=Cosmere https://ifunny.co/fun/buALmx3q3?gallery=user&query=Cosmere https://ifunny.co/fun/GrtVckSK4?gallery=tag&query=stormlightarchive https://ifunny.co/fun/dhVN2phI4?gallery=tag&query=stormlightarchive https://ifunny.co/fun/xXTS8LJ54?gallery=tag&query=stormlightarchive https://ifunny.co/fun/a8JBfbr44?gallery=tag&query=stormlightarchive https://ifunny.co/fun/k3ww2gjq3?gallery=tag&query=stormlightarchive https://ifunny.co/fun/J78h8Ojq3?gallery=tag&query=stormlightarchive https://ifunny.co/fun/SfEm31Po3?gallery=tag&query=stormlightarchive

A bucket of molten aluminum. He wouldn't see it coming because of the aluminum, and since you can't heal from aluminum inflicted wounds while the aluminum is still there, he would be unable to heal the damage caused by the molten metal. The melting point of aluminum is 1,221 degrees Fahrenheit, so you would need an inconspicuous container that could hold it long enough for you to get close to him. The best time would likely be during one of his processions. After you get the first bucket on him, simply form a reverse fire-fighter line. If the parade isn't a good option, you could lure him into a trap, and then pour a huge bucket on him (like those amusement park rides, only lethal). In order for this to work you would need to ensure there is no metal in the trap, otherwise he might become suspicious of lines pointing to the ceiling. Typing this suddenly made me think of the Wicked Witch so here you go:

It would be a good catch, but it actually says sleeper agent, which is something totally different.

Hey, it's not my fault you're allergic to my spiked cookies. I mean spiked with, uh, uh, extra cinnamon. Not hemalurgic spikes that will steal your Surgebinding abilities. Not at all.

Convert them, my friend! I'm forever grateful that Brandon released Warbreaker for free, cause it's my most effective tool for conversion. Almost like another free book, one that I gave to people a lot when I was a missionary... #mormonmaifalol

Yeah, as @Ironeyes said, go for it! Really, you should be grateful you have someone else to talk to face to face about Brandon's books, absolutely no one in my school has read Brandon Sanderson books.

Yo homie, what's up? *throws a stick in his face*

Thank you! I appreciate the offer, but I will decline. I've heard the cookies are high in iron.

Hess noticed Khaos going off about how the Professor was guilty. He saw no reason not to agree with her, so went along with it. Approaching Hae, he said, "You're a worm, and I know it! Even if you haven't killed anybody, I wouldn't mind seeing you dead, simply because I don't like you." When he thought about it, he didn't really like anybody, now that Quintus and Isaac were gone. He felt a certain...affinity toward Khaos, simply because she seemed to enjoy doing things similar to what he did. @Haelbarde

*In Pete Seeger voice* Where have all the followers gone, long time passing? Where have all the followers gone, long time ago? Where have all the followers gone? Glitches have taken them, every one. When will they ever return? When will they ever return?

It was. And as I followed her around trying to find AU, she mentioned Kingkiller Chronicle, and asked if I had heard of them, and when I told her I was halfway through WMF, she looked rather pleased. Then I mentioned how hype I am for the adaptations, and she said "It's being directed by" and I finished her sentence. And so on. Et cetera. So much in common it's not even funny. I have found my adult female bookstore-employee self. I feel accomplished.

I has been my assumption to. If I am to place a bet, I'd say it has to do with the visions: it has nothing to do with Renarin being a Truthwatcher. I am thinking they are something else entirely. Renarin says "I see" towards the end of WoR: many of us interpreted this sentence as meaning he was referring to this visions....

You know you're a Sanderfan when your friend tells you he's not going to read Brandon Sanderson's books, and then you feel like killing him. You know you're a Sanderfan when someone asks you what WoK or WoR is about and you simply say: "It's complicated"

Dalinar stands atop a large rock, analyzing the enemy and devising a strategy. Kaladin gives a motivating speech to the troops while Shallan listens with half an hear because she's busy maintaining an illusion so that the Parshendi don't notice the ambush. Lift doesn't even bother to listen with half an ear, because, well, she's Lift. To the side, Jasnah rests, recovering from the stress of Elsecalling all of them to this place, while Szeth listens intently to Kaladin's words, fiddling with the clasp on Nightblood's sheath. The time finally comes. Kaladin finishes his speech, Dalinar gives the signal, and Shallan drops the disguise. Ten glowing sets of shardplate appear, ten glorious shardblades gleam with holy light. The time has come. The Oathpact is over. Humanity will make its final stand, and it will be victorious!

"I have access to an entire world of information and technology in good condition, and an entire building full of people with fancy degrees, ready and willing to help me at a moment's notice--for free! I'm going to throw a hissy fit when I'm told I owe them money for keeping their materials past the due date and punish them for my easily avoidable mistakes!" #LibraryPatronLogic

I am smiling from ear to ear

Very well, then here's a rule specifically for you, Hael: You have to RP in each post you make, at least a little, and not take the game too seriously. I'll be watching.

After months of working and saving and scrimping I scraped together the money to buy a new instrument. Yes, friends, I HAVE A EUPHONIUM AND HER NAME IS CECILY AND SHE'S VERY SHINY AND I LOVE HER THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE

Just picked up Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time. The hype is so real right now.

"10/10, an absolute masterpiece" IGN This is the best storming literature I've seen in my entire life. You should publish it as a short story, you'll get as famous as Brandon with that.

We need a "Deleted Scenes Compendium" like they do in the bonus sections of most movie DVDs. It would be called Arcanum Unpublished.

I'll sign up as Innocent, the suspicious-looking person.

So, the lamp. I asked Brandon about it last night at the Chicago Arcanum Unbounded signing, and his (paraphrased) response went something like this: @Isaac Stewart made those, so ask him. Originally Brandon was going to have just stars (no constellations), but Isaac drew constellations, Brandon liked them (and had Isaac explain them to him :D), and so now they are a thing. Brandon encouraged me to reach out to Isaac and ask him to write an essay for the website on the topic - something I would love to see! - but I think I'll ask for specifics first, see if we can clear up Sel's lamp prior to that (hypothetical) essay. Also, fun bit of trivia - the in-world version of this map is hanging on a wall somewhere in Silverlight, and is from roughly the same time period as Khriss' AU essays.

As you may read the first draft of Oathbringer is done

Don't lie. They aren't all that delicious and they're also bad for your health. You're great at doing this and we love you.

Hey! Thanks for calling them awesome! They were fun to make (laser cut acrylic, then beveled, polished, and leather-wrapped). This is vaguely related to one of the silly questions I haven't had a chance to ask: "What other Vessels have bought Hoid Drinks" I got about 25 minutes of recording of the signing, but other than a couple minor questions (posted below) and my exchange, the questions were more focused on writing. I will try to transcribe the discussions later, but for now I wanted to post the Cosmere-specific Q&A now. Questions from others in line (Timestamps on my audio recording) 11:08: Q: I really appreciate the fact that Steris is a character who is there. Brandon: Steris is my favorite character of the new generation of mistborn. She is a delight to write about. 11:45: Q: Is Lift going to be in the next book? Brandon: Yes Q: Yay! Q: What happened to Vivenna? B: This will be answered very soon Questions from my party: [These were a series of questions in signed books (we bought a lot of books tonight!) as well as oral questions. I have transcribed the book questions as well] Friend: As context, we’re physicists and love playing around with [the mechanics] of this universe. Necarion: Do Vessels have any flexibility in expressing the intent of a Shard, particularly if the Intent is open to many interpretations? Brandon: Yes they do. So, the Vessel’s mind and how they perceive is going to have a large influence on how things are expressed and I think all of them have some wiggle room. But there are some deterministic things that are also going to push them. You know, holding Ruin, Harmony may not go down the same path that happened to Ati. Necarion: So Saddeas would express Honor differently than Tanavast? Brandon: Yes he would. Necarion: Would a soulstamp carved from a gemstone and infused with Stormlight be more likely to Take? Brandon: No it would not Necarion: Would a Mistborn have to worry about accidentally burning her copper IUD? Brandon: Yes she would, absolutely (Laughs) [Necarion's note: this confirms that metal does not have to be in the stomach to be burned] Friend: So my quick question: Can you use Identity (I love the speed bubbles!) to anchor speed bubbles to yourself? Brandon: Uh, this is possible. That’s less a matter of Identity. What’s gonna happen there, like, the more someone uses the powers, the more familiar and intermingled with their soul the powers become, and they are able to accomplish things that others can’t. This would be like a mistborn learning to hover a coin, right, which they can do, but most think you can’t. That’s the sort of level we’re going with. Necarion: So a savant could? Brandon: A savant could totally do that. The problem is, things moving in and out of a speed bubble, there’s a transference of energy. This is how we keep speed bubbles from irradiating people when light moves through them, right, red shift. And so there’s a transfer of energy directly from the spiritual realm, which means that moving with a speed bubble, you’re gonna run into that, and it’s gonna be, it’s gonna cause all kinds of problems, but it would be possible. [Necarion’s note: This might be a very interesting method of harnessing energy, much more efficient than my earlier Terris Wheel idea] Friend: Now, do things actually move unpredictable at the edge [of a speed bubble] or do they refract out? Is it just that geometry is hard? Brandon: No, I have a level of unpredictability, I mean we’re Chaos Theory. The idea being, you could predict if you had a perfect closed system and things like this, but it’s unfeasible for most technology and minds to be able to predict. Friend: Thank you Necarion: One other speed bubble question. Is the speed of light the same inside and outside a speed bubble? Brandon: Um, yes. The speed of light is the same. Good question, you’re trying to figure out the FTL. Necarion: Also, it would eliminate the redshift if the speed of light… Brandon: If the speed of light were similar [Necarion’s note: there would be no redshift if the speed of light were directly proportional to the ‘speed of time’. Alas this theory doesn’t seem to be valid]. That’s one thing we considered, but it felt too unintuitive, plus it’s just not how I imagined things working. So, no it is not, but that’s a good question. It is something we considered. Friend: I just want to setup a lab in a speed bubble and do fun things. Necarion: Could a double-nicrosil Twinborn compound Breath or Stormlight? Brandon: Uh, you’re getting a RAFO card on _that_. You’re getting SUCH a RAFO card on that! Necarion: Is Taldain orbiting at a Lagrangian point? Brandon: [Laughs] Necarion: It would make the orbits work Brandon: [Long pause] I’m not sure the implications, I have to think through implications before answering questions Necarion: The situation I’m thinking of, it would orbit the big star but at the same period as the smaller star. Brandon: Yeah, well, I’ll just say ‘yes’, but I want to make sure I’m not saying ‘yes’, without...well, yes that’s how it has to work Necarion: Right Brandon: Because [Taldain] I want to be not like Roshar where we have unstable orbits and things. Uh, but I… I’m saying yes, but I hope that doesn’t get me into trouble scientifically. [Necarion’s note 1: While the L1 Lagrange point is an equilibrium point in the three-body problem, it is technically an unstable one. However, this seems a system that could be corrected with a small input of Shardic intervention, far less than would be required by any other astronomical arrangement I can think of] [Necarion’s note 2: Note the comment about ‘unstable orbits’ in the Rosharan system. This might account for the rapid variation in seasons on the planet] Necarion: The compounding trick that the Lord Ruler performed. When you’re storing investiture, are you storing your ‘mistborn-ness’ or all the powers individually? Brandon: All of the powers individually Necarion: [Surprised, because this dashed a favorite theory of mine] Oh okay! Brandon: Yeah, the compounding trick. Really what’s happening is you’re fueling feruchemy with the power of allomancy, but you’re filtering it through you, and then you’re storing it. Necarion: So it’s not that you’re a more powerful mistborn when you’ve tapped [investiture] Brandon: No, good question.

Okay, full compilation of the WoBs I got at this event. Two are from me during a video chat, four are questions Lauren recorded and sent to me, and the Bavadin/Ambition RAFOs are paraphrased from my friends. Recorded/verbatim Q: Is Nalan using his original Honorblade, or did he bond a spren? A: He's using his original Honorblade. But there's an asterisk here that will come up in Oathbringer. Q: Does Silverlight exist solely in the Cognitive Realm? A: Yes. Q: Were the planets in the Threnodite System named like that in response to Ambition's demise? A: It is not a coincidence that so many of the planets have to do with songs of mourning or passing, in that system. So, you are on to something. (Note: This was kinda, sorta not helpful, since my orginal Threnody was a Shard theory was built on the WoB I got on the Calamity tour re: Threnody being named in memorial of someone.) Q: What does the Red Rip look like in the Cognitive Realm? A: So this is a RAFO, in part because I haven't revealed if there are any planets out there. (Note: Brandon totally knew where I was trying to go with this one, and he doesn't want to let us know if Yolen is part of the constellation.) Q: If a Shard were to divest itself from a planet, would the perpendicularity there disappear? A: Normally the shardpool would cease to exist, but there are circumstances that could prevent the shardpool from disappearing. Paraphrased Q: Was Bavadin nonhuman? A: RAFO. There is at least one Shard who wasn't human, but I'm not ready to reveal who was or wasn't just yet. Q: What was the name of Ambition's Vessel? A: RAFO And another from my video chat with Brandon... EDGEDANCER SPOILERS:

I figured Nightblood seems to understand, though he doesn't like to be reminded that he is a sword. I expect it basically wouldn't do anything, which was the point. It would still be a highly invested weapon, so resistant to Shardblades and other magic. "I Am A Sword"

You guys make my 3868km drive seem like a cake walk. Edit: I Googled Cake walk, I am not disappointed...

“I don’t care if you go and whore yourself out to my brother." Lucentia said, seeming to think it would insult Neverthere somehow. "He might as well get some enjoyment out of you, but the only way this will so much as resemble a working relationship, is that you at least pretend to have a brain in your head. Otherwise, I see no reason to let you keep it. The only thing I could possibly want from you is useful information and not gossip. Understood?“ Briefly Neverthere weighed the pros and cons of simply evaporating on the spot but these two did seem to be such wonderful tools it would be a shame to throw them away. Neverthere turned her full attention to Lucentia, her eyes shifting from mirthful prankster to cold and dead between blinks as her smile changed from shyly flirtatious to simply dangerous. "Useful? Useful like the names and locations of all the Epics belonging to the faction that attacked here last night? Although they're small fry anyway, how about the names, relationships, abilities and sleeping arrangements of the Epics in Thought Town and Corpsemakers new 'Dominion'? Or perhaps useful information like the flood of Epics arriving in Astoria of late? Quite the ruckus that has broken out there." The muffled sound of a gunshot interrupted her mid-conversation and her image wavered for a moment as she quickly manifested throughout the museum, capturing 15 different vantage points in barely a second before reforming before Lucentia to process them. "Or of course I can simply act as an incredibly efficient scout and alarm so you don't need to go off investigating mysterious gunshots when it's just Lightwards playing with the pet-turned-Epic who likes the bagpipes." Dipping her head slightly, Neverthere once more adopted her usual mask, that of a vapid hyperactive young woman without a thought in her head. "But." She continued, her voice still cold and completely at odds with her facial expressions. "I'm much better at gathering information when most people just think I have neither the temperament nor the capacity for subterfuge, so if you'll excuse me my lady I'll need to keep the guise for now."

Ok, first time poster, long time lurker. Going to wikipedia searching for the Julia set and using the same animation that Veil used I was able to produce this. Mystery solved right?