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Senator Elentari sniffed, reading the newspaper over morning tea. The nerve of some people, accusing her fellow senators of corruption! It was simply unthinkable that any of them would do such a thing. Far more likely to be one of those good-for-nothing House Lords, in her humble opinion. Her trembling hands turned the page, revealing only slightly less lurid stories about the various scandals currently rocking the city. “With the way that the newspaper talks, you should think the whole city should have collapsed into anarchy fifty years ago,” she commented to no one in particular. Her butler, Lucius, poured her another cup of strong black tea. “It might have, Senator, had you not kept the Senate steady for those decades,” he said. “Quite right, Lucius,” she said approvingly. “I dread to think what shall become of it without my firm hand guiding the reins. I fear my touch is slipping even now, with all these newfangled devices and ridiculous scandals. I should never have taken that vacation, no matter what the doctor said. The city seems to have gone entirely to the birds in my absence.” “Never,” Lucius assured her. “Give it a few years, and the city will be as right as rain again.” “Hmph. I do hope so.” She grasped her ebony cane and rose from her seat. “Have my clothes packed. I haven’t the faintest idea how long this so-called ‘private conference’ will last, but I intend to be prepared.” Lucius bowed. “Of course. They’ll be ready by the afternoon.” She passed him on her way out, and gave him a rare smile. “Thank you, Lucius. You are a beacon of sanity in this trying city.” He only smiled and bowed again. tl;dr: I’m back.

As a new day began in Luthadel, an Inquisitor set out on a mission. A crew of both noblemen and skaa had been causing a lot of trouble in the city, and Ruin had demanded that they either be killed or turned to his side... GM Notes: Welcome to LG58! A Tineye is alive, so PMs are open! Please add me to all PMs. The Day lasts 48 hours, so it will end at 4:00 PM EST on June 29th (Monday). Please tell me if you did not receive a GM PM. The following players have not given themselves an RP name: Haelbarde, Snipexe, BrightnessRadiant, and Sart. Player List:

Corruption in the Senate? The Elendel Daily. 8th of Doxil, 244 With the recent Arrest of Senator Binks on charges of Blackmail, Fraud, and Conspiracy, Citizens from all octants have been asking the question, who else is involved? Certainly Senator Binks could not have acted alone, as the sheer amount of funds already revealed to have been spent in bribes are worth more than Bink’s net worth. Rumors and accusations have been leveled against nearly every Senator and House Lord in the City. Governor Samiel Shreeves released a Statement this Morning announcing he was aware of the situation and would be organizing a private conference outside the city, overseen by Constable-General Yosef, to put an end to the Corruption. The Constable-General, with his aides Lieutenant Altea Meza and Detective K. Wilson, are noted to be good friends with the Governor, and have a history of overkill against threats to his life. “We’ll be separating the Senators from the majority of their staff, and my Constables will be able to thoroughly investigate and question each and every one of them.” ~ Constable-General Yosef Busshu We have sent reporters to the house of each Senator attending the Conference to ask for a statement from them, as well as to who they suspect to be Senator Bink’s allies. We at the Elendel Daily look forward to the next issue of this paper, where we will hopefully be able to deliver to you the statements of all the senators. ----- This is a Rerun of QF14: Corruption in the Senate. The game has been heavily rebalanced The game will begin on Sunday, August 4th, at 3AM EDT. Player List: There's nothing Hidden in this game, so why are you highlighting everything? Quick Links:

Stephen Leeds and Company Presents: A Roast, In Three Parts! This wasn't the best time for me, but I enjoyed putting this together. Hopefully it's up to scratch. @Kidpen, you've only got a few hours left, I believe!

Eliza strained her ears, trying to overhear a conversation on the other side of the dining hall. A group of the more formidable noblewomen where having a rather animated conversation. It could just be about the dresses worn during last week's ball, but it could also be about something more interesting. She wished she was sitting closer, so she could overhear. "Lady Deveill, a pleasure to meet you. Though it seems you where mistaken given the direction I would be arriving from." Eliza turned back to her table with a start at the sound of her dinner partner's voice. "Ah, ehm, I was just trying to overhear what the fuss the ladies over there where making was about. Oh, and it's a pleasure to meet you once again, lord Agenar." The man smirked as he took his seat. "You where trying to overhear a conversation on the other side of this room, over the din of all the other conversations happening? That'd be quite the feat, especially since I've been given to understand that you are definitely not a tin-eye." Eliza cursed softly. This'd probably be the start of another set of rumours about her supposed abilities, just as rumours had started when she arrived in Luthadell with a coin-pouch on her belt, or when she'd been seen practicing basic hand-to-hand combat with her guards. She really wasn't equipped to handle the politics and rumourmill of the big city, but with the recent... shrinking... her family had undergone she'd been forced to move o the city and take up the duties of her house's future leader. "My lady? I hope I did not give offence with my idle speculation." Her dining partner brought her attention back to the here and now. "Ah, my apologies. These past weeks have been taxing." She tried to smile. "Directly on to business, or shall we wait for dinner to be served first?" *** For those interested, here's the elim doc from LG32. The inquisitors special metals at the time were: Uber-Iron in particular is one to keep in mind, as it can be a potential late-game game-changer if a similar ability exists in this game. Coinshots should exercise extreme caution in their PM's. Anyway, it's late and this post got eaten once already, so I'll check back in tomorrow with some more in-depth thoughts.

The war of shipping a man with his worst possible match

I just binged the whole stormlight archive in one manic push and am starting in on my second run. I have one desire. One boon to beg of the Sanderson Father. Adolin needs to find a way to revive/resurrect his shard blade spren. So what’s your one thing?

YKYASW you refer to dirt, as crem.

Super Cool. I actually tried to start building something like this about a year ago but got distracted by other things, and didn't get that far. Overall the gameplay was really cool, and it definitely has a learning curve - just like actual allomancy. A couple things that I think might be an improvement: When burning pewter, I can pretty much roll up walls. Please nerf. I completed the mountain level by just pewter sprinting up the side of the mountain while occasionally using the lamps to speed up my ascent or to straighten myself out. Using Zinc is really helpful when I was first trying to figure out how to get to the top of things. However, one thing I don't like is that you have pretty much an unlimited reserve. Yes, I know that you can only use it for 8? seconds before letting it cool down for about the same amount of time, but I feel like (1) It almost makes gameplay too easy, (2) It doesn't follow feruchemical rules. If you had it speed up in order to recharge, or make it so you couldn't move during recharge, or you only had a limited amount stored up, that might be better. Idk, it is really nice to have it so readily available when first learning. You already acknowledged that you want to improve the way allomantic lines are shown, but I just want to reiterate that it was a bit overwhelming. It seems like there are some lines to objects that are so far away that they are pretty useless to push/pull, so pruning away some of the long distance lines might be an idea there (although sometimes being able to select those further metal sources before I started a movement was useful, so finding a balance here would be nice). The tutorial should have been obvious to me, but I missed the part where it wanted me to hover around the box to clear the stones at the top of the vertical climb, so I got stuck and just quit. Then I tried to figure out controls on my own, but it took me a while. Finally I went back to the tutorial and figured it out. Even then, the coin shooting mechanics were not super intuitive (I accidentally pressed C and then got frustrated by the fact that I couldn't use targetting with pushing/pulling until I accessed the help and found the controls). So having text that is maybe a little larger or noticeable in the tutorial might be nice for dumb users like me. Also, for some reason, I kept thinking that q was for pulling and e was for pushing, but I have no clue why I thought that (maybe I thought that we learned pulling first so pulling should be the button on the left?). After about half an hour of figuring everything out, the controls were pretty fluid for me though, so I don't think you really need to change any controls. I do think having a master controls list that is more accessible would be nice though. Oh, also, I feel like coinshot mode is pretty useless unless you are on the ground, since you can't push and pull at the same time. For future developments, I would love to see health / combat prioritized. Right now this is a simulator, when I would love to see it as more of a game, with levels including combat, puzzles, even a story and RP. I know that this is a LONG ways off, but even having combat where a friend and I can duel with coins in an arena would be a lot of fun. Btw, are you open to having other developers work on this with you, or are is this a project that you strictly want to work on yourself? Edit: I just hooked up my xbox controller and I really like using a controller - much easier to juggle everything and remember what goes to what. Good work on getting that set up.

Lift, Renarin, Jasnah, Ash, and Taln for the second set. I forget the order.

Happy ending for Kaladin

Yep! That's a thing like with most of the Radiants we've seen so far. Likely due to a mix of spren being semi-fourth dimensional beings so time means nothing to them except as a platform to move on and due to the similar effects of the Spiritual Realm. In short, things echo across time.

@RShara to play devil's advocate, you can't trully hate something without being quite passionate about it first.

Do we have any theories on what Odium's way of splintering a Shard is? My suspicion is that one of the reasons he doesn't like investing in planets is because that is his avenue of attack. Presumably, once a Shard begins investing in a place, they give up some control over this invested power, and make it available for whatever/whoever they invest in to utilise. Odium, then, corrupts or co-opts a Shard's invested sources and turns them against their own Shard. In effect, he turns a Shard's outgoing invested power inwards towards itself to weaken and shatter it into splinters. This works similar to how condensed Atium, when taken away from Ruin, weakened him. Except in Odium's case, his corruption of the Shards invested sources makes those sources actively fight their own Shard. So not only does the Shard weaken by loosing access to it's own power, but that power is actively working against it's own intent, drawing more and more power from the Shard, inevitably leading to eventual splintering. Now Odium seems to have been forced to invest in Roshar. And Cultivation has seen him shatter Honor. Odium literally is about to potentially invest in Taravangian and Moash. What's your take on this?

Update 1.2.1 – The Zinc Peripheral In Invested 1.2.1, the sphere's had a zinc peripheral installed, letting it use feruchemical zinc to increase its processing speed and slow down time. This makes it easier to fire coins while flying and select targets for Pushing and Pulling in the heat of the moment. See the changelog for all changes, but here's one in particular: you don't have to select targets before Pushing or Pulling on them. Trying to Push with no targets selected will Push on whatever metal you're looking at (dubbed "vacuous" Push/Pulling). This means you can fly around Luthadel without touching the keyboard. Since some of the controls have changed, be sure to check the in-game Help Overlay as a refresher. Next step: Means of quickly choosing different methods of controlling Pushes and Pulls. One of these will be a method for Pushing on all targets in a general direction, which Wax does a lot in the books. Another is the famous steel bubble. If math gets anyone excited, here's the fun differential equation I wrote for the intensity of the visual effect during zinc time. Fiddle with the variables and try to figure out what they're for, 'cause I ain't telling. X-axis is percentage of zinc remaining in the bank, and y-axis is intensity. Hope everyone's having a good summer. As always, let me know your thoughts. Update 1.2 Last year, I began working on a game/simulation implementing the magic system of Allomancy. I made a thread several months ago to document the initial state of the game and discuss different ways to mathematically model Pushing and Pulling. I establish a lot of the physics of the game there, so I recommend you read it if you haven't already. I've worked on the project a lot over the past few months. This post will be separated into three main sections: the first, focusing on the physics; the second, focusing on the game (with an interlude for more physics); and my plans for the future. Here is the second update on the progress of Invested. The Physics In Pagerunner's famous thread, I made several simulations comparing different models of Pushing and Pulling, showing off how Pushing duels could work as well as what happens when the coin you're Pushing suddenly hits a solid wall/ground. Those simulations can be all viewed in-game, so feel free to examine them yourself and experiment with the Allomancy settings. If we assume anchors do nothing special for your Pushes, Allomancy behaves like an undamped spring. If you push off of a coin into the air, you'll oscillate up to your max height, then fall all the way back down to the ground, then back up, and so on. Changing the relationship between distance and strength doesn’t change the behavior of the system. Pushing duels work in a similar way. The 10 cubes are allomancers, anchored to the ground. Without any dampening, you get a boring spring. The only model I could find that solved both of these problems was the infamous theory that the strength of Pushes is a function of velocity. In case you haven't been following those conversations, this theory (in its most basic form) claims "the higher the relative velocity between the Allomancer and target, the weaker the Allomantic force." Pushes on anchored coins will be stronger than Pushes on unanchored coins because anchored coins are completely stationary (that is, the relative velocity between the Allomancer and target is much smaller). The flavor of this theory that works best in the game (in my opinion) reverses the effect when the relative velocity is negative, i.e. when the Allomancer and target are moving towards each other. This means that Pushes on targets flying towards you are even more stronger than Pushes on targets flying away from you. When you're falling and throw a coin down, your Push will be weak until the coin hits the ground. Then, your relative velocity will be negative, and the Allomantic force will increase significantly, giving you a "jolt" as soon as the coin hits. This is the effect we see in the books, so it's what I have enabled by default in the game. With this model, Allomancers stabilize near their maximum height, rather than oscillate about it: Changing the constant used in the calculation of this velocity factor makes the system more critically/under-damped: Watch how duels play out. I've also unanchored the Allomancers, and this looks a lot more like how I envision Pushing duels in the books. The strength of the Allomancer is important, but weight determines who will move in the end. Again, you can experiment with these settings at any moment. The Game The player is a "primer sphere" - an Allomechanical construct or fabrial. It is an experimental device designed to test the limits of Scadrian magic. The sphere's mechanical nature gives it full control of its body and moment, allowing it to roll across surfaces and jump. This is enhanced by the first metal the sphere can burn: pewter. This is used for sprinting and pewter-jumping. By passively burning pewter, the sphere exerts a greater force while moving, allowing it to better anchor itself or move while Pushing and Pulling. While burning pewter and jumping, the sphere jumps further in that direction and can jump off or up walls or kick away small objects. Secondly, the primer sphere can burn iron and steel. Passively burning either of these metals reveals all nearby sources of metals. The wider the line, the heavier the source. The brighter the line, the stronger the potential Push on that metal. The sphere can "Pull-target" and "Push-target" one or more metals at once. When a metal is Pull-targeted, it can be Pulled on - likewise for Push-targets and Pushing. (Interlude: physics) After all the calculations are done, the player has some Allomantic Force they exert on the target. The mass of iron or steel burned is directly proportional to the net force they exert. If you're pushing with 1000N of force, you're burning 1000mg, or 1g, of iron every second. There's actually a WoB that mildly contradicts this: according to Brandon, metal burning speed is proportional to power drawn, not force. There are two reasons for why I make burn rate proportional to force. First, I can't be sure if Brandon is talking about "power" with the definition used in physics (i.e. a change in energy over time). If not, then there's nothing to worry about; the novels are wobbly enough to not be sure how precisely metals are burned. Still, in the future, I might shift things around to have all calculations work around power/energy rather than force, but the former is harder to calculate than the latter. My college-level textbook only talks about power in regards to applying a force to an object such that it moves at a constant velocity, so the math would get… difficult. I'm working on a model called "Distributed Power" based off of Pagerunner's model 3 that does something similar to this, but it's a work in progress. The main difference between force and power (in this context) is that power is a function of velocity; but, if we're using the Exponential with Velocity model, force still changes with velocity, just with a different relationship. There's potential for a fair bit of discussion in regards to this. The second, more important reason for making burn rate a function of force is reduce obfuscation - if you're consistently Pushing with 1000N, you know you're losing exactly 1g of steel every second. If you have only 10g of steel left, your intelligent lizard brain can figure out how long you can keep up that push. This relationship is more intuitive for the player, and changing this to power would lose that clarity. (end interlude) It wouldn't be Mistborn if you couldn't throw coins. You can toss coins. If you Push while doing this, you'll fire coins directly towards the crosshair. Holding "jump" while tossing a coin will throw it downward, useful for cruising above the ground or a smooth landing. There's also a "Coinshot mode." With this, holding down Push (right-click) and pressing Pull (left-click) will instead throw a coin. This makes throwing coins work more like a conventional FPS where the LMB fires bullets. This (along with all of the controls, I guess) is a WIP. There are a few scenes for the player to play around in: a tutorial and several sandboxes (as well as the Sandbox, which has some fun zero-gravity targets). cracks knuckles cries in GTX 965M Turns On Motion Blur it's gamer time (recorded back when I only had my laptop at school) There is an assortment of other videos here. The Future We've talked a lot about Newton's third law a lot, but let's take a look at Sanderson's third law: "Expand on what you have already, before you add something new." Better ways of throwing coins Changing between semi-automatic and fully-automatic coin-throwing Throwing multiple coins in different patterns Oftentimes in the books, you see Mistborn throwing a "spray" of coins at an enemy like a shotgun blast. Pewter From the start, my plan with pewter was for it to work like a shield in other games, where burning it will prevent you directly losing health. Once health actually becomes a thing, pewter will serve this purpose. HUD General polish is needed. It should be more clear when metal reserves are refilled, coins are picked up, on-screen text changes, etc. Sound The game's completely mute at the moment. I have little experience with sound design and production, so having a meaningful sound system is still a ways away. Controls I've been living in my own bubble, so I've grown accustomed my choice in keybinds. I am absolutely certain think that they're not the most intuitive. If you play the game, please let me know which controls make sense and which ones don't. Argent threw in the idea of using bullet time (or, perhaps, Feruchemical zinc time) for steel and iron. It would help a lot to make Pushing, Pulling, and target selection easier. In general, make target selection better. When you're surrounded by metal objects, there is a lot of visual clutter on the screen. I need to make a better system of prioritizing target selection so that you can say "I want to choose this target" and not accidentally select a target in front of or behind it. I definitely plan on adding macros/techniques for Pushing and Pulling. Vin's Horseshoe Wheel is one example. What I call the "centrifuge" is another - Pulling an object such that it orbits around your body, then releasing it such that it flies in the targeted direction. Lurchers never got their fair share of offensive combat in the books, so I want to show how formidable they can be, with a spicy little feedback loop or two. Other Allomantic metals Tin: zooming in, informative HUD elements about the environment, dispelling mists/visible stars in Luthadel. Bronze: see nearby sources of kinetic Investiture, such as puzzle elements or enemies that would try to Push on you. My requests for you: Play the game! You can download it from my GitHub. What controls make the most sense for you? What bugs and physics kinks do you find? Sanderson's 0th law says to err on the side of awesome. What should I add that would be fun? Mistborn is a fantasy novel, after all - so what are your fantasies for Allomancy in a game?

Harmony doesn't seem to know what Trellium is, from what MeLaan says in Shadows of Self. So I'm not sure that he can. I read that part as representing Sazed stopping a "direct" destructive attack on Scadrial. He might be able to stop an overt attack (eg, destroying the planet or making it uninhabitable, or a full scale invasion) or a full scale Investing in the planet to the degree that Harmony is Invested in it, but not a small degree of Investment (enough to create a few hemalurgic spikes of condensed 'Trell' investiture) or a couple of worldhopping "red-eyed Faceless Immortals" popping in.

I don't think so... What I'm arguing for is that the "natural" paths for magic to follow are largely 'set' when a planet is created (or forms naturally, if any of the Cosmere planets did). The magic systems don't actually exist until a Shard Invests in the planet... but when a Shard does, its power "fits into" the paths that are already there. The magic system(s) that actually form are dependent on both the individual Shard and the individual planet... If Honor had Invested in Nalthis instead of Roshar, or if Endowment rather than Honor had come to Roshar with Cultivation, a different magic system would have resulted - different from both Awakening and (KR-style) Surgebinding. (Since both the Fused and ancient Ashyn use or used the Surges in some form, the hypothetical Endowment-linked Rosharan system probably would still have manipulated the Surges, but not through a bond with spren or an Honorblade.) I don't think that's quite correct. The specific metals having their specific effects would have been set at the time Ruin and Preservation created the planet, not at the time Allomancy and Feruchemy were granted to people. Steel sitting around by itself doesn't have an Allomantic or Feruchemical effect, true, but (Bands of Mourning spoilers)

These are good suggestions for dealing with blue line clutter. I had planned on having labels for each HUD element in the help overlay, but I completely forgot. Absolutely doing that for next build. Iron- and Steelsight provide the same effect, yeah. Mistings probably care much more about the distinction than mistborn. I think without freely-recharging zinc, gameplay is too hard. It does follow the rules of feruchemy; the people who made the sphere (who have a much more advanced knowledge of the Metallic Arts than most era-2 Scadrians) use an unkeyed zinc metalmind that a "slave" processor/identity is constantly filling with its own mental processing speed. Forcing the player to slow done or stop moving kills momentum that I don't think would make for enjoyable gameplay. Currently the threshold for seeing a metal is "would I have a non-zero Push on it?", which might be overkill. Increasing this threshold is a good idea to reduce clutter, since the player shouldn't care about or be able to see metals that a Push wouldn't accelerate much. I really don't want players to have trouble with controls because they couldn't finish the tutorial, so I'll try to make the messages and message triggers more visible. Accidentally pressing C to change the controls won't be an issue in the future; that'll be done with something like a weapon wheel for changing control modes for Pushes and Pulls, next update. If Q and E feel backwards for you, you can swap it to E for Push-targeting and Q for Pull-targeting at the top of Settings > Gameplay. I highly suggest playing this game with a 5-button mouse if you have one. The help overlay is the master controls list. I think playing with that open is the easiest way to learn controls. It doesn't fully unlock unless you finish the tutorial or complete another level. As I said, I really want players to finish the tutorial to familiarize themselves with the controls. I'll add a message requesting the player to finish the tutorial if the help overlay isn't fully unlocked yet. I'm currently working on this project by myself, but I'm not completely opposed to working with others. There are multiple methods I normally use for deselecting all targets. Briefly stopping burning metals will deselect everything (pressing X is the fastest way). Holding R and scrolling all the way down will deselect all but 1 target. Also, if you plan on only pushing on a metal once (like an anchor to get yourself into the air), Pushing on it with no Push-targets selected is a good strategy ("vacuous Pushing"). Thanks for all the advice, everyone. As always, controls seem to be an issue, so it's good to know that next update will overhaul that.

They were pretty salty about the whole explosion thing.

Variel was looking through his closet of suits, each one perfectly cleaned and hung up so that they would not touch any others. He could not have his prized possessions ruined. He picked one out and his servants began to carefully help him get dressed. The news of this new Inquisitor’s presence in Luthadel had unsettled him. It reminded him too much of a little secret he’d rather not think about. It had unsettled the balance of the city. It had ruined his plans. No matter, he thought to himself, idly rolling a boxing across his knuckles, maybe I can use this to my advantage.... ~ So, this is my first conversion game. I’m not quite sure where we’re even supposed to start today. Should we even lynch anyone? The odds of us finding and lynching the Inquisitor D1 seem very slim to me (it’s a 5.56% chance, actually). I’d rather not lynch a coinshot or Mistborn on accident like the village did in LG56. I guess I’ll wait for others to give their thoughts first.

We also know that the Fused each only have one Surge. I don't remember if it said Orders or not, but it's implied that there are 9 single surge orders, implying one Surge is missing. At this point, I'm pretty sure the Herald/KR version was built keeping resonances in mind, whereas Odium just straight up gave them Surges. It's like... the Herald/KR system was built knowing there'd be a natural outgrowth from wielding two powers, and there was active consideration on what effects that would have on Rosharran society going forward - thus the Surge-pairs. Odium doesn't care about any of that - his people are already committed to him, and they're probably not changing much because of their Cognitive Shadow nature.

Instead they warshiped the man who kinda lived, Nearly Headless Nick.

Their main export was Ganderwhale juice.

I don't think it's fair to say it's been a dry 2018/19 for Sanderson. We got Legion, MTG, Skyward. He's obviously happy doing what he's doing and I'd prefer him not to burn himself out with Cosmere books. I enjoy the time between books theorising and re-reading my favourite author, especially visiting this forum. I do understand that we all need our Cosmere fix and it's hard coming in to a book series that isn't finished. I remember waiting for Oathbringer after finishing WoR and realising that we are only even beginning to see the Cosmere world and I'd be well into my later years to see this finished!

Spiritual Adhesion could do some funky things.

I believe that bondsmiths could definitely do something like this but Brandon has said the Ryshadium evolved. So they might not be mutually exclusive, but there has to be some evolution somewhere. Questioner #1 (in Mistborn cosplay) (paraphrased) Do Ryshadium exist because of a spren bond, like greatshells? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) Yea, they evolved symbiotically with spren, unlike other horses. They can still mate will other horses, but they are genetically distinct. OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)

It's not so much that I look at my old writing and cringe so much as I look at my old writing and wish I still had a quarter of the confidence to write such things without berating myself and deleting the word document.

I've nearly caught up with Calderis... excuse me HOW

YKYASW you have allomantic symbols on everything YKYASW your most visited site is the 'shard followed by the Coppermind

That last part is exciting!

I'm so behind! Just got done with my busiest month of the year at work, though, so I should be caught up by Sat and then moving forward at a much quicker pace! My line-by-line are of course in the shared document, but most of my issue with the chapter have been addressed already, especially the aimless wandering. I get that this is a second book, but I'm 30 pages in and I don't feel like the book has even started yet. I also want to draw special attention to the fact that Q and M have very similar dialogue. I don't think there's nearly enough disparity between them, though they both THINK a lot about how different they are. They both use similar vernacular and real world slang, some of which would be long out dated by the time this story takes place. I want to feel just how big of a generation gap there is between them. These characters are supposed to compliment each other, but they are also supposed to foil each other, and the foil isn't coming across very clearly. I hate the line "show, don't tell" but I feel like the differences between the characters are being told to me rather than shown.

Alright, here we go:

Update 1.2.1 – The Zinc Peripheral See the top of the original post for update details. Special thanks to @Argent for the idea of bullet time, implemented with feruchemical zinc.

A long time ago, so long I don’t even want to bother finding the post, I mentioned here how I made a collage out of art from my old small copy of TWOK when it fell apart. Iirc I never posted a picture, so YKYASW you make...this.

True - but it seems Odium's now discovered how to get around that, given Moash/Vyre killing Jezrien with some kind of soul-trapping blade. So I guess the real question applies just as much to Odium's forces working against the Heralds. All 10 Heralds survived up to the time of Oathbringer, so it seems like nothing like that soul-trapping-knife was used in the ancient Desolations. It might just be "new technology", but I'd expect Odium, with a Shard's expanded mind, to have figured out the magic pretty thoroughly even back then. True... I was more thinking about the possibility of either the Heralds going into Braize's Cognitive Realm to kill the Fused's shadows directly, between reincarnations, or Honor using his Shardic knowledge/expanded mind to develop a weapon specifically capable of killing or trapping the Cognitive Shadow (comparable to Nightblood or the knife used on Jezrien) while in a physical body. True. It would depend on how powerful the Heralds really were back then... Some WOBs say they got a direct feed of Investiture from Honor. But if they were operating on that sort of levels, how were they repeatedly captured and tortured? Maybe on Braize that power feed was much more limited, since Honor is Invested in Roshar instead? Something like that must have been happening, because (Mistborn spoilers)

To be fair, of all the different Cosmere magic we know, someone with Allomantic or Feruchemical abilities is probably the best possible fit to wield Nightblood. Think about it. They have a pretty commonly available investiture source - one that can be used across worlds, no hacking required. And they also innately have a sense of how much reserve they have and how fast it's being used. And metals aren't dependent on special storms or in short supply because you have to Harvest them individually from people one by one.

I always loved much of the playful relationship between Vin and Elend and nothing topped it more for me than when they finally got to dance and Elend of course immediately pulls out a book. I can only imagine how exasperated and yet amused Vin must have felt. I also loved the idea of her simple, but elegant black dress and him in his white uniform. Such a contrasting look, though there weren’t a ton of descriptive details to work with, so I took some liberties. Anyways, I wanted to do a piece involving that scene and so this was the result. Hope you all enjoy!

It happens

A judgmental tomato fell from the sky.

Xino looked up, confused. "What are you talking about? Who are you, anyways?" She doesn't mean you, Xino. She means me. Xino's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. "Au-Author?"

Greetings, friend. You may have noticed that many of the illustrations in the Stormlight Archives contain strange markings. I have determined that these markings are writing, and I have undertaken to decipher their messages. Crazy? Perhaps. But these markings are not simply decorative. They contain information about the Cosmere, hidden in plain sight. In The Way of Kings, we are introduced to the Alethi script. This is the writing system used by female scribes and scholars in Alethkar, understand? It shows up in the labels of Navani’s Notebook: Since the novel was first published in English, the labels were also “translated” into English, but Alethi letters were used to preserve the feel of the original diagrams. Each symbol stands for one letter – however Alethi has some letters that are not found in English (Th, Sh, Ch), and English has some letters that are not found in Alethi (C, Q, X, W). In Words of Radiance, we learn more about the languages of Roshar. Alethi script reappears, with greater variety. Navani’s Notebook again provides straightforward diagram labels directly transliterated from English into Alethi: (Translation credit goes to cris34b: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6418-navanis-notebook-page-406-translation/?hl=navani) Shallan’s sketchbook provides more cryptic text, friend. First spotted and translated by jcoop513, the text here is hidden, and is written phonetically so that each letter is an approximation of how it sounds when spoken aloud. Based on the context, this is most likely a page of Jasnah's notes that Shallan appropriated to use as sketchpaper. Note that the transliteration of Jasnah's writing is very different from that of Navani's. Read aloud, the passage would be thus: Translation efforts are ongoing at http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6619-shallans-drawing-page-354-alethi-script-translation-spoilers/. KalynaAnne traced over the partially-obscured letters by hand and was able to reconstruct several missing words: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6487-thaylen-and-alethi-glyph-translation-glyph-key-revised-418/?p=233114 Alethi is not the only language spoken on Roshar. That would be crazy. The Map of the Southern Frostlands introduces us to the written language used in Thaylenah: As with Alethi script, the Thaylen in this illustration is simply transliterated English, and can be deciphered using the following key: Thaylen people are renown for smashing their consonants together when they speak, and this is reflected in their writing. Written Thaylen has no vowels and is written vertically, understand? Both the Alethi and Thaylen pages include numerals. Just as many different nations on Earth employ Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.) is quite possible that all Vorin peoples (indeed perhaps most inhabitants of Roshar!) use the same numerals, even if their written languages differ. The numbers are written as follows: And now we come to glyphs, friend. Glyphs are written in syllables, with each syllable corresponding to a certain subcomponent of the glyph. Glyphs can be written three ways: a “standard” blocky form with syllables somewhat similar to Thaylen consonants, a “radial” form in which the glyph is warped to form a circular shape, and a “calligraphic” form in which the glyph can be warped into any shape. Often, the shape of a calligraphic glyph is reminiscent of the word it contains. Extra lines that do not represent syllables can be added to enhance the effect. For instance, a bookseller might advertise the name of his shop with a glyph shaped to resemble a book, understand? Many men in Alethkar are illiterate, relying on their wives or sisters to read documents to them aloud, but most can recognize certain important glyphs based on their shape alone. Alethi glyphs are not simply transliterations of English, but represent words in the Alethi language. The esteemed jofwu has compiled images of all known glyphs in another thread. Edit: The next bit is obsolete, as of Oathbringer. See p.519 for a key directly from the Calligrapher's Guild, courtesy of Nazh. My efforts to decipher the Alethi glyphs are ongoing, friend, but I present here what I speculate thus far: Please refer to the further pages in this thread for the latest developments in the 17th Shard's ongoing efforts to decipher these glyphs. Original first post, for posterity: