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I made a turkey!

I met someone with the last name “Bridgeman” yesterday.

This WoB was recently posted to Arcanum. This heavily, heavily implies Odium and Autonomy have at least an understanding between them that they won't go after each other, if they aren't outright allied. The two shardholders were lumped together by Hoid in the Way of Kings letter to Frost. I wonder if Bavadin / Autonomy will send someone to send an Avatar to Roshar as they might be upset that someone killed Rayse if they had a pre-ascension relationship and a post-ascension alliance. Not all the Avatars do, but Bavadin might. Autonomy can mold their Avatars in OB Ch. 50 epigraph they mention instilling a new Avatar with an intense dislike of Hoid. Bavadin might make one that's really not happy about what happened to Rayse.

Due to limited time and restrictive rules, I only had the opportunity to ask one question this time around. It's something I'd been wondering ever since I read The Bands of Mourning and noticed some suspicious characters at the party. I immediately thought "that woman and the gossippy guy are 'not from around here.'" (This was back before I was aware of the term "worldhopper." The woman, of course, was Khriss.) So last night, I finally asked about it: Q: In Bands of Mourning, at the party, Hoid and Khriss were both there, and talked with Wax. A: Yeah. Q: Were there any other worldhoppers present, and if so how many? A: Hmm... yes, at least one. Maybe two. Also, I collected a few awesome cosplayer pics. Steris: A flock of Mistborn: A giant Doomslug. (The person wearing it was standing upright inside the inflatable Doomslug near the front.) Also, me, (on the left, not in costume,) facing off against an opponent in Shardblade Sparring. If you couldn't come, you really missed out for that alone!

Fun Fact: You can’t smell the rain, your sense of smell just works better with there is more moisture and humidity in the air.

The sky is blue

*enters* (Era 1) The Inquisitor Mantra: *leaves*

I'm back from the dead! School is really time-consuming. So...when did they change the logo? And also, 11 days since the last RP post?

Yes I did start Ookla season early, I'm going to be out of town for a while and didn't want to miss it.

That’s plausible enough. Makes me wonder whether Yolish Lightweaving is somehow more volatile/powerful, just like Khriss suggests that another Yolish version of a surge was in the RoW Ars Arcanum.

That was specifically about

Is this maybe a reference to how:[Dawnshard spoilers]

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssss. Kingsdaughter pretty much summed up my entire experience but here's my own rant: I liked this book. It was FUN. I loved Starsight, but tbh when that ending implied that Spensa will be away from fighting the war with the Superiority and embark on a side quest, I was a bit worried that Cytonic will end up falling in the "just a filler book" category despite it being a main novel (and the series being about Spensa's story). In some ways it did feel that way, but hot damn I was wrong for the most part though. I found it more chill and enjoyable, a pleasant contrast to the others--novellas included--which dealt with more serious things. Can I just say though, Spensa and M-Bot's childish excitement to the stuff we would find pretty normal (like the ocean and mushrooms) was SO PURE. It made my heart melt seeing her finally just getting to live you know?? During the adventuring she acted just like a kid who'd been taken to a theme park for the first time and *incoherent babbling* I LOVE it. Loved the reveals and the stuff we learned. Space pirates were cool, I kinda hope we'll see them again (especially since Spensa still has that promise). The relationship between Spin, the pirates, M-Bot, Chet were fun (Oh and her relationship with Jorgen hhhhhh my precious babies got together, finally). Spensa's character development was one of the hit points of the book for me: she matured in this one yet still remains to be the little aggressive little gremlin who owns my heart (spoilering the next part because my main rant is getting too long XD, feel free to skip it) AND THAT ENDING *bangs fists on table* DAYUM BRANDON WHY MUST YOU DO THIS TO ME. And the lore about the delvers, cytonics, AI was...wow it's great finally getting some answers, so now let's go beat Winzik's a- Super hyped for Evershore and Defiant!! Final thoughts: Liked and enjoyed it. A lot. The reveals were great, though I suspect it wouldn't be as fun on a reread anymore since the whole surprise aspect was what made them super exciting, but oh well. It was an enjoyable break from the more serious books, but in terms of the books as a whole I still think my ranking would be Starsight>>Skyward>>(Sunreach & Redawn)>>Cytonic. However, Cytonic does now hold the 'Most Favorite Book-ish Moments' title (sorry Skyward) and that says a lot.

Linnea. @Otto Didact suggested it during the Sunreach spoiler period, and Janci liked the name, so she's been rolling with it. Regarding readings and Arcanum audio, things may either not happen, or take a little while. The official release event was livestreamed (privately) on YouTube, but I expect that one to become public at a later date (personal speculation). I am being told that the Spoiler Q&A was also recorded by Dragonsteel, presumably with the intent to post it at some point, but we don't know anything more there. Until these things become public, the only stuff we'll be putting in Arcanum are people's personal reports here, and elsewhere on the Internet. So if anyone has WoBs still fresh in their memory, post away

So I did like Cytonic. But the thing I found odd was how much time we interacted with pirates and how little tension there was in the space combat except at the very end. Spensa is just too good of a pilot, and with the worldbuilding decision that they didn't use live ammo... that made the fights decidedly not tense for me. One thing I am surprised about: I love the delvers again! I hated how easy the delver was to beat in Starsight, but I totally loved that that was now a corrupted, shunned delver. I dug that a lot. I found their backstory great. I am very surprised Brandon pulled it out for me because man, I was so deflated after Starsight. That said, I still think there should have been way more casualties from the delver there. It's kind of hilarious to me that the one casualty in Starsight came back to life in this book, with Hesho, haha.

Alright, time for my final update of Q&A stuff for this Con, as I wasn't one of the lucky 150. I'll quote questions I asked, and paraphrase the responses. Direct quotes will be in quotation marks, and everything else is paraphrased. Janci was later asked which era she would like to write in, and confessed that it didn't really matter to her. She then went on to explain that she'd like to write a YA story that would ultimately bridge the gap between the times. (So more like what Wax & Wayne was originally intended as in an Era 1.5 sort of story.) Kimmalyn will most likely be a future Skyward novella character*, and will most likely be a LGBTQ+ character, as a future LGBTQ+ romance IS coming. (Not confirmed, but Janci wiggled her eyebrows suggestively when directly asked about Kimmalyn.) Janci also ships Alanik and Arturo and doesn't want their relationship to end at just friendship. Janci also wants to name Spensa's mom Linea (sp.) EDIT: Most of the above has already been listed. (By me...earlier today...whoops...) I'm keeping these up though, just for posterity's sake. White Sand Omnibus is done! They're working with the publisher on it, and it will probably be released next year sometime. Isaac is also about halfway through his Nikki story. Lastly are some questions and answers from tonight's Q&A. Since this one was streamed, I'm pretty sure the Arcanum will use that footage instead. Still: @Wyndlerunnerreported the Ashyn magic stuff. (Cultivation has briefly been to Ashyn as well.) At the Bands of Mourning dance ball where Hoid and Khriss are, there is at least one, but probably two other worldhoppers present. Dune's monopoly on intergalactic travel narrative influenced the Cytoverse. Once again Brandon mentioned a videogame project he can't announce.** Ilos (sp.) wanted to work with Brandon, but was rejected due to another project being accepted. This rejected project was one of two denied, and has enough information out there that people have started comparing it to Mistborn. (This may be Forspoken, but the compony mentioned - which I completely misspelled - is neither Luminous Projects or Square Enix, the two driving forces behind Forspoken. I may have misheard however.) Aimians don't have Parshendi blood, but RAFO on other races mixing to result in them. Rithmatist - getting someone who has Aztec heritage to co-author the sequel is being looked into and a probably direction. This is not new information. "What do Doomslugs taste like?" "They taste like...knowing you're a terrible person." A worldhopper in The Lost Metal comes from a culture inspired by the Indian subcontinent. (I believe there's been speculation about a potential Elantrian country/continent, but there's no hard WoBs on this.) Total Readings as far as I know: The Lost Metal (Chapters 1 & 2) Evershore (Prologue & Chapter 1) In the Shadow of Lightning (Brian McClellan's new book) (First part of a character's first viewpoint) Kingmaker (Prologue & Chapter 1) *This may or may not have been confirmed during the Skyward panel. I wasn't there. **Insert Soulburner speculation and hype.

I got my question asked! My breakdown: If I wasn't 100% behind Soulburner being a videogame before, I am now. I think there's a not small chance that Soulburner is actually the PS4 game Forspoken. Reddit sniffed out a couple of sources a few months ago, and the information from that speculation has been proved accurate. Add in Brandon's comment about doing a call with a videogame company earlier this week, and it feels like there's something brewing. This also matches up with Brandon not being able to tell us anything IMO. The only problem is why Brandon would have an NDA so far into this project when others seemingly don't. And that's something I can't answer. Other things of note: I asked Steven Bohls if he and Brandon have any cool ideas for the next Lux book in terms of cool settings or cities - he mentioned that Book 5 will most likely be set in the New Orleans bayou/deep swamp area. (Or at least that's what he'd like.) It will most likely be a shorter book, at around 100k words overall; and there's a good chance that Mizzy will be a major POV character in the next book. Fun fact - Mizzy was supposed to show up in Lux, as Jax was supposed to go from Boston through New York, meet Mizzy and see Regalia flood the city, and then end up in Texas. This part ended up being cut as it was too tangential to the story. (Wingflare's original gimmick was going to be sound and a sound effect, but this was cut - as were most sound effects - as it felt too much like a gimmick.) Brandon currently wants Lux to be a trilogy, and the second book in that trilogy may be released sometime next November. (The two have ideas, but they were waiting on some sales reports and contract stuff first, and that may have just arrived this past week.) Dan is writing the novelization of Dark One at the moment. It's not following the outline, so don't expect it to end up like the graphic novel (sadly). Dan is planning on this being about a 100-120k novel overall. Janci unofficially announced more Skyward novellas, with a surprise POV character for one of them coming up. Brandon will give the official announcement tomorrow/today. This isn't really big spoiler-y or surprising news, as Janci a few months ago mentioned that there were things she couldn't talk about related to Skyward and that we can infer from there, and then Brandon mentioned that he had talks with Janci during his 11/19 SandoWriMo update - the one where he also talks about a meeting with a videogame company. Brandon Q&A tidbits, all paraphrased: Hoid should not be a Rosharan and Yolish Lightweaver, as it's getting close to something related to Dawnshards. There are other Surges related to Yolish magic. There are other Godmetals that can be used/burned by anyone. The "Crown, Tower, Spear" Death Rattle has not happened yet, either on-screen or off-screen.

SPOILERS AND ADDED INFORMATION: I had posted other bits of this else where in 2020 before the "Taln never broke" WOB, but consolidated all the ideas here in this post This theory and post came out before Rhythm of War, but updates have been made to include information from ROW SA5 Prologue: This is not discussed to avoid spoilers, but SA5 Prologue has some interesting information --- Weird Questions: 1) TALN BREAKING SEEMS ODD What broke Taln? He is crazy and insensate for 4000 years and then one day he says "No thank you". What could have broke Taln? And, in terms of timelines, Taln returned before the Everstorm crossed into the physical realm, so it can't be that the Everstorm freed Taln. Yes the Everstorm was in the Cognitive, but all the doom and gloom seemed to be about the Everstorm being pulled in the Physical Realm by Eshoni and her team. Since Taln returns at the end of The Way of Kings, then Taln must return in a way that is not related to Eshoni. And as I mentioned before, I don't think it makes sense that Odium suddenly found a way to break Taln after 4000 years of trying. Edit: we later got a WOB that Taln did not break 2) DAVAR FAMILY CONNECTIONS Why was the Davar family so connected to secret societies despite being a Vaden house of little note? They have connections to the Ghostbloods and the Ghostbloods have handed them a confirmed soulcaster AND possibly a Seon box. Why? And it seems Skybreakers may have been visiting as well for "reasons". As well, the Skybreakers are breaking paterns when it comes to the Davars. As far as we know, Shallan's older brother is the only Skybreaker to be using a dead blade. Is this special treatment for a member of the Davar family? And finally, Mraize seems to know the Davar family well enough to recognize the name immediately. The Davars would need to be pretty active for that name recognition to be so apparent. 3) CHILD SHALLAN AND HER IMPORTANCE Why did the cryptic go to Shallan as a child? Lift was chosen due to her strange connection to Cultivation, but why Shallan? And why twice? And what were Shallan's parents fighting about? Shallan remembers her parents having huge fights over Shallan's future starting from a very young age. What was that about? Connected to that, why is an dark influence attacking the Davar family? Why is Heleran given a shardblade and brought into the skybreakers? No other Skybreaker acolyte was given a dead-blade and sent to war (that we know of), so why is Helaran so non-standard? Shallan's parents also fight A LOT about Shallan's future. This seems to be a hint that Chanarach had a major plan for Shallan. 4) MAMA DAVAR IN THE KNOW Why was Shallan's mother so quick to try and kill "one of them". How does she know "them" so clearly? Why would she have such a quick and radical reaction? 5) MORE SECRETS What is Shallan's last secret. There is still something horrible in Shallan's past, and this has something to do with a Seon box and whatever Radiant was created to protect Shallan from. What is worse than killing testament? We also have strange internal thoughts from Shallan from WOR in Chapter 10: "The world ended; and Shallan was to blame". This thought has never been explained. What did Shallan do to end the world? "The world ended, and Shallan was to blame.- Words of Radiance, Chapter 10. Mentioned by @honorblades Another strange but overlooked instance occurs in TWoK when Shallan almost summons her Shardblade: If this is indeed Patters/Testement, then why would that Spren ask "What are you?" Testament should full-well know "what" Shallan is in terms of her being a human or a semi-radiant or anything like that. If this voice is Testament, then asking "What are you?" is very odd in my opinion. Shallan answers "I am terrified", but to me that always seemed ... not what the voice was asking Shallan. I always felt there was more to this that simply speaking truths. 6) THE FAMILY'S SAFE AND THE GLOWING LIGHTS ARE IMPORTANT (main data point for me creating this theory) People are very quick to discount Shallan's recollection of Lin Davar placing a glowing soul into a safe. I have always been very confused as to why Shallan is taken as "lying" to herself in this scene. Shallan has no reason to lie about the item being her mother's soul instead of a Shardblade. Lin Davar acted extremely quickly in that situation and made sure to place the item in that safe before dealing with any other issues. That to me is extremely telling. Why would Lin think the Shadblade wouldn't disappear eventually whenever Shallan dismissed it? Why would Lin think the Shardblade would stay in a safe if he managed to place it there quickly? Why would Lin so quickly run to place the item in the safe in the first place? Why is there an unused safe in that room? And then why do Shallan and Lin seem to continually see light coming from that safe for years and years? None of that vibes with "it is just a blade and Shallan is lying to herself" in any way. I just don't get it. Shallan having a Shardblade is not in anyway covered up by this lie, nor is the lie that Shallan killed her spren hidden by this lie either? There is no mental cover-up being done by Shallan making up a lie here. It seems everyone else dismisses Shallan, including Pattern, in favour of "Lynn put a sword in there". 7) EDIT FOR ROW: Then in ROW we get the timeline, and this does not hold up to scrutiny either. Shallan says her father put the item into the safe. WoR Shallan thinks that was a soul, but Pattern convinces her she is misremembering and that the item was a dead spren-blade. But that can't be a dead spren blade because Shallan has not unbonded Testament yet. Shallan does not think that a spren is trapped in that safe and we know this because Shallan then leaves to go speak with her spren in the garden AFTER the item is placed in the safe. Shallan acts immediately as a child in a way that doesn't even consider that her "blade" is in that safe. It just doesn't make sense to think a blade was placed into that safe based on the reactions of the two witnesses involved (which we learn Pattern is not one of) We take it from Pattern that Shallan is wrong here in her memory. However, In ROW we learn that Pattern is NOT an eyewitness to what went down in that room. Pattern sure has a lot of opinions about what Shallan saw, but Pattern was not actually there in the room and cannot actually know what Shallan saw go into the safe. Pattern assumed Shallan is lying to herself as Pattern sees many other lies around that event. But Pattern has no knowledge about who Mother-Davar was, what the safe was for, or why Skybreaker/Ghostbloods may have been in the home. Pattern is not a credible source of information on the events of that day. Shallan is the only living witness, and the actions of her father are consistent with the understanding Shallan had as a child. Shallan too noticed her father staring at the direction of the safe and the light. Only later in life is Shallan told again and again that her memory of those events are wrong by people who were not there. Both Lin and Shallan believe something is in the safe, and a sword does not match the other data points we have. There is "light" in that safe, and it is leaking out over time. And where di the blood come from? A Shardblade should not have done that. The blood has to be some other injury? The box is something. The light was something. Pattern is making assumptions and is wrong about this history with the safe. And why does Shallan see a glowing light coming from the box? Is it a soul like she believes? We learn in RoW that no herald soul can be trapped completely, and that the light of a herald will slowly leak out (is that what Shallan was seeing her whole childhood come out of the safe?). Is it her mother's soul escaping slowly to Braize? Or maybe could it be a perfect gem with Mishram inside? Who knows? But it is something. We have seen other glowing lights (Dawnshard and Dalinar hearing TwoK), so is she just mad, or did she really see something? Whatever it is, it does not make sense that Shallan thinks Testament is trapped in the safe if Shallan went and yelled at Testament after her mother was killed. Something was put into that safe, and to me the most likely answer is "her mother's soul". And firhermore, there is no reason to believe that Lin Davar would think a safe would ever prevent a Shardblade from reappearing in Shallan's hands. 8) HOID and MIDDLEFEST Hoid is downright shocked to see child-Shallan at the Middlefest celebration. Hoid sees something, but that something is unclear. When we originally read WOR, we assume HOpid is shocked to see a Radiant Child or perhaps a bonded spren. However, Shallan does not have a regular active sprenbond at the time of Middlefest, so Hoid did not see Testament or an active radiant bond There are a few things Hoid may have seen: a. Hoid saw Odium's touch on her family b. a dead-blade living-radiant connection line was still active c. the Cryptic team that watched Shallan. d. Shallan is so obviously a part of Chanarach that Hoid was gobsmacked by the resemblance. e. Shallan is noticeably different than other Rosharans due to her strange parentage. But whatever Hoid saw, it was not an active Spren Bond since we know Testament is a deadeye at that point in the story. ---- It All Put Together - A Timeline 1) JAH KAVED Chararach settled in the Davar estate in rural Jah Kaved. Chanarach is involved in several of the secret societies of Roshar just like most of the other heralds we have seen. Chanarach learns of the theory that a return of surgebinders will bring about a desolation. Chararach is completely terrified of returning to Braize and supports the culling of nascent surgebinding. Chanarach is involved in research and is a part of the search to create a method that prevents a herald from returning to Braize upon death. Kalak is also involved. 2) COMMUNICATION NETWORKS Chanarach commands a fair bit of influence and even has a Seon to communicate off world. It is unclear who knows who Chanarach is, but as she did settle in a rural area it is likely Chana's identity is not common knowledge even within secret societies (similar to Restares and Amaram). Chana exerts some form of influence and stays in-the-know with investiture theory and is able to contact others on Roshar or off-world. 3) CREATING THE SAFE Chana tries to devise a way to never return to Braize. She creates a special kind of safe that her soul could be placed in to. She thinks it will entirely prevent a return or will greatly delay her return to Braize. Chana has no way to test this as there are no herald-souls or returned-souls to experiment with. Possibly, the safe is akin to the Seon box in design or the safe may even actually be the Seon Box Shallan remembers playing with as a child? At some point, Chana tells Lin Davar what to do in case she is ever killed (place her soul into the box). In ROW we learn Kelek has some knowledge on this herald soul-leakage issue, so perhaps he was also involved in the Soul Box experiments in some way. 4) SHALLAN IS BORN Chanarach eventually has a daughter and names that daughter after her friend Shalash (Shallan says she was named after Shalash). Shallan may not be a "typical" offspring. She seems to be different from her brothers in some meaningful way. Perhaps Shallanis a cutting of Chararach or maybe Shallan conceived through some form or parthenogenetic process. Perhaps Shallan was created using breaths, as Tyn notes that Shallan seems to see colours better than most other people. EDIT: In a later WOB we learned that that non-returned Cognitive Shadows have had children Edit: In a later WOB we learned that Heralds can have children but it is complicated and effortful to do. Chana has special plans for Shallan. We know from WoR that Shallan's parents fought A LOT about Shallan's future. This implies to me that Shallan is somehow more intentionally convieved than her male siblings, and that Chana had something planned for Shallan that Lynn Davar had moral misgivings about. We are not sure what this is, but I think a lot of us will assume it has something to do with the Oathapact and/or returning to Braize. 5) SHALLAN IS DETECTED BY SPREN The Cryptics find out that one of the heralds has children or they discover a weird child who stands-out and is similar to the child of a Returned. The Cryptics send a delegation to investigate (WOB confirms heralds can have children though maybe it is difficult). At the same time, an unmade is drawn to the family. Testament begins to bond Shallan similar to what happened with Lift. Shallan eventually discovers what her mother is by playing with a Seon box at the Davar estate. The unmade's influence increases in an attempt to get the Herald to go insane and potentially get herself killed by Lin Devar or Shallan. 6) SHALLAN IS DETECTED BY SKYBREAKERS Shallan is discovered to be a surge binder by her mother. Her mother, fearing a return to Braize, refers to Shallan as "one of them". Note that Chanarach does not seem surprised that surgebinders are real. Chanarach has an absolute PTSD breakdown and attacks her daughter. Lin, who likely knew, steps in and Shallan is able to kill her mother in self defence. Lin Devar takes something and locks it away in the safe. We are told this is the Shardblade and Shallan's mother's soul. Shallan goes to the garden to scream at Testament and break her bond AFTER Testament is supposedly locked away in the safe. This timeline does not make sense even if we believe Testament could escape the safe. Why does Shallan believe her spren was trapped but also then in the garden? And how is Testament-blade = her mother's soul? There isn't a connection there logically. 7) SHALLAN KILLS A HERALD AND THEN TALKS TO TESTAMENT IN THE GARDEN After Shallan kills her mother, Shallan goes to Testament and breaks her bond. It is possible Testament told her more here as well. Shallan then begins to repress everything since Shallan has, in her mind, done the most evil act in history. "The world ended, and Shallan was to blame.- Words of Radiance, Chapter 10. Mentioned by @honorblades 8) CORRUPTION SETS IN Lin Devar begins to be corrupted even more. Lin also has mental guilt and wrestles with killing his herald-wife to save his daughter. He beings to protect Shallan at all costs for reasons that may be more than just guilt. Then Davar family hell ensues. The ghostbloods continue to cultivate the family. The Ghostbloods may not believe a herald could be killed by Lin or may not know she was a Herald. The Cryptics stay with Shallan as they don't blame her for what happened. They are still curious about what Shallan is and are researching what happens to a bonded-deadeye to its original radiant. The dark influence in the house may be more than an unmade as well. One of Chana's divine attributes is "obedient". I think this is significant. Lin is driven to rage every time one of his children will not obey him, and the word obey is emphasized many times. It may be possible the Lin's rage was a dark consequence of something Chana was doing, the safe's magical effects, or something else. It is also possible that Lin thought his children would inherit the divine attribute, and the fact they dont obey him drives him to rage. 9) BRAIZE AND SOUL LEAKAGE Chanarach returns to Braize. It may have taken some time for her to get to Braize. It seems the soul is leaking out of the safe over time (ROW: as we see with Jezrian in the gem). Or maybe it takes 5 years to find Chana on Braize since arrival was unexpected and because in earlier returns the heralds were able to "hide" for some time. Either way, the other heralds do not know that that has happened as they cannot detect the pain-bond while on Roshar. Edit: Ishar created the oathpact so he may be able to sense changes in it. 10) HOID SEES SHALLAN Shallan, with no bond, goes to Middlefest. Wit's magic or memory allow him to detect that there is something very strange about Shallan. Wit somehow knows what Shallan fights "is not truly natural" and encourages her to make a path for the light. It is unclear what Wit saw, but he knew more than the fact she was a surgebinder (even though she's actually a deadeye-binder at the time). 11) CHANA IS CAPTURED ON BRAIZE Chanarach is eventually found on Braize. For some reason, Chana either breaks to the pain or gives in to some deal Odium offers. It may have taken a while or been immediate. What is strange is that Chana has not been seen returning to Roshar, either Chana took some deal meaning she did not have to return or perhaps she intentionally landed somewhere remote. 12) TALN RETURNS WITHOUT BREAKING THE OATH Taln returns to Roshar completely insane and without breaking. What happens to Chanarach is unknown. All assume Taln broke. 13) SHALLAN BEGINS TO REMEMBER THAT HER MOTHER WAS A HERALD Radiant is created from memories of Shallan's mother. Or potentially, Radiant is somehow part of Chanarach. Radiant dresses in the same blue and red warrior outfit as the Herald Chanarach in artworks. Radiant is Shallan's repressed memories of who her mother was. It is also possible that Radiant is in someway Shallan's mother (connection mumbo jumbo and cognitive shadow stuff along with cultivation weirdness possibilities) Here is a description of Radiant: “She [Radiant] had chosen to wear her vakama; the traditional Vaden’s warrior clothing. It was similar to the Alethi takama but the skirt was pleeted instead of straight. She wore a loose matching coat with a tight vest and shirt beneath. The bright clothing features vibrant blues embroidered over reds with gold woven between and it had trim on the skirt” Here is Chanarach: 14) TESTEMENT MEMORIES Shallan is forced to confront what happened with Testament, and Radiant begins to see that she must help Shallan deal with her final truth. [Option 1] Shallan knows she killed a herald and that she sent her mother to damnation - possibly ending the world and starting the final desolation. [Option 2] Shallan does not know her mother was a herald, but will put that together in regards to the "hole" in her memory"

There are animals using Arcane Arts on the Pantheon islands. So they must be Invested, mustn't they? Hence what happens to them if they die? Is the environment of the perpendicularity in the CR full of animal and plant Shades? Is that the true reason the planet is suicide to travel to?

Hi there! My name is Allie and I am mom to 4 boys who I somehow convinced my husband to be on board with naming, Jordan, Perrin, Kaladin and Elend. The story of that convincing is long so I won't include it here, suffice it to say I have always loved books and unique names so I knew from a young age I would want my kids names to have literary references. I mostly came to the 17th shard to introduce myself because I met some awesome people at the Dragonsteel Mini-con this week and though I spent hours talking to them I did not get their names or contact info and I was hoping to figure out a way to find them. I am a stay at home mom to my small army of exhaustingly adorable little boys and so I have never really delved into the fandom even though I have enjoyed books and talking about them since I was young, I have always preferred in person conversation. Going to the mini-con though I realized how much I enjoy connecting with fellow book nerds. Those I talked to at the con probably remember me most as the crazy lady with very short dark brown hair and the kids with fandom names and the husband who good naturedly tagged along to a book convention. Those I was hoping to find are: Emily and Raymond-we ate lunch with you guys on Tuesday at the Mexican place. Hayden-Board game, nuskin guy, I sat in front of you at the signing event. Connor(I think I remembered that correctly)-In a clinical Psychology masters program at BYU, I sat in front of you at the signing event. The super awesome, I believe siblings? whose names they said so fast I do not remember but y'all sat behind my husband and I at the signing event and told me about the bone-conducting head phones. The Boomslug and Doomslug couple who we sat with in line for the release event and whose names I believe we never even asked. Anyways I am not on social media but I would love to find some of you all again so I can keep talking books and such. So that's me, crazy stalker person looking for more friends who read all the books and love to talk about them with other nerds

I DID IT! I killed 4 Molduga 40 Talus's 40 Hinox/Stalnox 22 Lynels Calamity and Darkbeast Gannon All in one blood moon cycle, without eating! I also died twice but ignore that.

We like to strike a balance between enough content that @Kasimir can't chill, but everyone else is able to participate.

Mistborn

The question about Hoid came up before I asked about Yolish magic relating to Rosharan magic. I believe that Brandon was referring to how powerful Light weaving can be (there will be lightweavers with lasers in the future) and now that Hoid has both, it's very dangerous. I also asked the question about godmetals. Here's a rough transcript of the questions I asked and the answers (two are from the spoiler Q&A, one is from the personal signing. I was one of the lucky 150) Q: We know Rosharan lightweaving is similar to Yolish lightweaving, and we learn in RoW that Stoneshaping may be a gimped version of microkinesis. Are there other surges which are modified versions of Yolish magic? A; Yes QAre there other godmetals that non Mistborn can burn? A: Yes (This was at the personal signing) Q: I am fascinated by godmetals. Can you tell me something new about godmetals, something that isn't known or isn't widely known? A: I can tell you this: the existence of godmetals is one reason why metal is so weird in the cosmere. I'm bad at remembering exact verbiage but this is at least close to what he said. He definitely used the word "weird" in the last one.

That makes a lot of sense! With the wiggle room, Autonomy could've done as little as just standing back and not interfering! With how subtle Autonomy has been acting currently I think they wouldn't do anything very direct. I have a pet theory that Axindweth is an agent of Autonomy sent to kickstart the True Desolation to lead to Odium's potential release. If the theories that Trell is affiliated with Autonomy are true, then a Feruchemist acting on behalf of Autonomy wouldn't be too farfetched. This is fairly speculative however. Thanks for the clarification! I'm an audiobook listener so searching the books is near impossible for me!

Yeah it's entirely possible Autonomy and Odium are allied more overtly. The thing is the questioner said "in any way" and that gives Brandon a ton of wriggle room. There is another WoB I can't find, unfortunately, where he basically says Odium strategy for those two was pitting them against each other, so in a way they Devotion and Dominion helped kill each other. You'd think Autonomy would have tried to help a bit more overtly with Odium trapped. Autonomy being, in part, about freedom they would want to free their ally. Mercy was the third participant in the Odium-Ambition fight. Brandon also says Odium may have worked with other Shards in the past.

Definitely surges? Aesudan.

Great info though I didn't quite get this line: Does it have some context? Thanks!

Normally Unsealed implies that the metalmind is also Unkeyed, though I think with the godmetals as per this theory, y'all mean an Unsealed but not Unkeyed. Anyone can use them, but the stored attribute can only be tapped by the person who stored it. But, could be very interesting though, if Atium minds were truly Unsealed, meaning if anyone stored age in one, anyone else could tap it.

This is a very interesting book. On first this first readthrough, I think I liked it better than Starsight. I'm really afraid I'll dislike it as I think about it more, but that rarely happens with Sanderson books. This book really felt like a Storm-lite book, but for Rhythm of War instead of just in general like Skyward was. Here, Spensa's journey was all about a new discover linked with old roots, not unlike Navani and Venli's discoveries in RoW. However, this felt more like The Empire Strikes Back instead of RoW's The Last Jedi. (Although Spensa's confrontations with Brade definitely felt like early Rey/Kylo Ren Force-times.) It's also interesting to see how much story Brandon is learning to compact into 100k words. I think he's practicing this now so that Stormlight books can be a little more compact in the future. This book is more akin to what I think I wanted from Starsight, but also not, if that makes sense. Like, I like who Spensa and M-Bot become during this book, but we needed Starsight to get there. As mentioned both others, this book does suffer from the same problems that Starsight did, but I don't think nearly to the degree the second book did. Here we got ample Jorgen; and while the rest of the flight was missing, the novellas really softened that blow. Defending Elysium's tie-ins were expected from Beta/Gamma reviews on Goodreads, but still very surprising in their implementation. And as @Chaos mentioned in his review, the book had a certain lack of tension that the first book did, and the sacrifices didn't hurt as much.* Still, it was an enjoyable, if safe and unsurprising (to me) ride. Still, this book has done a great job at hyping me up for Defiant, which I guess is officially the title now Evershore. My current Cytoverse ranking: Skyward ReDawn Sunreach & Cytonic Defending Elysium & Starsight *Although to be fair, sacrifices in books rarely hurt me emotionally, and I may just be too tired to have this one be sad.

(I was serious about that question, by the way. Maybe I ought to clarify that it doesn't have to be classical. Just tell me your favorite song and I'll go find a piano cover of it! It's for book research...stuff.)

I asked a question at the spoiler Q&A

SQUEEEEEEEAK SQUEEEEEELLL yes I'm sure many of you have gotten ur books its not such a huge deal but this is my first time experiencing a book release (i wasn't that into sanderson when RoW came out) so i am HYYYYPPPEDDD ... Just gotta wait for my doomslug plushie/pin now SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

My interpretation is similar. Basically, in that moment, Rayse recognizes Dalinar as someone he killed -- either Tanavast or Adonalsium (the latter lines up better with "we killed you," rather than "I killed you," but the former makes more sense given Dalinar's direct connection to Honor). Probably there were spiritual shenanigans via connection, so Rayse literally felt, heard, and/or saw that former deity in Dalinar. I don't think we need to assume there were additional shardholders between Adonalsium and the 16 that killed him (aside from dawnshard holders, of course).

My reactions to Cytonic (just the character stuff, because I'm a character sort of person) I like Chet, and his relationship with Spensa. I like characters who enjoy each other's company. The way they have they have their problems, but still remain friends who have each other's backs - I'm a sucker for that. Spensa's emotional journey really appealed to me, and she's a fun person to read about. Peg I also found interesting, and she's one of my new favourite characters. I would have liked to see more of Skyward Flight and Brade, but I understand that's what the novellas are for (I haven't read them yet.) Still, after Brade being a big part of Starsight, I expected her and Winzik to play a larger part in book three. It's nice to see Hesho again, although I'm not a fan of characters coming back from the dead. (Narratively speaking, as a reader I scudding love it.) My favorite line: “You will not distract me from my current purpose, adversary. Though you have fought admirably, I will defeat you, then compose poetry for your funeral.” “This…um…isn’t to the death, Hesho.” “I will defeat you,” he said in the same exact tone, “and compose poetry for your retirement party.” Cracked me up Overall, I enjoyed it better than Starsight, although I felt it suffered from the same problem of not having many characters from the previous book. I may even like it better than Skyward, although that's probably because I haven't reread it in a long time. Edit: I just reread it, and I still like Skyward best, though Cytonic is a very close second. So, that ended up being longer than I thought! Sorry if it's a bit disjointed - it's my first time writing any sort of review.

This summer I embarked to a project to log all of my SE games, since I was coming up on 100 games. Now, 4+ months later, my personal spreadsheet is done! I had a blast going back and rereading (or at least skimming) all of these games, and would highly recommend players to go back and reread their own older games, and some of the more iconic games that they might not have played in. I was kind of amazed at how many wildly different (and quite often broken) rulesets we have played with, and was somewhat inspired to try and think up my own overly complicated ruleset. Now that I've started GMing, who knows? I made notes of many of my favorite moments in the spreadsheet, and I found a couple of my own quotes regarding the meta that are worth remembering: From AG 6: From LG 68, in a PM with Kas: And this isn't a quote, but starting with LG 50, I explicitly ignored all the inactive players when doing my analysis, and this was where I first felt like I really was playing well as a villager. In terms of the actual numbers, I'm not sure that the percentages mean a whole lot, given the number of imbalanced games involved. But if they are significant, I'm clearly total garbage at MRs, and happy with where I fall on the other types of games. I'm currently in the middle of my longest losing streak , which is about to catch up to my longest evil streak. And @Quintessential destroyed what could have been an 11 game survival streak, with a C1 kill no less . We also need to run a QF faction game, a QF with neutral roles, and a free-for-all MR so that I can get rid of the divide by 0 errors . And I have some associated RP I started that I'll post underneath here whenever I get around to writing it. Possibly accompanied by a ruleset.

True enough The pulses also probably are something originating in the user affecting the enemy, and might even work sorta similarly to copper in that it's emanating rhythms (depending on how exactly copper does what it does, that's meant to be framed as a theory not fact). Honestly brass and zinc are the ones that are hardest for me to remember, because the intuition I use for the rest is kinda "Pulling is less active and/or more defensive, Pushing is more active and/or more offensive" (pulling into yourself, vs pushing at someone else), but to me Rioting and Soothing break that idea. Yeahhhh I have no idea what's up with those This is where the defensive/inactive vs offensive/active crutch helps me keep track, thinking of the way Wayne goes out and uses his bubbles to attack, whereas Marasi uses hers to wait for help. Lol understandable. I am exhaaaausted right now, so I'll have to come back to the deeper theorizing stuff tomorrow, because as interesting as it is I can barely read what the words say, let alone what they mean The interesting thing here is the rhythms, because there's patterns that indicate whether a metal falls into the internal category or external one (though this doesn't mean they haven't slightly misunderstood what it actually is, and it means something subtly different from "internal/external"). (An interesting note here is that atium does share a pattern with the temporal metals, which I might've actually brought up in the main post now that I think about it but am too lazy to check lol.)

Oops, sorry, here they are: Shallan is by Lyrania on deviant art Dalinar is by ex-m on deviant art Kaladin is by <<<this guy on tumblr

Death and the Survivor 26: (Mistborn spoilers)

This was done for Fireflybooks21 on Tumblr. The other half of this will show up eventually. The song is “Come with me” by Chxrlotte. The song was chosen by Firefly.

We've seen three situations where Cognitive Shadows occurred. Roshar, where a bunch of Singers were infused with Odium's Investiture. Scadrial, where Kelsier hung out in a full Well of Ascension for enough time for him to persist seemingly until the Mistborn Era 4(at least I'm pretty sure Brandon said he'd be in those?). Also worth noting is that Kelsier only had the time to make that happen because he was a Mistborn, which made him able to persist longer after death than a normal person because he was more Invested. And Threnody, we know less about but can likely deduce some of what's happening based on what we do know. Ambition was Splintered, likely meaning large chunks of Investiture are sitting around and somehow newly dead people absorb enough to become Cognitive Shadows. They don't seem to retain everything like the previously mentioned Cognitive Shadows, but do retain something. Given all of that, I don't think First of the Sun has Cognitive Shadows, or at least not ones generated from the wildlife. Someone/something would need to die close enough to the perpendicularity that they'd be able to Invest themselves enough to persist after death before getting sucked into The Beyond. And they'd need the inclination to do, which I doubt many would in the few brief moments they have. Even if someone did think to do that, the Avatar of Autonomy that's running the show might intervene and prevent anyone from doing so. Recall that two out of the three above examples required to permission of or the outright intention of a Shard to make a Cognitive Shadow and in the third example, the resident Shard is dead. I just get the feeling that if there's an actual personality operating the piece of a Shard on First of the Sun, a Cognitive Shadow would need to be approved of by that personality. Now, it's possible that there are Cognitive Entities, like spren that the Avatar created to guard the perpendicularity. But, I don't think they would use beings that were once alive to accomplish this, it would be more like spren than the shades on Threnody. Different in origin, but similar in practice.

Are they Invested enough to turn into Cognitive Shadows though? It could also be that those mind-hunting creatures manifest on the Cognitive Realm a bit, kinda like how spren on Roshar can manifest a bit of themselves in the Physical Realm based on emotions felt by people nearby. It could also be that the Cognitive side is inhabited by creatures too. Khriss might also have meant that people did manage to cross over from the Perpendicularity, they just didn't manage to survive Patji and return. "area around the Perpendicularity" isn't very clear on which side she's talking about exactly.

I was going to put something clever here, but I'll do it later.

Also when she's shouting into the forest when William Ann is near death, I believe she mentions that she's not sure whether she's shouting at the shades, the God Beyond, or her grandmother

Welcome to the official thread for all sample chapters, unpublished books, and short stories that Brandon has put out on the internet. He has been gracious enough to allow people the opportunity to get to know his different works by providing these samples and short stories for free. Please note that unpublished works are not necessarily canonical. If you know of anything we might be missing, please let us know; we will try to keep this as up to date as possible. Thank you for your assistance in helping us create a comprehensive list! See Arcanum's Readings page for a similar list, plus early readings of excerpts from published books. Sample content of published works can be found here. Full Published Works: Books: Warbreaker Short Fiction: The Hope of Elantris Firstborn Defending Elysium Unpublished Works: Deleted Scenes: Please follow the 17th Shard's spoiler policies when discussing this content. Enjoy your reading!

Ashyn comes to mind, as does Final Empire era Scadrial, planet-wide magic in the Cosmere are potentially extinction-level threats

Poll: would you be afraid of a supervillain if his "costume" was just a cardboard box he put over his head. If not, what if he's drawn a crude smiley face in marker on the front of the box. If not, what if there are no eye holes in the box because his powers allow him to perfectly sense everything within a mile radius of him without need for his other senses. If still not, what if he can choose to disintegrate anything around him into black dust at will. If still not, what if underneath his box he's actually a whirling, stirring mass of black dust in the rough shape of the human he once was before he disintegrated himself, now only clinging to life by sheer force of will and desire to crumble everything else in the world. If still not, please help me, because Box has been in my head all week and I'm scared.

For being German and living in a timezone that causes you to post things at hours that seem unearthly for the rest of us.