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Panorama of Roshar. Hope you guys like it! I had a LOT of fun painting this one, though I was nervous about accidentally spoiling something as I was only starting the Oathbringer at the time of painting this. I'm definitely painting more of Stormlight in the future. Maybe Jasnah... or Pattern? I'd love to be commissioned for official art for the future books, that would be the dream! I also welcome any feedback and critique, both for artistic execution and lore, but keep in mind that there had to be some liberty in putting together Urithiru so low and close to the Shattered plains and Horneater Peaks, for the sake of making the focal pieces clustered [Urithiru + Stormfather above the Shattered Plains] in the center of the painting as requested, for custom book sleeves with for all 4 books. Their spines, when put together, show the center of the painting. "The most important step a man can take. It's not the first one, is it? It's the next one. Always the next step."

I'M DONE I ONLY USED MORE THAN 11 POUNDS OF CHOCOLATE

I found this in my local supermarket. Because *everyone* wants to be able to have a real live parasite in their own home! Laughed about that. And also this. You can tell it's really warm in my house today. See? It's 90 degrees!

To Morningtide, I wish a very merry Christmas! @Ookla the Theoretical

Merry Christmas @ookla the demon. I can't draw but I can write. And so this poem was born. There you go! You did say you're a Sanderfan (big shocker) and this was what I could think of. I hope you like it

Merry Christmas @Symphematric!!!

My younger brother is a scudding super-genius! He came up to my dad with his Periodic Table of Elements book and had my dad read him off the symbols one by one and he would say what element it was. Out of 118 elements, he got 115 with ease and 2 with a few hints, and only one we needed to tell him. Also, he’s in the sixth grade. What sixth-grader can list pretty much every element when just given it’s symbol? I honestly think he should skip a few grades. Or maybe all of them.

Hi Everyone! I'm a screenwriter, programmer, and long time Sanderson fan. Not sure why I haven't joined this forum before, as I've used your resources on past Cosmere related projects. Better late than never though! Looking forward to geeking out with you all and picking people's brains with lore related questions!

*sigh* go ahead.

I think that the reason Taln cannot break is because people saw him as unbreakable. We've seen spren be affected by perception, and we've seen that the fused become more and more set in their ways as they age, so it makes sense that Taln would eventually come to embody everyone's perception of him as an unbreakable hero.

Ok, I have no proof of this hypothesis. But seeing the fact that Axindweth is from Terris (Scadrial), and she is the one who brings the voidspren to Roshar from Braize, it makes me think that she is a member of the Set, or that she is someone important in Trell's plans. We know that Odium and Autonomy have a "pact", being possible allies, so it would not be strange that Trell is an avatar of Autonomy, who feels admiration for Odium (like Patji in Oathbringer's letter) and seeks the return of the Desolations to favor Odium. It is not a well-crafted hypothesis, but it is what I think it might be. And furthermore, I also think that the Set itself is a reaction to the Ghostbloods, being rival organizations, like the Ghostbloods and Sons of Honor. What do you think?

There's probably already one of these somewhere, but, well, anyone want to talk about musicals? I feel like talking about musicals. I personally am a fan of some of the more random ones. My top three at the moment are Les Miserables, Hadestown, and this one production of Hunchback of Notre Dame. I also love Phantom of the Opera, Hamilton, Wicked, and Dear Evan Hansen. Depressing musicals are the best ones. Also apparently ones that take place in France. What musicals are you guys into? And just to be clear, I listen to musicals, I do not sing them or act in them. Unless I'm home alone, but we don't talk about that.

There's a lot of thoughts going around as to what new abilities might be gained at the Fifth Ideal of the Windrunners. One possibility I thought of is the Radiant spren is brought enough into the Physical Realm that they can Surgebind almost on their own. For example, a spren could lash an item toward the Radiant, almost acting as a form of telekinesis. I'd be curious to hear what other people think of this idea!

Stick?

Oh I mean backspace, or what you’d usually use to get rid of text

Hemalurgy removes a piece of someone's spiritweb and grafts it onto someone else's spiritweb, and parts of your spiritual DNA can be passed on. So, if a steel inquisitor were to have a child, would their kid have the spiritual, and possibly physical DNA of not just their two biological parents, but also all the people who's souls got stapled on as well? Would certain physical traits of those "soul parents" manifest in the child, such as having a mixed race? Man, if this were the case, and Marsh had a kid...it would be a bit weird for Marsh to have to explain that to said kid that they actually have twenty-some parents.

I don't think there is, but I'm new myself, so don't take my word for it. It should be fine though!

Nope again!

I was reading through the coppermind, and I found this weird fact that seems to be a theory. On Hoid's page, it says "He has used Allomancy in several ways during his time on Roshar, including to either Soothe or Riot Lin Davar, and possibly to Riot Ruthar before his title's revocation and to a speed bubble during his telling of the story of The Dog and the Dragon to Kaladin.[96][citation needed]". Is this true or is this something like Wikipedia where it is on there and it is plausible and cool so people left it on?

Ok thanks. I tired out the mod, and I really liked it. Super cool mod. I especially liked iron and steel. It felt really cool to be able to pull and push on stuff.

Maybe Cultivation + Preservation would be something like Restoration or (lacking a single word for it) Progress toward an Ideal, whereas Cultivation + Preservation + Ruin would be more like Evolution (new things appear, old things die out, but always directly connected to what they were in the past). I think Progression is too much just the change aspect.

hand, knife, string, or nothing (honorable mentions include bats' wings, among other things)

I am skeptical that there is actually an Allomancer breeding program. Post BoM that seems likely to be Wax's flawed assumption. BoM makes it clear the Set uses Hemalurgic spikes granting Allomantic powers, they had to get the Allomancers for that, and we know they kidnapped Allomancers..

They don't strike me as a natural pair - they're neither directly opposed like Ruin/Preservation nor clearly similar. But I think they *could* merge. Kelsier didn't have the right Connection to Preservation, but that orb let him make it work anyway. And the way its worded in Secret History, I think it might be more about the Vessel than the actual Shard(s). So if you could find a person with sufficient Connection to both, or something like that orb, I think you *could* combine any two Shards. But it might not be a very functional combination; Harmony is having trouble acting. Cultivation+Preservation could become a concept like causing change to achieve an original state or perhaps an ideal state, after which change is no longer needed. The first could be Restoration, not sure about the second ... Progress? But that doesn't have the implication of an end state where change stops the way Restoration does. Or that combination could become unable to act (need to change/cause growth vs need to maintain stasis). It might go either way depending on the Vessel. I actually think adding Cultivation to Harmony would work better, balancing out the negative aspects of Ruin and perhaps producing a form of change less directly opposite to Preservation- something where the future grows out of and preserves aspects of the past.

If it can be shown that hemalurgy causes irreparable harm, and it is not necessary to prevent significant loss of life, then I do not believe Jasnah would employ hemalurgy. Utilitarianism is not being a robot. It is doing the most good and the least amount of harm. Based on my reading of the character, she continually examines ALL possibilities, but always pursues the avenue that does the most good with the least amount of harm. I have a thread with an extensive list of quotes taken as it is written that I believe supports that

*My life to yours, my Breath become yours* It IS the reluctant rescuer Warbreaker the Peaceful! All the clues were: 1. Waiting On A War 2. The Color and Shape 3. Savior Breath 4. Statues 5. Rope

"There's always another goat."

Finished Hawkeye. Loved it. Started Neon Genesis Evangelion. (Hence my Ookla name and avatar.) Looks promising! Rewatching the Sequel Trilogy. Absolutely love these, no shame. Feels like Christmas and nostalgia.

Murder, Xing, it’s all the same to me! X-más! Merry Christmas and to all a good night

If preservation and Ruin were able to mix, I don't see why Preservation and Cultivation could not.

I have my second surgery tomorrow! Wish me luck! In other news, I’ll either be seeing @The Ward's Guard or @Channelknight Fadran in the next few weeks. So that’s exciting.

I disagree that it's impossible. Unlikely, perhaps... but deliciously possible, I think. Is there evidence in the text that the Set has been breeding allomancers for "so long", or indeed, AT ALL? I know it's the conclusion that Wax and the others come to, but do we see any actual evidence? If I recall, the kidnappings were a quite recent development at the beginning of AoL. I recall no reason to think that Push and Pull need to be products of kidnapping and rape; why couldn't they simply have been hired professionals? Miles' crew was certainly not hurting for money, and there are numerous references in Era 2 of allomancers for hire. To my knowledge, we do not yet know how long the time gap is between SA5 and SA6, nor do we know where in that gap AoL will sit. We have only the roughest of guesses at how much time the Set will have to become an organization... but organizations can appear quickly with the right motivation. We may very well see the birth of that organization during SA5. I love the symmetry: the Ghostbloods - an organization founded by Scadrians - is perceived as a shadowy menace on Roshar, while the Set - founded by Rosharans - is the mysterious threat to Scadrial. The question NOT addressed, of course, is: how does Trell get involved?

By Adonalsium, I think you are on to something here. We know Cryptics in general, and Pattern in particular, see the world in terms of mathematics. The members that control the Set are known as the "Series." Known members include "Sequence", "Suit" and "Array". Coincidence? I think not. I'm on board. Not sure how I feel about what I've always thought of as an evil organization being founded by characters I love... but I cannot deny the logic here, and honestly, I have the same misgivings about the Ghostbloods. Well done, @ChickenChaser. Have an upvote and my hearty congratulations for your fine insight.

If Axindweth is from Scadrial (which seems to be the consensus), then I believe she is part of the Ghostbloods. I believe she was sent by Thaidakkar (sp?) to work with/spy on Gavilar and Kelek. We know that Thaidakkar is probably investigating the things going on on Roshar to try to solve is cognitive shadow problem. Assuming the WoB's are true about the timelines of SA5 taking place chronologically before W&W, my latest crack theory is that the Set is a direct response to the Ghostbloods messing with Roshar. I believe that Shallan and Pattern will form the Set in retaliation to the Thaidakkar and Mraize's intervention, regardless of what happens with the whole champion thing. The Set's goals are particularly destructive, which makes me wonder if my Shallan/Set theory has any weight to it. Maybe the Set is run by a bunch of rogue Cryptics and not by any KR in particular.

Fair, fair. That explanation sounds a lot like "well, each category has to have an internal and external pair." Turns out that the stagnant, oppressive empire might not be the best place for scientific study. I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. Steel and iron and brass and zinc are the pairs that make intuitive sense, IMO. The Enhancement metals make at least thematic sense, but might actually be "backward." It can be argued that wiping metal reserves should be a Pushing effect and consuming them explosively a Pulling one. Internal Temporal are... honestly arbitrary, as far as I can tell. I guess gold pulls something to you, thematically? Heh, maybe I should have gone through all the external ones first. External Temporal are really weird. To me they feel entirely backward. The intuitive effect of Pulling on time is that it compresses it around you, making it pass faster. I suppose I can see the idea of "grabbing" time and slowing its passage as well. Hmm... Internal Physical make sense to me, the idea that one lets you more easily affect the world, the other making it easier for the world to affect you. Internal Mental are an absolute mess and makes me think about Investiture fields. I'm sure this is an idea that's been hit upon before, though I have, IIRC, not been involved in any such discussion. (And I wish that I could take full credit for this idea, but proper credit for the basis I'm rambling from goes to my cousin, who isn't on the Shard AFAIK.) So, Investiture fields, or the most sensible explanation for how all this works, IMO. So, Investiture has associated waveforms, this information was seeded in Mistborn, reinforced in SA and ultimately confirmed outright in RoW. Investiure seems to produce a field around the user/holder. This field is related and unique to the nature of the power in question. This field allows the Investiture to affect things within it, either actively (e.g. steel and iron) or passively (e.g. Heightenings, Internal metals.) Gosh, I hope these ramblings make some degree of sense, just trying to phrase this is making my head spin. I think something along the lines of a spherical field surrounding the... do we have a generic term for "Investiture user?" (Or possibly something like a magnetic field, but this is Investiture physics, not proper physics, so who knows.) The exception is fields that only overlap the person and possibly things they touch, not sure how this part works exactly. It might also be that it simply is a field that doesn't propagate beyond the person, one that propagates by touch and one that affects everything within it. (Think the difference between a Soulcaster fabrial and Radiant, which I'd say is reinforced by the fact that something is either in a speed bubble or not, touch brings something into the Soulcaster "bubble.") The field varies in size by the power (and probably things like Allomantic strength, where applicable, given Rashek's ability to blanket soothe all of Luthadel) and determines the range of the power. The clearest example of this is probably the speed bubbles, being clearly delineated. So, in Allomancy, we have four (standard) catgories of metal/power, Physical, Mental, Temporal and Enhancement. Within each category, there are the further divisions of Pushing, Pulling, Internal and External. The above should be known by everyone in the thread, so why bring it up? Why follow the rambling on Investiture fields and waveforms with this? So, there's the interesting fact that all the Internal metals seem to have an Investiture field that only affects the user... except the Mental metals. One creates a field that "silences" Allomantic pulses, and presumably other Investiture pulses as well. The other creates a field in which you can "hear" the same Allomantic pulses, and other pulses if you know what you're doing. (Singer Seeker when Brandon?) Why are these Internal metals so... odd? Why are they the only ones that affect your surroundings no matter what you do? I posit that we have misunderstood Allomancy in yet another way. (Why stop when we're overturning a ton of established theory anyway? ) We know that for every Push, there's a Pull, as it were. All the Mental metals might actually be External and all Enhancement metals Internal. We know that at least Leeching works by touch, Primer Cube notwithstanding. Under my waveform/field scheme the Allomantic pulses and Tones of Roshar are also both expressions of the waveform of the Investiture. Which also leads to some interesting conjectures, like that you should be able to sense a difference between Allomancy depending on the fuel source, even if the base pulse is the same. Bronze is also interesting here (Pushing metal ) because of the mechanics of how it works. Can you sense Investiture being used outside your range/field? Can you sense it if your Investiture fields simply overlap? Does the originator of the Investiture you sense have to be fully within your field? Why can you even sense pulses from Internal metals? This turned rambly, but hopefully somewhat understandable. (Might make a proper writeup if I ever figure out how to phrase it properly...) ¤_¤

Welcome to the Shard! Scadrial is the Cosmere's major Earth analogue (one of several example WoBs here) so expressions that would be familiar to the readers are more likely to show up with no special importance attached, simply because it's meant to feel the most 'like our world' of all the ones that Brandon is writing. Brandon also uses the word a bunch in Elantris, which predates Mistborn and in fact predates The Way of Kings Prime, much less the published version. So there's no particular reason to assume that because Breeze uses the word as a curse, that it means anything special; people use it frequently in English without intending to reference the Stormlight Archive. In fact, it only appears once in WoKP and only as a generic term, so Brandon wrote the published Mistborn trilogy (including that curse) before he decided on captial-d Damnation as a significant concept for Roshar. Also, we know Breeze's backstory and it doesn't really leave him room to be a secret Rosharan worldhopper, nor does he exhibit the most obvious sign that would set him off as being from Roshar: Those people are really tall next to everyone else in the Cosmere, which is why one easy way to identify worldhoppers on Roshar is when they're noticeably shorter than average. All that said, you're definitely approaching this in the right way, so keep your eyes peeled and you'll spot all kinds of interesting things, some of which are definitely intentional hints.

Nale breaks down in front of Lift in Edgedancer right after she swore her oath. And while Ash usually seems pretty sane already, she seemed more so when Dalinar opened Honor’s perpendicularity. More humble. Less broken. I think it’s safe to say that all Heralds are affected by the Radiant/Perpendicularity effect.

I’m not sure if anyone has noticed, but Ishi is real crazy town banana pants, and is also referred to as “the one Odium tempted first” it’s not uncommon a theory that Ishar was corrupt from the get go. The Stormfather didn’t like him for one, and “there is a traitor amongst them” could as easily be applied to the unmade as the heralds. Ishar seems poised to be the villain of the heralds, even going back before the previous desolation.

Hero of Ages minor spoiler This one isn't a spoiler

Stormlight:

tWoK Spoilers, kinda

Major Mistborn spoilers

I haven’t made any memes in a while, time to rectify that I feel bad posting so many alignment charts but I like making them and I keep finding more

WoK:

CosMerMay

Human beings are driven by stories. Of course, we all know that. After all, isn't that why we're all here? Because we all have a particular love for a particular storyteller and the amazing worlds and characters that he created. We love stories. Reading them, writing them, listening to them, telling them; it's built into the basic building blocks of the human psyche. Our entire understanding of the world is, at its most basic level, driven by stories. What follows under the spoiler tags is a story that I have written and told before. It'll be a little bit different this time, because this is the kind of story that changes with retellings. This is the sort of story that gives a little glimpse of how I, as a human, see reality. Do I believe it? Absolutely. Is it true? Heck if I know.