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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.

We have some exciting news to announce. So far in order to obtain some unpublished works of Brandon's, you'd have to email him through his site, and his assistants would distribute them. Well now you won't need to wait for that, because we will be in charge of distributing Aether of Night! All you have to do is post in this topic (you'll need a 17th Shard account, but that's it), and our staff will PM you the document. You do not need to post an email address here; we will send it to you through this website. Once we do this, we'll remove your post here. We'll be using this topic as a to-do list for requests. Ideally since we have lots of staff members, we will get this out to you soon, within a week or two. We hope you're excited about this, so many of you will be able to get this text in a much more obvious way now! You will receive a .docx file, and if you need to convert it into a .pdf or .epub, there are many converters to do that for you. (We are not distributing the old prose version of White Sand; that is distributed in Brandon's newsletters.) Thank you Dragonsteel for letting 17S do this! Edit as of 2024: This is still going! We've gone through over 300 pages of replies distributing. It's just that we remove posts here once we send them out.

I think my opinion might be highly unpopular, but here goes. To start with, I really loved the character of Taln while reading the four books. I remember being giddy whenever he had a scene. He was my top fav side character. Just one problem. I thought he broke. I took the idea that taln broke as a fact. I am dumb and didn't realise that RoW in particular was hinting that Taln didn't break. The arrival of the everstorm to circumvent the oathpact and taln breaking in the same time frame was a little too wierd. And then Brandon confirmed it in a WoB. Some fans cheered, some fans were surprised and some fans felt vindicated as they already were expecting it. I was less than thrilled. The problem with Taln is he is JUST TOO DAMN PERFECT. I loved Taln when I thought that he tried his best and ended up giving humanity 4500 years of time. He was a very inspiring character. Now he is a freaking god. Apparently, he still has a lot more years of torture he can endure. He is nowhere close to being done. He is basically unbreakable. Taln, as he is right now, is vey antithetical to the themes of SA, and the fact that nobody is talking about it drives me nuts. First of all, NO HUMAN is strong enough to what Taln did. I mean where would you even cultivate the inner strength to endure so much torture? How can you even reach that level of determination? If instead, you think it's more likely that such strength can't be cultivated, you have to be born with it, it still makes Taln an angel who descended to earth compared to the rest of the humans. Because 4500 years is a mind-numbingly long time! A fact that I feel that many people are not giving the importance it deserves. If a random stranger says that he will die for you, you won't be inspired, you would be creeped out! I feel the same way with Taln. No one should be that self-sacrificial. That is not healthy, that is insane and scary. I would stay as far as possible away from him in real life. Can you imagine if a guy like that got angry with you over something? He might chase you to the ends of the earth. Second, he makes the lives of all other characters kinda pointless. The main theme of SA is that 'broken' people deserve to live happy lives (even after making mistakes). Teft deserves love. Shallan deserves love. Kaladin should not kill himself. Dalinar deserves forgiveness and redemption(debatable). But its very hard to say they deserve anything with the presence of an infallible person who has suffered so much more than them. All their conflicts and struggles seem melodramatic compared to the sheer amount of pain that Taln went through without making a mistake. . If the survival of humanity is the highest moral goal right now, Kaladin's life is just not priceless. It's nothing compared to Taln's worth as an 'unbreakable' human being. Because Kaladin just can't hold the desolation back for that long. Example: in tWoK, Kaladin briefly considers abandoning his friends and saving his own life. In WoR he doubts his own friends' love for him in the jail cell. In OB, he gets angry at Adolin for no reason and chides himself. These thoughts are not ooc for Kal even though he is a windrunner poster boy because everyone is fallible and breakable. Everyone makes mistakes and that's fine. Every character in SA has some insecurity about something, even Jasnah. If i must fall, I will rise each time a better man. Finally, he legitimises the oathpact and trivializes torture. The oathpact is a horrible plan and anything else would have been better. No human should be asked for that much. But Taln makes it look like it was the heralds who were insufficient, not the freaking plan. Because of Taln, the other 9 heralds look bad, even though they were amazing people who went through the saddest times possible. SA is a optimistic series, but if you took a herald as the protagonist and went through their life, the desolations alone would put the series solidly in grimdark territory. They really deserve more respect, but who can NOT compare them to Taln? He also trivializes torture. No way around it. Torture is horrific and inhumane. It scars people in irreparable ways physically and psychologically. In a series with realistic depictions of battle shock, Taln sticks out like a sore thumb. If I am right in thinking that the heralds can heal in braize, how many times do you think Taln's genitals were shredded like cheese? Cuz let's be sure, that definitely happened in 4500 years even if the books will never show it happening ( shivers).( I hope I didn't break any coppermind rules with that sentence) I feel like there has to be an actual reason why Taln did not break. I have faith in Sanderson. Every other character in SA feels real to me. Even the evil ones like Sadeas and Rayse. I am just surprised that most fan discourse I see don't seem to question it and seem to think that Taln just weathered it with his own strength, which I find impossible. He must have had advantages right? If the ans is just that Taln is a Super Mega Alpha male chad boy with a golden heart, I will probably keep ranting about it.

Not sure if this makes more sense here or in General Discussion or maybe Creator Corner, but this area gets a lot of traffic so Ima go with it. This is just your all-purpose thread for anything photoshop! Or photopea or gimp or microsoft paint or whatever program you use. (I use photopea myself. It's great). Share thing's you've made, things you've seen/found, anything at all. You can also use this for edit requests, I am bored and would like to make random things for y'all. Here's some thing's I've made in the past, both to share, and so people requesting things can see my approximate skill level. (It isn't very high =P) Edit: Here's a more recently updated place to find crap i make.

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?

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.

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.

I agree with this, I'm just not sure Jasnah would see executing a genuinely dangerous criminal with powers using Hemalurgy as a problem. She'd probably say they're going to be executed anyway, so no additional harm is happening, and their power is being saved, so it's actually less loss to society than a conventional execution. I would be against this because of slippery slope issues, but I'm not sure Jasnah would be. And the issue of possible afterlife implications of Hemalurgy soul damage would probably be less convincing to her as well.

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

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.

Thank you for your kind words! It means a lot. (And yes, this is a perfectly fine place for this thread!) We work hard to maintain a respectful community and to avoid the toxicity in much of the internet. If you feel people aren't being kind and respectful (and thus are breaking the Code of Conduct), report the post and we will deal with that! It's a Flag icon on mobile. Indeed, dedicated websites like this are a dying breed, but we have no intention on going anywhere. Forums are pretty old school. But hopefully with our news, content, and good atmosphere we get some people

I want to say that nothing in my post implies, one way or the other, whether his mental state is natural or magical. Just that he's broken. Hmm Well, this thread is good for making me think. I've realised that our conceptions of the Heralds are likely quite different. I think we need to differentiate three things, I don't think Herald madness equals broken-ness, nor broken-ness breaking. Herald madness is this thing: OK, looking at this, it seems my division of Herald stuff isn't quite accurate. It would seem that Herald madness is moreso the manifestation of several underlying things, than its own thing. We still have multiple factors affecting the mental states of the Heralds. The torture, their age, and perception. At least. All the Heralds, including Taln, are broken. The fact that they are not human anymore might just lead to them breaking in non-human ways. In any case, the madness is not a consequence of breaking, rather of being broken. Elantris: Given that we learn in RoW that spren can break from repeated trauma, in a way similar to, but distinct from, becoming a deadeye, I don't find it unreasonable that the Heralds would break in a similar way. Let me also take the time to properly adress the OP, apologies in advance if I come accross as rude or condescending. I'm not finding a good point to adress this, so I'll adress it here. Taln breaking would just mean that he was overwhelmed by the torture, that he gave in and let the Return start again. It doesn't change the fact that Taln is thoroughly broken. Though I suppose it somewhat cheapens him if he didn't break. Taln isn't a human, he's power in a human shape. We know that his physical abilities are superhuman, why not his mental abilities? And I do wonder, if one manages to hold out for 100 years, how much more is another 100 years, etc? If your reality is just a blur of pain, and the only thing you can do is hold to a single idea, a single hope amid the pain, then why could one not hold on? It is, and the Heralds are ridiculously old, but Taln obviously doesn't know how long it's been, even in his moment of lucidity. Good point, and it makes Taln come across as a bit off, does it not? Huh, I don't agree at all. For one thing, one person's suffering does not invalidate another's. For another, Taln isn't infallible, he's self-sacrificing and stubborn to a fault. The same thing that let him hold out for so long are also his biggest flaws. He let himself be utterly broken, rather than do anything selfish. He's honestly maladjusted, when lucid he thanks Ash for being abandoned, for giving humanity a wonderful gift, even as she wishes that he hate her. Forgiveness, no, redemption, yes. I don't see why we have to quantify it like that. We haven't been in Taln's pov enough to know how he thinks when lucid. I'm not sure that's true. I do agree that the Oathpact is not a good solution, but one person's choice to uphold it does not legitimise it. From what we've seen, it seems the Heralds went to Honor, not the other way round. The guy who vividly hallucinates that everything is on fire got through torture like it was nothing? He even thinks that torture means life. (Though whether that's his or humanity's is unclear. Hmm.) He's probably more akin to a damaged spren. That phrasing is hilariously ridiculous, lovely. ¤_¤

If all the 'atium' we've seen so far really is an electrum alloy, then that raises even more questions than just what pure atium does allomantically. We're also up a creek in regards to what pure atium does feruchemically and what 'unrefined' (i.e. electrum alloy) atium steals as a spike, if anything. For feruchemy, I'm at a loss. atilectrum storing youth would at least still seem to fit in the Hybrid metal quadrant, but with feruchemy alloys don't seem to have a direct link to their base metals the way they do in allomancy. And what trait could possibly mix with 'determination' to get 'youth?' At the very least, though, we can deduce that god metals and their alloys have different effects, since according to WoB Sazed experimented with malatium and "didn't get very far," which doesn't strike me as something that would happen if it also stored youth. For hemalurgy, I can at least make a guess. Electrum spikes steal enhancement allomantic powers. We know that a refined atium spike can steal any trait and do so more efficiently than other spikes. We know that lerasium turns someone into an allomancer when burned and its alloys turn people into mistings when burned. Allomancy is to Preservation as hemalurgy is to Ruin. So, taking all that together, I think that atilectrum spikes would still steal enhancement allomantic powers but more efficiently than pure electrum would.

End of an era. What would be the legal status of someone standing by and writing stuff down, I wonder?

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...) ¤_¤

Here's some of the maps I've drawn, some of then have stories, others have no worldbuilding. Here's the first one. It isn't quite finished yet, but I plan on coloring it. There is little to no worldbuilding, but it clearly has a tale to tell. Here's another with lots of worldbuilding. And here's another with a decent amount of worldbuilding.

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.

Stormlight:

Something I made after browsing YouTube this morning:

tWoK Spoilers, kinda

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:

Thanks for all the responses, I really appreciate your kind words. (Also, omg the profile pic, ah I'm honored!) I haven't been able to do much art because I'm in the middle of moving but I had to spit this one out really quick. Couldn't get the idea of Lady Inquisitors outta my head. Edit: Fixed!

Sorry for spam, Just completed a painting of Talenel

CosMerMay

So I love to write, and a while back I did a random thing for Creative Writing. I like how it turned out, but I haven't the slightest where to go from here. Like literally NO CLUE. At all, about anything. So any help or brainstorming in any way will be appreciated and considered. Thank you. Scifimagicality I was walking down a seemingly normal concrete sidewalk when I witnessed a strange tremor run through the ground. I stepped forward and nothing happened. I took another step and fell through the sidewalk, slamming into the cement beneath me. “Well done, Michael,” said a cool voice above me. “The test succeeded.” I scrambled to my feet, facing a suited man with dark mahogany hair. “James Clark,” I said, trying to save my dignity. “Why are you here? My regular tester is-” “Gone,” James said rigidly. “As he shall be for the remainder of your stay here.” I gave my nemesis my sharpest glare and responded, “This is scientific work, James. You were always a man of art. I don’t see why you possibly might want to work in the field of holograms.” “Yes, well,” James offered, “I prefer sculpting, yet somehow my rigorous performance landed me here.” I turned to my side suddenly in a light-fast maneuver, searching out a flash of red. I was constantly leaping up and glancing around due to my days in the holo room, testing out new scenarios for scientists. It sometimes made people look at me strangely, but the jumpiness was worth it. I often discovered things that many others missed because they weren’t fast enough. For that matter, other people saw things that I didn’t since I wasn’t watching what everyone else was. The red was caused by a cloak whipping through the air. The cloak was attached to a tall, imposing lady. I stood my ground, however, and dealt with her presence by taking a step forward instead of shrinking back. “And you are?” I inquired, hoping that I sounded important. “No one of any interest,” said the woman. “Mr. Clark, you are needed in room five one two.” James stood and joined the red-cloaked woman in walking out the door. I hastened to follow. The lady took one glance at me and pulled out a remote. She selected a sickly yellowish button and pressed it. Then she swept out the door. James cast me a last look and said, “A new scenario will be playing out shortly. Should take you until we get back.” “Mr. Clark!” He headed after the strange lady. I shrugged and awaited the next hologram. This was, after all, what I was paid to do. Outside the room four men watched. Two lounged, while one - James Clark - hurried after the only female in the room. She was quickly exiting. The last person stared through a one-way mirror at the room his comrades had just vacated. “Louise,” he said before the red-cloaked woman could leave. “Yes?” she answered quietly, without any of the pomp she had boasted in front of Michael. “What were you thinking when you brought him here?” Louise sighed as though reciting an old mantra. “He’s something different, Walt. He’s not simply your average insane person hallucinating. What he sees is more in depth. Detailed. It’s almost as though he truly is immersed in holograms, rather than visions manufactured by his own brain. Matters of the mind never make sense. It’s a wonder we know anything at all.” Walter wasn’t buying her act. “Scientifically, the other part of what he can do isn’t possible.” “We know.” “You shouldn’t have done it. He shouldn’t be with us now.” “I know,” Louise said roughly, “but there’s no going back.”

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.