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Found 25 results

  1. Hey all, and welcome back to the theory column. Last time's Cosmere 102 was such a long post, that I'm trying to keep this one a little more succinct for you all. Today I am going to highlight a theory post by our very own FeatherWriter (whose excellent podcasts you should definitely check out, if you haven't already). This theory is Roshar's Afterlife and the Tranquiline Halls. This theory contains spoilers for most cosmere books including Mistborn, Warbreaker, and Shadows for Silence, but particularly for The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn: Secret History. I am going to begin by outlining Feather's arguments for the theory, and then I will add my own comments and analysis. The main premise of this theory is that unlike most places in the cosmere, the souls of people who die on Roshar are unable to move on to the Beyond like they do on most other planets. Instead of passing on to whatever the cosmere's afterlife looks like, they are instead interrupted somehow by either Odium or one of his agents, such as the Unmade. Evidence in Favor Brandon often likes to provide hints about the nature of his worlds or past events through his religions and other worldbuilding aspects. So much of Vorinism hinges on a fight after death to reclaim the Tranquiline Halls, the Vorin heaven. It is possible that this is a hint that something is amiss here. Another point in favor of the theory is that Damnation, also called Braize, is a real location in the cosmere, so at least some aspects of the Vorin religion have a root in reality. It could therefore be possible that the problem. As Feather mentions, there is also a precedence for this sort of interference with death on the part of a Shard. Endowment speaks to some of the dead and offers them the opportunity to Return before they move to the Beyond. On Threnody on the other hand, many of the dead remain behind as Cognitive shadows, with no evidence for direct intervention on the part of a Shard. The most compelling evidence for heavy meddling on the part of a Shard with a Cognitive shadow comes to us courtesy of Mistborn: Secret History. In both Bands of Mourning and Secret History, we see that a Shard has the opportunity to speak to its "children" for lack of a better term, those beings that it created, just before they move to the Beyond. Leras manages to have a full conversation with Kelsier, even with most of his mind gone. Sazed does even more for Wax in his final moments, showing him visions of the planet and offering him a few final words of peace. Feather points out that it need not necessarily be so cathartic, and instead Odium or one of his lieutenants could be waiting in the Cognitive Realm to fight with or torture those who die. There are also a few metatextual reasons that Feather points out. Brandon has exhaustively figured out many aspects of the cosmere, and this mechanism for transfer to the Beyond is likely no exception. It seems possible that Brandon will want to tell a story dealing with this, although arguably this role has been filled by Secret History since this theory was initially written. However with Brandon's mentions of potential sequels to Secret History and similar happenings on Roshar, it seems likely that he's barely scratched the surface this subject. Also, Brandon has stated that characters slated to have a flashback sequence in the Stormlight Archive might die before their flashback book. This has perplexed many, myself included, because of the close connection between the present day story and the flashbacks in both released books so far. FeatherWriter says that this could be solved simply by having a character continue the fight post-death in Shadesmar. I think there's a lot of good evidence here, and that Feather has listed nearly all the arguments in favor of the this theory. The piece I'd like to add is that we also know that it is definitely possible to harm a Cognitive shadow, without killing it. Kelsier gets pummeled on pretty hard in Secret History. He experiences severe pain without permanent injury at the hands of Hoid, and is almost torn apart by Ruin on at least one occasion. It seems highly possible that Odium could do something similar. Sazed has also shown that he has the ability to show visions to Wax in the Beyond, and Endowment does something similar for those who are given the oppurtunity. Could Odium not do something similar, except show someone visions of death, pain, and horror? Between the apparent ability to cause pain to Cognitive shadows and the ability to show them nightmares, it's beginning to sound a lot like Damnation already. Evidence Against One of my main concerns with this theory coming to pass is that characters have already died and been resurrected quite a bit recently in the cosmere. Between Kelsier in Secret History, and the short-lived deaths (pardon the pun) of Syl, Jasnah, and Szeth in the most recent Stormlight book, he runs the risk of writing stories where death has little meaning, almost like a comic book universe. Brandon is a genre-savvy writer, and very aware of common fantasy tropes, and is certainly aware of this, so perhaps he might be hesitant to bring someone else back from the dead or rather continue with them even after their death. Another potential concern is that Odium is not actually on Roshar currently. It has been stated that his power is heavily invested there, but he is physically on Braize. It is uncertain if he would be able to appear to the dying in the same way that Endowment and Harmony are able to do so. This does not eliminate the possibility that one of his agents like the Unmade are interfering with the death process. One hole this theory (which Feather admits is more an interesting thought than a fully fleshed-out theory) is how the dead are stopped from moving on the Beyond. Preservation only manages to stop Kelsier from moving on by merging him with the Well of Ascension, Endowment sends people back to the Physical Realm fairly rapidly. There is no known mechanism for how Odium would keep people from passing on the the Beyond. On the other hand, it seems that the shades of Threnody remain in the Cognitive Realm without any active interference on the part of a Shard. If it can happen on its own, it seems possible that Odium also could have found a way to keep the Cognitive shadows lingering on. My final concern is that we have seen Shadesmar when someone dies, from Shallan's viewpoint. She sees one of the flames from the soul of a crewman extinguished while she looks into Shadesmar, trying to Soulcast the Wind's Pleasure. There is no sudden appearance of Odium, despite the fact that Kelsier could see Leras appearing for the dying nearby. On the other hand, Shallan does not see anyone's Cognitive shadow appear in Shadesmar when the flame vanishes. This could also be a sign that something is not right with people passing on to the Beyond. Conclusion I think that this theory has a huge amount of merit, and that some portion of it will end up being proven correct in a future book. It may not all come to pass exactly as Feather has predicted, but I think she is making good inferences and asking the right questions. There are a few holes remaining in this theory, but I suspect many of them will be filled in in the near future, and I can't wait to see how this all pans out. New Information There has not been a lot of new information since the last update, but there is a few new tidbits, from the recent White Sands release signing. A big thank you to everyone who shared the questions they asked Brandon! The Sovereign has the opposite eye spiked that Marsh does, and the spike grants "nothing special" Marsh become the personification of Death because of his appearance and his presence at "ominous times" In the Warbreaker Graphic Audio audiobook, Vasher uses the Command "My Breath to give for life to live." to transfer all but his divine Breath to someone, whereas in the text of the novel, that command is not specified. As far as Brandon can remember, this Command is canon, but we should check with Peter or Isaac One of the paintings that Lightsong reacted to was painted by some significant, but it was not Hoid. Bloody Tan stole the bendalloy shipment simply because it is a valuable metal. Coppermind A really awesome new addition to the Coppermind comes courtesy of Cheese Ninja and Weiry Writer, one of our admins. Cheese Ninja did much of the work building the preliminary timeline. Weiry did an extensive reread confirming this timeline and has constructed an awesome table for most of the events of the book. This timeline is fully cited and linked to various chapter summaries on the wiki. It is an excellent tool and certainly a labor of love, so definitely check it out! As for our wiki challenge this month, I'd like to encourage people to work on White Sand articles. The graphic novel came out just the other day, and we need people to add content and help out with the w riting of new pages. I believe we currently have a grand total of five or six articles about things from Taldain, so obviously we have a lot of work to do. A whole new world is a lot of work for the normal editors, and any help that can be provided is appreciated, even if it is just a line or two. As always, any of our wiki admins would love to help you out if you have any questions about what to do or how to do something. For our interesting fact of the month, I'd like to draw people's attention to a new fact caught by member BeskarKomrk, who was relistening to some old audio. The full quote can be read here, but the most important part is this. "Taldain… [is] inaccessible currently in the cosmere." While this is not necessarily unexpected on a planet controlled by a Shard named Autonomy, it definitely adds a whole new perspective to Khriss calling herself an exile in Secret History. I personally wonder how Autonomy has managed to isolate an entire planet in the Cognitive Realm. In a final note, I'd also like to open up a call for suggestions for theories I should feature. As we're in between books right now, new theories are harder to come by, so if there is a theory that you think is particularly interesting, noteworthy, or well-accepted, and you'd like to see me feature it, shoot me a PM and I'll look into it. Hopefully you all enjoyed this month's column, and I'll see you next month!
  2. Batten down the hatches, Cosmere fandom, because July is swiftly approaching. And with it comes the Cosmere fanwork event of the season: Cosmere Fandom Is Still The Worst Fandom, or more colloquially, CFSWF. Now, for those of you unaware of what exactly CFSWF is, it's an annual, month-long event in which the fanwork creators of the fandom join together and attempt to write, draw, edit, or otherwise create the most horrifying, tragic fanworks the internet has ever seen. Grab your tissues, because if no one's crying by the end, we haven't done it right. If you're interested in participating this year, start gathering ideas and preparing your terrible creations, because CFSWF launches in July! In honor of the return of this event, I'd like to share a few of my favorites from years past on this month's Tumblr edition of Around the Cosmere! 1. Squirenonny First off it would be utterly remiss of me to start this off with anyone other than Nonny. In an absolutely stunning turn of events, Nonny released a new fic for every single day of July last year. An incredible undertaking, and each fic is just as awful as the last. Seriously, it's incredible. If you want to peruse the whole tag, you can find it under #31 days of sadfic. If you're looking for something to kick you in the chest, I recommend: A Radiant's Last Breath Words: 810 Fandom: Stormlight Archive Spoilers: through Words of Radiance Trigger Warnings: Character Death, Violence Summary: The Diagram was clear on one point: Taravangian needed the death rattle of a Radiant. The Second Blessing Words: 897 Fandom: Mistborn Spoilers: through Hero of Ages Trigger Warnings: Canonical Character Death, off-screen torture Summary: The screams echo in TenSoon’s ears long after the deed is done. Loshol Words: 6006 Fandom: Stormlight Archive Spoilers: through Words of Radiance Trigger Warnings: Blood, Character Death, Mild Torture (as in, primarily off screen) Summary: “They’ll take it from me, Syl. They’ll find a way to take you from me.” 2. Ladyknightradiant Megan's a good friend of mine and her fic Liberté is an excellent crossover with maximum tragedy. Just in case you ever needed Bridge Four erecting a Les Miserables barricade, Megan's got you covered. It's a fantastic read. Liberté Words: 7,342 Fandom: Stormlight Archive, Les Miserables Spoilers: through Way of Kings Trigger Warnings: Blood, Character Death Summary: Let’s pretend that the bridgemen were not all severely depressed, injured, beaten down, and exhausted all the time. Let’s pretend that they were passionate and dangerous and rebelled. 3. Featherwriter Listen, what good is having a news article if you can't use it to show off some of your own stuff? I'd be a poor Fandom Monster if I didn't take a moment to represent my claims to the title. Though I've written some pretty tragic fics in my day, one of the ones that's still a favorite of mine is a canon divergence fic where Kaladin becomes a surgeon in Kharbranth. It was entirely too much fun to write. Beneath the Bells of Kharbranth Words: 4,004 Fandom: Stormlight Archive Spoilers: through Way of Kings Trigger Warnings: Mild Blood, Implied Character Death Summary: Instead of joining the army, Kaladin goes to Kharbranth to train as a surgeon. After years of hard work, his talent for healing earns him a promotion. But there are secrets in Kharbranth, the likes of which he could never have imagined. 4. Tatter-demallion Not all CFSWF entries are fics though, and Emmy created an amazing songset for Shallan. Songsets are a kind of fanwork in which pictures are set to lyrics of a song, meant to be scrolled through as you listen to to the song. It's a really cool format and this set is stunning both in art and in melding the lyrics with Shallan's arc. Definitely worth a look! Stranger Song: "Stranger" by Ben Caplan Fandom: Stormlight Archive Spoilers: through Words of Radiance Trigger Warnings: Blood, Canonical Character Death, Abuse 5. Pmendicant I mentioned Pmendicant's stuff on the last Around the Cosmere, but I would hate to miss this very excellent animation from CFSWF. Just in case you weren't sad enough about Tien, PM's here to help you out. Song: "Stuff We Did" from the Up soundtrack by Michael Giacchino Fandom: Stormlight Archive Spoilers: through Way of Kings Trigger Warnings: Canonical Character Death, Blood And that's a small snapshot of the kind of misery that gets inflicted throughout the fandom during July. If you'd like to participate in this year's CFSWF, it's a lot of cruel, heartrending fun. Feel free to start prepping entries now, and I'm excited to see what everyone comes up with. July's right around the corner!
  3. Hey Sharders! We’re back with Around the Cosmere and we’re updating you on SE, MBI, and the Strategy RPs again. This month we've seen a completely successful Eliminator team, several new SE games, and go more in depth into the rebellion in MBI. So let’s get to it! Sanderson Elimination The SE games have been very active in the last month. We’ve finished a number of games and started even more games. First off, though, we’ll cover the Mafia Championship we were invited to a month or two ago. The Mafia Championship Back in March, we were invited to take part in the third season of the Mafia Championship at Mafia Universe. We needed to select a champion to represent our games and send them on over to play. Using nominations and a poll, we finally chose Haelbarde to represent SE, and he played in the first game in the Championship. This game was a rather eye-opening experience to our players who were following along with it, but it was interesting seeing the cultural mingling between different elimination forums around the web. Both Dragonmount and the Malazan forums had representatives in that game, so it felt a little like a fantasy book head-to-head challenge. Hael was lynched early in the game, and he was a villager. While he was only in the game for a short period of time, he represented our community and forum well, keeping his cool in the face of unnecessary aggression, which was rather commendable. Ultimately, the mafia won the game, with an impressive performance that only cost them one of their own. Updates Mid-Range 13: Treachery in the Terris Peaks lasted for about 3 weeks. The Traitors won that game, stopping the Loyal Terrismen and Alendi from releasing the power in the Well. The Traitors actually won it without losing a single member of their team, so quite a well-done job. Long Game 20: Warcamp Enigmas is still in play. It started a little over a month ago and seems to be winding down. There are currently only 7 players left in the game, and 4 of the Ghostbloods have been killed, so the pressure is on for both the Nobles and the Ghostbloods. If you’d like to spectate the last little bit of this game, shoot a PM to Maill and he’ll get you added to the spec doc. New Games Quick Fix 15: Death Note was a game based on Death Note. The factions were Murderers (the good faction) versus the Shinigami and Death Note holders (the eliminator faction). The game ran for about a week, with the Shinigami and their respective Holders killing all of the Murderers and winning the game. It was a great game that lived up to the flavor of the anime (and there were a number of players/spectators who started watching the show because of the game). Long Game 21: To Reforge a God is a game of Shards with many different alignments. All the known Shards are in the game, and most of them are aligned on the good faction, facing off against the Seventeenth Shard and Hoid, who have teamed up to kill everyone working with the Shards. Odium is working separate from the Sharders, trying to Shatter all the Shards (and then kill everyone). Autonomy is merely trying to convert everyone to be autonomous. And Survival simply wants to Survive. There are many different roles on the village side, and there are even some meta-roles in the game like a Troll that switches alignments every time he’s targeted, the Stick who is killed if Hoid targets him with any action, a Lifeless Commander who can only be killed during the day, and more. The game’s been running for about two weeks, and it’s been a fun one to watch. If you’d like to spectate the last bit of this game, PM Seonid and he’ll get you added to the doc. Mid Range 14: The Canim Fury is a Codex Alera game that pits the Loyalists against the Traitors. All players are Furycafters, which provides a wide variety of different, highly powerful, abilities. The game has been running for just under a week (it started last Tuesday), and so far, out of the 18 players who started the game, 8 have died and 2 of those were Traitors. If you’d like to spectate this game, shoot a PM to either Haelbarde or Elbereth, and they’ll get you added to the doc. In Sign-Ups Long Game 22: Corenne al’Daishar is a Wheel of Time game that’s a rerun of Long Game 6. This game pits the Darkfriends and a Forsaken against the small village of Drell’s Crossing. Padan Fain is even hanging around too, corrupting the village’s inhabitants with Mashadar. There are roles like Channelers, Wolfbrothers/sisters, Thief-Takers, and more. The first run of this game was one of the best games we’ve had (both role-playing wise and fun-wise, since we ended up playing out part of Tarmon Gaidon in that little village), and I’ve no doubt that this one will be just as great. The game starts on Thursday, June 2, so if you’d like to sign up, take a look at the rules and post in the thread. If you’d like to spectate, shoot a PM to Gamma Fiend and he’ll get you a link to the doc. Featured Game Quick Fix 1: Jeskeri Mysteries was GMed by Tempus. We’d run 4 Long Games by that point in time, and Tempus suggested trying something new, with a quicker game that updated every 24 hours. The setting for the game was at a trading outpost in the mountains in Duladel. It was winter, and all the characters were snowed in, but they quickly learn that there are Followers of the Mysteries holed up with the other travelers and traders. Each day, players voted to cast someone out into the weather to freeze. 12 players signed up for the game, and 3 of these were Followers of the Mysteries. There was 1 Priest of Jesker, who had the ability to scan people for the alignments, to see who was a Follower and who was not. The Followers won the game without losing a single member, which made this game the first SE game in which the evil team pulled off a clean sweep. To this day, there are only about 6 games (out of over 50) that have managed a clean sweep. And this particular team pulled it off by saving the Priest--who was their biggest threat that game--for their final kill, which makes a clean sweep like that far more impressive. Conclusion And that’s all for SE this time around. Check back next month to hear more about the games we’ve got running and more. Now onto Comatose for the MBI update. Mistborn: The Inquisition Hello all! Comatose here again, and I’d like to give a big thank-you to Moru for covering for me last month, and to Little Wilson for letting me take some space in her column to showcase some of my favourite parts of Mistborn: The Inquisition. We’ve had two segments focusing on the nobility, so now I’d like to focus in on what’s going on with the Skaa Rebellion and a little bit about some other skaa characters. If you missed our first segment, you can find a general description of Mistborn: The Inquisition and what it is about there. As I mentioned in my first post, the Skaa Rebellion was started by the enigmatic Ignas, a former obligator whose faith in the Lord Ruler and the Final Empire has been seriously challenged. His true motives for starting the rebellion remain unclear, but his actions suggest that he may not be intending to improve the lives of the Skaa. Readers of Mistborn: The Final Empire will know that, since the Empire is still around at the beginning of the trilogy, the rebellion in Mistborn: The Inquisition is doomed to be a failure that will be covered up by the Lord Ruler’s propaganda team. How they get there, however, is part of the fun! The rebellion is divided into three major cells that operate largely independently of one another, and Ignas is one of the few to know of the location and work of all three major cells, as well as the many smaller cells. Lan’s Shop, home to Perrin, the rebellion’s Mistborn, is a centre for raids and other covert operations. Veil’s Brothel focuses on gathering intelligence from its noble patrons, and also serves as a hub for the rebel intelligence network. The third major cell, operating out of House Ellesmere, is the most mysterious of the three, and has not featured prominently into the story line at this point. The rebels have staged a variety of attacks thus far, but their most notable accomplishments thus far have been the alleged murders of Lords Lucius and Julian Casuana, and their attack on the Casuana Ball. The Casuana Ball Raid in particular served to bring the Rebellion out of the shadows, and the attack on a major Great House while it hosted Luthadel’s most important nobles is a considerable accomplishment. Featured Thread: “I Haven’t Got Enough Boxings to Buy a New Dress” This thread introduces Klyde, a skaa crewleader who has returned to Luthadel after a long absence chasing after Delissia, who he perceives to be the woman of his dreams. In this thread, Klyde seeks information about his wayward on-again-off-again girlfriend from Cassi, a skaa informant who is really Mistborn Camille Deveaux in disguise. Though drunk, Klyde does his best to bumble through the conversation with Cassi, and the thread also provides readers with a good orientation of what the buzz is in Luthadel. Cassi and Klyde’s exchange of information continues in “Gremlin Hunt,” where Klyde tries to get more information from Cassi about Delissia, while Khaelys and Zincell, two potential recruits for Klyde’s new thieving crew, tag along. Though Klyde was experienced in Luthadel’s ways in his youth, he has been absent from the city for some time, and whether or not his new crew will rise to the heights his old crew was accustomed to remains to be seen. Featured Rebel Cell: The Brothel As I mentioned above in the general overview, the Brothel is a hub for Rebellion intelligence gathering. The head of security, Trevelan, serves as a liaison with Ignas and other rebel cells. A capable instructor, Trev often trains new recruits, and dreams of reconnecting with his long-lost daughter, Nell. Liss, a newly recruited brothel worker who does not realize she is an allomancer, originally joined the rebellion to escape from working in a brothel, only to end up working in a rebel cell hidden in a brothel. Daphne, a smoker, is another brothel worker with an altruistic streak who is determined to do what she can to make a difference in the lives of the skaa, however she can. Valerre, a self-serving rioter, only works for the rebellion because of his loyalty to Daphne, and would prefer to spend his time utilizing his charms and alomancy to chase after handsome noblemen. Many of the brothel plotlines are in their infancy, so it’s a great place to get started with new characters if you are interested in playing a rebel. Featured Characters: Perrin and Nessa Perrin is the rebellion most valuable member, their sole Mistborn. The son of a minor Venture and a skaa woman, Perrin bears many similarities to Kelsier, but the differences that set him apart make him fascinating to read about. Though he has a lighthearted and carefree attitude, Perrin is ruthless towards nobles, and anyone else who threatens the people he loves. He often butts heads with Ignas, but his irreplaceable status means Ignas is forced to put up with him. Nessa is a newly recruited pewterarm, just beginning to figure out if she has what it takes to be a rebel. New to alomancy and to the rebellion, Nessa has a lot to learn. Both residents of Lan’s Shop, Perrin started training Nessa how to use her new abilities, and the two have since begun a romantic relationship. Sporting the nicknames “Buckets” and “Sweets”, Perrin and Nessa have become one of Mistborn: The Inquisitions most interesting couples. As the rebellion continues, Nessa will be forced to question how far she is willing to go as she follows Ignas’s orders, and both her and Perrin’s commitment to the cause will be tested. Stay tuned for more! For now, check out one of my favourite exchanges between the pair: "Fine. You asked for it, Buckets!" Nessa shot up onto her knees and drew her hand back for a playful smack. That hand made it to a spot about halfway between the two of them when she realized it was still clinging to the baywrap she'd been eating earlier. Nessa just stopped dead for a long moment, blinked at the meal she'd previously forgotten about, then settled back into a seated position yet again and took a healthy-sized bite out of the thing. "You got lucky," she told him when she could talk well enough for him to understand her. "I hate wasting food." ____________________________________________________________________________ Anyways, that’s it for now! I hope you enjoyed, and stay tuned for more MBI nonsense . Strategy RPs Heirs to the Final Empire Heirs to the Final Empire is entering Turn 3 of Generation 8, which means there are only a little more than 2 generations left until Kelsier’s crew takes over and upends the Final Empire. Most of the game’s workings takes place behind the scenes in PMs though, and there haven’t been any events in the last month. However, I hear that interesting things are in the works for the setting, so if you’d like to join the game, now’s the time. PM Wyrm or post in this thread about running your own House in Luthadel starting in Generation 9 (should be in about 2 weeks). Supremacy of Arelon In the past month in fight for Arelon, there have been 3 game years of war, which have seen the fall of another 8 kingdoms. Three more players have been wiped from the game from those 8, leaving about 6-7 players left in the game. So half of the starting players have been killed. Year 12 is about to start, and it will no doubt lead to more player deaths, kingdoms falling, and perhaps even an alliance or two. But the question remains: who will be the supreme ruler of Arelon? Watch the thread or check back in next month for another update. Thanks for checking in with Around the Cosmere. That’s all for this installment, but next week, Feather will be back to cover Tumblr and more. See you then!
  4. Hello all, welcome back to Around the Cosmere. Here, I'm going to take you back to the crazy world of the tumblr fandom, and do a different kind of feature this time. I'm going to highlight some of our wonderful fanartists over on the other side of the pond. These are not, by far, the only artists over on that side, but these are a few of my favorites and those who have consistently churned out a lot of art for us over the years. First up, the lovely ExMakina. Maki's art is always so stunning to me, and she's a great person too. I've used one of her Renarin portraits as an icon on tumblr for years, and I just love seeing every new piece she comes out with. Her Brandon Sanderson tag is here, and you can see some of the great things she's made recently! Below the tag are a few of my favorites as well. Maki also has a 17S account, and a thread where she sometimes posts new art. If you like her stuff, go give her some upvotes! Next up, BotanicaXu. Botanica actually lives in China, and helps out with the Chinese translation team for Cosmere books. She's a wonderfully dedicated fan and her art is beautiful too. The intricate details and gorgeous lineart of her works gives her a distinctive style, and it's a style that's captured most of the Cosmere characters, even the very minor ones! You can find her blog here, with her cosmere tag labeled under #CFSBF here. And of course, a few of my faves to share. She's also got a 17S account that can be found here. Third, we've got Silver, who has long been a friend of mine and whose art deserves a mention. Her art blog can be found at BeneathSilverStars, and the thing that always strikes me is the amazing watercolor painting style that she uses to color. She's a big fan of art collabs too, so you might see lineart from others that has been colored over and given the Silver treatment. She loves putting everyone in pretty dresses. Yes. Everyone. Also, her fave character is Tien and she vehemently denies that he is dead. Her art blog is here and her tag for cosmere is #CFSBF. My picks from Silver: Last but not least, I want to shine a spotlight on Rusty, who does some amazing comic art for the cosmere. I always find myself cracking up at the stuff they do, but don't be surprised if you see more serious fanart around as well. Rusty's a great addition to the fandom and I find myself constantly checking the blog PMendicant for more! There's not a specifically cosmere tag, but both #Mistborn and #Stormlight Archive are well populated! And that's a quick highlight of some of the cool fanartists we've got from the tumblr side of things. If you like these artists, please feel free to leave some comments for them, either here or with a message to their blogs. If you leave a message here for them, I'll make sure it gets back for them to see. Thanks for reading, and come back next week to read some more about what's going on with the RPs!
  5. Welcome back to Around the Cosmere, Sharders! This week, we’re updating you on Sanderson Elimination, Mistborn: The Inquisition, and the Strategy RPs. If you missed the intro, you can give it a read-through here, since it contains the rules and basics for each section. Without any further ado, let’s jump right in. Sanderson Elimination There’s been a fair bit happening on the elimination forum in the last month. We’ll start off with an update on the games mentioned last month. Long Game 18 was the Kingkiller game set at the University. This game ended when two of the Students Namers killed the last Skindancer in a fury of wind, fire, and bone. And more fire. There were lots of skeletons and one of the Namers went insane. But the Students won and the University is back up and running, so that’s good. Quick Fix 14 took place in Elendel with the Senate. This game lasted a little under 2 weeks and ended in a draw, when one of the players in the jail broke out and killed the last Constable in the octant, resulting in all of the living players being killed by Constables in the other octants and no one winning or losing. It’s the first game we’ve had end in a draw, so that’s interesting. LG19, the twinborn game, is still running, but is highly likely to be over soon. It’s been running for about a month so far, and the Spiked in the game had some bad luck starting off, when a Coinshot killed one of their number on the first night (though they killed the Coinshot at the same time, so I guess that makes things even). As the game is still running, I’ll leave a more in-depth update on the more interesting goings-on for next month, when the game will certainly be over. New Games We’ve had two games start since the last update. Mid-Range 13: Treachery in the Terris Peaks started about a week ago. The setting for the game is pre-Ascension, with a group of Terrismen and women travelling through the peaks with Alendi to reach the Well of Ascension. The eliminators are disloyal Terrismen/women following Kwaan, and trying to stop the group from reaching the Well. All players are Feruchemists and can store any metal they want, with metals causing a variety of effects, and allowing for a different action type when you tap particular metals. Players can be left behind or get stuck in rockslides and cut off from the main group. If you’d like to spectate, you can PM Elbereth or Twelfthrootoftwo to request access to the speculation doc. Long Game 20: Warcamp Enigmas is a rerun of Long Game 5. It started just a few days ago. The setting is on Roshar, and the factions are the Nobles versus the Ghostbloods. There’s also a thief that belongs to neither faction but wants to steal all the items. With a variety of different attack, defense, and information-gathering items as well as roles, the game is quite a fun one. If you’d like to spectate that, PM Mailliw to get a link to the spec doc. Interesting tidbit: Maill has played or GMed almost every SE game since LG1, and this is the last game he’ll be able to GM before he leaves on an LDS mission this summer. He’s also a troll and I’m sure he’s distributed this game in a way to make it epic for both the players and the spectators. Featured Game The Featured Game for this month is Mid-Range 1: The Stormfather and the Nightwatcher - The Riots of Kholinar. Rubix was the GM. MR1 was the first faction game we played on the forum. It took place in Kholinar, with 3 different main factions: the Nobles, the Merchants, and the Darkeyes. Infiltrated amongst all 3 were the Seventeenth Shard, who were spying on two factions each. Highstorms hit every few cycles, causing the thread to be locked, since everyone was stuck indoors. Players could also visit the Nightwatcher, offering prayers to her in hopes that she would grant them what they asked for, in exchange for a trollish curse (if you’ve ever seen Rubix troll, you can imagine how bad these curses could be). Aonar prayed for the ability to PM other players, and he was cursed with not being able to use the letters ERNSTL in his PMs. Gamma Fiend prayed for the a sword that would let him kill with laughter. He was granted the Awakened sword Slaughter (the S is silent) with his curse being a combination of charging the sword with the life of a teammate (he was a Seventeenth Sharder, so he had either his Seventeenth Shard teammates or the Merchants that he could choose from) in order to kill someone else, and he also had to start every sentence in any docs or the thread with an S. So amusing, it was, watching him struggle to start sentences with S’s. Renegade and Ashiok were darkeyes and they were both upset about Aonar being a Seventeenth Sharder and trolling them in their doc. They each decided to take matters into their own hands by praying to the Nightwatcher, despite Renegade telling Ashiok not to do anything. Renegade prayed to turn Aonar into a Darkeyes. Ashiok prayed to have a Shardblade fall from the sky and slice through Aonar’s spine. Both prayers were granted. Aonar became a Darkeyes and was promptly killed by a Shardblade, making Ashiok’s curse that of having just killed a teammate. Renegade’s curse was that he just took Aonar’s place on the Seventeenth Shard (who then went on to win the game, so I’m not sure how much of a curse that was…). Some other highlights from that game were Kasimir absorbing not only a lynch but also 4 kills before finally dying (and taking the aggro award for the game), Featherwriter protecting herself every turn until she decided to pray to the Nightwatcher at just the wrong time so Gamma killed her with Slaughter, and an epic RP battle between Alvron and Featherwriter (she’s an amazing RPer, as I’m sure anyone who’s read her writing knows). All-in-all, it was a great game to watch and Slaughter now lives in infamy, spoken only in hushed whispers and veiled threats. And that’s all for SE this month. Next up we’ve got Moru with MBI. Mistborn: The Inquisition Introduction Hello! I'm Moru, another one of MBI's staffers. Comatose asked me to step in and share another featured thread, house, and character for this month's spotlight. I know Comatose said he was going to shed some light on the thieving crews and skaa rebellion this month, but I'll let him explain those to you when he returns. I'm going to take you on another Great House adVenture this month. Last month we covered house Hasting, and some plots and politics involved. This month, I'll take you to another part of Luthadel for a quick look at another Great House. Featured Thread A thread that has a lot of Great House politicking and intrigue is According to Plan. This thread features nobles from three different Great Houses, but centers on tensions between House Venture and Elariel. In the beginning of the thread, Phyra Venture, one of Venture's Mistborn, goes rogue. She plans to kill Mikhail Elariel, the heir of House Elariel, because he spurned her affection and humiliated her along with Mikhail's cousin Aaron. Phyra is known for her short temper and her overreaction to many situations. Daerra Elariel, who starts off the thread, intimates that Mikhail will die and Phyra would be blamed, whether or not Phyra decided to attack. Daerra has many plans... but Mikhail is in the way. With Mikhail dead, her twin brother Aaron Elariel would be named heir and Daerra would be one step closer to ruling her house. Lord Ellsworth Venture does not want to risk a permanent rivalry and possibly spark an all out House War with House Elariel. Elariel is known for its objectivity and its cultivated neutrality among the nobility. It's hard to make them angry, but it would be even harder to restore a working relationship with them if damaged in this way. As untouchable as Veture seems, it would not be a good move to get on the bad side of a house that has strong neutral ties to all of the rest of the Great Houses. It would make Venture seem like the common enemy to many houses that are already pitted against them. Ellsworth is visited by Camille Deveaux, who is a Mistborn. Ellsworth agrees to give Camille three beads of atium, a small fortune, so that Camille could prevent a House War with Elariel through whatever means necessary. She goes to head Phyra off at the pass, but Phyra has a big head start. While all of this is happening, Magnus Venture, Lord Ellsworth's younger brother and Captain of the Guard, is in charge of the defense of Keep Venture. One of Venture's unfortunate messengers was tasked with bringing the news that Phyra left her room with the intent to hunt down Mikhail Elariel. Magnus' short temper gets the better of him, and the Pewterarm ruins yet another desk in his study. He orders the messenger to bring a new map of troop formations to someone on the keep walls, and also to get him a new desk. He is preparing for the worst, as usual, and goes immediately to Ellsworth for up to date information and then out to the battlements to check to make sure everything is secure, in case of an attack from Elariel. Phyra Venture has enough of a head start to get to Mikhail Elariel and kill him before Camille can find her. When the two Mistborn meet, they fight. The outcome of this struggle has still not been determined on screen. The thread is ongoing, but whoever ends up the victor, the effects will be lasting for the relationships in all houses involved. Featured House: House Venture House Venture is perceived as near untouchable. Our story is set after they acquired the contract with the Steel Ministry for control of mining atium from the Pits of Hathsin (The very same influential contract that they still hold in the books). The current Lord Venture secured that contract, and Venture's vast wealth that came from it. They are at the top of the socioeconomic ladder in Luthadel. Currently, its strongest ally is Deveaux, but that is still a tentative alliance. The future of that alliance depends on Ellsworth striking a deal on a potential marriage between Venture heir, Nevan Venture and the Mistborn, Camille Deveaux. Lord Ellsworth Venture was in his early twenties when he took his father's place as Lord Venture. His older brother was stricken from succession due to his recklessness and eventually left to join the ministry. Ellsworth was made heir, and then Lord Venture shortly after that. Within the next year, Denton Venture, Ellsworth's father, died of an illness. Ellsworth has made very difficult decisions to get the house to where it is. Ellsworth's second son is heir to the title Lord Venture. His first son wished to join the ministry and had no desire to lead Venture when Ellsworth was old enough to retire, while Nevan (the second son) was enthusiastic at the opportunity and took to it much easier than his older brother. Keep Venture's Guard is maintained by Ellsworth's younger brother Magnus. Magnus is a hot-headed, but also a very honorable man. In his youth, he was outed as a Pewterarm in a duel, but has since gone on to win many dueling championships. There is a joke and persistent rumor among the nobles in Luthadel that every Venture is secretly a Pewterarm. There are three members of Venture that are known Pewterarms. All three of them very close to, or in the main line of Venture. Magnus was the first of these to be outed thirty years ago. Followed by his son, Broderick, and the heir, Nevan. Featured Character: Daerra Elariel Interestingly enough, Daerra Elariel, shown in the article image, touches many of the other young nobles lives. Daerra is 23 years old, unwed, and a Seeker. She is played by Comatose. Because her house is neutral with most of the other Great Houses, she is afforded the ability to talk to and make potential alliances and friends with members of Sureau on an equal playing field as she would talk to a member of Venture or Deveaux. These houses are bitter enemies with one another and normally, the social structures in Luthadel would prevent any Sureau to become friends or allies openly with a Venture and vice versa. With the addition of Daerra, a group would be more balanced, and members of those two houses could talk to one another, and perhaps even become friends. In situations like these, Daerra is very good at turning things to her advantage. Every time she and another noble speak, she is calculating how the conversation might help her later. She is very good at picking apart what other nobles say and coming up with a quick response that will not incriminate or point fingers, keeping in line with her House's neutral stance. Daerra is full of plots, plans and schemes, the chief of which seems to be her desire for her twin brother to be heir to the title Lord Elariel. Hidden behind that are her true desires are to rule House Elariel herself, and she seems willing to sacrifice anything necessary to get there. The first step in that grand scheme was to get rid of her cousin Mikhail... or to get someone to do it for her. The next step is still left to be seen. Thanks for letting me take you through some more Great House politics on MBI! Now back to Wilson. Strategy RPs Heirs to the Final Empire Heirs was put on hold for the last month, so it hasn’t progressed at all, but now Turn 3 is in progress (I know, I said it had just started last month, but that was just before the game was put on hiatus). If you’d like to join the game, Generation 8 should be starting early-to-mid May, so either post in this thread or PM Wyrm and he’ll work out all the details with you. Supremacy of Arelon In the last month, another 12 kingdoms in Arelon have fallen or traded hands (some multiple times), and while only 2 more players have been wiped from the game, there’s enough turnover that it shows things are definitely getting interesting. Year 9 is about to start (at the time of writing this), and I’m positive we’re going to start seeing more players wiped from Arelon in the next few (in-game) years as the power solidify and the last few players go head-to-head in a fight to the end. Who will be eliminated next? Who will be the last man standing? Find out next month (or, you know, you can also follow along in the thread to find out while it’s happening. That’s cool too ). And that’s all for this update of Around the Cosmere. Thanks for reading, and join us next week to hear Feather talk more about the Tumblr side of things. Stay classy, Sharders.
  6. Hey there, and welcome to this edition of Around the Cosmere. In this post, we’ll go over highlights of this month’s new WoBs and shine on a spotlight on an interesting theory. If you haven’t read Mistborn: Secret History or Bands of Mourning, you should steer clear of the rest of this post! Spoilers for these books and the Cosmere in general abound. Odyssey Con We were lucky enough this month to get a large number of WoBs (Words of Brandon) from Odyssey Con. A huge thanks goes to Blightsong and Kurkistan for grabbing them for us. Here’s some of the highlights: Odium does not change writings on Roshar like Ruin did. (It’s “not really his thing”.) Dragons can take human form. I wonder if we’ve seen any... Shadows are cast the wrong way in Shadesmar (at least partly) because of how everyone is being drawn to the Great Beyond. It seems that it’s not only when you die that you start getting pulled. Aon Omi is "sort of" like a God Aon, as was theorized a while back. Careful of how you interpret this one, though, as it is “partially adopted”. The screams Szeth hears, as widely theorized, are sort of magical. Someone who did the things he did would not hear them in our world, but anyone who did the things he did in the Cosmere would. It has something to do with the Spiritual Realm. We’ll see a Windrunner other than Kaladin speak an Ideal in a future book. Mistborn aren’t really “Invested” when not burning metals, but they have Spiritual connections that others don’t have which make them passively resistant to things like Forgery and Soulcasting. We also see this in Secret History, where Allomancers aren’t immediately dragged to the Beyond. As a bonus, while burning metals an Allomancer is even more resistant. When people speak of Investiture being corrupted, it often (not necessarily always) just means another Shard’s Investiture has mixed with it. (For reference, this likely refers to the Unmade Sja-anat, who “corrupts” spren who then become thunderclasts.) The follow-up question, on whether this means Nightblood is composed of multiple types of Investiture, was side-stepped. Surgebinders don't have gemhearts. Perpendicularities (large concentrations of Investiture) puncture a hole between the Spiritual and the Physical which is what allows you to use Shardpools to go to the Cognitive. It was noted that Brandon used the word “puncture” almost as if they were spikes. Again, careful of interpreting this one too far: we know that Stormlight glows because it is like a lightbulb screwed into the Spiritual. It’s normal for Cognitive Shadows (and other beings) to get stuck to places due to how they exist through Investiture. This happened with Odium and the two shards on Roshar, Preservation to Ruin, and the Heralds. Elantris crumbled after the chasm because its soul changed to accommodate the Investiture flowing through it (like an Allomantic savant) and its soul was damaged when Investiture stopped flowing through it. Ryshadium evolved to have symbiotic bonds with spren, like much of the rest of Roshar’s wildlife. You can take a look at the full signing reports here. ComicCon FanX We were lucky to have another source of WoBs as well this month. Thanks to Doomquill and theravenchilde for their work here. We don’t have the full transcript yet, so keep an eye out for that! You can steal Surgebinding with Hemalurgy. (There’s been some discussion on whether a Hemalurgically stolen spren could break the bond, and this implies they couldn’t.) Quite a lot of crustaceans on Roshar can grow gemhearts. You can read the full report (and listen to the not-yet-transcribed recording) here. Featured Theory: Trell is Dominion The newest Mistborn books showcase the actions of foreign entities on Scadrial. Bleeder had a spike made of a god metal not related to Harmony, Miles speaks of a Trell, Suit ended up being blown up by something possessing a man, and Bloody Tan was influenced by something. Harmony all-but-tells Wax that he is keeping Scadrial safe from an outside force, which Wax sees as a red mist. Marasi resolves to look into who Trell is, and plenty of people have theorized on their identity here on 17th Shard. The original two big candidates were Odium and Autonomy (the Shard of White Sand). But an interesting alternative emerged: Dominion, or perhaps someone using Dominion’s power. The earliest one to propose the theory, as far as I know, was Tarion in this post. But there was a recent re-evaluation with evidence from Bands of Mourning by Dirigible here. Others have certainly discussed this in other threads; I apologize for not including them here. Some points of evidence for the theory: The agents of Dominion on Sel, the Skaze, are a part of the Fjordell Empire. To no one’s great surprise, pieces of Dominion sought to rule over Elantris and the surrounding area. Why not move on to Scadrial in the future? Brandon has stated “The full [Elantris] sequels will need to be finished before I can do the contemporary (1980s tech) Mistborn novels because of behind-the-scenes Cosmere bits.” The mysterious metal spikes that Paalm used have a very similar appearance to the soulstone that Shai uses (red spots). Not that they’re the same - one is a metal, the other a stone, but Dominion’s power may express itself differently on other worlds. Svrakiss, evil spirits which can control men, are part of the legends of Sel. Sound similar to anything that happened to Suit? The “Faceless Immortal” speaking to Suit at the end was very focused on hierarchy and serving, which is reminiscent of the structure of the Fjordell Empire. Dominion, or those using its power, are certainly an interesting candidate for “Trell”. If you’re interested in looking more in-depth on the arguments for/against, I urge you to check out the threads linked above. Random Fact Here’s this month’s interesting WoB: Could be interesting seeing a Dakhor monk with a Skazeblade fighting a Radiant, no?If you noticed anything wrong up above, please leave a comment letting us know. Have a good month, and happy theorizing!
  7. Hello everyone! Voidus here again for this month's Around the Cosmere segment on the RPs and social groups! This month, there's been two new RPs that have started up, the progress of Oregon and the Social Guilds, and we'll have our first hightlighted character and character from the Oregon RP: Nighthound, and his battle against Lightwards and Doctor Funtimes. It really is a ridiculously fun story. So let's get into it! New Roleplaying Games This month has seen the rise of two new RPs that are both going strong. ‘Owls and Wands: A Hogwarts Roleplay’, is set in the world of Harry Potter. Meanwhile, ‘The Beginning of an Era’, is a roleplay set in the distant past of Skyrim in the world of the Elder Scrolls series. ‘The Beginning of an Era’ is a roleplay set in the world of Skyrim and other Elder Scrolls games, it takes place in the first Era during the time of the dragon wars. Dragons rule the land, assisted by powerful dragon cultists who worship them as gods these giant powerful beings roam free through the skies of Skyrim, taking as they please and slaughtering those who oppose them. Meanwhile daedric worship has become popular in small pockets, with worshippers of Nocturnal, Azura and Hircine taking ever larger roles in the events that are to come. ‘Owls and Wands: A Hogwarts Roleplay’ is set in the world of Harry Potter, taking place at Hogwarts after the events of the books. Muggle technology is starting to creep into the magical world, cultural shifts have taken place since the battle of Hogwarts and rumor has it that a stair has started yelling study advice at students. The term hasn’t started yet so jump in now if you’d like to participate! The RP has been progressing pretty well and hopefully will continue on.[/background] Reckoners stuff Now on to the RP to rule them all: The Reckoners RP, six threads, hundreds of posts, enough teleporters to fill a small city, thousands of pages of Questions threads filled with insanity and somehow we still haven’t broken the internet. Well we’ll keep trying. What happened in the last month: Most excitingly the Wastelands Roleplay has started up again! Edgedancer has joined in the massive Roleplay set across the entire country of Australia and has revitalized it, with events proceeding forwards once again. Alliances are being forged, deals being made, and time progressing at a fixed rate once more! Other threads have seen the revitalization of some old characters, in the Dalles the Florist has become active once more with a truly stunning post from Cognizantastic, carefully tending his garden as the rest of the Dalles is enveloped in a war between giant metallic tentacles and enough missiles to shame any warzone. In the doctors clinic Shiny Sparkle has launched an assault on her newest victim, showering her with praises and hugs, while in the bus chase across town… people have seemed to forgotten the bus, though that’s understandable when Arsenal may be about to start Armageddon. Salem has been the most recent victim of the art-loving Epic Vandal who has decided to annoy the resident spymaster by defacing all of their portraits, while in Corvallis the captive Euphoria has been struggling to understand the motives of her jailer. Astoria has been going through some heated discussions and power struggles, although Bioterror spent his time treating us to a mental image we could all do without when he decided to walk around without pants. In Portland the attack on Neverthere is proceeding forward, with Nighthound earning a few more entries in the ‘And then they died’ list for being creeptastic, Backtrack meanwhile was being terrified (as usual) after being confronted by mad Epic scientists and asked for a blood sample. Featured Character: Nighthound Nighthound (whose icon is shown above) is a somewhat infamous character in the realms of the Reckoners RP, he is known to be one of the darkest and creepiest of all characters and was so horrible that he caused the phrase ‘And then Nighthound died’ to become something of a catch-phrase. Nighthound is a High Epic and a gifter, capable of bestowing his incredibly rapid healing and greatly enhanced physical abilities to others, though in doing so they secrete a black mist which forms wolf-like appearances and become slaves to Nighthounds commands. Nighthound’s personality and plans are perhaps even more disturbing than his abilities, through planning, luck and being a creeper he is steadily gaining a harem of female followers, some unwilling to be so but kept there with a mixture of circumstance, blackmail and mostly because no one has yet figured out how to kill him. Featured Event: The infamous battle of the three crazies (Nighthound vs. Lightwards and Funtimes) This battle is somewhat famous for being one of the most Oregon-RP type things to ever happen in the Oregon RP. It includes maple-syrup, carpet bombs, zombie vultures, a net made of two-minute noodles and the memorable phrase "AAAAHHHH EPIC ON THE WINDSHIELD GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!". Taking over three pages to reach its conclusion and ranging from hand-to-hand combat, to gunfights, to a race through the streets in a catmobile, there are simply not adequate words in the English language to describe this fight. For anyone not already convinced of the insanity of Oregon RPers then I can only recommend that you read this scene and then watch your own sanity slip away to join the remnants of ours. The scene eventually resulted in a stalemate after Nighthound continues to shake off the barrage of bizarrity that Doctor Funtimes produces, this eventually leads to an alliance between those present and the formation of the Empire of Light and its infamous zombie dinosaurs. Social groups In social group news the Dark Alley has been suspiciously quiet this month, but maybe they all got distracted by the newly formed Debate Club! Yes if you’re in the mood for some formal or informal debates, drop on by the new thread for Debaters where you can argue over the morality of cookies, and which of the Head Admins is most likely to spike you. (Hint: It’s all of them False. I, Voidus and making a joke. Ha. Ha. Ha. There are no spikes. The Admins are to be praised.) Other social groups are still active and accepting members so everyone who likes pretty much anything should drop by and say hello to the various groups of insanity down there. Well that’s it for this time, big thanks to the GMs of the various RPs and of course the other writers who have made them all into such amazing worlds. And also the admins for putting up with us all! See you next month! Thanks again everyone!
  8. Hello everyone, it's Feather, and this time not with a Splintercast episode. Shocking, I know. Anyway, I'm here to bring you another update on Around the Cosmere, and this time I'd like to highlight a place that's very near and dear to my heart. As many of you have probably guessed, 17th Shard is not the only major gathering place of Cosmere fans, and I'd like to introduce you guys to a community of fans with whom I'm very involved: the Tumblr Cosmere fandom! For those who are unaware of what Tumblr is, it's a microblogging platform that lets users share pictures, text, video, and all kinds of different posts. In practice, I usually like to describe it as somewhat akin to Pinterest, but for fiction. Tumblr thrives on fandoms of all kinds: books, tv shows, movies, video games, webcomics, and more! And the Cosmere fandom is no exception! It's kind of a crazy jumble of creative energy, fanworks, jokes, memes, shipping, theories, roleplay, and just about everything you could consider. So, you want to find the fandom on Tumblr. The first thing you might notice is that there are a lot of Cosmere posts tagged #CFSBF. This lovely little acronym is short for "Cosmere Fandom is Still the Best Fandom." Because, heck yeah. Basically, it was something that I used to use on my personal blog that then spread out to the fandom as a whole, and has kind of become a catchphrase. But don't take my word for it. Hear it from an expert here! Now, let's talk about some fun blogs. We've got a few aggregators around the fandom, which are blogs dedicated to reblogging works by other people so that they're all in one place. I'm the moderator of a fairly large one called Adonalsium, that collects fanworks of all kinds, from all of Brandon's books, both Cosmere and Non-Cosmere. The wonderful Botanica Xu (who is also an incredible fanartist) also runs the "imaginary" blogs, Imaginary Scadrial, Imaginary Sel andImaginary Roshar, collect works for Mistborn, Elantris/Emperor's Soul, and Stormlight Archive, respectively. There are some other great projects going on too, such as Incorrect Mistborn Quotes, which is a terribly fun blog, taking quotations from other works and attributing them to Mistborn characters.Incorrect Stormlight Quotes does the same thing with the Stormlight characters! And then the lovely I Am A Stick blog has a single purpose: to make sure that everyone remembers that the stick is, in fact, a stick. Maybe you're looking for something a little bit more involved, though. You want to stretch your creative muscles, show off your stuff, make some friends and be a part of something cool. Or maybe you just want to see some awesome content made by other people. Well, you've got a few cool options, depending on what kind of content you're looking for: First and foremost is the Cosmere Challenge. The CC is a prompt blog that does rotating ideas and challenges, usually about one a month. Sometimes these are pairings, sometimes they're situations, sometimes they're AUs or crossovers. They're good for a quick burst of inspiration, or if you want to contribute something to an event. By far, the challenge that gets the most submissions is the now annual event: Cosmere Fandom is Still the Worst Fandom, in which everyone tries to write/draw/create the most tragic, heart-wrenching, horrifying stories and ideas to inflict them on everyone else. Because the only thing better than suffering is making other people suffer, right? Now is the time to start thinking of ideas, as the CFSWF challenge usually happens in the summer! If you want something more for the long-haul, you could consider checking out the Cosmere RP, a college-AU taking place in Kharbranth University. Characters from all over the cosmere are welcome and they're all at the same university and all have blogs on tumblr. It's a wild ride. Marsh moved in with Edgli? Kelsier got into a fight with Adolin? And who exactly is dating who between Kaladin, Adolin, Shallan, and Renarin? Stay tuned for more. If you want to get in on the action, there's a list of characters the RP is still looking for! So, that's your crash course to what's going on with the tumblr side of the fandom. If there's any questions about the blogs here or how tumblr works or anything, feel free to ask me things. I'm more than happy to help answer queries. Have fun, Sharders!
  9. Hey, Sharders! I’m Wilson, and I’ve been involved with the Sanderson Elimination games since practically its inception in December 2013/January 2014. This section of Around the Cosmere focuses on not only SE, but also Mistborn: The Inquisition and strategy RPs. For this first month, we’ll start with introductions to all of those, and then keep you updated in future months. Sanderson Elimination What’s Sanderson Elimination? Sanderson Elimination is the Sanderson-based, forum version of Mafia/Werewolves, an elimination game that’s often played at parties or get-togethers. It’s a fun group game that divides people into two different factions: the village and the eliminators/mafia/werewolves (there are many names). The eliminators are mixed into the villagers and their goal is to kill all of the villagers. The villagers are trying to weed out and kill the eliminators. The game is played by turns: days and nights. Day turns are when everyone votes on a player to lynch, and the player who accrues the most votes dies. Night turns are when the eliminators choose a player to kill. Often times, there are other roles mixed in the game as well: a detective that can scan someone and discover their alignment/faction, a doctor who can protect someone from attack, and many more. So what’s the Sanderson-based version of this? Well, we take Sanderson settings and build elimination games around those. For example, the first game was based on Scadrial, in a little village, Tyrian Falls, after the Lord Ruler died. Koloss were marching toward the village and we only had so many days to find the Spiked (who were sabotaging the village by doing things like weakening the walls and blowing up the blacksmith) before the koloss got there and killed everyone. Yeah, the villagers lost that game (and both Anniversary Games based on it as well. Tyrian Falls is now cursed). Since then, we’ve had numerous games on Scadrial and Roshar and a few games each on Sel and Nalthis, as well as in a general Cosmere setting (space, worldhopping around, etc) and in the Reckoner’s world. We’ve even hit on Threnody, First of the Sun, Legion, Rithmatist, and Randland. And, occasionally, we branch out past Sanderson worlds: Hunger Games, A Song of Ice and Fire, the Kingkiller Chronicles, and more. All of these games are built and run by fellow members, usually with some pretty awesome writeups, and they all try to incorporate the setting as much as possible. The better that’s done, the more opportunity the players have of roleplaying in the setting. Everyone signs up with a character, and you can choose how much you want to roleplay with that character. You can go anywhere between roleplaying everything, including your accusations on other players, to not roleplaying at all. That said, it’s always a delight to have players who do like to roleplay. The Different Formats We have three different game formats available for people to play, depending on how invested you want to be in the game and how much time you have to play. The Long Game lasts three weeks or more, though they usually are around a month or a month in a half in length. So a lot of time investment. They also vary vastly in complexity. Some LG’s are really basic, but others are incredibly complex. There’s a lot of variance to this format and it’s really just dependent on the game and the GM. However, if you have an hour of free time every day, you could easily keep up with a Long Game, assuming you want to focus on it for the next month or two. The Quick Fix is the shortest format we have. These last anywhere from about 4 days to 10 days. They’re usually very basic, and they move quick. If you only have a week of free time, a QF is perfect to test the waters of the games. The Mid-Range is exactly what it seems. It’s a middle-ground game between the other two formats. These usually last between two to three weeks, though occasionally they can last a month. There’s a little more variance to the game complexity than there is in the Quick Fix, though not to the same degree as there is in the Long Games. While there are sometimes complex games, they’re never to the degree of the most complex LG’s. If you want to delve into the games a little deeper but aren’t sure if you want a month or two time commitment, the Mid-Ranges may be right up your alley. What’s Going On Right Now? Right now, we only have one game running: a Long Game based at the University from the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss. A Mid-Range based in the Reckoner’s ‘Verse, in Portland finished not even a week ago. We have two games in signups as well: a Quick Fix and a Long Game. The current Long Game, LG18, has been running for about a month now, and it’s likely to end soon. It’s a massive game where all players start with no powers, but they have the chance to impress Masters of their choice and be elevated into the Arcanum, gaining abilities that they kind of get to choose. There’s currency, lodgings, the Crockery and insanity, the Eolian, a Black Market, and all sorts of other things. Mixed into all this are the Skindancers (the eliminators), who’ve infiltrated the University and are trying to destroy it by removing fields of study and/or sabotaging the students. As I said, it’s a massive game. Mid Range 12 ran for about two weeks. It was a faction game combined with an elimination game. There were 3 different factions--the Blood Tyrants, the Neighborhood Watch, and the Evanescents--who fought against one another, but they’d been infiltrated by Government Agents. Some players started as Epics and other players went through the rending and became Epics. Some players started as drunk and when they sobered up, they joined a faction. There was even a map, with about 6 different locations players can move around to, including a ferry so you can cross the river. Ultimately, the Blood Tyrants won when they killed the Government Agents in their own faction and the Epics in the Evanescents. Congratulations, Blood Tyrants! Quick Fix 14: Corruption in the Senate takes place in Elendel, focusing on the city’s Senate, with the eliminators being Corrupt Senators. This game has a bunch of different items that can be used and passed around in the game. Take a look at the rules here and see if you’d like to join. This game starts on Tuesday, March 29 (so tomorrow), at 9pm PDT. Long Game 19: Twinborn City also takes place on Scadrial, and every player in the game is a Twinborn. Some players could even be Compounders. The game involves a map with 9 locations players can move around to and search for different items. It’s a fascinating game, and it’s also a rerun of a game played almost a year ago: Long Game 11. The rules are here, if you’d like to take a closer look at them. This game also[/background] starts tomorrow, thought the exact time hasn’t been announced Conclusion If you want to learn more about the games, you can always take a look at our General Rules thread and Etiquette Policy. And if you’re interested in giving SE a try, sign up for either the Quick Fix or the Long Game. I promise that despite our bloodthirsty reputation, we’re all very nice to new players and always willing to give advice and help. So take your pick and join in the slaughter! You never would’ve imagined that killing your friends could be so fun and polite. Mistborn: The Inquisition I’m not as familiar with MBI as some members, so I’ll pass the reins over to Comatose for this section since he knows far more about that RPG than I do. Introduction Hello! I’m Comatose, and to some of you, Mistborn: The Inquisition might just be that dark mysterious corner of 17th Shard that requires you to make a separate account in order to participate. To others it might seem like an intimidatingly large and seemingly inactive project with little room for new authors to join. If you are in either of those categories, or just wondering what in the Lord Ruler's name is going on over there, this segment is the place for you! Since' there's not much space or time, I won't be giving a full run down of everything that Mistborn: The Inquisition (MBI) is about, but I will try to give a few snap shots to let everyone know what is happening. If you are interested in participating or learning more, feel free to post a comment in the chat box, or if you are feeling brave, make an account and post an introduction thread. I'd also be willing to answer questions via PM if that's your contact method of choice. Anyways, Mistborn: The Inquisition is a Forum-Style Role Playing Game with a heavy writing and storytelling focus, set on Brandon Sanderson's Scadrial approximately one hundred years before the events of the first Mistborn Novel. The skaa of the Final Empire are rebelling, led by the enigmatic Ignas, a former obligator who has grown disillusioned with his God and Empire. As the skaa rebellion starts to gain momentum, thieving crews continue to struggle to survive while the nobility plot and scheme within their marvelous keeps and during their spectacular balls. For the most part, the nobility have done their best to ignore the signs of rebellion, filling their time with intricate plots, busy social schedules, or budding romances, but a rebel attack during the Casuana Ball has raised tensions in the city to an all time high. Much of the action in this RP, unlike in the books, focuses on the lives of the nobility. There are Terris, skaa, and obligator characters as well, but the nobility take up the majority of the action, and we often encourage new players to start with a noble if they are worried about getting involved at the beginning. You can read the prologue for more information about how MBI's story begins, or start checking out the Universal Continuity Thread to start getting to know the characters. Featured Thread The most active thread at the moment is Stars and High Society, set during the Perrault Ball held in the middle of week 2 of the overall story. The Perraults are a lesser noble house who are holding a mid-week ball, scheduled between the larger weekend balls held by the Great Houses. In the aftermath of the disasterous Casuana Ball, this is the first time the high nobility have been gathered in a large group since that night, and the last major event before next weekend's ball at Keep Elariel. Caden Hasting and Eliza Fathvell have already made a stir, showing up in attire from Eliza's native Southern Islands and bringing their new romance to the attention of the public. Ferrah Brehaut has been charged by Colette Hasting to keep their exclusive clique in line while their leader is absent, and has tried to do so by playing a game which forces each member of the group to dance with a man of another woman's choosing. The romantically-inclined Adala Venture does her best to orient herself at her first ball since arriving in Luthadel, while her brother Aldric focuses on making connections and finding allies. Mistborn Lysette Hasting and Jasun Vallace try their best enjoy their first ball together while keeping their romance a secret. Jasun prepares for a distasteful mission that he must complete before being allowed to marry Lysette. Former friends Daerra Elariel, Aveline Sureau, and Camille Deveaux share a meal together; each one trying to find leverage to use against the others while hiding secrets of their own. These plots and more abound at the Perrault Ball, and there is still time to join in the fun. Featured Noble House: House Hasting You may haven noticed from my description of the ball that a lot seems to be going on with House Hasting, so I thought they would make a good feature for this week's Around the Cosmere. House Hasting specializes in the weapons trade, and is currently ranked fifth among the ten Great Houses. They are allies with the formerly powerful Sureau Coalition, currently consisting of House Sureau, House Hasting, and House Tekiel. As House Sureau's oldest ally, House Hasting remains the most committed to the alliance despite the signs that the ancient House Sureau is no longer as powerful as it once was. House Hasting's greatest rival is House Casuana, another weapons house that is currently ranked eighth and alligned with the powerful House Deveaux. The leader of House Hasting, Lord Sheldon Hasting, is currently experiencing some health issues, and has yet to choose an heir. The two candidates are his legitimate daughter, Colette Hasting, a talented rioter and master manipulator, and his bastard nephew Caden Hasting, a charismatic leader and proficient politician. The life-long conflict between these two rivals has come to a head in recent months as Sheldon's health continues to deteriorate. Intending to make a move against Colette, Caden tried to convert the newest member of her clique, Eliza Fathvell, to his side, not realizing that his relationship with Eliza would become much more than a mere political alliance. Colette is trying her best to keep Eliza and the rest of her clique under her complete control, while developing her own plans to ensure Caden does not threaten her birthright. Lysette Hasting, the house Mistborn, has recently become secretly engaged to the house-less Mistborn, Jasun Vallace. Colette, Lysette's closest friend and confidante within the House, has promised to allow the marriage despite Jasun' low rank in exchange for Jasun's services as Mistborn. Though Jasun has despised house politics since the fall of his own family, he loves Lysette enough to agree to Colette's demands. Featured Character: Marceline Dumont Marceline Dumont, played by the ever-talented MozytheHealer, is a member of Collette Hasting's small but exclusive clique. Marceline grew up in Austrex City, the capital of the Southern Dominance, and was sent to Luthadel by her family recently in order to find a husband. When the Casuana Ball was attacked, Marceline panicked and sided with Caden when he stepped in to lead the group out to safety. Her insubordination has not been forgetten by the ruthless Collette, or her loyal lieutenant, Ferrah Brehaut. Since the Casuana Ball, Ferrah has taken every opportunity to remind Marceline of her place within the group. As Ferrah and the other girls scheme to bring Eliza Fathvell back into the fold and to punish her for having the audacity to socialize with Caden Hasting, Marceline cannot help but to secretly sympathize with Eliza. She privately rebels against Ferrah's rules and insults, all while nursing a small crush on Eliza's attractive cousin, Felix Fathvell. While Dumont is relatively low ranked compared to the Great Houses, her association with Collette and Ferrah gives her considerable social capital in Luthadel, and she struggles between her escape their bullying and her wish to find love in the Final Empire's grandest city. Conclusion Stay tuned next month for Mistborn: The Inquisition's next Around the Cosmere update for more information about the skaa rebellion and thieving crews! Now back to Little Wilson to talk about the strategy RP games. Strategy RP Games Thanks Comatose! There aren’t many strategy RP games going on right now, but the two biggest ones are Heirs to the Final Empire and the Supremacy of Arelon. Heirs to the Final Empire This game is a generational game run by Wyrmhero and taking place on Scadrial. It started directly after the Lord Ruler’s Ascension, and each player controls one Noble House. The game is meant to run until just prior to the start of Mistborn: The Final Empire. There are 11 generations in the game, and each generation lasts about a month in length. It has 4 turns, which are one week long, and each player can take 3 actions in those turns. So you have 12 actions per generation to make trade agreements, try for heirs, get marriage contracts, and build goods or services to further support your house, and whatever else you want to do. Wyrm’s even mixed in global events to make things more interesting for the players. For example, there was a skaa rebellion that lasted almost a full two generations, where a House’s reputation with the skaa fluctuated, and if the skaa got too displeased with your House, they started revolting and burning properties to the ground. Nasty skaa. The gall of them. Fortunately, the rebels were destroyed with rather extreme prejudice (along with a few Noble Houses that supported the rebels) and now things are progressing much more smoothly. If you’ve ever wanted to try to run a Noble House on Scadrial, new players can join at the start of each generation. Turn 3 of Generation 7 just started, and if you’d like to join for Generation 8, all you have to do is post in this thread or PM Wyrm to say what your House name is. He’ll work out all the details with you. It’s a fun game, and I highly encourage checking it out. The Supremacy of Arelon This game started a little over a week ago, and while they’re not accepting new players beyond the people who initially signed up, you can always follow along with the game in the thread and root for different players. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a similar game started when this one ends, assuming everyone had fun and wanted to try another one. This game is a combination of Risk and Civilization, that takes place centuries before Elantris is built. Each player controls a small kingdom in Arelon, and they can forge a public alliance with one other player in the game, make trade and military access agreements, expand their military and fight other kingdoms, and more. Ultimately, the winner(s) will have control of at least 50% of Arelon. 13 players signed up for this game, but since there are 28 kingdoms, all kingdoms not occupied by a player started as NPC-controlled. The game is currently in Year 3 (which ends this Wednesday night, 8pm MDT), and 7 kingdoms have fallen to players. Six of those were NPC’s, so only one player has actually been removed from the game. All in all, it’s progressing rather well, and I’m curious to see who ultimately wins. And that’s all for this installment of Around the Cosmere! Sorry for the length, but this should only be the case for this first time around, with all the introductions and explanations of the different RPs. Next month’s update will be much simpler. See you then!
  10. Hey all, I'm Windrunner, and welcome to your regular theory update for this month! Once, a long time ago, I had a featured theory column, but I kind of lost steam, and it died a slow death. Now, it’s being revitalized and updated with more info. I have three primary goals with this column. I want to keep you all updated on all the new quotes and info from Brandon we’ve gained, talk about expansions and areas that need work on the Coppermind, and tshine the spotlight on cool, accurate, or interesting new theories. Major Calamity Tour Information: We’ve had a lot of really interesting questions tasked during the Calamity tour that provide all sorts of insight into the cosmere, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to highlight some of the exciting new information. I’ve gotten all of this from one Calamity tour report or another in our Events subforum. In the future, I’d like tp spend more time talking about cool new theories or ideas that have recently cropped up, but there’s a huge amount of stuff from the Calamity tour, so I thought focusing on this would be a simple way tget this column started. If you guys think I’ve made an error or misrepresented a quote, let me know. I want to be clear though, these questions contain some spoilers for Calamity, Secret History, and Bands of Mourning, so if you are worried about that, steer clear for the moment! Forthcoming Book Information Mistborn: Secret History sequels Brandon is toying with a couple different ideas, but is not planning on putting out any of them immediately. Demoux’s story may be a part of one of these. Not all future ones will occur in the Cognitive Realm. Future stories will always focus on behind the scenes things events, filling in the cracks between the books, and on characters that are more cosmere-aware. Legion 3 Brandon has one more Legion novella planned Brandon would be more interested in writing a full-length novel if Legion was actually being turned into a TV series Apocalypse Guard Will dig into the place that Calamity is from. World Information First of the Sun Aviar like Kokerlii that hide minds from predators would also hide someone from an Awakener’s Life-sense. Brandon has notes for other Aviar abilities, one of them is navigation Sel Gretgor, the sword of the first Wyrn is enshrined in Fjordell somewhere, perhaps at the palace. Brandon calls the sword a “he,” but this may be a simple misstatement. If someone were to make an Essence Mark for themselves where the history of their other self “split-off” before they gained a Shardblade, they would not be able to summon their Shardblade while they were using that Essence Mark. It is also possible to create a stamp where a different version of you bonded a Shardblade. According to other previous signings, this would be tricky and probably need an external power source. Threnody: There are shades of animals Cognitive shadows that travel to Threnody do not automatically become shades, but the two are very closely related “breeds”. Threnody was named in memorial of someone or something. Roshar: Roshar’s three major magic systems are Surgebinding, Voidbinding, and fabrials, with the Old Magic being its own weird thing. Roshar is special in some way to Shadesmar. (The audio here is confused) It is theoretically possible for there to be a Nahel bond with a spren that grants two Surges that are not paired together among the Radiants. Brandon would term any heavily Invested weapon a Shardblade, and there are many methods that can be used to create one, with varying effectiveness. The Bands are close, but are not Invested enough to be considered one. Scadrial: More god metal alloys will make appearances There are hard limits to how fast a Steelrunner can move In Brandon’s mind, burning pewter approximately doubles your strength, while flaring triples it. He has not canonized how much either of these things enhances reflexes or healing. Scadrial mostly uses biodiesel for gasoline, but Brandon won’t rule out fossil fuel deposits being placed by Harmony. There was a concept of hell in the theology of the Lord Ruler. It was the punishment for the souls of people that had failed or disobeyed the Lord Ruler. Even the skaa were aware of this aspect of theology. Allomancers can burn metals from places other than Scadrial. Hemalurgic decay in spikes containing Feruchemical attributes leads tless efficiency when they tap metalminds. Kandra can have children with humans if they recreate the appropriate organs, although if the kandra is in a woman’s form, it would have to remain in that shape until the child is born. The Lord Ruler had several children, but they mixed in with the population. Many people are related to them, and some may claim heirship, but in truth they may not be much more closely related thim than anyone else. The fandom is giving this fact undue attention. The Bands of Mourning are not even close tbeing Invested as much as Nightblood. When someone uses aluminum or chromium, the metal in an Allomancers stomach is “transferred” somehow. It has to do with energy, matter, and Investiture all being one, but a person who has had their metals removed by aluminum or chromium would not get metal poisoning. A Connection medallion could be used to translate the Listener’s Rhythms, but it would not be perfect and something would be lost in translation. Nalthis Nightblood is one of the most heavily Invested things in the cosmere that is not a Shard. Yolen It is not unreacheable from Shadesmar due to a total lack of cognitive activity there. Cosmere Information Despite initial reports, Threnody and Sel are NOT in the same planetary system. All cosmere planets are relatively close together in their dwarf galaxy, current estimate is within ~50 light years or so, although that may later change. Seons and spren are more bound to their own worlds, but they can travel elsewhere. Subastral is Hoid’s term for a specific region in the Cognitive Realm The process by which people die, moving from the Physical Realm to the Cognitive and then to the Beyond is the same throughout the cosmere, although people stick around for different lengths of time depending on their Investiture. It is widely assumed that Adonalsium is the creator of the cosmere. When Wax remarks that souls and metal are the same thing, he is seeing that energy, matter, and Investiture are all the same thing. Things that drain Investiture, such as larkins, Nightblood, and Leechers, all have something similar going on among them. Shard Information The Vessels of Shards can have children, although in a way their created humans are already their children. Brandon specifies that we have not “seen” any Shards that have been Splintered reform as of Bands of Mourning. Odium is more aware than Harmony of the various happenings in the cosmere because he is both older and because there are forces purposely attempting to limit Harmony’s knowledge. There is some connection between Odium and Trell. Someone who’s never been to Scadrial could be Connected to Ruin and Preservation because Connection is not binary, it can be stronger or weaker. If Odium were to go to Scadrial, he would have difficulty seeing metal. If Honor and Odium hadn’t been held by different personalities, the two Shards have the potential to be a natural pair and might have attracted one another. Character Information Brandon refuses to explain why ReLuur’s spikes are made of pewter, although he does agree that it doesn’t seem to “make sense”. Ironeyes will probably make an appearance in The Lost Metal, but Brandon is not sure if he’ll be back in time from where is currently. At some point, Wax drew upon the mists. Vasher actually discovered Roshar while attempting to research an easier method to get Investiture than via Breath. Demoux has gotten less idealistic since his initial appearance in Mistborn. Nightblood leaks Investiture, but his sheath helps prevent that. Coppermind I’d also like to use these theory posts to shine a spotlight on the Coppermind. Every month I’m going to point out a well-done article, and then challenge you guys to work on a specific area of the Coppermind for the next month. If we’ve also put up any really awesome new fan art on the wiki, I might point that out here too in the future. Featured Article: Cosmere Our admin Chaos recently retooled the Cosmere article from scratch, really bringing it up to date with a lot of the cosmere’s foundational happenings. If you have any questions on how the basics of how the cosmere works and the background events, definitely give it a look. It is also incredibly well-cited, so there is plenty of digging you can do into various sources if you want. Featured Fix-Me-Up: This month, I’d like to challenge you all to work on Reckoners articles. With Calamity just out, many articles can now be truly completed, as the main sequence has come to a close. There of course can be additional information from the Apocalypse Guard in a few years, but we have a chance to get the Reckoners stuff all in order before that happens. I’ll be the first to admit that Reckoners isn’t my forte, so I can’t help very much and oftentimes it’s just Weiry working on them by himself. Even if you only have an interesting fact or two, every little bit helps. Any member of the wiki staff (Me, JoeSt, WeiryWriter, Chaos, and KalynaAnne) can answer questions you have about wikicode, and if you have any other questions, there is also a tumblr page you can use to contact us. Random Little Known Fact: I also thought it would be fun to close these theory articles with a little known fact of the month, something interesting that I think a lot of people might not know. Here’s this month’s, from a signed copy of The Way of Kings! This was news to me, and definitely shines a new light on Hoid and Odium’s enmity. Next time, I’m going thave a new Cosmere 101 guide prepared, updated with all the new information we’ve gained in the past couple years. Have a good month, and happy theorizing!
  11. Hello, and welcome to the new edition of Around the Cosmere! This used to be an old newspost that we had weekly, where we would talk about important things that were happening around the site, but do to the changes that have occurred in 17th Shard, we're reformatting it to fit the needs of the site. Over the past few years, 17th Shard has grown increasingly large. We recently passed having our 12,000th member. We have over 330,000 posts, and that means that our site is really big. If each post had about a hundred words (about as many are in these two paragraphs), it would be enough for 100 copies of The Way of Kings. That’s pretty impressive. On the other hand, being so large means that there are nooks and crannies a plenty that there just isn’t time enough to read and explore. So we’ve decided that every week, we’re going to have someone from the site explain what the section of the site they belong to does and is about. They’re going to introduce it to you and probably try and convince you to join them! Then every month or so they’ll come back and tell you what’s been going on the past month. We decided that because of the recent Calamity release, we would start with the Reckoners RP. So, with no further ado, Voidus! Hello everyone! I’m Voidus, and I frequent the social guilds and the Reckoners RP. I’ll go ahead and start with the social guilds. Social Guilds The 17th Shard has a thriving collection of social guilds for those of any and all tastes. Suitable for new and experienced Sharders alike, these guilds can provide fun and interesting discussions, plenty of humor and drama and some exciting opportunities for less formal roleplaying. There’s the Dark Alley, bakers of cookies and spikers of people, there’s the Light who seek to warn others of the dangers of eating unknown cookies. Then there’s the Newcago court, ruled over by Queen Elsa Steelheart and her subjects. Or if you’re feeling a bit too awkward to join a social club you may find yourself right at home with the Knights Awkward, where you can bond an Awkwardspren and speak again the oaths of the Knights Awkward (As long as you’re not overcome with stage fright). The Knightbloods are around if you’d like to slay some evil today or if you’d rather trade evil for its hat you might like to join the Church of Wayne. There are even some rumors that all of the guilds are banding together for some unknown conflict in the kingdom of Guildonia! Many, many more guilds can be found in the social guilds section, and if you can’t find one to suit your taste, why not make your own and send out recruiters to the other guilds? We have inter-guild roleplays and parties, a few rivalries that occasionally spill into other sections of the forums (Sorry Admins!) Lots of inside jokes and narrative going on and if nothing else it can just be a fun place to talk to people who may share similar interests. Reckoners RP The Reckoners RP started in mid 2014 and has since become large enough that it needed its own subforum. It all started with a single Question, whether anyone wanted to do a per-post roleplay set in the world of Steelheart. This question led to the first Roleplay thread titled at the time: “What Happened in Oregon”. The goal of the RP was to explore the events that led to Oregon’s eventual destruction as described by Megan in Steelheart. The Roleplay is full of in-jokes, horror stories, insanity and a suspiciously large number of ponies. We’re all friendly if a little bit crazy and far too inclined to make references to pugs, ponies or parody songs about Shia Laboeuf being an actual cannibal. So even if you don’t necessarily want to join the roleplay with your own character, pop by and say hi in the latest Questions thread, let us know if you’ve liked any of the roleplay if you’ve read it or just ask us who the heck Nighthound is and why everyone wishes he was dead. And if you do want to join us then it’s as simple as showing up in the latest ‘Questions’ thread, saying hi and introducing everyone to your character so we can fit them into the location that best suits. “What Happened in Portland” explores the largest city of Oregon as it undergoes a large-scale turf war, three rival factions vie for dominance of the city. They include the Dominion, a militaristic faction, the Empire of Light with their army of zombie dinosaurs, and Thoughttown, where the intellectual elite dwell. Portland is currently not accepting new Epic characters but if you have an idea for a regular human character trying to survive in the ensuing turf wars you might find yourself at home here. “What Happened in The Dalles” was the second thread to open up, it started out as a side mission for some Portland characters and since has undergone an invasion by flying pandas, a thrilling aerial battle and most recently a large slew of missiles. The city is ruled by regular humans with some Epics of varying degrees of morality and integrity assisting the city guards in fighting off any Epics who try to invade. Like Portland it is currently closed to new Epics but it would benefit greatly from having more human characters, so if you want to join the city guard, file paperwork while trying to avoid getting blown up or simply explore what life in one of the only cities not ruled by Epics might be like then try out the Dalles! “What Happened in Astoria” is a thread opened to answer the question: what if we threw all pretense of canon to the wind and made a city filled almost exclusively with High Epics with insanely strong powers? The city’s ruler is currently absent and a flux of Epics have arrived, some to join the city, others to overthrow it, and others to join the church of the singularity, which worships the savior zero and despises seven for eating nine. So if you have an idea for an Epic but think they might be a little bit too strong for any more canonical setting then why not bring them here so we can see how long Astoria can stand up against a horde of Epics capable of levelling cities. “What Happened in Corvallis” is a more politically oriented location, in a city ruled by Epic Queens where all material goods can be found growing on plants, a giant force field protects from foreign attack and the weather itself obeys the city’s ruler. Without Euphoria around to keep the civilians in a state of perpetual happiness unrest is growing in the city and a recent series of attacks by monstrous beings gifted by an unknown Epic is only sowing further chaos. So if you like intrigue, politics and mystery then Corvallis might be the thread for you! The final thread “What Happened in Salem” is a thread built around an arena where Epics fight each other in one on one matches held on the Astral plane. The city is ruled over by a bored Astral projector who has little interest in actually running the city, leaving it to his subordinates. That may change, however, as some grow tired of serving someone who doesn’t even want to rule. Would you like to attempt a coup? Or perhaps you’d just like to roleplay some gladiatorial battles set in a variety of interesting locations, either way you should see whether or not your character can fit into Salem! Or perhaps you’d like to make Voidus very happy and help revitalize the Wastelands thread, a parallel RP set in Australia that covers the entire country. It is set slightly before the Oregon RP and is a bit faster paced, but it’s a great thread with lots of worldbuilding and a huge number of opportunities for new characters of all different types. So if you want to explore what might have happened in a land far away from the events of the Reckoners trilogy why not come explore the Wastelands? So in summary, here’s the list for Reckoners: Portland- 3 way faction fight, Closed for new Epics, open for humans The Dalles- Ruled by humans and Epics, Closed for new Epics, open for humans Astoria- Mad fight for power, Open for strong Epics and humans Corvallis- Political Intrigue and power, Open for Epics and humans Salem- Gladiatorial power, Open for gladiatorial Epic Battles Wasteland- Australia worldbuilding, Open for Epics and humans Now I know that that is a lot to take in, but really, if you want to come join us, but you want help making an Epic or a human to join one of our cities, write in one of our Question threads. We’d love to help you make your character and to find the right place for you. Hope to see you all there! See you next week here at Around the Cosmere!
  12. Oh boy, there's been a ton of news this week, so let's get started. The biggest news is that there is a reading from Stormlight 3! You can find it here and here. Also, the illustrious WeiryWriter also transcribed the reading. What else do we have? We also have the Legion: Skin Deep cover, which you can see to the right. Legion: Skin Deep is twice the length of the original Legion story, and you can order the limited edition hardcover from Subterranean Press. But, here's a cover I like even more: the cover to the Well of Ascension trade paperback. I really enjoyed the trade paperback of the first Mistborn book, and I like this cover of Well of Ascension. Koloss swords are scientifically known to be totally awesome.
  13. Welcome back to Around the Cosmere, where we occasionally talk round of the news. It's been a while, but we're back on Hoid's Shadesmar Doomship Zeppelin (totally a real thing), and he's just messy, so we were delayed. That's totally what happened. First things first, Brandon has answered questions about The Way of Kings on Tor.com. Some are writing related, and not much cosmere, but we did discover there have been several Rosharan worldhoppers we have already met. Pretty neat! Interesting Theoretical Discussions We had two very interesting topics about Investiture and its role. One is about its possible caustic nature, by Terisen, and Moogle continued the discussion with his topic on Investiture consuming other Investiture. Kurkistan also summarized everything we know about his most favorite subject: time bubbles. Here's also a ludicrously long post classifying the cosmere magic systems, complete with a totally unnecessary 3D plot you can move around! And want a head-scratching puzzle? Discuss what is apparently the "biggest RAFO" yet! Fun Stuff It looks like this should have gone under the previous heading, yes? It's a totally rational Radiant and Voidbinding theory by Tempus, but then… Well, let's just say we learn a lot about the Voidbringers, Hoid, and the Brawny Man in the discussion there. Speaking of Stormlight Archive and the Knights Radiant, what Radiant oath would you swear? Or, perhaps more hilarious, what Radiant oath would you never swear? And what Order would you belong to? And prepare yourself for the worst Stormlight pun that has ever existed. Other Things and Site Stuff In other news, Moogle has been promoted to the moderator team. You've surely seen him in the book discussions and theories, so give him a warm welcome! If you haven't been on the site recently, then something might surprise you: social groups, clans, and guilds are actually things now. There are so many for you to choose from, but you know which one you truly want to be in, of course. There may also be a new thing coming related to social groups soon, too… And you might be wondering, why did I storming link a picture of Google Maps as the article image? Well Aether made an awesome thread wondering where Sharders live, and then Quitecontrary made a map out of it. It is pretty sweet. See the full map here! Let's get more pins up there! On the forum side of things, the forum layout now has a non-cosmere category, and the mobile front page of the site sucks a lot less. That's for Around the Cosmere for now. Just because Splintercast has ended doesn't mean that you will be starved on content. There will be brand-new and returning main page segments coming your way. Stay tuned!
  14. Welcome back to Around the Cosmere, where we blab about miscellaneous Brandon news and happenings around in the community. It's been a while, so there's plenty to discuss. Most importantly, Brandon is doing on AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit tomorrow, the 15th. It'll be on r/fantasy, but don't worry, we'll update this post the second the AMA appears. It's definitely worth getting a Reddit account, since Brandon occasionally answers questions there. For the cosmere savvy, we've posted a Q&A from an older signing. It has some minor Words of Radiance info, like confirming something people have noted for a while, as well as revealing another order of Knights Radiant. Check it out (and thank Windrunner for transcribing it!). EDIT: Just tonight, Windy has posted a second Q&A, which is our last Q&A in our backlog. Take a gander at that, too! Tor.com has posted two more chapters of The Rithmatist, so we have all the way to chapter five now. You can start right at the beginning if you’ve missed it, or you can start at chapter four and chapter five if you’re already up to speed. The Rithmatist release is rapidly coming soon, too, just a month away now! For you Wheel of Time fans, the A Memory of Light ebook is at last out for you to peruse, available from all major ebook retailers. Rejoice! Remember how The Emperor’s Soul has been nominated for a Hugo? Brandon’s agent, Joshua Bilmes, posted a blog about how it went from concept to an award nominee in just over a year. It’s a truly fascinating look into the process, and how Tachyon was chosen for the novella’s home. See those amazing bookmarks to the right? The lovely Mi’chelle is making fancy bookmarks in the Alethi script. As you can see, they are simply gorgeous. You can customize them with whatever text you’d like too! They are laminated and amazing. They are $10 for a bookmark with text on one side, and $13 for text on both sides, plus $5.95 for shipping. You can order them here. And if you have questions? You can ask Mi’ch for anything you like in her thread Have you had questions you’ve always wanted to know the answer to? Or are you the type of person who likes to answer questions for the newer members of the board? Well, we’d like your help to submit both question and answers to FAQs we are putting together. Hopefully you’ll find them helpful when they are finished! In addition to the link to that one in the Cosmere forum, you can find dedicated topics for each individual series, too. See you next time around the cosmere!
  15. What? It's been less than a year since the last Around the Cosmere and we already have another one? Less than a month even! Truly an achievement. Welcome back, folks. This week is a short news week, but there are still a few cool things that you should know about. First up, you know you're excited about the next Brandon book, The Rithmatist, which comes out May 14th. So soon! But maybe you'd like the book even sooner, and it's hard to knock that. So Tor has you covered with its giveaway where they are giving away ten copies of the The Rithmatist along with goodie bags of Rithmatic chalk. Nice! And we might* just be doing our own giveaway soon, too. (*And by "might," we mean "definitely", and that soon isn't even quotes, so stay tuned very shortly) Next up! Brandon hasn't frequented forums for many years now, but you know what he does do? He posts on Reddit. Should you be stalking him there? I think yes. Well, he just recently stated that he will be doing an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on April 15th. He intends it to be a primarily A Memory of Light AMA, though. But if you aren't on Reddit, it totally pays to have a Reddit account, because he totally answers stuff. Like what, you ask? Well he did say something pretty awesome about the southern continent on Scadrial. In a response to a question about the future of Mistborn: Now that is amazing if you are a huge Mistborn fan like me. What way could they interact with the Metallic Arts differently? I must know now! So, if you're keeping track, not only will there be the Alloy of Law sequel, Shadows of Self (and maybe another sequel after that), the second trilogy which will be set in the modern day, and the science fiction third Mistborn trilogy, we'll also get some southern continent books? Sign me up.You may notice the non-US cover of Steelheart to the right here, and it turns out it is the UK cover for Steelheart, from Gollancz (Brandon's usual UK publisher). It certainly fits with the other Gollancz covers, and gives the book a superhero vibe. (Thanks Link!) Finally, our own illustrious Mi'chelle (firstRainbowRose on the forums) has a rather illustrious project: she's going to be creating and selling customized bookmarks in the Alethi women's script. If this might interest you, go check out her topic on the subject and tell her what you think! I personally will be getting one that says "Monkeys are cool." Because that's what Alethi women would write. See you around the cosmere "soon"!
  16. Welcome to Around the Cosmere! We've been... around. For uh, a long time. Around the cosmere. You know, doing cool stuff on Hoid’s Shadesmar Zeppelin*. But we're back for your somewhat regular assortment of Brandon news! There's so much that has happened since the last Around the Cosmere. There is a ton of news on Words of Radiance--namely, you know, a title for that book. We also just created a Words of Radiance discussion board so you can talk about all of that good stuff, while people who don’t want spoilers can steer far away. Speaking of spoilers... Edelweiss (apparently a publisher’s catalog) revealed an interesting plot blurb for Words of Radiance. So, you know, there’s spoilers here, just like on the back of a book. It says: Well now that is an interesting look into the plot! There was some debate in our topic on the blurb as to whether this is accurate, but Peter (Brandon’s assistant) came in and said: So well, that’s awesome. In more Stormlight news, Tor is starting a Way of Kings reread (don't worry, we'll have something like that later this year too), but maybe more interesting to you will be that the ebook of The Way of Kings is now $2.99. Certainly there's no better time to purchase this wonderful book. I mean, the sheer words to dollar ratio is through the roof! (It's approximately 133,000 words per dollar, which by itself is way longer than many books.) You can get it from all major ebook retailers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play (which apparently no one wants to link to, as neither Brandon’s original blog post or Tor’s mention it, but hey, I like Google Play), iBooks, and also, Dragonmount sells it DRM free too! So there are many options for your viewing or device pleasure. Sadly, you don’t get the door-stopping power of the physical version, but the words-per-dollar ratio! So good. Moving on from Stormlight Archive, Brandon somewhat regularly answers questions on Reddit, and this week he’s answered some major questions on the Dor, Odium, and Shadesmar. Check it out, cosmere buffs, and hopefully you’ll squee as much as I did. Hey did you know The Rithmatist is coming out in May? It’s so soon, and it is amazing. You should be excited for this--as if the prologue and first chapter didn’t get you pumped enough. But additionally, the Facebook page of Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, the people who do the Wheel of Time audiobooks as well as The Way of Kings said this week they are starting work on the audiobook of The Rithmatist. Isaac Stewart (artist who does maps and symbols for Mistborn and Stormlight Archive) and Ben McSweeney (who does even more artwork in Stormlight, as well as illustrations in The Rithmatist) were interviewed recently about visual adaptations of novels. Check it out. Oh, what else? You may have noticed, I don’t know, that all of 17th Shard is totally different now. Let us know how you feel about the new site and any bugs you may find in our impressions topic! We think it’s a massive improvement in design and functionality, so we really hope you enjoy it! See you for another Around the Cosmere... "soon"! *Hoid’s Shadesmar Zeppelin may or may not be an actual thing. The image to the side is the UK Rithmatist cover.
  17. Hello, and welcome to Around the Cosmere. So we have two REALLY major things to announce. First off, the date for A Memory of Light has recently been released- January 8th 2013. That's right, next year. To see Brandon's post about it, look here, and to talk about it on the forums, look here. In better news, there has been a project that has been months in the making. Theoryland and 17th Shard were tired of making two separate databases, Terez's Interview Database, and my Brandonothology (which has always been fairly rough). So we worked together, transcribing interviews, collecting signing reports, and put it in a beautiful actual database, containing all of Brandon's and Robert Jordan's signings, reports, Q&As and interviews. This thing- man, it's fantastic. It has searching (which is fast as lightning), tags for common subjects (from Atium to Brandon on Writing), and over 700 reports. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. And the formatting is really nice, consistent, and I believe we plan on using this for years to come. Marie and Terez from Theoryland have done an incredible amount of work, and have spent probably hundreds of hours on this project. They are amazing, and should be thanked for their hard work. Oh, I guess I should probably link you to it, huh? The Interview Database Note- Right now, it is mainly WoT, which makes sense since It's been around for 20 years, while Brandon's been around for only 10. Hopefully, with your guys' help, we can help tip the balance. Whenever you go to a signing or a Q&A, or find a video online that we don't have on here, post it in the Events, Signings, and Stalkings section of the forums. It's also still in Beta, so there are some bugs being worked out. But they're being worked on! If you have any comments, you can leave them in this thread. Now for the rest of the normal information: In Brandon's update, he mentions a new Alcatraz annotation, as well as a new Twitter collection and a new Writing Excuses. Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan got mentioned on Jeopardy! on Wednesday. "Robert Jordan's death in 2007 didn't stop the series called "Wheel of _____. Brandon Sanderson now pens them." And yes, the person got it right. Also, it looks like someone decided that they were going to attempt to build Soulcast houses! (Not really, but still, it's pretty interesting) And- if you're an artist, and you've got some art of Kelsier, (or of any of the other contestants) Suvudu would like you to submit art for their annual cage match of fantasy characters (which gets a ton of attention). You can do that here. In in-forum stuff, My Spren Hypothesis is up, and an interesting thread about Emotion and Investiture is up as well.
  18. Hey Sharders! Guess what time it is! If you guessed A ) Time to be sacrificed so a new Inquisitor can be made, kindly step outside and start yelling at the top of your lungs that you are a filthy skaa half-breed with an allomantic power of your choice. If you guessed B ) Time to be taken by the Shaod, try mortally wounding yourself and see if you die. If you guessed C ) Time for another gripping news post on all things Brandon, you would be correct, and can continue reading. Disclaimer: 17th Shard is not responsible for any self mutilation or public humiliation resulting from the reading of this post. Anyways, let's get on with things, shall we? First of all, Brandon's been busy over on his blog since we posted last. Here, Peter has been so kind as to post Brandon's current convention schedule for 2012. With conventions coming up in Australia, Las Vegas, California,Chattanooga,Indianapolis, Albuquerque, and Atlanta, Brandon seems to be going everywhere except for little old Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, where yours truly is patiently waiting for him to visit. He talks about the Superstars Writing Seminar in Las Vegas and the potential for prizes here. This weekend, Brandon is speaking at LTUE (Life, the Universe & Everything)at Utah Valley University. The convention began today, and there will be chances to see Brandon tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday. His schedule is posted here. If you are interested in Brandon's recent trip to Taiwan, you are in for a treat. Inthis post, he outlines his 'haul', with some awesome pictures. By the looks of things, Brandon's Taiwanese fans may have given the North-American, Australian, and European fans a run for our money! Not only did they send Brandon home with some awesome swag (including a note etched in metal!), they also had him knight people and had cool certificates made up for the occasion. In this article for the New York Times, Brandon talks a little bit about his trip, and the Asian influences he's included in his books. He goes on to talk about the importance of fantasy as a genre in the development of imagination. Brandon's also put out two more Alcatraz annotations in which he talks about why he decided not to include a map, and why he dedicated the book to his father. For those who are following Writing Excuses, the two newest episodes focus on sensory writing and how the podcast first began. In another post, Brandon mentions that his novella, Legion is now available to order at Subterranean Press. Our lovely friend KChan was very excited to see there are 1000 signed and numbered copies bound in leather (for only $45 USD), as well as a fully cloth bound hardcover edition. The books is sceduled to be released in late summer/early fall. Both Brandon and Dan Wells made it onto the finalist list for the Whitney Awards (an award for Mormon authors) for their work on The Alloy of Law and I Don't Want to Kill You, respectively. If you want a more thorough write-up of what is going on with Brandon, Peter has recently posted the Brandon Newsletter for February 2012, which includes some scheduling details, as well as an update of Brandon's progress with Wheel of Time. Whew. I feel busy just typing about all the stuff Brandon is doing! Now that we're done with the boring "stalk Brandon and find out everything he's doing" part, we can get onto the "Look at this cool stuff!" part. Like this cool Mistborn drawing by Dan Robinson Miller that Peter retweeted. In our part of the Cosmere, I've been told by our more dedicated theory monkeys that there are some very interesting threads in the stormlight section. Telcontar's analysis of the prelude has generated a lot of discussion about everything from the heralds, to surgebinding, to why the shattered plains are shattered, and beyond. Windrunner's thread on the city of Urithru and Elwynn has thought up about Dalinar's visions and the world of Nohadon are also threads worth checking out. And lastly: SHARD CAR!!!!! (Make sure to upvote the OP, cuz it's awesome! So, for those of you who are still reading, I hope you enjoyed. To those of you who are dying of self inflicted wounds or outside hollering about being a skaa misting, I salute your suspension of disbelief. Till next time!
  19. Hello, and welcome to our semi-weekly dosage of intrigue, gossip and manipulations! Err, I mean to Around the Cosmere! You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll get really sick of exclamation points! The big thing that we have to announce is that Brandon is answering questions on Reddit.com. He's already given some really interesting answers (like how nicrosil only affects allomantic metals, why Harmony doesn't like to intervene, and lingusitics of Alloy of Law). So go ahead and join the fun! Brandon has been pretty active online. First off, in his updates, he's posted the last chapter of Mythwalker, which has early elements of several of his books. He's put up two collections of Twitter posts, and the first Alcatraz annotation. He's also posted some fan art, promoted Pat Rothfuss's Worldbuilder's charity with some very very beautiful editions of The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight, and worked on the script for the Mistborn Video Game. We actually have quite a bit of information about the video game from a recent signing with Brandon. Let me pull it up. He has also said that it will at least be on the PC and Xbox, and that Brandon thinks it should come out Summer/Fall 2013. Announcements should come in February sometime.Other twitter information: SwiftxJustice asked: Could Allomancy affect a shardblade/plate? Brandon's answer: No. Investiture interfers with most magics. And then of course there's one that has some of us scrambling: "Multiple people from Mistborn show up in Way of Kings." Now there are two possibilities for this. One is that Hoid and Demoux are the two people that are in Mistborn and Way of Kings. Two is that we missed someone, and that we need to do a readthrough and see if we can't find anyone. For more discussion on this, check out the end of this thread. Speaking of threads, the Alethi (WoK) font and transliteration (converting English spelling into Alethi spelling) is getting better and better, so if you haven't yet, give it a look. Come back next week(ish) in Around the Cosmere, where hopefully we will unveil a project that we've been working on with Theoryland that will put the Brandonothology to shame. It's incredible, and it should be up and running soon.
  20. Hey everyone, and welcome to 2012! Welcome back to Around the Cosmere. We took a holiday break inside a cadmium bubble and now we’re back for some exciting weekly news. Your heart will melt. You may marry our weekly newscast. (17th Shard is not responsible and assumes no liability for the state of your marital relations with Around the Cosmere. But, we hear Hoid gives great relationship advice. Especially to Josh and Mi’chelle.) Here’s a rather time-critical piece of news: if you’re in Utah County, you can play Magic with Brandon tomorrow, noon, at the Utah Valley Epic Games. Take the Lehi Main exit, and go west. There will probably be a draft. Have fun, any of you who can get down there! Judging from Twitter, looks like Josh, Mi’chelle, and Zach are all going, so be sure to say hi to them. Also, since Brandon’s doing it for fun, you may want to lay off the cosmere questions. That reminds me of something else, actually. Brandon will no longer sign books with the signing instruction “Write me a cosmere clue.” Come with more specific questions. Now for some updates. Since we’ve been gone, there’s a bunch of Mythwalker chapters posted. There is just one left! There’s also a bunch of new episodes of Writing Excuses. They have switched to a system where a “Season” correspond to a year, rather than just an arbitrary number of episodes. Season six ended with (fittingly) Help! I Can’t End My Book, and season seven began with When Good Characters Go Bad and World building Flora and Fauna. The flora and fauna one is especially a revelation. Have a listen! Did you know that recently, the Kelsier short story--called The Eleventh Metal--that’s in the Mistborn Adventure Game has an excerpt posted on Brandon’s site? You have to buy the Mistborn Adventure Game to read the whole thing, but trust us when we say that the short story is well worth your $15 alone for the game’s ebook. And there’s a massive, very awesome RPG in there, too. It’s a steal. I mention the Eleventh Metal because... Awards and Voting It’s award season! Sure, there are the Hugos, which we’ll discuss in a moment. But you can vote for a few things (for free!) right now. Forum member Kelek reminded us about the 2011 Tor.com Reader’s Choice Awards! You can vote in the comments of that post right now. There are four categories: Best Novel Best Short Fiction Best Comic Best Book Cover It’s all write-in, so you can vote for whatever. But allow us to recommend what Brandon is eligible for. Best Novel: The Alloy of Law (duh) Best Short Fiction: “The Eleventh Metal” in the Mistborn Adventure Game Infinity Blade: Awakening (Note: for this category, stories must be under 40,000 words. Peter verified that Infinity Blade: Awakening is just above 39,000, so it qualifies. The more you know!) Best Book Cover: The Alloy of Law, which had its cover done by Chris McGrath. So, go ahead and vote! Also, the first round of the voting for the David Gemmel Legend Award is up, and Alloy of Law is on the list. The first round of voting ends on March 31st. Take a gander. Lastly, it’s Hugo Award nominating time. If you went to WorldCon in 2011, or you’re a member for 2012 or 2013, you can vote. (If you want to just vote, you can get a supporting membership, which are much cheaper than the attending membership.) The stuff we listed above is all eligible (that is, if you move Infinity Blade: Awakening to the Best Novella category). You can see more here, because we’re not just shills for Brandon, but also all of the Writing Excuses team, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and Mary Robinette Kowal. You can nominate more than one thing for each category. Book Discussions You thought we were done? Nope, there’s a metric buttload (definitely an SI unit) of forum topics that have been posted. You guys are crazy awesome. On the Mistborn side of things, we have a very careful method on how to get faster-than-light travel with the Metallic Arts. There’s a theory about the role of the peoples on the southern pole of Scadrial, and the second Mistborn Trilogy. On the Guess At the Remaining Hemalurgic Powers thread, of special note is in the more recent replies, where we discuss how the quadrants vary between magic system. There are some interesting Allomantic thought experiments. And for an idea totally out of left field, perhaps a method of how to dominate Hemalurgists with Feruchemy. I’ll admit, I don’t surf the Stormlight section as much as I should, so I miss some things. But here are some recent topics I thought were cool. Should we be suspicious of Renarin? Quite possibly! There’s a very interesting theory on the black sphere Szeth had, and its influence. Perhaps the black sphere has some Cognitive influence on its holder. And lastly, the debate on Cusicesh the Protector’s spren type (that is, the giant spren Axies sees). Interestingly enough, also deals with Cognitive links. Cosmere Theories As always, cosmere theories are typically spoiler-filled! Like book discussions, things have just exploded (and boy, I’m behind), so I’ll stick with the new topics. There are some pretty non-standard ones, which are always pretty cool to see. We have a cogent theory about the letter in the Way of Kings, which posits that the letter was written to Hoid, rather Hoid being its author.(Note that this topic was completely edited, so the first few replies deal with the old version) It’s certainly out of the norm, that’s for sure! Next there’s some ramblings about Investiture, which connects Shards, Investiture, and defines what “End-Positive” “End-Neutral” and “End-Negative” means. You’ll have to read it and make up your mind! Then we have a theory about Shardic Radiation and Genetic Magics such as the Metallic Arts, as well as AonDor. Pretty neat! And one final note. We had covered the West Jordan signing on our last newscast, but I wanted to mention perhaps the most theoretically interesting aspect of them: Now realize, we had asked Brandon a very long time ago: So, I feel we are at a quandry. I’ll sum up the arguments that have happened on the subject. One could say that the specific phrasing of the question “How many Shards have existed on Roshar” means that Odium is inherently included in the three Shards. But, there is the quote “Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns.” You could interpret that Odium (the Broken One) is not included in the three if he wasn’t native to Roshar. In which case, there’s another Shard on Roshar which hasn’t been identified. Food for thought... Other Forum Stuffs Our own member FeatherWriter must be pretty excited, because Brandon showcased this image of the Soulcaster her mom made for her for Christmas. Peter shed some light on the pewter figurines--unfortunately, they aren’t coming back. Also, I write about how you are all awesome. Thanks, guys. See you next week!
  21. Hey All! So, once again, it's time for an update on all things Brandon. And, in our last news post before the holidays, it's my pleasure to congratulate Brandon on behalf of everyone here at 17th Shard on the completion of the first draft of A Memory of Light, the final volume of the Wheel of Time series. According to his most recent tweets (which won't be collected on his website until next week), A Memory of Light will likely require about a dozen revisions, and be ready for a fall release. Twitter Speaking of twitter, as of Monday, we have Brandon's latest collection of posts right on schedule. For any new comers, Brandon collects his Facebook and Twitter posts weekly and uploads them on his website. For anyone who hasn't caught the twitter bug, or dislikes reading posts in reverse (since Twitter places the most recent posts at the top), Brandon's post collections are a good way to stay updated on what is going on in his life. In this collection, he talks mostly about his impending completion of AMoL and Koloss Head-Munching Day (also known as Brandon's birthday). Signing Reports Threads for both the Orem and West Jordan signing are in the events section with all the information gathered there, so if you are interested, head on over and check them out. Thanks to Zas for doing the write-ups! Brandon confirms that Demoux is one of the world-hoppers in the pure-lake scene, and reveals that, although the reference in the Alloy Ars Arcanum to shield the emotions of others is a typo, there ARE some people who, if they trained a special way and knew what they were doing, COULD do this, which is cool. For other cool tidbits, read through the above links, Zas really did a great job! Threads The Mistborn Adventure Game is officially out, and this thread already has lots of interesting discussion on it, so head over there if you've read the game materials and are itching to talk about it, or have found an interesting tidbit to share. Here, we have FirstRainbowRose to thank for finding out some interesting information at a Magic Draft regarding the chronology of Alloy of Law in relation to the second Mistborn trilogy. This thread is also interesting, and Peter, after his own fashion, has been giving some very cryptic answers, so if you are in the mood for a puzzle, head over there. Also, in the Warbreaker forum, Windrunner has started a cool discussion about who can return. In site news, we now have a Reputation Finder which can tell posters which posts their new-found reputation points come from. I think that's all for tonight. I know it's a short post, but I think everyone is feeling the holiday combination of rush and relaxation which is detrimental to productivity. I hope you all enjoy nonetheless. Happy Holidays!
  22. Greetings, Sharders, and welcome to another episode of Around the Cosmere: your one-stop weekly news source for all the latest happenings in the fandom community! This week, we have signings, giveaways, holiday sales, and more – so read on! Weekly Updates and New Twitter Archive First, Brandon has posted his Weekly Summary, so check that out for updates on this week's Writing Excuses, where to get signed copies of The Alloy of Law, and more! Peter has also compiled another Twitter summary, in which Brandon tweets about Magic, his progress on A Memory of Light, and some great holiday deals and giveaways – read on for those! There's also a new chapter of Mythwalker up – Chapter 17, to be exact. Click here to read it. Giveaways and Holiday Specials InkWing Arts is having a giveaway – enter before December 16 for a chance to win! Three lucky winners will receive a free T-shirt of their choice. Click here to read about it and find out how to enter, and also how to get $10 off an order of two shirts! For all you Wheel of Time fans, Ta'veren Tees is having what they call a “Twelve Tees of Christmas” special – each day features a new shirt on sale. Check it out! Signing in West Orem Brandon is having signings in West Orem, Utah on Thursday and Saturday. Click here for more information. If you plan on going, consider picking something off our Ultimate List of Questions for Brandon to ask – and then post a signing report so we can find out what you learned! Alcatraz Wins Young Reader Award in Florida Those of you who don't live in Florida probably haven't heard of this, but the Sunshine State Young Readers Award is a great program to encourage elementary and middle school students to read. According to their website, I actually participated in this program myself when I was in 5th grade, and I absolutely loved it. And so it is with great excitement that I announce that Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians has made the 2011-2012 Sunshine State Young Reader's Award list! You can see the list for yourself right here. Congratulations, Brandon! As a side note to all you parents who might be reading this, whether or not you live in Florida, I highly recommend checking out the Sunshine Readers, as we call them, if you're looking for books to recommend to your children. Forum Highlights Zas678 has posted a great transcription of the Alloy of Law Q&A session, including a video of the event itself. Check it out! We also have threads about Endowment's gender, Endowment's intent, and a debate about the knowledge of chromium and nicrosil in The Alloy of Law. Check them out, and let us know what you have to say on the matter. Mistborn RP News The influx of new members – and new characters from current members – is continuing on Mistborn: The Inquisition. There's a lot of great activity and new friends to meet, so if you were thinking of joining, now is a great time! The Mistborn RP also now has its very own Twitter, as some of you have already seen. If you're interested in random RP quotes, tips on what not to name your character, and other insanity, check it out! You'll find Chaos, Comatose, and I tweeting all of those things and pretty much anything else RP-related we feel like doing. Koloss Head-Munching Day! And now for the biggest news of all: Koloss Head-Munching Day is approaching! For those of you who don't know, it's Brandon's birthday, December 19. When one fan asked him if there are any in-world holidays in Mistborn – are there, Brandon? The MBI folks would love to know! - he answered, jokingly, that they have Koloss Head-Munching Day. The fans ran with it, and now we have our very own international holiday. To celebrate, InkWing is having the abovementioned contest – and they're also looking for pictures! If you happen to have one of their Koloss Head-Munching Day T-shirts, take a picture of yourself wearing it and send it to <script data-cfhash='f9e31' type="text/javascript">/* */</script> . They'll post all the pictures on December 19 and even send them to Brandon! If you don't have a shirt but want to participate, you can always try ordering one, but I'd recommend asking if they can get it to you in time first. If you're feeling generous, you could always take a look at Brandon's Amazon wishlist. Just pick out what you want to get him and check out; Amazon will take care of the rest! That's the news for this week. Happy planet-hopping, and we'll see you 'round the Cosmere!
  23. Hey Sharders! This week’s delayed Around the Cosmere is brought to you by a lot of Dr Pepper and sleep deprivation. Isn’t finals week delightful? Anyway, there’s lots of cool stuff, so let’s get started! Weekly Updates There’s a new chapter of Mythwalker--chapter sixteen--that just went up. The new episode of Writing Excuses deals with how Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard construct settings, and give a few away. Very fascinating. Most importantly for those in the Utah area, there are two signings next week. The first is in West Jordan, on December 15th, and the second is in Orem, on December 17th. If you go, might you take a look at the (slightly outdated) Ultimate List of Questions for Brandon and ask him something cool? Giveaways and Interviews Our holiday giveaway was a smashing success (though, I suppose it couldn’t be anything except a success, considering we did, in fact, give away stuff) with 462 entrants. Sadly, we couldn’t give away 462 items. But those lucky eight who won should go check their email. I still haven’t heard from two of you. Maybe check your spam folder. And speaking of other international contests, well, if you’re in New Zealand or Australia, you’re in luck: Helen Lowe is giving away two copies of The Alloy of Law for you guys. She also interviews Brandon, though for the cosmere-centric, this one doesn’t contain anything you don’t already know. Seattle Signing Suvudu.com has did a recording of the Seattle Alloy of Law Signing. For one thing, he read from a 20,000 word novella, Legion. Then, there’s a second video of the same signing, where he discusses Legion as well as doing a Q&A. Legion will be released by Subterranean Press, with probably a nicer edition, as well as a cheaper ebook edition for $3. The coolest part of Legion? It was written as pitch for a TV series, and guess what? Lionsgate has picked up rights for it. They haven’t signed the deal yet, but they say that they’ll film a pilot next spring. In the Q&A, there’s some cool stuff about his publishing schedule. After A Memory of Light, there he’ll work on the next Stormlight book--not a big surprise. But in between Stormlight books, he’ll write Alloy sequels. Pretty dang awesome. Brandon plotted them at three or four books. He also reveals who will get flashback books for the first five Stormlight books. And in between the two five book arcs of Stormlight Archive? He’ll write the second Mistborn trilogy. Woot. He talks about the Mistborn video game, which is definitely going through, and he is writing the dialogue and is doing a pass on the story for the game. Sweet. And he doesn’t say in this signing, but we do know that the Mistborn video game will be set 200 years after the Lord Ruler’s Ascension. We have a discussion topic on this Seattle signing over here. Forum Highlights IvoryRoad posted a topic about your favorite moments in the Mistborn series. Ben McSweeney (aka Inkthinker), the wonderful artist who did Shallan’s sketches in the Way of Kings, the Alloy of Law Broadsheet ARC, and the art in the Mistborn Adventure Game, posted some higher-resolution images of the broadsheet, including a prototype. Take a look. Then, for the very OCD fans (aka 99% of us), there’s a topic about what new, non-canonical, but 17th Shard standard term we should use for tapping a lot from your metalminds. The problem revolves around the fact that the word “compounding” is used for both this effect and the stuff Miles did, only one is compounding, and the other is Compounding. Quite confusing, so we’re on a quest to potentially clear up that ambiguity, at least on this site. And boy, many, many terms are discussed. It’s a very heated topic right now. Post and let your preference be heard! Sweet Theories And now for some theories that may be of interest. As usual, this section of Around the Cosmere has some slight spoilers. We have one where perhaps Hoid founded the Worldbringers, and it’s looking like people are coming to a consensus on that matter. Then there’s the major revelation, confirmed by Brandon himself, that there are ten core Shardworlds. Realize that if you count up the known cosmere books, we only know seven of those--and those are just the core worlds. Awesome. Also, there is a Q&A in that topic as well. There’s a theory about the nature of Hoid and his relationship with Adonalsium. Speaking of Hoid, there’s a theory that he has a method of hiding himself to Shards on worlds. Lastly, there’s also additional discussion regarding the people accompanying Galladon in the Way of Kings. One of his compatriots is from a book that hasn’t been published yet, but the other is from a world we’ve seen, and the description in Way of Kings supposedly match his description in that other novel. Get on it, all you Sherlocks. Well that’s it for this installment! See you next week, and ideally on time.
  24. Hey Sharders! Another week has past, and that means that it is time for another (hopefully)awesome news cast! I'd like to begin by wishing Peter Ahlstrom one more very happy birthday. For those of you who don't know, Peter celebrated his birthday on Saturday (November 26), and many of us have chosen to celebrate this by changing our display names for the first ever Ookla the Mokival. If you want more of an explanation of what the heck is up with this, check out this thread. In other news, Brandon is finally home from his United Kingdom tour and is hard at work on A Memory of Light. Reports have been springing up all across Utah that since our beloved author has returned trees that have entered their dormant season are now spontaneously bearing fruit and improbable things have cropping up all over the place. In all seriousness, I think I can speak for all of us here at 17th Shard as we welcome Brandon back to this side of the Atlantic. Of course, there were some obvious benefits to Brandon's tour in the form of the many interesting tidbits we've gotten from the various interviews and Q&A sessions that Brandon has done while abroad. Zas mentioned some in last week's news post, and now we have a few more to add. Sharder Tortellini typed up a nice selection of question from the Q&A at the Manchester signing here. At this signing, someone asked a question about Taravangian (from WoK) that has never been asked before, and had a really interesting answer, so if you've read The Way of Kings or don't mind spoilers, go check it out! Props to Link Von Kelsier for theorizing about this ages ago in this thread. Brandon's new collection of tweets is up along with a new blog post. In this post, he gives a link to his official NaNoWriMo pep talk, the new episode of Writing Excuses on plotting out mysteries, and chapter 15 of Mythwalker. Mythwalker is one of Brandon's earlier novels, and elements of it have be re-purposed and incorporated into Warbreaker, Mistborn, and The Way of Kings. Now that the tour is over, this particular collection of tweets doesn't contain too many items of note, other than the thrilling narrative of Brandon's adventures in Her Majesty's land. He does, however, mention this interview from NYC. The last question ("My question is if there’s anything that you’ve never been asked that you would like to talk about?") is particularly interesting. To answer, Brandon gives a good explanation of compounding and talks a bit about similarities between AonDor and Allomancy. There are some spoilers, so read at your own risk. While we're at it, here's some other sweet interviews: Milton Keynes Signing Report (contains a similar explanation of Compounding, and has spoilers for Mistborn and Wheel of Time), Brandon talking about his Infinity Blade Novella (where he talks about connecting the first game to the second one with his story), and Gollancz Blog (where Brandon talks about his inspiration for Alloy of Law). Also, Alex Flagg, the man behind the Crafty Games Mistborn RPG did an interview with Saving Throw at RPGamer.com. Fantasy & Sci-Fi Lovin' News and Reviews is having a draw for a copy of Alloy of Law. The holidays are approaching and if you guessed that meant 17th Shard was going to have a huge giveaway you would be correct! See the post for details, and comment below to enter. The prizes can be shipped internationally, so everyone (even Canadians like me) are welcome to enter. Now I'm gonna start talking about some threads on the site. If you are worried about spoilers, read on at your own risk. If you are feeling festive, you might want to check out this thread and upvote it a few more times (not that it needs to be). Right now the boards are buzzing from all the information we've received since Alloy of Law came out. If you want to talk more about Taravangian's changing IQ, to my knowledge, a new thread hasn't been created, so you can check out Link Von Kelsier's thread. The Mistborn boards are also pretty busy, with threads on bendalloy, the new feruchemical powers, Investiture, and the letter at the end of Alloy of Law. There's also been some cool additions to our gallery so if you haven't been checking it lately, you're missing out. I especially like this one posted by Yados and painted by Melia. And since I'm in the RP department here at 17th shard, I thought I'd give a short update for Mistborn: The Inquisition. Since Alloy of Law came out, we've had an influx of new members and characters, so if you've been thinking about joining for a while, I'd say now is the time to do so! Thanks for reading, and comment below if there is anything I missed that you think is newsworthy.
  25. Hello, and welcome to the first 17th Shard Newscast, brought to you this week by your friendly neighborhood Worldsinger, Zas678. So we'll cover three or so topics each week, and keep you up to date on any contests, signings, and other Brandon related news. We won't cover WoT stuff very often, so if you're interested in that, go check out theoryland.com, or follow terez27 on twitter. We'll try and keep non spoiler stuff for the first part of the post, but after the spoiler mark, we assume you've read all the books. First off the weekly stuff. Brandon has released his twitter posts (which includes the torchat where he answered some questions), a new chapter of Mythwalker, Writing Excuses, and also AWESOME garner bags from Inkwing (The illustrator for Brandon's maps). In Brandon Contests, there are currently two I'm aware of. Inkwing has another t-shirt contest, Gollancz is having a massive book giveaway- all the UK versions of the Cosmere books (Although it's only open to people in UK and Ireland.) Alloy of Law has been released! Brandon did pretty well with the release and got #7 on the NYT Bestseller's list, which is pretty awesome for a side project. If you haven't read it yet, go check out the preview chapters or the artwork and then go buy the book! It's not too long, it's intense and it's funny. As a result we are currently in the midst of signings (If you're in UK, go see if he's signing near you, or buy a book from a place he's already signed), which means that we have plenty of new Q&As, from the Twitter Q&A, to the London Q&A, to the Huntington Q&A, the NYC interview and don't forget the Release Q&A! For those of you who don't want to go through all those links, here is the pertinent information we've learned so far: *SPOILER MARK* Hemalurgy doesn't require death, Dominion is the name of Skai's shard, There is a connection between the breath that comes from a person attacked by a Shardblade and the corrupted Breath that comes from Nightblood, Drabs can't come back as Returned Male kandra and female kandra have different smells, so that's how they tell if others are male or female. They also know who they are attracted to. When someone with a Seon goes through the Reod, it "messes" with them spiritually. This "messing" transfers over to their Seons, who are much more deeply affected. We also have some answers from the Alloy of Law that have been answered. Hoid is the black beggar in Joshin and Mi'chelle's wedding. He's mostly there for a cameo appearance and apparently isn't doing anything important. Brettin (the police officer) at the end of the book was killed in a non-plot related incident, so TenSoon from the original trilogy took up his body post-morterm and gave Wax a little more power. It's why Wax notices he's a little off- TenSoon didn't have time to study him before his death. MeLaan is the kandra that gave Wax his earring Kelsier is still around and is still messing. He still doesn't do good at doing what he's told. Although Ironeyes could be a kandra, he's not. He really is Marsh. The earrings are melted down from old Inquisitor spikes, which is why Harmony is able to speak into people's minds. How he reads `mind is still completely a mystery. And of course the Ars Arcanum. When asked about it, he points to the name "Nazh" that appears on the map of Elendel. He also said that it is written by a member of either the Seventeenth Shard or Hoid. Well, thank you for joining us on the first weekly update! We hope you found it useful. If you have any input on ways we could improve it, leave a comment and let us know.
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