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Hi everyone. It’s been a long time since I became aware of the “Cosmere”, and I’ve spent most of the time in these forums (though I do not post much, I like to read you all ). There is one thing that always struck me as weird: The Shattering of Adonalsium, it’s said to have been done by an “opposing force”. As far as I know (and I could be terribly wrong) we know nothing about this force, yet everyone seems to think that’s some kind of “anti-adonalsium”. Another entity as mighty and powerful as him that somehow shattered him. But when I first learned about the shards that sixteen people took up the fragments of Adonalsium the first thing that crossed my mind was: “Hey, those 16 broke a god in Shards and are now having fun being godlike”. Couldn’t it be that the “opposing force that shattered Adonalsium” wasn’t an anti-Adonalsium godlike being but the actual 16 shardholders? We don’t know HOW was Adonalsium shattered, so I have no evidence for and against it… But we do know that they mostly chose their shards. It’s implied on a letter (I think in WoR) that they let Rayse take Odiums shard, fully knowing what it was. Also, neither of the 16 is actually in a hurry to restore Adonalsium. If they were ALL THERE, with all the shards in a single place, and before their intents started to influence them… Why didn’t they try to “fix” Adonalsium? Instead they took their shards and started toying with them in the world, creating their own planets, peoples, magics… I think that it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they shattered Adonalsium on purpose, to take its powers or just because some other reason and the shards were a nice spoil of war. The only thing that I think it’s “against” this theory, is the same letter that we assume is from Cultivation, in wich she says something like they should be careful on Roshar, because they tread lands made by Adonalsium, and she seems to respect him/it. (Sorry I don’t have the exact quote). My answer to this is that you can still respect an enemy, and more so if it’s done in hindsight, when you are in the same position that enemy was. What do you think? Is there anything out there that directly denies this theory?

Starting page 174 (Or about 177 in the digital version) with Ym the the shoe cobbler, he mentions One that was once knew everything and experienced nothing, That he became many, people to experience things. That sounds to me both like general creation and the shattering given how humanity blossomed across the cosmere after Adonalsium was Shattered. I wonder if Hoid had a role in the founding of the One. The seventh land being attained sounds a lot like finding a shard or forging a new one through people's individually bits of investment into something new. Could that be the 17th shards objective? Instead of putting Andonalsium back together they helped foster spreading humanity across the cosmos to generate enough investiture of some sort to create something new on par with the original Adonalsium? From human experience? We know that there is an afterlife of sorts and considering how many worlds have been founded with human life, that's a lot of life experiences being sent to one place. Some of whom have touched and worked with slivers and shards. We know Cosmere humans have something equivalent to a soul and its one of the few things that essentially created from absolutely nothing of importance where the laws of physics are concerned.so it doesn't violate conservation of energy/matter. Seems like if you could tap into that and harvest it you could forge a new Adonalsium that would have all those nasty welded lines between the individual shards. Meaning you wouldn't have to find the shards and collect them, instead you grow new ones in a single location instead in cosmere heaven when all those different people can eventually come to reflect the different intents. And and it fits with the whole motiff of humans becoming gods that we've seen throughout Brandon's work Gestalt god. Thoughts?

Is there any chance that the Nightwatcher is a Shardholder? It would make sense in that she can give powers, but also gives curses for some perverse reason. It is never stated anywhere, but it is a possible explanation.

You can get the ebook of Shadows Beneath right now: http://www.17thshard.com/news/brandon-news/shadows-beneath-and-sixth-of-the-dusk-available-r193 So I thought, hey, we probably need a spoiler thread for Sixth of the Dusk. What did you think?

I have just a basic understanding of the Cosmere (though I guess that's true of most of us until BS writes more books), but I'm confused about the whole shard/splinter/spren thing. (I'm talking about the shards of Adonalsium here - not shard blades or plate). If I'm not mistaken, I read/heard somewhere that the spren are splinters of Honor, who has died. It was his death that caused him to splinter. I realize it was just Honor's holder that died, but didn't the shard itself splinter into smaller pieces? But what about the Stormfather? He is also called a splinter of Honor and the Windspren are his children. So, are the Windspren splinters of a splinter? Next, the Nightwatcher is of Cultivation. So, has cultivation died/splintered too and Nightwatcher is one of her splinters? Or is Nightwatcher actually Cultivation as a whole? Wyndle (Lift's spren) talks about his Mother, so is he actually of Cultivation/Nightwatcher? If so, are some of the Knights Radiant of Cultivation instead of Honor? Also, how can Cultivation have Splinters (Spren) if she hasn't died/splintered? Finally, aren't the evil spren of Odium? How can he have splinters if he hasn't died/splintered? Also, does he have a "super spren" like Honor's Stormfather and Cultivation's Nightwatcher?

TL;DR - Spiritwebs mystify me. This is going to be pretty long, and I'll probably add more that I forget or leave out later. I'll just be throwing some of my wild ideas, speculations, and ramblings down here to see if anyone has any input. First off, if this has been done and discussed before, I apologize. I just needed to put all my scattered thoughts in one place. Also, if any of this has been confirmed or denied, please let me know. I need to put my wearied mind to rest. I can't recall any times when we see someone survive being used to charge a Hemalurgic spike. I'm unsure if this is because they die from the physical aspect (such as bleeding to death from having a chunk of metal stabbed into a bindpoint and such), or through the spiritual aspect. Tied to this is the question of whether someone who is used to charge a Hemalurgic spike loses all of their Power (read: access to their magic system). I assume they do, but if we took a Twinborn, would it be possible to steal only their Allomantic power, but leave their Feruchemical Power? Unless, of course, being the "chargee" for the spike is inherently fatal. I seem to recall there being mentions of preferring to use Mistborn in the creation of Inquisitors. These Mistborn clearly don't survive, but is it because they die from the physical side or the spiritual? I know that snapping is a near-literal term, in that your spiritweb receives "cracks" that investiture can now fill. I see most (if not all) of the Investiture in the Cosmere as falling into one of two main categories. 1) Your Spiritweb receives "cracks" so that Investiture can fill them, granting access to the relative magic system or 2) You are born already Invested Under number one, we have Allomancy, Surgebinding, the Returned, and Elantrians. You have the obvious Snapping, the need to be "broken" to form a Nahel Bond, dying and receiving the Divine Breath, and the Shaod (more on this in a moment). Under number two, you have Breaths, Feruchemy, and Soul Stamping. As far as I know, you are born with the ability to use these without the need for a damaged Spiritweb. I suppose you could add a third category for things such as Hemalurgy and potentially the Dakhor Monks, where you intentionally alter your spiritweb at the cost of another's. (Interestingly enough, the categories appear to line up with the net-positive/ neutral/ negative system. I'm not sure whether that applies to all magic in the Cosmere, or specifically the magic on Scadrial.) Back to the subject of the Shaod. I briefly mentioned my thoughts on it in a reply to a post, but I'll put them here as well. I have two highly speculative theories. The first is that the Shaod is/ is guided by some (more or less) sentient being/ force, perhaps like the mist in the Mistborn Trilogy, the Highstorms in the Stormlight Archive, and Returning in Warbreaker. The second is that the Dor, being described multiple times as a force trying to push it's way through the Aons, is... "corrosive" to the local's spiritwebs. That, or simply being surrounded(?) by the Dor alters spiritwebs over time. Plenty of holes in both, they're just food for thought. Sorry for the wall of text. If you read that entire thing, I'd love any thoughts, ideas, counter-theories, or suggestions. (I'll add in supporting quotes from the texts, WOB, and other theories when my brain isn't melting out of my head.)

My question is: could Scadrial have moved Scadrial out of the solar system or are there limitations?

My daily writing warm-ups have been turning towards cosmere-fiction of late, probably due to the re-read (and listen! <3 the audiobooks) I've been going through again. With Sanderson's wonderful worlds on my mind, it's hard not to probe their secrets just a bit deeper. I thought perhaps you guys might enjoy my short forays into these familiar realms. To Hate: 2 http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/12248-to-hate/?p=150137 To Hate: 3 http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/12248-to-hate/?p=150358 To Hate: 4 http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/12248-to-hate/?p=153062 To Hate: 5 http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/12248-to-hate/?p=187159 To Hate: 6 http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/12248-to-hate/?p=211692 To Hate: 7 http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/12248-to-hate/?p=303224 To Hate: 8 http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/12248-to-hate/?p=394677 To Hate: 9 http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/12248-to-hate/?p=399306 To Hate: 10 http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/12248-to-hate/?do=findComment&comment=576133

So the unthinkable has happened: you've been tasked with babysitting. Maybe young Adolin's gotten a bit boisterous, or some Forger's gone and turned himself into a child. Whatever the circumstances, you've got small children to watch for a few hours. But here's your edge over the little brats angels: you're from the Cosmere. You can make puppet shows with Lightweaving or Soothe them to sleep. How does your Investiture help you with kids?

So are all the Shardholders aware of the cosmere, or do some just consider themselves the god of that world. Vin certainly didn't seem to be aware of the cosmere and everything that was going on. And it never mentions if Sazed (I guess we call him Harmony now) is aware of it. However I feel like they would have to at some point. Do you think maybe once a shard changes hands that the Seventeenth Shard swoops in an informs them? It would certainly explain their purpose. Instead of a bunch of random events happening all over the cosmere the Seventeenth Shard links them all together and makes sure everything that happens links together.

I was looking around at different forums, and I noticed something. Hoid. It seems the widely accepted theory is that Hoid is a good guy, because he's against Odium. What if he's NOT a good guy? In WoR, He said that he had an objective, and was willing to watch the world burn to achieve it, right? WHAT IF HOID shattered Adonalsium? It would explain why he says that the 17th Shard is hunting him in The Letter. It would certainly create a good plot twist. It would also explain why Brandon is trying to keep him mysterious. What if Brandon wants to write an entire book from a bad guy's point of view? It would seem like a good idea to keep it for last. I'm wondering if, in Dragonsteel, we find out that Hoid is actually WORSE THAN ODIUM!? Let the feedback begin! Edit: Hoid is probably not worse than Odium, but the point still stands.

Shardic Number Theory Revisited Part Three - Shardic Numbers Are Bollox Premise We've talked about 'Every Shard has a number', and also 'Shard Numbers Mesh Together'. And Word of Brandon supports this[1]. However, Shardic number theory is full of holes and things that don't match up and is generally the kind of thing you look at with one eyebrow raised. However, surely there are other options? That Word of Brandon is actually very open to interpretation! We'll be looking at a few of these today, for the last part of Shardic Number Theory Revisited. I will be referring back to evidence from the previous theories to save time and space. Each Shardworld has a Number Hypothesis: Just because the number is important to the Shard doesn't mean that the number belongs to the Shard. A good alternative theory is that the Shardworld is what encodes the number that is important (kind of like how the Shardworld determines the Focus for the planet). Scadrial - Sixteen Scadrial's number must be sixteen. They even have a 'law of sixteen' on Scadrial. Brandon comes out and tells us Preservation picked sixteen since it was important, and Alloy of Law is stuffed with more sixteen's than a high school dance. Sel - Three or Four Sel is still not clear. Going by the significant numbers noted previously, three and four seem very likely. Roshar - Ten If you have read Stormlight Archive, you may have noticed the number ten used once or twice. This subtle hint is Brandon's way of telling you the number for this Shardworld. Nalthis - Five As seen previously, Nalthis remains five, for the very same reasons. The Numbers are Important to the Cosmere as a Whole Hypothesis: Shards may choose to focus on numbers that are important to the Cosmere as a whole. Thus, there may be some numbers here that come up again and again. Sixteen Sixteen is certainly of Cosmere importance. There are sixteen Shards from the Shattered Adonalsium. Here are some other instances where sixteen is important. On Scadrial, Vin's Age, Allomantic, Feruchemic, and Hemalurgic Metals, The number of people in percent that Preservation Snapped, the Law of Sixteen mentioned in Alloy of Law, Wax's address, Wax's generation, when Wax Snapped, and other less important instances. On Roshar, sixteen is considered the time of coming of age. On Sel, the Rose Empire has eighty factions and worship the eighty suns, which is sixteen times five. There is no known significance of sixteen on Nalthis. Ten Ten is also of Cosmere importance. Word of Brandon tells us there are ten Major Shardworlds[2]. Other instances where ten is important are: On Scadrial, there were ten original known metals, ten great houses, ten dominances, ten thousand skaa in the rebellion and numerous other small facts (Mistwraith are ten feet long). The Well of Ascension, in an important fact, refills every 2^10 years. On Sel, the Reod was precisely ten years ago. On Nalthis, there are Ten Heightenings, and the count of Breaths to reach them are always approximating multiples of ten. There are also ten thousand Lifeless. Roshar also has a small amount of influence from the number ten, but I will leave this as an exercise to the reader. Five Five has no known meaning in the meta-narrative, but is nonetheless found all over the Cosmere. Some instances of five include... On Scadrial, the Dominances are split into two groups of five (as are the metals). Skaa do not become Mistings unless they have Aristocratic blood within five generations. Spook snapped when he was five and Inquisitors trained for five years before being spiked. The Lord Ruler's Chamber was lit with five massive braziers. The Well of Ascension can also be counted as refilling every 4^5 years. It was five months since Lessie's death for Wax, and Elendel accomodates about five million people. Lawmen should be one to five hundred people, and bubbles are about five feet across, as far as we know. Wax has been a constable for 25 years. On Sel, the City of Elantris is designed with many five's in it's architecture and planning. It was five years since Sarene began to paint, and five years since Raoden began opposing his father. Sarene was 25, and Hrathen and Sarene were poisoned for five days. Shai has five Essence Marks, there are five Arbiters per faction, and five times sixteen yields the number 80, important both politically and religiously in the Rose Empire. Roshar has the five ideals, and five known groupings of fabrials. The binding charts seem to be able to split into fives along both axis. Nalthis is of course replete with fives as mentioned before, and shshshsh also has significant influence of the number five, such as the spheres at the beginning. Eleven Eleven seems to be a Cosmere number identified with a number of evil things and occurrences. The only know duration of a Desolation lasted eleven years. There were 99 Desolations in total, according to the Vorins. Eleven is also associated with Ruin many times, see Part One for details. In Elantris, the Jeskeri Mysteries met at eleven 'o clock to sacrifice. Conclusion The two theories above are attractive. They are generally simpler than attaching numbers specifically to a Shard, and thus perhaps more likely to be correct. That said, they are all very common numbers, and Brandon has to count things somehow. There is also a very notable concentration of some numbers on some planets, where those numbers aren't seen at all on others. Mysterious. That was pretty much every Shardic Number Theory that held water I could find or dream up, and all the references I could find. I hope you all enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed endlessly typing em' out. References:

Shardic Number Theory Revisited Part Two - Shardic Numbers Mesh Together Premise Previously we talked about the traditional Shardic Number Theory - 'Every Shard has a number'. Today we've got a slightly different theory. In the Cosmere, there are instances on planets where Shardic Intents seem to interact with each other. On Scadrial, Preservation and Ruin made the Balance Magic of Feruchemy[1]. On Sel, the Dor is apparently both Dominion and Devotion together[2]. On Roshar, it seems like Honor, Cultivation, and Odium all interact in a variety of ways which aren't necessarily clear yet. Could this not apply to numbers as well? Hypothesis Each Shard has a number which is important to them, often Realmatically. These numbers interact with other numbers of Shards on the Shardworld to more fully describe the world. Known Shards from Published Works Scadrial - Preservation is eight, and Ruin is two. Harmony is sixteen. Preservation has always been a shoe in for sixteen. And why not? In Hero of Ages, people suddenly start getting sick, Vin deduces that it is in fact a sign, and Sazed tells us that Preservation chose sixteen because it was an important number to the people on Scadrial. Wait, what? Here's the kicker. The Mistborn series as it stands is four books. The first book, Final Empire, deals with Allomancy, and Vin and Kelsier fighting the Lord Ruler. The second book, Well of Ascension, deals with Feruchemy, and is all about the Well and stablizing the world after the collapse. The third book delves more into Hemalurgy, and about the confrontation between Ruin and Preservation. Alloy of Law is all about Wax, Wayne, and Harmony. So sixteen is super important right? It's a sign everyone will recognize. Everyone in Alloy of Law does, Wax mentions it a bunch, it's all over the book. What about the first trilogy? Sixteen must be big there too, right? Nope. The only instance of sixteen in the first book is Vin's age. The second book has no instances of note at all. The third book, is it anywhere? Yes! It exists ONLY in the scene where Vin magically deduces sixteen is important. Fact is, if Vin didn't tell us, if that scene didn't happen, if Sazed didn't clear it up, we would never know anyone on Scadrial cared about sixteen at all until Alloy of Law. What's your game Brandon? Are you daft. No, he's not daft. The simple fact is, sixteen is not Preservation's number. Eight is. Eight is all over the place in the Mistborn books, especially the first book. Eight metals, eight people on Kelsier's team, eight Mistings, eight months of planning for the attack on the Lord Ruler, eight Inquistors guarding the Lord Ruler, we're drowning in plot-centric eights. Ruin, by contrast, we said might be eleven. Okay, eight and eleven don't really mean much. But eight and two do. Ruin's number is actually two. There's evidence as well - hemalurgic spikes work best in balanced pairs. Inquisitors have spikes in groups of twos, attached by the single neck spike. Four groups below and one above. Kandra blessings require two spikes. Koloss use paired hemalurgic spikes. When we get to the plot, plots where Ruin influences events are all in pairs - Vin and Kelsier, Vin and Zane. When we look at Preservation... eight guards, eight people per profession on Elend's council, eight people in the thief group, eight core people involved in running Elend's new empire. This is why sixteen is a sign. Just like how Allomancy and Hemalurgy combine to form Feruchemy, Ruin and Preservation's numbers combine to make sixteen. This is why Harmony is sixteen, and why Alloy of Law is full of sixteens. The numbers meshed. Sel - Devotion and Dominion, One, Three and Four Sel is not clear at all, as we have very little information. Based on the information from the previous post, things are pretty inconclusive. There is some evidence for five (in the structure and layout of Elantris) but five is taken. But when meshing is taken into the picture, one becomes an option. It's difficult to examine the viability of one, because one is used so often in books. However, rather than multiply systems like we see on Scadrial, it could be said Devotion and Dominion added together to make one larger system, powered by the Dor (which is a combo of both[2]). Thus, our most likely significant options, Three, Four and Five, can be balanced by one. One and Three would add up into Four, and One and Four would add into Five, nicely covering the significant numbers we can't reach. This is very tentative support, however. Roshar - Honour is Five, Cultivation is Six (possibly Four, Fourteen), and Odium is Nine Honour is Five? You must be daft! Ten is ALL OVER the Stormlight Archives. Pretty much everywhere. How could Honour be five? Well, there are a few things that are shifty about 'ten'. First off, ten is important in every Cosmere book. Yup. In Mistborn, there are ten great houses, ten original metals if you include the God Metals, ten Dominances on the planet, Vin was ten when she snapped, one is every ten thousand skaa became a Misting (whether or not they had noble blood), ten thousand people in the skaa rebellion, Mistwraiths are ten feet long... the list goes on. Nalthis has Ten Heightenings, ten thousand Lifeless, Lifeless skin is exactly ten shades lighter... even on Sel, the Reod was ten years ago. Even on Threnody, Silence had been hunting for ten years, and had first killed a Shade when she was ten. Weird. But there is one thing, one thing we know that Honour does that is Five. The Five Ideals, the basis of the Knights Radiant, the foundation of the order that lives to be of Honour. Incidentally, there are also five types of discovered Fabrial at the moment. Another point, 500 years times 9 is the length since the last Desolation, see my Desolations theory for why that could be an important balance between Odium and Honour. Cultivation, we don't have enough info for, as stated in the previous thread. Numeric meshing makes six seem likely. There are '30' magic systems on Roshar according to Brandon[3], and five goes into thirty six times. Four is also possible - we've seen four images of a woman on the purple binding chart in Way of Kings, and four and five make twenty, accounting for all powers on the two charts we've seen. Two is also a possibility: two times five makes ten, which might help Roshar's ten fetish. Of other meshing numbers of interest, 5+6 * 9 == 99 Desolations. 5+11+14 (if Odium is eleven, which is unlikely but possible) would equal 30, and Greatshells have fourteen legs for Cultivation there (that one is a huge stretch). That's all I got. Of course, Honour could still be ten, Cultivation one of her many options, and Odium nine. Then we've got the same problem of 'Too many offworld tens', and the meshing is a little less supported. Nalthis - Endowment is Five Endowment still looks like five. As there are no other Shards, no meshing can occur. Non-canon Shards, and Shards from Unpublished Works Mythwalker - Eight, Sixteen Mythwalker Shard(s?) seem to have parallels to Mistborn, and the Well of Ascension. It's possible their numbers were similar, and repurposed when the book was cannibalized for Mistborn. Bavadin - Same as before One Shard on Taldain, no meshing. shshshshsh and shshshshsh - Three, ??? Due to the split that occurred here, three looks very nice in this theory, and fits EXCELLENTLY. The other number is a mystery. Conclusion Shardic Number Meshing is good in some parts, and bad in others. It makes Scadrial make a LOT of sense, and deals with a large majority of the inconsistencies found in the other theory (which I politely didn't mention last time so I could use them as evidence here). Sel stays about the same, but fits just slightly better with Meshing than without. Roshar is a mess. But Roshar was a mess before too. Single Shardworlds have no effect. Coming up soon, the third and final segment going over some other options presenting solutions to the above. References:

Sometime, in the distant future, some intelligent and lazy person in the Cosmere will invent the television. It has to happen. At some point. Maybe there's a fabrial for it (which is very likely; there's a fabrial for everything), or maybe it has to do with Southern Scadrial's magical machines of mayhem. At any rate, the question we should be asking is not if there will be televisions in the Cosmere, but what people will watch with them. So, without further ado, here's a trailer for a Rosharian Cooking Drama: (Cue Dramatic Voice) In a world, ravaged by storms, where death comes by the will of the wind... Five men will seek to gain glory with only their wits... and a spatula... The Horneater, born on the cliffs, his life dedicated to making food, and more importantly, eating it… The Shin, in a plant-filled kingdom, his only wish to convert his fellow chefs to veganism… The Alethi, punished for his past crime of making a new food with a perfectly symmetrical name, hoping to gain pardon for his insolence. The Herdazian, his arm lost in a tragic cooking accident, wishing to become the most popular of his cousins. And finally, the Parshman, his life sold to making fine food for others. Who will please the omnipotent god Odium? And who will die by the sword? Tune in next week for the first episode of… Scones Unhallowed! So, that's one Cosmere TV show. But what other shows could be developed?

Shardic Number Theory Revisited Part One - Shards each have a number Premise Kicking around for a long time has been a theory that each shard has a number associated with them, a specifically meaningful number. I've had a copious amount of notes on the topic for a while, so I thought that now would be a good time to start and post a few theories on em'. For convenience sake, I've divided it into three parts - I might follow it up with a post on Shardic Colour theory as well. The first part, displayed here today, will be the traditional approach, that each Shard has a number that is special to them.[1] Hypothesis Each Shard has a number which is important to them, often Realmatically. It is possible these are related to the order of Shattering, or the Shattering in another fashion. Known Shards from Published Works Preservation - Sixteen Preservation, in this theory, is the most simple and straight forward. We have Word of Brandon that Preservation used sixteen as his number, because it would be significant to his followers - it was apparently an important number to them.[2][3] It is also the known number of ordinary Allomantic metals. There are various appearances of sixteen[4]. No other Shard has such a nicely tied number. Ruin - Eleven We don't have as much concrete info for Ruin, but there are some potentially significant numbers. We know that Inquisitors needed Eleven spikes. We also know that the metal intended to topple the Lord Ruler (the one Preserving the Empire) was the Eleventh Metal, and was influenced by Ruin through Kelsier's teacher. Koloss are also described in Hero of Ages as being eleven feet tall. Ruin's number could very well be eleven, in the absence of better candidates. Harmony - Sixteen again? Harmony is two Shards, technically. In Alloy of Law, we see lots of sixteens: Wax is the sixteenth of his line, his address is Sixteen Ladrian Place, Wax snapped when he was sixteen, etc. Eleven is not found at all in Alloy of Law. Endowment - Five Endowment is a little easier. We have quite a few important instances of the number five. The Returned are at the fifth Heightening with a single Breath. There were Five Scholars, of which Vasher was one. Austrism promotes living your life according to the Five Visions, an important religious concept. Lightsong Returned five years prior to the events of Warbreaker. Vivenna receives about 500 Breaths from Lemex. There were 25 Returned Gods in the Court during the events of Warbreaker. The rebellion began five years ago. Lightsong deals in fives all the time - randomly grabbing five lemons, looking at five painting before giving up, getting points in that game he played that were in the five hundreds, or ended in five. In addition, there were five God Kings in the history of Hallandren, and approximately five hundred years since people began to Awaken. Nightblood is also five feet long. Fifths of color are considered harmonic perfection in Hallandren. Yep, five is pretty good for Endowment. Dominion - Three or Four Dominion is not terribly clear cut. The best options are three and four. For three, Hrathen was given three months to covert Arelon. Three hundred years since Fjorden was founded after the collapsed previous empire. The fallen Elantris was original dominated by three gangs. There are three original gods: Shu-Korath, Shu-Keseg, and Shu-Dereth. Wyrn the King, the founding text of Fjorden, is three thousand lines long. Sarene had three engagements, and three husbands in the course of Elantris. Shai had a three month deadline to fix the Emperor. For four, there have been four long-live emperors of Fjorden. Four vials of poison were delivered to Hrathen. The poison took four days to clear up, and one day to take effect (five days total). Kaise knows four languages, and is described as 'Domineering' (Dominion is only used in regards to Dilaf and Fjorden, other than that instance). Shai's unforgeable prison has fourty four types of stone. Devotion - Three or Five Like Dominion, Devotion is tough. Best options are three and five. For three, Aons have three core lines. The Three Virgins are a religious figure in Teod. Aons should be drawn with three fingers pressed together. Again, three Shu-gods. For five, there are five domes, and five wings in the Palace of Elantris. Elantris itself is made up of five cities. The Elantris University has five buildings. Sarene began to paint five years ago, at the same time Raoden began to oppose his father. Sarene is 25. Shai has five Essence Marks, there are five arbiters per faction in the Rose kingdom, and Shai finished five days prior to the deadline. Honor - Ten If Honor has a number, it is ten. Ten Heralds, ten surges, ten Radiants, ten Highprinces, plus many, many other sets of ten. There are so many tens. Or is it? More on this tomorrow. Cultivation - Fourteen, Six, Five, Others? Cultivation is particularly tough. We have very little information. Fourteen is an option - there are fourteen legs on a Greatshell, and Lift is fourteen. Six is possible - six legs on an axehound, six years spent on the Shattered Plains. There are also five discovered groupings of Fabrials, and that may be related to Cultivation. Odium - Nine The best bet for Odium is probably nine. There were 99 Desolations (or possibly nine, as I've theorized). Nine Heralds abandoned the Oathpact. Nine of ten people were killedthe Desolation Nohadon's fought. The last Desolation was 4500 years ago, which is conveniently nine times five hundred. See above linked theory for more on that. In unrelated nines Kaladin's flashbacks go back nine years, and there are nine colours of spheres in their currency. The only known length of a Desolation is eleven years, and eleven times nine is ninety nine, which is entirely beside the point, but there might be a link to eleven as well. Non-canon Shards, and Shards from Unpublished Works Mythwalker - Seven, Eight, Nine, Eleven, Sixteen The Shard in Mythwalker is unknown. The book was never finished, and parts of the book were taken for Warbreaker, Mistborn, and a small bit for Way of Kings. Despite this book not being canon, and never finished, it was written long after many Realmatic concepts were throughly established, so if there are Shardic numbers, Mythwalker should have evidence of one. The number in Mythwalker is probably eight. There are eight great houses. There are eight major magic abilities. That said, there are eleven different powers evident in the book (reminiscent of Mistborn, and one is even a God power potentially). The number of houses is actually unclear. There were eight, but also possibly eight minor houses. That would be sixteen. Also, each house may have a female and a male power, that could be sixteen major powers as well. Lastly, one house dies early on, meaning there are seven houses - there are also seven septs of rank that they inform us of. Those numbers are all possibilities. Bavadin - Five, Eight, Nine We don't know much about Bavadin, but there are a few options. There are five shshshshsh, and a shshshshsh can have five shshshshsh. The religious texts on shshshshsh are five hundred years old. There are eight shshshshsh, who elect eight shshshshsh, and shshshshsh spent eight years training. The shshshshsh religion sends eight shshshshsh at shshshshsh per day. There are also nine ranks of shshshshsh, nine people in shshshshsh's expedition, a maximum of nine shshsh without over-shshshshsh, and nine shshshshsh if you count the beggars. This paragraph brought to you by the Librarians. shshshshsh and shshshshsh - Three, four six It's hard to talk about an unpublished work without talking about it! Suffice it to say, Aether was a book that was heavily cannibalized, and the shards in that book are definitely non-canon, and were partially reused for Mistborn in a very different form. All of that is in WoB. The three numbers in the book that have some sort of religious or realmatic significance seem to be three, four, or six. No telling what belongs with which. The above four Shards, while not canon, do show that the books at least have a tendency towards some significant numbers. Which is general support for Shardic number theory. Conclusion There are lots of unknowns with Shardic number theory, and lots of problems. That said, the above conclusions look pretty good... or do they? Part two can be found here, with a whole different take on things. References:

This might be a cosmere newb question, but have the shards on the wiki been confirmed to be original shards from Adonalsium? I ask for this question: is it possible one of the 16 shards is actually Harmony, and then it later split further into Ruin and Preservation? And in kind, could/would it be possible to splinter further? Someone stop me if I'm following flawed logic or canon please, but this realization dawned on me while driving to work this morning, and I can't stop wondering if I have been thinking about the shards all wrong.

So I was reading the topics compiling the WoBs and I read that BranSan mentioned how important Hemalurgy was in the cosmere. He also said that it wont be exclusive to Mistborn and that investiture can be mixed and matched (I.E Breath and Stormlight) This got me wondering about how Hoid got all of his different powers. Could it be possible that Hoid is gaining his abilities through Hemalurgy? Obviously it's not a very pleasant thought, given that we all love Hoid and would like to think of him as a pretty upstanding fellow.. But perhaps this is why the 17th Shard is hunting him? Because he's been known to use such a dark method to reach his goals? We know from what he's said that he doesn't think of himself as any sort of hero and that he definitely has his own agenda. Thoughts?

Reading over the Ars Arcanum in Words of Radiance, there is a phrase that I've remarked on many times, as have many others. In the bit about lightweaving, it states: Today however, I remarked just how important this sentence is, because of all the things it implies. I was blinded by the whole "Yolish" red herring - the chapters of Liar of Brandon's website made me go 'ah, yes of course it is to' and I never really read the phrase. But there is so much more in this one tidbit. The first important bit is: the most similar ability to the original Yolish variant. This implies a few things. The magic is similar to the abilities on Yolen. 'Most similar' implies that there are many other abilities similar to Yolish magic, more than a few It also implies the author is familiar enough with them to make comparisons. The use of the words similar and variant show that that Yolish abilities all worked slightly differently As a conclusion, I think this a strong supporting phrase for the "Yolen has all magics" school of thought that has been bandied about from time to time. BONUS INFO: The Ars Arcanum author is highly familiar with Yolish magic of multiple types. How else could they make comparisons, and speak so authoritatively? How could they qualify it as the most, unless they had at least a casual understanding of the majority of the others? If they visited Yolen post-shattering (and if Yolen is still around), then how did they know it was the original? This strongly implies the author is from Yolen, or has associated significantly with someone from Yolen. Our current leading Ars Arcanum author is Khriss, who is super knowledgeable but isn't from Yolen, and is many many years to young to have been on pre-shattering Yolen. Nazh, another favoured contender, is highly suspected to be from Threnody, so same arguments apply. It is of course possible that they were simply taught about Yolish magic. But it is interesting to note it.

Hello fellow 17th Shardianers and Theorists! It can be very difficult to find theories scattered around this site, as the forum search is selective at best and at times downright dodgy. I've been thinking about various ways to gather and formalize theories in the past, but the biggest issue may simply be finding them. Thus, I've set out to make an unofficial index of theories. You can find it on the Coppermind, here. What does it do? The Unofficial Theory Index gathers a list of theories into a sortable table on the wiki. You'll be able to look at theories by name, author, date written, location in the cosmere by planet, and category. Want to find every theory about Roshar? You can do that. Every theory written after Words of Radiance was published? You'll be able to do that. Every theory on magic on Scadrial? Yep, you can do that. I've gone ahead and started today by adding 56 theories from eight theorists including myself. There are of course a few hundred theories, and I've barely scratched the surface, but it's a good start! What can I do to help? The Theory Index is on a wiki page, so feel free to add your own theories, or the theories of others as you feel comfortable. I'd appreciate it if you'd note what theories you'd covered, like "All the theories of person X", or "All theories on the Mistborn board prior to June 2012" or whatnot. That way we have a good grasp on what still needs to be covered. I'd also like to ask some questions here about how the theories should be handled. For theories proven false, should they be removed from the list (making it shorter), marked on the list with a special marking (making them obvious), or left as is? Should exceptional theories or particularly interesting theories be marked to draw attention to them? Should there be a third tag column, in order to organize theories by common topics as well, such as FTL, Hemalurgy, Compounding, Surges, etc...? Should the date columns be colour coded by publication date of cosmere books, to allow for a more clear visualization of what information was available when they were written? Keep in mind 17th Shard was founded 2010. I will be adding to this list semi-regularly, but please feel free to contribute, and give me your thoughts on some of the above questions!

The title essentially says it all, so I'll get to the why. We know that Shards require a sentient mind to be attached to their power, whether it's that of another being or one it created on its own. Well, I think that Nightblood essentially requires the same. Shashara tried to give it the ability to rationalize and think, but it didn't work because the invested Breaths gave it more of a Spiritual, rather than Cognitive presence, which I think could have been the original intent. Thus, you end up with a extremely powerful sword that lacks the context to fulfill its intent - destroy evil. This is where the cognitive mind of another sentient being comes into play. Like Shards require holders to bear their power, Nightblood does too - the mind of its current holder focuses the intent and provides a context to the concept of evil. Simply put, every time someone picks up Nightblood, we're witnessing (on a much tinier scale) something not so different from what Vin or Sazed did when they ascended. Simple, I know, but it just struck me and I had to share.

Just for fun, if Shadesmar were Shadesmart, what kind of things do you think they'd sell? And even better, what kind of advertisements and sales would they run? Tuesday Two-For-One Shardblades. Get 'em while they're hot! Rent-An-Elsecaller for all your transportation needs.

In this Thread, we are busy at work Creating Cosmere MonopolyDomination. We have the Board and Basic Properties, But we need Pictures of Each Locations, about 60 Chance/Community Cards, Currency (Invesiture) and Pieces. Any Help You can Give will be appreciated. Original Post Update List! April 17th: April 20th: May 4th: +Ukurgi and Dzhamar +Taxes +Utilities +Property Prices Coming Soon: =Player Pieces =Rules =Chance/community Cards =Currency =Pictures Notes: Due to Copyright Laws, we can not use the Word Opoly, or Monopoly in our title, Thus, Cosmere Domination.

Hey guys, don't know if this thread has already been done but i wanted to make a new Topic all about the Easter eggs in each of the Cosmere books. I've been doing a great reread of all the Cosmere books and thought it would be a good idea to have them easily accessible for everybody, So if you find a Easter Egg please feel free to post