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Sort of a splinter of the 'hypothetical magic systems' topic... While we don't understand avatars, it seems that an avatar is a mind/personality distinct from the Shard's Vessel holding a sub-set of that Shard's Investiture (by WOB, Bavadin is always aware of the relationship, but not all of Autonomy's avatars are necessarily aware they are avatars - not sure if that would apply to all Shards). That sounds... really a lot like a Splinter. And we know Splinters can show up on other planets than their own Shard's, though lots of Investiture can make travel hard. We've seen a Seon [with a Splinter of Devotion] and a Returned [with a Splinter of Endowment] on Roshar. Perhaps the difference between a Splinter and an Avatar is the method of creation, Avatars being made from "ambient" pre-Shattering Investiture that became assigned to that Shard at the Shattering? Maybe an Avatar is some kind of merging of a regular person and a Splinter, if the presence of a human named Trell in White Sand is a hint? I wonder if the presence of an Avatar of Autonomy on First of the Sun doesn't really have greater significance than the presence of a Splinter of Endowment or Devotion on Roshar. That would explain the WoBs describing First of the Sun as having no Shard in residence, "natural" magic, etc.? (Maybe the perpendicularity, Aviars/worms/fruit, etc. were all pre-existing and Bavadin/Autonomy just used the already present concentration of Investiture to create an avatar?)

I was wondering, is the Life Sense possessed by Awakeners the same thing as the Mind Sense possessed by many of the creatures of Patji? If not, how do they differ, and which would be more beneficial for a cosmere Worldhopper looking for a "sixth sense" to obtain?

While Sixth of the Dusk, I noticed that many of the creatures on Patji have a sort of "mind sense", that allows them to track and detect you by your mental signature. The Aviar seems to naturally be able to share their powers with someone they've bonded, but those powers can be taken by hemalurgy. Even so, it's apparently more complicated than taking most other invested arts, since the aviar has power over the bond, similar to radiant spren. But what if you try to spike powers out of the other creatures of Patji? They (presumably) don't rely on a bond to generate their powers, so you could take those with hemalurgy no problem, right? Although, do they even have the same range of abilities, or are aviar simply superior to them in this way? And one last thing about this concerning hemalurgy, does this mind sense count as an invested power, like allomantic powers, or is it an innate attribute, like strength or intelligence?

If you been listening to 17th shard podcast you know that Scadrial and roshar are going to war. Who has your support and what do you think the war is over.

I just saw this really interesting WoB that Dusk has had Herdazian food before. how could he have eaten herdazian food? all i could think of is that some of The Ones Above are herdazian and brought some of their food to First of the Sun. or he hasn’t actually eaten the food yet. Brandon has a Sixth of the Dusk sequel planned where Dusk explores the Cognitive Realm and maybe he met some people there who had Herdazian food? what do you guys think? terminon I asked Brandon to include some interesting larger-Cosmere-related tidbit about Dusk. Brandon Sanderson Dusk has had Herdazian food + hates it. General Signed Books 2016 (Jan. 24, 2016)

Thanks to Sak, we know that birds not native to the Pantheon can also become Aviar Thanks to Mraize, we know that people not native to First of the Sun can Bond AvIar We know from this WoB, that Kandra in the guise of a bird cannot become an Aviar: What about birds from other Shardworlds? Could they eat the parasitic worms on Patji's Perpendicularity and become Aviar?

Is it only the Aviar that can manifest abilities after eating the parasites in the Patji's fingers? We know that Sak, a non-native bird was able to develop powers. But is it limited to only birds? I think there's a WOB about humans not developing powers after eating them, but what about other animals? What is special about birds that allows them to access the investiture?

The Drominad System has four planets in the habitable zone, we see one of them, First of the Sun in Sixth of the Dusk . Khriss says that Second of the Sun & Third of the Sun have human beings as well. But what about Fourth of the Sun? Is it only in the habitable zone but remains uninhabited? Does it have "primitive" rather than "fully developed" human societies? Does it not have humans at all - Does it have other intelligent lifeforms? Or does it contain life but no lifeforms that have achieved sapience? Does it only have microbial life? The first and the last options seem most plausible to me As @Eternal Khol notes, it might not necessarily be Fourth of the Sun that's the exception in the Drominad system which doesn't harbor a "fully developed human society". Khriss never stated which ones did, only that three of them did. First, Third and Fourth of the Sun have green splotches on them, marking presence of land and vegetation. Second of the Sun appears to be entirely blue without any visible landmasses.

One of the Oathbringer epigraph letters mention a place named Obrodai, where the sender, who is confirmed to be Patji, the Avatar of Autonomy on the First of the Sun, claims that another Avatar of their being is manifesting. Obrodai also appears to be referred to as "these waters" and as a "testing grounds" within the letter. We know from Arcanum Unbounded that the Drominad System has four planets in the habitable zone, all of which have water as a dominant feature on their surface and three of which are confirmed to have humans living on it. This is compared to the Rosharan System by Khriss. The fourth planet in the system, on the other hand, does not have any fully developed human societies. So, it might have a human outpost, or non-sapient fauna or something else. I started to have suspicions. Then I found this WoB: So, thoughts? It seems highly likely that Obrodai might turn out to be one of the other planets in the same system as First of the Sun. Second and Third of the Sun are good candidates but the Fourth of the Sun doesn't seem to be out of the running yet either.

Does anyone know if Brandon has said anything about what would happen if a person were to eat the fruit from Patji's Finger? Would the parasites work in the same way as inside Aviar or would people gain different abilities, or none at all? Lemme know if anyone has any related quotes, information, or just their thoughts on the subject. Thanks!

I've always been under the impression that throughout the Cosmere there are planets naturally invested through creation by Adonalsium that have local manifestations of magic, and then places that have been directly invested by a Shard of Adonalsium with far greater levels of investiture, perpendicularities and resulting magic systems that people can directly access (see 2014 Salt Lake City Comic-con and 2015 AMA below). So the two worlds we know that match this are First of the Sun and Threnody (perhaps Ashyn but I'm trying to confine this to canon). As Brandon says, it's interacting with nature. But both these worlds have something unusual going on. Threnody has no Shard and no stable perpendicularity (though does have unstable, unpredictable ones of 'morbid origin') but did have its existing magic distorted by the mortal wounding of Ambition. First of the Sun has no Shard but does have a stable perpendicularity. Note that this AU essay pre-dates re events of Sixth of the Dusk and we know there is investiture on FotS, in the form of invested fruit eaten by worms, which are then eaten by Aviar (birds) that develop a magical 'Talent' and bond with a human to share that talent. I believe (maybe it's confirmed) that this is simply the 'pool' of concentrated investiture nourishing the trees, and that it is birds rather than people that have the ability to convert that investiture into usable magic. We also know there's a lot going on in the Cognitive Realm there as predators hunt by sensing thought. So we know that these two minor Shardworlds show extraordinary characteristics, both due to events deep in the past. The distorted and macabre form of natural magic on Threnody makes sense but we still need to explain the large amount of concentrated investiture on FotS. I propose that the link is the (former) Shard Ambition. We know from above that soon after the Shattering Odium mortally wounded Ambition in the Threnodite system and that Ambition was later Splintered in a different location. We also know from a separate WoB that Odium could not find Ambition at first. And finally we don't know where Ambition was finally Splintered, or how, or whether it was by Odium, as Khriss in AU states he did the mortal wounding but excludes Ambition from the list of Shards he definitely Splintered. My theory is this - Ambition has been to the Drominad system; this was where either: A) Ambition was hiding, stuffing him/herself into the Cognitive Realm, prior to Odium briefly giving up and going after Dominion/Devotion, but was desperately avoiding investing in the system to avoid detection. But the Shard's presence was enough to increase localized investiture enough to create the perpendicularity and to shift the existing natural magic more into the Cognitive Realm (hence predation by thought). OR B ) After his/her mortal wounding in the Threnodite system, Ambition escaped to Drominad and, knowing the end was nigh, deliberately self-Splintered into the Cognitive Realm of FotS (though without deliberately interfering with the existing magical system there or creating a new one). The Splinters are the Aviar. The nature of the people, flora and fauna suggests an Ambition theme. I'd love any thoughts, comments, corrections on this long and rambling theory. I'm not exactly committed to either option I just find the magic systems of minor Shardworlds interesting, and the story of Ambition intriguing, and wondered if they could be combined.

Let it be known that I'm so excited about the essays that I haven't even read Edgedancer yet (even though Stormlight is my favourite series). We got some lovely information from Khriss that clarifies so many old questions. I have a few main theories that I want to bring up, that I know some people have already tossed a few of these around, but well, I'm just so excited I needed to make my own thread. Sorry, not sorry. Selish Observations Scadrian Observations (Secret History spoilers as well as Arcanum Unbounded) Taldain Observations Threnodite Observations Drominad Observations I have to go for now, I'll continue later tonight with the Rosharan system, Silverlight, and some theories I've got about all this new info. Thanks for listening to my ramblings. Time to do a complete cosmere reread and hunt for clues.

Mid Range 18 - Patji’s Caldron Rumors of an artefact found deep in the jungles of one of the islands of the Pantheon have made it to the Homeisles. While it generated some buzz, most have just passed it off as the ramblings of a mad Trapper, but not you. Under the leadership of Idoya, and with the help of Second of the Twilight, and First of the Noon, Trappers based on the island in question, you have all set off on an expedition to find this artefact, and bring it back, if at all possible. Three days after making landfall, people started to die. The first few seemed to be accidents, caused by the very real dangers of the jungle, and the creatures that inhabit it. Then someone was found dead, with a blade from the Homeisles left in their back. The Rules There are two teams: Researchers and Traitors. The Traitors are trying to prevent the expedition from succeeding, and ruining the company funding the venture, by causing the party to be killed in the jungle. The Researchers understandably want to survive, and will exile Traitors found from the group, trusting that the without a guide, the jungle will take care of any left behind. The Researchers win if all the Traitors are dead. The Traitors win if they outnumber the living Researchers. Each cycle will be 48 hours long, and will be a combined Day/Night cycle. Everyone may vote to lynch a player. Vote for a player by posting their name in red. To retract a vote, in a subsequent post (or edit it into the bottom of your post, if no one has posted after you) put the players name in green. If you forget to retract a vote, and end up with multiple votes on different players, I will be taking the earliest vote placed. 2 votes are required to lynch a player. If the lynch is tied with 2 or more votes, one of the tied players will be chosen at random to die. Please use players profile names, rather than their character names, when placing votes. Traitors are able to communicate privately with each other in a shared doc. Each cycle they can decide to kill one player. Once a target is decided, one person must put in the kill order in their role PM. If multiple orders are placed, targeting different players, no kill will happen. All discussion must happen in the main thread - there will be no player-player PMs. Once during the game, the Traitors can request the GM put in lynch votes on behalf of their team. Every living Traitor must agree to this action. If this happens, the votes will be posted ~3 minutes prior to the end of cycle. NOTE The purpose of running this game is to allow people to practice or learn the skills necessary to find/catch eliminators just based on what they say, and how they vote. I feel this is something that we’ve not had a lot of lately, and that it could be something that contributes to players going inactive in games, if they don’t have an interesting role. This is only going to work if players make the effort to contribute to the game. Please consider, before signing up, if you are going to be able to put in the time to keep up with the game, and contribute to discussion. Consider not signing up if you don’t honestly think you will be able to remain active for the entire game. P.S. I guarantee that there definitely won't necessarily be secrets. Quick Links

So I'm not sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but Tor.com has released a snippet of info regarding the latest Sanderson book. While it's only a small sample, it gives us a bunch of info I don't think was previously known! This book is gonna be fully of juicy tidbits, and I for one cannot wait!

Tor released the contents page for Arcanum Unbounded today. Whilst knowing what is in the book itself is great, there's a great little reveal in there with the chapter heading before Sixth of the Dusk. Apparently Sixth of the Dusk is set in the "Drominad" system... We have a new name! Perhaps Drominad (though judging by the format of the other names, these are the inhabitants, not the planet name) is the Cosmere aware name for the planet (Dromi? Drom? Dromin?) whereas First of the Sun is the 'on-planet' name? Source: http://www.tor.com/2016/10/31/find-out-whats-inside-brandon-sandersons-new-cosmere-book-arcanum-unbounded/

How does any form of magic happen on planets with no shards? How is there any investiture? I would understand if the two planets had the exact same sort of magic, but they are different enough that there has to be two different things going on. What are those things that are different if they are not shards?

So, from what I have previously read here in regards to Sixth of the Dusk, it seems like The Ones Above are thought to be from Scadrial, correct? It does make some sense because they have similar technology to what we have seen with Southerners and they are on the only planet that we know is approaching interstellar travel at the moment. I do wonder if there are any WoBs or other information that I haven't seen to confirm this though. Another question I have is this: In what way do the 'machines' work using what we know of the metallic arts? I mean maybe bronze could be used to sense more than just Allomancy and that could probably work for detecting Aviar, I suppose (It wasn't actually described how the smaller machine "shows things" to the user). The translation function confuses me though. In Bands we saw translation using connection worked in the opposite method. Connection attaches a person to the attributes of the place they are in. It is only really useful for visitors. How could Vathi use it to read a language from another world? Any thoughts?