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  1. Hello everybody! This is my 2nd topic to post on this site, so forgive me if this has already been said but I thought I could point out the connections between the magic systems in the hope that we can learn how they relate to each other and the rest of the Cosmere. And I apologize in advanced, but this will be a very long post. Unfortunately, I have not read from the Emperor's Soul, so I will not be able to speak to the power of Forging. If someone would like to add that into the comments, I would be appreciative. I will add a Tl;Dr section at the bottom for those not interested in reading the full post. I would like to reflect the opinions of everyone who wants to add input, this forum page is a place for discussion, as such please be respectful of everyone's opinions. If you disagree, I would be happy to reflect your opinion on this post. To skip the explanation of all the magic systems, please feel free to Control+F "Connection" there will be a header that is bolded, italicized and underlined. Obviously, this topic will contain spoilers for Elantris, Warbreaker, Mistborn, and Way of Kings, if you prefer to read the book first, I do suggest you book mark this page so you can return to it once you have read all the books, thank you! I'm going to list a quick survey of the magic systems together so we can compare/ contrast them. I would absolutely love to hear any input or conjectures, no matter how big or small. So let's get started then: Elantris: Aon Dor: the magic of drawing Aons to access the Dor, a powerful pervasive magic that is focused through the massive Aon Rao which is Elantris and the surrounding areas. Notable Features: The Shaod will pick people in the surrounding areas of Arelon or Teod and transform them into Demi Gods of sorts, able to use Aon Dor. Once taken by the Shaod, the person's skin turns into silver and their hair turns a pure white. There is a connection between Aon Dor and Seons. The Fuel: The Dor having been accessed by Aons. ChayShan: the Magic of accessing the Dor to increase the Martial prowess. Known to the Jindoeese. Notable Features: this magic system was shown, only briefly, at the end of the book of Elantris. However, we know that similarly to AonDor, those who use the power rely on some sort of body gestures and motions (in this case a martial art) to access the Dor. Its effects seem to speed the martial artist up and giving them incredible power. So much, that Shuden was able to break the bones of a Dakhor monk. The Fuel: The Dor having been accessed through a combination of martial arts and meditation. Dakhor: the magic of enhancing the skeletal system and improving the body's capabilities far beyond what normal peoples should ever be able to accomplish. It does this by somehow by probably accessing the Dominion's gateway to the Dor. Notable Features: only the Dakhor monks in Fjorden have ever been known to have this power. While it doesn't necessarily seem to be based on location, I assume that the knowledge of how to access this power is a heavily guarded secret kept by the Dakhor Monastery. The abilities include teleportation, the ability to enhance the human body by shaping the skeletal structure. The structure of the bones seems to change the varying levels of power in this system. It also has the ability to wipe out Aons. -Thanks to Kurkistan for the Corrections. The Fuel: A willing human being must sacrifice himself. The Mistborn Trilogy and The Mistborn Adventures, book one: Allomancy: a magic that consumes metals to various effects. This magic comes from Preservation. Notable Features: Allomancy is an incredibly fun magic system in which the user can "burn" metals to push or pull on metals, forcibly change someone's emotions, hide themselves, find other Allomancers (and possibly find other uses of magics from other worlds, though this is speculation), strengthen their bodies and senses, affect their own stores (and those of others) of metals by depleting them or using them in a single burst of power, forsee the future and lastly affect time by slowing it down or speeding it up. This type of magic is genetic and becomes deluded after generations. Fuel: The fuel for Allomany comes from Preservation's power using metals as a "focus" for that power similar to how Aons focused the Dor's power. -Thanks to Kurkistan for the corrections. Feruchemy: the magic of Harmony. It relies on storing up an attribute into metals for later use. The use of this magic can be used to multiply the attributes several fold, but doing so drains the user quickly. Notable Features: Feruchemy is an end neutral magic system. BioChroma might be end-neutral, also. If the user can store up enough of an attribute, s/he can expend it very powerfully for a short time, until an equilibrium has been reached. The user can store or use the following attributes: Speed, Strength, Mental Speed, Health, Memory, Weight, Age, Senses, Warmth, Wakefulness, Spiritual Connection, Identity, Fortune, Investiture, Nutrition and Calories, and finally Breath. -Thanks to Kurkistan for the corrections and the link. Fuel: the user must store up these attributes into a metalmind of the correct alloy, then they can use that storage at a later time. Hemalurgy: the parasitic magic that can steal potentially any magic ability from any user given the right alloy of the spike, the knowledge of where to place the spike and I supposed the sadism to even use the magic. It is a "messy" magic. Notable Features: Hemalurgy steals magic from the magic user. The longer the spike is outside of a body, the more magic is lost. It is the only end-negative system in the Cosmere, so far, but it is highly possible that there will be another. When impailed with Hemalurgic spikes, the host of the spike can hear Ruin's or Harmony's intent. Given enough spikes, the host will be unable to act on their own as the intent becomes much more powerful and can overcome the free will of the subject. It's "an oddity in the cosmere". -Thanks to Kurkistan for the correction and the link. Fuel: the magic kills the Magic user and steals his power and is placed into the new host. So the fuel is either the blood, the life, or both of the host. The Way of Kings: Book one of the Stormlight Archive: Surgebinding: the magic of using Surges. There are various effects of this magic and the user can use only two, based on the Ten Essences The Ten Surges, as shown in the Knight's Radiant Table (Currently [though subject to change]: Surface Tension, Transportation, Transformation, Light, Grown, Friction, Division, Pressure, and Gravity). Users can affect Gravity, Heal, Lightweave, Soulcast without Fabrials, and can do many other things yet unknown. - Thanks to Kurkistan for the Corrections. Notable Features: All of these Magic use Stormlight and are only usable to the Knights Radiant. This magic system has not been fully explored and much of the details are unknown at this point. However there seems to be a connection between using the power, and having an Honor Spren. Though it is worth note that not all "Bond Spren" are "Honor Spren". -Thanks to Kurkistan and Gloom for the Corrections. Fuel: Stormlight, some magic left behind in the wake of a High Storm that is stored in Gems. Old Magic: Little is known about the Old Magic. We do know that they are some how tied to the Nightwatcher Voidbinding: Again, little is known about Void Binding and I will be sure to add in the information when it becomes available. Shardblades: Though more is known about Shardblades than the previous two magic Systems, there is still a great deal of mystery shrouding the blades. From what we do know, the blades were wielded by the Knights Radiant, but were abandoned on the Day of Recreance. They do not cut living flesh, but the soul it self. I could fully describe them, but it would be better to read the Wiki Article as the information there is fantastic. Warbreaker: BioChroma: is an interesting type of magic that requires the uses of Breath. Having different amounts of Breath can passively increase the wielder's ability to detect perfect hues of colors, gain perfect pitch, sense the Breath of others, Awaken without words, Agelessness, and Distort Colors among many other things. These various stages of Breath are referred to as Heightenings Every person on Nalthis is born with a single Breath given by the Shard Endowment. They can sell or give away their Breath to anyone else. People can then use these Breaths to perform a magic called Awakening, whereby they temporarily store their breath into an inanimate object and give it a command to obey. Notable Features: Awakening works best when the object is "human shaped" and organic. The closer the semblance to a human, the less Breaths are required to Awaken the object. Though, theoretically, nothing is impossible to Awaken, given the expertise and enough breaths to perform the awakening. -Thanks to Kurkistan for the corrections. Fuel: Breath (kinda). As the Breaths are not consumed in the process of Awakening, rather they are borrowed and then later returned. Some, however, believe that the fuel for Awakening is color. However it is worth noting that if this were the case, it would only be the initial fuel for the awakening as the magic does not rely on the constant draining of color to continue. At the Highest known heightenings, it is possible to use more color for awakening. -Thanks to Kurkistan and Robot Aztec for the corrections. I should note that the next three items on this list are simply an extension of BioChroma and not necessarily a new magic system unto their own. Returned: When a person dies a particularly virtuous way, they can be returned to life with a single, powerful BioChromatic Breath. In order to sustain themselves, they consume one Breath per week. They are the utmost Ideal of physical form. The men are tall and muscled, well formed, and the women are the embodiment of beauty. They can give up their one Breath to cure anyone of anything. The God King is a different type of returned but nevertheless, still a returned of a sort. -Thanks to Kurkistan for the corrections. Lifeless: these are not returned, they are simply a corpse that has been awakened to follow it's master's bidding. - Thanks to Kurkistan for the corrections. Nightblood: Nightblood is a sword that has been Awakened with BioChromatic Breath. It wants to "destroy evil" though, because it is a sword, does not understand exactly what evil is. Feel free to read the Wiki to understand the various facts about Nightblood. Ok, now we will explore the connections between the various Magic Systems: Let's start by grouping the Magic systems by how they are inherited or obtained. Magics obtained through inheritance (genetics, locations): Allomancy, Feruchemy, BioChroma (kind of) Aon Dor (though, I suspect with these two that the location only matters because Devotion is shattered), ChayShan Magics obtained though endowment (picked randomly or otherwise to ascend to power): Aon Dor through the Shaod, BioChroma via the Returned, Surgebinding, and Voidbinding (presumably) Magics obtained through taking someone's life force: Hemalurgy, Dakhor, and BioChroma (again! but this time by taking someone's Breath and/or absorbing color of nearby objects with the possibility of taking it from human flesh... looking at you Nightblood.) As you can see, there aren't a terrible lot of differences in the means of obtaining the powers. So let's take a second to explore some of the similarities. In Aon Dor, when one is taken by the Shaod, there is a visable change in their coloring. They get white hair and silver skin. We presume the one gets taken by the Shaod for having considerable Devotion to something. In BioChroma, the Returned come with just one Breath, like normal, except that this Breath is so powerful that colors seems to glow much brighter and more pure in their presence. Similarly to Aon Dor, the Returned are chosen to come back based on some Virtue that they possessed. In Surgebinding, the user glows when he holds in Stormlight, while there isn't a large difference in appearance (other than the the eye color changing to become a "Lighteyes") a Surgebinder is picked to become such when they display incredible acts of Honor Virtue. - Thanks to Kurkistan and Gloom for the correction and the link. My guess is that Voidbinding would be doable if one exhibited supreme hatred, thought this is speculation. Otherwise powers are obtained via location, heritage or simply by stealing someone else's power. We will get into that in a bit. Now let's take a look at the various storage of Fuels and their similarities. The majority stores their powers in Gems, Metals, and Bones. Though the powers vary on effects and uses, the method of storing excess power is similar. Allomancy: Metals Feruchemy: Attributes stored in Metals Hemalurgy: Power stolen; stored in Metals Surgebinding: Stormlight stored in gemstones Soulcasting with a Fabrial: the fuel is probably Stormlight stored in gemstones, but I imagine the cost is offset the Spren. Dakhor: The fuel is a human life, it is stored in human bones. Aon Dor: The Dor, a pervasive magic on the World of Sel. It acts differently as it isn't really stored so much as it is released. Probably similar to the Well of Ascension. BioChroma: Breath, kind of. In this regard, BioChroma acts differently. There really isn't a "fuel" for their power and it can technically be stored in anything. It even acts conversely against the other metals (IE storing Breath in Metal or rock is actually quite hard, its much easier to store it in something that was once living, similarly to Dakhor.) I believe that the fuel for the power of BioChroma is offset by Endowment, not unlike the Dor. It has been noted that the particular storage of fuel, be it in metal, gems or bones, could be irrelevant, and it could simply be a different method for a different world. However, given that the Shards created those worlds (and presumably the method of storing their power) it could have some relevance. - Thanks Kurkistan for the commentary. Alright let's evaluate the various Investitures that the Shards give to their Creations: Ok this is a bit harder to explain, this group evaluates the similar ways that the Shards invested themselves into a planet. For Example, the Seons and the Spren are the direct result of the Shards reducing their power (Seons, it seems were actually a result of the shattering of Aona [Devotion], and logic dictates that Spren could be similarly created. Though the origin of Spren seems to be a rather large debate with too few facts to say for certain) Seons and Spren are a particular life that exudes the influence of the Shard, presumably, and retains some of their power. Just to clarify, some examples of this power are the Seon's ability to communicate like a telephone and the Spren's ability to change size, shape and form. Furthermore, on Scadrial, humanity is, in part, different than everywhere else because they have a bit more Preservation inside of them. Then on Nalthis, Endowment has endowed (wow shocker) humanity with breath but even more powerfully, Endowment gives a very powerful Breath to the Returned to bring them back to life. We don't have a ton of information on the investiture of the Shards into the races in Way of Kings but we do have the Aimians who can change the form of their bodies not unlike the Spren that exist on that planet. I can't imagine that Shinovar doesn't have a large touch from Cultivation, but that's speculation. The point is, that the Shards have all invested themselves into their creations. We know from Preservation that this weakens them. This may be the way that Odium can be stronger than the other Shards as we can only really attribute the Voidbringers to his power, definitely not a full planet filled with life. - Thanks to Kurkistan, WeiryWriter, and Shardlet for the input and links. These Magics Grant Sentience: In Way of Kings, Syl slowly gained her sentience as her bond with Kaladin grew stronger. In Warbreaker, Nightblood gained his sentience through the vast amount of Breaths he received when he was Awakened. It would also be interesting to note, that while humans can Awaken, Endowment can Awaken granting full sentience rather than partial robotic following of a single imperative 90% sentience. - Thanks to Kurkistan for the corrections. In the Mistborn books, the Koloss and the Kandra both received their sentience when Hemalurgy was used on them. In Elantris, the Seons received their sentience from the Aon that glowed at their core. It would seem I am mistaken about the sentience of the Seons. It actually comes because they are Splinters of Aona (Devotion) IE the Dor's power was channeled in a way that gave them cognizance. - Thanks to Kurkistan for the correction and the link. While BioChroma remains King on investing mundane Items with Magic, it most certainly isn't alone: In Elantris, Aon Dor, by simply drawing an Aon on something, you turned something mundane into something magical. Need a light? Draw Aon Ashe on the wall. Want a Flamethrower or a Torch? Draw Aon Ehe on an object. Et Cetera. In Warbreaker, the Awakener could simply Awaken an object with a set of instructions for the Awakened item to obey. It temporarily took breath, but the item would do as commanded. You could also do this to a corpse and create a lifeless servant to follow and obey you. Do take note that a dead body acts very differently than a live one. This rule is the same with shardblades. In Mistborn, while you couldn't make items universally magical to all who held them, Feruchemy stored their magic in the metals, Hemalurgy stored the magic in the metals and an Allomancer could burn metals to produce magic. This becomes important to note. Most of us understand the mechanic of burning Feruchemical metals (metalminds) as an allomancer. The Feruchemy turned the Metal into something... greater than simple metal. I'd wager that there would be similarly fantastic effects to burning hemalurgic metals (Mistborn 2nd Trilogy mayhaps?). So while the metal would appear to be magical, it most certainly changes the properties of the metals in some fundamental ways. This begs the question if the metal's atomic compisition changes measurably and if the futuristic metals could be engineered to be "full" artificially for Feruchemists. IE, could they store a book into a coppermind that any Feruchemist could pick up and "read" anyway, sorry for the tangent =P. Also note that you can't affect metals in someone else's body. - Thanks to Kurkistan for the input. in Way of Kings, when stormlight fills a gem, it glows. When a Surgebinder lashes an object, it glows and sticks to whatever the Surgebinder wanted it to. The Shardblades and Shardplate are most certainly magical as well. They act differently in the hands of a dead man, and against dead bodies. Meaning that a dead man's Shardblade will not vanish if he drops it. Ok, so they're similar... So what? I think Brandon Sanderson means to write several books in which we can see the interactions of our favorite heros or at the very minimum a few books in which we'll see the way these magic systems interact. They are made to be used together. Adonalsium shattered and created the Shards which made the magics. This means that essentially these magic systems were all one at some point. However, there is a distinct possibility that these systems were not created to work together in some fashion, Kurkistan aptly points out this in the following quote. I would like to add a section in here concerning the ideas about the Spren and Seons that I have seen reflected in the comments below. Thanks to everyone for the input. - Natan - Kurkistan - Natans So this is the fun part of the post! I want to hear some of your ideas and input as well! What happens when the two magic systems meet? What happens if you burn an awakened metal? Could a Feruchemist access or store attributes in Awakened metal? In a Stormlight Gemstone? Could a Sel version of Nightblood or Shardblade be made by Forging, Writing an Aon on the blade, or using a Dakhor Bone Blade? Would Lightweaving be more powerful with Aon Ashe present? Does a Hemalurgic Spike steal all the victim's Breath? Does a Hemalurgic Spike affect Spren or Seons? How many of Sazed's religions do you think were Realmatically aware? What are the chances that Odium was worshiped on Scadrial? Could a Returned come from another planet? Could they be Returned to another planet? If so, what would happen to a Returned Mistborn? Say, Vin and Elend? Can a combination of the magic systems somehow repair a splintered Shard? I wrote this article to be discussed! If anyone has any input, please feel free to share it! I would love to hear it. Critiques are welcome, but as this is a post to discuss and speculate I would appreciate it if you would be polite to your fellow posters! TL;DR The magic systems are very similar in a lot of different ways. This could help provide some insight into the Cosmere about how Shards work and perhaps the purpose of Hoid's mission. Thanks everyone! I look forward to hearing your response! Please let me know if I missed giving you credit from your comments in the post!!!
  2. Hey everyone, this is my first post on this site, though I've been lurking in the forums for some time now. I just finished TWoK and can't wait for Book 2. Anyways, so I have a theory that is mostly baseless but could be interesting character development that I think is very plausible. However, I would like to put out a disclaimer that this does contain spoilers in the plot and if you have not read the book yet, I advise you do not read further!!! So what do we know? 1.) Dalinar used the Old Magics and talked with the Nightwatcher. 2.) Dalinar was so consumed by jealousy for losing his love, Navani, to his brother Gavolar, that he nearly killed his brother, the king. 3.) He has no recollection of the women he actually did marry. 4.) The Nightwatcher will grant you a boon and a curse, they sometimes, though infrequently, will be related. 5.) The woman he did marry, Brightness Kholen, was apparently kind, but not too keen, which presumably, was a stark contrast to Navani. Navani was apparently very good at political games in her youth. 6.) Adolin's hair was mostly blonde with streaks of the Alethi black hair. This is another speculation, and could mean that Adolin's mother was not Alethi. What do we make of this? Dalinar, distraught after the loss of Navani to his brother Gavolar, approached the Nightwatcher. The Nightwatcher gave Dalinar the boon of finding a new wife, at the cost of forgetting her when she died. The Nightwatcher probably gives you what you need (or think you need) most. I'd love to hear thoughts and opinions on the matter. I'm excited to see what the community thinks! Edit: Spelling
  3. So last Friday my art professor gave a lecture weirdly similar to the Epilogue "Of Most Worth" from WoK. (minus the collapsing Herald) It's always cool when a random sequence from a fantasy is actually applicable to real life. Especially when Hoid says it. Any other profound dialogue from Hoid (or any character) apply to someone else's life? "What is it we value? Innovation. Originality. Novelty." -Hoid
  4. Not asking a question, just wanted to say i'm excited about book two of the storm light archive!
  5. Pretty simple theory here. The letter states the following: Assuming the letter was indeed written by Hoid, and "the element" refers to Lerasium (as I've seen suggested here), it seems reasonable to believe Hoid has made a metalmind from the Lerasium and wears it regularly. This would explain how he "protects it like he protects his own skin". At one point I thought that "protect it like I protect my own skin" meant he had swallowed it and become a Mistborn, but that doesn't really seem like it's "quite safe" and has a "good home" to me. So, I think that Hoid is using the Lerasium as a metalmind. We know from WoB that he can use Feruchemy, so it fits. Perhaps this is how he knows where to go in the Cosmere?
  6. Hi I'm new and I started a reread of Way of Kings and I found something that I thought was interesting. I noticed it because I thought I read somewhere that Hoid wasn't the only character that is common to Brandon's books. Here's the lines (p. 11): A man with a long grey and black beard slumped in the doorway, smiling foolishly--though whether from wine or a weak mind, Szeth could not tell. "Have you seen me?" the man asked I just thought that it was weird that there would be a random man that has a speaking part with no other purpose in the book. Then as a read further I realized that it could also maybe be one of the Heralds (who says they aren't immortal?) (p. 12) He counted off each one, and realized there were only nine here. One was conspicuously missing. Why had Shalash's statue been removed? This could be what the man meant when he asked Szeth the question--his statue is missing. Obviously I could just be reading too deep into this, but it was a fun thought so I wanted to share it.
  7. IMPORTANT NOTE: The thread title should have read Hoid as a Sliver, not Shardholder. I have since been informed as to the definition of both, and found that Sliver is the appropriate term to refer to Hoid in this theory. I started a topic earlier theorizing about the supposed Survival Shard and the possibility of Hoid having held it at some point. It was brought to my attention that my belief that Hoid having held a Shard seemed like a relatively new idea, or that it hadn't been heard of yet. So I decided to start this thread in order to present that theory first, rather than trying to hold it as a base assumption for a different theory. We know that Hoid was present for the Shattering of Adonalsium, and that he was likely the author of The Letter in Way of Kings (thanks to a recent comment by Brandon stating that the Bead of Lerasium Hoid took is also The Element in The Letter, inevitably pointing to Hoid as the author). This means that Hoid likely has personal knowledge of the names of the Shardholders and the Shards themselves, evident by the fact that he comments on the Shardholders in The Letter by their names, not their Shards, and the effects of their Shards on the different worlds they visited. Now, this is a quote from Hoid's conversation late in Way of Kings. “ 'I began life as a thought, a concept, words on a page. That was another thing I stole. Myself. Another time, I was named for a rock.' 'A pretty one, I hope.' 'A beautiful one,' the man said. 'And one that became completely worthless for my wearing it.' Hoid is fairly well known to have more knowledge than other characters surrounding him, and for speaking in strange and cryptic sentences that make a lot more sense if you have insight as to what he is talking about. He also makes light of situations when talking about huge matters with people who are not directly involved, as his conversations with Dalinar seem to suggest, as well as his entire personality as a witty joker of some sort. Along with that, we know that Hoid is the Liar of Partinel, and that he stole his name from someone else. I believe that is what he is referring to when he says he stole himself. The next line is the one that interests me. He claims to have been named for a beautiful rock, which sounds silly and light coming out of Hoid's mouth. I believe it must be much deeper than that, due to Sanderson's propensity for hiding big secrets in relatively simple phrases or conversations, as well as Hoid's tendency to make light of all of the massive issues going on around him. If we think seriously about it, the only time someone in the Cosmere has been named for any kind of 'rock' that we know of is when they pick up a Shard. The Shard has a personality or an Intent of its own that it impresses upon the wielder, changing them over time. Ruin and Preservation caused Ati and Leras respectively to lose grasp on themselves and to become more like the Shards they held. Ati was not always a destroyer of some kind, but he was altered by Ruin's intent and therefore became the embodied force of entropy, as did Leras and basically all of the other Shardholders. Rayse has been said to emulate the Intent of his Shard, Odium, and therefore the two meshed well to embody the Shard's Intent. He is only referred to as Rayse by the author of The Letter (likely Hoid), and Odium by all others who know of him. My point is this: Hoid says that he was once named after a Rock. Shardholders are named after their Shards. Therefore, it seems that Hoid was admitting to having held a Shard out loud to Kaladin. Here's my justification as to why he once held it, but does no longer. Hoid is on some sort of worldhopping journey, supposedly to fix the Splintered Shards that Odium had broken. He appears on Scadrial and helps free Ruin from his prison, which eventually results in the restoration of both Shards' full power and Sazed becoming their bearer, uniting them into Harmony, a supposedly more powerful incarnation of both Shards. I believe Brandon is quoted as having said that this is what Odium feared would happen. He was also present on Nalthis and Sel, as well as Roshar most recently. Now, if Hoid has some quarrel with Rayse/Odium and is trying to oppose him, uniting the other Shards against him would be his best use of time. This begs the question: Why not take one of the Shards for himself and use its power against Rayse? If the above quote is an admission to being a Shardholder, it also suggests that Hoid was terrible at using it, as he says that it "became completely worthless for my wearing it." This might mean that Hoid did try to use a Shard against Rayse and that it didn't go well, and thus he is searching for other ways to accomplish his goals besides bearing a Shard. At this point, I believe that if Hoid had really wanted to take Preservation and Ruin for himself, he would have just showed up at the right moment at the end of HoA and grabbed them, as he hasn't showed any trouble in being in the right place at the right time before then to further his goals. All that said, this is mostly speculation and conjecture with little total evidence to back it up. But, I believe wholeheartedly that it has a lot of merit and realism behind the claim. Feel free to argue against me or present evidence of your own that might support this theory as well! I look forward to hearing what everyone else thinks.
  8. I know we're all waiting eagerly for Michael Whelan to reveal the cover for Words of Radiance. But while we're waiting, he touched up an old cover study of Kaladin. What do you guys think?
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