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Brandon recently responded to criticism that he was adding too many new works in this year's State of the Sanderson, by showing us his original plan for the cosmere that contains most of these works! Also includes a new statement on Dark One; it hasn't always been cosmere, but now we've got an up-to-date WoB saying it still is. (For now, at least.) EDIT: Upon further reflection, I think this also narrows down our 10 core Shardworlds. [and Shard count] Dragonsteel: Yolen [?] Mistborn: Scadrial [2] Stormlight: Roshar [2] Stormlight: Braize [1] Elantris: Sel [2] Warbreaker: Nalthis [1] White Sand: Taldain [1] Threnody novel: Threnody [0] Aether of Night: ??? (Vax seems more and more likely) [1+] Silence Divine: Ashyn [0] This would revise some traditional lines of thought that have defined Threnody as a minor Shardworld. I don't think Brandon has been intentionally lying to us about its status; I think we've conflated 'core Shardworld' and 'major Shardworld.' The first is an out-of-universe term to describe the 10 worlds the books are set on. The second is which worlds have Shards Invested in them and actual magic systems. All core Shardworlds have significant Shardic influence, but they don't all necessarily have a Shard. Ashyn seems to be another core Shardworld that isn't a major Shardworld (no magic system, but diseases interact with Realmatics because it has significant Shardic influence). It's still possible it actually has a Shard, and I've misplaced either Cultivation or Honor on Roshar, but I view those as less likely. This would require a new term for the Drominad system; they have no magic and no book, so they are minor and... auxiliary? Dictionary.com hasn't been terribly helpful, and insists 'core' isn't an adjective. But I'll call First of the Sun an auxiliary minor Shardworld, Threnody a core minor Shardworld, and Scadrial a core major Shardworld. If Dark One has a Shard, then it would be an auxiliary major Shardworld; not part of the core story, but still having a full Shard. This has further ramifications on our Shard count. Since Aether has a magic system, it must have at least one Shard on its planet. If I run the math (adding in Ambition and the other worldless Shard), that means there are 5 Shards to go between Aether's world, post-Shattering Yolen, and any potential auxiliary major Shardworlds. (If Ashyn is major, it wouldn't change the overall math; we know there are 3 Shards total in the Rosharan system.)

The concept of the God Beyond has been bugging me for some time, and I finally got a sharable answer from Brandon via Reddit message: I think this clarifies the relatinship between the God Beyond and the Beyond. A problem solved!

So, I noticed Brandon calling Nazh's knife and Silverlight weird in Chicago signing and it got me thinking, what else in Cosmere has he ever called weird. I went back through Theoryland WoBs to about 2013 (at which point most WoBs switched to being about Perrin and Mat), and looked for things he called weird. For a more complete list, I should have probably looked for "bizarre", "odd", and "strange" as well, and I intend to in Version 2.0. In the meantime, below is the Compendium of Weird. I list an item/object/notion/person/event from Cosmere, and a phrase of phrases with date attribution confirming the weirdness. Why do this? It helps uncover patterns in Brandon's thinking. If he called something weird in the past and we know now why it was weird, we can determine why the new things he calls weird may be weird. The compendium is under the spoiler tag largely to separate it from this introduction. The plan is to make a few more compendia following off of Brandon's standard figures of speech when he is responding to questions. Edit: Argh.... Misspelled Compendium in the title. )-: This has been fixed. Edit: Per @Spoolofwhool below, excluded the "piercings being burned" from the list.

So Paladin Brewer has been to San Antonio signing and asked a question I asked him to ask (lovely grammar is lovely...). To not-just-my surprise, it wasn't RAFO'd. Without further ado: Q: Is Threnody in the same planetary system as Sel? A: Yes, it is. I dare say that's quite a news - Sel and Threnody at the very least circle the same sun. One may even be a moon of another. We can probably guess that whatever messes with Sel's cognitive realm to make it dangerous is connected to whatever makes dead people into Shades. I've been having this thought for a while that Sel may be the Homeland of Threnodian history, and this only seems to support this. A short distance between the two would mean that it'd be easy to escape from Sel to Threnody, and the planet may've been named in memory of those who didn't manage to run away. This would also suggest that the Simple Rules come from Selan arts (AonDor, ChayShan, Bloodsealing...), not to mention that Forescouts (Silence's family), who were supposedly one of the first people to leave Homeland, were worldhoppers. What is probably more important, something chased Threnodians away from Sel. Odium returning to finish the job it started? Events of the elusive Elantris 2? I have no idea. Of course, it could also be that Threnodians are just one culture from Sel that was hit especially hard by Odium paying a visit to splinter Devotion and Dominion - hit hard enough to worldhop to another world to escape it. This would explain why their names are so different from the cultures we've seen so far (Silence and Theopolis vs. Shai and Raoden). I honestly don't know what to think of this.

I had to study, therefore.... I was on the Brandon's Reddit. There I found this cool questions https://www.reddit.com/r/brandonsanderson/comments/5ge20y/brandon_book_signings_dos_and_donts/daukmq5/?context=3 A couple of them are quite interesting about Adonalsium both in his past and his future: EDIT: Personal Note: I don't understand the first RAFO, He told for a while where the original vessels came from. Therefore I think he RAFOed the Worldhopper part

This quote came from the signing on December 1st, but I'm curious to get some feedback about it, as it seems to contradict the information Brandon gave us recently about the Five Scholars on Nalthis. How could the Five Scholars be close to being cosmere aware, knowing more than anyone who wasn't a worldhopper (meaning they likewise were not worldhoppers), and yet also be a group that worldhopped to worlds that had gone through Industrial Revolutions? So, were the Five Scholars cosmere aware and/or did they worldhop when they were the Five Scholars? Obviously, Vasher/Zahel figured it out by the time we see him in TWoK (which takes place after Warbreaker). What do we know people?

Recently Mister Sanderson replied to an interesting question on Reddit. The Question alone would be a bit interesting but his answer have some cool extras: First of all we have a confirm that someone may get the Surgebinder's perks also through the Honorblades and it's not something unique to the Nahel bond. But the part I feel really spicy is this: "For example, Jezrien didn't actually have any squires, as none of the Heralds did." This sentence may have a couple of interpretations: - Heralds never had Squires - Heralds has no Squires now Both are pretty interesting (of course the first more) because this mean that modern Nale's Skybreaker can't be his Squires. This mean that if we see someone of the drawn in stormlight, They must to have a RK at least. Much more (to me) this WoB destroy the possibility of a Szeth as Squire of Nale as a way for him to be capable of Breath Stormlight to use Nightblood.

Disclaimer: I'm aware of the new event/WoB policy... but this was not an event so I'm not sure whether I should start a topic for that only please don't spike me Soooo.... Secret History 2 is a thing, apparently.

In addition to previous WoBs: We finally got a precise (and interesting) WoB about melted metalminds: P.S. 'Molten metalminds' totally sounds like a Third Era rock band name.

So the Tor Arcanum Unbounded release about the drominad system says that In other words, there is a SYSTEM ENTIRELY INHABITED BY SPLINTERS! What shard is this? Why is it split up like this? Are these splinters of one shard or multiple? Are these splinters all human? Are there many, or only a few? Did Odium do this? What's going on?

I do not recall any scene like that. But I'm sure somebody here would know what Brandon is talking about!

Brandon answered a question regarding population sizes and densities of various cities around the Cosmere on Reddit earlier. In the answer, he references a city called Silverlight. I've don't recall this name in any of his books. I did a quick check through Coppermind, Theoryland, and the text of all the ebooks I have; I found no reference to something called Silverlight. Has anyone heard of this place before? I asked for clarification on Reddit, but until we get an answer, let's start madly theorizing! Original comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/51u8qu/oathbringer_spoilers_stormlight_three_update_4/d8zbvvs So what/where could Silverlight be? Personally, I think it would be a cool name for the worldhopper gathering place that we've heard about, which would tie into how he hasn't estimated its population precisely. What do you think it is?

Just ran across this gem from Reddit (apologies if it showed up elsewhere on the forums already): Sounds amazing to me, very much looking forward to both the code monkey and Scadrial nerd culture, as well as the comics! jW

The WoB mine that is Reddit continues to spew forth knowledge and wisdom coming directly from Brandon from House Sanderson. This time we have a vague statement that "when we talk about Returned and lifeless in Warbreaker sequels, you'll have more ammunition for understanding what happened in Emperor's Soul." Source

And interesting bit of information came out of a recent Reddit conversation. Take a look, I'll just do a poor job summarizing it anyway. He then elaborated that "Roshar predates the shattering" (which we knew) and that "There are many things that are unique about Roshar, but it wasn't the only world created in this way."

Remember that WoB? Turns out it's actually wrong. Brandon's explanation here (Spoilers for SH). I think we need to add a footnote to that WoB on Theoryland...

It is no secret that I stalk follow Brandon's online presence carefully, and so I am often the one to report recent Reddit WoBs. This one is straightforward, though not groundbreaking: "There is no cognitive shadow of Mare hanging around."

This will, perhaps, surprise no one, but Brandon confirmed on Reddit that the act of Returning heals and restores the body. You can read the entire exchange by following the link (it has some interesting but not groundbreaking tidbits about Lightsong's own Return and how long it takes for somebody to Return), but the gist of it is this: Credit to /u/Phantine for asking the question(s).

I've been chatting with Brandon over at Reddit about Hoid's ability to speak any language, and more specifically a case where this ability fails him in a way that is now very obvious to me - in The Way of Kings when he uses the word "coin" (instead of sphere) a couple of times. I hadn't really noticed this discrepancy until recently when somebody on the forums pointed it out, but it's been a bit of a sore thumb for me since then - why would Hoid's magic make sure an obvious mistake? Going as far as to use a word that doesn't even exist in the target language? The hound/axehound blunder I've been able to accepted, but this stranger. So I asked. And got some answers. Furthermore, /u/Torrieltar asked whether this is how puns work and also got a lengthy response: So there you have it, folks. Not a lot of new stuff, but interesting (at least to me) to see these explanations in as much detail as is available here.

I recently had a conversation (which you may have seen in other threads*) with Brandon over at Reddit about the nature of Hoid's "magical translation" - the way he can speak seemingly any language. As an aside to that conversation (which I will post in a different thread for completeness' sake), I asked about the infamous woman on The Way of Kings endsheet - you know, the one we've speculated to be Cultivation, her Vessel, a Herald, I think I even saw somebody suspect she is Dalinar's wife. Well, turns out she (probably) isn't anyone specific. Crud. * I like the idea of spawning dedicated threads to new Words of Brandon, to promote visibility. Hence this thread.

Djarskublar: So I could be wrong, but a Hemalurgic spike, when you use it and become a savant it does damage to your Spiritweb, right? Brandon: Yes Hemalurgy always hurts you. (I think he was saying that the Hemalurgy itself hurts you more than being a savant, but I'm not sure how to interpret this) Djarskublar: So say you go to Roshar and you give somebody a Hemalurgic spike for some Allomantic power, don't care what, and you use it to become a savant. Does that qualify them as 'broken' enough to become a Radiant? As long as they are also following the Ideals to attract a spren. Brandon: So becoming a Radiant is a spectrum of terminologies. It... probably, but you would have to find a Radiant who would, or a spren who would be willing to touch that, okay? It's going to drive them back. Djarskublar: So would it also affect your probability of becoming an Elantrian? Brandon: Yeah it would affect your ability to become anything else, yes. Djarskublar: Okay, so would it be a positive effect, negative effect...? Because I was like, it gives you cracks in your Spiritweb. Brandon: It does give you cracks in your Spiritweb. Djarskublar: So it's easier for Investiture to get in. Does it make it easier for other Investitures to get in? Brandon: It would make it... yes. It's going to drive spren away. So what it's really going to make easier for, there, is spren and Investiture that doesn't care. Djarskublar: Okay, so Investiture doesn't care but spren do. Brandon: Investiture might care depending on if it's part of a Shard-- if it has intent and things like this. Djarskublar: So it might let Stormlight in easier than a Breath, type thing. Brandon: I'm saying it might let Odium in easier than Syl. Because Syl would care, and Odium would not care. Djarskublar: Okay cool. Brandon: Alright, so it could be a really bad thing, is what I'm trying to say to you. Djarskublar: Yeah that's cool. I just want to know more about gold too. Gold Allomancy too. Because Miles was doing some funky stuff. Brandon: Miles was doing some funky stuff. And that is what I got. It is verbatim because I was recording it. I'm not totally sure yet if it was interesting enough to warrant the question, but I got to chat with him for a couple minutes. It was great and nerve wracking. The signing was amazing because it was really small. There were maybe 50-75 people there, so he could afford to spend a couple minutes just chatting with me. *wigs out a little* I also asked Isaac why the Julia Set was chosen for Roshar, and he said that he couldn't say because he didn't know what Brandon had or had not said. I guess it's more significant than just an Easter egg. I just figured it was a question I could ask Isaac while he was signing my DT copy. I don't know if that is useful or not. It seems to me that Brandon was saying that being a savant would make it easier to acquire other powers, but that Hemalurgy has an effect as well, so it just depends on whether the power cares that you have Hemalurgic spikes more than if you have the cracks in you Spiritweb that makes it easier for it to get in. I almost got him to confirm if Stormlight is blank Investiture, but it didn't quite get past him, so he started being much more careful with his wording. Because of his wording at the end there, I think he was saying that a Hemalurgic savant would be easier for Odium to influence. Trell, anyone? The implications for how one would go about acquiring other Manifestations is quite interesting. Another man also asked about if Kel had been Rosharan, if he could have communicated with the living after he died via Death Rattle. I didn't overhear the answer, but he said that Brandon said that it would be a similar mechanic, but not the same. If he wants to post a more detailed answer, go for it, but I figured it would be better to get it out there. And kudos to @Peng the Just for finding out that Dalinar's wife is named Eevee. This is apparently subject to change, and he didn't get an exact spelling, but still! Go here and give the lucky man an upvote!

So this is really obvious but I hadn't considered it until now. Harmony, being part Ruin can still talk to people with Hemalurgic spikes and according to a WoB I just read on the coppermind, Hemalurgy is not tied to Scadrial specifically. Apparently Hemalurgy will eventually be important to later cosmere stuff. I just got to thinking about it. Harmony could potentially talk to anyone spiked by a metal on any one of the other worlds. Granted the "Spiker" would have to have knowledge of Hemalurgy as intent plays a crucial part. It makes me wonder how far Harmony can already stretch. It's known that there are Kandra somewhere on Roshar already. Can he use them as his eyes and ears? Is Harmony seeding planets with Kandra in hopes of piecing together the mystery of Adonalsium? Most importantly should we be keeping our eyes peeled for anyone with piercings to pop up on the other worlds?

I just read this WoB an idea come to my mind: We know that Trell and Nalt was quite enemies in this Ancient Scadrial's Religion BUT: Some clue seems to point Autonomy as Trell (not confirmed of course) and if Nalt is related to Nalthis we know what Shard lives there. Autonomy and Endowment are quite opposite (maybe not as Ruin and Preservation) but their Intents are the farest I can Imagine. It's possible that the two Shards and maybe some situations between them Inspired this religion. For example Autonomy/Trell has his own single eye (the Sun) a metaphor of Individuality, while Endowment/Nalt has his thousand of eyes (the stars) a metaphor of spreading. Any idea pro or contros to this Idea/theory ?

Don't worry, no Bands Spoilers here. I asked Brandon about Iron Feruchemy at the release party, though. I have had a pet theory about Feruchemical iron for a while - that it messes with the person's connection to the Higgs field. Brandon confirmed it in the signing line. Exact words will, I'm sure, be on the transcript, but I asked specifically if it involved Higgs field stuff, and he said yes. For those who don't know - the Higgs field is a quantum field that interacts with various particles and gives them their mass. The force carrier of the field is the Higgs boson, recently discovered by the LHC. So, by decreasing your interaction with the Higgs field, you could decrease your mass without messing with the amount of matter in you. How it interacts with density would be more subtle, but I think that it works out most of the kinks with Feruchemical iron and density. Sorry for not posting this on the earlier discussion threads, but I couldn't find them fast enough. So you get a new thread for all you people more hardcore about theorizing than I am. I'll just go back to trying to graduate.

So I mentioned this in the Why Savants Exist topic over in Cosmere Theories, but Phantom Monstrosity linked an old topic they started back in '13 with some old info on the God Metals. Most interestingly enough, this info contains two possibly interesting ideas of what a Lerasium/Atium alloy does. http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3409-old-god-metal-info/ I can't bolden/italicise on my tablet but I would like to emphasise where it says 'a substance so volatile it would have world ending repercussions'...Sound like something we know? TL;DR - Ettmetal could possibly be (as already theorised by others) a Lerasium-Atium alloy, which given the opposing and neutralising nature of R&P, could explain the volatility of it. EDIT: The reason I say an alloy instead of Harmonium is the alloy would be two metals in one, where Harmonium would be it's own metal entirely; incredibly similar, yet fundamentally different at the same time