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The Emperor's Soul *Elantris Spoilers*


Windrunner

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So Peter has told us this about a new cosmere novella by started by Brandon.

It's a novella with a magic system based on forgery. Brandon said he was inspired (he started writing it on the flight back from Taiwan) by the story of a Chinese emperor who would stamp or carve his seal on any piece of art he liked.

I, for one, am extraordinarily excited about this. One of my favorite parts of Brandon's works are the innovative magic systems, so I can't wait to see this one. Hopefully this novella will be released this year, because a year without a cosmere book will be bad, since Stormlight 2 is now 2013. I thought we needed a thread for this so speculate away!

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Guest Jacob Santos

Brandon does have a nice way of telling a lot in a short story. However, telling a lot also leaves a lot of questions. I remember his Sci-fi story that was excellent.

Sad Face about Stormlight 2, but I'm rather particular about the book being good rather than early.

A side note, doesn't it pretty much ruin the art when you scar it by painting over the original or cutting into it?

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Brandon does have a nice way of telling a lot in a short story. However, telling a lot also leaves a lot of questions. I remember his Sci-fi story that was excellent.

Sad Face about Stormlight 2, but I'm rather particular about the book being good rather than early.

A side note, doesn't it pretty much ruin the art when you scar it by painting over the original or cutting into it?

It was probably in a corner where it wouldn't me much trouble, just like when artists sign their work.

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  • 1 month later...

Okay I'm necro-ing this topic, so if people want to discuss this they have all the information at their fingertips. There's been an announcement for this novella, now called the Emperor's Soul. It will be published by Tachyon Publications in December 2012. Here's the link to the announcement.

Also here's the summary from lyssie95 who heard part of it read at LTUE. Keep in mind that she says she wrote this a month after the reading, and that Brandon had only written two chapters at this point, so these details are subject to change.

Sounds good!

*didn't record/take notes, so this is all based off of my memory of what happened almost a month ago*

While he was in Taiwan, people had heard that he wrote a short story/novelette(don't remember which) on the way home from France, and they wanted to know what he was going to write on the plane home from there While there, he heard a story of some emperor that, whenever he saw something that he liked, he would have his imperial seal stamped on it. Even if it was a piece of jewelry/jade or something, he'd have the seal carved in.

This became a magic system.

So, if you know enough about a piece of stone (like a part of a wall or something) including what kind it is, where it came from, the entire history of it, then you can convince that rock that if came from somewhere else, say a quarry that had a flaw/fault in it, and depending on your knowledge/persuasiveness you can break through.

The story started with a girl in jail, put in a cell designed for these, I forget the term, engravers or something. Each brick in the cell was a different kind of stone, and in order to break out she needed to craft a symbol to convince the wall that a) it was one unit, and B ) it had a flaw, in order to break out and avoid her imminent execution. Then and oldish guy showed up *hint hint* and said she was wasting her time, said even if she identified every pebble of the wall and knew its origin it was still useless, because the cell was designed specifically to keep her busy until she died.Then he alluded to the possibility that he got her captured, because she had been caught stealing the thing he had already stolen and he saw an easy scapegoat.

Darn it, it is pretty much fuzzy after that.

I'm pretty sure there wasn't too much more to the story, right now Brandon is up to his ears in WoT and he had only had 2 half hour chunks to work on the story.

If I can think of anything else I'll post it, after the reading he had a really short Q&A.

EDIT: Yeah, I'm pretty terrible with summaries :/

One important thing to remember is we now know this Forgery system isn't limited to just stone, if it can construct a new soul (spiritual aspect?) for someone.

So right now the biggest things I want to know are how the symbols are constructed, and what Hoid wanted with the Emperor's scepter? (Containing the Splinter?)

Edited by Windrunner
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Perhaps the Scepter contains the physical aspect of a splinter powering the Magic System of Forgery, and he wanted to restore it to its original shard to assist in combating Odium.

Of course, why have people assumed that Forgery is powered by a Splinter at all? Someone said it sounded "less powerful", but I'm calling BS (not the author, the other one) on that. Even Sazed with two whole Shards couldn't reconstruct a soul.

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Well we only know that they believe that they are reconstructing a soul, how can assassins destroy a soul anyway? Who knows what they're doing in cosmere terms. And Sazed wasn't trying to reconstruct a soul, he was trying to put souls back in bodies and the Emperor isn't dead yet. This soul thing sounds really like the stuff of the spiritual realm to me. Maybe we'll end up with a few more hints on what effect that realm has on personality.

This is my reasoning behind the whole Splinter based magic system. Brandon said that there are ten core Shardworlds. There are other planets in the cosmere containing Splinters, or no Shardic Influence at all. I can't see any Shards not being on one of the ten core worlds where the story of the cosemere is told. There is magic on this planet so it seems there has to be some Shardic influence there. However, Brandon got this idea while on a plane ride back form Taiwan, after he gave this interview about the ten core Shardworlds. This whole story is based off this magic, so he obviously had this idea as a sort of tangent a unique side idea. Since it can't be part of the ten main worlds, which probably have all the Shards, then it makes sense that it is a Splinter based magic, at least it seems logical to me.

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Unless this has been his basic thought process.

"K, there are ten shardworlds (because I say so). Now I just have to come up with enough magics to populate all shardworlds with."

Not impossible, but I personally doubt it. He refused to confirm how many Shardworlds there are for a long time, he didn't want to put a number on it in case he changed his mind. The fact that he put a number on it, implies to me that he has more or less plotted out all the the books he wants in the main cosmere sequence. If he gets a wild hair he can write about Splinter magics or whatever, but I just don't think he would have given us a number unless he knew where he was going.

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Okay I'm necro-ing this topic, so if people want to discuss this they have all the information at their fingertips. There's been an announcement for this novella, now called the Emperor's Soul. It will be published by Tachyon Publications in December 2012. Here's the link to the announcement.

Also here's the summary from lyssie95 who heard part of it read at LTUE. Keep in mind that she says she wrote this a month after the reading, and that Brandon had only written two chapters at this point, so these details are subject to change.

One important thing to remember is we now know this Forgery system isn't limited to just stone, if it can construct a new soul (spiritual aspect?) for someone.

So right now the biggest things I want to know are how the symbols are constructed, and what Hoid wanted with the Emperor's scepter? (Containing the Splinter?)

I thought it was explicitly stated that Forgery only worked on stone. That's my biggest reason for thinking it a Splinter magic.

Edit:

Oh, i see now.

Edited by ReaderAt2046
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So, the fact that you can make Forgeries of items as divergent as stone and Souls has got me thinking. It really seems like the magic system of a full Shard. But I firmly believe we will see all the Shards in the core ten worlds. So I've got an idea. Maybe there is a Shard here currently, but it won't always be on this world, or it came from somewhere else. It could make an appearance in multiple books without being obvious. Especially since this is a novella.

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Is it not possible that this novella will tie in to larger books and series in the future?

I think it possible that when Brandon said "core shardworlds" he meant "shardworlds that will have major events of the cosmere series taking place."

This magic system still seems at least as versatile as Hemalurgy, which to me suggests a whole Shard.

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Well I doubt that this world in particular will be the setting for any other of the major ten. As I said above, the whole idea came after he gave us the number ten, which I don't believe he would have done unless he knew fairly well what he was going to be doing. He had refused to give us a number for a while.

I understand what Brandon meant when he said ten core worlds and I agree with your interpretation. Core means having a major part in the overarching story, and within those ten, Stormlight, Mistborn, and Dragonsteel are the most important. I refuse to believe that not all the Shards will appear at some point within these ten worlds. Worlds having a Shard makes them important. If you follow my logic then this novella can't be a part of the core ten, yet will have some Shardic presence, there are two possibilities. There is a Splinter there, or a Shard will at some point be there, but will not always be on that world. I really don't see any other possibilities. I don't think there can be magic without a Shard, because it is actually an affect of a Shard interacting with a particular world. At least that's the way it's always been thus far, and will continue to be in my opinion.

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Afternoon Tea with Brandon the last part of this post:

On the second day he read from a new novel set in the Elantris world (though in a whole different part of the world, with completely new characters (barring, of course, Hoid)). I didn’t write it down, but the title was something like ‘Soul of the Dragon Emperor’. The magic system involves Forgers, people who can through study and understanding something’s past, forge a soulseal which can change that past so long as it is touching the thing itself. So a Forger could look at an old and battered table, and by studying it—understanding where the wood came from, where the polish came from, so forth—they could then create a soulseal that says the table has been lovingly and carefully cared for, and so long as that seal is laid into the table, the table will no longer be battered and old, but perfectly polished. This is the gist of the plot as well, that something has happened to the Emperor and a talents Forger who works as a thief is supposed to Forge the Emperor’s soul so that it appears as if nothing has happened.

:o

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It's on Sel! That's just amazing. Now we have a grand total of 4 magic systems there. This points heavily to every ethnicity having a magic system. I wonder if the people from Hrovell, Svorden etc. are still Fjordish or if they're their own race entirely. I'm thinking they are all Fjordish. This also makes me wonder if AonDor and Dakhor aren't both made from a combination of the Shards. This whole world just got a lot bigger.

I wonder if this is the same time period as Elantris. Wyrm is not going to be happy when he finds another whole continent of unbelievers. If it's around Elantris's time, Arelon and Teod could get some new allies to resist Fjorden's control and possibly break their empire.

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It's on Sel?! This adds a whole new depth to the question and motive behind

Cosmere spoilers

Odium Splintering Aona and Skai. Maybe to prevent them from acting when a new, probably dangerous Shard, come onto their planet.

Edit: I don't think Arelon and Teod need help with

Elantris Spoilers

the Elantrians restored. Keep in mind, the most dangerous monastery just lost their leader, and a good portion of their troops. With Elantrians, defense should be no problem.

I just wanted to be safe about spoilers, sorry to anyone who has read all of the books.

Edited by Tulir
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Well I don't think we need to add a whole new Shard, although I guess it's a possibility. If there was a 3rd Shard, it wasn't listed in Brandon's list way back when. I guess that could mean that no one interacted with it, but it just seems unlikely. A planet with three Shards would qualify as a major player in my opinion, worth more then a trilogy.

Also, I think Teod and Arelon can exist on there own just fine, at least for now. But Elantrians have absolutely no attack ability at this time, leaving Elantris would make them ineffective against the Fjordell army. I want allies that could possibly disband the Fjordell Empire and free it's satellite nations.

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Yes that's what I meant, sorry if I wasn't clear. Elantrians could probably win any defensive war, and help protect Teod at the same time. However, can you imagine them trying to attack head on? Against the armies of what have to be 5 or 6 separate nations while at reduced strength? They would be slaughtered so fast it wouldn't even be funny. Some of their powers could be useful, like disguises attached to clothes, but other battle powers would be so much weaker.

The way I see it, the Elantrians wouldn't have beat the Dakhor monks in a fair fight. The Dakhor were attacked in a massive sneak attack. If you had the Elantrians and Dakhor march across a field toward each other, their would be no contest. Few are as skilled as Raoden without years of practice. Also their transportation is of limited use, they can attack but not retreat, they would be too weak to return to safety, so they would be caught without fortifications when the enemies surprise wore off. Not saying it couldn't be done, just that I think it would be extremely difficult and require a substantial amount of Elantrians at Raoden's skill level or better.

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Well, if tattooing Aon Rao( I believe that's what Elentris, the city is based off of) onto an Elantrian works like Elantris does, the could go offensive right after Aoden teaches everyone the Aons. :)

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