Cosmere 101

[Cheese Ninja]

I'm not sure if this is explicitly stated anywhere, but I feel like I've seen differing opinions on it.

Do the Shards power the magic themselves, or do they all draw from the same source? (Brandon's oft-mentioned "power of creation")

I've gotten the impression that it is the latter.

In the case that they and every magic user draw from the same source, the key to their actual ability to use magic is determined by the amount of the Shard that they hold. For the beings known as Shards, this a massively different scale than the people they've Invested with, and if use Ati/Leras as examples, Leras put a bit more Preservation into people and things, and so he was weaker than Ati, who put a bit less Ruin into people. It works on the normal human scale as well, if a Scadrial native has the median amount (not the average, never the average...) of Preservation he can't access any magic, a bit more and he would be a Misting, a whole lot more and he'd be a Mistborn, and Lerasium-made Mistborn would have had even more.

BUT, even if the scales are different, Shards and normal magic users are operating under the same system. Which makes things interesting.

[Zas678]

As far as I know, there are two different theories on power of magic. One is Chaos's, seen a little in his Principle of Intent. One is my Power of Creation.

In the Principle of Intent, Chaos talks about how the energy comes from the Shard, and that this power ends up being pretty similar from shard to shard, which is why it's called Power of Creation.

In the Power of Creation, I talk about how there's this one source of massive power called the Power of Creation (presumably left over from Adonalsium) that some of the magic systems (like Allomancy and AonDor) draw their powers from.

They both are a little outdated, but they're both pretty good.

[Cheese Ninja]

As far as I know, there are two different theories on power of magic. One is Chaos's, seen a little in his Principle of Intent. One is my Power of Creation.

In the Principle of Intent, Chaos talks about how the energy comes from the Shard, and that this power ends up being pretty similar from shard to shard, which is why it's called Power of Creation.

In the Power of Creation, I talk about how there's this one source of massive power called the Power of Creation (presumably left over from Adonalsium) that some of the magic systems (like Allomancy and AonDor) draw their powers from.

They both are a little outdated, but they're both pretty good.

Hmm, I don't like Chaos's idea that if a Shard expends power in a way that is outside the original intent of the Shard, that power will never return to them. Oddly enough, it doesn't bother me if I change it to "is much less effective and slower to return to them." The impression I've gotten from the Brandon interviews and Q&As is that

the intent of the Shard affects primarily two things: 1) How it determines magic ability among normal humans and how they access said magic. 2) The mind of the individual holding the Shard. There's probably numerous other effects of Shards, including some unique to individual Shards, but none have been pointed out with the frequency of those two things. To be fair, even though Chaos says it's his "most brilliant idea ever" he admits he came up with it just then and doesn't offer any solid evidence for it. Most of Chaos's theory seems like pretty obvious stuff anyway, but it's nice to see it all in one place. I'd been avoiding that thread only because I thought it would be more sloppy supposition than accumulated evidence.

I didn't like how you separated Shard power and Power of Creation power, until I looked closer at the Brandon HoA quote and decided there was some merit to it. Honestly, that one Q&A seemed like the most info packed one about how Cosmere magic actually works. Expending Shard Power seems like just another way to access the Power of Creation, with less rules and more possibilities than using a tiny bit of Invested Shardstuff in a normal human physical form, with the necessary disparate components required by Realmatic theory. (I know that Realmatic Theory is how Brandon refers to it, but it sounds kind of silly when we haven't seen it used in any of the books, even in the Ars Arcanum.) Human Power doesn't feel like a thing to me at all.

None of Chaos's quotes can completely counter the notion that Preservation confers "access to the power of creation by channeling it through Preservation" rather than just "power of Preservation", but some do come close. As to why I'm stuck on this distinction... it isn't pretty, but I'll type it out anyway.

It's the damnation Nicrosil Investiture Compounding.

On a large enough scale, it breaks the magic system. Not just Allomancy or Feruchemy, but rather every Cosmere magic system. As long as Compounding allows for cheating the system by taking out more than is put in, Compounding Investiture means you end up with more of a Shard than you started with. Is it possible to pull enough of a Shards power through Investiture compounding that it bankrupts the mind actually holding a Shard? I don't see why not... What happens then? The Shard gets transferred to the Compounder?

And why do I think this could affect Shards besides Ruin and Preservation? Because the other attributes that can be stored with Feruchemy don't limit the storage to Ruin or Preservation, but rather allow storage of universal human traits. If someone had Breaths, I think they could store the Endowment Investiture, compound it, and end up with even more Endowment than they started with, which could translate to more Breaths, or at the very least, 10x more powerful Breaths of the same number, and that's just on the first iteration. On the third iteration, each of those breaths would be capable of Awakening Nightblood by itself.

Sorry, I had to get that out. Even it holds true, it shouldn't matter until the endgame. The only Worldhoppers we have at this point are the Shards themselves, the 17th Shard, and Hoid. And Hoid has collected nuggets of Lerasium and Atium for himself. And Hoid has apparently visited every world we've seen, where he behaves fairly innocently during events of great interest and upheaval.

[Zas678]

Yeah, those two theories don't reflect any of the questions that have been asked. There's a couple that clarify Chaos's Principle into pretty much what you said above (the mind of the Shard, and the method of the magic system, rather than the intention of the magic user), and I'm the only one that has used Human Power.

One of the reasons why the Principle of Intent seems so obvious know is because a lot of the stuff that has been done since is because of the Principle. Chaos pointed out that Allomancy preserves the power of the person, Hemalurgy ruins it, Awakening lets us give it to someone else, and that let us speculate which Shards have been powering magic in Way of Kings, and (sort of) helped us get the Intents for the Elantrian Shards.

And I agree with you. The HoA Q&A is probably our basis for most of the Cosmere. It's partially because it was on the TWG forum, which was where many of the users who are here came from, it's partially because HoA deals with Shards much more so than any of the other books, partially because it's just as Brandon was getting really popular so he had more time to spend on our thread, and it's partially because it was the end of a MASSIVE amount of theorizing about HoA. (A good example is Chaos's beastly Hemalurgy thread. One of the users said about it "Good Lord, Chaos! It'll be faster to read the book!")

I think that we need a better definition of Investiture, and what Nicrosil Twinborns can do before declaring it broken. So far, we only have the RPG, which we know has tweaked with the magic a little bit so it works for gameplay.

[Bunyod]

One question.

Can one assume that Hoid is a sliver of all the 16 Shards? If he was present during the creation of 16 shards, and if we know that he is not a holder of any one particular shard, can we assume that he temporarily hold on to every 16 shards and became a sliver of them all?

Do I make sence?

*************** second question*****************

This quoate is from wiki

Ruin and Preservation are the only Shards on Scadrial at the moment.[29] By the time of the Hero of Ages spoiler thread (before the Way of Kings release), Brandon mentioned that there were four Shards other than Ruin and Preservation that have been seen:

“You've interacted with two directly.

One is a tough call. You've never met the Shard itself, but you've seen its power.

The other one you have not met directly, but have seen its influence. ”

— Brandon Sanderson[30]

this quote is from "The Hero of Ages/Epigraphs"

Rashek wore both black and white. I think he wanted to show that he was a duality, Preservation and Ruin.

This, of course, was a lie. After all, he had only touched one of the powers—and only in a very small way at that.

Allomancy, obviously, is of Preservation. The rational mind will see this. For, in the case of Allomancy, net power is gained. It is provided by an external source—Preservation's own body.

Hemalurgy is of Ruin. It destroys. By taking abilities from one person and giving them to another—in reduced amounts—power is actually lost. In line with Ruin's own appointed purpose—breaking down the universe into smaller and smaller pieces—Hemalurgy gives great gifts, but at a high cost.

Feruchemy, it should be noted, is the power of balance. Of the three powers, only it was known to men before the conflict between Preservation and Ruin came to a head. In Feruchemy, power is stored up, then later drawn upon. There is no loss of energy—just a changing of the time and rate of its use.

Can we take into consideration the bolded sentence from the first quote and apply it to bolded description in the second quote and consider that Feruchemy comes from the third shard's power? Just asking...

Edited March 26, 2012 by Bunyod

[Chaos]

One question.

Can one assume that Hoid is a sliver of all the 16 Shards? If he was present during the creation of 16 shards, and if we know that he is not a holder of any one particular shard, can we assume that he temporarily hold on to every 16 shards and became a sliver of them all?

Do I make sence?

You do make sense, but we can't necessarily assume that he actually held onto any Shard. It's all very mysterious what happened when Adonalsium Shattered. There are a lot of different possibilities. We don't even know how the Shattering occurred.

So, Hoid could very well have simply been an outside observer to the Shattering, but never had a chance to hold onto a Shard. That's certainly a possibility, but yours is also a possibility. We can only speculate madly on the subject

[Bunyod]

You do make sense, but we can't necessarily assume that he actually held onto any Shard. It's all very mysterious what happened when Adonalsium Shattered. There are a lot of different possibilities. We don't even know how the Shattering occurred.

So, Hoid could very well have simply been an outside observer to the Shattering, but never had a chance to hold onto a Shard. That's certainly a possibility, but yours is also a possibility. We can only speculate madly on the subject

Thanks for your answer. Can you give me your opinion for my second question about Feruchemy as well?

As for Hoid,

If he is not a sliver, how come he has an ability to live a long life and travel through Worlds ?

Heralds were gone thousands of years ago, yet Hoid knew them personally and he greeted the tenth Herald as an old friend.

[Chaos]

Thanks for your answer. Can you give me your opinion for my second question about Feruchemy as well?

As for Hoid,

If he is not a sliver, how come he has an ability to live a long life and travel through Worlds ?

Heralds were gone thousands of years ago, yet Hoid knew them personally and he greeted the tenth Herald as an old friend.

We have no knowledge about how Hoid can travel through worlds or live for such a long time. However, saying that Hoid is a Sliver doesn't necessarily solve those problems. For one thing, Slivers that we have seen (Vin, Rashek) aren't immortal in the way you need Hoid to be. Second, other people, like Galladon and Demoux, have learned to worldhop. So Hoid need not be a Sliver to worldhop, either.

Really, it's anyone's guess how worldhopping looks. Hoid is a serious mystery.

I'll get your Feruchemy question right now. I think you edited your post after I replied, so I didn't see it

One question.

Can one assume that Hoid is a sliver of all the 16 Shards? If he was present during the creation of 16 shards, and if we know that he is not a holder of any one particular shard, can we assume that he temporarily hold on to every 16 shards and became a sliver of them all?

Do I make sence?

*************** second question*****************

This quoate is from wiki

Ruin and Preservation are the only Shards on Scadrial at the moment.[29] By the time of the Hero of Ages spoiler thread (before the Way of Kings release), Brandon mentioned that there were four Shards other than Ruin and Preservation that have been seen:

“You've interacted with two directly.

One is a tough call. You've never met the Shard itself, but you've seen its power.

The other one you have not met directly, but have seen its influence. ”

— Brandon Sanderson[30]

this quote is from "The Hero of Ages/Epigraphs"

Rashek wore both black and white. I think he wanted to show that he was a duality, Preservation and Ruin.

This, of course, was a lie. After all, he had only touched one of the powers—and only in a very small way at that.

Allomancy, obviously, is of Preservation. The rational mind will see this. For, in the case of Allomancy, net power is gained. It is provided by an external source—Preservation's own body.

Hemalurgy is of Ruin. It destroys. By taking abilities from one person and giving them to another—in reduced amounts—power is actually lost. In line with Ruin's own appointed purpose—breaking down the universe into smaller and smaller pieces—Hemalurgy gives great gifts, but at a high cost.

Feruchemy, it should be noted, is the power of balance. Of the three powers, only it was known to men before the conflict between Preservation and Ruin came to a head. In Feruchemy, power is stored up, then later drawn upon. There is no loss of energy—just a changing of the time and rate of its use.

Can we take into consideration the bolded sentence from the first quote and apply it to bolded description in the second quote and consider that Feruchemy comes from the third shard's power? Just asking...

Nope. In the first quote, Brandon is talking about additional Shards. However, Feruchemy is explicitly a function of Ruin and Preservation. This is supported by many many quotes. In the second passage, "power" refers to the magic system.

In fact in the first quote, Brandon says at the top that he's referring to Shards other than Ruin and Preservation. So he can't be talking about Feruchemy.

We've actually figured out all the Shards Brandon was talking about in that first quote.

You've interacted with two directly. - This refers definitely to Endowment, where Lightsong interacts with the Voice. Also, Devotion, when Raoden went in the pool in Elantris.

One is a tough call. You've never met the Shard itself, but you've seen its power. - This probably refers to Dominion, the second Shard on Sel. We see his power from the Dahkor monks.

The other one you have not met directly, but have seen its influence. - This certainly applies to Odium, who went to Sel and killed Aona and Skai (Devotion and Dominion's holders, respectively). We haven't seen his magic--at least, at the time of Hero of Ages--but his influence was definitely felt on Sel by the time we saw it.

[Bunyod]

Hoid:

If the author of the famous letter is indeed Hoid, it means that he knows shard holders intimately. Therefore, he lives for thousands of years. He is writing to one of the shard holders to help him in his quest. That suggests that Hoid is a very powerful person/being. So, I guessed that he is a sliver of all 16 shards.

You've interacted with two directly. - This refers definitely to Endowment, where Lightsong interacts with the Voice. Also, Devotion, when Raoden went in the pool in Elantris.

One is a tough call. You've never met the Shard itself, but you've seen its power. - This probably refers to Dominion, the second Shard on Sel. We see his power from the Dahkor monks.

The other one you have not met directly, but have seen its influence. - This certainly applies to Odium, who went to Sel and killed Aona and Skai (Devotion and Dominion's holders, respectively). We haven't seen his magic--at least, at the time of Hero of Ages--but his influence was definitely felt on Sel by the time we saw it.

My understanding was that the question and answers were regarding Mistbron and not Elantris. So, I put the answers in this light:

You've interacted with two directly. Preservation and Ruin in Mistborn with their powers - Allomancy and Hemallurgy.

One is a tough call. You've never met the Shard itself, but you've seen its power. Shard is unknown but its power is Ferumchemy.

The other one you have not met directly, but have seen its influence. My guess is the shard's influence is mists themselves. But i may be wrong.

Its all guess though.

Edited March 26, 2012 by Bunyod

[Chaos]

Hoid:

If the author of the famous letter is indeed Hoid, it means that he knows shard holders intimately. Therefore, he lives for thousands of years. He is writing to one of the shard holders to help him in his quest. That suggests that Hoid is a very powerful person/being. So, I guessed that he is a sliver of all 16 shards.

That's a perfectly fine speculation, but it's also possible that he isn't a sliver at all, but something else. We don't have enough information to say.

My understanding was that the question and answers were regarding Mistbron and not Elantris. So, I put the answers in this light:

You've interacted with two directly. Preservation and Ruin in Mistborn with their powers - Allomancy and Hemallurgy.

One is a tough call. You've never met the Shard itself, but you've seen its power. Shard is unknown but its power is Ferumchemy.

The other one you have not met directly, but have seen its influence. My guess is the shard's influence is mists themselves. But i may be wrong.

Its all guess though.

Not exactly, that Q&A was where we first heard of Shards. So while it is partially Mistborn, it's also the introduction of the greater cosmere. But as that quote explicitly says "Brandon mentioned that there were four Shards other than Ruin and Preservation that have been seen," and then lists them. So the two we've interacted with directly are not Ruin and Preservation, because we're excluding them in this list.

Feruchemy is not of a particular Shard, but a balance between Ruin and Preservation. Also, the white mists are the power of Preservation directly.

Brandon is referring to non-Mistborn Shards here.

[Tulir]

How does Preservation when held by Kelsier, speak to Spook and when held by Vin, speak to Elend. I thought Preservation was the mind reader, not a mind writer.

Edited March 26, 2012 by Tulir

[CrazyRioter]

That was somebody's theory, not a fact, and it was discarded because of those incidents.

[Chaos]

How does Preservation when held by Kelsier, speak to Spook and when held by Vin, speak to Elend.

In the Hero of Annotations, Brandon implies that Spook could hear Kelsier when he held Preservation because Spook was the only one who truly believes in him. Faith, on some level, makes it easier to communicate with Shards. Similarly, Elend has faith in Vin.

Indeed, this could be one explanation for why Harmony can read Wax's mind in Alloy of Law, because Wax believes in him.

[Tulir]

That makes sense, however, I thought Harmony only read Wax's mind when he had the earring in.

[Kelek]

That makes sense, however, I thought Harmony only read Wax's mind when he had the earring in.

I believe that is because of: 1 - Wax's faith in Harmony and 2 - Ruins ability to control and communicate with spiked people.

[Zas678]

It's probably a combination of a bunch of things. My thinking ts that there's certain cognitive walls around your mind that prevent people from getting in/influencing it. If your walls are worn down a little bit, then a Shard can talk with you. If your walls are worn down enough, than the Shard can read your mind as well.

Here's the list of things that "wear down" Wax's walls in regards to Harmony.

1. He has Faith in Harmony. A s we see in HoA, this allows Preservation's shard to communicate with people (Kelsier, and Vin, to Spook and Elend).

2. He is using Hemalurgy. This creates a "hole" in the cognitive wall that allows for control, as well of insertion of though.

3. He is using Allomancy. I don't know if this is really that important, but the only Preservation-insertion thoughts were with allomancers (but then again, everyone's an allomancer in Mistborn).

4. He is using Feruchemy. There's a chance that if 3 is true, that this will be true as well. After all, if Feruchemy is the balance of Ruin and Preservation, it makes sense that it would be of Harmony.

5. He may be fuelled by Harmony. Notice how Wax says he feels "stronger in the mists?" And notice how in Marasi's time bubble he suddenly hits a wave of weariness? It sounds an awful lot like Wax may be receiving some pewter burning from Harmony.

6. He's in the mists. The mists are a sign of Harmony, and I'd imagine it makes it easier for him to communicate.

A (better way of saying this is to say that the stronger the connection between Harmony and Wax, the lower the cognitive walls are.

[happyman]

So, I didn't know exactly where to post this and it didn't really seem worthy of its own thread but I was wondering, how do you think Brandon will handle the "big revelations" of the cosmere in terms of casual readers who may or may not ever read more than a few of his books.

I mean, say you were reading a Mistborn book in the third set of trilogies. You have only ever read Mistborn books by Sanderson and you have never looked at forums like these. You will have no idea about Seventeenth Shard or Odium or Endowment. So what happens if Rayse comes to Scadrial to try to kill Sazed and you are like, "What? Who the hell is Rayse?!".

Obviously he wouldn't do it just like that, but how would he do it? Like I said, didn't think it was worth its own thread, but it might be.

Since we know there is more backstory than we have gotten, even in our detailed study, all Brandon really needs to do is bring out more than he has hinted at. In other words: The stuff we've worked out will probably be only a part of the reveal when he gets to it.

I mean, Hemalurgy came as a major revelation in HoA, despite the "ink" spilled on it before. I expect similar things here.

[cleric]

Basics 2.0 is there any chance of getting this written? I have read every sanderson book and still find myself getting lost in the theory crafting stuff. This article does a good job of introducing the basics, but siting where that information came from would be nice. As well as a basic jump from the basics to the current thinking. For example, I got lost when the shard holders came up. Where did the namee of the planets and shard holders come from?

[Voidus]

Where did the namee of the planets and shard holders come from?

The planets were from interviews, Shardholder names were from Mistborn (Ati and Leras) and WoK (Rayse, Aona, Skai)

[dj26792]

Basically cleric, to get from knowing the basics to confident theoriser extraordinaire is learning to use THIS.

You'll learn things as you go you'll see where peoples theories are headed and you'll work out which ones you agree with and disagree with, the best thing is to stick at it, the knowledge will come, and you'll be surprised how quickly it does come.

[cleric]

oh bugger.... well i wanted something to read while waiting for more stormlight. guess I got my wish

[Mailliw73]

As for Hoid,

If he is not a sliver, how come he has an ability to live a long life and travel through Worlds ?

Heralds were gone thousands of years ago, yet Hoid knew them personally and he greeted the tenth Herald as an old friend.

I believe, and please correct me if I am wrong, that as for living a long life, he is not the only one, and I believe that it is an effect of world hopping, as elantris takes place thousands? Of years before mistborn, yet fall galladon and demoux travel together to TWoK, which takes place hundreds of years later, so Hoid couldn't be the only one to do that

[Straff Venture]

I believe, and please correct me if I am wrong, that as for living a long life, he is not the only one, and I believe that it is an effect of world hopping, as elantris takes place thousands? Of years before mistborn, yet fall galladon and demoux travel together to TWoK, which takes place hundreds of years later, so Hoid couldn't be the only one to do that

Supposedly, Galladon would live a long life because he's an Elantrian and it's theorised Demoux is compounding atium.

[Lightflame]

Supposedly, Galladon would live a long life because he's an Elantrian and it's theorised Demoux is compounding atium.

And Blunt is immortal because he's black.

[frozndevl]

Also, Hoid may not simply be aging, he may be moving forward in time as he hops between worlds.