Magic on Roshar and such

[FirstSelector]

EDIT: I now have conflicting views about how we should organize the Surge pages.

 

The articles on Surgebinding, stormlight, and so on all need to be updated.  There are a few things we need to hammer out before changing.  There is also the complicating issue that the in-world book "Words of Radiance" appears to have been tampered with (or passed through the hands of) the Vorin church.

 

First, the Epigraph on Ch 36 clearly refers to Order 3 as "Releasers," adding that "Dustbringers" is a derogatory epithet.  Which do we want to accept as the actual name of the Order?

 

Second, we need an infotable for the three types of Surgebinding, the ten Surges, and the 30 orders.  Unfortunately, unlike "Metalic Arts," we don't have a good overarching name for the combination of Surgebinding, Voidbinding, and whatever the third magic is.  Does anyone know the general name?

 

Third, with that info box, I would like to bring the ten Surge pages into line with sixteen metal pages.  Have a description of the Surge, how it is used by the six (or fewer, depending on if Voidbinding/magic #3 have pairings) orders, and so on.  We also have to update the Surge names.

 

Fourth, I would like to clean up the pages on the Heralds and Orders.  We can use the Vorin names for the ones we don't know and update as we learn more.  Here, the authenticity of the in-world Words of Radiance is important.

Edited March 6, 2014 by FirstSelector

[Kurkistan]

Those all sound like good ideas to me. I'd probably just go to "Rosharan Magic" for now. Easy to replace when we get the real name and accurate enough, if a bit bland.

[FirstSelector]

I had a good argument (or so I thought) for breaking out all 10 Surges into their own pages.  In a nutshell, I thought that if we wanted to collect all of the information about how each Order uses a Surge (up to six total) then it would be too much information to be contained in one overview page.

 

However, I now think a more elegant solution would be to have one Surge page that briefly describes each of the ten and then links to the Orders that can utilize it.  We can redirect all of the Surge 'pages' to this one page and link to each of the orders from this page.  The current "Surges" page will have to accommodate quite a bit more information.

 

My only concern is that we will have people come to the wiki who want to learn about a particular Surge only to be swamped with information on a too-general page.

 

Thoughts?

Edited March 6, 2014 by FirstSelector

[FirstSelector]

As an aside, we also need to update the file names, captions, and so on for the correct names of the Surges as well.

[Kurkistan]

What I'd like to see (for references sake) is an updated chart ala karaokeang's with all the proper labels.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Kurkistan

[FirstSelector]

The page on the Knights Radiant will ideally have the updated table with all of the names.  I'm just holding off on fixing it until the powers-that-be decide how to proceed.

[FirstSelector]

I want to make an additional point about the current organizational scheme - we have a separate page for the three Lashings.  The issue arises when we consider the fact that the Skybreakers share the Gravity surge and therefore something similar to the Basic and Reverse Lashings.  Imagine that the Skybreakers group their four powers into something called "the Four Impulses."  The first and second are the Basic and Reverse Lashings, respectively, and the third and fourth deal with the Division Surge.

 

How would we organize the wiki under these circumstances?  It seems inappropriate to create ten pages describing the powers based on Order-specific language (i.e. Lashings).  The information on the Lashing page, however, is relevant to Skybreakers, as the Impulses page would be relevant to Windrunners.  Do we really want both pages (with duplicate information) to exist?

 

As an additional example, what about Soulcasters?  This obviously is related to the Transformation Surge and the powers of Elsecallers/Lightweavers, and we would want all of that collected together.

 

This was the crux of the original argument why we should have individual Surge pages, since the various Orders share powers but use Order-specific language to describe the combination of two Surges.

 

Then again, if the Orders that share powers are implemented in different ways, then this is a moot point.  We should get clarification from Team Sanderson on this idea before we commit to an organizational scheme.

[Quazar87]

We should at least update the wiki with the Surges that Words of Radiance defines and combine that with the labels that Brandon confirmed.  Bondsmiths having the Surges of Adhesion and Tension, for example.

 

EDIT: If it matters I also vote for organization by Surges, with appropriate links, and also organization by Orders, the same.

Edited March 7, 2014 by Quazar87

[Argent]

I am not sure if "Rosharan Magic" is the best term here. We refer to the sum of Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy as "the Metallic Arts," not "Scadrian Magic" or "Scadrialian Magic." So, at least for now, I'd probably use Roshar's focus instead of the planet's name - "Stormlight Magic" would be my choice.

[Kurkistan]

The problem with that, Argent, is that several Rosharan magics don't rely upon Stormlight, at least in the day-to-day. Shardblades are fine and dandy without, and Shallan's Memories (confirmed by one of the WoR epigraphs in WoR (wow that could grow confusing)) are also a part of her Bond. Anything relating to spren, it seems, doesn't need to actively feed on Stormlight—I'd bet that, because they're Splinters, they're self-sustaining, but that's a discussion for another day.

[WeiryWriter]

Okay, I've updated the surge-glyph images with their actual names.  I'm also working on an annotated chart, but I want to get the last three order locations confirmed before uploading that.

 

Windy and I agree that the individual surges should not receive their own pages.  The current plan is for everything to be covered on the Surgebinding page, which I will be working on at some point.  I'm currently in favor of condensing the Lashing and Soulcasting pages into it as well, but that is something that will need to be discussed with the other coppermind staff.

[FirstSelector]

I think that is the optimal way forward.  We also need to confirm that Orders that share a Surge implement it in the same way, i.e. both Windrunners and Skybreakers implement the Gravity Surge identically.  Our descriptions would be significantly shorter, then, as we can describe the phenomenon and then say something along the lines of "Windrunners refer to this as a 'Reverse Lashing' and Skybreakers refer to it as a "Second Impulse' (or whatever)."

[Quazar87]

Why should each metal get its own entry but not each surge? That doesn't make any sense.

[Windrunner]

It actually does. Each metal has three distinct abilities in different magic systems. Gold has an effect in Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy, so there is significantly more to write about. If it turns out that the Surges work similarly, across magic systems, then we may change that on down the road, but right now unless another member of the staff thinks differently, they are not getting their own page.

[Quazar87]

It would be the same as making mega-articles detailing feruchemistry, hemalurgy, and allomancy. There are TEN Surges with plenty of complicated uses. Look at Illumination, it allows Shallan to make sorts of illusions doing many different things and also somehow grants Renarin future sight. And Soulcasting! We're really going to merge all the complexity of that into a single article with the Surges? What's the point of a wiki format?

[FirstSelector]

After much thought, I think the issue here is determining the "fundamental unit" for Stormlight magic.  We want to have an organizational system that reflects the actual construction of the magic systems.  In the Metallic Arts, the fundamental units are the metals.  For Stormlight magic, however, we are not sure what the fundamental units are.

 

My gut feeling is that the Surges are the fundamental unit.  They provide specific powers in each of the three systems, and the Orders in those systems combine two of these units while keeping them separate.  In this scenario, Windrunners and Skybreakers both have access to the Gravitation Surge and are granted identical powers.  Voidrunners and Voidbreakers are both granted Void-Gravitation, and this power is different than Surge-Gravitation.

 

In the other scenario, Windrunners get the three Lashings.  These three powers are all some combination of Adhesion and Gravitation.  Skybreakers, on the other hand, get a different set of powers that are some combination of Gravitation and Division.  Voidrunners are granted a different set of Void-Lashings that are a combination of Void-Adhesion and Void-Gravitation.

 

In the first scenario, I believe it is appropriate to have pages for the individual Surges.  The Surges are the fundamental building blocks.  This is in analogy to the Metallic Arts, where the Allomancy page is more about overarching concepts, history, and effects without covering all of the powers directly.  The Surgebinding page would provide universal ideas and information about the whole magic system. Individual Surge pages would document the powers in each magic system.  Pages about the Orders would document their history, personality, spren, and perks without having to explain all of detail of their powers.

 

Now, we could put all of the information from the individual Surges onto the system-wide pages.  This could work, though it risks putting too much information on the system-wide page and cluttering it up.  We could instead shift the information onto the pages for the Orders, but then these pages would have to stay synchronized and it doesn't reflect the organizational structure of the magic itself.

 

In the second scenario, the Orders are the fundamental building blocks.  The powers of a given Order are not easily separable into two distinct Surges.  Thus, the pages on each Order would describe their powers and there would be overarching pages for the whole system.  Clearly, pages on the individual Surges don't make sense since they get combined in different ways to give rise to the powers of a given Order.

 

Evidence, I believe, points towards the first scenario being correct.  Nin cannot determine which Order Lift is until he sees her use Regrowth, which implies that the Releasers and Edgedancers implemented Abrasion in the same fashion.  Jasnah needs to have Shallan describe her spren before the former is able to determine the latter's Order.  It is possible that this is not the case for the other two magic systems.

 

I believe that there are additional "perks," such as Shallan's memory and Kaladin riding the storm, that are due to the spren themselves.  However, these do not appear to modify the way in which a Surgebinder utilizes a given Surge.

 

In summary, I believe that our organization structure should reflect that of the magic itself.  Furthermore, I believe that Surges are the fundamental building blocks for the three magic systems, despite limited evidence.  As such, I believe the most faithful representation of the magic (in analogy to what we have for the Metallic Arts) is to have a page for each Surge.  We could collect all of the information about the Surge in different places (the system-wide page, the page of each Order, etc) but it clutters pages or does not emphasize the connected nature of the Orders in the correct way.

[Quazar87]

Divide it by Order or divide it by Surge, heck divide it by both with duplicate info.  But don't combine the entire magic system into one article.  That defeats the the entire point of having a wiki format.

[MistLord]

... Spren-binding? Though I don't know how the Nightwatcher works, so... 

 

(just a suggestion for an encompassing name)

[Tempus]

I'd like to propose something. Surgebinding, voidbinding, and even what little we know of the old magic all have another thing in common besides stormlight - deals. All three of the above systems require making a deal with things. I'm certain Sanderson has his own cannon name for the systems on Roshar, but perhaps the name could center around just binding. The whole book has a binding theme going on.

 

Could you just call it 'Rosharan Binding' for now? Or similar.

 

 

 

Rejected names: Mercantile Magics, Bondage Arts

[Chaos]

I'm still very confused how we would even build a chart combining all three of those magic systems together, name or no name. We don't have enough information on Voidbinding or Old Magic to even do that. Seems... very very silly to me.

[Swimmingly]

Maybe beg Peter for an mostly empty spreadsheet with the headings grouped so that we can assume that there's some common component, and extrapolate or at least have empty wiki articles to fill?

[Chaos]

I still think it is entirely irrelevant to try and make one gigantic grouping of it all. The other questions, however, like how to organize the Surges, are valid.

[Kurkistan]

So far as organizing the Surges/powers goes, Brandon said at a recent signing that a Skybreaker's use of gravity will look basically like a Windrunner's, with maybe a bit of difference. No link at the moment, sorry, but it should be fairly easy to find.

 

EDIT: Here it is.

 

Source:

Do Surges shared by adjacent Orders act the same? (This was a long, involved question and I paraphrased

A: Mainly, yes. The mix of the two Surges will modify their use slightly, but for the most part, individual Surges are themselves. When you see Skybreakers use the Gravity Surge, it will look much the same as when Windrunners use it.

Edited March 23, 2014 by Kurkistan

[entropicscholar]

Second, we need an infotable for the three types of Surgebinding, the ten Surges, and the 30 orders.  Unfortunately, unlike "Metalic Arts," we don't have a good overarching name for the combination of Surgebinding, Voidbinding, and whatever the third magic is.  Does anyone know the general name?

I beleive it is called the Nahel Bond.

This is the "spren-bond" that grants humans and parshendi access to surgebinding and voidbinding. It would probably be appropriate in reference to the "Cultivation binding", if such a thing exists.

 

I don't know if that's what you were looking for.

Edited April 6, 2014 by entropicscholar