Jump to content

Aether of Night Magic


Recommended Posts

So i know Brandon said AoN wasn’t canon, but the magic, or at least parts of it are. I don’t really have the time right now to read the book, but I’m still interested in the magic system. Could someone explain the basics to me? Or am I breaking some rules by asking?

Link to comment

There's several types of bonds that can be created. Bestarin, Ferrous, Verdant, Aedin, Vo-Dari, and Night. The whole magic system is based on family lines.

Bestarin, Aedin and Night are tied together, same for Ferrous, Verdant and Vo-Dari (Light).

1) Bestarin are people that are wounded in battle and have had body parts replaced by animal parts. 

2) Aedin are given gemstones that are bonded to their palm. From this they are able to create weapons and armor. Think Shardblades, Shardhammers and Shardplate.

3) Night is directly from a Shardpool. It allows sudden transport for the user (think Apparating from Harry Potter universe) and also supplements Amberite bonds, which wasn't known. It also allows the user to manipulate shadows/shadow beings.

4) Ferrous are people that bond to create some machine for society, elevators, giant Walker machines. It's not explained very well.

5) Verdant also have gems embedded in their palms, and they can create food/create vines to tie in combat.

6) Light is used by the chosen priests for Sending. Again, like Harry Potter Apparating, but someone does it for/to you.

I wish I could explain it better, but it's been a bit since I read it and some of the magic is not explained super well.

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Naurock said:

There's several types of bonds that can be created. Bestarin, Ferrous, Verdant, Aedin, Vo-Dari, and Night. The whole magic system is based on family lines.

Bestarin, Aedin and Night are tied together, same for Ferrous, Verdant and Vo-Dari (Light).

1) Bestarin are people that are wounded in battle and have had body parts replaced by animal parts. 

2) Aedin are given gemstones that are bonded to their palm. From this they are able to create weapons and armor. Think Shardblades, Shardhammers and Shardplate.

3) Night is directly from a Shardpool. It allows sudden transport for the user (think Apparating from Harry Potter universe) and also supplements Amberite bonds, which wasn't known. It also allows the user to manipulate shadows/shadow beings.

4) Ferrous are people that bond to create some machine for society, elevators, giant Walker machines. It's not explained very well.

5) Verdant also have gems embedded in their palms, and they can create food/create vines to tie in combat.

6) Light is used by the chosen priests for Sending. Again, like Harry Potter Apparating, but someone does it for/to you.

I wish I could explain it better, but it's been a bit since I read it and some of the magic is not explained super well.

This is the forum for it, so not a big deal, but there are spoilers in this.

Link to comment
9 minutes ago, Kidpen said:

No. Unless you want to mention that light is also from a shardpool (I think).

I'm pretty sure it was, also. Shardpools before Brandon knew what Shardpools were. He's cannibalized this story for almost all Cosmere stories.

Gol => Koloss

Amberite Aether => Shards in SA

Slaughter & Despair => Ruin/Preservation

I remember there were other things too, I just don't remember. I want to reread it, I really enjoyed it. But I just don't have the time.

Link to comment
4 hours ago, Naurock said:

There's several types of bonds that can be created. Bestarin, Ferrous, Verdant, Aedin, Vo-Dari, and Night. The whole magic system is based on family lines.

You've got a couple wires crossed. The Aedin are the people who have Aethers. They're divided into four lines and the last one is Amberite. The Vo-Dari are the sole users of one of the 'God Aethers' which is properly called Luminous.

Quote

4) Ferrous are people that bond to create some machine for society, elevators, giant Walker machines. It's not explained very well.

This one is the most interesting system in a lot of ways and like you said, it's not at all explained. Probably because there's only one Ferrous character of any note and she's less a character and more a plot device.

A quick list of the machines (called Corpates) we know Ferrous bonds can become include large walking machines used for public transportation, smaller versions that can climb walls and serve as elevators and stationary heaters/light sources. The Ferrous bond actually becomes the Corpate, sacrificing their humanity but unless something happens to the corpate they become functionally immortal. Ferrous bonds who haven't transformed (the majority of them) are able to communicate with the soul inside the Corpates.

2 hours ago, Naurock said:

Gol => Koloss

Amberite Aether => Shards in SA

Has Brandon ever said the Gol became the Koloss? Because I don't think that's been confirmed and the name actually originates in Mythwalker, an unfinished work that Brandon wrote before Aether and which also included skaa and a backstory that would be cannibalized into Mistborn (and possibly Final Empire Prime before that) among lots of other things.

So far as we know, amberite was first mentioned there too. I wouldn't say that it became the Shards of Stormlight Archive, especially since we see one of them in SA. Aethers do seem to have contributed to Brandon's development of the spren though and he's mentioned that Syl originated in an idea he had for more works using the Aether concept.

Quote

I remember there were other things too, I just don't remember. I want to reread it, I really enjoyed it. But I just don't have the time.

- Verdant bonds and the Forgotten may have contributed a bit to the cultivationspren and Midnight Essence respectively, from Stormlight Archive.

- Aedin customs regarding hierarchy based on birth order may have inspired some of the Horneater customs, also from SA.

- The Shentis concept may have inspired the Siah Aimians to some extent.

Edited by Weltall
Link to comment
45 minutes ago, Weltall said:

You've got a couple wires crossed. The Aedin are the people who have Aethers. They're divided into four lines and the last one is Amberite. The Vo-Dari are the sole users of one of the 'God Aethers' which is properly called Luminous.

This one is the most interesting system in a lot of ways and like you said, it's not at all explained. Probably because there's only one Ferrous character of any note and she's less a character and more a plot device.

A quick list of the machines (called Corpates) we know Ferrous bonds can become include large walking machines used for public transportation, smaller versions that can climb walls and serve as elevators and stationary heaters/light sources. The Ferrous bond actually becomes the Corpate, sacrificing their humanity but unless something happens to the corpate they become functionally immortal. Ferrous bonds who haven't transformed (the majority of them) are able to communicate with the soul inside the Corpates.

Has Brandon ever said the Gol became the Koloss? 

Yeah, I was bound to mess up some names/titles. 

Ferrous bonds could absolutely be an interesting magic system, but it just wasn't expounded upon. It almost seems like these people are so "Devoted" to society that they choose to give up their life for societies better good. I find it interesting that they've been warring at the border, but these Ferrous don't become machines of war, like tanks or anything of that sort.

No, Brandon has not said Koloss came from Gol, that is something I drew. I shouldn't have said it so conclusively like that.

Link to comment
22 minutes ago, Apollyon said:

Does the fact that Mraize (who is a worldhopper) says that his cloak is stained with ‘aether’ related?

Yep. Also the orange crystal in his lair in WoR is the Amberite Aether... it’s popped up a few times so far.  

Link to comment

Just to confirm that one, we've believed the chunk of crystal Shallan notices to be an Aether since WoR came out and Peter mentioned a while back that we've seen evidence of Aethers in published works. The comment in OB about the stain seemed to confirm it and Brandon finally said that yes, that's what it is. Mraize can't use it, though we don't know if it's because the Aether is too weak to form a bond (something we saw happen in the novel) or if someone could bond it but Mraize lacks whatever is necessary, probably Connection to whatever Shard is behind the Aethers.

Link to comment
On 4/22/2018 at 0:21 AM, Apollyon said:

Does the fact that Mraize (who is a worldhopper) says that his cloak is stained with ‘aether’ related?

I would suspect not, if only because there is an RL chemical also called "aether" - which is clear when dry, leading me to believe that the stain Mraize so quickly awarded a 3-firemark bonus for removing was a convenient excuse to get the washerwoman out of the room.  EDIT: the suspiciously delicate crystal in Mraize's trophy room is indeed an Aether (note the capital letter).  On that note, I seem to recall that the Aethers require a bond with a human to live, after harvesting (it's been a while and I don't recall where they got the Aethers in the first place).  So even if Mraize had what it takes, the one he has is probably long dead.  

Edited by Landis963
Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/26/2018 at 8:25 PM, Landis963 said:

On that note, I seem to recall that the Aethers require a bond with a human to live, after harvesting (it's been a while and I don't recall where they got the Aethers in the first place

In Aether of Night the aethers come from sources located around the world. We only see three of them, the midnight pool, the light pool, and the Verdent. They then weaken if they're not bonded to a human. The aether's also show up in one other non canon story, but beyond showing that they weaken over time, nothing else is shown off about them.

Link to comment
4 minutes ago, Wandering Investor said:

Liar of Partinel. There were 6 chapters available, but Brandon discouraged readers from seeking it out, and its no longer available anyways. 

Dang it. Why did it have to be taken down...

Link to comment
3 hours ago, Kidpen said:

Dang it. Why did it have to be taken down...

Brandon really really didn't like it.

Quote

Six years ago, I was writing a book that I hated.

Now, that's both rare and common for me at the same time. I tire of pretty much every book I work on at some point, usually during the revision process. I push through and get over it. That's what you do as a writer. By the time I'm done with the process, I'm tired of the book—but it's the good kind of tired. The "I worked hard, and now have something awesome to show for it" tired.

Unfortunately, that wasn't happening for this book. Called The Liar of Partinel, every chapter was a chore to write. Though it had started very well, it continued to spiral farther and farther down the drain. I was familiar enough with my own writing by this point to realize the problems with Liar wouldn't work themselves out. The characters were boring, the plot forced. The worldbuilding elements never quite clicked together.

It had been years since I'd had such a bad feeling about a novel. (The last time, in fact, was Mythwalker—my sixth unpublished book—which I abandoned halfway through.) Part of the problem, I suspect, had to do with my expectations. Liar, set in the same world as Dragonsteel, was to be the origin story of Hoid, the character who has appeared in all of my Cosmere novels. (Information here—warning, big spoilers.)

I needed Hoid's story to be epic and awesome. It just wasn't. And so, I ended up "hiding" from that novel and working on something else instead.

source

Even when the samples were available, Brandon discouraged people from reading them, not only because of how he hated the book but how reading the sample would give the wrong impression of at least one character (and probably more)

Quote

When I write a book when a character doesn’t click, then that book often fails. Sometimes they click halfway through, and I have to go back and fix them. Sometimes they’re just 90% there, and I just need to keep writing and figure it out as I go. But sometimes, that never quite works, and this is the reason sometimes—there is this book named Liar of Partinel, which I never released, because the character never clicked. And people will say “Let me read it, let me read it!” but it will predispose you to that character, and that character, that personality is the wrong person.

source

The sample chapters didn't give us too much to work with vis a vis Aethers and Brandon has mentioned that it wasn't a cannibalization that worked out all that well. Since he's planning on rewriting Aether anyways, nothing much is lost there with the chapters being taken down.

Edited by Weltall
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...