Question and Answer

[Tempus]

WoB is a little bit divided here. He mentions a couple times that the pool in Elantris is similar to the Well of Ascension, and that it is associated with Devotion. He also mentions the pool 'is not what we think it is'. So either our concept of shardpools is wrong, or he misspoke, or the shattering had some effect on the shardpool, or it's not actually a shardpool, just something similar.

[eyestothesun]

OK, thank you! I'm curious as to how the shardpools work because

in WoR, we find out Hoid is using shardpools to worldhop (or it's implied, at least)

, and in Elantris,

Galladon takes Raoden to the pool to die, essentially

so I was wondering what connects the shardpools. Obviously they're navigable if you know what you're doing, but is the Cognitive Realm in between? Or even the Spiritual Realm? But, if the shardpool in Elantris isn't a shardpool, or isn't functioning properly because of Devotion splintering, is that why it's  so hard to access Sel via the Cognitive Realm?

Edited April 3, 2014 by eyestothesun

[Asperity he/him]

How is Scadrial pronounced? I say it as "Scad-ree-al" (al rhymes with hal or foul).

[Awesomeness Summoned he/him]

I pronounce everything the same as you except the "al" I pronounce with more of an "uhl" sound such as in partial, artificial, immaterial, primordial, etc.

[GreyPilgrim he/him]

Is there an official name for an inhabitant of each Shardworld?

These are what I use:

Scadrial: Scadrian

Roshar: Rosharan

Nalthis: Nalthian

Sel: ?

Yolen: ?

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Is there an official name for an inhabitant of each Shardworld?

These are what I use:

Scadrial: Scadrian

Roshar: Rosharan

Nalthis: Nalthian

Sel: ?

Yolen: ?

 

I know Scadrian, Rosharan, Nalthian, and Selish are confirmed.  I do not believe we have one for Yolen (unless you count Yolish, whihc seems more like an adjective describing things, not people).  I think I saw something about a person from Taldain being Taldaini.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Brandon said that people can't bond with Honorblades, yet Szeth's ability to summon and dismiss his (Jezrien's) obviously suggested some kind of bond. I think a couple of people asked for clarification on this, but I don't remember the exact explanation...

 

Here is the clarification:

 

Q:  So they assume because the Voidbringers are returning--

A:  Because the Voidbringers are returning, would be a clue to them that Taln has returned.

Q:  You mentioned that human can’t bond Honorblades, but Nalan tells Szeth that his bond with his Honorblade has been broken. Can you clear this up?

A:  Humans CAN bond Honorblades. There's a crucial difference between Honorblades and Shardblades. When you drop an Honorblade, it does not disappear, even if it has been bonded. A Shardblade will disappear when dropped.

Q:  Which map holds the Easter Egg?

A:  The main map of Roshar.

Q:  From which book?

A:  Either book, it's the main one that will go in each copy. It's VERY hard and it won't change a whole lot.

Q:  Does it have anything to do with the compass?

A:  Not the compass.

Q:  How many parties were there to the original Oathpact?

A:  The Heralds and Honor. They thought that by walking away from their oaths, that it would break the Oathpact. They're going to find out that it's not quite as broken as they had previously thought (meaning the Heralds).

[Argent he/him]

Oh, right. That's what it was.

 

I now wonder whether Sprenblades disappear when their "owner" loses consciousness, for example. It sounds like the regular Shardblades disappear because they require a constant... attention from the person who summoned them, the one they are bonded to. Honorblades, being the real deal, can and do exist independently of humans, they don't need a bond to assume a physical form. So if their wielder falls asleep, for example, there is no reason for them to disappear.

 

Words of Radiance Spoilers

Which means that Taln still has - or at least can summon - his Honorblade, assuming he came to Roshar already bonded with it. Which I find a safe assumption. Unless somebody tricked him into passing the bond, giving his Blade to somebody else... But I don't see him falling for that, even (or maybe especially) in his state of mind.

[Asperity he/him]

I pronounce everything the same as you except the "al" I pronounce with more of an "uhl" sound such as in partial, artificial, immaterial, primordial, etc.

Gotcha. I kind of interchange between how I pronounce and how you pronounce so I was curious as to which is the correct one.

[Awesomeness Summoned he/him]

Gotcha. I kind of interchange between how I pronounce and how you pronounce so I was curious as to which is the correct one.

As Brandon always says, there is no "right" way. Pronounce them however feels most right to you.

[Rose]

Does anyone know why Odium's name is different from all the others Shards? They all have pretty straightforward, "English" (or translated I guess) names: Devotion, Dominion, Endowment, Honor, etc.  Except for Odium that's latin. Why?

Edited April 9, 2014 by Rose

[GreyPilgrim he/him]

Does anyone know why Odium's name is different from all the others Shards? They all have pretty straightforward, "English" (or translated I guess) names: Devotion, Dominion, Endowment, Honor, etc. Except for Odium that's latin. Why?

Odium is a totally legitimate English word. I don't think there is any particular reason Brandon chose it other than that it sounds a lot cooler than Hate for a Shard.

[Tempus]

Yes. The shard names are usually not quite 'simple' or 'direct'. He could have named them Hate, Love, Control, Giving, etc... But instead he names them Odium, Devotion, Dominion, Endowment, etc. I have a feeling they are more precise this way as well.

[GreyPilgrim he/him]

Yes. The shard names are usually not quite 'simple' or 'direct'. He could have named them Hate, Love, Control, Giving, etc... But instead he names them Odium, Devotion, Dominion, Endowment, etc. I have a feeling they are more precise this way as well.

They also sound a lot more awesome than their more simplistic counterparts.

[Rose]

I had no idea odium was English, haha. Alright, thanks.

[Argent he/him]

In the original draft it was Hatred, but he said he liked Odium better.

[Rose]

It definitely sounds more ominous.

[kaladamSB he/him]

How does being double gold twinborn make you able to heal fast? Why doesn't allomancy still burn it like it normally would?

Does this mean a full twinborn would allomantically have access to 32 metals?

[Moogle]

How does being double gold twinborn make you able to heal fast? Why doesn't allomancy still burn it like it normally would?

 

Feruchemy is powered by you. You store an attribute to be used later. The trick with being a Twinborn is that you can get the power from Allomancy to power the Feruchemy rather than have it being powered by you.

 

If you make a metalmind, then burn it, you don't get the normal Allomantic effect. With Allomancy, you take in power from an external source (Preservation), and you filter it through a metal, which causes a certain effect due to the molecular structure of the metal. If you filter this power through a metalmind, though, the Feruchemical power in it further filters the power you're taking from Preservation and the metal creates a burst of the Feruchemical effect rather than the Allomantic effect. You can then store this burst of Feruchemical power in a metalmind for later use.

 

If this isn't clear enough, let me know. You could also read everything Brandon's said on it here.

[lwd24era he/him]

Hey all! Dorky question: what would we call a Twinborn with a hemalurgic spike?

[Curiosity he/him]

Hey all! Dorky question: what would we call a Twinborn with a hemalurgic spike?

 

No term that I know of or can find in the wiki. Care to originate one?

 

By the way, does the amount of feruchemical charge in a metalmind affect how much power is gained through compounding? That is, does burning a pewtermind with 30% of my strength stored for 5 seconds give me the same amount of strength as burning a pewtermind of the same size with 85% of my strength stored for 5 years?

 

I would assume so, but looking at some of the forums has changed my intuitions on the subject. 

 

Edited for clarity's sake.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Curiosity

[Moogle]

By the way, does the amount of feruchemical charge in a metalmind affect how much power is gained through compounding? That is, does burning a pewtermind with 30% of my strength stored for 5 seconds give me the same amount of strength as burning a pewtermind of the same size with 85% of my strength stored for 5 years?

 

How much power is inside a burned metalmind should not matter in regards to how much power you get from Compounding. Compounding is when you power Feruchemy through the power you'd normally use for Allomancy. It doesn't 'multiply' the power inside a metalmind or anything like that.

 

That said, it's possible that the concentration of charge matters. Preservation's Investiture might not be converted efficiently into Feruchemical power unless the metalmind is basically 100% full. I've heard of nothing implying this, though.

[CWS]

If a misting, a lurcher for sake of this question, carrying a vial of iron moved/was moved from scadrial to roshar (or any shardworld not in the scadrial system) and found iron there, what happens when he tries to burn both samples?  

Do they both work, because of his innate lurcher abilities?
Do neither work because hes decently far from Harmony/Preservation?
Does only the metal thats originated on Scadrial work because of its prolonged exposure to Harmony/Preservation's influence?


I didnt see this asked, but I have certainly not been exhaustive with my search... I'm curious because it appears that hints were dropped (more than hints really) that biochroma (endowment shard) would work away from nalthis, but breath seems to be a resource generated uniquely to endowment's world in that no other world appears to have "breath".  So my line of thinking is that either everyone has breath and endowments proximity is required to use it (if that were the case the hints dropped in WoR wouldnt be consistent) or breath is only originated in worlds "close" to endowment (Nalthis).  So, I wondered how this would apply to Harmony and Scadrial's metals.

Thanks, and my apologies if this has been asked and answered.

Edited May 20, 2014 by CWS

[Moogle]

If a misting, a lurcher for sake of this question, carrying a vial of iron moved/was moved from scadrial to roshar (or any shardworld not in the scadrial system) and found iron there, what happens when he tries to burn both samples? 

 

Apparently they both work, though this is not 100% confirmed. We have a recent WoB that says that you can Soulcast metals that work with Allomancy (though alloys are tricky), so the metals probably don't have to come from Scadrial to be used in Allomancy. And, of course, we know that it's possible to use Allomancy on Roshar since we actually see it being used, so distance from Scadrial is of no concern.

 

Also important: in regards to metals, the metals are not the power. They just provide a way to filter the power every Allomancer gets through a link to Preservation. So we really shouldn't expect that Scadrian metals are special.

 

 

I didnt see this asked, but I have certainly not been exhaustive with my search... I'm curious because it appears that hints were dropped (more than hints really) that biochroma (endowment shard) would work away from nalthis, but breath seems to be a resource generated uniquely to endowment's world in that no other world appears to have "breath".  So my line of thinking is that either everyone has breath and endowments proximity is required to use it (if that were the case the hints dropped in WoR wouldnt be consistent) or breath is only originated in worlds "close" to endowment (Nalthis).  So, I wondered how this would apply to Harmony and Scadrial's metals.

 

A lot of humans have what is called "innate Investiture". Basically, they get a little bit of the Shard on that planet's power. If you're on Scadrial, you get Preservation (and Ruin?), Nalthis gets Endowment, Rosharan humans probably get Honor (not confirmed, and I'd bet a decent chunk of cash that Horneaters have some Investiture from Cultivation), that sort of thing. "Breath" is specifically the bit of Endowment each person gets on Nalthis, and it has unique effects on perception of color and sound that you won't find with other Investiture (that we know of).

 

Here's a WoB on the matter:

ZAS

After several more signings, I asked my other question. "Do people in the Comsere, besides Nalthis, have Breaths?"

 

Brandon Sanderson

"No." He then signed a person's books, then said "To elaborate a little more, that's not to say they don't have a life force, because they do. But if someone not from Nalthis were to suddenly gain the ability to become an Awakener, they could not use what they have to Awaken something. That's not to say that they can't receive breaths though."

Edited May 20, 2014 by Moogle

[CWS]

Thank you Moogle, that makes sense, but now I'm trying to wrack my brain as to where allomancy was used on Roshar...  I attributed everything Wit did to Lightweaving, holding breath and probably Feruchemy (just blind guesses)  I give up, gimme a hint?