Theory that I have no proof on

[cloudjumper he/him]

I can't find it, but I believe that there was a WOB that there was a Shard that was just floating around in space. What if this was the cause of all of the magic systems on minor shardworlds? Or maybe minor shardworlds were once major shardworlds that have shattered Shards on them. I don't think that the latter is true because then wouldn't Sel be a minor shardworld?

[Argel he/him]

I thought the WoB was more along the lines of it not being associated with a planet or maybe a planetary system. I don't think he confirmed it was floating in space -- it could be traveling, it could be physically in the CR (if a shard could really do that), or e.g. if not a planet, then it could hanging out in an asteroid field, oort cloud, it could be a moon (or a sun, I suppose), or if we want to get a little crazy, a nebula or a lot crazy a neutron star, and full on insanity a black hole.... 

And natural magic systems actually exist. We have some WoBs on that. Sixth of the Dust (or if not, Shadows for Silence) was intended to show one of those worlds. I'm thinking it was Sixth because I think Brandon has been cagey about SfS, e.g. saying there is no shard there now, leaving out if there was one there. Anyway, he's talked about it before and later on wrote Sixth to show us one of those worlds. I think that plus the ones from above were reasons to slip that short story it into the Cosmere and maybe draw more attention to Shadows Beneath, (that Writing Excuses book it was included in), which worked because I started reading Mary Robinette Kowal afterwards.

Edited July 18, 2016 by Argel

[cloudjumper he/him]

Okay, thanks!

[Sam Script he/him]

Investiture is kinda natural energy/physics in cosmere, and it could be manifested in different ways. Shards would make the Investiture on the planet become more systemic and available for people. But there are usually environmental Investiture system in minor shardworlds, like:

First of the Sun: worms absorbing Investiture, then eaten by Aviars or other animals, so they have mental abilities.

Threnody: somehow, cognitive shadows could easily affect physical world.

Ashyn: it'll have a story called "Silence Divine", in which people can get abilities from diseases. That might be because that pathogens(bacteria, virus etc.) need the host to survive, so they supply Investiture for hosts to use.

We'll just see how things will go on:3

[Rasarr she/her]

We also have a WoB that highstorms, and thus Stormlight and Stormlight-based ecology, predate Shattering. If we assumed that before Honor's and Cultivation's arrival on Roshar the planet could be classified as a minor Shardworld, then "natural"/"minor" magic predates Shattering and thus Shards.

But it was a neat idea.

[Pagerunner he/him]

18 hours ago, Rasarr said:

We also have a WoB that highstorms, and thus Stormlight and Stormlight-based ecology, predate Shattering. If we assumed that before Honor's and Cultivation's arrival on Roshar the planet could be classified as a minor Shardworld, then "natural"/"minor" magic predates Shattering and thus Shards.

But it was a neat idea.

Woah, woah, can you provide that quote? It's one thing for highstorms to predate their arrival (not arguing on that point); are we sure that Stormlight predates them, too? Also, how is the ecology Stormlight-based; it's all designed to deal with Highstorms, but I can't think of any plants or animals who use Stormlight. (Larkin absorb it, but it doesn't appear to be a survival mechanism.)

[Rasarr she/her]

@Pagerunner - it's from JordanCon transcript. 

Q: You mentioned the ecology on Roshar, and you mentioned that mostly the non-sentient spren predate the [shattering of Adonalsium?]. So my question is about the evolution of life on Roshar, and how essential the highstorms are to life on Roshar, how the plants evolved...so can we assume that life that is dependent on the highstorms predates the Shattering of Adonalsium?
A: Um…
Q: Can we correctly assume?
[Laughter]
A: I’ll tell you this. The highstorms predate, and there was a lot of natural evolution on Roshar resulting in a lot of what we have there.

Granted, this doesn't explicitly say that Stormlight predate shattering, but larkins, chulls and chasmfiends all utilize Stormlight (see infopage on chulls pupation and chasmfiends coming out to grow gemhearts on hills). This isn't a change that happens overnight, or even during ten thousand years.