The Moon Scepter

[Jondesu he/him]

I jumped over to reddit because of another thread, and started looking through Brandon's answers to questions, and I found this very juicy tidbit (spoilered for length and formatting:

Spoiler

[–]botanicaxu 2 points 1 day ago 

Hi Brandon, here is a question about the Moon Scepter.

We know that the "Moon Scepter" (functions like Rosetta Stone) stolen by Hoid is an actual scepter that people can hold and use, not a painting depicting a specific scepter. Some of us talked about it and its translation again, and a question appeared.

How does the Moon Scepter actually look like? In what shape is it?

Now we have two understandings of the word "scepter" based on different ways of translation:

1) 杖: It shapes like a common wand/staff/rod/cane/stick, usually seen in Western countries. [Mainland translation]

2) 笏: It's kind of a flat scepter of Chinese origin, shaped like a tablet, usually held before the breast by officials when received in audience by the emperor. (Very rarely, the emperor himself holds it.) The officials can take notes on it. [Taiwan translation (I believe the translator once showed you around the Taipei Palace Museum.)]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaku_(ritual_baton)

Could you tell us which one is closer to the original design? Thanks

 

 

[–]mistborn[S] 4 points 1 day ago 

It's not a Shaku, it's a Ruyi, actually. That's an excellent question, though. It does actually come from my visit to the museam, and while I'm aware of shakus, I hadn't heard them called scepters. But I guess they are! 

Either way, I imagined it as the wavy shape of a Ruyi. (如意

 

 

[–]botanicaxu 2 points 22 hours ago* 

Whoa what an amazing answer! Thanks so much for the explanation! I once thought of Ruyi when flipping through some reference materials and now it becomes canon! Hooray! Another question if you don't mind: (Someone just asked this a moment ago.) Why is it called Moon Scepter? Does (perhaps) one side/end of it resemble moon? [Full moon or crescent?] Or is it colored like moon? Or does it contain some moon pattern? (Also a fan art question, sorry ;P)

 

[–]mistborn[S] 3 points 6 hours ago 

It has to do with the differences in religion between Shai's people and the Rose Empire. It is colored like the moon, but there's a little more to it than that.

 

 

[–]botanicaxu 2 points 5 hours ago 

Ah, I see. Thank you! So what color is Selish moon when we look at it? (I suppose there's only one moon?) Didn't find any specific descriptions about its color in books. Can we assume it is similar to our moon

 

 

[–]Phantine 2 points 3 hours ago 

It is colored like the moon, but there's a little more to it than that.

Based on that, there's really only one way it can look

http://i.imgur.com/1UAo5Gf.jp

 

 

[–]Tellingdwar 2 points 2 hours ago 

... That's no moon..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[–]mistborn[S] 2 points an hour ago 

I didn't say it was the color of Sel's moon...

Just kidding. It is, and there is only one. It's a pale white blue, a little more blue than ours, but similar.

The highlighted response isn't the one I was really trying to show, but it was highlighted when I copied it so it stuck and I can't figure out how to remove that.

The shape of the scepter is most interesting to me.  Here's an image of what a Ruyi looks like:

Imagine the end of that made out of moon rock, or just shaped like the moon maybe, and without the rust, and it becomes quite interesting to me.

 

 

[Tariniel he/him]

That certainly does help with the mental picture. I was imagining one of the generic scepters, with a sphere at the top connected to a long pole, but this makes much more sense. Thanks!

Edited October 21, 2016 by Tariniel

[phoenix2563]

I know this is an old topic, but I did just visit the National Palace museum in Taiwan, where Brandon got his inspiration for "The Emperor's Soul".  To me, this Ruyi scepter displayed there is totally what I envision the Moon scepter to look like:

 

[Crucible of Shards he/him]

Huh. For some reason I always imagined it as the Chitauri scepter from the Avengers. This makes so much more sense.

[Nathrangking he/him]

Based on what is said about the importance of said scepter. The look is less than impressive.

Edited July 31, 2017 by Nathrangking

[Jondesu he/him]

On 7/24/2017 at 4:24 AM, phoenix2563 said:

I know this is an old topic, but I did just visit the National Palace museum in Taiwan, where Brandon got his inspiration for "The Emperor's Soul".  To me, this Ruyi scepter displayed there is totally what I envision the Moon scepter to look like:

 

Wow, that's perfect, and it even has designs carved in it like a stamp (though less complex).

On 7/31/2017 at 0:02 PM, Crucible of Shards said:

Huh. For some reason I always imagined it as the Chitauri scepter from the Avengers. This makes so much more sense.

Yeah, that's what I had wanted to imagine, but it didn't fit with the way it was described to me.

[Nathrangking he/him]

looks like a funky shower brush to me.

[Tesh Any pronouns]

On 10/21/2016 at 4:45 AM, Tariniel said:

That certainly does help with the mental picture. I was imagining one of the generic scepters, with a sphere at the top connected to a long pole, but this makes much more sense. Thanks!

Me too. This is really interesting. Thanks for sharing!