Chaos

That quote came from the Reddit Q&A, by the way. I should also note that Brandon emphasized to me at Alloy, "Shards very rarely change hands". From this I don't think it is at all likely Endowment has switched persons.

"The Black Lake" on that concept map is an actual lake, not Ruin's pool. If it was Ruin's pool it probably would not be blue, you know?

I thought either the Words of Founding or the Hero of Annotations said that most Seekers became savants without realizing it. Plus, since in the Mistborn 1 annotations it suggested that Allomancers can learn to see like Inquisitors, I suspect they are either iron or steel savants. Well, Ruin has a pool... as far as I knew, the pools for Ruin were under the Pits of Hathsin, but hey. With the spikes and the mists pulling away from Roan, that blake lake has to be Ruin.

I am editing this topic to be a general House of Ashes discussion. EDIT: Okay, I finished looking at it for now. I have to get on the road soon, but I totally delayed things to give it a quick look. It was fun! I very much liked the idea of honor guest. I enjoyed seeing the politicking in the Steel Ministry. Sounds like what everyone says when they see the noble craziness on MBI... For those wondering, A House of Ashes sticks very closely to Mistborn canon. There's new information, but it fits exactly as you'd expect. (Though, I didn't know that savants would be known by the nobility. That was the only thing that threw me off)

It should be noted that whoever wrote the Ars Arcanum in Alloy thinks there are two sets of sixteen, but he may not have complete information, or Brandon could've changed his mind. Also, as should be pretty apparent, that Table has some typos, but the content is mostly good (though lerasium is its correct spelling; oh well).

It's probably just convenient terminology for bureaucratic organizations. After all, they had a thousand years of Canton-this and Canton-that. It'd be natural to name it that.

I was there when the question was asked, so I'll talk about that for a second. Yes, you can charge a spike without killing them. However, to charge a Hemalurgic spike, you still need to rip off a portion of the soul (I believe Brandon said a "large" portion of the soul, but I honestly don't remember, so don't quote me on that). So while a person might be alive, but he is really not the same at all.

I don't remember that Ferrings had existed before, but yeah, that makes sense. Feruchemy was diluted was because they, by necessity, had to breed more from outside the Terris population. Throughout history the Terris population remained insular in that way, preferring to be with one of their own. Now that there's more spread, the powers splintered just like Allomancy.

I forgot to comment on this. Think of it more like Elend and his strength of Allomancy and Soothing. He could control a lot more koloss than Vin. There was, let's say, an "upper bound" of the strength of that Soothing. That's the raw Allomantic strength. It's that total, upper bound. Then you have flaring, which increases Allomantic effect in particular instances. So, at least, I'm interpreting the size of the bubble as being something that deals with your overall power as an Allomancer. Once you that limit, you can't make it any better. Elend would be able to make a bigger time bubble than Wayne because of this. But, you can flare the metal to make the bubble "better", so to speak. Does that make any sense? Of course, once you flare enough and you enter savant territory, I'd imagine the bubble does get larger. That means there is some link between the two. For most people, however, that subtlety wouldn't matter. Also, Brandon did say that the Ars Arcanum was writter by "Hoid or the Seventeenth Shard" at the Alloy release. To which I say, "well duh". But he's being clever by not confirming which.

The spelling is MeLaan. And that is awesome that the kandra is, in fact, not just any kandra, but freaking TenSoon. Upvoted. Great stuff.

Am I the only one who read that quote and was completely unsurprised? The only thing that was unexpected was that Feruchemy "changed" the focus, so now Allomancy grabs a Feruchemical ability instead. I hadn't heard of Compounding described in exactly that way, but it makes perfect sense. All Brandon is saying in that quote is about how focuses work: a specific thing which filters the power in a specific way. And yes, it bothers me that we don't know the focus for Surgebinding. That's why this five page topic dedicated to blabbing about focuses exists. Um, yeah. First thing, I don't quite agree with your analysis of how Shards work in that initial paragraph. Needlessly complex. I prefer to think of it as the Shards are the power of creation--they aren't hooked up to an external power, which is what your statement sort of implies. And yes. Focuses are the method which humans get to use that power. From the Brandonology (Hero of Ages Spoiler thread): How do you access it? Through the metals. From the Hero of Ages Annotations (Chapter 38, if you're wondering): So, yeah. None of this stuff is exactly groundbreaking. Regarding the Commands, I always thought that that focus was a Cognitive focus, rather than a Physical one, like metals or the shapes of Aons, and that's perfectly okay. It's more the intent behind the Commands that make them work, as you say. One more thing: focuses don't have to explicitly link to the power of creation. Look at Feruchemy, which draws from your body, rather than from the external power of creation. It's an important subtlety to keep in mind when trying to define what a focus is. But all a focus really is is a specific gateway to a specific interaction. At least, this was what Mad Scientist and I determined in the Focuses on Roshar thread. View that quote from the annotations I posted there. So, yeah, I don't mean to be a downer, but we seriously knew all this stuff before. Indeed, focuses are extremely important to magic systems and the cosmere in general. I don't mean to denigrate that part of this discussion. Identifying a focus is absolutely essential. It's just we knew that already, years ago. Some more astute questions would be, why is a Shard's magic tied to a particular focus? Why are Ruin and Preservation blind to their focus? What are the focuses for Surgebinding? What is Endowment blind to? And so on.

Cool. In that light, yes, that would be a good revision to that question.

I have some sad news: the Mistborn Adventure Game by Crafty Games is delayed to December 15th. Here's a post about it on Crafty Games' site, which is entirely reasonable: http://www.crafty-games.com/content/update-mistborn-adventure-game The problem, it seems, is that there's too much content. Not a bad problem to have. In fact, we do still get something nifty on Tuesday the 22nd--an 150 page novella titled A House of Ashes comes out, and better yet, it's totally free. I'll let Crafty talk about it: To be honest, I'm just excited to see more of Mistborn. I can wait a few more weeks, especially when I have 150 pages of (hopefully) awesome to enjoy.

Guys, I was reading Amazon reviews of Alloy of Law, and while there are some good ones, it is pretty mixed. If anyone has any time or motivation, it'd be pretty cool if there were some more positive ones I know I'm going to work on one.

It's entirely possible. I don't think we know enough to say.

Just FYI, Cuaiir is now a moderator on the Nexus board, due to Silus's upcoming hiatus.

Nice, good catch. That does seem to be the implication.

This. Plus, when Brandon told us that things were in chronological order, he explicitly said some books got skipped. As for the topic itself, sure, maybe dragons can transform into people, but I don't for a minute think Hoid is a dragon. The recipient of the letter, however, could be.

I do like the Google Music stuff, though the store is not so hot yet. But then, I don't buy much American music. Eri, I read this on Engadget that could let you use this outside the US: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/19/how-to-use-google-music-from-anywhere-yes-outside-of-the-unit/

There will be more books with Wax and Wayne. Brandon pretty much said so at the Alloy release, and also:

I'm not aware of any confirmation for or against that. That's a very good question to ask, I think.

Well, the Hemalurgic charge at this point would be incredibly weak. Having the spike out of a body causes the spikes to decay, but breaking the spike or melting them makes it decay even faster. Probably the only use for the spikes now is to give followers a connection to Harmony.