Kurkistan

@Nepene You'll have to forgive me, then. "World hopping" has pretty firmly locked down meaning here on the boards, though, so I would warn you against using terms like "worldhopping allomancers" so freely.

First of all, I just wrote a small essay about how Forgeries don't consider your immediate circumstances when considering "plausibility." Second, part of the point of this is that Shai with a block of wood and a fork could carve this soulstamp in 2 minutes flat, as it's so simple and plausible.

I really think you're off base here, Thought (welcome back from your hiatus, by the way. I see you're catching up). The window didn't work because Shai didn't get the history (or, indeed, even the basic identity of the object as a stained glass window) right, and so her Forgery didn't have enough "plausibility" to stick--though I would like to note that it lasted as regular glass for "five minutes or so", leaving the weaker version of my idea quite untouched. That's quite a different story from having a known and plausible history to draw upon. Even if I buy that human bodies are liable to reject limb-severing changes in the long term, you can almost certainly still capitalize on short-term stamps (as I said in my edit about 4 seconds before you posted. Sorry about that). Shai was able to take down a door for a few moments using her bed-killing stamp, despite the fact that the history she gave to justify the bed's decay was nearly incompatible with the door's. The hair for beggar!Shai wasn't just a new style, it was the result of a her hair "falling out", suggesting a tad more permanence. Regardless, we have Sazed to thank for the knowledge that scars are incorporated into Cognitive aspects. So I find it rather implausible ( ) that Forgeries are fundamentally incapable of changing Cognitive aspects, at least temporarily, at the very least. Beyond that, I can see your point about limbs being important for how we live our lives, and how the course of someone's life would almost necessarily be changed by the loss of one. It has little to do with Cognitive aspects and how strongly we see ourselves as "limbed", though. Getting the body to see itself as de-limbed is a real and important change to it's Cognitive aspect, but is of a kind that we've already seen done in Forgery. Perhaps the clearest and most pertinent example in this case is Brandon's discussion of how Forging interacts with chronic illness. Even though your body knows full well that your eyes or organs are bad, you can still write a full 26 hour stamp to alter your state of health, make yourself into a person who does not have that deficiency. I'd bet dollars to donuts that the application of Feruchemical gold or Regrowth to someone under the influence of an eye stamps would not "heal" them back to having bad eyes, just as Feruchemical gold can't un-eunich Sazed. So far as the Cosmere at large is concerned, then, a Forged object has a different Cognitive aspect for the duration of its stamp. I can see how you might be concerned about Forgery in particular causing these de-limbings, given that it needs to change the past. That is an interesting question. I think that, to a certain extent, Forgeries don't care about the plausibility of the entirety of their circumstances when you apply their stamps. Shaizan can essentially pop into existence in the middle of an escape from people trying to kill her for Forging without any existential concerns as to how her life went such that she found herself in those circumstances. There does remain the question, though, of whether the entirety of a Forgery's backstory needs to be specified. Did Shai's stamp of her window and desk include constant upkeep up to the moment that corresponded to her application of the stamp? Did her Shaizan stamp include some trickery to account for what she was "really" doing from the last moment "specified" up until the present day? I do not think so, but it is not as definite a "no" as I've been giving so far. If Shai's a desk was almost destroyed mere moments ago, could not Shai destory it by writing a simple "you were just destroyed" stamp and calling it a day? Or need she account for the experiences of the desk for the last 6.9 seconds? If Shai does need to provide a life history from the point of change to the present day, how much detail need she give? Will "you sat there in splinters" or "you went about your life" do the trick? Shai's bed received a robust "you're rotten now and always have been" stamp, but did that mean she had to change it's past such that she had never slept on it? As I touch upon in my mondo-thread-of-death, I think that all you really need is "change desired" and "historical event that differs from reality such as to justify this change." The in-between stuff doesn't matter so much. The desk in Shai's room would almost certainly have been carted off to some not-rathole at some point in its life, or her rotten bed replaced before or shortly after they put her in there, but just as Forgeries' immediate circumstances don't seem to matter at the moment of Forging, I do not think that tangential historical circumstances that might logically arise from the changes of a Forged history need be accounted for.

@Tarontos & Observer I believe that this is referring to drawing a line onto the "force field" that a Line of Forbidance projects. I would hazard no, as I believe it's more properly described as a localized repulsive effect inversely proportion to distance from the plane bisecting the Line of Forbiddance lengthwise. It seems that stuff with enough force (such as cannonballs) can "pierce" Lines of Forbiddance, and I would hazard that this does not literally damage the line's blocking effect, but simply bull through it. Joel notes that there is not real surface to the force wall, and so I doubt there's any real surface for a second, perpendicular Line of Forbiddance to be drawn upon. Also, Observer, I'm unsure as to the utility of your strategy. Do you believe that chalklings could not simply traverse the walls of the hole and attack the Line at the bottom? Either way, someone with acid would have a fantastically easy time pouring it all into a trough for maximum dispersal, or perhaps just throwing a bucket at the force wall and watching it all slide down (though, if the whole was truly expertly engineered, you may be immune to acid attacks).

While I agree with your point about anthracite, Thought, I would like to take this opportunity to make one of my trademark generalizing statements that unnecessarily vilifies a specific and otherwise perfectly blameless Sharder. I don't think that an incredulous reaction from Sharders ought to be discounted in it's entirety. Incredulity certainly isn't an overwhelming reason to discount a theory, perhaps not even a strong reason, but it does give us reason to lower our regard for a theory, all things being equal. Perhaps even enough to face down some small amount of supporting evidence. "Gut feelings"--Intuition and its insights--are real, based on the collation of diverse and seemingly disconnected experiences and thoughts that can give one a unique grasp of the reality of any given situation. The members of this site are possessed of a (mildly unhealthy ) expertise in matters Cosmerical, with a firm grasp on the known (and generally-held) laws and patterns of the Cosmere and also a general understanding of Brandon's style and tendencies in his writings. Our understanding of the Cosmere may well be wrong in many ways, and Brandon can (and almost certainly will) throw us curveballs that knock our perception of "where it's all going" out of whack, but, as a rule, I think it wise to take heed when such a community reacts with naught but incredulity.

The body seeing itself as having a limb is an expression of its Cognitive aspect and is important for magical healing, but we already know (or at least have very strong reason to believe) that Forging can and does change Cognitive aspects. Shaizan has scars, beggar!Shai was de-haired by disease. If you attempted to heal either of them magically, I imagine that they'd still have those disfigurements. It's my understanding that essence marks are only difficult to make because they affect people--complex beasties--on a large scale. Essence marks are, in essence (har har), just a large collection of individual soul-Forgeries. Each of those individual Forgeries is rather simple, to an extent. Shai could make each one of them stick for the "maximum time" on Gaotona, and thus would presumably have been able to make each simple alteration stick for the full 26 hours on the Emperor himself. The difficulty comes from the complexity involved in any large scale, personality- and identity-wide change comprised of a thousand smaller changes. So a single mark changing a single thing about a well known event which could have plausibly gone the other way is easy as pie. EDIT: And even a shorter duration (though I don't think we're limited to that) would be fine, if all we're looking for is to slip some shackles. Ooh, you could just force a close friend to suffer all of these indignities, then use your Connection to have a Gaotona-level stamp that lasts for only a short while. Or, more charitably, a group of close Forgers could all share stamps. --- And yes, paperclips all the way. @Pechvary You posted while I was composing mine, but yes, that.

Sorry, I may have come off a bit harsh there . I've just found that a fair amount of "useless" powers people propose have a fair amount of utility.

First of all, that one is useful. Second, you can't, or at least you'd have to re-apply every day.

Ah, beard envy. *Strokes manly beard of awesomeness that is totally not just a patchy growth of three day's stubble*

Recall that "Harmony" is still, for all intents and purposes, Sazed. He hasn't been messed with by his Shards' Intents yet, and won't be for quite awhile. His personality might have changed due to his godlike perspective, but not through anything (more) unnatural. So beyond thoughts I've touched on before that "Harmony" is more productive than truly balanced (so perhaps disposed against end-negative magics), Sazed might have some slight moral or prejudicial issues with using Hemalurgy, what with his past experiences with it and its soul-ripping/twisting and mild murder.

Perhaps my perception on what it means to be tsundere has been tainted, but Steris isn't "hurtful" enough to really qualify for it. She just does her thing in a very matter-of-fact, straightforward way; she isn't particularly distant, she's just so happens to not be where you are.

I suspect that manuscript pages are a tad shorter than pages in a printed book Brandon is also in the habit of cutting ~10% from his first draft, IIRC. I would ballpark 920 or so pages in the final draft, just from my gut.

Brandon just announced on Twitter that he's finished the main body of WoR. Brandon Sanderson Last chapter of Words of Radiance (Stormlight 2) is done. Still have to do epilogue, epigraphs, and a few interludes. But we have an ending! https://twitter.com/BrandSanderson/status/345752408586076160 Huzzah.

A very interesting idea, and somewhat plausible. Sadly, it may be one of those questions which can only be answered by WoB or a new book, as I don't see much ability to discuss it on bare principles in a magic system whose foundations we know so little about.

No, it's in-text that it's from his mother's side of the family. Dalinar gave the Plate/Blade he won away to Elohkar in his capacity as king, not for his personal use, as Elohkar had his own Plate/Blade.

Well that's downright odd. Even though the time-stamps say that you edited in your evidence before either Dusk or myself posted, I could swear that it wasn't there before. Huh. Now that my attention has been drawn back to that first post (and thus now that I read the evidence for the first time), I agree that Brandon is very clear there and most likely meant what he said. I do doubt that the crystals were shattering for any but Allomantic reasons: they're strong enough to stand up to direct arm-punches, so I doubt a bit of vibration would do the trick, and anything that massive would be worth noting in the narrative itself. I think it's been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but I would guess that any use, or even just burning, or Iron/Steel in the vicinity of the crystals is enough to damage them. Kelsier almost certainly used those metals to kill the guards, and may have even been using them to track the slave who's POV we share at the beginning of the sequence. Burning Iron/Steel without doing anything is enough to send off Allomantic Pulses to Seekers, so I guess the crystals, what with their heavy investiture and whatnot, are just hyper-sensitive to those pulses. Or maybe the establishment of "metal lines" entails some actual interaction between the Allomancer and metals in their vicinity, as opposed to being purely receptive on the Allomancer's part.

Quite an interesting breakdown. One slight problem is that we will almost certainly be seeing the Lightweavers at some point during WoR, so we'll need to find someone to fit the bill toot sweet if Shallan/Jasnah can't get the proper surge.

Ah, thanks, though I was actually asking for a quote from Phantom "disproving" this scene. The only thing I could find was this exchange on TWG: Peter first says that it's only Steel/Iron, but then someone immediately asks why Kelsier could hear the geodes cracking when he was just burning Tin (he couldn't have been burning Steel/Iron because he had to start burning Iron moments later in order to see the lines). Peter then says he'll have to ask Brandon again. And that's all she wrote.

I have the same recollection, Phantom, though I have heard of that TWG reference before. Care to apply your uncanny powers to getting a full quote?

Well, Odium "settling" on Roshar was the first time he'd done that, and is the reason he can't leave for now, so I doubt he left much of anything behind on Sel.

Okay, that works. Though this is yet another sign that I've stayed up too late arguing, as I feel that I should have figured that one out myself. . .

Ah, you're most likely right about the scar's origin. Sorry, I'm in the middle of my first re-read in a while, and had forgotten that Sazed got in a good punch during WoA. That answers my concerns about skimping on healing just before the last battle of the Apocalypse, I suppose.

I can see "patch scars" working. It sounds "natural", with the normal healing process starting to reassert itself as magic fails, and gives the Feruchemist control over whether they scar without giving Feruchemical gold weird properties in terms of what you can tap/store. I still think that slow-healing is equally viable, though, if not more so. Presumably the job "the dregs of your gold reserve" can do is somewhat equivalent to the job "a very small trickle of your gold reserve" can do. The two could theoretically work in parallel, with either "high-power" healing naturally tapering off to scar-healing or the Feruchemist with low reserves deliberately making using that last bit slowly in order to make scar tissue. I'd like to note, though, that even "slow" Wayne is still healing at a truly absurd rate. The "scar threshold" is probably somewhere below the "wounds closing before your eyes" threshhold. The reason I'm a bit anxious to stop you from regrowing a limb without reserves is because we get told, flat out, in AoL that Wayne's Feruchemical gold will only help him if he has reserves, since trying to store while injured to heal that injury will just even out. That might well be a generalization, and limb-regrowth a special case, but it makes me wary. --- As an aside, I would like to make clear that I do value your posts, on this thread and others where we have clashed. We often end up being adversaries, but I do hope that I manage to remain respectful (and attentive, sorry again about not reading your post closely enough) during our discourses. No theory has value until tested, and while I do think that you have a tendency to pick nits and then hang onto them with frightening strength ( ), arguing against entrenched positions can only strengthen our understanding and articulation of all facets of the issue at hand. Now stop arguing with me so I can go to bed!

Huh. I guess that settles it. Thank you for remembering/quoting that. I guess that particularly slow healing == scars. Or do want to argue over Feruchemical gold's ability to distinguish at high power-levels?

That is the rub. If I had to guess, I'd say that you'd grow back 1 mm of arm from the stump, and then, bereft of magical healing, it would scar over at this new normal. That does leave open the possibility of careening between "Health states" to boost the arm along, but I think we can wave that away as the average "gain" from this "sick health" leveling out at zero as it is squandered re-fixing complications induced by going all sub-optimal while nursing a wound. Like how you shouldn't be able to heal yourself from the flu without reserves because you materially and "permanently" become more sick (not just temporarily less Healthy, as is the case when a normal person stores Health) during your time of low Health, and need to spend all your gained energy just getting back to where you started, if not even settling for less. So an open stump would grow infected, new tissue wouldn't grow, etc. when you tried to store Health. EDIT: Though I leave open the possibility that a particularly stubborn Bloodmaker could last long enough to get back up to "full Health" with a scarred over stump, then store and tap Health to grow his arm back, if his Cognitive aspect still gives him two arms. EDIT 2: I might even be a bit too doomsay-y; perhaps someone with a wound who cared for it very well could get away with storing while they're still recuperating. Still not a good idea in general, though.