Kurkistan

I would guess that it's a combination. Probably a lot of more "ordinary" (for certain definitions of ordinary) wild chalklings stiffened by some soul-fed immortals. Or everyone could have been exaggerating. I think it was "dozens" of Rithmatists who were freed at the end of the day, and a swarm of death-dealing, shape-shifting immortal evil might not be easy to count.

So far as Hessina's description goes, you may want to give her a bit more credit. I'm fairly sure that "spren" is being used interchangeably with "cognitive aspect" or maybe "soul" when Hessina is talking to Tien. Hessina does a fair job describing cognitive aspects, but just calls them spren. As Brandon said in the poopspren quote above, "Well, it depends on how you're defining spren. In the books, they don't make a distinction, but there are several varieties. At the basic level, everything has an identity--a soul, you might say, but more than that." So you might say that our definition of "spren" is simply more narrow (albeit more accurate and useful, probably) than hers.

^Except that the bullet was shot from in front of Steelheart, cutting him before killing Deathpoint behind him.

A mistake we have all made, Nexus. Why, I remember reading WoK for two days straight while my parents were visiting Suffice it to say, they were less than pleased as to my attentiveness. Welcome to the forums, btw!

Come now Cheese, that's simply uncalled for. At least include the transliteration at the same time. The anguish you cause people as they try to transliterate Morse...

^Yeah, that'll do it.

Sorry for your travails, Peter. I don't see an error on the diagram for chapter 18. What is it?

And on top of that, that answer was in response to someone asking what an atium-electrum alloy would look like, so unless Brandon was being sneaky, he doesn't think of atium-electrum as anything special.

Amazon Kindle, US store. Sorry, I should have specified earlier.

That's simply diabolical, Voidus. You could have it set up so that the entire "hoop" is supported from your side (either the inside or the outside, but the outside in the case of Nebrask), with the bottom deeply recessed to protect it from the elements. I suppose some intelligent foe with a bit of manpower could contrive to splash acid up there, or climb over on a tree or something, but still...

I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree here. I can easily see someone thinking "yeah, I'm going to make these two intersecting Lines of Forbiddance in the form of Mark's cross now" and still thinking of them as Lines of Forbiddance.

It's not that hard. A chalkling isn't done until it's done, when you write a symbol or a letter in life you don't really think of it as done until you finish it, so the process of making a Mark's cross could just be "drawing a cross", which process happens to involve lifting the chalk for a moment.

^The weak spots are the corners. That's just how it is. I'm not sure how doing it in a single motion would change that. I was actually thinking more along the lines of what Isomere is saying (albeit more articulately than I).

That's a fair point, Phantom, but I think the point still stands that burning a spike isn't going to help you not need a spike, which is kind of the point of this endeavor. I can't imagine that Hemalurgy doesn't allow for a less exotic way to steal regional Identity. I also read "splice" as "chop off part of your spiritweb and splice it into the spike's bit of spiritweb", but I could be wrong.

Sorry, you are a bit off. We were discussing this very issue the other day, actually.

Yeah, I doubt "power of love", if only because it raises Harry Potter-level concerns about why only one person would ever risk themselves for love. As for the how, I'm looking at that bank vault. Maybe some coins or diamond dust or something? Needing another Epic's help would be interesting, though perhaps undercutting the "muggles fighting back" theme.

To expand a bit, Brandon seems to be doing this with all the books he has the eBook rights to. You can download a free copy of Warbreaker right off his site, also. The problem is that the publishers don't exactly like leaving Brandon with the eBook rights for the bigger releases. P.S. And yes, searching makes theorizing much more convenient. Copy-pasting passages is nice as well.

A few more issues; May not be real problems: On: Illustration before Chapter 25 (Advanced Easton Defense) "This is an excellent way to monopolize on the Easton's huge number of bind points." Should be: "This is an excellent way to monopolize capitalize on the Easton's huge number of bind points." -This one, finally, is a straight out error to be corrected. I'm not sure if it can be, given that it's an illustration rather than text, but "monopolize" is simply the wrong economic term for this passage. I apologize if the page numbers are a bit off, but word-searching can save the day, if all else fails.

The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards "don't pick up the chalk", actually. "Boxes" made of Lines of Forbiddance are presumably done all in one motion, so you can have "different" lines drawn at the same time.

Sorry, I meant line of Forbiddance there; as in when you're drawing out the straight line, your hand/arm/chalk isn't repelled until you've finished. Well, the extra lines still anchor the secondary circle, as well as staying in place and providing protection when the secondary circle fails.

I don't think Lines of Forbiddance have "edges", actually. It's described pretty exactly as like a magnet, and we know it takes a "well drawn" Line to stop a cannonball. Rather than being a wall in the strictest sense, they probably act more like repulsor fields of a certain maximum force: so a thin one can exert enough counter-force to stop someone from sticking their hand through, but not enough to stop a rocket. As for the acid moat, I think that might fail on the scale of Nebrask. The area contained is described as the size of a city, and the Forgotten seem to be at least moderately intelligent and in-control elements on the enemy side. It wouldn't be overly difficult to command chalklings to pile rocks or trees to fill any moat, not to mention the danger involved in making the moat in the first place (since it would have to be within the preexisting circle, unless you want to build another one).

The only time I recall intersecting lines was with Mark's cross (just a +, if I recall). I think that could either be a case of not lifting the chalk until you're done (since Lines of Warding Forbiddance seem to wait until you're done drawing to start repelling things, given that your hand isn't pushed away as you draw it) or drawing one line, then reaching around it to draw two others on each side of it.

I think I read everything before becoming Cosmere-aware. Maybe not WoK, now that I think of it, but even until a bit after I finished reading WoK I was still only knowledgeable to the level of "Hoid? Shards? What is this nonsense!?"

^Shame be upon you Voidus, I was trying to be all classy and understated in my meme-age.

Some awesomeness/craziness from Brandon on reddit (pure gold, really): So Amaram is "my friending" Dalinar. Was Kaladin off-duty that day, or is the next line "Amaram said, just before he took a spear in the knee"?