Kurkistan

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Sel: Q: What is the Dor? A: Unknown, a lot of people, myself included, believe it to be the combination of Devotion and Dominion's power. Q: How does the Shaod pick? A: Not confirmed, but there's a great theory out there that it picks people who are particularly devoted to something. Raoden to his people, Karata to her daughter, Galladon to his farm, Taan to his sculpture, Saolin to Eondel's legion, and so on... Q: What is the blue pool? A: It's commonly believed to be Devotion's Shardpool, and Brandon has not contradicted this when asked questions about it. Q: Why do Seons go insane through the Shaod? A: The failure of the Shaod post-Reod messes with them through their spiritual connection to the person they serve. Q: What are Seons? A: They contain Splinters in the form of the Aons at their core. It seems likely that the Seons are Splinters of Devotion, while their counterparts, the skaze, are Splinters of Dominion. Q: What magical effect do the Jesker Mysteries have? A: None, so far as we know. Q: What caused the Chasm? A: Spiritual pressure caused by the unbound power of Devotion and Dominion. Q: What did the Moon Scepter do? A: Unknown, Hoid wanted it for something though. [Thanks to Swimmingly and Windy for all of these Q's and A's ] Q: What's up with "regional" magic? Why can't an Elantrian make a Forgery? A: "Birth in a certain location on Sel gives a certain affinity for the local symbols, and their usage. To use the magic of another region, one would need to have a rewritten connection to that area instead." Source: Word of Brandon Canonicity: Word of Brandon Q: What do we know about the geographic and chronological relationship of The Emperor's Soul to Elantris? A: TES takes place after Elantris (though we don't know when) and it does takes place on the same continent as Teod, but it is fairly distant from it (or at least the capital is). Q: What/Who are Devotion and Dominion? A: Devotion and Dominion are the two Shards on Sel. The Shard Devotion was previously held by a person named Aona, while Dominion was held by one named Skai. Aona and Skai are now deceased, their Shards Splintered. Source/Canonicity: WoP, WoB Q: Elantris is the Ela/middle of Aon Rao - is Kae the circle in the east or is it the blue pool on the hill above Kae? A: Kae is the circle east of Elantris. It is a walled city with a circular wall. Source/Canonicity: Logical deduction/careful reading of Elantris

Warbreaker: Q: Can normal Returned have children? A: WoB says yes, the God Kings can have children, and there's nothing special about them compared to other Returned. It seems to involve supplying Breaths to the child while it is still in the womb, perhaps even as early as conception? Yeah, I just included a question in my answer, but I'm not just not entirely sure. Q: How do Returned like Vasher and Denth use Awakening? A: They make sure to keep a tight grip on their Divine Breath, and just carry accumulated Breaths like any other Awakener. It is possible to use a Divine Breath for Awakening, but that would almost certainly kill them. Q: Who is Clod? A: Arsteel, Denth wanted to try out make a former Returned into a Lifeless, and Arsteel was a great swordsman, so it was a win/win for him. You know, if he hadn't already had a loss of an ally and great fighter. So more of a loss, into a partial win/win.

Stormlight: Q: What's the point of these fabrial sketches with Alethi handwriting? A: Navani is a fabrial inventor, and these pages are from her notebook. The Alethi writing translates phonetically to English, giving real information about fabrials, including the ones shown in the illustrations. For example, fabrials are made by trapping spren inside gems. Source: "Navani's Notebook" is the name given to these illustrations in the table of contents. Source: The Coppermind has English-translated images of the pages. This is the easiest way to read them. Source: The original thread where a fan translated the pages includes descriptions of the entire process, and replies from Peter confirming its accuracy. Canonicity: In the book. Even if it does take heroic efforts to translate! WoR Spoilers:

Mistborn: Q: In Alloy of Law why aren't there any full Mistborn and why are Feruchemists now only able to have one ability? A: Allomancy has degraded in the population, much as the mistborn during the time of the original mistborn trilogy were weaker than Elend or the original Mistborn who were given Lerasium by the Lord Ruler. Feruchemy has become diluted as well through the combined effects of the Lord Rulers breeding programs, the slaughter of the Keepers by Ruin and also through mixing with Allomancy genes by interbreeding. This has allowed Ferrings to exist. Canonicity: Brandon Confirmed. Q: What's up with the rule of 16 for mistings when there are more than sixteen metals? A: There are 16 "real" metals along with 2 god metals (Lerasium and Atium) and their alloys. Preservation was screwing with the system (snapping Atium and Malatium mistings instead of Cadmium or Bendalloy mistings) to make a point. We're still not sure exactly what method he used. Source: Various words of Brandon; it's a common question Q: How can Vin pierce Copperclouds/detect the Well of Ascension? A: Vin's earring is a hemalurgic spike granting allomantic bronze. It was created by Vin's mother, who was schizophrenic (and thus vulnerable to Ruin) and was corrupted by Ruin. She used the earring to kill Vin's younger sister, a seeker. The ability to pierce Copperclouds, and presumably detect the Well of Ascension, is a matter of strength and with the hemalurgic spike Vin has more than the normal strength in Bronze. Source: Word of Brandon, Coppermind Articles on Vin and Vin's earring Canonicity: Brandon-Confirmed Q: What's up with hemalurgy and feruchemy? / What's up with heat being mental feruchemy/ What's up with the feruchemical attribute quadrants? A: Long story short, the quadrants originally lined up, but Brandon accidentally swapped a couple feruchemical metals in Mistborn. The rest of the metals in the system got revised, so it's now realmatically aligned instead of quadrant...ly. Hence, there are eight physical, four cognitive, and four spiritual feruchemical abilities - that means a pewter spike can steal one of EIGHT feruchemical abilities, which is pretty nifty. Source: Word of Brandon http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=839 http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=689 Q: How is Marsh still around during Alloy of Law? A: When the Second Generation seized control of the kandra during Hero of Ages their leader, KanPaar sent a kandra to sell a bag of atium. He thought the kandra should use the Lord Ruler's atium cache to become rich, he however revealed the location of the cache to Ruin. Marsh has the bag that was sent away to be sold and is using the same compounding trick to achieve immortality that the Lord Ruler did. Source: Word of Brandon Q: Does Iron Feruchemy store mass or weight? A: Mass (kind of). Some shenanigans goes on with energy transfer so that you can't punch someone with 1000 pounds of force, but it's mainly mass. Sazed was mistaken in WoA. Source: Interview Canonicity: Books, Word of Brandon Q: Can Kandra gain Feruchemy or Allomancy through Hemalurgy? A: Yes (at least Allomancy, but almost certainly Feruchemy as well, barring some oddness), though it is a tricky process and only Harmony has the necessary knowledge as of the Alloy of Law era. Note: This is expanded on in Shadows of Self Source: 17th Shard Q&A with Brandon Canonicity: Word of Brandon Q: YARGH! Weird notation?! What's with all this "Feruchemical gold" and "Allomantic steel" and stuff? What does it mean? A: Sorry about that. It's shorthand for "feruchemical gold" and "allomantic steel", to differentiate between the two sets of powers. So if I say "Feruchemical gold can heal all wounds", I'm saying "the power of feruchemical gold, namely 'health', can heal all wounds." The pattern follows for all of the metals.

Cosmere: List of Acronyms: AoL - (The) Alloy of Law, standalone Mistborn novel AMoL - A Memory of Light, 14th and final book of The Wheel of Time BS - Brandon Sanderson, epic fantasy author extraordinaire HoA - (The) Hero of Ages, 3rd book of the Mistborn trilogy KR - Knights Radiant, ancient military order on Roshar, the world of The Stormlight Archive PAFO - "Peter and Find Out". Brandon's answer to a question that indicates that he's potentially willing to answer it, but doesn't know the answer off the top of his head, so you should ask his assistant/loremaster Peter Ahlstrom. See: RAFO MAG - The Mistborn Adventure Game, a role-playing game set in the Final Empire, published by Crafty Games RAFO - "Read and Find Out". Once Robert Jordan's favorite phrase, it means that Brandon doesn't want to answer a question at all. This could be because any answer he gave would spoil plot/magic elements, because he hasn't decided yet, or because he's feeling trollish that day. SSFH - Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, a cosmere short story released as part of GRRM's Dangerous Women Anthology TES - The Emperor's Soul, standalone novella set on the same planet as Elantris (Sel) TFE - The Final Empire, 1st book of the Mistborn trilogy TGS - The Gathering Storm, 12th book of The Wheel of Time ToM - Towers of Midnight, 13th book of The Wheel of Time TLR - The Lord Ruler, despot of the Final Empire TWoK (or WoK) - The Way of Kings, 1st book of The Stormlight Archive WoA - (The) Well of Ascension, 2nd book of the Mistborn trilogy WoB - Word of Brandon, some statement from Brandon outside his published works; possibly a definitive confirmation or refutation of a theory.(see also) WoP - Word of Peter, Brandon's assistant and lore-master. Just as (if not more) authoritative as Brandon himself. WoR - Words of Radiance, 2nd book of The Stormlight Archive WoT - (The) Wheel of Time, epic fantasy series by Robert Jordan, completed by Brandon Sanderson Source: PhilV (mostly) REMINDER: Full spoilers for all Cosmere books follow in this post. Q: Who is Hoid? A: A character who first appeared in an unpublished work who plays a role in all of Brandon's Cosmere books, to some greater or lesser extent, and is capable of moving between Shardworlds. His methods and goals are inscrutable. See the source for greater detail. Source: Hoid article on Coppermind Canonicity: Word of Brandon, in the books Q: What is the Cosmere? A: The Cosmere is a dwarf galaxy set in an alternate universe not containing Earth. In this galaxy there are ten Shardworlds where the novels take place and Shards, godlike beings, have a lot of influence. There are many minor planets with less Shardic influence. There are worldhoppers like Hoid and the Seventeeth Shard who go from planet to planet making an overarching story behind the scenes. It is the universe where all of Brandon's non-Earth (of some flavor) works are set as of now. Source: http://coppermind.net/wiki/Cosmere Canonicity: Word of Brandon http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3045-realmatic-theory-and-magic-101/ Q: What is Adonalsium? A: A presence spanning the void, which was shattered into a number of Shards like Preservation and Ruin which are composed of its immense planet shattering power and intents. We do not know yet whether it was conscious or know much about it. Hoid was present at the Shattering. Source: http://coppermind.net/wiki/Adonalsium Canonicity: Books, word of Brandon. Q: What is the Chronology of the novels? A: Elantris, Emperor's Soul, Mistborn Trilogy, Warbreaker, Way of Kings, Alloy of Law. Books are roughly chronological with their release dates. Source: http://coppermind.net/wiki/Chronology Canoncity: Word of Brandon. Q: What are the three realms? A: The physical realm where the universe exists is one. The spiritual realm where souls exist and where magical power like Atium leaks from, which holds our connections to others. The cognitive realm, AKA Shadesmar (sea of shades), composed of the thoughts and views of beings (with more complex things having a strong presence). We have met beings, probably spren, which exist primarily on the cognitive plane and partially on the physical plane. Source: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3045-realmatic-theory-and-magic-101/ Canonicity: Books, word of Brandon. Q: What is Shadesmar? A: The cognitive realm, where everything has an awareness. Hoid uses it to travel. Distance in Shadesmar is based on the density of awarenesses, so the vacuum of space may be relatively easy and quick to travel through. The area near where Shards have been splintered may be dangerous due to the uncontrolled power. Transformation--or Soulcasting--can be performed by communicating with the awareness of the object to be transformed in Shadesmar and providing it with stormlight. Source: N/A Canonicity: Books, word of Brandon. Q: What is a Shard? A: The Shards of Adonalsium, or Shards for short, are pieces of the power of creation itself that formed when Adonalsium shattered.They are named after a specific action or ideal, called an intent. A mind must control a Shard. When a person holds a Shard, they are imbued with its power, but they also become the Shard. They are the most powerful entities in the Cosmere, there are probably sixteen of them, and they are for all intents and purposes gods. All known magic in the novels is generated at least partially by a Shard. Their power regenerates over time if used and they can do a great number of actions in line with their intent- moving planets, transforming things, prophesy, and fueling magic, though they are not omnipotent or omniscient and find some magics harder or impossible due to their intent. Shards can voluntarily separate parts of themselves, called splinters, or they can be splintered by another Shard, also creating splinters. It is possible for a Shard to be reformed after being splintered. Source.http://coppermind.net/wiki/Shard Canonicity. Books, Word of Brandon. Sanderson implied. Q: Who would win if a Kelsier fought Szeth? Or Vasher? Answer: Kelsier would have a distinct advantage if they started further away as he could fire coins at Szeth. He could not push the Shardblade as it is strongly invested with power, but he could push any metal on Szeth's body. Mistborn are generally tougher. A report at a signing said that Nightblood was orders of magnitude stronger than a Shardblade. The fight would depend on a lot of variables though. Source: http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=593#10, http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/383-the-ultimate-list-of-questions-for-brandon/page__view__findpost__p__8896 Canonicity: Word of Brandon. Q: What is a Sliver? Answer: A Sliver is a term to describe someone who has held the great amount of a Shard's power and have since given it up. Examples would be Rashek and Vin after the use of the Well of Ascension and Kelsier who guided Preservation after the death of Leras and before Vin took the power. Source: http://coppermind.net/wiki/Sliver Q: What is a Shardpool? Answer: 'Shardpool' is a non-canon term used to describe a liquid essence of a Shard. It is characterized by a Shard's Cognitive aspect. Pools mentioned include the Well of Ascension (a pool of Preservation), the Pits of Hathsin (Ruin's pool), and the Pool of Elantris, where the Elantrians go to die. Source: Coppermind Article

Hello my fellow Sharders. Below is a list of frequently asked questions and their answers. Spoiler-wise, there is one post for every major Cosmere series, with each post following the normal spoiler rules (spoiler tags for referencing another series, embargo period for new releases) and the Cosmere section will be essentially a free for all except for the aforementioned embargo period. This post simply serves as an index. Index: -Cosmere -Mistborn -Stormlight -Warbreaker -Sel (Elantris and The Emperor's Soul) We are always looking for contributions, though I would prefer that you post on the individual submission threads (Cosmere, Misborn, Stormlight, Warbreaker, Sel) rather than here, just so that everything can stay neat. For a more comprehensive and in-depth look at all things Brandon, why not head over to the Coppermind wiki? Other resources include: Cosmere 101, Theoryland Database

I'll have to go through and tweak any sub-par answers anyway, so I don't mind someone else who has a suggested modification. If you don't mind, I'd be grateful if you'd somehow mark the parts of the answer that you change, just for ease of checking whether the change is really needed. As for spoilers, this is the Cosmere section, so full spoilers for all. All the other subboards follow the normal 6-month embargo period for new books and marked spoilers for new books and other series.

^Yeah, copper is weird. In fact, based on its weirdness, I hereby posit that talk of "clouds" is, in fact, highly misleading for how copper actually works. Given that we know that copper can absorb/negate the Investiture of Rioters/Soothers aiming at the Smoker, as well potentially shield the emotions of others, what if copper actually actively absorbs Investiture, rather than masking it? So the Investiture aimed at a Smoker is absorbed because it's right in the middle of the cloud and/or he automatically defends himself with his absorbtion-powers, while the "ripples" that Seekers detect are actually comprised of energy themselves, energy which the Smoker can take in and counteract with his own copper-fueled energy, to an extent. So a skilled Smoker would be able to consciously extend the scope of his absorbtion to include Rioting/Soothing directed at others. This seems to solve a bit of weirdness, since Copper is supposed to be both internal and pulling, yet doesn't seem to do either when you think of a Smoker as actually establishing some miasma of negation, rather than the Smoker's range simply being a measure of how far out he's reaching to absorb stuff. "Piercing" a coppercloud, then, is simply a matter of reading whatever left-overs the Smoker isn't strong enough to eliminate. This claim in particular could decide my ad hoc theory, since we have some stuff from the books to evaluate it on. I don't have my copies handy, but did Vin mention Kelsier's pulses being abnormally weak when they tested her cloud-piercing?

I don't recall if he mentioned Hemalurgy, but a skilled Seeker can detect Feruchemy, I'm fairly sure. I wouldn't be surprised if it was both a question of question of power and of skill/discernment. Vin can detect both Ruin and Preservation's power quite directly, despite them not being Allomantic pulses, with only their relative faintness, it seems, stopping others from doing so. I'd hazard that it's the same for Feruchemy, along, perhaps, with Seekers not really looking for it. The Feruchemist probably has to be actively tapping/storing in order to be detected at all, also. Actually, it's probably just tapping, since storing tends to be fairly small-scale; besides that, I'm unsure as to whether storing power away, as opposed to introducing it, creates the same "ripples" in the fabric of the world. So, if storing is undetectable, it would either be because it's too weak or because it's inherently undetectable, or some combination. On the side of tapping, tapping large amounts is probably more detectable, given the increased amount of Investiture being used in the world. So I wouldn't be surprised if you need a relatively strong, relatively discerning Seeker relatively close to a Ferring (his relative, perhaps ) surging together a large amount of an attribute in order for it to be easily detectable.

I would still guess not, from both a gut level and in terms of the vast differences in power. Yes, Ruin's mere presence is enough to set off bells, but I think we're looking at orders of magnitude of difference: the Allomancer who could differentiate between muggles and Allomancers, then, would have to have princess-level power to discern the pea's worth of Preservation.

I think we really have to look at scale here. I would hazard that, if the Well is an ocean, then Lerasium is a puddle, and people are drops of water. Even if an Allomancer is twice as Preservationy as a normal person (which I doubt, I would guess that Allomancers are only a smidgen more well-Preserved than normal people), that's still just two drops of water.

I'm going to doubt you on both counts here, sorry. First of all, I don't think that Vin was detecting the Lerasium, because that Lerasium was sitting literally right next to a larger, more active, and more accessible version of itself. Recall that Seekers detect "a ripple of sound in the fabric of creation itself—the power of creation being used, creating a drum beat to those attuned to it." Also recall that Lerasium is essentially the same stuff as in the Well, only solid and with a lot less power, what with it's inability to move planets. Beyond that, it was inactive at the time. As far as just being able to detect inactive Lerasium/Atium: maybe. A small maybe. Those two metals are unique in that they have power in and of themselves, instead of simply being the "form" that keys for Allomantic power like all the normal metals. That power is usually pretty firmly locked down, though, so I don't think that they'd cause much discernible "rippling." Vin, super-seeker extraordinaire could barely detect the Well, which was orders of magnitude more powerful than a few beads of god metals. Perhaps she could have detected the Atium cache, given its size, though. For normal metals, I'm just going to give a flat no. Iron, pewter, etc. work only insofar as they key for specific Allomantic powers: they do not have any power by themselves. So unless someone is burning them, you're not going to get anything.

I will certainly give you that there are likely many more connections between Forms than parent-child, but I think Window->Stained Glass Window would probably best be described that way, since you literally cannot--in any way--have the second without the first.

Well, congratulations on managing to get through the whole thread. Stuff got a bit dense once you got past the first few sentences. I could be remembering and/or thinking wrong, since my head hasn't been in this in a while, but I think you might be going a bit too far down goop-street in your interpretation. I keep insisting on a "nucleus" of the soul existing at the center of the Spiritweb specifically so that the soul is not entirely defined by the Forms it has connections to. I do this because it really shouldn't be. Forms are, by necessity, generalizations. You get them when you generalize a type from a set of many tokens, and so they are necessarily "fuzzy". They can't tell you what a specific window or person looks like, then. If you took that window and threw it into deep space (assuming that this separates it from its Forms, but any method to separate an object from its Forms would work), then it should still be a window in its own right. It won't disappear in a puff of logic or melt into a puddle of goop, and if someone comes along 1,000 years later and looks at it, they should be able to say "yup, that's a window in space". Individual windows give form to the Window Form, not the other way around. I may have been misreading you here, and you may be saying that the complete indeterminacy of the window in this case sans-Forging is only meant to talk about how Forging in particular works. If so, sorry. I still think it's a bit off in the limited case, though. It seem to me that Forgings must make something a bit more solid and singular than what you describe. As I touch upon in the other thread's OP at the end, I would say that the Forms inform what shape the Forgeries soul should take, but that some Cognitive shenanigans go on to make a specific soul which is procedurally generated from the Forms, but independent of them once completed. So, if you were to look at the souls of two stained glass windows, one original and one Forged, both would look equally "real". This follows from the fact that Forgeries have definite (physical) forms, instead of being in a constant state of flux. The window that Shai Forged has an essentially arbitrary pattern, but that pattern isn't expected to morph and change through the Forgery's lifetime, despite the fact that the "Stained Glass Window" Form will undoubtedly undergo some small changes that could have resulted in a different pattern, if the stamp were to have been applied at another date. I do talk about Forgeries constantly referencing their relevant Forms, but this is more for the sake of checking the plausibility of their stamps than for anything else. Aside: It occurs to me that having a hierarchy of Forms could be useful: We have three options for how stained glass windows might work. Either the Window Form contains discrete subdivisions for normal vs. stained glass, there are two wholly distinct "Normal" and "Stained" Window Forms with no unifying Window that covers both, or there is both a large-scale, general Window Form and weaker, smaller, more distinct Normal Window and Stained Glass Window Forms which are subordinate to the overarching Window Form. I lean heavily towards the third option, with Normal and Stained standing in the child relation to Window. This allows us to retain general facts about windows over a broad range of possible configurations, while still enabling us to posit some Spiritual ideal for more specific kinds of windows. Presumably, different kinds of stained glass windows would have their own, even "smaller" Forms subordinated to the Stained Form, which would in turn be subordinated to the Window Form. So as far as just throwing in a "colored" Form to finish up the stained glass window, you need a bit more than that--particularly in this case, because stained glass windows are physically structured differently from normal windows.

Added three new Q&A's to the OP, reproduced here: Link Link Link

No problem; the Mistborn Adventure Game RPG.

I thought so too, actually, but then the MAG told us Luck was Spiritual (during the course of life for everyone, not just Feruchemists) and that Chromium was a Spiritual metal in Feruchemy, suggesting that the universe is on your side when tapping Luck.

They only started doing the funnel thing because Leras died, IIRC, which was fairly late in the game.

We had a fairly full discussion about this awhile back, if you'd like to see some of the Admins' reasons for retaining downvotes.

The endpaper will stay the same for the entire series, actually. Something to do with production costs or whatnot.

Yes, and Vin had future-sight like the Oracle of Delphi. Atium increases the ability of its user to process the information it provides, so I can easily see it latching onto the hearing of a blind Seer and giving a temporary boost in their ability to process the "sounds" of the future. EDIT: Took out the Oracle of Delphi comment: while clever, it has no meaning and could be construed as dismissive. Sorry

I'm not sure why a larger plate would help with surface area. The bullet is still bullet-sized and still hitting one section of the plate, so far as penetration goes. If you're worried about the force of the bullet hitting the plate pushing the plate back, you could just add some more lightweight padding under and around the main section of plate, or suspend it on some kind of lattice that distributed the force over your torso. Pulling the bullet to your chest is one option among many, I agree, but I think that it is certainly one worth having. The next trilogy will probably involve Lurchers using riot shields and whatnot as a first line of defense, and I'm certain Lurchers in the AoL era can do some clever things before relying on the breastplate but, if it were me, I'd definitely want that plate there as a last resort.