Kurkistan

Hello my fellow Sharders. Through some depth of insanity whose true cause we shall never know, Chaos has been foolish enough to grant me a grain of authority. Specifically, I have been commissioned to compile a set of FAQ's, format them prettily, and then reap in the accolades for everyone else's hard work. This decision has been made due to the increasingly large amount of "common knowledge" that newer members don't know about, as well as, obviously, to answer frequently asked questions in a centralized manner. As I am averse to actual work or mental activity demanded of my own person, I will be following the diabolical synergistic rout of harvesting crowdsourcing both questions and answers from the community at large. In my experience, this is a much better way to get actually useful results than me just locking myself in a room for a month and generating everything myself. The community asks and answers the questions it cares about quickly, responsively, and thoroughly with this kind of setup, and, most importantly, you don't have to place all your faith in one person (who happens to be me in this case) to keep on top of everything forever. At this point, I could go on a hunt for questions and answers from various threads that already have them, or simply spitball various things I know off the top of my head. But that would both require work from me and deny you, the community, of a valuable opportunity to get used to providing me with your work so that I don't have to do it. So I'll be leaving even the low hanging fruit to you guys. -------- Format: I would kindly request that you write your submissions in the following way: Q: Why is the sky blue? A: Sunlight reaches Earth's atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered in all directions by the tiny molecules of air in Earth's atmosphere. Blue is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time. Source: NASA Canonicity: SCIENCE! So, for facts that we actually care about: 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 A: A character who first appeared in an unpublished work who plays a role in all of Brandon's Cosmere books, to some greater or lesser extent, and is capable of moving between Shardworlds.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 Canonicity, so far as I can think, scales such: In the books directly Word of Brandon/Word of Peter Word of Inkthinker (or anyone else with some role in the making of the work) Sanderson-implied -(semi-vague but easily deduceable comment. Like Hoid writing the letter) Highly-regarded theory -(So based on Brandon's comments and/or nearly unimpeachable deductions from the books. Like the Letter thread before Brandon's nigh-confirmation of it.) Anything below this level is highly suspect. We might consider expanding the FAQ later, but we won't include less solid theories for the time being. There might be some room for sub-divisions, or I might have cut it too fine, but you get the idea. Just some kind of qualifier so that we know which one to go with if there is some possibility of conflict between a FAQ and some new fact or theory. You don't have to include canonicity or even a source for me to use a Q&A, but I and everyone around you would vastly prefer it, as it just makes everything easier down the road. Aims: I would like to see this FAQ cover a broad range of questions, from the simple "what's a shard?" to the more complex questions about Intent and Realmatics, with everything in-between for questions about individual series (such as how the 16-rule works in you-know-what-series, Cadmium/Bendalloy being swapped for you-know-what-metals, restrictions on Forging, etc.). Depending on how things go, it could end up being a big mondo-thread with a lot of subdivisions or spread out over various series-centric boards. The key is to get the content, though, and that's what I'm asking you guys for. I'll have posted this in every board, and will watch them all carefully and start collating the results once they reach critical mass. After the initial FAQ is created, I would like it to be updated on a fairly regular basis. As to how much information the FAQ should cover, I don't think anyone wants a second Coppermind. Relatively simple questions, relatively simple answers: just let people who are new or have been out of the loop know what everyone else takes for granted. And so now I leave it to you. Thank you in advance for your helpful (and excellently formatted) submissions. P.S. This organization (meaning me with Chaos behind me wielding a big stick) reserves the right to reject, edit, or rephrase any submission in service of the goal of most clearly conveying useful information to the user-base. Though that would take work, so I'd prefer not to have to do it too often.

Hello my fellow Sharders. Through some depth of insanity whose true cause we shall never know, Chaos has been foolish enough to grant me a grain of authority. Specifically, I have been commissioned to compile a set of FAQ's, format them prettily, and then reap in the accolades for everyone else's hard work. This decision has been made due to the increasingly large amount of "common knowledge" that newer members don't know about, as well as, obviously, to answer frequently asked questions in a centralized manner. As I am averse to actual work or mental activity demanded of my own person, I will be following the diabolical synergistic rout of harvesting crowdsourcing both questions and answers from the community at large. In my experience, this is a much better way to get actually useful results than me just locking myself in a room for a month and generating everything myself. The community asks and answers the questions it cares about quickly, responsively, and thoroughly with this kind of setup, and, most importantly, you don't have to place all your faith in one person (who happens to be me in this case) to keep on top of everything forever. At this point, I could go on a hunt for questions and answers from various threads that already have them, or simply spitball various things I know off the top of my head. But that would both require work from me and deny you, the community, of a valuable opportunity to get used to providing me with your work so that I don't have to do it. So I'll be leaving even the low hanging fruit to you guys. -------- Format: I would kindly request that you write your submissions in the following way: Q: Why is the sky blue? A: Sunlight reaches Earth's atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered in all directions by the tiny molecules of air in Earth's atmosphere. Blue is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time. Source: NASA Canonicity: SCIENCE! So, for facts that we actually care about: 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 Canonicity, so far as I can think, scales such: In the books directly Word of Brandon/Word of Peter Word of Inkthinker (or anyone else with some role in the making of the work) Sanderson-implied -(semi-vague but easily deduceable comment. Like Hoid writing the letter) Highly-regarded theory -(So based on Brandon's comments and/or nearly unimpeachable deductions from the books. Like the Letter thread before Brandon's nigh-confirmation of it.) Anything below this level is highly suspect. We might consider expanding the FAQ later, but we won't include less solid theories for the time being. There might be some room for sub-divisions, or I might have cut it too fine, but you get the idea. Just some kind of qualifier so that we know which one to go with if there is some possibility of conflict between a FAQ and some new fact or theory. You don't have to include canonicity or even a source for me to use a Q&A, but I and everyone around you would vastly prefer it, as it just makes everything easier down the road. Aims: I would like to see this FAQ cover a broad range of questions, from the simple "what's a shard?" to the more complex questions about Intent and Realmatics, with everything in-between for questions about individual series (such as how the 16-rule works in you-know-what-series, Cadmium/Bendalloy being swapped for you-know-what-metals, restrictions on Forging, etc.). Depending on how things go, it could end up being a big mondo-thread with a lot of subdivisions or spread out over various series-centric boards. The key is to get the content, though, and that's what I'm asking you guys for. I'll have posted this in every board, and will watch them all carefully and start collating the results once they reach critical mass. After the initial FAQ is created, I would like it to be updated on a fairly regular basis. As to how much information the FAQ should cover, I don't think anyone wants a second Coppermind. Relatively simple questions, relatively simple answers: just let people who are new or have been out of the loop know what everyone else takes for granted. And so now I leave it to you. Thank you in advance for your helpful (and excellently formatted) submissions. P.S. This organization (meaning me with Chaos behind me wielding a big stick) reserves the right to reject, edit, or rephrase any submission in service of the goal of most clearly conveying useful information to the user-base. Though that would take work, so I'd prefer not to have to do it too often.

Hello my fellow Sharders. Through some depth of insanity whose true cause we shall never know, Chaos has been foolish enough to grant me a grain of authority. Specifically, I have been commissioned to compile a set of FAQ's, format them prettily, and then reap in the accolades for everyone else's hard work. This decision has been made due to the increasingly large amount of "common knowledge" that newer members don't know about, as well as, obviously, to answer frequently asked questions in a centralized manner. As I am averse to actual work or mental activity demanded of my own person, I will be following the diabolical synergistic rout of harvesting crowdsourcing both questions and answers from the community at large. In my experience, this is a much better way to get actually useful results than me just locking myself in a room for a month and generating everything myself. The community asks and answers the questions it cares about quickly, responsively, and thoroughly with this kind of setup, and, most importantly, you don't have to place all your faith in one person (who happens to be me in this case) to keep on top of everything forever. At this point, I could go on a hunt for questions and answers from various threads that already have them, or simply spitball various things I know off the top of my head. But that would both require work from me and deny you, the community, of a valuable opportunity to get used to providing me with your work so that I don't have to do it. So I'll be leaving even the low hanging fruit to you guys. -------- Format: I would kindly request that you write your submissions in the following way: Q: Why is the sky blue? A: Sunlight reaches Earth's atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered in all directions by the tiny molecules of air in Earth's atmosphere. Blue is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time. Source: NASA Canonicity: SCIENCE! So, for facts that we actually care about: 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 Canonicity, so far as I can think, scales such: In the books directly Word of Brandon/Word of Peter Word of Inkthinker (or anyone else with some role in the making of the work) Sanderson-implied -(semi-vague but easily deduceable comment. Like Hoid writing the letter) Highly-regarded theory -(So based on Brandon's comments and/or nearly unimpeachable deductions from the books. Like the Letter thread before Brandon's nigh-confirmation of it.) Anything below this level is highly suspect. We might consider expanding the FAQ later, but we won't include less solid theories for the time being. There might be some room for sub-divisions, or I might have cut it too fine, but you get the idea. Just some kind of qualifier so that we know which one to go with if there is some possibility of conflict between a FAQ and some new fact or theory. You don't have to include canonicity or even a source for me to use a Q&A, but I and everyone around you would vastly prefer it, as it just makes everything easier down the road. Aims: I would like to see this FAQ cover a broad range of questions, from the simple "what's a shard?" to the more complex questions about Intent and Realmatics, with everything in-between for questions about individual series (such as how the 16-rule works in you-know-what-series, Cadmium/Bendalloy being swapped for you-know-what-metals, restrictions on Forging, etc.). Depending on how things go, it could end up being a big mondo-thread with a lot of subdivisions or spread out over various series-centric boards. The key is to get the content, though, and that's what I'm asking you guys for. I'll have posted this in every board, and will watch them all carefully and start collating the results once they reach critical mass. After the initial FAQ is created, I would like it to be updated on a fairly regular basis. As to how much information the FAQ should cover, I don't think anyone wants a second Coppermind. Relatively simple questions, relatively simple answers: just let people who are new or have been out of the loop know what everyone else takes for granted. And so now I leave it to you. Thank you in advance for your helpful (and excellently formatted) submissions. P.S. This organization (meaning me with Chaos behind me wielding a big stick) reserves the right to reject, edit, or rephrase any submission in service of the goal of most clearly conveying useful information to the user-base. Though that would take work, so I'd prefer not to have to do it too often.

We know that different areas do different types of magic, or at the very least that geography is needed for raw power. That's not the issue. Asking whether Forging could ever happen in Arelon might nail that ambiguity down, I agree, but I'm unsure that that's the question we were discussing. You wanted to ask: "In The Emperor's Soul and Elantris the magic systems have very different methods and powers, though both work through symbols. Assuming they adapted the symbols to their local geography could they use each other's methods? Could an Elantrian forge a soulstamp say?" and "We don't know that forging is a different magic. It's possible, with the right symbols, that an Elantrian could make an soul stamp. So I asked a question about that." The original question is nearly incoherent in what it's asking, while the second is somewhat clearer. The second is also almost certainly wrong, though, given what we know and reasonable assumptions based on the books and interpretation of authorial intent. You're question is asking either: 1) Can Elantrian's uniquely access the power of the Dor in Arelon to Forge using some set of symbols unique to their region? or 2) Can Elantrians use AonDor to replicate Forging's mechanisms, as well as its effects? -So we don't care about an Elantrian turning a block of gold into lead with pure AonDor, they need to use the past-changing method of the Forger for this to count. The first option is somewhat doubtful because we see at least two other magic systems accessing the Dor in Arelon, so Elantrians don't seem to have unique access to the Dor. Maybe those other two were close enough to their home regions to work, though, while Forging wouldn't, or something like that. So that, at least, is somewhat plausible (though, I think, counter to the implication given in the afore-linked source, as we've discussed). The second option is essentially baseless. AonDor just doesn't work that way. I refer you again to my method of argumentation to show that, all things being equal, we have negative reason to twist Bloodsealing into a particular contortion of Forgery. So if you want to ask this question, I would suggest that you reformulate it to be much clearer on what you mean. As I've said, I don't think you should expend part of your relatively small "politeness budget" on such a question, but it's up to you. And I thank you for your intended restraint so far as asking questions goes. If you don't intend to ask this question in the upcoming AMA, then consider this a general point on how to prioritize your questions in any upcoming opportunities, or a commentary to any readers out there who might have taken up your spare questions as their own. And, obviously, feel free not to follow my dictatorial whims, if that's all you see my comments as. I'm offering sincere advice and criticism, not declaring orders, as is somewhat implicit in the whole "I don't have the power or authority to compel or restrain your actions" thing.

Yeah...no. This isn't the place to get into it, though. Not pointless, no, but largely unnecessary. I think we have enough reason to believe that an Elantrian being able to Forge would just mean that anyone can Forge, and that Forgers can't normally use AonDor. You might want to argue nitpicks about that, but I think we both see it as highly probable. If we lived in a world where we could ask infinite questions without cost, then I would endorse asking just about any question. But Brandon is a mortal guy with finite patience and attention, and we owe him the regard of not pestering him with extraneous questions when we can avoid it, if only so as not to demand too much. This debt is particularly important in this very discussion, since we're essentially planning to hijack a WoT-focused AMA with Cosmere questions. Now I'm all for a handful or so of questions, since all's fair in theorizing and war, but given this limitation, we should really narrow in on the most important. So no, that question is not pointless, and should be asked in a world where questions are free. But it is highly unlikely and thus, if I may say so, trivial. Since questions are not free, we should refrain from asking those of such low priority as the one we are discussing.

Ah, my mistake. Sorry for misreading you, I was in a bit of a hurry. I'm going to go out on a limb here and so that it's incredibly different. Forging isn't even the same magic as Bloodsealing, for all their surface similarities, while AonDor seems to work on completely different principles. If you want, just imagine me brutally listing every difference in scope and application between AonDor and Forging--like was done for Bloodsealing and Forging in the linked thread.

^I see where you're coming from on the whole "form based investiture front," but you're question is a bit odd. Forging isn't even the same magic as Bloodsealing, let alone AonDor, while, to my knowledge, the Southern Continent uses the exact same magic as the North (Allomancy, Feruchemy and Hemalurgy, at the most), just in interesting ways. They really are different questions, so you might want to rephrase.

^Perhaps I'm just being paranoid, I'll admit. I can't find it right now, but I have a memory of Brandon giving a mathematician's answer when someone asked an "or" question. Since I can't find it or any others like it, I suppose he isn't that wiley, but ever since I saw that response I've thought that it might pay to be careful. Very well, you win. I'll just ask straight out if Denth is a Royal.

Ah, sorry, I hadn't recalled that from Alcatraz. My mistake. That was mildly tongue-in-cheek, but I was trying to say that your question is a bit unclear. Are you trying to ask if Sel's magic is divided up along racial lines? If Forging and AonDor are actually the same system, but used differently because of their social surroundings? I can't really tell from your question, though that could conceivably just be my fault. "We know that the only things in Shadesmar are planets, but do those planets have "souls" of their own? Does each planet have distinct identity, or is it simply the sum of its parts, with one planet flowing into the other naturally through Shadewsmar?" -Just a quick write up. It makes it a bit more complicated, but let's Brandon know the kind of question you're asking (if that is the kind of question you're asking). I seriously doubt that he'll say that Denth's hair-changing is due to his Returned status, as we've discussed in the past. I've wrestled with asking directly, but Brandon has ever been the wily one. . .

Does a limb that has been "severed" by a Shardblade have any Hemalurgic bindpoints? Others in case things get crazy: If Dalinar were a Feruchemist, would he be able to tap a metalmind (in either world) while experiencing one of his visions? Could Syl be seen in a photograph? (I'm betting no) Is Denth technically the king of Idris, or is he an offshoot that happened to keep the Royal Locks for some reason? --This is a sneaky question: assuming Denth is a Royal because of his hair changing color as he died, and luring Brandon out by making it sound like it's as obvious as Shallan's "secret", so he'll confirm Denth's royalty when he RAFO's the broader question. Yes, I am evil, thank you for noticing. -Are Conjoiner fabrials sensitive enough that pairs of them attached to taught membranes could work as telephones (conjoiner-phones?)? Do Surgebinders have gemhearts? ---- You'll forgive me if I critique a few questions so we can get maximum effect: He hasn't actually mentioned the Cave directly, just Platonic Forms, so you might want to reformulate. Brandon's (presumed) answer: "I'm afraid I don't understand what you're asking." Ooh, nice one. You might want to explicitly say how this builds off of Shadesmar not having vacuum.

No, please do not follow Kaladin's mother's explanation. That might well by how Cognitive aspects work, but not souls (by which Brandon is probably talking at least partially about the Spiritual) in the sense that we're looking at in Healing someone/something. We know from the quote in the OP that intact souls stay intact for people. Besides that, your explanation still requires that the "spren" in separated parts of Plate be connected to/aware of each other (in order to commit suicide properly), and is counter to how Healing works for living things. I don't think there's any real need to posit two different "only heal one part of a splintered whole" systems just yet, so we should avoid adding unnecessary complications. If you don't like teleporting spren, I invite you to reconsider. As I said earlier, I don't think we really ought to think of the soul as inhabiting the body in the strictest sense. It may well be more like it just having a multitude of connections to various parts of it. So Miles 2.0 in the process of regrowing is "attracting" the various parts of the soul to reattach to it as it grows back their corresponding body parts. This is after the lion's share of the soul has already associated itself with whatever part of the body you started out with. So if Miles lost his foot (and it was instantly teleported 50 miles away instantly by a very peeved KR), his soul would retain a connection to that foot up until the point that a new foot was grown, at which point the primary body's foot would steal the connection. Being the part of the greater part of a bisected body, then, gives you priority when the soul has to choose where to connect to. EDIT: Alternatively, the detached foot could lose its Connection immediately, but still be "alive" in the sense that it can still attract the soul if the primary body should be destroyed. Does any of this make sense, or am I just running down the street the opposite direction from you?

Senor Fresh pretty much gets it right, as far as I'm concerned. I think that the "larger" part needs to have access to Healing in order for soul-sucking to kick in: otherwise, you get weird healing at a distance and Miles could have just cut off his finger every day and left it touching a full goldmind: no need for any other goldminds at that point, since he could just recharge at range from the finger. I also don't think we need to be quite so quick to lock the soul down once it's made a "jump." I don't think that the not-regrowing part of Miles becomes inert immediately, just as cast-off pieces of Plate take awhile to "die," though it's much more obvious with the Plate, since "dead" pieces literally disintegrate. Looking at how the Spiritual works (lots and lots of connections, if Aaradel is right), I would hazard that the Soul doesn't so much stick to the body as correspond to it: Miles till has a full spiritweb during the time when he's missing a hand or two, the Hemalurgic bind points just don't have anywhere to correspond to in his truncated form. So the soul still has existence, at least for a time, while it lacks a full body to latch on to. Following that, it is probably pretty loose about where it goes in times of uncertainty, not being locked down until you get a full body in place and all the connections it had to parts of the old body are replaced with connections to the newly-grown parts of the new body. So, as long as Miles 5.0 hasn't grown a hand back yet, his soul could theoretically migrate to a body regrown from that hand should the worst happen to his body.

^Presumably, if Miles was cut into thirds instead of halves, and only one of the thirds had a full goldmind attached, that third would be the one to regrow. The Healing we're talking about isn't natural: it isn't a process of the armor itself, but rather it is enabled by infusion of energy in the form of stormlight. So a gauntlet with a supply of stormlight is more capable of attracting the Plate's soul than an otherwise full suit at the bottom of a well. The "keep the parts together" implication sounds right. There's probably some loosey-goosey-ness over Cognitive perceptions of together (so they can be stored on a stand in the same room without all the parts necessarily touching), though.

But the question is to what degree. Are Spren simply Cognitive aspects that have been boosted by Stormlight, or are they independent beings that happen to latch onto Cognitive aspects? Are "other types of spren" even Spren at all, or are Rosharians mistaken, conflating true Cognitive aspects with Cognitive beings, or Spiritual beings expressing Cognitive ideals? Especially considering how integral they are to the Stormlight Archive, anything we can learn about Spren will be invaluable for broader Realmatics. So yes, Spren likely have three aspects. But it matters how they're expressed in each of the realms.

This is just something that occurred to me, and that is rather obvious now that I think of it. Like my earlier thread on Healing being based on Cognitive aspect, this is more of a statement of fact than a theory, in my mind. We know that only one "full set" of any given set Shardplate can exist at a time: When Dalinar loses his gauntlet, he thinks: WoK, Ch 69 *AoL Spoilers* We also know that this is essentially how magical healing works: Link Presumably, if the smaller part of Miles was the only one with Metalminds, than it would be the one to regrow. Assuming that Stormligh is to Shardplate as Health is to humans, the infusion of some extra (almost cetainly Spiritual) energy is what's necessary to actually do the regrowing. Therefore, I would conclude that Shardplate has a "soul" (like all objects do, so not a big revelation) and that the behavior of that soul when confronted with its pieces of Plate being separated is likely identical to the behavior of the souls of living beings being magically healed.

Update: As pointed out first here by Senor Fresh--that fast-acting cremling--Brandon has divulged some info on the nature of Spren: This applies to my mondo (and highly off-topic at this point) thread about "Forms" in general, but obviously has some small impact here. So we get a second confirmation of "personifications" to add onto our "Window" example, and we have a definite expansion to ideals/concepts as well as physical objects. Spren-wise, we're a bit up in the air about their nature still. On the one hand, we know that they are of Honor and Cultivation, so can't be just Cognitive aspects. On the other hand, Brandon just said that they are Cognitive aspects. This actually lends a bit of credence to the "Spiritual beings accessing Cognitive stuff" side, on a fundamental level. Also, as a general comment: Unless I'm wrong, I think this quote essentially means that I'm right in the OP. That's nice.

^That's interesting (sorry for the late reply, was essentially computer-less for awhile there). You might want to consider throwing up a separate thread on that. In other news (as pointed out first here by Senor Fresh, that fast-acting cremling), Brandon has divulged some info on the nature of Spren: So we get a second confirmation of "personifications" to add onto our "Window" example, and we have a definite expansion to ideals/concepts as well as physical objects. More (hopefully) in my Spren-centric thread.

Thanks for posting. I was about to start my own thread when I saw yours, though I still reserve the right to go all "I was totally right" in my two different "Forms" threads. So the "Spren as Cognitive Aspects" crowd is right, essentially. Brandon also immediately switched from calling spren "souls" to "cognitive identities," which is a bit worrying, Realmatically. Perhaps it was simply an oversimplification.

Be sure to include valkynphyre's translation of the symbols.

^Sorry, I was saying that the topic as a whole (and my OP in particular) was inelegant, not your post.

I resemble that remark! It is most definitely not elegant, not a simple "probably".

I do hereby submit my bid for swag.

The link is Spiritual, but I can definitely see it having Cognitive effects.

We know that spren bond with animals on Roshar. The biggest example is Chasmfiends, so I'd assume all Greatshells have spren bonds along with their gemhearts. We also have this: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/2979-new-hampshire-signing/#entry49247 I would guess, then, that all gemheart-having creatures are bonded with spren, with the gemheart forming as a result of that bond as a space to store stormlight for unnatural effects (such as a giant crab not dying under its own weight, on any planet). Weird question: Do Surgebinders have gemhearts?