Kurkistan

Good idea, I would say. @Fly Be careful to be sure that the bubbles are moving relative to the ship, otherwise the ship's motion won't be affected at all.

Ooh, good question. This is particularly interesting because Divine Breath doesn't abide by the normal rules that healing does in the Cosmere: it doesn't need a great amount of error-prone tinkering (like specialized AonDor), but at the same time doesn't rely on the Cognitive aspect of the person being healed.

@Curiosity (I see what you're trying to do there with those asterisks... ) "Mechallomancy" is speculated to be "key" FTL, but hasn't actually been called such by Brandon, to my knowledge. So far as the "lost energy" WoB goes, we're not sure that that has to do with time bubbles. - @OP Oh yes of course at some higher level FTL makes no sense. For one any actual method of communicating (let alone traveling) faster than light violates causality. But on a lower level (the level of "hey can't I just go a bit faster than light? Please?") it's not all that bad. Just find a way to get around relativity's effects and you'll avoid twin "paradoxes" and the like. Here's a few threads that talk about FTL. EDIT: @Khyrindor Here you go. Some have suggested that a little handwavery or the like can use time bubbles to achieve the same effect.

Thanks.

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I noticed a potentially problematic problem on how a Q/A is recorded on theoryland. On theoryland, only the initial exchange is recorded. This initial exchange conveys entirely the opposite of what the truth is, as turns out. This might be problematic going forward, I would think.

Here you go. http://steelministry.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=873 The game's mostly newer players with a moderately experienced GM. It's just starting up and one or two of the players are only in on a "only if no newer players want to join" basis, so you'd be welcome.

Source: Source:

This is incorrect.

We're in Cosmere theories, all released books are fair game. That aside, do you mean besides the superficial? Because Pattern and Syl's blades look different (specifically Pattern has geometric pattersn, Syl is more swirly, IIRC. I believe the patterns are also different colors.)

It was the Shallan interlude, where they were at the fair and she was trying to rehabilitate her brothers. Hoid was the guy talking to her father, then trying to get Shallan to eat Stormlight.

On the ball, I see: that WoB's less than a week old. Source: But as you can see that's not exactly what it says.

Source: Source:

Nice, thanks for the questions. Are these verbatim or paraphrased, and if paraphrased how precise?

Re: "poofing": Ah, my mistake. I thought when you confirmed that non-physical things could be sacrificed that there would be some degree of poofing. Not necessarily magical healing, but more like "oh look my arm is gone and now there's lots of blood" as opposed to needing the hacksaw. It does seem somewhat inconsistent, though, if you can sacrifice your empathy without the need for brain surgery but still need elbow grease to remove a limb. Re: "Forcing" There's forcing and then there's forcing and then there's forcing. Is torturing someone into compliance not going to work? Is holding a gun to a guy's head forcing him? What about threatening his family? His livelihood? His cat? Re: Grainage I don't necessarily mean those as literal examples (though it's good to know those aren't the kind of things the magic system does) but more as a way to gauge the sacrifice:power ratio. What the upper and lower limits are and how they scale. Re: Intent Oh you poor thing... *shakes head in pitying fashion* You see, intent matters because a magical effect which is small in and of itself can have very large consequences in the right situation. If you say "well, boiling a pot's worth of water isn't to big a deal, so let's say that's a pinkie" then I will say "GREAT! Now I'd like to boil about a mL worth of water in each one of the brains of the 4,000 or so soldiers standing over there. That's about a pot, right?!" On a less broken scale, these things can still matter quite a lot in small cases. Let's say you want to make someone turn left instead of right at a crossroad. That doesn't seem too big a deal, so far as scope of effect. If it's a hated in-law who you don't want to talk to, then it's probably not worth whatever sacrifice. If it's the enemy general at the head of an army, and to the left is where your ambush is set up, it might matter a bit more. -- Now you have said this is a bit more subtle than the water-boiling would seem to be, but I think the crossroads scenario, at the very least, is a question worth asking.

So it seems that you do actually lose in a magical way, then: no hacksaw required. Okay, more stuff: -How precise are the expected prices/effects? Since you say "genie" I'm guessing not very, but let's narrow it down. --Do I know when I wish for a cup of coffee that that's going to cost me a pinkie, and that if it's the pinkie on my off-hand the coffee will have slightly too much sugar? Or is it like "well there goes the pinkie, hope that coffee is good"? ---On that note, which comes first, the cost or the effect? Do I say "I'm willing to give up X, what can I get for it?" Or do I say "What do I need to spend to get Y" or do I say "I want Y" and then find out the consequences later? -How sincere/dearly-held need the sacrifice/desire be? Tal up above mentioned, third-party sacrificing could be a thing: grab a guy, tell him that if he doesn't sacrifice an arm and a leg to accomplish Y that his family will die and that if he does they'll be taken care of. Is that a thing that can/should happen? -Could we get a bit more fine-grained of a scale on what it costs to accomplish Y? How much will I have to sacrifice to levitate a rock? A boulder? A car? etc. --On that note, the degree of fickleness would be nice to know. As a classic genie example, if I ask for wealth will the magic drop off some untraceable money at my feet, kill my parents for the inheritance, or drown me in molten gold? How much variance can I expect in the magic actually accomplishing what I want it to, in regards to what it does and the unintended consequences? -Does how much you want the thing to happen at all effect how much it costs to do so? So levitating a rock to impress a girl versus levitating that same rock somehow saving a baby or something: do both cost the same?

That's a fine starting point. Okay, questions then: -How do they lose the thing? Do you just say "abracadabra" and then poof your arm is gone and the army is dead? Or do you chop it off with a hacksaw first? Do the (physical) wounds heal over or will magic-users be contending with shock and bloodloss? -Who can use this? Can anyone and everyone use the magic if they do the sacrifices, or is it a select few? -Do the sacrifices need to be of the non-recoverable kind? Could I shave that beard I love for a cup of coffee one day and then do it again a month later? Could I give up use of my hand for a day and then get back the use at the end of the period? -Do the sacrifices need to be "visceral", for lack of a better word? Could you make the "sacrifice" of foregoing a day with a loved one with no ill-effects to follow? --On that note, just how abstract can we get? Could I sacrifice my ability to appreciate kittens or something? --Could I sacrifice something a bit less meaty, say my ability to see green or something? -- Tell me if/when you want me to stop grilling you.

Would you care to expand a bit?

I can help with stress-testing it a bit, if you'd like. If we're doing credentials...

Here's the passage from Ch 31. It could theoretically be interpreted as "they did it by accident", I suppose, but I don't think that interpretation very plausible.

You rang?

Here's another bit on sound from AoL:

That's one way to keep them in line.

Huzzah for Spice and Wolf!

Hmm... I could have sworn... (as people may have noticed historically, though, I'm a bit worse with book-facts/quotes what with the lack of google for my hardcopies). Did you reread the whole sequence, from the chapter where Marsh first finds the Smoker until after he's spiked Penrod? If not, I may give it a skim myself a bit later... EDIT: Just did some Google Books searching, there's a line on page 243 (whatever that means in real terms) that goes "Hemalurgy—particularly Allomantic imbues—was much more potent when one could drive the spike through the victim's [cuts off]." If my memory isn't betraying me, the cut-off part was just about getting it in there fast, not bindpoints or the like.

Some fun facts, for fun's sake: @Outis: We actually do have a fairly regular case of spikes being re-used both without being recharged and without any reason to believe that there's direct Shardic action going on (unless Ruin was really really micro-managing there with his minute amount of non-trapped power): Inquisitors and Feruchemical gold spikes. @Moogle Here you go. @Topic Also it's worth noting that apparently powers (or at least Allomancy) decay out-of-body a lot faster than human attributes do. Marsh mentions it at some point during his internal monologue when he's going about the spiking of Pendrod in HoA. Might be worth grabbing that quote when you get to it, Outis.