Curiosity

Well, what if we had Substance elements and Force elements? Substance: Earth Water Fire Force Fire (heat) Metal (electricity) Wood (life)

Surgebinding, Allomancy, and AonDor all have something in common: you're channeling Investiture from the main body of the Shard. For the other systems, you're dealing with the Innate Investiture of the individuals, and not using any more of a Shard's power. From what we can tell, Snapping (I'll use this term to talk about both Allomantic Snapping and the trauma necessary to have a Nahel bond with a spren) shatters the Spirit Web, or the Spiritual makeup of a person, so that they can allow the power of a Shard through it. How exactly the Shaod works, we don't know. It seems to act somewhat like the Returning, though Elantrians apparently don't hold Splinters. Allomancers channel the power of Preservation through metals in their bodies. Surgebinders channel Stormlight, that is, the power of (I'm guessing) Honor to control Surges. Elantrians use the power of Devotion? Dominion? Both?, channeling it through Aons, not themselves, for a variety of purposes. These three magics are fueled directly by Shards, which means that there needs to be a "crack" into the Physical Realm for the power to flow through. So, something has to shatter. Feruchemy, Awakening (I think that Returning is a special case of this), and Hemalurgy all take innate investiture or power from one person (read: member of a sentient race) and allows them to move it elsewhere. For Awakeners, they take their Innate Investiture and give it to others or an object. For Hemalurgy, you rip a portion the Innate Investiture of someone else, along with the structure of their soul. In Feruchemy, one takes one's own power and ability and tuck it away for use later. In all three of these cases, there are isn't any Shard directly powering the magic. AonDor seems to be a very interesting case, though I've got an essay to write, so I can't explore that right now. I'm terrible at finding sources to back everything I say up, so feel free to contradict or support me. Or ignore me as someone with baseless arguments.

Yup. I may not have a firearm for self defense, but I'll carry around my Book of Endless Pages. Well, that and my handy ninja pencils.

My first thought on reading step 5: "How would Parshendi blood smoke affect the flavor of the marshmallows." My second thought: "Ew." Meanwhile, in another part of my brain: Would Shardplate (from a living spren) be able to block the lightning from stormform Parshendi? I thought "Aha! What about a sprenshield? Oh wait… that's Shardplate. Wait what else would "living" Shardplate do?

...But I'm enjoying your company so much that I figured I'd give a shout out to all of the cool people here! This place is very different from the world of YouTube comment debates. I haven't had any problems jumping in and everyone is very helpful and (in my opinion) rather scholarly, even if we stray from the original intent of threads a lot. Looking forward to more craziness, etc.

This theory is brilliant! Well supported too, especially considering the above information. Yes, the Aimians are somewhat of a mystery, but we can puzzle them out later. P.S. Aimians can change their shape, or at least create writing on their bodies at will. Reminds me of the Returned to some degree (shape determined by Cognitive essence). Also, the ardent interlude (from the WoK, sorry I don't have a copy on me) suggests that they have a larger knowledge of realmatics than the normal person. Source: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7267-words-of-brandon-compiled-x-2/#entry119909

Never lived anywhere but California...

Get a Cryptic and let him hear Satsuoni's takawarai. Let him assume that this is normal and have him repeat it wherever he goes. Mmmm...

Well… I thought that the afterlife was governed by other powers outside of Adonalsium's Shards. I don't have time to look up the WoB on this, but I think that he explained the fact that Sazed couldn't connect with Tindwyl because she was no longer in any of the three Realms.

Your world is fascinating! I hum and sing all of the time, so the way your characters respond (and will respond) to the Listener's religion is huge draw for me. You've got something good there. By the way, the word Akapel is a little to similar to the actual word, acapella. It almost seems cheesy to me, though I suppose it isn't as obvious as some other terms that I've read elsewhere. I have very little experience correcting/giving advice on writing. When I see stuff that I have problems with, I'll let you know. There already seems to be a lot of help here!

Well, the golden ratio is actually 1:(1+sqrt(5))/2, so it's actually irrational, approximately 1.618033... I'm a bit OCD when it comes to math. Don't mind me.

Heh heh heh. A WoB for the scholarly discussion.

Cryptics would really like that statement. Is it true? Is it false? "Mmmm. True lies. Mmmm. Lying truth… Mmmm."

Brick made of porridge!

Well, I guess now we'll have to have everyone show a government ID before coming onto the site to allow everyone to identify each other in real life. Next thing you know, we'll have metal detectors set up… Or a couple of Lurchers/Coinshots.

Nazh complained about having to rescuing certain other documents too. He seems like a character.

Makes me wonder if one could experience a second infection that would grant different abilities, sort of like how shingles is related to chicken pox.

We have WoB that "Hoid and Kelsier do not get along. At all." The context seems to indicate that they would want to kill each other. How did they meet in the first place and why wouldn't they like each other? My theory is that they've simply bumped into each other in the Cognitive Realm, where Kelsier hangs out after he died. However, why they would have reason to hate each other is a mystery to me. Thoughts?

I'm sorry for double posting this, but I really want to know the answer, because the answers could have powerful implications…

Brandon said in one of his blog posts that we should be able to guess what the last unlockable is, so the AoL annotations are a safe bet.

Well, I can certainly relate to Elend and his struggle with ideals (not sure if I agree with his ultimate decisions though). Sazed was my favorite character for the first book, largely because he was a scholar and a Feruchemist (a magic system that I am a super fan of up to this very day). However, Marsh became my favorite in the last book because of his very satisfying and redeeming ending to his character arc. In the end, he had just as much of a role to play as his brother.

I think that he decided too early on to nix the idea of it being Cosmere to pick Shard(s) for it. I already think that the apparently symbiotic fashion by which the powers are given is too similar to the Stormlight Archive, but that's pretty theoretical as of now...

summon the RAFOnator!"

Perhaps Cultivation is/was more active in Sinovar... Just guessing!

The number fluctuated. I remember Lightsong (or Siri) thinking that there was room for almost twice as many gods in the Court. The number of gods was the number of Returned in Hallendren at the time.