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This might be a semantic distinction that Im imagining, but is that really "attuning" the rhythm there, or is he just trying to fake the rhythm by humming it from memory?

This made my brain hurt, thanks. Some things like sliver and splinter and cognitive shadow I think he's using them more or less consistently, though we have to just accept that he's makes a decently big distinction between what the in-world "experts" think they mean and what he's got hidden in his actual head-cannon. The only one that's going to really bug me so far is "Shards" now that Stormlight has gotten underway, there's no way to completely avoid the confusion. Ive tried to start using the term Hexadiety and Host for the Shards of Adonalsium, and leaving Shard and Shardbearer to the Rosharan use of the term.

Would you be ok with that third class being rarer than the other two, as compared to fairly balance membership numbers? If they can be fewer, call it "Up to Three get chose" and make the Cleverness one be "The Person who Surprises Us"; it wouldnt be guaranteed to happen every time like the others, but it would add a certain amount of uniqueness to each member, as well as a bit of prestige. Otherwise, maybe add a riddle as a third challenge during the journey. So you tell them all that it is a race to get back first, that they will need ALL the sand, and that they will need to have solved a riddle by the time they get back, so they are motivated to work toward all three. When they get back, they're actually faced with three separate gates obviously devoted to the classes: one that is a one-use bridge so only the first can use it, one that requires every bit of sand to tip a scale, and one that requires you to have solved the Riddle (or picked the Lock). Each one is essentially one-use, so if you get somebody that could qualify for both they just get a choice of destination and leave the other two gates for the next one that qualifies. The nature of the riddle itself could be pretty wide, it could be leading them to some philosophic point/motto of the magic class. Or it could contain hidden clues to a puzzle-lock on that gate. I like that one because they could have intellectually gained clues via deciphering the riddle by pondering it during their journey, OR get past it by dramatically being just that clever in the moment and solving the Puzzle-lock on your own. It gives some allowance for difference types of intellectual prowess. One thing, on the class test vs Endurance. A five day survival race is going to be an endurance challenge all on it's own more than an agility challenge, so plodding speed and crazy march-through-the-night endurance could very easily make you the first one back, sand or no sand. If the speed class is intended to be literally physical speed and agility more that overland travel and thematic "Always arrive First" it might be worth adding an agility challenge at the gate, some physical speed or maybe reaction-time test on a one-use only Gate. Ok, just had an idea: They arrive and are faced with a literal magical minefield. There is a cantilevered drawbridge that can be moved over the field to cross it, but it requires every bit of sand they were given to activate (magic anti-cheating measures might be a good idea). Or, if they solved the riddle while traveling it will have given them some clue to navigating a safe path through the minefield. Or, they can just dive in and trust their own speed and reaction time to be able to avoid the mines or dodge the blast, if there is some perceivable clue that they've been activation and some tine (variable?) delay before it actually blows. Ooorr, they can do something really clever and observant and unexpected and surprise everyone like a farmboy chosen one.

While we dont know all the details, The Rhythms are a thing independent of the individual Singers and are something that "Permeates the Cosmere" and they are able to attune them so coordinately because they are perceive them directly from the Spiritual Realm. We do know per WOB that a given Rhythm can apply to a fairly wide swath of emotions. As far as whether you can attune to something different than what you are actually feeling, I think we've seen them do that on stage, for example attuning Subservience even if you actually want to rip the superior jerks' face off. Venli certainly can attune deceptively since she can do both old and new/corrupted rhythms, but there may be more shenanigans afoot there, given Timbre having a prisoner.

By description I think it works in Polar coordinates (just angles and distance away). It would indeed take some serious precision, getting more and more dangerous and distance increased, but becoming an Elantrian comes with a fairly broad range of upgrades. This is likely why the Elantrian builders installed those plates across the city, as a directional reference point. Though if it can indeed be used to get off-world, I'd have to think there'd be a way to anchor the endpoint to a chosen destination rather than just having to throw the million-lightyear dart. Behold! The Greatest Power in the Cosmere!

Memespren I could go with as that's more of a cognitive classification of a Thing. But people have always felt intense disgust or that particular brain overload that is behind the squee, the difference is more lingual than a different root concept. But to look at another example, if it worked that way Id really expect there to be things like Duelspren and Battlespren (maybe even CompetitionSpren or Huntspren for the Greatshell Hunts), but instead there are just spren for the underlying emotions involved (or the physical things on a fairly primal level like Wind or Rot). True. Though (just spitballing here) it could be argued that Cryptics arent Mathematics persay, but rather the underlying mysteries of the universe, which is itself fairly mathematical. Just mentioning because on a purely thematic level I tend to pair them and InkSpren in my mind, one representing Knowledge Gained and the other representing the rest that is beyond our comprehension.

That's an issue with the Demand side of the economy, this is all about Supply The donor would be healing the spirit damage so they arent going to be subject to the shardic manipulation. As far as being willing to actually be on the receiving end of a Spike, there are likely tones of folks that would take the chance in exchange for metallic arts, especially on Scadrial where they only know of the one (fairly benign) Shard, and theres a whole religion full of folks that wear a Spike purely to commune with him. For what it's worth, that would take fully UnSealed medallions, which require an "Excisor" in the process, which we are all hoping is going to severely limit that exact operation. Because otherwise Nicrosil is narrative-breaking

You whippersnappers and your newfangled "podcasts". Ill see about listening to one of those as soon as I can get them on my gramophone I read it as @Solarserpent saying they thought Shinovar was neutral ground for Shards as in the Hexadieties, not shards as in Shardblades & Plate. My mistake.

I tend to agree with @Calderis on this one, he may outwardly less textbook damaged than the Depressed Kaladin or Shallan's Dissociative identity disorder, but that's not to say he's never experienced trauma. His father killed his mother, and he basically basically grew up with those and other horrible whisperes about his father and family. On top of that, Brandon has said in several contexts that such things are going to be wildly subjective, to the point where he doesnt want to even use the phrase "well-adjusted" anymore (he said you could look to the deaf community to see people challenging outsiders definitions of disease vs just who you are. I mean, why are we all saying Renarin is "broken' but his brother isnt; Renarin is arguably just an introvert that's on the spectrum, and is no more "broken" than any other similar socially awkward teenager. All his worst Trauma that we know of came after he got his powers, and started hearing screaming objects and seeing the future. For what it's worth, Brandon has also said as recently as this summer that he has not actually confirmed whether the whoel Broken requirement is factual or just an in-world tradition, a pattern the KR noticed in the past. WOB's spoilered for length

Yup, it's confirmed by WOB that just about any of the cosmere methods of healing spirit damage should work if employed quickly enough to prevent the donor death. In the case of Scardial (Era 2 at least)

Hmm, definitely in the same neighborhood at least, Ive often heard Geeking out described as something along the line of Juicing your Joy Gland. Out of curiosity, where do you see the distinction? As on a more general note, I think that it will be FAAR more likely/common for their to develop spren of the Physical type (wind, Fire, Stars, Motorcylces, etc) that the emotional ones. As a philosophic statement I view Emotions as more of a spectrum (or maybe constellations); they are less individual states than they are just labeled regions of a continuous spread, without actual gaps to discover new things. Maybe they could get new ones with wholly new races (like Dragons or the Singers maybe) but I think Human emotion is pretty universal. Put another way, I dont think they could develop/discover new emotions any more than you can develop or discover new Colors or Musical Notes.

"Investiture Hacking" would imply at least two shards' Investitures at work: the original/base form and the one that came along and did the hacking. Given the middle-point in the timeline there, Id guess that the original form was Ambitions, while the Shades are something either left behind from Odium's incursion. Id even go so far as to guess that it's the result of chunks lost in the fight (in a similar way to how tha Aons are just the "sparks" that flew off when the actual Shards were shattered). Note that Im assuming that Investiture Hacking doesnt come into play with magic systems that are independent of shards (natural or predating) mostly on the logic that Hoid doesnt have any red effect from using his pre-Shattering Lightweaving (that we know of), and also since a lot of Rosharan magic predates the Shattering but was successfully reworked by a shard which implies to me that a shard only has to resort to hacking a "claimed" magic system.

Lets hope Netflix can pull off a Daredevil again, then.

Hmm, "Nerdspren" might already be covered by Inkspren, in the way that "geekspren" would probably just be Joyspren.

Im not sure that would fit, when they first showed up it was the place given to them (or crafted for them) with their native ecosystem, as a new home. That's something that would have had to happen at the Shardic level, and at the time Odium and the Humans werent actually aligned (despite how the Singers interpreted it later on). @Obnoxiousspren Sorry, I wasnt trying to criticize the Vorin Chuch option; this is the first time Ive actually considered the topic and was mostly just thinking my way through the possibilities. I take it from your comment that my ideas were not all that new to the conversation

There is that WOB that calls them specifically Investiture that has gains sentience, including Spren and Aons, and to a weirder degree Nightblood. But to my mind that would not include the Shards, the Returned, or the Heralds whom all have the full set of physical, cognitive, and Spiritual Selves.

I dont know about the First Law, but the Third Law of Thermodynamics is Entropy, and that one gets personified every other week.

I think whomever has them, we can make some reasonable speculation on their motives. The fact that they have not used them already means they either object to their use in general, seek to deprive others of them more to use them themselves in numbers, or they are hoarding them for some specific action at a later date. On those criteria there are definitely several different factions that could fit. We cant forget about Ishar, or the skybreakers; I could see motivations for either to try to remove blades from circulation, even before I start imagining Ishar in a subterranean laboratory (lit with creepy torches, of course) experimenting on spren corpses to make horrific FrankenSpirits or drain them of their raw investiture entirely or some such horrible things.

Warbreaker Ready Player One Kingsmen

Ah, Fair enough, I thought they were referring to the blade and plate being one soul with 2 separate physical forms.

Dont think we'd get literal Investiture Spren or Shardspren, because as others have said that's a bit of lingual paradox. But as the populace as a whole became more realmicly aware you might get things like IdentitySpren or ConnectionSpren, though there's a very real possibility that those are basically covered with like Honor-spren or something. You could definitely get more specific subsets as technology develops, I could see thinks like Shipspren or even gunspren. Starspren would become more prevalent to a space-fairing culture, etc.

"He's my Goat." "So was I..." EDIT: "You think you're the only Goat in the world? Mr. Stark, you've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet." "I have an Army" "We have a Goat" "I. AM. GOOOOOOAAAAAAATTT!!!!"

If there was a large-scale group behind it, I think Id first look toward the Shin. As a nation they seem to have retained the most of the ancient knowledge, and were both keeping and training for the Honorblades.

Pretty sure there's no such thing as reading too much into things, not around here. That's one looks to be more about the rosharan symmetry naming conventions, were palindromes are considered holy. They take their syllables (that whole runic system) and make them one letter/sound off from a palindrome (like Shallan) so as to not be too presumptive or something. In world its probably traced to the palindromes common in the Heralds.

Id say in general it would have to be the "real" thing, unless their weakness was itself a psychological trait/effect. That being said, I dont know how much the literla physical characteristics are going to affect things. I mean, "Fire" as a weakness is pretty direct, but for practical purposes Fire is just super-heated gas that is emitting light, and niether of those things individually woudl do it. Or separately, I have to assume, so you couldnt rig up a giant electric heater and some bright lights to imitate it, but you could use some chemical that burns dimly and with low heat. For that matter, the Weakness is effective even in the case of minions granted power, and so outside the sphere of said Epic's perception should not be a problem. Dont get me wrong, I think the weaknesses are indeed a product of the Epic's psychology, but once their powers manifest it has become real and would require "real" things. I just dont think they can stick their head in the sand and avoid it.