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Somehow I dont think it is what you think it is...

This WOB implies that he might have had Help, which always seemed like the simplest explanation to me, if not necessarily the most likely.

On point that used to trip me up is whether that Annotation is saying he uses his Wielder's Definition of Evil, or if he's using his Creator's definition and just letting his Wielder do the measuring. I think it's saying the latter, that his Creator has a nebulous (probably unconscious) idea of what Evil was but no clearly stated or reasoned definition, but since Nightblood doesnt get the distinction fundamentally he lets the Wielders reaction/interpretation of that Imperative.

As far as we can tell, a Perpendicularity will form naturally on any planet where a Shard is in Residence, unless they take conscious steps to do something else with it, like put it in a storm or something. The Pits would have started working again and producing Atium after enough time, had Ati survived. The Well was the other one, and would have in theory worked for a Perpendicularity once it filled back up. We dont have any confirmed details of the Perpendicularities in Era 2, including whether there is one or two of them. Sazed moved enough landscape that it could be anywhere in theory. We know both K&N and Hoid have managed to get on and off world, which implies that one is working, or else they've both found a new means of worldhopping. There a broadsheet that mentions a woman coming across a perfectly blue pool somewhere in the mountains in the Southern Roughs, and a sudden appearance of a strange figure by the pool. This is the best bet we have for a Perpendicularity in Era 2. The Counter-argument is that the source of Harmonium is obviously somewhere in the South, and at least in Era 1 both God-metals formed right there at the perpendicularity.

Harmony is aware that some other Shardic force is actively blocking him (the Red Haze) and he knows a foreign Shard has given out foreign Godmetal Spikes. He may not have figured out exactly which Shard is behind the Trell events on Scadrial, but I strongly suspect he would be able to Recognize the Shard if and when he interacts with them. I dont think one Shard would be able to disguise their nature well enough in the Spiritual Realm. Given that, and assuming that Trell can communicate to or monitor their spiked Agents in Scadrial, I think it's a safe bet by this point in Era2 that Trell knows things are getting more Overt.

Well, Breed a god

100% In-world logic/Theory: Forgery appears to support the idea of quantifiable Alternate Timelines, given that the effectiveness and the amount of Investiture required varies based on how far from "true" the revision is. However, only the present shared Truth/Timeline is actually manifested as an existence with a Cognitive and Physical Realm, using and as a result of the sum total of Investiture in the Cosmere. Emitting a complete, functioning set of Realms would, I think, take a matching amount of Investiture to the Cosmere itself. This would take all the Investiture of Adonalsium that was shattered, PLUS all the Investiture that was tied up in the Cosmere's functioning existence back in his time (which probably matches what's floating about today, hard to say).

Saw this float through today, fwiw: EDIT: The other source of a lot of what is out there is from various Kickstarter campaigns, but those are more limited time, limited run stuff.

Possible but unnecessarily problematic. Mistwraiths are a breeding race with a lifespan of about 50 years, any of which can be turned into Kandra with Blessing spikes. In a pinch kandra can revert to Mistwraiths so presumably they could then breed, but doing so for any length of time puts their minds and memories at risk of being lost. No idea if they can breed without first removing their spikes. They do not currently know the secret of making more Kandra Blessing Spikes so they cannot actually increase their population (without divine intervention).

If Im not mistaken, the ettmetal is only consumed/Burned when it is emitting Allomancy, but for feruchemy it just runs on the stored feruchemical charge. Realmically I think this implies that the Ettmetal doesn't open a Connection to Preservation/Harmony and so is providing the Investiture directly (like Atium). While all kinds of Investiture engines are certainly coming, I strongly suspect there are going to be fundamental conservation issues with literal perpetual motion, for a couple reasons. 1) If an Awakening Command cannot do it, I suspect nothing would, and WOB implies such a command would slowly consume the Breaths used in the Awakening. 2) If it IS possible in the Cosmere, I dont think any magic with Ruin's influence involved will be able to pull it off, including Ettmetal. Both Feruchemy and Hemalurgy have diminishing returns on stored Investiture that I think would likely prevent Perpetual motion once you dig into the in-world math/science of it all. Separately, it has been a while since I read it myself, but the Coppermind says the airships are run on Steelpushing, not weight reduction. I dont have m books with me, anyone recall the specifics offhand? Was it perhaps both?

That settles that as far as Im concerned, the shards must have created the planet with fossil fuels baked in to the recipe. Offhand, anything from peat to some version of the seaweed that Roshar uses iirc.

I wasnt trying to say they were running on liquid fuel, just on non-fossil fuels from biomass, presumably that were being processed into charcoal. But if you have a quote showing actual Coal Minors removing fossil fuels from the ground, that's all kinds of interesting to me, Im just surprised it didnt come up in the bod debate the WOB is referencing (presumably that happened here). what?

It's admittedly not the firmest of WOB's, but he says the use biodiesel etc instead and that finding alternative sources is going to be a plot/culture point in the future.

To clarify, they have (or sometimes have) Key phrases that let their owners issue commands (lower-case) in any given moment without needing to ReIssued the actual Awakening Command (as we saw with their use of Clod around the HQ). What I dont really know is the limit to how abstract those commands can be. "Fight" can actually be pretty complex depending on the skill levels involved and Clod kept some of it. Even Lightsong was surprised that the Squirrel could execute a relatively complex command (and it was just a Squirrel). Somewhere there's going to be a line where a Lifeless just fails to comprehend the orders enough to turn them into specific actions, but its hard to say where that line is. Especially since it will likely vary based on the skill of the Lifeless relative to the task as well as the skill of the Awakener.

Hmm, not my realm entirely so I dont have much, but if SE french countryside is close enough to Italian, I remember seeing Jean De Florette (and it's sequel) as a teenager and it having a decent impact. It's very big on the clash between the country side and an urbanites romanticized view of it. Spoiler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_de_Florette

^This. It's a magic race created through spiritual manipulation if the Code of reality, manifesting physical changes; it's not anything really based in Physics. That being said, there is some headcannon that might help you: Human skulls are, by a wide margin, the thinnest and weakest (relatively speaking) of any Primate on account of our overdeveloped brains. So the Koloss could easily have significantly thicker skulls, which also might explain their reduced intelligence. Since they get four additional Iron Spikes, I might arbitrarily guess that a Koloss has a skull that is 5x thicker and/or more durable than the average human.

Had there been a Bloodless option to pass the power and/or remake the culture of Idris, then sure we could argue the merits of one nation's style over the other. The closest option on the table for that would have been a full surrender from Idris though, which apparently the rest of the nations did not think was called for or Proper (as they were recognized as an independent nation otherwise). But what happened was a Zombie army was sent to exterminate the entire population by a third actor that just wanted to use it as an excuse for another Manywar, and a second zombie army was sent to stop it. And that's actually all that happened; since there's a very strong possibility that the Helandrian plan to absorb Idris through Siri's Marriage will/did work as intended to unify the two Nations, Idris wasnt nessesarily saved, just the lives that would have been sacrificed to get the Pahn Kahl rebellion and/or the Manywar Pt.2 rolling. Tolls and Taxes are basic elements of international economics, I dont see that as a particularly evil trait for a nation; it's how most commerce and trade-based states operate and what Port Cities are all about. Id argue that we arent supposed to like it. Two armies (zombies or otherwise) churning themselves into a meat grinder is never the preferred route. Hell, anything even resembling War should really never be an idea we "Like". But we're supposed to hate the idea of Soldiers dying slightly less than civilians (because they Chose the career, I guess?) and the idea of Lifeless slightly less (since they already died and theoretically feel little to no pain). ^This. I dont think there is anything fundamentally unsalvageable about Idris itself, or even its people. I dont personally like the Austrism that so strongly characterizes it, but I dont really like the Helandrian equivalent either so Im not taking sides in the religious debate (If I did I'd be on Lightsong's Side). The Lifeless would definitely not be able to accept a surrender unless their Orders included that clause, but I really dont think they'd have enough comprehension or agency to make a judgement call. At best I think it would be a Hold Condition along the lines of "Pause and Regroup when you see the White Flag" sort of thing. Huh?

I like it, the Tao of the Black Bull Plus Ultra! If you havent picked up Black Clover or My Hero Academia yet, based on your other references I promise you will enjoy them. (Ill be back)

Ah, Gotcha! So more along the lines of successive stages of Snapping (to borrow the Mistborn term). Associating the Thresholds with a set of physical Charka gates on the body might still add some flavor, especially if you wanted to incorporate any of the historic acupuncture-style ki points and/or Meridians into the practical side of the magic usage. BrandoSando's Laws of Magic state Limits are often more important that capabilities, so what's the Upper limit look like? Is there a Threshold of Death that leaves you immortal? Is everything Internal Effects or are you thinking Hadouken-style attacks too? You mentioned Limitations with each threshold, what did you have in mind? Are the Thresholds linear, as in the same sequence for everyone, or is it more of a branching skill tree depending on individual experiences? Just so Im on the right page, are these the sorts of things you are thinking? List of Threshold Limits: -Threshold of Hunger, Unlocks Spiritual Understanding, Title: Guru -Threshold of Venom, Maximizes and/or gives conscious control of internal metabolic processes. Title: Paragon? -Threshold of Despair, Unlocks Supernatural Endurance. Title: Sentinel -Threshold of the Mind, Unlocks Unique Mental capabilities (peyote hallucinations spirit journey), Title: Shaman

Your Thresholds sound like the historic Chakra's. Those usually correlated to specific organs or body parts in some fashion to reflect the internal Ki/Chi manipulation. Your list seems pretty focused on Pain and Suffering (And more Pain). Perhaps mix it up a bit with a Threshold of Serenity or maybe Joy? Or, because I like unnecessary complexity, you could have a shared set of Chakra Thresholds on the body, but have different Orders that use different philosophic Keys to unlock each one. So where one school might call it the Threshold of Fear, another might call the Threshold of Joy, Birth vs Might, Serenity vs Conviction, etc. Things that can arguably have similar thematic basis but with a different spin on each concept.

Also worth asking which direction the Time Shift will be for Investiture-based Perpendicularity compared to the known/RL effects of speed or Gravity-based time dilation. We cant assume it will Slide instead of Pulse (or vice versa, I can never keep them straight). Outside of extremes like Sel I think we can discount significant Time Dilation bleeding into the Physical Realm on the logic that such an effect should be noticeable as you approach a Shardpool style perpendicularity. I would entire buy the effect being magnified by actually making the transition though, so it's a Worldhopper concern but not a local resident one. But if Time near Perpendicularities made a significant difference, distinctly odd aging would have been noticed on the Horneater peaks, near the Pits and the Well, etc. With Sel all bets are off since the effect is planet-wide (I assume)....Sel is very Regional in magically significant ways, is there one place that is more or less difficult to access? Is the Shardpool the "Eye of the Storm", a calm spot in the plasma storm?

FUN! Tension: Reinforces Spiritual Bonds, possibly makes temporary effects permanent Alternates: Transportation: Mass/Area Transport (ie Oathgate-style) Transformation/Cohesion: Large-scale Fractal Construction (ie WIndblades) Progression: Mass Crop Growth Given that the interactive map is specific to the sky perspective of the Storm, it's reasonable to think the other two will be distinct. Division (Nightwatcher): the Opposite of Spiritual Adhesion Illumination (Sibling): Illumination (Nightwatcher): some sort of life sense map, based on those vine-tentacles and too many re-runs of Avatar. The more I write the more I think this is a rabbit hole. Each Bondsmith could theoretically have different effects with each of the different Surges AND combined with each (or Both) of theirs. So, max each Bondsmith could have three unique interactions per Surge (Adhesion, Tension, Both), with effects as distinct as their Godspren.

First off, phenomenal work! Second, does this take the Highstorm into consideration? Significant Westward wind basically doesn't happen on Roshar, right?

There were climate controlling fabrials that failed, killing nearly all of the existing (but maybe not literally native?) life and leaving it barren (Dawnshard Ch.9). Makes me wonder if Shin has a similar (and similarly vulnerable) system? Id always sort of assumed that Shin's terraforming was a Handwave miracle from the Shards, but I wonder if it used a more grounded system...

Possible but I doubt it's literally simply because Mists are already supposed to be a Scadrian equivalent for Stormlight, as another form of Gaseous Investiture. That being said, we know that the Shards created that area for the Shin refugees, so it's always possible that the those mountains have a natural Investiture. It wouldnt be the first time, given the Purelake.