Titan Arum

mjk, I never saw your original post about that! I just gave you an upvote for it in the thread you link to. For me this is even more evidence that the Southern Scadrian's in Allik's tribe speak some type of Scandinavian language. Thank you for cross-verifying. Since I don't speak any Scandinavian languages, I was only guessing as I went a long trying to translate things. Good catch with ettmetal meaning "The One-Metal"! I really like that interpretation. I ended up tweeting Peter again to see if he could further verify what he meant (since I thought maybe he was sorta trolling me) and he replied:

I've been looking for that WoB too. I remember reading it at some point but I can't recall where. It may be in one of the signing reports prior to the Calamity tour, from the Shadows of Self tour.

Quiver, there is verbatim WoB where Brandon says Rayse doesn't want to pick up additional Shards because it could/will change the Intent. Whether or not he's confusing Rayse with Odium is the question here.

Quantum, can you point me to the WoB that says Rayse's original personality matched the Intent of Odium? I cannot find it, if it does exist. I have, though, found WoB that matches what I've already said: take what we learn in the Letter with a grain of salt. It's biased towards Hoid's own opinion.

Quantum, you have to take how the other Shards feel about Rayse with a grain of salt. We only have word from Hoid about how he feels, and I think Cultivation? That's a small sample relative to other Shards' feelings. Anyway, you may also be confusing yourself with the Intent of the Shard of Odium: Hatred. I can only imagine how easily that Intent could corrupt someone, even if they were the gentlest of souls. For example, Ati was supposedly a pretty decent person, but the Intent of Ruin pushed him to embracing decay and destruction.

Quantum, I do not think that Hoid had his place taken by Rayse. He may have had a place offered to him, but I don't think he took it. Secret History Spoilers, emphasis mine:

BrightVoid, we have seem them on another planet: Secret History Spoiler:

I decided to ask Peter about this little theory, and when he tweeted me back, all he said was "Good Question." Maybe this is his way of saying "I cannot confirm this right now, but you're on the right track" or it's simply his version of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm really looking forward to this game and the Kickstarter. However... I was talking with a friend and we both think that the art for the box look really bad. The two women gossiping look ridiculous. I hope that the art on the inside is different from the cover of the box! I'm also confused about why there are images of Sazed, Vin, and Elend on the box when they really won't be characters in the game.

Previous WoB has shown that the names of many of our favorite Northern Scadrians from the Central Dominance sound French. Without “hearing” the language or seeing it written, we can only assume it, as a whole, is French sounding. source As I’ve been re-reading BoM, I noticed that Allik’s use of language sounded distinct from what we’ve been accustomed to from Northern Scadrial. His words reminded me of a Germanic language. I first noticed this when he used the medallion to speak in the language of our protagonists, because he kept ending sentences with “yah”. This is the same sound that the word “yes” in German makes, and is spelled “ja”. Then came the word “Jaggenmire” that didn’t translate to our protagonists’ language. Marasi tried to pronounce it and came up with the following: She hears the “Ja” sound as a “yay” sound, which is similar to Allik’s frequent use of “yah”. This was further evidence to me that Allik’s language is Germanic in nature. Now it was time to dig deeper, and find other words to help provide evidence for my hypothesis. After further research, I think his language is actually linguistically similar to Northern Germanic— i.e., Scandinavian, specifically Danish. (Note, Denmark is literally just north of Germany.) I started my linguistic sleuthing with Allik’s name and googled German names similar to “Allik”, and came up with the following list (with their meanings): · Alrik: “Noble Leader” · Aldrik: Noble Friend” It appears that the shared root is “Noble”. Maybe this means something about who Allik will be one day? However, these names added an extra consonant, so I kept looking and found the name “Alek” in Danish. Alek is short for Aleksander, which means “Defender of Men”. Is this where Allik gets his name from? Will he be a defender of Southern Scandrian peoples and a noble friend to our protagonists? Allik’s name wasn’t enough for me. What about words that he says in his language? My favorite words he used were the names for Preservation and Ruin: I first googled to see if these names were German words. “Herr” means “Lord” in German…this seemed like a good sign to me! Unfortunately, “Frue” is not a German word. But it is Danish. In Danish, it literally means “wife” or “Ma’am” and “Herr” literally means “Mister”. So we have Mister and Missus…just like how Allik describes them. When Allik first realized Wax was an Allomancer he said a few words aloud in his own language that Marasi overheard: “Fottenstall” doesn’t really translate to much, even if “fotten” means “feet” in Norwegian. However “hanner konge” has a very interesting meaning in Danish: “Male King”. Allik notes that Wax seems very powerful, like the Sovereign, and thinks he needs to always use some type of title for him. The Sovereign described himself as a former King from Northern Scadrial. Thus, it doesn’t surprise me that Allik may be asking Marasi if Wax is a king. I didn’t look at very many other words other than these, because all of this already seemed like good evidence that the Southern Scadrian language is similar to Northern Germanic languages, specifically Danish. If people from Northern Scadrial speak with a French accent/sound, then it seems entirely plausible that the southerners speak some type of Germanic/Scandinavian language, given the clues. What do you all think?

Good job, Curiosity. That is indeed the final answer. In the correct order of the total Muslim population (2010 numbers), the answer to my question is as follows: 1) Indonesia 2) India 3) Pakistan 4) Bangladesh Given estimated population growth, the expected top 4 by 2050 is: 1) India 2) Pakistan 3) Indonesia 4) Nigeria Delightful, take it away!

Delightful, you've made some valiant efforts, so, per the rules of the game, you can ask the next question and provide us with a funny picture! I'll see if anyone else in the mean time can guess correctly. You're getting close, however. Here's the next hint. The reason why it's closely related to Pakistan and India: it used to be part of British India and then part of Pakistan after partition (known as East Pakistan), until it gained its own independence in 1971. A clue that's not helpful at all: I was in this country for work in December during it's Victory Day celebration.

Pakistan is correct. One more for you to get correct! Here's a hint: it's the most densely populated country in Asia that isn't a city-state nation (i.e. not Singapore) or a small island nation/entity (i.e. Hong Kong, Macau, Bahrain). Hint #2: it's closely related to two of your correct answers already.

Good guess Delightful. Your first two are correct! Want to guess the other two?

I'm going to play by the rules to get this going again: So here it goes, four named characters to give examples of classes in the Pathfinder system: 1) Andromeda 2) Stegosaurus (wait...that's a dinosaur!) 3) Sagittarius 4) Alpha Centauri Now I get to ask a new question! Yay! I'll follow this up with a determination of whether or not I'm correct (Hint: I'm not)... and pay my punishment! Oh look, I was wrong! I assumed something space related. Didn't know it was an RPG. (I probably should have realized this was RPG-related when Seonid said "I've been on an RPG kick lately". I should learn to read better!) The answers are: 1) Barbarian 2) Bard 3) Cleric 4) Druid 5) Fighter 6) Monk 7) Paladin 8) Ranger 9) Rogue 10) Sorcerer 11) Wizard Now, here's a funny picture of a stegosaurus. WLIU: Name the top four countries with the largest Muslim populations in the world (in absolute terms, not percentages).

Alyx, how do you come up with your pronunciations of names like "kandra" and "MeLaan"? Is this from inside knowledge from Brandon or your own interpretation of them? I only ask because my head-canon is different. I want to know if I am wrong! I have a feeling, though, it may be due to my own accent vs. yours.

This is awesome, Weiry. Thanks for getting it from Isaac! I'm typically not OCD, but my inner-self wants the points to all come together on the Ake/Kae axis, similar to the Ato/Toa convergence...

While I love Pi, and Pi I'm sure you're a good guy and your life will be splendid (just watch out for overly aggressive plants, okay?)...I'm in the tau camp as well. Thanks for sharing this! I wonder if you've started the new wave of "what to ask Brandon to personalize and he promptly decides should not be allowed any more due to time constraints"

Looks like the poll is now closed. We made a valiant last ditch effort. We went from 49.52% to 49.74% in 30 minutes. I should have posted this thread sooner! I thought the voting would go through the entire day. I feel this loss is on my shoulders. Sigh.

Thanks to all who've voted so far! it's obvious that Vin/Elend are beginning to claw their way back. When I first created this thread they were at 49.52%...now they'are at 49.64%!!! It's working, but we need to keep voting!! As many of our civics teachers/professors have said before: "Every vote counts!"

Vin and Elend are currently in the Final Four of a "March Madness" style cage match against Legolas and Gimli. If they win this match they will most likely go to the finals against Sevro and Darrow from the Red Rising trilogy. (Which should be an interesting match up, if you ask me.) However...they are currently losing by a minuscule amount, and today is the last day to vote! Everyone who is a fan of Brandon Sanderson, I believe that it is YOUR DUTY to defend Vin and Elend's honor! We all know that in a real fight Legolas and Gimli have nothing on our beloved duo. So please, get out and vote. It's your 17th Shard civic duty!!!! (PS - You can only vote once per device, so if you can: vote on your phone, your computer, and your tablet!)

Currently L&G have the lead over Vin/Elend. 50.48% vs. 49.52%...time to start a new thread to get more people to vote! Here it is, guys, the new thread to try and get more people to vote.

Just as an FYI, Amazon originally had June 22nd and changed the date recently. The change is from the 22nd to 5th which is only 14 days, so an extra two weeks to wait. No big deal, really. We know it's coming this year and not at the end of the year. We're getting close.

maxal, do we have any indication of her age? I wouldn't be surprised if she is many years younger than Sadeas. We know that Shallan is 17 or 18 (born in 1156) and that Adolin is roughly 24 (born in 1150), which is a 6 year difference. Nobody bats an eye at their age difference. Seems like women marrying older men may be common. Also, if women can have children in their 40s here, what's stopping her if she's that old as well?