Blaze1616

Ah, that makes a big difference. The only "author" I can think of right now is the author of the Ars Arcani, and we kind of are getting their musings (particularly with the newer novels). It would be cool to have all the Ars Arcani collected together.

We should be using spoiler tags. We're discussing WoR in the Warbreaker forum.

Isn't it a little early to be considering this? I've seen this type of discussion crop up a few times over the last few months, and I'm not sure why people are already discussing it. Of approximately 45 Cosmere novels, we've only got 8. That's just shy of 20%. To compare, GRRM has released 5 of the planned 7 novels, or 71.5%. That is a huge difference. I would not want anything like what you're suggesting to be made until we actually start receiving all the stories from specific planets (Nalthis still has another book, Sel has two more, Scadrial has ? more, Roshar has 8 more, etc.) and even then I would only want details from those planets, and not the unfinished ones. Now, I understand why we want this type of thing. We here at 17th Shard are hardcore fans, or at least hardcore enough to join and contribute to an official fan site. We want more information. We want to further immerse ourselves in the wonderful universe that a brilliant author devised and created. Don't think the above paragraph means I don't desire such a thing as you're suggesting. I just feel we should wait to start asking, planning, etc. until more information is naturally granted to us. Brandon has been keeping a wonderful pace. As we all know, other authors leave fans waiting for more than half a decade. Brandon barely makes us wait more than half a year for a new book (albeit some of them are non-Cosmere). Asking for more information from him will eventually tire him out, possibly even annoy him. As I've already seen him respond on a multitude of occaisions, he "needs something to put in the sequel." I am really beginning to feel that, as a fandom, we need to slow ourselves down. Brandon has a great relationship with us right now. Let us not ruin it. That all being said, I feel I am beginning to digress. So to stay on topic, if I had to pick content for such an omnibus right now, I would agree with almost everything you've listed except the musings from other authors, and the list of Hoid's aliases as listed by Nazh. A list of Hoid aliases would be nice, but unless Nazh gets the ability to travel back in time, I don't think he can write the list, unless Khriss knows about and has a vested interest in Hoid's doings (which I am confident she doesn't). And I wouldn't want other author's musings because...who cares? This book would be huge as is given what we already have. I don't think it needs to be bogged down by pointless musings that belong in blogs.

Unless you are posting in the Cosmere Theories or Elantris forums, yes. We get new users on the site everyday, and any one of them might not have read Elantris yet. Someone who joined today had only read the Mistborn trilogy and didn't know the Cosmere was a thing, but was merely looking for other books with Allomancy. Spoiler tags are definitely necessary. Edit: Ninja'd

To avoid spoilers you should definitely read the majority, if not all, of Brandon's Cosmere works before searching for yourself. It'll help a lot, as well as allow you to understand more of the Cosmere jargon. Another helpful tool is the Cosmere 101 thread. Even that, though, is a bit spoiler-ish and is best used once you've acquainted yourself with a few of Brandon's novels. My best advice is to resist the urge to devour all the information that the internet has to offer and read a few more books. My first suggestion is Warbreaker, because it is available for free on Brandon's website (available here). This also allows you time to get the other novels, without losing time between now and you getting them. I would then follow Warbreaker with either Elantris or Alloy of Law, followed by the other one. Then you can dig into Stormlight Archive if you so choose.

Agreed, with a slight alteration in that Warbreaker and Elantris can be read in either order. To further answer your question though, I would suggest you read Alloy of Law first. I'm not sure whether you knew about the Cosmere that Voidus mentions prior to him mentioning it, but you specifically said you wanted more info about Allomancy. Alloy of Law is the only other book set on Scadrial (the planet that Mistborn occurs on). The other novels that Voidus mentioned are separate series or stand-alone novels, all of which are excellent, but do not deal with Allomancy. As for an actual reading order to all of Brandon's works, there isn't one. Warbreaker is a stand-alone. Elantris is a stand-alone. Alloy of Law takes place on Scadrial, as I mentioned. The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance are the first two installments of the Stormlight Archive, a series that is currently planned to be 10 books. The Emperor's Soul is a stand-alone novella that takes place on Sel, the planet in which Elantris occurs, so it is recommended you read Elantris prior to The Emperor's Soul, though there is almost no relation between them. Welcome. I hope you enjoy our company.

It's called Cosmere Theories...couldn't be more simple if they tried. Also, in this Cosmere Theories forum spoiler tags are not required, in the event that cross-world speculation arises (which happens quite often). In addition, the way I've come to understand the organization of this site is that the individual series forums are for more general discussions, and not the in-depth discussions that often happen here. To be more blunt, though, if cosmere related theories were posted in their individual forums, what would be the point of having a Cosmere Theories forum in the first place? Perhaps I've misunderstood your question?

As you note, it depends on what Kobold wants, but either way theta is an important thing to note. Also keep in mind that if the incline of Rimenight's orbit is too steep, there will come a point where parts of the planet will get barraged by constant sunlight for parts of the year, and lack of sunlight the rest of it. Those inclines though would occur closer to 90 degrees than 0 degrees though, so keeping the number relatively small would not be an issue. Also keep in mind, Kobold, that if Rimenight's orbit angle is greater than theta, the "north pole" would be similar to Earth's poles, and if all of Rimenight is above theta then the "south pole" would be the same as well. As for math, I'm with you Seonid. I'm far better at calc, algebra, and differential equations, though that's because I haven't taken geometry since I was a freshman in high school. I've been doing calc and algebra every year since I was a sophomore in high school. I particularly like algebra though.

Oh! Okay. It never occured to me to check there. All right, I concede. I like Sebarial the Willshaper better than Sebarial the Bondsmith.

Could you source your Willshapers having the attribute Resolute/Builder? All I can find about them is the epigraph Schlee posted. Outside of calling them "enterprising," which I think we all agree fits Sebarial, I don't see anything about Resolute/Builder.

You bring up a good point (I didn't even look at the oath ). Luckily, the oaths aren't set in stone, they're able to fluctuate from Radiant to Radiant, though I know the message must stay the same. It is interesting to note, though, that Sebarial does unify everyone in their annoyance of him . Also, to nitpick your nitpick, delegation is a very strong technique used by many. Sebarial delegating others to gather the armies on the Oathgate plateau is still good leadership, so I personally wouldn't say a Bondsmith would "do it himself." That's the difference between Sebarial and Dalinar, and to me they represent two sides of the Bondsmith coin/triangle.

Also keep in mind that the with large enough inclines, eclipses will happen less. Too large of an incline though will make all life impossible on Rimenight due to constant sunlight/night making the surface too hot/cold for any kind of life. As Seonid suggests, a small incline would be best, though I'm currently trying to figure out a "sweet spot" to get the best view of the rings, yet still be hospitable. ------------------------------------------------------------------ All right, so I've created a graph to help visualize this to help decide where to place Rimenight to get/not get daily eclipses. I apologize, but I hand-did the graph and scanned it to myself...then I realized my scan didn't show the effort I put in to color code it...so I took a picture with my phone as well. I will attach both below. Oh no! I can't input an image from a file...HANG ON WHILE I FIGURE THIS OUT! *page should spin as I dash off to figure this out, like in the old Batman stuff, with the spin-ey music too* Edit: *page should spin with the music again as I dash back* HOLY DROPBOX KOBOLD KING! THE PUBLIC FOLDER IS PERFECT FOR THIS! For COLOR!!!: For crisper image but NO COLOR!!!: So, I'm going to use the color image as I'm explaining things. The horizontal line in the middle (the one connecting 0 and 180) is also the line that connects the center of the planet with the center of the star. As the image notes, Rp is the radius of the planet and Ro is the radius of the orbit.The blue circle (outer most circle, it's hard to see in the black & white image) is the orbit of Rimenight. The black circle (inner most circle) is the planet. The two red dots on the blue circle represent Rimenight. The green line represents the "edge" of the light/heat from the star. This green line, then, is tangent to both the black line used to represent the planet, and the undrawn circle representing your star, way off to the left of the graph. This graph makes one big assumption though, that the green line is horizontal. This is unlikely, and so theta is going to be smaller than what this graph shows. This graph is a good rough estimation though. So what does theta mean? Any point of Rimenight that is above the angle theta will no longer get daily eclipses all year round. Instead, eclipse "periods" will occur twice a year, where for some nuimber of days there will be an eclipse per day. To make visualization of the graph easier to comprehend, the graph is a scale "model" if the following parameters are true: Rp = 50,000 km (Saturn's radius is ~58,000 km) Ro = 400,000 km (this means distance from the planet is ~350,000 km, making the day/night cycle equivalent to 2.5 Earth days) Radius of Rimenight = ~6,000 km (same as Earth) This makes the radius of each of the red, untraced circles on the graph 50,000 km larger than the circle it immediately envelops. With those numbers, and the assumption I mentioned, the graph I made accurately shows theta to be ~7.5 degrees. Now, this number should be smaller, because the size of your star matters too. Unfortunately I cannot graph this as 1) my graph isn't big enough, and 2) It would be best if the much larger graph that would fix problem 1 had a second origin for drawing said sun. Picky, I know, but I don't have that, so mental picturing will have to suffice. Our Sun has a radius of 695,800 km, and assuming your planet is about the same distance from it's star as Earth is from ours, that's 149,500,000 km away. This could cause the green line (which is tangent to both the planet and the star) on my graph to decline down towards the 0 degree point on the blue orbit line. This would in turn decrease theta. I feel this is most probable, however the incline of the green line might be incredibly small to the point of being negligible, which would make my graph accurate. So if you want to know an accurate theta, Kobold, I'll need the radius of your star, the radius of your planet, the radius of Rimenight, the distance of the planet from your star, and the distance of Rimenight from your planet. I would also then need to refresh on my very weak geometry skills (particularly because arc math was my weakest bit in geometry). Edit 2: Sorry for all the little edits I've made across the day, I've just been fixing up the post for grammar and some typos and whatnot.

No, I don't partake in re-reads. As for him being a Willshaper, it is possible (my main theory was that he would be a Radiant, and I tacked on the Bondsmith and Cultivation bits to add flair and spark discussion), but I don't like that Willshaper passage, though I understand it is all we have. The passage very clearly states that the description of "capricious, frustrating, unreliable" was probably an intolerable view that most do not share. It then goes on to state that the Order is the "most varied," and the only binding qualities are love of adventure, novelty, and oddity. So essentially all that passage says is that anybody can be a Willshaper so long as they enjoy adventuring, novelties, and oddities. That is one big umbrella that a lot of people could fall under... As for Sebarial being a uniting force, when he stays out in the Highstorm eating grapes while Palona reads (which is my favorite scene in the whole book), he just took control of, and commanded with success, the entirety of the Alethi army that was at the plains. And thanks to him everyone gets to Uritiru safely. Even if you don't consider that unifying though, Sebarial's warcamp itself is a testament to his unifying power, something I touched on in the OP. The Herdazians even came together to form Little Herdaz in his camp. As an aside, I am curious what makes you think Bondsmiths are unifying in nature? The epigraph dealing with them just says they usually sit on Uritiru's thrones, not that they unify in any particular way. Dalinar, though he does unify his army via each soldier's loyalty to him, I would argue this is no more than what Sebarial has shown.

So in one of the recent Q&As for the Firefight release, Peter made a sly post about how there's a character in the Stormlight Archive who he guessed correctly, without external help, was going to eventually become a Knight Radiant, and that he hadn't seen much talk about them in particular on this site. It got me to thinking what characters I think have enough evidence to be considered, that no one has talked about much prior to his post. After thinking about it for a few days, I came across Sebarial. Oh how I love Sebarial. In snooping around for info in the book, I came across two passages. The first is in Chapter 63. "Actually, she hadn't been to visit Sebarial's ardents very often either -- though when she had gone, she'd found them surprisingly devout, considering who owned them" - Words of Radiance, Kindle edition, page 759 The second is in Chapter 81. "Teleb was supporting them with some of Sebarial's troops, who were surprisingly good. The man himself was practically useless in battle, but he knew how to hire the right people -- and that had always been his genius." - Words of Radiance, Kindle edition, page 984. Both of these passages tell of Sebarial as a leader. Though he often comes off as obnoxious and apathetic, he is very serious about his people. This is evident in his warcamp and it's construction, as well as his economic policy and foresight. These two passages show that Sebarial pays attention to who he hires for various jobs. He wants the best for his people, as any good leader does. Particularly when you take into account that Sebarial has a strong military force, when he himself despises war, and he avoids it whenever he can. So what does this mean? Well, as the title to this thread says, it means I think Sebarial is Knight Radiant material, specifically Bondsmith material. Bondsmiths are leaders, and particularly effective ones, so Sebarial fits right in. But what of his spren? Well, Dalinar bonded the Stormfather. Many people on here seem to be thinking that Bondsmiths had such low numbers because they each bonded special spren, such as the Stormfather and his ilk. Well, that allows Sebarial to fit in too! Daliner is a very honorable leader, leading by example and such. He bonded the Stormfather, a special spren with ties to Honor. I think Sebarial will bond a spren tied to Cultivation, as he leads in a much more cultivating way. He cultivated his warcamp so that his people could live in relative comfort. He cultivated his employees so that his people would have the best services. He cultivated his economic policy to ensure his camp would see plenty of cash flow. ultimately, he has cultivated life for his people. No good theory, though, is complete without it's share of doubts. Mine come in the unlikely hood of two Bondsmiths being so close to each other. Considering how small their numbers, in comparison to the other orders, and how large Roshar is, it strikes me as odd that two would appear so near each other. In addition, outside of the Nightwatcher (possibly), we have yet to be introduced to a spren similar to the Stormfather which corresponds to Cultivation. If it is the Nightwatcher, what will cause Sebarial to go to her? Now, I'm not sure if that is who Peter was talking about, and I have seen people mention it since his post, but I didn't see anything about it before he did. EDIT: Due to discussion below, I've changed my mind. I now think Sebarial will become a Willshaper. For reasons, see ensuing discussion.

*cough* so when I wrote my response above I was in a bit of a rush to get out of work, so I submitted, logged off, and drove home. Approximately...oh, lets just go with 2 seconds...after I logged off it occurred to me how ridiculously high 2% is. It also occurred to me that all my calculations are based on Rimenight, it's parent planet, and the star are all in line with each other along one plane, which Seonid noted. A far more accurate guesstimate of the moon's percentage of the sky would be about .01%. This would then alter my calculations for the planet to be a measly 3% of the sky. ...Aaaand I just bothered to open Seonid's spoiler and see he came to the exact same conclusion. Well at least I know I'm not going crazy... So with this 3%, which is a much more manageable and hospitable size, I would say that the coldest parts of the planet would be the "north pole" and the "south pole," where the sun's rays are the most acute angle, incredibly Indirect. These areas would probably be about as cold as Earth's poles, though I don't know for sure due to the increased day/night cycle. Due to the increased day/night cycle (36 hours each), the sun would take longer to travel across the sky. This would mean surface temperatures (of the side facing away from the planet) would reach higher points than Earth, and at the same time the extended night would provide more time for heat dissipation. A part of me wants to say that the "equitorial" section of the side facing away from the planet would get hot enough during the day, and cold enough at night, to be inhospitable, at least for human life, but I can't say for certain. To avoid the harsh heat of the sun, though, any kind of human-like civilization would probably avoid latitudes less than 15 degrees. And I see I completely forgot to answer your tide question, which Seonid beat me to it. That's what I get for rushing. Sorry about all that!

I'm a chemical engineer, so my physics experience definitely does not include astrometry, but I'll try to help by making parallels with Earth. On Earth, the moon and the sun are approximately the same size in the sky. Eclipses, then, are rather short lived. Even still, an eclipse can cause the temperature to drop upwards of 3 degrees Celsius, or 5 degrees Fahrenheit. The situation you are talking about is having a body much larger than our moon in the sky to eclipse an object that I am assuming is about the same size as our sun in the sky (you have to be in the hospitable zone of the star, after all). This should cause much longer eclipses, and during it there should be times where it is essentially night (that might be wrong though, as the light might be visible from the edges of the planet still, though probably fainter than the light around the moon during Earth eclipses, now that I think about it). Regardless, it's going to be cold. Being tidally locked, the coldest part of the moon will be the point where the planet is smack in the middle of the sky (a straight line from Rimenight's surface to the planet would be perpendicular to the tangent line of Rimenight's surface). This is because the only rays from the sun to reach the land will be in the "morning" and "evening", and the rays will be Indirect and at low angles. For anyone reading this that does not know, there are two types of sun rays. Direct and Indirect. Direct rays are rays that are approximately perpendicular to the surface. Direct rays transfer the most heat. Indirect rays, then, are rays not perpendicular. These rays transfer less heat, and the more acute the angle to the surface, the less heat is transfered. As such, Antarctica and the Arctic are Earth's coldest points, and the areas near the equator are the hottest. How cold that coldest point gets will depend on how much of the sky your planet consumes. Taking into account that one orbit of the planet is 3 days on Earth, this should mean that the side facing away from the planet has night for 1.5 days and sunlight for 1.5 days (is that right?). This would then also mean the side facing the planet will face the sun for 1.5 days (with the planet eclipsing the sun for some percentage of that), and away from the sun for 1.5 days as well. This means you should get ~36 hours of sunlght if it weren't for the planet in the way. So, if the planet covers 50% of the sky, that coldest section of Rimenight would get 9 hours of light before the eclipse, 18 hours of an eclipse, and 9 hours of light afterwards. This would then be followed by 36 hours of night to then repeat again. So what percentage of your sky is being eaten by the planet? Well, the moon is 384,000 km from Earth, whereas Rimenight is 401,000 km from it's planet. That's about 96% of the distance. Close enough for a rough calculation. Earth's moon has a circumference of 10,917 km. Saturn, the planet you're basing your gas giant off of, if I've understood correctly, has a circumference of 378,675 km. That means your planet is 34.5 times larger than the moon. Now, in our night sky the moon is smallest when "smack in the middle" of the sky due to reasons scientists still seem to disagree on, according to Wikipedia. Now, I cannot find any information about what percent of our sky the moon consumes, but let us assume it's about 2% of the sky. So of Rimenight's sky, at this one point on the moon, about 70% is consumed by the planet, if my math is right. This means that your day/night cycle, starting at dawn, is ~5.4 hours of light, 25.2 hours of eclipse, ~5.4 hours of light, 36 hours of night, and repeat. Those 10.8 hours of light places the sun from the horizon to about where it is 1.8 hours after dawn, if it is daylight for 12 hours (as we've assumed a similar situation for Rimenight). Given this, I would argue that your sunlight angles are not much better than the Antarctic, but you're getting sunlight every day of the year, rather than the Antarctic's having weeks of no sun. I would also say, though, that during the eclipse the moon would lose a good amount of heat, much like it does at night. So, after those rough calculations, my even rougher guesstimate on life in those areas would be to say it would resemble a tundra here on Earth. The plant life would have evolved to last on what precious sunlight it gets, and any fauna would be adapted for the cold. Cold water based fauna sould be fine too. Now, obviously, as you move away from that coldest point, you'll have more and more daylight hours where the sun is at a more Direct angle, and eventually the planet will begin to disappear behind the curvature of the moon, until eventually you get a clear and open sky. So as you move further away, the climate will get warmer and will allow for more "regular" flora and fauna. --------------------------------------------------------- That's what I have to offer. If anybody is reading this and thinking "what the heck is he talking about" feel free to rip it apart. Like I said, I don't know much about any of this stuff, so I just made parallels to Earth to try and help myself along. So Kobold, I'm sorry if this post is completely useless to you .

Though I am in no way familiar with the development of jazz, it should be of note that jazz is pleasing to the ear. Most music that does well is pleasing to the ear. As a result, even if Scadrial lacks the very specific details that brought about jazz in the real world, is it so hard to imagine the people of Scadrial enjoying the raw sounds of jazz? You bring up brass instruments, and in a world in which metal is so desired and useful, is it so hard to believe they would craft instruments from them and enjoy what comes out? To me, jazz is the one style of music I would expect from Scadrial. From the metal based instruments, to the importance of improvisation. To add to that, Skaa history is somewhat similar to the African history which birthed jazz, which you note. I guess what I'm getting at is though jazz had very culturally specific reasons for developing, the sound of jazz is not necessarily tied to African culture. I'm sure that, given the correct metalurgy techniques and interest in music, jazz will eventually come to Scadrial. Just as I'm sure it would have eventually come to our world had the circumstances which created it been different. After all, music is just noise, and people are finding new ways to make it every day. That's my take on this, anyways.

You shouldn't have redone the question! More people should read that book! 1. Botany 2. Mechanical Engineering You get an upvote just for having read it too. Though I can't do your current question...

I would actually go against the group here and recommend Warbreaker before Mistborn. You've noted that your only experience from Brandon so far are his most recent Cosmere works (WoR and Sixth of the Dusk). By that point in his career Brandon had really matured as far as his actual writing goes. I bring this up because Brandon's published works each show different levels of maturity in this capacity. Elantris, being his first published novel, feels like a debut novel due to his writing style. The Mistborn trilogy came next, and you can tell that he has matured. Warbreaker is then another step forward, and with Warbreaker I feel he reached the point he will plateau at as far as technical writing is concerned. My point is that if you jump to Mistborn, you might feel a little jarred by the difference. It's one of the main reasons my buddy will never read another Sanderson (which nearly made me cry). He wanted to read Mistborn first because it's the well known Sanderson book (I wanted him to read Warbreaker first), but he was coming into it having read Martin and Erikson. He was so jarred by the experience he's refusing to go further. I think the smarter approach would be to ease your way into it by reading Warbreaker first. To further my point that Mistborn's writing is a bit more "juvenile" compared to the names of other authors you listed and the Stormlight Archive, Mistborn just got reprinted as Teen Fantasy. That all being said, if less experienced writing does not bother you at all, have at it! The order does not matter in terms of the Cosmere story, so you can pick and choose however you like. Also, since no one here has mentioned it, also consider Elantris. It is slightly harder to find though, as Mistborn is Brandon's well known story, Warbreaker is available for free on his website, and SA is currently being published. If you're using Amazon though, it should be no problem.

First off, we do not know for sure what the focus of Rosharan magic is. I am personally in Moogle's camp in thinking that it's the bonds between things (such as KR and spren). As for the Lightweaving not being similar, though we know this is specific to Shallan, Shallan has to draw to get her illusions to work, and in AonDor you have to draw the Aons. That is a limited case though, given it is specific to Shallan. However, we do not know how Hoid's Lightweaving works. It might be very similar to either of those two. As for other systems being similar, Awakening and infusing objects with Stormlight (such as lashings) are incredibly similar, though the outcomes are different, and, as someone else above noted, we do know of a world in which bacteria/illness grants powers. He could have intentionally added bacteria to his drink to gain powers. We just don't know. As I said though, I still think it's most likely Allomancy, but Brandon's answer does open other possibilities, and implies that there will be other plausible answers. Brandon has flat out said Hoid uses Feruchemy. If it were some other form of magic system, Brandon would not have named Feruchemy, but would have been more sly about his answer. source

Read Warbreaker. Edit: I was considering leaving my post as that, it is all that really needs saying, but I suppose I should welcome you too. So welcome. Now read Warbreaker.

Outside of Warbreaker and the shorts on his website, there are no legal copies of Brandon's work for free on the internet. Edit: That being said, the Kindle editions are quite cheap (less than $10 per book) and come with search functionality and the X-Ray feature, which is awesome. Purchasing them this way come without restrictions too, so they can be read on any device that can read .mobi files, if I am not mistaken.

I understood what you meant. I was saying I disagree, for the reasons I detailed, not because you typed "oaths" instead of "truths." It just doesn't make sense to me that multi-order Radiants are unheard of in the stories, which they should be if it is as simple as not having contradicting oaths. As I said, if it were so simple as that, then any Knight Radiant who happens to be creative and holds some potent secrets would be a Lightweaver as well as whatever else they were. Yet in world this is unheard of. It implies, to me, that there is more to it.