Lord Pifferdoo

The town hall was loud and smelly, and Baron Von Piffertiff's head hurt. All that firefighting yesterday had given the Baron the worst migraine. And a murder? The Baron's head throbbed. I suppose I should do something Baron-y now. The Baron slowly stood up and approached the center of the raised platform he and the other councilmen were seated upon. Their little town had decided to model their government after the reforms in Luthadel, and the Baron was technically the highest ranking noblemen. "Ahem." Baron Von Piffertiff cleared his throat. The townspeople continued chattering about the fire and the murder, like a bunch of townspeople who had just witnessed a fire and a murder. The Baron sighed, then motioned to his steward. Stu the Steward stepped forward, took a deep breath, then screamed. Actually, screamed isn't the best word for it. You know, it is much too late to come up with a creative description. How bout this: you think of the most terrible, horrible noise you've ever heard from a living creature, mix that with the screech of a constipated barn owl, and add an extra twelve decibels. Needless to say, the townspeople quieted. Some small children started to cry, and one rather embarrassed councilmen tried (unsuccessfully) to hide the fact that he had spoiled his trousers. "Thank you, Stu." The Baron muttered. Maybe there is a reason to keep you around. "Now I know that there are quite a number of rumors fluttering around about what happened last night and this morning. This meeting was called in the hopes that some of these rumors can be quelled." "Here is what we know for certain. At some point last night, someone or a group of someones committed arson on the barracks. All the windows and doors were boarded up beforehand, yet a fire was started in the center of the building. Several eyewitnesses have reported figures running away from the building after the fire had been started." The Baron swallowed. "Twenty-nine guards perished in the flames, while another sixteen are in critical condition. My heart, and the hearts of all members of the Council, go out to their families." "During the night, another grievous crime was committed. Vron, our beloved Alchemist, was found dead this morning by a little urchin boy. I'm sure most of you know the details." Baron Von Piffertiff coughed, then looked at his notes. He had absently doodled a series of can dimensions. Really, he should get back to his writing. The mathematics chapter wasn't going to write itself! He was famous for his mathematics chapters. Got him an audience with the Lord Prelan once, though the Baron had to turn down his offer. The Baron realized he was smiling to himself in front of the entire town after telling everyone about a murder. He cleared his throat, sniffed several times, then looked down at his notes again. "Captain Teys has volunteered to lead the investigation of the murder. If anyone believes they have any information regarding the fire and/or Vron's untimely death, please see the Captain or one of the councilpersons. The council will now hear any questions, following the town's official question asking rules."

Baron Von Piffertiff the Third woke to the smell of smoke. He blinked a couple times, then cursed the villagers and their silly parties. He sat up in his bed and donned his stereotypical nightcap. "If there weren't bloody koloss heading this way to rip out our spines, I'd have them all thrown in stocks! Eh, if we still had the stocks." the Baron mumbled as he stood and slipped into his even more stereotypical robes. As Baron Von Piffertiff the Third stumbled through his dark, yet rustic mansion, he began to hear voices. He distincly heard the Captain of the Guard, Teys, yell something about water. Or otters. Either way, this was a cause for alarm! The Baron quickened his pace. The yells and screams only got louder as the Baron reached the front door. When he opened the door, he saw one of the guards running towards the front gate with a bucket. The Baron soon realized three things: 1. Teys had certainly not been talking about otters (thank goodness for that) 2. The barracks was on fire. 3. The guard had been running from the Baron's own personal water tanks. "You there! Guard!" Baron Von Piffertiff the Third yelled out to the guard. "Just what do you think you're doing with that water?" The guard, a young lad with a stupid looking slice of hair on his upper lip, turned and blinked, water sloshing onto his boots. "Wake the servants! Form a chain, you Mist-touched idiot!" The stupidly-mustached guard blinked at least three times before dropping the bucket and running inside the house. "Bloody fool, bloody incompetent damnation fool." The Baron stumbled a couple steps, bent over and lifted the buck, splashing a little water on the front of his robe. While he was cursing the water for being wet, the Baron spied a shape in the mist, running on top of the low estate walls. The Baron's eyesight was too poor to make out any details, except for one thing: The mists seemed to flow away from the shape, like rats before a hound. The Baron stared, then shook himself. Only one thing made the mists move like that, and the Baron hadn't seen one of those since his Canton days. No, I must be mistaken. Heh, Mist-taken. That was a pun. I'll have to use that later with Aralis. "Steward!" Baron Von Piffertiff hollered, struggling with the bucket. He walked down the path and joined the water brigade that had already formed.

I always assumed that a shard went back to "factory mode" when it was dropped. Since "Slivers" are a thing, I think that a shardholder's investiture stays connected to the holder and leaves when they leave.

Holy crap, I didn't think of that. Despite whether or not Nightblood would consume the entire storm, what would happen to all that investiture? If all the inky black smoke is the corrupted Breaths Nightblood has consumed, would the sword emit a dark light (oxymorons are fun) instead?

Let's say you got a particularly rare Aviar...

A major boost to all of your metal stores, perhaps? Or maybe you reach a power level similar to a Silver? Since feruchemy was created by Preservation, perhaps you become a full Feruchemist as well.

This is amazing. I want this so badly now! What if the game centered around Heroes that you controlled that had the Investitures. These Heroes would then move with armies (or maybe by themselves) and grant the abilities above. Hoid could show up occasionally and just mess everything up. Like randomize the armies of each player or something like that. Shardbearers could add +1 to your highest roll or something like that. I think it makes more sense, considering that if you are a Shardbearer and you are defeating, you are usually killed. (Besides duels and the such)

I think voidspren like stormspren and the such are related to Voidbinding the same way spren like honorspren and Cyptics are related to Surgebinding. The red lightning and the summoning of the Everstorm could be a form of voidbinding, and the listeners were only able to do those things once they had bonded with stormspren. The Unmade, on the other hand, are something different. They have a massive amount of power, judging from Moelach's ability to cause the death rattles. My guess is that they're kind of like Odium's response to Honor's Heralds, but there are a lot of good theories out there that point in different directions. If they are, in fact, the Herald's opposites, then they could be associated with different Voids like how different Heralds are associated with different surges. My only question then, is that if all these parallels between Honor and Odium are true, then there must be something akin to the Knights Radiant. Whether this is simply the listeners bonding with voidspren or maybe humans with an anti-Nahel bond (Lehan bond? ), is up to speculation.

Baron von Piffertiff was hungry. His steward was taking quite a long time to bring him his afternoon snack. Piffertiff sighed, and resumed writing his third book, On the Creations of Cans and Can-like Vessels. "Traded in a lot of favors for permission to write this, I did." mumbled Piffertiff. "And for what? To see the manuscript here rot after the koloss slaughter the whole town? Load of rubbish, this is." Piffertiff sniffed, then looked up from his writing to glimpses at the sun. He had been seeing less and less of that fiery old thing as of late, thanks to the mists. The mists always had frightened Piffertiff, but nowadays even thinking about it made his body shiver. It was a good thing coin was still valuble in this broken world of ours, else Piffertiff would have had to pay his guards in bread. He had precious little of that left. Piffertiff thought he saw Yulin again, this time outside his window. Insufferable old fool, that one. He'd always be there to help once you'd all but helped yourself. "Still managed to annoy me, even in death, Yulin?" Piffertiff grumbled, cursing his former steward. If only that fool had left well enough alone. He knew to not interfere with Canton business. His steward was certainly late this time. You'd think after a few beatings he'd learn to be punctual. Piffertiff sighed. Insufferable as he was, at least Yulin was on schedule. Former farmhands really couldn't compete with Terrisman. He must have gone through three this month. They were just so idiotic, so incompetent, so fragile.

Create a character, eh? Well then, I choose to be... Baron Von Piffertiff the Third A professional rich person who lives in a manor on top of that big hill in the middle of town. You know, the one with the iron fences and the secret passageways. It's hard to miss.

Sweetness. I played Mafia at this camp I go to in Colorado and whenever I was the GM it was always some kind of creepy, black magic-style murders. Where should I post my avatar?

I've always wondered what Sanderson Elimination meant in everyone's signatures. How do I sign up?

Do you think that, in a contrast to the spren's symbiotic relationship with Surgebinders, whomever causes Voidbinders would have parasitic relationship with the magic user?

Would this power be end-negative, then? If so, then parallels could be drawn between it and Hemalurgy.

Haha yea I guess getting stabbed in a burning house would be traumatic. It's been a while since I read HoA. But my orginal question still stands: would Spook already being Snapped make a difference?

Are we absolutely sure that the Shin are native to Roshar?

That's actually a pretty cool system. Thanks for explaining!

In response to Spook getting spikes and how different that was to other instances, do you think that the fact that Spook had already snapped (he was a Tineye, remember?) have something to do with him not having a particularly traumatic spiking? Also, traumatic does not have to mean a terrible thing. Change can be traumatic to anyone. If you woke up one day and your skin was glowing, your entire life would change, and that can be difficult for some people.

Thank you all for the warm welcomes and invertebrates. How does the whole "11-Bridgeman, 981-Truthless" thing work? Is that just awesomeness points?

Any thoughts on the shard on First of the Sun, the Sixth of the Dusk world? Maybe something worm related? Or murderous island related?