Dunkum

Not a specific suggestion, but the entire Kamigawa block is chock full of nature spirit creatures which would likely be a pretty solid stand-in for spren. There are also at least a few cards of the illusion type which could fit with lightweaver abilities - I particuarly like the "Phantasmal xxxxx" cards for this, since they die if they are targeted by a spell. The Jace, Cunning Castaway card seems a solid fit for an actual lightweaver, though not Shallan specifically; or possibly one of the other Jace planeswalker cards could fit for either a lightweaver or maybe a truthwatcher, though we know a bit less about that order.

alternatively, the AonDor seems pretty flexible about the things it can do, so gaining/borrowing/stealing knowledge is presumably a plausible use of it....but this does look like its referring to forgery to me

One piece that I think you missed is that it is not just as simple as pickign up the Shard, you need to have some amount of connection to it. I'll put this in a spoiler box in case you havent read Mistborn: Secret History yet so Sazed may not be able pick up one of the other shard if he lacks the necessary connection. As far as Sazed being unable to act, that comes down to the specific balance of Ruin and Preservation. In theory if he picked up a 3rd shard somehow, it could change that balance and allow him more leeway to act.

just finished up licanius 2, gonna have to see which branch of the local library has the third.

is there any evidence that nightblood has any partciular connection to Ruin? I mean he was made using Breaths, which is investiture coming from Endowment, and more recently has been on Roshar feeding on stormlight which comes from Honor (and maybe cultivation too? i was never clear on that)

yea, that was sort of my thought process. unless the vast concentration of investiture changed his physical properties enough that he'd count which...i mean he can block a shardblade so maybe.

shardpool liquids are liquid, and hence not solid . but i did consider mentioning nightblood. I'm not certain if he counts or not, because presumably he was made of ordinary metal, then infused with a ton of investiture, but whether he would qualify afterwards I don't know. there is probably a WoB on it somewhere, but if so I don't remember the answer.

right, in the currently published books, I think the only definitive examples we have of solid investiture are atium, lerasium, shardblades, honorblades, and maybe shardplate

There are passagaes from Kaladin and/or Szeth where they mention not needing to breath while holding stormlight. and we know from ferruchemy that investiture can substitute for at least some nutritional needs. its entirely possible that if the fused have a driect line ot Odium's investiture that that alone is sufficient to sustain their bodies.

do we know that about Silence Divine? im a bit out of the loop on most of the unpiblished stuff, but I knew dragonsteel and MB4 placements. hadn't heard much of anythign on Silence Divine.

was abotu time for a silmarillion reread, so workign on that. just getting ot the beren and luthien parts, aka the best parts. been hearing a lot abotu the licanius trilogy recently, so thats in the bullpen once silmarillion is done.

yea, this question comes up occasionally, and my favorite exampel is that it is really really hard to imagien someone being both a skybreaker and an edgedancer. their oaths just seem incompatible. so while there isnt necessarily a physical limitation prevenitng someone from bonding multiple spren, youd have to find spren whose orders require compatible oaths, and youd have to fulfil those oaths.

there is a pretty good one on the coppermind which puts it as: of all that, we know there is a 300 year gap between mistbonr era 1 and mistborn era 2, and, as mentioned something like a 10 year gap between stormlight books 1-5 and 6-10, but I dont think we have a good estimate of the time between any of the other pieces.

been too long since I read it to say one way or the other.

it picks up for a few books then slows way the hell back down then picks up again.

between them dust of dreams and the crippled god probably take me longer than the other 8 books put together both times ive read thorugh the series

I've never tried the other entries outside the main series, but yea, book 10 drags on forever

finished up the main series of Dresden (so far) and working my way though the short story anthologies now. Which book are you on in Malazan? because it starts to wear on me around book 6, and really drags around books 8-10 i find.

I had about the same reaction to the later expanse books. 1-3 were great, and 4 was pretty good. I got through 5 and 6, and about halfway through 7 before just sort of giving up on it. they weren't bad exactly, but i just lost interest. right now ive been doing a mistborn reread while waiting on my holds for dresden files. Working on Hero of Ages now while waiting on Cold Days to become available. figure I'll get through Skin Game and then work on the short stories.

Someone with a lot of breaths probably could. the godking was able to bleach colors all the way to white when he did his awakening at the end of warbreaker, but you need to be like 7th or 8th heightnening for that i think. maybe higher; I'd have to double check the chart

Disease and War could definitely still cause a famine by wiping out staple crops. One or two missed harvests at the wrong imes could absolutely destroy a small community, especially if they cant get help from others nearby.

highly, highly recommend Ursula Leguin's A Wizard of Earthsea. We did it in my regular 9th grade english class. its technically the first book in a series, but each of those books is more like a standalone story. It's also short enough to be pretty easily handled in a school curriculum. Haven't seen Scott Lynch mentioned, but hes good too. and his short story A Year and a Day in Old Theradane is good, and again short - I know you said any length is ok, but having a few shorter works is probably a good idea - plus its a standalone. I'll second Pratchett, Gaiman, and Rothfuss as well

welp this is going about as well as I expected - books 9 and 10 were automatically chekced out to me this week, but im still waiting on book 8. if whoever has it keeps it for the whole 2 week loan period (these books just aren't that long, how does it take 2 weeks to get through one????), then i'll get it on the 26th and have just about 4 days to read through all 3 books before the later ones get checked back in automatically...

Don't we also know that Scadrian pronunciations would be similar to French? hence the kelsiEY example he gave?

it was, and its a pretty good one. thankfully whoever had it out was already over a week into their 2 week loan, so i only had to wait 5 days. put the next 3 on hold this time, but book 8 (Proven Guilty) is the one due back latest - I think whoever checked it out did so on the same day that I placed the hold, so may have to actually wit the full 2 weeks - so I'm hoping that I get it with enough time left to finish it plus the other 2. depending on when they get returned, it could be dicey.