Landis963

@physicskid also mentioned the possibility of using tides to bring warm water from the day side to the night side, so that's a possibility as well. EDIT:Sticking to the topic of atmosphere for a moment: what natural conditions give rise to a thick atmosphere such as Venus'? How would life react? I already know that a dimmer sun leads to darker plant life, but how would they grow under the influence of extra greenhouse gasses?

I'm seeing a lot of "just pick one," so I think I'll just start picking ones. 1. My current thought is a K star, dimmer than Sol but not so much that it becomes a red giant or similar. Using the star graph that @jofwu provided, I'm thinking it would be along the main sequence, possibly in the neighborhood of Eridani 9. 2. While a water world would be interesting, and I am currently toying with the idea of having the starting continent be an archipelago, I don't think I'd like the entire world to be ocean. Besides, having year-long nights and human-habitable environments means that water will freeze into glaciers when pointed away from the star. With all that said, I suspect my world will be smaller than Earth, somewhat. Say .95 Earth mass. 3. Thick cloud cover (if uniform) would indeed make sunrise and sunset difficult to discern, in addition to blocking out the view of any moon or stars. However, if they are Invested, then anything else that is Invested with the same power might shine through. The question then becomes "what proportion does cloud cover have to greenhouse gas presence?" 4. My current draft of the system has one moon orbiting the planet that is Invested by a Shard - or rather the equivalent of such in this galaxy. As such, I have no problem with its light penetrating through any cloud cover. 5. In terms of the Heavens and Hells, all I need are 2 other planets with subastrals. Which means two other planets with enough Cognitive presence to create a subastral, which means they're probably in the habitable zone around the star. Resonant orbits are probably a good idea, both thematically and in general, so that's what I'll assume.

Hm... Surprise discovery, you say? An intended action had unintended consequences, you say? OK, things become clearer, but how in the world was Elsric not utterly destroyed by those "unintended consequences"?

Hello all. This is, I guess, the second leg of my quest to create a Cosmere world in D&D. Now, for reasons of my own understanding (namely, "because I think its cool") I want my primary world to have a year longer than its day. Not tidally locked a la Taldain, but definitely long enough for the change from day to night, or from night to day, to be a momentous occasion, possibly comprising several days. However, and here's the rub, I also want this world to be livable by humans. I've got a couple questions with regard to how such a system would be laid out, and if there would be other planets involved. Note that all of these questions are coming from a layman's perspective. What color is the star? Obviously making it too bright means that the habitable zone is farther out, and that means a longer distance that the planet needs to travel before it completes a full rotation. Conversely, making it too dim pushes the habitable zone close enough to the sun that solar weather starts to become an issue, and I'd rather avoid that particular headache. How large/dense is the planet? Once we've determined the size and color of the star, we can then start looking into how large a planet needs to be to settle into the resultant habitable zone. Too small and it flies out of the habitable zone in one direction, too large and it flies out in the other direction. Is there anything about the planet that would regulate temperatures? Venus' scorching temperatures are mostly due to its thick cloud cover, so instituting such a dense atmosphere could be useful in making it play nicely with life. These clouds could be Invested or not, as this is so early in the creation process that basically everything is in flux. How many moons? At least one moon will be necessary for several reasons (ease of timekeeping for the players chief among them, although I currently have it playing a role in the behind-the-scenes of the story). Are there any other planets in the system? As this is a D&D world, I'm currently assuming that the outer planes are locations within the Cognitive Realm. Which means at least two other planets (for the Hells and Heavens respectively) and between 4 (the elemental planes) and 6 (the elemental planes +plus Feywild and Shadowfell) others exist somewhere within hiking distance of the Prime Material's subastral. These other planets (assuming we pack them all into one solar system, which seems a stretch) might have effects in the Physical as well, especially with regard to the stats of the star we agree upon. Is there some math formulae we can use for all of this? It would help immensely if we could just define a variable or two, plug them in, and go.

No, there was a tech level issue. Namely, if there's all this nanotech crawling over everything everywhere, why is everything in the Snapshot still 21st century tech? Simpler to say "An Epic did it!" and leave it at that.

By accident? Elsric found his first perpendicularity by accident. What. Unless Elsric's worldhopping career predates the Final Empire (and also presuming that Elsric is in fact Scadrian by birth), I have immense difficulty picturing how he could have stumbled upon, say, the Well of Ascension, or stumbled into the Cognitive Realm from the depths of the Pits of Hathsin.

Also, there's a mention of the "Sheod" which should be the "Shaod." Very enjoyable essay though, despite the typographical quibbles.

"Everyone with the skill or power" also includes any Shards that happen to be in the area, so "out of Scadrial" the danger has not abated. In fact, it probably increased. Hemalurgy. Not even once.

Preservation can hear everyone, and is only barred from speaking because his power instinctively moves to fix the cracks that he would normally speak to the person through. W/r/t to Vin and TenSoon talking, it's probably because Vin and TenSoon had the strong relationship that they had (judging from the aforementioned spoilers from SH).

1. I think Khriss confirmed that in AU, actually. I was also of the opinion that the programming-like nature of Sel's magics was a side-effect of the Dor being in the Cognitive Realm. In keeping with my embrace of convenient assumptions, I'm assuming that whatever is fueling D&D's magics is in a Dor-like state. Hence the presence of another Shard so that I the GM don't need to say "your powers don't work here" to any of my players. 2. Yes, but how? Rosharan magics can say "a spren did it," (And that goes for Lift as well) but the rest of the world design already cribs very heavily from Roshar. 3. Would they hatch with that ability, or is it something they learn how to do as they gain spells and class levels? Because I haven't decided whether I want the focus to be crystals or sands, and I think I can see avenues of approach for all 4 possibilities. On hatch, focus is crystals: They have a gemheart. As they grow, focus is crystals: They eat gemstones and store them in a crop or gizzard. On hatch, focus is sands: amniotic fluid from eggs dries into an Investiture-viable powder, which then is absorbed into the skin of the wyrmling. (this one seems like it's the most original, now I think of it) As they grow, focus is sands: as with crystals, except the gemstones serve the purpose of gizzard stones, and get ground down in that process. 4. I just had another thought: Aluminum would be downright lethal to creatures that use the Cognitive Realm so heavily (as I believe dragons in the D&D mold would). I think I know what Armaments of Dragon Slaying are made of now.

Re: the Dor: I know. Literally the only reason I have one of those in the first place is because of the sheer breadth of spell effects D&D has on offer. And I have the surviving Shard there to get around the pesky issue of casters not being able to cast outside their homelands. Re: Adonalsium: I'm assuming that there's a second Adonalsium, that Shattered into different pieces, in the area of space where this planet is. (I'm embracing the power of convenient assumptions here) So if we want dragons to use "blank" Investiture we should probably figure out how they get it. Re: Scadrian Investiture: I don't think the Metallic Arts are something that D&D is equipped to handle.

I'm assuming that there's two Shards, one that died and got Splintered into a Dor-like state, and another that's making sure that Initiated people of every stripe can use their powers anywhere. As far as "creating" a dragon... I'm assuming that they'd be closer to the listeners in physiology than they would be to a Nightblood, or even a seon. Namely, they would be flesh-and-blood creatures that through some mechanism would absorb Investiture into themselves, which they would then use to fuel things like transformations, breath weapons, etc. ETA: Indeed, the lack of concrete info on Frost or any other dragon, Yolese or otherwise, is really helpful in that regard.

Hello all. I am trying to make a D&D world fit with Cosmere rules, in the hopes that eventually I will be running it as a campaign world for my friends. I have much of it nailed down (e.g., all D&D planes save the Prime Material, the Astral, and the Far Realms no longer exist as planes in their own right, I have Shards in place for multiple magic systems, etc., I have a not-quite Earthlike planetary system in place for visual interest, but all of those are separate topics). However, what I'm having trouble with is the physiology of the dragons. (And I want to have dragons because they're in the storming title of the storming system, and I think I can do something interesting with them) An adult dragon (upwards of 100 years of age) has not 6 limbs, but 10: 5 pairs of arms, legs, and/or wings, decided upon during their previous age categories. With age comes an increased facility with manipulating their Cognitive selves, such that they can convert much of their mass into Investiture and in so doing take humanoid shape. However, how exactly that Investiture gets into their system in the first place is what I'm having trouble pinning down. D20srd says "A dragon’s metabolism operates like a highly efficient furnace and can metabolize even inorganic material," which I'm sort of using as a starting point, but the details beyond that elude me. Do they ingest Investiture-viable things like Mistborn do? Do they absorb it directly like Taldaini sand does or like Knights Radiant do? Do they go a third route altogether? I'm not certain. And this one question will decide a lot of other things about how dragons work.

Re: Thermodynamics: Sometimes Conservation of Investiture works with Conservation of Energy in weird ways, the behavior of Awakened objects being a prime example. Re: Stage light colors: I suspect not, if only because if it worked that way, white clothing would be super-powerful for Awakeners (as white sunlight would contain all the colors available for Awakening). Funnily enough, what you describe is how drafting (from Brent Weeks' Lightbringer) works, where it's the light that enters a drafter's eyes that determines what and how much luxin they can use.

I think that only enhances the point I was going for with that post, but all right, I will correct it.

There's actually two parts to your question. 1) Can Nightblood be powered by Stormlight instead of Breath? Yes. 2) Can Szeth currently absorb Stormlight? No. Which means Nightblood is a death trap in addition to a WMD. (I suspect that Nale was not aware of this, or disregarded it, prior to handing it to Szeth)

Renarin, however, was heavily affected by his Blade's screams, during the pit fight being a prime example. I recall no such debilitation evident with Helaran's death.

If these satellites have Cognitive presences in the first place, then I suspect those presences would be stationary, in the direction where the traveler expects them to be. (Because if there is any place in the Cosmere where the mind makes it real, it would be the Cognitive Realm). In support of this, note that Kelsier found the IRE's fortress by going directly away from Scadrial, despite the odds of this being vanishingly small. (And before you say "but the fortress wasn't moving" I would point out that this makes the odds of Kell stumbling upon it even slimmer)

It would explain how Felt took so easily to the job of chasm-jumping, though.

I don't believe we've seen anything that would point to human worship leading to a direct profit for the Shards they worship. However, I can think of an indirect profit; appear in their dreams as X deity, and you can make them do whatever you want. This might actually be Autonomy's MO, now I think of it.

In addition, the rest of that quote mentions that it has to do with "the history of the world." What that quote neglects to mention is that it apparently has something to do with the prehistory of the world.

He has allomancy, specifically Mistborn allomancy. (You can actually spot him using it in WoR if you know where to look) A known allomantic power (as of Era 2) is the ability to dilate time in an area of effect. The legitimate reason I was referring to connects these two points. I would agree with @Shadow Guardian that greatshells probably don't contain perpendicularities, because there need to be at least two on Roshar (for Honor & Cultivation), we know where one is (The Horneater Peaks, where Hoid was spotted), and the other is probably in the highstorms, given what we know about them and about perpendicularities.

Adhesion sticks enemies to floors. Gravitation allows one to fly. Division cuts things BLOWS THINGS UP at range. Abrasion makes you impossible to hold. Progression heals allies, or allows you to change the battlefield to your liking. Illumination can project decoys, or cause the opponent to misstep. Transformation can one-shot opponents. Transportation is basically teleportation. Cohesion allows one to tear things apart with your bare hands. Tension turns all your opponents' weapons into pool noodles. All those sound pretty useful in battle.

Yup! "Ol' Whitehair" is our traditional Hoid cameo. Remember back in Words of Radiance when he sidestepped Jasnah's interrogation by claiming that he "once spent the better part of a year inside a large stomach"? That's how he got there. (And the funniest thing is, knowing what we know about powers that Hoid definitely has, there's at least one legitimate reason for him to swan-dive into a greatshell's open maw)