Weltall

Yeah, thanks to OB we have five of the Heralds confirmed (Jezrien, Nale, Ash, Taln and Ishar) and while we might take anything he says with a grain or two of salt, Taravangian believes or at least claims to believe that he's identified Battar which gives us information on six. Brandon was asked if an old ardent who Shallan sees in the Palanaeum is Pali (which he confirmed was named after her) and while he didn't confirm it he did say it was a 'good guess' so we may have a rough idea where she is. Kelek we know was present on the night of Gavilar's death but we don't know what he's been up to since then. Chana is a complete unknown. Vedel's also unknown but I have a feeling that we're missing a clue somewhere in Oathbringer. My reasoning for this: The other three Heralds who got artwork in Oathbringer appeared either directly (Jezrien and Ash) or indirectly but quite prominently (Ishar, as 'Tezim' with his letter and then the connection was spelled out for us) which leaves her the odd one out. I'm not sure what that clue could be yet, it's just an impression. Anyhow, between Roshone having a known background, neither his actions nor his attitude fitting what we see of Kelek and his particular flavor of insanity and there being a perfectly good explanation for his reaction, I don't think there's any waythat the two are one and the same.

We have seen the future and it is mecha. xD Actually, given that Brandon has already done that to an extent in non-cosmere works (Reckoners mentions power armor, Perfect State has giant robots, HARRE is a flat-out mecha-tastic story) I wouldn't be shocked if we see it here, later in the timeline. Offhand I can't think of any magic system we know of (aside from indirect applications like the Aviar) that couldn't potentially be turned towards mecha with enough creativity, aside from maybe Sand Mastery. But that's got other features that would be outstanding for a sci-fi story. And now I won't be satisfied until we see a giant robot lawman fight a giant robot chasmfiend at some point in Mistborn Era 4. On the 'less ridiculous' side I'll bet that if you had the material to make a solar sail you could probably Awaken it with some creative command visualization to make it more effective at capturing photons. Now if only you could combine that with sand from Taldain to capture Autonomy's Investiture, just imagine the possibilities. Not sure about BioChroma-based FTL but there's so much we don't know about the magic.

For a very quick summary, here you go: The Cosmere is Brandon's term for the shared universe that most of his books take place in. At some point in the distant past, humanity arose on the planet Yolen. There was an entity or power named Adonalsium which traveled the Cosmere, creating some worlds like Roshar and tinkering with others, spreading life. Adonalsium is the source of Investiture, the underlying element of all the magic systems in the franchise. For reasons we still don't understand, roughly ten thousand years ago sixteen individuals somehow killed Adonalsium (an event referred to as the Shattering) and divided up his power into sixteen pieces, the Shards. These people, known as the Vessels, took the Shards, ascended to godhood and set out across the Cosmere, eventually most of them settled on planets which they then Invested in. Each of the sixteen embody some aspect of Adonalsium and we know ten of these Shards by name right now. Another principle that underlies the Cosmere is called Realmatic Theory. The universe is composed of three Realms, the Physical, the Cognitive and the Spiritual. The first is easy to understand, it's the world we live in. The Cognitive Realm is the world of thought and is shaped by the thinking of living creatures. How things are viewed by others and how they view themselves forms their Cognitive identity. This Realm is how most characters travel from planet to planet, as it and the Physical are linked spatially but areas in the Cognitive where no thought is occurring in the Physical are greatly compressed. The Spiritual Realm is the one we know the least about, but we know that it's where most of the power of the Shards reside, it's where everything's connection to all other things can be perceived and time and space are meaningless here. There's also a concept called the Beyond, which is where souls go after death. It's somewhere even the Shards can't see and don't understand. We don't know (and Brandon has stated that we never will) exactly what the Beyond is. To generalize somewhat about worlds, there are two types of planets in the Cosmere. Shardworlds are places where a Shard is actively Investing, such as Scadrial or Roshar. These worlds have magic systems that humans can directly access. Minor shardworlds are planets which lack the active presence of a Shard; though they can have magic systems, they're generally interacted with through an intermediary. People who travel between worlds are generally referred to as worldhoppers. There are organized groups of them appearing in various works, such as the Seventeenth Shard. There is also a city called Silverlight which exists in the Cognitive Realm and is a place where worldhoppers have gathered to live and to share knowledge. A couple of major worldhoppers to keep an eye out for are Khriss (an arcanist who studies the various magic systems of the Cosmere and is the author of the Ars Arcanum sections) and her assistant Nazh (look closely at the in-book artwork and you'll often find annotations he's written) and of course there's Hoid. He's present in almost every story and while we know some tantalizing things about him (namely, he's been around since before the Shattering of Adonalsium and knew all sixteen Vessels personally) we don't know what his goals are. He tends to occupy a minor role in the story and occasionally nudge characters in the right direction, though he's taken a more prominent role in Stormlight Archive so far. As an out-of-universe aside, Brandon has written the Cosmere as a sort of 'hidden epic' where the various series can be read and enjoyed as standalone works, with most of the connecting details and underlying elements being meant as a treat for observant readers wanting to put all the pieces together. Most of what we know of the wider Cosmere comes from things that Brandon has said outside the books themselves, at least for now. ...okay, maybe that wasn't a very quick summary, was it? xD

Coincidences happen and this is almost certainly one of them. There are only so many combinations you can come up with of twenty-six letters so you're going to see this sort of thing. Ati is the most obvious example and Brandon has confirmed that there's no connection there and the two aren't even pronounced the same across both worlds. There's also Renarin, the tana'kai, nuatoma... and outside of the Cosmere there's a major character in Reckoners whose name is identical to Aon Tia. Give me enough time and I could probably find more. Good thinking but without something a little more obvious (like a character using odd expressions), this is too likely to be a coincidence to be a genuine worldhopper sighting.

The short answer is 'No'. Brandon has mentioned that anything not revealed in the novels themselves is subject to change and in particular the rules about the various metals are especially dubious and we shouldn't rely on them for theorizing purposes. The 'Spiritual' metals on the current Feruchemy table for example have already been seen operating differently from the MAG rules, especially F-Nicrosil.

In addition to that, we have several more explicit WoBs that a Vessel can willingly give up the power and won't die. Calderis' WoB is a bit fuzzy on whether Brandon is addressing a Vessel being separated from the Shard by their own volition or being separated by some external influence (since the questioner left open some room there) but my guess is that it would depend on a number of circumstances. Is the Vessel's personality still mostly intact or have they been heavily warped by their Shard? What's splintering the Shard and why? Because I have to imagine Odium, the only entity currently known to be doing this, would take steps to ensure the Vessel dies. But we know that Shards can create splinters without any apparent harm to themselves/their Vessel (Endowment being the prime example) so it doesn't seem impossible that a larger-scale splintering could happen but in a way that either leaves the Vessel alive or at least gives them an opportunity to separate themselves from the Shard before the splintering kills them.

In terms of published and canonical material, get all of the following books and you'll be set: For unpublished/noncanonical works, add the following: And for all your Word of Brandon needs, there's Arcanum with a link right at the top of this page. Oh, and here are the projects Brandon has mentioned that he's either working on or may work on in the future, spoil-tagged just for length. And that should be everything for now.

Yeah, it's been discussed and my own take (and I've seen others thinking the same) is that the dagger probably ripped out from Jezrien's spiritweb whatever it is that bound him to the Oathpact and trapped it in the gemstone. Possibly it actually took his entire soul but that's not necessary, so long as it got the right bit, Jezrien could be permanently killed by taking away whatever it is that allowed him to become a constantly reincarnating Cognitive Shadow. Thus, his death weakens the Oathpact because he doesn't go back to Braize when killed and is permanently removed from the equation, and the other Heralds feel it because they're bound together by the Oathpact so whatever was ripped out of Jezrien would have been felt by all of them. If the dagger just took that part of Jezrien's soul that directly relates to the Oathpact, I'm not sure what would happen if you were to break the gemstone. If it took his entire soul, he might still be 'alive' and breaking the stone would send his Cognitive Shadow to Braize which would perpetuate the Oathpact.

We know that air can be manipulated in certain magic systems that probably work on similar fundamentals so it's theoretically possible but Brandon has implied that Awakening liquids and gasses wouldn't really be useful, so it's probably a non-starter of an idea.

Odium isn't going after paired Shards because they broke this agreement, he's going after all of them and in the order of greatest to least threat to him. And he started with Ambition, which was (so far as we know) solo, because he felt it was the most dangerous. As for Honor, it depends on when the agreement was made (if it was pre-Shattering, the Vessels to be weren't yet bound by their Intents or the innate effect Oathbringer mentions) and soon after the Ascension they were still free to act without too much influence from their respective Intents.

Brandon was explicit that Hoid can mentally harm people and he can allow them to come to harm through inaction, so indirect harm via egging them on until they hurt themselves while hurting him falls neatly into that exception. He's not harming them directly, they're making the choice to accept the possibility of harm by hitting him, even if they only did it because Hoid provoked them. A similar example from the book would be Jasnah's verbal smackdown of Amaram. Had he followed through and tried to attack her, it's made apparent from the circumstances that she'd have been considered legally and (for the most part) morally justified.in hurting or killing him even though she provoked the direct confrontation by insulting him and his mother. We'll leave the fact that he started the whole conversation aside as it doesn't really affect the ethical analysis. It's similar to the 'ethics homework' that Jasnah gave Shallan in Way of Kings and both examples could be applied to the situation with Hoid.

As said, don't worry about it. There's a ridiculous amount of stuff to keep track of and even if you've read all the published books, there's a lot that we know from signings, interviews, Brandon's blog etc. that you'd have to know to be 'completely' up to date. And even then there's so much of it that it's easy to miss something important to the discussion of the moment, or forget it amid all the other trivia. Welcome to the rabbit hole. xD To answer the specifics, Aslydin is someone we really only know from side material. The annotations to Hero of Ages explain how she and Demoux met (and also how Demoux the character came to be). The Seventeenth Shard is a group mentioned in the letter that forms the epigraphs in one part of The Way of Kings, as a group of people who are chasing the writer. By piecing the evidence together, you can figure out that the writer is Hoid and the people he's referring to are the trio who showed up in the Purelake interlude, Demoux being one of them. Most of what we know of the group beyond that, we learned from asking Brandon questions at signings. For example, he's told us that their name was chosen deliberately and that one of their fundamental beliefs is that the Shards of Adonalsium were separated for a reason and it would be best if things stayed that way. They do a lot of research on other worlds but don't want to actively interfere in what happens on them. They're hunting Hoid as a sort of side goal because they're worried that he and they might be working at cross-purposes. Silverlight was first mentioned in Arcanum Unbounded as a city where people from many worlds have gathered to live and to share information. Brandon has revealed that it exists entirely in the Cognitive Realm. He's got plans to write a novella focusing on it at some point. As for the sixteen Shards themselves, we only know of ten right now and a lot of what we know comes from outside material as well, or requires connecting the dots across multiple works. There's a new database that's collecting all of these bits of Brandon Sanderson goodness and organizing them, called Arcanum. It's an awesome resource and can easily kill hours of free time if you let it. There you an also find a link to the Coppermind wiki which is a good resource to give you an overview of things we know, though it's not completely up to date. You can find Arcanum here: https://wob.coppermind.net/

Brandon appears to have answered this one, to the effect that while Investiture is technically finite there's so much of it that in practice it might as well be thought of as an infinite resource. Here's the most important bit: So it's probably this side of impossible for a Shard to Invest so much that they stop being a Shard.

I dunno if it has but there's been some discussion of whether Autonomy has had any influence on various smaller religions like in the Purelakes, or how there's an area called Bavland that makes one think of Bavadin. That said, there's some evidence in Oathbringer which seems to suggest that Autonomy isn't actively influencing Roshar or at least not in a big way. There's no particular reason to think that the Sunmaker and what happened to Vorinism after the fall of the Hierocracy needed any outside influence; it was a purely Rosharan reaction to the abuses of the church and an attempt to prevent it from ocurring again.

Demoux and Aslydin are both members of the Seventeenth Shard and are worldhoppers so it's unlikely they've left behind children on Scadrial without being there to raise them. If they have children, they're probably on Silverlight.

@Calderis Ahh, somehow I either missed seeing that one or I forgot all about it. Nice. As I mentioned, he uses sand in a previous storytelling scene in Warbreaker and we know that wasn't Taldaini sand because Brandon told us it's unrelated. It's just part of how he does things with his own Lightweaving. While it's not canon it's illustrative to consider that the Liar of Partinel sample he released shows the exact same storytelling method at work and that was from before Sand Mastery existed. And his flute is also not integral to his magic because he doesn't use that in Warbreaker or Words of Radiance and he's not exhausted there either. He just misses the flute because he liked it and it's valuable in some way (a common assumption is for historic reasons and that it used to belong to Rashek), not because he needs it for Lightweaving. And Brandon has already dropped random worldhopping hints with Hoid even though they don't have any huge impact on what he's doing at any given moment. He mentions having perfect pitch when playing music, but it's not integral to the scene or what he's doing at the time so the only reason for him to mention it is to see if fans notice the reference.

Good point, although given that Hoid has an unknown but apparently extensive array of powers and called Jasnah's living blade a 'little knife' I'm not sure there's much he could do with a Shardblade no matter how creatively applied that he can't do with some other magic system he's got up his sleeves. Offhand, I can think of a few systems we know he has at least some access to which could open locks and/or make awesome tools, even if they can't do it all with one application.

Hoid's storytelling method uses Yolish Lightweaving and when someone asked him if the story he tells in Warbreaker was related to White Sand, the answer was 'no'. This can also be applied to the stories he tells in earlier parts of Stormlight Archive. So while Hoid is apparently carrying around some sand from Taldain as a little sign to attentive readers that yes, he's been there, it's not a necessary part of his storytelling. On the distance thing, Brandon has said that if you had some sand, you could theoretically recharge it anywhere in the Cosmere where you could see light from Taldain's star. Taldain is also noted to be one of the easiest planets to get Investiture from along with Roshar (specifically, in the context of Vasher) and we know that Investiture is to an extent fungible. Since both of these systems are relatively easy to get power out of and we already know that you can infuse stormlight into things, it's not too surprising that the stuff can recharge sand in close proximity. Good spot, by the way.

Causing mental harm and harm through inaction are apparently possible, but even thinking about causing physical trauma would make Hoid feel sick. So yes, Hoid could probably drive someone to suicide if he wanted to. I wonder whether using Lightweaving on someone to manipulate their mental state (or emotional allomancy) would qualify as close enough to physical action to trigger whatever's binding him. Someone asked Brandon and was told that Hoid will get some sort of compounding effect to his Lightweaving. That said, whether he really needs it is questionable and as I already noted, a Shardblade is pretty much useless to him. It's possible that he wants access to Soulcasting for some reason and bonding a Cryptic would be a lot easier than bonding an inkspren. And even if he has no interest in the powers per se and just wants a Nahel bond for some reason we can't currently fathom, the Cryptics with their truths instead of specific Ideals make the best choice for someone who doesn't want to be restricted by the bond in any great way. Minor nitpick, Khriss is the one who comments that Rosharan Lightweaving is close to the original Yolish version, not Hoid. She's the person who writes the things. As for the comment about Hoid being subject to rules, the point is that he can't just bond a random Spren because he feels like it, no matter what powers he already has. He still needs to attract a spren and convince it that he's worth forming a Nahel bond with. Brandon has mentioned that Surgebinding is a magic system that you can't cheat your way into.

Soulcasting isn't unique, it's just the most prominent example. Any of the Surges could be replicated with fabrial science. As for why fabrial Soulcasting is different in some ways from what Surgebinders do, the restriction on how many things a given fabrial can produce are likely to be a purely mechanical limitation they either couldn't or didn't know how to overcome (we see this sort of thing in other Cosmere works as well) and the long-term effect it has on the person using it is probably because they don't have a Nahel bond to help filter the power they're using.

Welcome to the Shard! Yeah, the second Mistborn series (which is generally referred to as 'Era 2' for short) takes place about three hundred years after the original trilogy and a lot of what happened at the end of Hero of Ages has become part of Scadrial's religious environment. Vin became remembered as the Ascendant Warrior (they also remember her name, so that's more of a title), Elend is remembered as the Last Emperor and so on. The 'Lord Mistborn' is actually Spook, who Sazed made a Mistborn at the very end of the trilogy (this will get referenced later in Alloy of Law if you haven't gotten to it yet) and you're right that Sazed is now known as Harmony. Brandon mentions outside the books that he picked the name himself as it 'seemed right' for the combined powers that he now holds.

As mentioned, probably a case of priorities combined with Nale's stated reasoning that while Szeth broke everyone else's laws, he was following his own laws to the letter, which Nale approved of. On the first point, the Skybreakers believed that they needed to kill budding Radiants to prevent the Desolations from coming again. Szeth's actions weren't threatening to bring back the Voidbringers (because while he's surgebinding, he's not doing it with a Nahel bond) so even if they had been inclined to punish him for criminal acts, he'd have been way down the priority list.

I have a feeling that if Hoid were to directly confront Rayse at some point in the series, it would only be through some sort of Lightweaving projection or another letter, so that he can be far far away from wherever the latter's attention is directed. When Hoid thinks that Rayse would consider flattening a city an acceptable course of action on the chance that it might, possibly, be enough to kill him, that's a pretty good reason to stay unnoticed. But now I'm imagining Hoid lightweaving an illusion of himself, just to insult Rayse for his own amusement. "Hello old friend, I have some words for you. <Pulls out a record of every curse Lift knows and reads it off> -and even a chull wouldn't agree to do that with you, no matter how many paper bags you used!"

His ridiculous luck started before his trip through either doorway, at the same time that he was healed from his connection to the Shadar Logoth dagger and became an interesting character. I'm not sure the 'finns did anything for him so much as it was Mat coming to realize over the course of a few books just how stupendous his luck was and that he could weaponize it. Brandon has gone both ways on this, but the most recent WoBs I could find say that it's probably separate from his Ta'veren-ness and that he probably retains it after AMoL, but the notes apparently don't say one way or the other. Oh, and this cracked me up: I actually asked Brandon at a signing whether F-Chromium worked in any way like Mat's luck and if a compounder could pull off similar stunts. I got RAFO'd, naturally. xD

Given that the dagger Jezrien was killed with had a sapphire in the hilt and our attention is called to how it started to glow after he got shanked by Moash, it seems more likely that his soul (or perhaps just the bit of his spiritweb related to the Oathpact, assuming it could be isolated) was trapped in the gem in order to keep Jezrien from returning to Braize after death. He was able to tell that something was different about this death before he finished the whole 'dying' thing, which suggests that something was happening to his soul that he could feel as opposed to somehow immediately sending him Beyond which shouldn't have been apparent until he was actually dead.