Weltall

As mentioned, Hoid is really really old and his origin story has yet to be properly written. A lot of what we know comes from WoBs but if you're just looking at the books you can piece together some of it from the clues dropped in Stormlight Archive. Oathbringer in particular has the conversation with Shallan where he says that he's so ancient that 'old' isn't even the right word for it; he was already merely old when the Heralds were babes in arms. That gives you an idea how long Hoid has been around even if you have nothing else to work with. The other big source is the Letters that form part of the epigraphs for each book. The first letter is written from Hoid to Frost, the only individual known to be older than Hoid. In it, Hoid mentions five Vessels by name including Rayse, and states that the two have a long-running grudge. The second Letter is Frost's reply back and mentions Adonalsium and indirectly states that he, Hoid and Rayse were all there for the Shattering because he mentions that Rayse is "what we made him to be, old friend. And that is what he, unfortunately, wished to become". The third and fourth letters both mention that Hoid had the chance to take up one of the Shards himself but turned it down. Take all of those things together and you get the big picture of how Hoid and Rayse know each other.

There's a theory that one of the other Heralds died shortly before the events of the series, returned to Braize and broke before Taln could, which would fit with both the conventional interpretation and that WoB the Taln didn't break. So long as Taln was close to breaking, that part of the Diagram would still be correct though the interpretation of it could be mistake, which wouldn't be the first time that's happened. There just happens to be a Death Rattle that sounds a lot like that: "The burdens of nine become mine. Why must I carry the madness of them all? Oh, Almighty, release me."

For the record, Brandon has confirmed directly that they don't count as cognitive shadows: It depends on what you would consider a benefit. Brandon has said that being an Elantrian is emotionally and mentally exhausting and is harder to deal with than other forms of Cosmere immortality. On the other hand, as power sets go, AonDor is incredibly versatile provided you know what you're doing. The CS of someone who used to be an Elantrian would presumably have the same inability to actually use any powers they had before death that a certain other disembodied shadow was forced to deal with. Now bear in mind that the Cognitive Realm on Sel is a lethal Investiture plasma storm that will rip you apart so you really don't want to end up there unless you know what you're getting into or have help waiting on the other side.

Relevant WoB: So the 'core' Aethers function similarly to what we've already seen and the sole example we have from the preview chapters indicates that this offshoot of Verdant functions at least somewhat like what we should expect (growing vines), with that being confirmed to be linked to the associated Emerald/Verdant sea. Consequently there's little reason to think that a sea whose name includes the word 'Night' would be associated with an Aether that isn't a reimagined version of the one we saw in Aether of Night. Brandon mentions 'roseite' in that WoB, which sounds like either an off the cuff goof or an indication that Amberite's name has changed, since he implies it's something we would recognize. Now, I'd love to see Ferrous again and think it's the most interesting of the Aethers, Realmatically-speaking. No doubt a canon version of it would be really cool. I just don't see any reason for the sorceress on the Midnight Sea to be involved with that one. Also, as seen in the original novel, Night can be used to conjure creepy spectres that were mistakenly believed to be the souls of the damned due to Aedin cultural reasons. If a reworked Night (or an offshoot of it) functions even remotely similarly, it's got plenty of room to do things that would give this sorceress a reputation.

This is definitely a case by case thing. On Scadrial, we're told that everybody has the seeds of all the Metallic Arts in their spiritweb but at that base level expression of the powers is much more limited. The use of lerasium in the north added 'extra Investiture' into the system so Allomancy is much more common and while it's degraded somewhat (n the sense that there are no more naturally occurring Mistborn or full Feruchemists, but in return you get the Twinborn) the minimum level of Investiture is still higher, hence you still have a larger proportion of the population with access to magic. We still don't have the details on how Feruchemy arose specifically in the Terris people but it functions along the same principles. Meanwhile, Nalthis has everyone get exactly the same extra Investiture from Endowment so the only hereditary 'extra Investiture' is what we see with the Royal Locks and we don't know how those work exactly, but as the expression is kind of funky (only potential heirs have it and only the actual successor can pass it on) so we don't know if that Investiture is degrading in any meaningful way or if it's jumping from person to person somehow. Then you have Surgebinding on Roshar where the spiritweb changes are tied to the Nahel Bond so you don't directly pass anything down except eye color. I don't think we've been told if the Nightwatcher/Cultivation's boon and curse can affect one's descendants but this WoB says that they're intended as specific grants of Investiture to one person (and Cultivation would be Very Unhappy if you messed with this via hemalurgy) so they might not pass down in any way and that extra Investiture just gets returned to Cultivation after the person dies.

Brandon has said that storing Identity would make you much more vulnerable to external influences (the specific example is Forgery but he says 'all kinds') so the corollary would be that tapping Identity or using other magics to achieve a similar effect should make you more resistant. We also have a WoB that being a Sliver makes you more resistant. Brandon was actually asked this question directly vis a vis aluminum and answered that a spike of that metal wouldn't do a thing to protect a hemalurgist, but one assumes that since aluminum can block emotional allomancy it would work to block an attempt to control a spiked individual provided you could fully protect yourself from their power. If the spike itself won't protect you, a tinfoil hat might (since that seems to be what Soothing/Rioting 'targets') or you may need a full-body suit. Dunno really. This probably wouldn't work on Ruin/Harmony though.

Assuming he wasn't 'killed' with something capable of annihilating him or otherwise messing with his spiritweb (Nightblood, the Preservation equivalent of anti-stormlight, maybe some kinds of hemalurgy), I think that killing his body or pulling his spike would dump him back into the Cognitive Realm annoyed but not really harmed. His ability to persist indefinitely comes from the fact that he's a Sliver, meaning that his soul has been permanently expanded by holding Preservation. I don't think his current method of bodily incarnation affects that in any way, so if you 'cut the string' he'd just hang out until he could make a new one. Oh, and as mentioned he can't 'bounce around the Cosmere right now though he'd like to. He uses tricks to make people think that he can meaningfully travel to other worlds.

I haven't found any WoBs directly on point but we know that a perpendicularity can survive the death of a Shard (the pool associated with Devotion near Elantris, for example) and they occur naturally where there's a major concentration of Investiture so it's quite likely that perpendicularities could have existed pre-Shattering and persisted afterwards. For all we know, Patji's Eye was there before Autonomy even realized the world was Connected to her; We also have a WoB that despite the lack of a Shard in residence, there's something similar to a perpendicularity on Yolen. Something like that could have been caused by the Shattering itself or the consequence of having all sixteen Shards there at once right afterwards (if you want a concentration of Investiture, you can't get much more than that) but it could just as easily predate it.

Thanks for the reminder, I forgot that we were given that figure. That really helps nail the timing down.

The closest thing we have to a WoB on this is of course a RAFO but Brandon did say that if you were able to burn the chunk of pure Tanavastium that got chipped off of Ishar's Blade, it would have 'very interesting effects'. He's also said that it's theoretically possible that an alloy of Lerasium and another God Metal could grant access to the magic system(s) associated with the metal.

- All we know is that Mercy 'worries' Harmony, which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement but it doesn't necessarily mean they were working with Odium. Right now the only Shard that's confirmed to have been doing that is Autonomy, since Brandon has mentioned that Odium's hypothetical next target would have been a double-cross on her. All indications are that Honor and Cultivation have been settled on Roshar for pretty much the whole of the relevant timeframe and Endowment is not only opposed to Odium but seems to really hate the idea of Shards getting involved in each others' business so the odds of her having anything to do with a clash between them is slim. - Per WoB, Ambition was first on Odium's Hit List but he couldn't find her until after encountering D&D. Since the death of a Shard can be a protracted affair it's theoretically possible that he could go after one Shard and effectively 'kill' it, then go after another before the first one is finally dead, but we know that can't be the case with D&D because Odium took active steps that resulted in the creation of the Dor. That means he had to do the entire thing in one go, lest the power find a new Vessel while he wasn't there to monitor it. As a sidebar to this, note that the Dor's 'Investiture plasma storm' was created by a Shard actively stuffing a bunch of Investiture into the Cognitive Realm where it doesn't belong, and it renders Sel's subastral lethally dangerous. Braize is definitely unpleasant if you're a Herald but there's no indication that it has or at any point had the kind of Sel-like standing tempest that would have ripped all the Fused to shreds. - All indications are that they settled on Roshar shortly after the Shattering. We know they were the gods of the singers before humanity arrived and given that the first Shards that Odium killed had already had time to settle on a world and heavily Invest, it's likely that the same is true of H&C and most of the rest of the 'settled' ones. We know that we're looking at a timeline of roughly ten thousand years from the Shattering to the 'present', reinforced when Brandon says Scadrial is about that old. Aharietiam happened right in the middle of that span based on the length of Rosharan years vs our years, the Desolations were going on for some length of time before the big one and at first centuries passed between them, so we can push back the earliest possible date of Odium's arrival by a thousand years at least, maybe two depending on how long the cycle of Desolations actually lasted. - Apparently just before the cataclysm, since we're told that Ishar was the first person who Odium tricked into messing around with the Surges. That means that a whole lot of things happened in the span of a generation or two. Like I said above, Odium's first contact with the Rosharan System happened some six to seven thousand years before the present.

Kuro Chapter 5

Congrats on beating the game and glad you've enjoyed it! Kuro Finale And one other comment that involves Kuro II pre-release material.

Kuro Finale

(Kuro Chapter 5 ending) <gets popcorn ready for the next bit>

I belatedly realized I probably should have added 'and which did you pick?' to that question.

And how many options did you get to choose between?

Chapter 5: Likewise:

I have a comment to make about one thing you've said but I want to wait until you've finished the game first for Reasons. I think it's safe to say that nobody was expecting that. As for the theory, I was thinking there had to be a connection but that it wasn't going to be that direct. Sometimes the most obvious guess really is the right now. And speaking of things we weren't expecting (Kuro Intermission/Chapter 5)

As an aside, Brandon has said that by far the easiest way to gain additional Surges (and especially all ten) would be to bond an appropriate combination of Honorblades.

Ahhhh, so that's where you are now. Obvious Kuro spoilers are obvious (also for Hajimari/Reverie) Hopefully you'll enjoy the next part of Chapter 4!

In that case, please ignore my previous spoilered comment until you've finished 4.

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the last two Chapters. They make quite a contrast with each other.

Hound of the Baskervilles for the full-length stories, easily. I like A Study in Scarlet quite a bit and The Sign of the Four is my second-favorite but Hound has a couple things going for it that I really like: Watson gets more time to shine (even if all his walking stick deductions were wrong), it has great atmosphere and it's the only novel that doesn't solve its driving mystery in the first half and then grind to a halt for Backstory Exposition. As for the short stories, my favorites are probably Adventure of the Norwood Builder (something about Holmes being giddy when the client says he expects to be arrested for murder) and the Three Students.