Weltall

The Tranquiline Halls and Damnation are dim recollections of the other planets in the Rosharan System. Kaladin at one point mentions that the latter is also known as Braize in old songs, so some memory of that survives. Likewise Brandon has confirmed that the Tranquiline Halls idea is based on a recollection of Ashyn, the world humanity originally inhabited in the system before most of the population fled the cataclysm for Roshar.. The historical record on Roshar ranges from spotty to non-existent and pretty much everything prior to the fall of the Hierocracy is suspect due to the tampering or destructiion of records by the Vorin church. Without going into Cosmere mechanics about death (which make your idea... unlikely) there's this WoB that makes it clear that Elhokar is lucky to have lasted as long as he did but he's very very dead:

Intent. You have to mean for something to be an Awakening for it to work (which in this case includes visualizing the Command properly) rather than just saying the right word(s). Denth wasn't intending to perform that Command when he told Vivenna the words, he just wanted to convey to her what words she should say. This is illustrated later in the book when Vasher tells the priest's daughter a Command that will erase her memories and part of his instructions to her are to repeat the words he's about to tell her and mean them. It's the same situation as with Denth. Vasher lacks the Intent to perform an Awakening when he says the words, he's just repeating them so somebody else can say them and the reason he tells her to mean the words is so she has the Intent needed. Intent is pretty fundamental to Cosmere magic and a lot of systems simply won't work properly or at all if there isn't that conscious element. EDIT: Just saw this was your first post so, welcome to the Shard!

I suspect it's that the people dying tend to be skaa, because we know the mists were trying to snap as many people as possible as part of Preservation's 'sign' and the nobility generally weren't affected because they already went through snapping whether it succeeded in bringing out allomantic powers or not. And the process of getting the people who are too weak to naturally snap can be fatal, so it's going to disproportionately kill skaa who not only are more likely to be targeted by the mists but are likely to have weaker allomantic sDNA and hence be more vulnerable to the mistsickness killing them while trying to bring out that allomantic potential.

This one, I'm guessing.

You do realize thus topic was dead for over a year when you bumped it just to say thanks, right?

Not really, his Spiritual template is what determines how he's 'supposed' to look so once he gets a body, that's going to start coming into play. We see something similar with another sort of Cognitive Shadow in Stormlight Archive. The scars are explained as Kelsier's Cognitive self-image; since having the scars from Hathsin is such a key part of who Kelsier is, he'll have them in a new body even if various forms of magical healing were applied to him. Now, where the fleshy bits all come from if he's not using a Mistwraith is uncertain but given that Investiture is another state of matter, provide him enough of it when stapling his soul to the body and F-Gold or some other healing power should repair the body for him. Something similar is at play in Warbreaker with the Returned.

Yep, that look just screams 'You know who I am and I know that you know who I am but let's keep it a secret between us'.

Per Brandon, he didn't set out to make that joke but once he realized that he'd unintentionally set up functioning tinfoil hats, he went with the joke.

Yeah, Hoid can't really be categorized on a simple good/bad dynamic (and let's not go down the rabbit hole of defining those terms... ) and while most of the indications we've gotten are that he's a nice person who wants to help people when he's able to, he's also perfectly free in admitting to anyone who asks that his goals are not their goals and he's prepared to sacrifice the latter for the former, even if he'd feel bad about it afterwards. Oh, and he'll tell people that they really shouldn't trust him specifically or (as Shallan can attest) trust anyone who claims to have any futuresight, which explicitly includes him. The last two major works in the Cosmere are going to be his works to an extent, as he's going to have his origin story as part of the Dragonsteel series and he's going to be a major viewpoint character in the final Mistborn books as well. That should give you a pretty good idea how long we can expect to wait before we get answers about Hoid's motivations and goals.

You... kind of answered your own question on the anti-Adonalsium thing there. And given that Brandon has been crystal-clear that anything in the books about the Beyond and the God Beyond is just what the characters themselves believe, there's not really much to discuss. Both are ideas, both are subject to different interpretations in-universe and we're never going to get a definitive answer to any of it. Now, if you're curious about what the in-universe belief in the God Beyond entails, it's similar to the Gnostic conception of the supreme being (God, the One, the Monad and a whole bunch of other names) with Adonalsium occupying a role similar to that of the Demiurge. Again, this is just what Brandon has told us people in-universe believe, it's not endorsing the belief. Note that he said this at the exact same event where he made the 'no definitive answers, ever' statement.

Slatrification is problematic to Brandon and the readers for the obvious reason that it allows anyone who can do it to bypass one of the fundamental limitations on Sand Mastery. Whether it's supposed to work by literally turning the sand into water like Soulcasting or wringing it out of the lichen like you propose, it still gives the Master more water than they started with, meaning that the limitation becomes a non-issue. Even if your proposal kills the lichen and so that particular clump of sand can never be Mastered again, it's no real limitation on a planet that's half covered with the stuff. Which is why Brandon's approach has been to downplay it with the aim of getting rid of it as a mechanic entirely rather than trying to come up with an explanation for how it works.

All of the spren are a mix of Honor and Cultivation's Investiture, with some being closer to one or the other and seeing themselves as being more 'pure' Honor or Cultivation. We know that all Shardblades (which are the Physical bodies of these spren) are an alloy of Tanavastium and whatever Cultivation's metal is called so even the ones on the far ends of the bell curve still have some of the other Shard's Investiture in them. Basically, the whole 'Honorspren' thing is more a matter of their perception of their relationship to Honor than an indication that they're exclusively formed of Honor-flavored Investiture. As for the number nine, that's because significant numbers in the Cosmere are associated with planets and Braize where Odium has settled is nine-centric compared to the rest of the Rosharan System which is ten-centric. It doesn't mean there's anything inherently special about the number nine on Roshar, it's just how the number Odium has become associated with interacts within the existing system. Now it's possible all of this in some way represented a plan by Adonalsium before the Shattering (we know that Frost is right, at least insofar as the Rosharan System was made by Adonalsium for a specific purpose) but trying to work out the four-dimensional tri-Realmic mechanics of Adonalsium's Master Plan, assuming he had one, is at this point an exercise in madness.

Y'all do realize this topic was two years dead, right?

Elantrians are people who have a direct line to the Dor which sustains them in the same way that someone who's attained the Fifth Heightening will have their health sustained permanently by Investiture, without needing to die first. We've also got F-Bendalloy and Cadmium which (with compounding and enough metal) could theoretically allow a person to never need to eat/drink or breathe again, providing for their bodily needs via Investiture. So it's not like the life-sustaining mechanics of being an Elantrian are unique per se, they just get all of those things in one massive package that doesn't require special effort. On the other hand, we know that it's mentally and emotionally exhausting to be an Elantrian so it's the roughest form of Cosmere immortality on the psyche of the individual. And there's no indication that you can become a Shade without dying. The rites and requirements that Nazh speaks of could just as easily involve things you needed to do before you died in order to ensure that you became one post-mortem. We know the reason Shades appear the way they currently do is because of all that extra Investiture from Ambition that saturated the Threnodite System, which means the Investiture is already there. Brandon has confirmed that this is in fact one of the 'requirements' that Nazh mentioned.

Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that. Pretty much everyone here who's asked a question or posted a theory has at some point or another overlooked something from the books or some Word of Brandon that either answers the question, proves the theory right or at least partially throws it into question. Comes with the territory when the fanbase gets so invested and so very good at asking questions... and of course when the author is so open and willing to answer them. Even if half the time the answer is Read And Find Out. Less than you might think. Magic from Sel is the one really tricky case because it's literally tied to geopolitical regions of the planet but other systems have ways of cheating your way into them. BioChroma's the easiest since anyone can receive Breath, it's literally a purchasable commodity and Nalthis is easy to reach for worldhoppers and makes things easy for them. Hemalurgy is also literally universal; all you need is the right metal, the Intent to create a spike and knowledge of where to place it. Once you have the requisite knowledge things could get... interesting. Lerasium can make anybody a mistborn regardless of origin and unsealed metalminds can grant allomantic and feruchemical powers to anyone. Those can theoretically be used to give anyone access to other magics as well, though we'd need to learn more about how the medallions are created and function to really understand the potential. So aside from the one region-locked example, most magic systems can be gotten at even if you're not from the right planet or cultural subset. I'd be more worried about a Forger with access to A-Gold and/or A-Malatium... But to be Doylist I expect that the biggest reason we don't see massive magic crossover is because a story is far more interesting when we're given a smaller number of magics to see in action and come to understand, which also allows Brandon to really explore the potential of that magic on its own. Looking at the two Eras of Mistborn at present is illustrative; in Era 1 we learned how the Metallic Arts function on their own and got some hints at how they could work together. Era 2 starts to show this off by explaining Compounding and using the Twinborn to show what allomancy and feruchemy can do together. There's also the concept of the Resonance (which Surgebinders also have) which is all about what happens when a small number of powers interact, but which won't appear if a character has too many magics. Lots of crossover would be overwhelming at this point since we're still learning how most of the magics work and I imagine that even in MB Era 4 it's not going to be a huge deal, though by then we'll already have been introduced to all the basics so if he cuts loose a bit and gives us some crazy combinations we'll have the necessary background to understand the implications and appreciate how storming awesome they are. And since Hoid is going to be one of the main characters there... xD

Spren are chunks of Investiture that have gained a mind of their own (to a greater or lesser extent depending on the type) so in one sense they're made of the same 'stuff' but at the same time the Investiture is taking different forms and doing different things so it's kind of like saying that two humans are the same because at a biochemical level any two individuals are basically made from the same materials with relatively minor variations. DNA versus sDNA, I guess. As mentioned, no, we're certain they used actual Breath for it. We also know that Vasher hasn't worked out how to use Stormlight to Awaken, which means no converting it to Breath either; he just uses the Investiture the Stormlight represents to sub for the Investiture in a Breath.

I wonder... we know that with enough Breath your color aura is able to bend light so I imagine there could be a way to Awaken glass using a small(er) amount of Breath to get some selective magnification or absorption effects. The thing is, even if you make the frame entirely from wood or other formerly living materials, the glass is inorganic, meaning that you'd need to be at the Ninth Heightening to even begin experimenting with that sort of thing.

Here's another relevant WoB that makes it clear that not all instances of a given emotion or attitude has to be associated with a Shard that represents the same:

Welcome to the Shard! You don't even need to be a Returned to do this in theory; if you were an Awakener and figured out how to hack the systems to power Awakening with Stormlight (and then gained Surgebinding so you could make effective use of a highstorm's Investiture) then you could theoretically do some absolutely insane things, like we see at the end of Oathbringer when Dalinar's actions supercharge Surgebinding for a short time. That said, there are probably limitations that you'd need to figure out how to work around since Stormlight is distinctly 'leaky' while Breaths are 'sticky'... and you'd need to figure out how to hack the systems in the first place. Vasher hasn't figured out how to do it yet and he's had a lot of time to try. No to the first because Awakening drains the pigments and you can't drain projected color. Nightblood bonding a spren has been described as 'farfetched' so a Type IV Entity forming a Nahel Bond isn't likely. We know that Splinters behave differently from sapient beings who aren't made of pure Investiture when it comes to things like Ascension so other interactions between something like Nightblood and magic systems would be similarly unlikely to work, but it depends on the specifics. Brandon has said that it would be very difficult for a non-Nalthian to Return, which probably has to do with the individual needing a certain level of Connection to Endowment. A native Nalthian who became a Surgebinder? Sure. A non-native would probably have to to something special, probably involving some Connection hacking. I like it! I imagine we might see some pretty crazy shenanigans in Silverlight where people from all over the Cosmere live together and Brandon likes throwing little worldbuilding elements like this into his works (case in point: the market in Celebrant). As mentioned, this sort of Forgery is very very difficult to the point that it's functionally impossible. The first involves creating a sapient chunk of Investiture and not only that but a very particular type, then writing an entire history for it and altering your own. Brandon has mentioned that in theory this could be done but it would require way more Investiture than a Forger could possibly get their hands on. Speaking broadly, Surgebinding is a magic system that you simply can't cheat your way into because of how the Nahel Bond works. In the latter case, the fact that you would have to rewrite your history to die is a major stumbling block, since Forgery can actually kill you and the Investiture that a Forger can call on isn't sufficient to stop you from passing Beyond. Then there's the same general limitation on Investiture because a Divine Breath represents a substantial chunk of Investiture.

Preservation was able to make it so that atium mistings existed when they normally would not, he didn't make it so the metals themselves were viable when they otherwise wouldn't be or that the bumped metal wasn't viable. Given that we know a Shard can't choose to cut someone off from their magic systems, selectively cutting metals out shouldn't be possible. Also, Preservation bumped aluminum to make Seers possible. Note how the metal was still usable by mistborn.

- Hoid is a mistborn, we know he ate the lerasium bead to become one so he no longer possesses the bead itself. - Hoid has enough Breath to reach at least the Second Heightening, due to his comments about gaining perfect pitch. - Hoid has Yolish lightweaving but it was not fully functional for some reason, which is part of why he was so eager to bond a Cryptic. - Hoid has bonded a Cryptic which means he's on his way to becoming a Lightweaver with everything that come with it. Not that a Shardblade or Plate is of any real use to him... - Hoid possesses multiple unsealed metalminds of unknown properties. The speaker in the WoB says 'unkeyed' but the one Hoid gave to Wax was unsealed so it's likely Brandon simply didn't correct the speaker's mistake. - Hoid is able to make use of Fortune in a currently unknown matter to know where he needs to be, though it doesn't tell him why he needs to be there. - Hoid's immortality is related in some way to the remnants of the weapon used to kill Adonalsium. He doesn't possess the weapon itself, whatever it was. - Hoid has some form of incredibly powerful healing which predates the Shattering and which he has to actively suppress if he wants to be hurt. His healing is so potent that he doesn't seem to consider anything short of Nightblade or a Shard to be dangerous to him and Brandon has said that in a melee between all of his characters, Hoid would be one of the last two standing simply because of how hard to kill he is. And then things would get silly because Hoid can't cause physical harm to people and even thinking about it can make him violently ill. We don't know the cause of this yet. - Hoid has some way of manipulating Connection that lets him communicate without having to learn the local languages. - Hoid possesses at least a one jar of Invested sand from Taldain which he can use as a sort of Investiture radar. There's no indication that he's capable of Mastering the sand however. - At some point before the Shattering, Hoid possessed a gem with some currently unknown mystical properties, from which one of his many names is derived. This gem is now 'dead' per Frost's comment, though we don't know what that means. - Hoid possesses the Moon Scepter and it's part of his attempts to get access to Selish magics.

Welcome to the Shard! As mentioned, Brandon is very clear that he's never going to provide a canonical explanation for what the Beyond is (or even that it exists) and at most we're going to get what in-universe characters believe about it. Which means that nothing that happens in the books is ever going to be so directly involved with the Beyond as to give the reader a definitive answer. The comment at the end of Bands of Mourning about serving Trell in another realm (which I assume inspired the question) could be a reference to Cognitive Shadows which don't directly involve the question of the Beyond, or it could be something more along the lines of what Moelach does in Stormlight Archive where the transition between Realms serves as an opportunity to gain some insight into the future.

Returned shapeshifting is a consequence of their being Cognitive Shadows stapled back into their bodies, with their self-image (and that of the society they're part of) affecting how they look. The fact that Vivenna and Siri could learn to do the same in addition to consciously changing their hair color is explicitly a function of having a fragmentary Divine Breath and not something that anyone with a lot of Breath could do. Returned not needing to eat is also a consequence of the Divine Breath, since it's the Investiture keeping them alive. Also, just for fun the Fifth Heightening is the point at which the slowing of aging reaches its peak and stops entirely and resistance to disease and poison similarly maxes out, but we know that by the time you hit the Third Heightening (where Vivenna is when she receives Lemex's Breaths) you're already immune to disease and so resistant to poison that you need a lot of it to be affected. Since alcohol is a poison, that means that by the Third Heightening you've already got such a tolerance for alcohol that it's very difficult though not impossible to actually get drunk. Of course if you want to, it's actually possible for an Awakener who can at least dump Breath into some handy object until they lose that immunity for long enough to go and get hammered. Why yes, I have thought about this.

Yeah, I like the idea of 'can't turn it off' as a possible effect of A-Steel savantism, needing to keep burning at least a small amount of the metal or he suffers some consequence and that means he's constantly pushing on nearby metal to some degree whether he wants to or not. Actually, those side effects sound a lot like what wizards do in The Dresden Files, just via a different mechanism. Given that WoB, I imagine that other forms of savantism would have similar negative consequences to balance out the gains but it would depend on the power. And I imagine that being a savant in A-Gold, Bendalloy or Cadmium could get very weird, very quickly.

It's probably significant that per the 10A Ars Arcanum Khriss can't figure out how one gets Initiated into AonDor and thus becomes an Elantrian, though she knows far more about the underlying mechanics than anyone in the novel. Given what we know of Initiation it's almost certain that there's some requirement to be attuned to Devotion, probably with a bit of Dominion since all Selish magics are a mix, but AonDor seems to be 'more Devotion' like Dakhor magic is 'more Dominion'. In any case, since there's some mechanism in place that chooses who becomes an Elantrian this same mechanism might be the reason that there's a hard limit on how many there can be at once. It's possible that Devotion put the foundations in place intentionally to be triggered after her death, via Spiritual Realm futuresight. The issue of how she could set that up but not anticipate what Odium would do could be explained by a couple of factors. We know that even Shards that are very good at seeing the future have a very hard time sorting out what will happen from what might happen and between that and the idea that Rayse would try attacking other Shards and manage to win a two-on-one fight might have seemed too unlikely for D&D to devote a lot of work to countering that, but Devotion set up some mechanism for Elantrian-ness 'just in case'. Or for all we know, the two did see Odium coming and like Honor and Cultivation had A Plan, but one that didn't work out as effectively as they'd hoped. Or maybe it did and it's such a long-term deal that we haven't seen it bear fruit yet, like if they wanted Sel's land to become Invested in the way it has and the process simply isn't far enough along yet to grasp its purpose. Think 'Earth as supercomputer' from HHGTTG. And one more handwave-y option is that enough of Aona's Cognitive aspect remains intact that it's imposing the limitation because for one reason or another, Aona wanted/wants it that way now, but didn't set it up before her death. The evidence for this being that Raoden hears a voice when he's in the Perpendicularity which could be a Cognitive Shadow, though Brandon's RAFO'd it. Equally handwave-y for now in another direction: The Aon Rao that makes modern Elantrians what they are itself is the limiting factor. To use the programming analogy since that's how Brandon describes Selish magic, it's like a computer program. Setting aside language, how well it's coded and simplifying things greatly, the size of a program establishes the maximum amount of code it can contain. Say an Aon Rao the size of a small room has enough capacity to make one Elantrian with a range of fifty meters from its location before it starts to drop off, then one the size of a house can empower five Elantrians and has a range of two hundred meters etc... once you get to Elantris itself you have a 'program' that can empower whatever the maximum number of Elantrians is, to within the range that exists in the books. So it might be a function of the Aon itself and the number could be increased, but only by making a new and larger Aon. Though aside from the difficulties of making it and switching from the existing one to the larger one, you'd still eventually hit the hard geographical limit that is the Cognitive 'region' of the Aonic people themselves.