Weltall

We're probably going to have to wait for Dragonsteel to get answers to any of those questions/assumptions since that's going to lead up to the Shattering and where we'll meet all the Vessels pre-Ascension. This may or may not include getting to see Tanavast buying Hoid a drink. It doesn't work that way, a Shard's intent is not inwardly-directed and the Vessels do retain their personality and wills, though depending on them and how well-matched they are for their Shard the latter may warp them over time. Also, as mentioned Odium's goal is to become the most powerful entity in the Cosmere and that means he can't afford to leave any Shard alive because they could rival him, especially since he deliberately avoids taking up the Shards after killing their Vessels meaning that he's always going to be at least roughly equal in raw power to all the others, aside from Harmony. A case can also be made that Devotion is one of the most dangerous Shards to him, since its intent is arguably the polar opposite of his, something Brandon acknowledges. The fact that Devotion and Dominion were collectively the second spot on his hit list instead of Honor/Cultivation or Preservation/Ruin says a lot.

I go away for a week and see that I've missed a lot while I was gone. xD Funny you should mention that, because one of my crack theories about Beryl was exactly one of those, well before CS3 came out. If I may sing my own praises like Hoid for a minute here.... behold, it's in there somewhere amidst making many errors that are amusing in retrospect, and me clearly having not gotten used to the localization yet because I was mixing up unofficial translations with what XSEED ended up using. Anyhow, my own current take is based on something else that we couldn't have predicted before CS4:

We know from the Stormfather that the Dawnshards were involved in the devastation on Ashyn that caused most of the population to flee to Roshar. If the Dawncities predate the arrival of humans then they're probably not directly associated with the Dawnshards. Since we know almost nothing of the Dawncities (except that some believe Sesemalex Dar is one) and the Dawnshards just as mysterious in-universe and a huge mass of RAFO's out-of-universe, we don't really have much to work with.

Correct, confirmed by Khriss' essay in Arcanum Unbounded and indirectly by Endowment of all people in a letter to Hoid in Oathbringer.

That WoB is over four years old, Brandon has been much more explicit about how feruchemy is indeed a system resulting from the interaction between Preservation and Ruin in the meantime, though he also said as much beforehand. For example, he's quite clear here that it was both Shards and no third party was involved: Brandon does hint that Preservation had more of a role in its development (directly or indirectly) but of course he doesn't provide details.

<Uses AT Advance on this topic> Since the topic's been quiet for a couiple days, I might as well give it a little nudge with some more sorting of Trails characters into Cosmere categories. Tagged for length and because some of the stuff is kinda spoilers for later games that new players might not want to know about. So, about those Ouroboros characters: And now the Crossbell playable cast: And because I was on a roll, I decided to play around with the members of a certain recurring group that never gets formally introduced until the second game of any given arc, pretty much every one of whom is some sort of spoiler:

Someone could do the math and figure out how far Lift could 'fall' under the appropriate multiple of gravity (base acceleration of 6.8 m/s^2 on Roshar) and not really need to account for air resistance since Lift can negate that and also heal if she somehow exceeds the limits of Abrasion. The issue would be figuring out how long Kaladin's lashings could last and whether there's a point of maximal efficiency. My guess is the totally unscientific 'pretty storming far'.

The Fused reincarnate even if they're killed with Shardblades so while their souls are damaged, they're certainly intact enough. The only reason they don't go Beyond after death is because they're Cognitive Shadows. Nightblood is another question entirely and that's one for the philosophers and theologians of the Cosmere to debate. Given that it directly relates to the nature of the Beyond which Brandon has stated he's never going to provide a definitive answer for, the question of what happens to the soul of someone killed by Nightblood is likely to also remain unanswered.

I think any time we see blanket healing (ie, not when Kaladin is trying very hard to heal his arm, or Wayne is prioritizing between wounds because of limited stored health) would count as a situation where the magic could potentially be hitting stuff that isn't technically 'you' but is still an important part of you, like the microorganisms in the body that are in a mutualistic relationship. The magic probably sees them as part of you because the person perceives them as a part of them, if they're even aware the bacteria exists. I imagine that the magic would react similarly to a pregnant woman and the degree of Connection between mother and child across all three Realms would cause the magic to treat the child as part of her for healing purposes, even is the child has its own spiritweb. Oh, and while he doesn't go into mechanical details Brandon has given thought to the question of how his magic systems affect pregnancy and Stormlight at least would be extremely safe. I think we can assume from this that healing magics in general would be safe, while things that mess with the mother's spiritweb would be dangerous..

Haha, yeah, we might be getting just a tad excited. Justifiably so, of course. xD In terms of selling it, I figure the comparison to Brandon should work pretty well. Each respective creator is the one I tend to compare the other to since there are so many similarities in how their works are structured and how they approach certain aspects of the creative process. Both franchises are amazing when it comes to worldbuilding and characters, with the feeling that you're looking at a small but very detailed slice of a much larger and more vibrant world in each book or game; The various arcs of Kiseki/Trails being similar to the book series that make up the Cosmere and the games serving the same function as the individual books. Kiseki is very similar to the Cosmere in the sense that there's a ton of little details in each game and if you pay really close attention and do some lateral thinking, you can usually predict at least one or two big developments well in advance from the clues given, only to be blindsided in a good way by all the stuff you couldn't predict. Continuity across the games is a huge deal. At the same time, like the Cosmere lets you pick up any given series as a starting point, you can generally pick up any given arc of games and use it as your starting point. There's even a fansite dedicated to speculation, some of which has even turned out to be right just like the various theories on the 17th Shard sometimes wind up being spot-on.

You want to do that and I'll tackle the Crossbell characters? This one's sort of a confusing area because there are at least two possible outcomes and that one is implied to be considerably less common than the other. (CS3/4) Yeah, TX started as a Vita game and then got ported to PS4 as Tokyo Xanadu eX+ with a bunch of extra content (including the Sidestory segments and After Story) so if you want the entire experience it's not really the best buy. Ys VIII is similar, except that it was originally planned to be a simultaneous Vita/PS4 release without extra content, then the latter version was delayed and they wound up adding things anyways to make it the definitive one. Once nice thing about the last two Cold Steel games is that they were designed exclusively for the PS4 so you have one version of each game with all the content and if there are any ports to PC or other consoles afterwards, that'll be up to NISA.

Darn, I missed even seeing that topic and it's a bit old so I don't want to bump it but you could have a lot of fun sorting the Sky/Crossbell characters into Radiant orders as well. Just for fun, I'm going to have to do the members of the new Class VII from the back half of the series. Let's see now... Juna Crawford: Stoneward easily. Dependable, very resolute, kinda stubborn and the powers fit her perfectly. Kurt Vander: Edgedancer, for similar reasons I imagine you put Fie there. Altina Orion: She's tough, fitting the Windrunners well in terms of powers and the 'Protecting' attribute, but I could see her as a Lightweaver as well for some of what she does and she fits the 'Honesty' divine attribute while watching her work on the 'Creativity' part is absolutely adorable. Musse Egret: Truthwatcher, no question. Ash Carbide: Dustbringer, for the guy who loves a good scrap. Oh, and I can't help but notice that Crow and Sara were excluded from the original discussion so I'm gonna have to fix that. xD Crow Armbrust: Willshaper, he's close to what seems to be their stereotypical personality and Transportation kinda fits with his skillset. Sara Valestein: Willshaper again, mainly because she really fits the associated divine attributes, though she's also got the same appropriate personality aspects as Crow. Awesome, someone else who's had the same idea! Agreed that Gaius absolutely must be a Windrunner, not just because of all the damned wind puns but it really does fit his personality type... and yeah, the similarities between him and Kaladin are spooky. Yeah, it's something the series is very good at, starting all the way back in Trails in the Sky with Olivier who's way deeper than his initial 'spoony bard' impression would have you believe. Or watching Estelle grow up from being a rough and tumble tomboy who's overly obsessed with hitting things really hard to a reasonably skilled problem-solver and negotiator who's comfortable with femininity... while also still liking to hit things really hard. Ahhh yes, the endless rabbit hole that is the end of Cold Steel 4. Random aside, Lechter's one of my favorite characters too. xD And there's an even more subtle reference to another Falcom series you might have missed. In one of Shiori's events, you can go to the library with her and one of the books she and Kou talk about is very obviously about Adol from the Ys series. Ahhhh, TX, I hope you get a sequel one of these days. With you all the way on Sean Chiplock, he's amazing. I can't wait to hear him in CS3 and I hope someone gave him a huge hug after all the recording was over, and maybe a nice cold drink to help with the inevitable sore throat after some of those endgame scenes. I wouldn't worry too much about NISA here, they didn't censor anything in Ys VIII and there really isn't anything to censor in the Cold Steel games... except maybe Dorothee's novels which are full of totally unobjectionable content and contain absolutely no salacious imagery... And the Gagharv Trilogy is a sad victim of a subpar third-party remake (which is what got localized) combined with a very bad translation. The original games are worlds more interesting in their gameplay and they could really shine with a great localization. And so much stuff in Trails got started there, with all manner of references to the older games being made constantly. Alas, they're almost twenty years old now so we'll probably never see them again in English unless Falcom remakes them, but I can always hope.

On the broad question of whether Leeching works on Stormlight in gems, the fact that a larkin can suck the Investiture out of gems (and people) suggests that A-Chromium would work similarly, since the two function on similar principles. You'd still need to get a Leecher close enough to touch the target of course, or throw one of the allomantic grenades but that's a whole other kettle of cremlings. Likewise a larkin can steal Investiture from Shardplate with effort so Leeching probably would work on it as well, hypothetically. Practically-speaking you'd get punched or Shardbladed into the Beyond before you could hold on long enough to actually drain that Investiture. Yeah, a Steelrunner with sufficient speed reserves is pretty hard to get anywhere near unless you catch them completely by surprise or you've got the environment working in your favor and they don't have anywhere to run... though even then they could probably just run into you and bowl you over before you could Leech them, if they're willing to accept the likelihood of injury to themselves from the impact. But I think @Dancer's question wasn't the plausibility of Leeching/Nicrobursting any given type of feruchemist but whether the effect would work on a feruchemist at all. WoB says they can affect metalminds, it would just take longer because of Investiture interference. Doesn't even have to be kinetic, it seems. That limitation is more something that A-Bronze has to worry about. This would work, as long as the person doesn't have some way to resist the effect. Shardplate might provide resistance since you'd get Investiture interference, moreso if it's Radiant Plate I assume. We do know that 'dead' Shardplate doesn't protect against the Thrill so it's up in the air just how much protection the Plate would provide, but I imagine it would be at least something. Hmmm, we know there are fabrials that can affect emotions, I wonder if you could make one that grants resistance to Soothing or Rioting similar to the kandra Blessing of Stability?

Ahhh, another Kiseki fan! Always good to see someone else who appreciates the series; there's a few of us here as well. I first realized this when @natc made a Bank of Rean reference, only replacing it with Hoid. I may or may not have a bad habit of bringing up the series every so often on the Cosmere boards to try and convince people to play a game series that's organized in a similar way to Brandon's books, and vice-versa when discussing his books when other people are talking about the games. One of these days I need to write down my crack theory that Brandon and Falcom's CEO Toshihiro Kondo have some sort of subconscious mental link because it's spooky how similar ideas crop up in both of their creations... and because both are grandmasters in the art of the RAFO and teasing the fanbase. xD Anyhow, nicely done summary of the Cold Steel games!

Once the 'gate' he's drawing Investiture from is gone he wouldn't be able to feed on it. We know he'd destroy an Aon if you tried powering him that way and would be cut off from the Dor as soon as it was gone so the same would apply to allomantic metals or to other similar ways of getting at Investiture like a Soulstamp.

Oh, no worries! We all know the excitement of Brandon's books and wanting to learn more and discuss things. xD This is just an area where a little bit more knowledge would have answered your question.

You miiiight want to finish reading the Mistborn series before discussing something like this because it's pretty difficult to talk about why your idea doesn't actually make sense without going into details from The Well of Ascension and The Hero of Ages. As far as Elantris goes, this has been asked before. Suffice it to say, trying to 'feed' Nightblood with an Aon wouldn't end well.

Lerasium is the metal anyone can burn, it's not a universal trait of godmetals. Any non-Scadrian godmetal can't be burned at all unless the Shard does something to make it work and/or the person trying to burn it is a mistborn with the right Connection to that Shard.

Yeah, she offers to trade information for information but she never says that she could teach the honorspren how to make swords like hers. Her trade could be as simple as telling them a little about Awakening and how it can be used to create weapons similar to Rosharan Shardblades without needing to start with a spren. It's not at all certain that Vivenna herself knows how to Awaken a sword on her own and since we already know Yesteel has the secret of it, Occam's Razor suggests that either he or Vasher did the Awakening. And that's not even touching the many other flaws in your idea with a ten foot pole, assuming you meant it seriously and not as some sort of subtle troll.

Neither shardblades nor shardplate can be Awakened because from the perspective of the magic, they already are. The containment effect could probably be done with Gravitation but I'm not sure how you'd generate plasma with the Surges short of Transformation and fabrial-based Soulcasting is more limited in what it can do. Hmmm... some kind of localized Division field that breaks down whatever it touches at the molecular level would produce a similar effect if you could make that work. Or if you want to go away from a plasma blade we actually know of a Surge that could produce something roughly equivalent: Take a monomolecular wire (which a Radiant should be able to make with Soulcasting) and use Tension to make it perfectly straight and rigid and you basically have one of Larry Niven's variable swords, or the 'Laser Rapier' from the original System Shock for anyone who remembers that game. Anyone? Wouldn't be all that good for stabbing but it could slice things up pretty nicely.

Hoid leading a procession of a hundred chasmfiends marching in unison and singing an ode to his magnificence. I love it! And I think we can all agree that more Szeth/Nightblood interactions are something we all need. How's this for another possible great Szeth line, which could be my Second Thing: He gets asked for a third time the 'What are you?' question by someone who's terrified and this time he answers: I am the Law! I'd bet money on this being more or less what happens (like a Sanderson Avalanche squared), but I don't think anyone will take that bet xD

Yeah, but it's kind of hard to argue with your god when he tells you he doesn't like that name.

No, just no.

Divine Breaths seem to be like the Dakhor monks' magic in that it doesn't really care what kind of Investiture you feed it so long as it gets enough of it. So whatever method he's using, Vasher is giving his Divine Breath the Investiture equivalent to one regular Breath per week and everyone's happy. Now, if I were a spren I'd be very nervous about bonding a Returned. After all, they're sapient Investiture and the Divine Breath is likely to see that as a perfectly viable food source to consume before it eats itself. I imagine it would be pretty traumatic for the other half of the bond since their souls are merging (moreso than the Radiants who broke their bonds during the Recreance, less so than a hypothetical surviving hemalurgy victim) but they'd live for another week. Granted the main reason Vasher is on Roshar is that Investiture is so easy to come by that such an event isn't likely to happen, but if I were a spren I'd still worry about that possibility only a bit less than I'd worry about my partner drawing Nightblood.

Stormlight healing and F-Gold both work on the same underlying principle though, which is rewriting the Physical body to match the Spiritual ideal, as filtered through the Cognitive self-image. Brandon explicitly places both forms of healing in the same category on multiple occasions, like in the long WoB on immortality and healing. Trimmed for length Would Bloodmaker Ferrings exist in this category as well? If not, what about someone compounding Gold? Brandon Sanderson Yes, you are correct. Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 29, 2016) And here, where both forms of healing are stated to be able to make extensive Physical changes which the body has no way of doing on its own: Aaaaand here too: It literally does not matter if it's an incurable poison normally, the state of 'being poisoned' is not part of your Spiritual ideal any more than being bisected is (or in most cases, missing limbs which we also know can be regenerated using Stormlight and F-Gold) so the magic will heal it. It just might require more of the magic to do so depending on how much damage it's done to your body. The only times when having something stuck in you is noted to be a factor for healing is if the foreign object is made of aluminum, since it messes with the Investiture in the healing. Other metals are a non-issue and we've seen Wayne and Miles simply push bullets and shrapnel out of their bodies as they heal. That said, getting huge amounts of aluminum into someone could be an effective way to poison a person and negate any healing ability, but aluminum isn't all that toxic so the amount you'd need would be enough that simply shooting/stabbing them with an aluminum bullet or blade would probably be far more effective.