Weltall

It's rather more likely that they're human and so far we haven't gotten any reason to assume this isn't the case. If there are currently known Vessels who are dragons, the most likely candidates are Edgli and/or Bavadin.

Setting aside the in-universe debate over whether a Cogniive Shadow is really the original person or just a copy (Secret History rather suggests the former) yes, we know that they have a soul. In the Cosmere, soul=Spiritweb=your Spiritual aspect. That stays with the Cognitive Shadow and explains why the Heralds and Kelsier still look like themselves when they get new bodies. Brandon kind of conflates the Cognitive aspect with the soul sometimes, but this WoB here has him stating that a CS functions on two of the three Realms. So yes, if a CS 'dies' then it's the same as when someone dies normally. The Physical body stays in that realm (if they have one, like the Returned), the Cognitive aspect goes Beyond and the Spiritual aspect hangs around.

DOOMSLUG! Oh wait, not Cosmere... Um, I think I'm going to have to give my vote to Steris' attempts to be helpful on Wax's adventures. Utterly adorable, to say nothing of hilarious.

As mentioned, Scadrial probably had a Cognitive presence quite quickly, either because the Shards' act of creation sped up the process or because life there created a sufficiently stable zone before too much time had passed. We're looking at maybe a decade tops but probably less than that Now, we do know that it's possible for a planet to be 'shrouded' so that it's difficult to find even if you know it exists and are looking for it, but we have no idea what this entails. Khriss brings it up when discussing Yolen in Secret History.

He probably assumed the question was about the 'philosopher' that Lift meets in Edgedancer and was mentally backtracking while still talking, hence the awkward phrasing. But yeah, that's Hoid that Lift was remembering. Given that story was true, one wonders just what happened to cause a god to start worshipping him by accident, like he mentions to Shallan in Oathbringer.

Brandon has actually confirmed that this is possible. He's also confirmed that while you'd normally get a Nightwatcher boon and curse as a package via hemalurgy it's possible (but much harder) to get only one if you know what you're doing. Just make sure that if you try using hemalurgy on anyone the Nightwatcher or Cultivation has blessed, you're prepared for the latter to be very unhappy with you. I'm imagining Hoid, Nazh and Vasher getting ready to hunt themselves a chasmfiend in order to make a chasmoloss when Nazh gets a look at one for the first time. He turns to the others and looks at the equipment they've brought with them. "You're gonna need a bigger spike"

Given how different the mechanics are, thinking of Epics as equivalent to Splinters isn't likely to be illuminating. A Splinter is self-aware Investiture which frequently has its own Intent separate from the originating Shard. They can and frequently do exist completely independent of humans or other sapient life (most spren for example) though they may be able to bond with other beings with different effects. Epics get a particular set of powers which Calamity can reclaim and give out again, plus a weakness that's specific to the Epic. Their powers are incapable of existing independently. Also, even if you want to use the Shard analogy (and Brandon knew going in that Reckoners was non-Cosmere, so unlike Rithmatist he didn't intend any Cosmere parallels) why would simply being in Calamity's presence give you power? Shards don't work that way, someone has to actively take up the power in order to Ascend or it's going to go do its own thing, simply being present when one dies does nothing. Also, Calamity didn't die, he left. That's not analogous to a Shard being dropped by a dead Vessel or being shattered into multiple pieces.

That would be pretty scary, which is why it's a very good thing that Nightblood would be more dangerous to Kelsier than anyone around him, unless he came up with a way to supply it with Investiture.

Hrathen actually addresses this at the end and you can see that he still firmly believes in Jaddeth up to his death. The last thing we see him think is "Jaddeth be merciful to my soul. I only did the best I could". Before that as he's trying to explain himself to Sarene, he tells her "I still believe Dereth’s teachings. My problem is with Wyrn, not God." It seems like there's enough wiggle room there that he can view Wyrn as a a potentially fallable mouthpiece for Jaddeth and thus believe in the latter without accepting that the words of the former are those of the latter. The structure of Shu-Dereth say that Wyrn is the only person holy enough to serve Jaddeth directly, so he gets to be God's voice on Sel. I don't believe it ever says explicitly that Wyrn is viewed as absolutely infallible however. And again, it must be emphasized that the Shu-Dereth practiced in Fjorden was changed from its original teachings in order to fit what the leadership of the empire wanted of its new religion.

True,.but since it's got an identical biosphere (pre-Rashek), the same size and gravity and was patterned after the Cosmere's original human homeworld, I figure it's as close as we're gonna find.

We actually have Word of Peter on #4.

Yeah, surgebinders with access to Transformation (Elsecallers and Lightweavers) have some protection against the bodily transformation due to the Nahel Bond. The effects seen in people who use the fabrial Soulcasters extensively is a phenomenon called Savantism and it causes permanent changes to the soul. Because of this, it's not normally something that healing magics will repair since as far as the magic is concerned there's nothing wrong with you.

One thing to add about zinc is that since it only works with what you already have, if you're not at least reasonably trained in fighting and you're going up against someone who is well-trained, being able to think through all the tactical possibilities in the blink of an eye might just help you come to the conclusion that running would be a really bright idea, before you get caught in a situation where it stops being an option. If you've read Steelheart, the way that the characters dealt with a prescient enemy is a good illustration of the trap that a zinc user could be forced into even with the ability to think so much faster than normal, if they don't also have some fighting ability to back it up. Or if you want an almost literal example from film, Holmes versus Moriarty in Game of Shadows. Each has the F-Zinc-esque ability to think through all the possible outcomes of a fight. Both of them run through the fight in their head and conclude that Moriarty will win because Sherlock is too injured from previous events and will eventually leave an opening to be exploited. True, anyone familiar with the original stories knows Holmes will take another option, but it was a situation where he had no way of winning in a straight fight despite his mental agility because the physical differences were too great. But yeah, zinc compounding would be great for a battlefield commnder or a tactician.

@Elegy While it's true that no story that includes Earth will ever be Comere, Brandon wrote Rithmatist before he'd canonized that in his head and as a result it has magic that feels like it belongs in the Cosmere and he even had a Shard in mind for the world. He's mentioned that one of the things he's needed to do for the second book is pull out some of the originally drafted elements that were 'too Cosmere' without pulling so much that it becomes too different from the first book. All the creatures connected to the magic system were originally conceived as coming from the Spiritual Realm. That said, if you imagined that our Earth was in the Cosmere for purposes of argument you wouldn't get Rithmatics because the world of Rithmatist is different enough from our Earth (in size and geography) that the magic would presumably not express itself in the same way, even if everything else was the same. Since Scadrial has been stated to be the Cosmere's equivalent to Earth, I imagine that the interplay of the planet and the sDNA of the people would be similar on both worlds, so it would come down to which Shard(s) took up residence but there would probably be some parallels no matter what system(s) ultimately developed.

Wax pretty much is getting the effect of compounding given how much he's tapping there. While you might be able to do more with it through actively compounding and using that sudden burst of power, it's also possible doing that would be actively dangerous to the user. There are limits to the ability of the magic to protect you from its own effects. Speed bubbles don't exhibit redshift for this reason (ie Brandon made it that way so Wayne doesn't fry everyone whenever he puts up a bubble) but we know this isn't an absolute protection. A Steelrunner will eventually outstrip the built-in protective effect and burn themselves up due to air resistance if they go too fast for example. I think if you tried to tap F-Zinc too heavily you'd eventually overload your mind and Bad Things would happen. Oh, and since I forgot to do so in your other topic, welcome to the Shard!

As mentioned what you're asking about is using two or more powers together. A Resonance is an extra effect you get from having multiple powers but which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the applcations of those powers. For example, Windrunners get more and stronger Squires, which isn't any direct application of Gravitation or Adhesion. Also, if you have too many powers, you lose access to any Resonance you might have had. Mistborn for example don' have any Resonance(s) because of how many powers they've got. We know that at least some allomantic abilities work across magic systems and the Ars Arcanum description doesn't factor that in, ie we know that A-Chromium works on other forms of Investiture and that A-Bronze can detect any kinetic Investiture and not just actively burning metals. This includes A-Aluminum being able to purge other forms of Investiture from the body. However, whether that applies to A-Duralumin we're not sure of and how it would work in other magic systems if it does is an open question. It might work in Surgebinding, in which case the effect would be similar to the burst of power in allomancy. However, one thing to remember is that duralumin and nicrosil don't actually increase your power per se, they just release all of it in one huge burst so the effect of all the metal you're burning hits at once instead of over some longer period. Assuming for purposes of argument that you could 'burst' Surgebinding, the effect would be to deplete whatever Stormlight you've inhaled and put it all into whatever application of your Surges you're currently playing with. If you were doing a Basic Lashing for example, you'd probably get some super-high multiplier depending on how much Stormlight you'd inhaled (hopefully you weren't trying to lash yourself to the side of a building...) or if you were healing yourself you'd deplete all your Stormlight and heal faster than normal. However, if you compared healing with and without the duralumin boost, the end result should be the same because you're using the same amount of Investiture to accomplish the job, you're just getting it all at once. It certainly wouldn't help you heal using less Stormlight since that's pretty much the opposite of what duralumin does. Oh, it should be added that to use a power like A-Duralumin with an unrelated magic system might not be as simple as just burning the metal while you're trying to surgebind, it's possible some sort of hack would be necessary to make the former power 'see' the latter as a viable target. EDIT: All that typing and it turns out that someone asked Brandon this at a signing. Because of course they did. So there you go, it definitely can be done. I suspect the caveats I listed above about how it would work in practice should apply, of course.

Search around a bit and you'll find attempts here to do just that. It's slightly complicated by the fact that we know not all Shards have opposites to the extent of Preservation and Ruin and of course not knowing six of the sixteen, but it hasn't stopped people from trying. xD

One more WoB to add, which just makes it explicit that the intents of the Shards were taken from Adonalsium's personality so it wasn't completely random. In other words, they had to come from some trait or idea Adonalsium possessed or embodied. If Adonalsium lacked anything we'd call apathy, no Shard of Apathy is going to come out of a hypothetical alternate Shattering no matter what factors are in play. That's names that were picked because he liked the sounds/what stories he could tell, not the number of Shards. Brandon canonized various aspects underpinning the Cosmere while he was writing Mistborn so the way that sixteen can be played around with mathematically also influenced how many Shards he gave himself to play with. Oh, and from an in-universe perspective you're looking at this backwards; there are sixteen metals because there are sixteen Shards.

Well that's fair, she is a scholar and has shown herself able to adapt to new information quickly even if it means having to discard what she previously was certain of because it no longer fits the facts. But right now she's so far below the level of Khriss or anyone from the university in Silverlight (or any of the known worldhoppers on Roshar, especially the Seventeenth Shard members) that there's just no comparison. I do have 'Jasnah and Khriss' as one of the meetings I'd most like to see happen in the Cosmere, because I'm certain that we'd come as close as anything to seeing the former dance a jig in excitement at just how much she could learn from the latter. And I'm sure the opportunity to interview an Elsecaller would make Khriss pretty happy too.

First, welcome to.the Shard! Second, Jasnah is not Cosmere-aware. Aside from whatever she's gleaned feom Hoid her knowledge is strictly confined to Roshar. Thrid, Taravangian is only marginally Cosmere-aware. Fourth, by far the most Cosmere-aware character is Khriss, then Hoid and Nazh at least, and probably Frost. Fifth, this topic was dead for almost a year and a half...

Not only that but we know that sensing things with steel/iron-sight is more difficult the more heavily Invested they are. Wax had to flare to see TenSoon's spikes and didn't get anything off of the Bands of Mourning and Nightblood is way more Invested than the Bands. Even if Rashek's better at punching through that kind of interference he's still going to notice that Nightblood is massively Invested and conclude that he probably doesn't want to get hit with it, even if he doesn't know exactly what it would do to him. Letting himself get hit by a spear that he knows is just a normal weapon is one thing, letting himself get hit by something that he knows is unnatural is quite another. He may be arrogant but I don't think he's that arrogant. So yeah, Rashek's got a couple approaches to determine that Szeth is (potentially at least) unusually dangerous so I think he'd be much more on his guard than he was with Vin.

Shallan is a massively unreliable narrator so it's likely that when she's thinking of how much better things were before her mother tried to kill her, she's not being completely honest with herself or the readers. There's also the little fact that any mother willing to murder her own child probably wasn't the best of parents to begin with. The supernatural influence could have been Nergaoul. Jasnah's historical research into the patterns of dynasties turned up lots of stories of royal families imploding as members tried to murder their way to the top, in the Vorin lands where we know Nergaoul has been active. This includes Veden lands even though the Thrill isn't noted to be as big a thing for them as it is for the Alethi. Possibly a lesser influence but still something similar, driving people to fight among themselves. Maybe they're enough on the fringes of Nergaoul's influence (by the time he moves to Jah Keved and things get really bad, the Davars are on their way out of the country) that it doesn't manifest as dramatically? It kind of fits Nan Balat's penchant for cruelty to small animals at least.

The Wheel/Pattern, in the same way that it chooses who gets to be ta'veren. Artur Hawkwing literally says as much the first time the Horn is blown in TGH.

He's bound to the system by Honor's power and apparently he can only escape in one of two ways: Dalinar intentionally releases him (which is a new thing owing to what the Stormfather has become since the last time there were Radiants) or he has to win according to the rules of whatever agreement he and Honor came up with. Just killing all the humans apparently won't accomplish this (Dalinar percieves this in the confrontation at Thaylen City) and just killing the Heralds definitely won't do it. What they're doing is keeping Odium's full force from coming to bear since they're part of the Oathpact that keeps the Fused trapped on Braize, they're not what's keeping him trapped in the system. Killing all of them would help Odium's cause by increasing the resources he can send against Roshar but it's not the win condition. On that note, killing the Heralds only became an option recently because the Oathpact is still in force (however strained) and until Taln finally broke his ability to influence Roshar was extremely limited because all the Fused and most of the voidspren were stuck on Braize and the Unmade can't do everything on their own, especially when only some of them can truly think. The situation is also different now because Honor has been splintered so Odium only has one opposing Shard to worry about.

Brandon has RAFO'd the question, saying he'll get around to it eventually. It's possible that it involves the unusual thermodynamic properties of Investiture, where there's a fourth law that Brandon doesn't want to talk about yet. We know for example that there are reactions in allomancy where energy that should be present goes 'somewhere' and it's going to play a role in future books. Something similar could be at work and it's seen around Windrunners because of the nature of their powers. I only remember seeing it around Kaladin (and later the Lopen) when he swears a new ideal and it's affecting Szeth during normal surgebinding for... some reason. I can't remember, does it not happen at all in WoR? Because if it does happen in both books, it's probably related somehow to the 'dangerous amounts of stormlight' thing and the relatively shallow bond the Honorblades have. There's also the condensation that appears on deadeye Shardblades when they form and it's probably the result of Investiture transferring between Realms and going from that state to matter.