Weltall

Two points here. First, we don't know what 'Autonomy' means, which Brandon has nicely emphasized for us. Second, a Shard's Intent is not inwardly directed so it's entirely possible that these avatars can share Bavadin's spiritweb without this violating the way Shardic Intent operates vis a vis whatever definition of Autonomy that Intent actually represents..

The text tells us so outright. OB There's also Frost's letter in WoR where he says that Tanavast did it, and while that only proves that Frost believes it to be so we've no reason to suspect it's not the case. We also know that Tanavast was involved because the Oathpact was a part of what's binding Odium though there's more to it than that.

The quote assigns a bead to Rashek and Peter agrees with the statement that there were at least twelve (the eleven 'and at least one more') so even if you mentally change that to 'One for Hoid, one for each of the original nine allomancers and the one Elend used' you're still left with one bead that's not accounted for by Peter's statement.

Given that Hoid was still wearing his 'skaa informant' disguise and had ash in his hair during that scene, he must have come straight from Scadrial after it happened. If he had to spend any amount of time waiting around on the planet post-Catacendre, one assumes that a man Brandon has described as liking his creature comforts would have had a bath and changed his clothes. Patji's Eye is 'Autonomy-flavored' and Bavadin is 'aware' of it but yeah, it probably formed before the Shattering due to whatever Adonalsium did on the planet beforehand. We know that it's possible for a world to have a Perpendicularity owing to the presence of a Shard, then have it persist even after the Shard leaves, so something similar probably happened pre-Shattering.

WoBs and WoP for future reference:

Atium was the most valuable commodity in the Final Empire, lerasium was known to Rashek and maybe a couple of his Inquisitors and nobody else until Vin found that last bead. Brandon has said that atium and lerasium are no longer being produced now that Ati and Leras are gone. Given the mention of godmetal alloys and how we know there's at least some atium left out there, it's hard to credit the idea that we'll never see it again but we won't be seeing it produced in the same way. There's also an old Word of Peter that implies at least one more lerasium bead exists and Brandon called the thought that there were originally sixteen 'an excellent guess' which if true would give us five beads that we can't account for. I'm thinking that the titular Lost Metal being atium is almost too obvious since we already know atium has been called that in Era 2, but aside from lerasium I also can't think of any other metal that could plausibly fit that description. Well, I guess there's malatium. We'll just have to wait and see.

If The Traveller is assumed to be canon, Hoid was able to get off of Scadrial immediately after the events of Hero of Ages, or possibly before and he observed the goings-on from the Cognitive Realm. Given that Ruin's Perpendicularity had already been disrupted and Preservation's was 'empty' and then both simply ceased, he may have some other way of getting offworld but it's not as easy as using the pools. Either that or Harmony's Perpendicularity formed really quickly. But yeah, having the has Sazed a Perpendicularity.

We know that Mistborn Era 4 is going to be the big crossover book and it will involve actual FTL travel with really cool space battles, apparently. The Ones Above are confirmed to be from another world and it's one we've seen before. We also know that the Metallic Arts are a system that has FTL 'built in' as a potential application and it's not the only world that's going to have it. Surgebinding is another system that's got really obvious mechanics that could be applied to space travel, particularly Gravitation. AonDor has a spatial transportation Aon so if you could ever crack the regional limitations of the magic that one would be easy, Brandon's talked about how you could gather Investiture from Taldain's star and power a solar sail... So yeah, we've got multiple WoBs that the final Mistborn books will be much closer to 'hard' science fiction and there will be actual FTL travel. Worldhopping as we've seen it is great for individuals and small groups but the two worlds whose Cognitive 'zones' we've seen so far require Investiture just to move around in safely and the limitations imposed by the need to use Perpendicularities to transition between Realms is a huge bottleneck to mass travel and trade on top of that. Especially when you have Perpendicularities that are in spectacularly dangerous places (First of the Sun, Sel as a whole), are unstable and unpredictable (Threnody) or are completely interdicted by the resident Shard (Taldain). So while Cognitive Realm travel is never going to go away, space travel as Brandon plans on having is likely to become a lot more practical by the end of the timeline for most people wanting to get from world to world. EDIT: Incidentally, we've been trying to figure out how Metallic Arts FTL might work since the minute Brandon first revealed it was a thing. We're juuuuust starting to get to the point where we might be able to make predictions that are closer to the truth, since Brandon has introduced 'mechanical' applications in Bands of Mourning and he'd earlier implied this merger of magic and technology is a prerequisite for how the FTL will work. However, the way Brandon has described things, there's one more step in the development of 'magical technology' that we haven't gotten to yet. So we're still just guessing at how the most important bits of the technology will actually function

Ha, this is true.

Brandon gave the scale of the Cosmere once and it's more like fifty light-years, though Peter has harder numbers so the final amount might be different. Still closer to that than 'thoussands'. The rest's spot-on though. xD

...they're not. All the Vessels are strongly influenced by the Intent of their Shard, some so strongly their original personality is largely overwritten and others not so much, depending on how good a match there is between Intent and Vessel. Ruin isn't insane per se, he's just become so influenced by the power that he's become unable to do anything else even though he fought against it for a long time. Brandon's mentioned elsewhere that Ati lacked the willpower to resist the transformation, or in other words he wasn't a great match for his Shard. Similarly, Preservation had a fixation on stasis which could be dangerous if unchecked but the real reason he seems so weird in Secret History is that he was dying the whole time. Sazed by contrast is able to hold both those Shards without being so twisted, because he's a good match for both. That's just those Shards though. Edgli/Endowment hasn't shown any weird personality traits, Rayse/Odium is a nasty customer but he was apparently always that way so his Shard hasn't affected him that much, Tanavast/Honor seemed to be quite stable. OB spoiler And Bavadin/Autonomy is... her own unique deal.

To add to what @RShara said, we also know that Odium was originally going to be named Hatred. Between that, the WoB about how the names are more or less intrinsic to the Shards and Rayse not being entirely honest with himself about being 'Passion' and with Frost callimg him 'God's divine hatred' I think we can more or less close the book on it. That said, the WoB about the Thaylen Passions having no magical component predates Oathbringer and doesn't rule out that the religion itself may have been inspired by ancient human contact with Odium, even if it has no actual Investiture angle. I don't think that interpretation contradicts what Brandon said and what we know of the Passions does align with something Leshwi says in Oathbringer We know that a common expression of the Passions is to wear a charm associated with a particular emotion as a reminder. One of the guards in Rysn's interlude in Words of Radiance wears one associated with Courage and later she swears by 'Craving, Passion of need' when she's in the middle of doing something spectacularly foolish. Might be this whole idea came out of a memory of Odium who apparently can take your emotions from you, then return them at an appropriate moment.

Brandon has said that a Shard can manifest a body and directly interact with the Physical Realm if they want to. Thus, they could communicate directly if they chose to. There are actual people delivering these letters.

Omnipotence within a discrete spatial region is still omnipotence. Adonalsium was able to create entire star systems like Roshar at will and Frost at least believes he had some master plan for all the worlds in the Cosmere that Hoid and the Vessels are potentially ruining by interfering with them. Maybe Adonalsium could have interacted with space outside the Cosmere but was so busy with what was going on inside it that he never got around to it. Or maybe he did interact with 'outside' space and we just don't know it. A parallel could be drawn with the Abrahamic religions where you have an all-powerful God who created everything but who is only described as having interactions with one planet in a backwater of an unfashionable end of an arm of one galaxy, an utterly insignificant little blue planet whose ape-descended lifeforms are so amazingly primitive that we still think smartwatches are a pretty neat idea. Also what StrikerEZ said; there could be other entities like Adonalsium everywhere in the wider universe, or he could be unique to the Cosmere and the story is simply focusing there because, well, that's where all the cool stuff is happening.

As mentioned, this may just be a matter of personal preference. She was able to communicate with Hoid via letter, which requires some means of conveying her exact words to a messenger. Probably in a manner similar to how Sazed created the Words of Founding and left a copy for Spook to discover. We know Edgli firmly believes that the Shards should stay out of each others' way so it's not unlikely that she also thinks she shouldn't be interfering too overtly in everyday life on Nalthis. Honor used to have ten Heralds who could speak to him and relay messages and we know that he could similarly communicate directly with the Knights Radiant of old without needing to use highstorm visions as an intermediary. The latter method was only necessary once Honor was splintered and his chosen agent for passing his message along was the Stormfather who's only 'present' during the highstorms. Ruin and Preservation may be more restricted in how they can act due to the manner of Scadrial's creation as discussed above. Ruin's ability to alter the written word makes it clear that he had other ways of communicating, Leras was dying throughout the events of the books and Kelsier had to deal with not only Ruin's attempts to stymie him but the fact that he was cut adrift from the Physical Realm which made it even harder to do anything. Sazed has his opposing Intents and a general belief in free will that are also tying his hands. As I mentioned, he can create books out of thin air (and pen his own letter to Hoid) so he's got other ways to communicate if he needs to. He also interacts directly with his entire army at Thaylen City and before that he communicates directly with Venli. He and Cultivation are both likely somewhat circumspect because they're fighting each other and don't want to give the other any opportunities for a free potshot. Her Perpendicularity is in the Horneater Peaks, about a quarter of a continent away. She too is constrained a bit by the whole 'busy fighting another Shard' thing but like Honor it seems that she was more communicative in the past and certainly was better known when Urithiru was constructed. To round out the discussion of known Shards, Devotion and Dominion were splintered long ago and we don't know how they may have interacted with the people of Sel, ditto Ambition. Autonomy creates avatars to increase her influence and can communicate through them. Given that Bavadin has created entire pantheons, she's clearly not adverse to interacting with people and like Endowment and Harmony we see her responding back directly to Hoid.

Nightblood is about the hardest thing in the Cosmere to affect with Investiture and way harder than even a Shardblade, which is already very hard to affect. He also eats Investiture which makes things like Lashings that require direct application of Investiture effectively impossible to use on him as he'd nom the Investiture very quickly. Nightblood doesn't 'have' a spren, he is the spren. 'Spren' is the Rosharan term for sapient Investiture and Nightblood is thus kind of a spren or would be percieved as one at any rate. He isn't exactly the same thing insofar as his origins are different from the spren of Roshar but you can think of him as a spren. Per Brandon, a native Rosharan would call a Shard or even Adonalsium a spren. If you want to get technical, both spren and Nightblood are what's called Splinters, Investiture that has become self-aware. As mentioned, Shashara and Vasher created Nightblood in deliberate imitation of a Shardblade. The Awakening condensed enough Investiture in one place to make it sapient. This is something that Investiture will do if left alone and how much Investiture there is affects how readily this happens and how close to human-level intelligence the result is. That said, there are lots of mysteries about Nightblood that we don't have the answers to. For example, he's described as being vastly more powerful than the amount of Investiture that went into his creation would indicate and we don't understand how or why.

We've jokingly called Brandon that from time to time but I seriously doubt he wrote the concept as a private joke. We know that he hasn't done any fourth wall-breaking with Hoid even though the latter has a comment that looks exactly like that so it's extremely unlikely that the God Beyond is breaking the fourth wall so blatantly. Besides, 'doesn't seem to do much'? If Brandon really is the God Beyond then He created the entire Cosmere from nothingness, if that's not doing stuff I don't know what is. .

Have you heard of The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher? It's an urban fantasy series with the protagonist being a wizard in modern-day Chicago in a world where all myths are real. All of them, everything from vampires and werewolves to Chinese jianshi to Greek gods to Santa Claus. Might be kind of what you're looking for. I actually got into the series in the first place because someone asked Brandon at a signing what he was reading and he mentioned one of Butcher's books (from another series) and I decided that was an author I had to give a look.

Yes, that was Taldaini sand and it was white because it absorbed Investiture, and not Shallan's apparently. The sand itself isn't the important thing but a lichen that grows on it, which is what reacts to Investiture. Khriss mentions this in Arcanum Unbounded. Also, OB spoiler

Yeah, Lift is actually thirteen. Or as she puts it, she's been ten for three years. She likes ten because she can count to it with her fingers, so between that and her request to the Nightwatcher she actually believes (until Edgedancer at least) that she actaually did stop aging at ten.

Welcome to the Shard Nope, the sand can be recharged using other kinds of kinetic Investiture. This means that not only can you recharge it offworld but if it's uncharged you can also use it as an Investiture detector. Also, even if you don't have any other source of Investiture handy it's possible to recharge the sand anywhere that light from Taldain's star is visible. So the sand can be used and recharged offworld and it's got use even when it's not charged. The Shades are a manifestation of Investiture and they're from Threnody. We also see a description of what appears to be a Shade-powered gun in the broadsheet story in Bands of Mourning. Given how closely the description of the weapon's function tracks to what we know of Shades and their mannerisms, it's likely that Nicki/Nicelle wasn't making that part up. Also, the Ire have a way of detecting Shades which confirms they're a cross-Cosmere thing. You're really being limited in your thinking here. Yes, the systems you highlight are the easiest to use offworld but they're by no means the only ones that are useful. BioChroma's passive benefits are useful everywhere and Awakening is end-neutral so as long as you do retreive your Breaths you can keep using it over and over. Surgebinding has a regional limitation owing to the issues in getting a spren away from Roshar and the issues with storing Stormlight but you're forgetting that magic systems can be hacked. By the time worldhopping Rosharans become a serious thing, they'll have figured out ways of either storing Stormlight efficiently or hacking other magic systems to provide the necessary Investiture. Look at Lift for an example of how this words: She can't make use of Stormlight but she's able to metabolize food into Investiture and Surgebind off of that. Really, the only systems that aren't useful offworld right now are the Selish ones and Brandon has implied it's not going to be a permanent issue.

I think that F-Tin only works by storing your senses so you couldn't get 'steelsight' into the metalmind initially in that way, but if you happend to have senses beyond normal you could store them. Brandon has explicitly called out A-Bronze's ability to detect kinetic Investiture as something F-Tin can store, so there's no reason to think it wouldn't work for A-Iron/Steel; might even be a WoB on that I've overlooked. So someone with both A-Steel and F-Tin should be able to store that in a metalmind and there's probably a way to rig that using harmonium to make an allomantic metal detector out of the stored 'steelsight', I'm just not sure quite how you'd set it up.

We don't know yet and Brandon has RAFO'd all attempts to get more information out of him.

Having cracks in your spiritweb isn't just a Rosharan thing, it's a Cosmere-wide phenomenon. You need a way to get the Investiture into your soul and trauma or other great stress is the easiest way to create the cracks which the magic can then fill. We see it directly with allomancy and we don't know enough about how Selish and Taldaini Initiation works to say how it applies there, while it's baked into Nalthian Investiture (which is less Spiritual) so you don't need it for BioChroma, though it's probably a factor in the process of becoming a Returned. Brandon's also mentioned that it's just good storytelling to balance out power with flaws and because characters that are hurting are more interesting to write about, for the Doylist perspective on these things. Bear in mind that Shallan is an unreliable narrator and we know for a fact that her mother was willing to kill her when she started visibly manifesting the signs of being a Surgebinder. The latter suggests a less than perfectly loving relationship and combined with the former, Shallan's childhood may not have been quite so rosy as she's made it out to be. He already has bonded a highspren, though it's easy to miss. When he formally swears his Third Ideal he mentions the fact. Given that Szeth is carrying around an Investiture-nomming Nightblood, I'm not entirely surprised that his spren prefers to keep a low profile. Like I said, I don't think Shallan is an exception. In Tien's case, he could very easily have been working through emotional issues that we never really saw because he was always so cheerful around Kaladin. We know he didn't become another apprentice to his father because he couldn't stomach everything that it entailed and he was always seen as kind of useless for doing 'real' work when he did become an apprentice carpenter, which had to have bothered him especially since he could make really fine carvings. But he was seen that way and it could easily have affected him and Tien just refused to let it show. In fact, that could have been part of the lies he told himself that attracted a Cryptic in the first place. EDIT: But yeah, as Calderis says I think there's a range of 'cracked-ness' and not everybody needs to go through the sorts of experiences that Kelsier or Kaladin did, though it's also going to depend on the world and how their individual magic systems function.

@BitBitio the Mudkip Great, you just gave me a crack idea for a cyberpunk-esque Cosmere world where Investiture comes to those who squash spambots, trolls and other online nuisances, and comes in the form of increased ability to manipulate computers and virtual reality. I'm thinking Snow Crash's Metaverse with extra 'magical' elements.