Rasarr

*points higher up* A friendly notice that the Skybreakers died. And Elsecaller somehow jumped two in the Morzathoth's post, then dropped two points in yours again. Ninja'ing, I suppose. So I guess it goes like this right now (my changes in color): Windrunner 10 Skybreaker 0 Dustbringer 13 Elsecaller 10? (I'm guessing Morzathoth wanted Heal, and ChickenPlague didn't Hurt them) Truthwatcher 8 Bondsmith 7 Stoneward 2

Ahh, and here I was so happy to see one of the orders managed to go into purple... Ah, well. Windrunner 10 Skybreaker 1 Dustbringer 11 Elsecaller 9 Truthwatcher 8 Bondsmith 8 Stoneward 6

When you realize that you can rattle off all the divine attributes of the ten Heralds without checking with the Coppermind even once. ...and I wasn't even trying to learn them.

Granted, you have a sword with a heart of gold, deadly like a chasmfiend and obedient like Chach. However, until the end of your life you will be followed by a strange, unsettling man, who will never stop watching you and will back off if you try to confront him. He's seemingly unkillable and will only approach you when you die, to take the sword away after you pass. I wish for a pack of glass wipes (seriously, I've been to like ten shops and they don't have them...).

Now I can't get out of my head an image of Hoid sitting in some quiet corner, pulling out a fancy magitek laptop and logging into Spacebook for a chat with Frost... BTW, why are we so certain Frost is stuck on Yolen? I've seen this pop up a few times before, but I can't find the reason behind it anywhere. A WoB? An unpublished work? Something else?

You hire someone who can keep it standing, I suppose. More seriously, though, I kinda agree with Twelfth here in that the magic better be benevolent, though perhaps for a different reason: children. If everyone was born with heavy amounts of magic, a newborn's tantrum could destroy a house. Of course, that could be resolved by either magic manifesting at a later age (the infamously dangerous 16th birthday, anyone?) or via some ceremony, but the latter in turn would again restrict the pool of people gifted with magic (I bet there'd be someone trying to only have "his" people go through the ceremony and restrict access to it for others). Though I guess it's best kept in mind that even "civillian" or healing magic could be put to quite terrifying use; we have stories of mad doctors for a reason...

Windrunner 10 Skybreaker 4 Dustbringer 10 Elsecaller 12 Truthwatcher 8 Stoneward 6 Bondsmith: 20

So adorable! I want one...

Windrunner 9 Skybreaker 6 Dustbringer 6 Edgedancer 1 Lightweaver 4 Elsecaller 15 Truthwatcher 9 Stoneward 6

Windrunner 8 Skybreaker 5 Dustbringer 6 Edgedancer 4 Lightweaver 6 Elsecaller 14 Truthwatcher 10 Bondsmith 20 Willshaper 0 Stoneward 8 And our first winner in this round is... the Bondsmiths!

Windrunner 8 Skybreaker 6 Dustbringer 6 Edgedancer 6 Lightweaver 9 Elsecaller 13 Truthwatcher 10 Bondsmith 9 Willshaper 4 Stoneward 10

Done. Also, I like the theory. I have no idea why pigs may be invested, but it's kind of funny. Maybe Adonalsium's human form masqueraded as a pig farmer?

They're everywhere around us, and yet the one you're looking for can be fiendishly hard to find. Steelheart (the character) is like a clock.

Granted. You can see all the possible futures, and you don't know which one will come to pass. I wish to be able to speak perfect Japanese, without losing the ability to speak any other language I already know.

That's an excellent breakdown you'd made! I really like most of your guesses. Dustbringers were disliked for similarities to Voidbringers, and I think it was implied it's more than just the name issue. What if their secondary spren were angerspren (those appear in WoK)? In similar vein, looking at their Surges (Abrasion and Division), could their primary spren be something like destructionspren maybe? Although darespren look promising as well. Why painspren for Stonewards? I know Taln's the one who always suffers the most, but this isn't necessarily all he's known for. The Stonewards are supposed to be the ones who "stand when others fall" - their schtick could be, much like Taln did, to have a victorious last stand and/or go down in a blaze of glory, like an order of 300 Spartans. I could see gloryspren being their secondary spren. Regarding bonsmiths, I think their main spren are too unusual to have a set type of secondary spren. If we assume that there are indeed three godspren they bond with - Cuciseh, Nightwather and Stormfather - then I find it likely that every knight would have their own secondary type of spren, "keyed" with the godspren they bond with. Oh, and regarding why Honorspren and Adhesion: my guess would be that honor binds people, hence Windrunners get the ability to bind things (ditto for Bonsmiths, who are supposed to be leaders). No idea about gravity and honorspren.

It makes weird noises when it's being fried. Islands are like bottles of water.

Nice catch, I didn't notice the "smoke" being an important part until you pointed it out. I guess perhaps smokestone, when infused with stormlight, would somehow move back and forth so that it could be hung on a line to make a pendulum? This would make Rosharan clocks be some sort of small pendulum clocks, I guess? (disclaimer: Rasarr doesn't actually know whether a pendulum clock small enough to look like a mantel clock would work)

Awww, well, here dies my theory Still, I wonder how the mix-up happened.

Granted, your mere thought creates a cybernetic arm in a random place around you. The problem is, it's hard to take under control, so any place you stay in for longer than a few dozen minutes starts to spawn more and more cybernetic arms. I wish to exchange my bane of deafness for something else, that won't impact my speech, appearance or hearing.

Granted. You stop having a reflection in the mirror and don't appear on photographs and videos. I wish to become excellent at public speaking.

People commenting on the timeline are correct, it's unlikely it was the shattering of DeeDee that was the Evil to push people off Sel and into Threnody (if that is indeed what happened), and Odium was imprisoned by the time SSFH took place. Also, I'm all on board with theory of Hoid being somehow involved in exodus to Hell! I do recall somebody noting similarities between the depictions of White Fox and him - maybe that where he is in the story (I know White Fox is Silence, but she could've adopted an older moniker for herself). Frankly, I'm still most certain that it'll be events of Elantris 2 that'll shed some light on connection between Sel and Threnody, but for some other theories that came to my mind when I thought about it: Threnodites are a culture from Sel that could worldhop. They were invaded by one of other Sel cultures, such as Fjorden, and decided to run to one place they were sure they enemy would not follow - Hell, or Threnody. Groups such as Elantrians of Dakhor monks could very well feel so inhuman to them as to be called Evil and ran away from. More even, we don't know how much time and technological advancement passed between Elantris 1 and exodus from Homeland, so it could even be that the invader attacked with gunpowder weapons. Threnodities are not connected to Sel people (Selites? Selians?) in any way, and Homeland was a continent on Threnody. The Congitive crazypalooza of Sel has been slowly spreading from the world further away, eventually reaching Threnody. The brokeness of the Cog became the Evil, driving Threnodites out of Homeland and making Shades. This suggests that matters on Sel, the "ground zero" of the problem, are even worse. Aaand for the crazy one: Threnody is a world created artificially by Aona and Skai in memorial of Yolen or their friends who died there, hence the name. They were not as good at worldbuilding as Ati and Leras, so the Cognitive of Threnody is broken there, and Evil resulted from things slowly spinning out of control after Aona's and Skai's untimely demise. How people came to live there is anyone's guess.

So Paladin Brewer has been to San Antonio signing and asked a question I asked him to ask (lovely grammar is lovely...). To not-just-my surprise, it wasn't RAFO'd. Without further ado: Q: Is Threnody in the same planetary system as Sel? A: Yes, it is. I dare say that's quite a news - Sel and Threnody at the very least circle the same sun. One may even be a moon of another. We can probably guess that whatever messes with Sel's cognitive realm to make it dangerous is connected to whatever makes dead people into Shades. I've been having this thought for a while that Sel may be the Homeland of Threnodian history, and this only seems to support this. A short distance between the two would mean that it'd be easy to escape from Sel to Threnody, and the planet may've been named in memory of those who didn't manage to run away. This would also suggest that the Simple Rules come from Selan arts (AonDor, ChayShan, Bloodsealing...), not to mention that Forescouts (Silence's family), who were supposedly one of the first people to leave Homeland, were worldhoppers. What is probably more important, something chased Threnodians away from Sel. Odium returning to finish the job it started? Events of the elusive Elantris 2? I have no idea. Of course, it could also be that Threnodians are just one culture from Sel that was hit especially hard by Odium paying a visit to splinter Devotion and Dominion - hit hard enough to worldhop to another world to escape it. This would explain why their names are so different from the cultures we've seen so far (Silence and Theopolis vs. Shai and Raoden). I honestly don't know what to think of this.

My question got asked! And it's not a RAFO! Thank you! \\ // *victory dance* @DSC01 - In one of threads (Threnody was a Shard, I think?*) there begun a speculation that Threnodians are runaways from Sel and hence Threnodian Homeland was Sel. Somebody was making a good point about Simple Rules basically prohibiting Aon drawing, Bloodsealing and ChayShan, which is why, when Paladin Brewer said he's going to ask more question, I figured, hey, why not try? I initially wanted to ask if it's a moon of Sel, but I figured this one was sure to get a RAFO. "Planetary system" implies that it's either a planet circling the same sun as Sel or it's indeed Sel's moon - or a moon of some other planet in Selan (greater Sel?) system. At any rate, this certainly supports the theory of Sel being Homeland. Maybe Elantris 2 will shine some light on this? ----------------- * EDIT: regarding the crossed-out thing: it was Zmann966 who came up with this in "Calamity Tour - Denver" thread:

Appears in innocuous situations and makes them... much less so. 17th Shard (the forum) is like United Isles from Rithmatist.

@sheep - an upvote for you, very good point. I think it'd be interesting to ask Brandon whether Roshar has printing press, and if not, how can there be so many books. I'd personally lean towards interpretation that there are printing presses, but the design may use fabrials in some way. Also, regarding the discussion about gunpowder development and Shardplate - could it be that Rosharans didn't think about developing gunpowder because they can't see a weapon more potent than Shards? I mean, Shardblade and Shardplate are "heirloom" of those Knights Radiant, once servants of the Almighty, the powerful weapons that mystically lend you strength, that kill without cutting flesh and can be disappeared and appeared as one desires. The "atypical" weapon designs, such as Veden half-shards (was that the name of those fabrial shields?), Sadeas' grandbow or that giant hammer of somebody else's are all pretty much adapting existing weapons to Shardplate/blade's standards, and going by what Navani says in WoK, the weapons research is focused on emulating Shards. So I'd guess that gunpowder was never investigated, because Roshar doesn't "have to" imagine what a better weapon would look like. They already have their "ideal" to strive for - the Shards - so rather than chasing some vague theoretical concept, they focus on figuring out how to make more of those "perfect weapons".