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This should be on a T-shirt.

This is my thought too. In fact I asked a followup, although I do not expect an answer. I have long advocated the idea that the original Trell sounded too much like something that came out of a tidally locked planet where one side of the planet only sees the night. But it seems like Bavadin's MO may be even more interesting: she may have founded multiple religions on Scadrial. Judging by how Trell is doing right now these seem like "sleeper cell" religions in many cases - she may not be able to foresee which ones she needs to activate and when, but she will have all of them ready just in case. Also, I agree, Asture sounds like it could be Bavadin as well.

Judging by the WoB above, Bavadin is one of the most active Shards out there, and also possibly quite the micromanager.

I don't think she is creating clones. I think it is more like shapeshifting if she needs to present herself to mere mortals. The exact wording is "personas", so Bavadin impersonates different deities. Imagine for example that the entire Norse Panteon is basically Loki pretending to be Thor, Odin, Freya and so on as needed.

Taking this at face value, I think this may have more to do with her powers as the Shard of Autonomy, or at least with how she chooses to exercise those powers.

This just happened over on reddit (in the context of me commenting on how Brandon must've chuckled every time we use "he" referring to Bavadin): Is it something Brandon said before?

The power of Freuchemy is the combined power of Ruin and Preservation. It is a fair question to Brandon about the reasons why this power was granted to only one group of people (aka - who were the Terris of old and why only they had Freuchemy). But this makes Hoid being the originator of Freuchemy unlikely

Hoid should be able to burn atium. Whether atium was easy for him to procure is a different story. Recall that the rate of atium discovery in the Pits is roughly one bead per person per week. Hoid may have better ways of both discovering atium in the Pits and avoiding the prisoners, but somehow I feel that it is easier for him to just pilfer or buy it. He also did not know where the main stash was. Whether he burns atium to know things is a different story. A standard atium burn is not really that useful outside of fighting or other similar interactions. A duralumin-enhanced burn is a different story but I am not certain how much precision Hoid would get to be able to "see" that Kaladin could use a story or Adolin - some jokes about women troubles. I'd say that Hoid, having lived a long life and having seen a lot of things, and being a generally, rather good at intuition, can do some of the things he does simply because he is experienced and understands human psyche. As for the other part - how he winds up where he appears to be needed (or where things are happening) - as others point out, the direct WoB - he uses Freuchemy (presumably Fortune).

We have been exposed to quite a number of worldhoppers besides Hoid. We have seen worldhoppers from multiple worlds. It stands to reason that some people are "inducted" into the ranks of worldhoppers. Looking at the worldhoppers we know from various books (and it includes two worldhoppers from White Sand), it seems that worldhoppers tend to be people of certain distinction (smart, strong, dedicated, savvy). If I were to venture a guess, I'd posit that at any given time the number of worldhoppers in Cosmere is in high hundreds/low thousands. It is probably a very good question to Brandon. If my assumption is correct than Hoid's statement about the trade going through Scadrial makes sense. There are enough people worldhopping to make a relatively easy to access perpendicularity fairly popular. What specifically is being traded is hard to say. Atium is useless unless one can burn it (and at a rate of one bead a week per person, a passer by in the Pits in unlikely to collect it). But Scadrial circa final empire could definitely use quite a lot of things. Also, since it is a easy transfer point, it is possible the the Pits were essentially a way station for people travelling from one place to another past Scadrial.

Well, you do not call your organization a Shard unless you mean it to have an Intent. I also think that (a) the 17th Shard's Intent actually has a Name, and that ( the 17th Shard believe that this Intent is essentially missing post-Adonalsium (that is - what would have constituted this Intent has been spread so thinly between the 16 Shards, that this Intent really is no longer traceable as a whole). Might be to much to hope based simply on the punny name of a secret society, but people who started the 17th Shard are extremely well aware of what is going on, so they must have had a reason why they called themselves the 17th Shard and not, say, "The Worldwalkers" or "The HoidChasers", or "The Avengers" or "XCOM".

However, all signs point to Adonalsium being active on Yolen, and the Shattering having happened on that planet as well.

I personally never perceive Hoid as the antagonist. The more I learn about Cosmere and the Shattering of Adonalsium the more I think that he, as well as other folks from Yolen (largely Shard Vessels these days) cannot be properly described in "good guy"-"bad guy" terms. At this point I cannot say that I have seen a "good Shard". We have seen Shards that are more harmful to humanity and we have seen Shards that are less harmful to humanity, but I do not think that the Intent of any Shard (and therefore, what this Shard does on a daily basis) can be described in terms of "good" and "bad". Or, to be more specific - in terms of "good". There are some cases (Odium), where, so far it's been nothing but threats to protagonists. Ditto for Hoid. I view him as more of an anti-villain or an anti-hero - and which of these two tropes he fits the best will be determined by what he does in the future, when we actually get to see his agency in anything that is more than an occasional blip. The Cosmere cycle, of course, can be viewed in many different ways, but one way is to see it as a story about the interactions of gods and humanity. Now, my moral compass and the moral compass of our esteemed author may be different, but in such interactions I am squarely on the side of humanity, so my view of what is "good" and "bad" is colored by how much danger someone means (one a grand scheme of things) to the human race (and other sentient races) in the given region, planet, or Cosmere-wide. And so far, I am far from being convinced that either Shards or Hoid have the best interests of humanity in their mind (even if "best interests of humanity" is, out of necessity, a very vague notion).

While the effects of Yolish Lightweaving and the illusions produced by Rosharan Surgebinders of a certain persuasion are similar, the actual mechanics of how these two work appear to differ. There are good reasons to assume that pre-Shattering, there were different ways to use Investiture to achieve "magical" effects - not limited to Yolish Lightweaving. It is not impossible that Hoid was trained in some. But Freuchemy specifically seems to be a by-product of the Ruin-Preservation pact on Scadrial. It is possible that a give-and-take zero sum magic system existed on Yolen before, but (a) we have not seen any evidence to that, and ( there is no reason for such a system, outside of Scadrial to be tied to metals... In fact, if you follow the Lightweaving analogy - the effects may be similar but the mechanics - different. An interesting observation, I think, is that Hoid has access to Yolish Lightweaving post-Shattering. Assuming Yolish Lightweaving is Investiture-based (why would it not be?), Shattering of Adonalsium did not remove Hoid's ability to access Investiture to perform it. We need more questions to Brandon. 1. Were there magical systems pre-Shattering that resemble any of the post-Shattering magical systems we have seen in Cosmere books? If yes, was one of such systems like Freuchemy? 2. Can a person living at the time of Mistborn/Stormlight Archive (or generally - post-Shattering) learn to perform Yolish Lightweaving? 3. Did Hoid acquire Freuchemy on Scadrial? 4. Would Hoid understand the magical systems related to a specific Shard/Shards ahead of time, or does he only learn how they work when he encounters them?

South Polers were on south pole for at least a thousand years before the Catacendre. So the mask culture of hunters can easily be about that old. I took Brandon's comment to mean basically that at some time during that thousand years, some South Polers, somehow got off-world, and now reside somewhere else. Not a large group, but enough to keep their culture and continue wearing masks. Iyatil was born not on Scadrial but was raised a Hunter.

Well put (-: To ponder on the question of Freuchemy - we so far know of only one way to have Freuchemy innately - be born with Terris blood on Scadrial. Medallions can give one Freuchemy indeed, but Hoid's been showing up where he needed to be way before Sovereign showed up on South Pole and brought the craft of medallion making. So.... Idle thoughts... We know very little about becoming a Freuchemist. How did it originally turn out/spread on Scadrial. Hero of Ages explained that Mistings existed as a "natural occurrence". There seemed to be no intersection between those who carried the Freuchemy genes (Terris people) and those who got Misting powers. Twinborn are a thing of the new millennium. Hoid, of course, does not neet Sovereign to show him how to reverse engineer the Freuchemy compiler. But could he have obtained Freuchemy via mechanical means all by himself? I have a bit of a doubt here, because if he was able to hack the magic systems all by himself, he would not be running around the Cosmere collecting magic mcguffins.

Given that the most recent quote is verbatim "he has Allomancy", I do not think that Hoid's use of allomantic powers is based on nicrosil medallions or some other mechanical implements.

Let's not forget that people are born in Cosmere every day and with each person born, so is a new soul. There is no need for a law of preservation of souls in Cosmere.

Are all death rattles actually visions of the future (or a possible future)? Some may just as well be referring to past Desolations. The Unmade (whatever its name is - I forget) presumably channels some power of Odium. We actually do not know that much about the specific powers of Odium. We see some effects, but that's about it.

Adonalsium was held by a Vessel who was killed as part of the shattering process. It was the Vessel who moved Beyond. Also, it appears that the notion of God Beyond predates the shattering of Adonalsium.

Attaining Allomantic abilities and becoming an Allomancer are different things in my book. You, and Jondesu are correct that there are other ways to acquire those abilities (hemalurgy, medallions), but neither way actually makes you an Allomancer. Here is the relevant WoB I was referring to earlier. It is from Austin Calamity signing (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QIgYB34Q4u1fHL-6tnEM8zqt-Eifq7did4mV0-zBmlk/edit):

Well, the reasonable line of thought is that his purpose does not require two beads of lerasium, but can benefit from Elend who is live and kicking.

Although, in all fairness, the best thieving crew in Cosmere would be the one with Kelsier and Rashek on it together. If they ever settled the "who's the alpha?" dispute.

So far, one becomes an Allomancer by: 1. Eating a bead of lerasium (an burning it) 2. Being born to parents with Allomancer heritage (with subsequent snapping). 3. Being born on Scadrial and snapped into a Misting (and only Misting) by the mists. 2 and 3 do not work for Hoid (not born on Scadrial; parents, having been born before shattering, not Allomancers). We have a choice: Theory 1: Observe: Hoid pilfered a bead of lerasium. Conclude: path #1 was taken: he ate it an became an Allomancer. Theory 2: An unknown to us path #4 for a non-Scadrial-born to become an Allomancer exists. Hoid took that path. Occam's razor, with the current evidence, dictates that Theory 1 > Theory 2.

Simply eating lerasium does not make one "not human". In Cosmere books and in WoBs, "not human" has been used to refer to: * hemalurgic constructs: kandra, koloss, Inquisitors * Aimians: both races, although we only was one race. * Parshendi/Parshmen Two of the three appear to be sentient lives that emerged through different evolutionary paths. One - results of heavy modification due to tempering with Investiture. So, there may be something to an argument that getting Invested through one's eyebrows changes one's humanity. But it would take more than a lerasium bead - Elend did not stop being human, after all.

Simply eating lerasium does not make one "not human". In Cosmere books and in WoBs, "not human" has been used to refer to: * hemalurgic constructs: kandra, koloss, Inquisitors * Aimians: both races, although we only was one race. * Parshendi/Parshmen Two of the three appear to be sentient lives that emerged through different evolutionary paths. One - results of heavy modification due to tempering with Investiture. So, there may be something to an argument that getting Invested through one's eyebrows changes one's humanity. But it would take more than a lerasium bead - Elend did not stop being human, after all.