Extesian

Congratulations guys, how wonderful! And completely awesome to be able to do it such a delightful way

Congratulations Feather that's utterly awesome it's a privilege to read it early but far more it's incredible to be able to actually contribute to the story and wider Cosmere in some small (or large) way! I hope to live such a dream in the next, say, 30 years

It's the father of smooth and the mother of sexy, the late great Prince.

Yeah I've quoted that WoB a few times but only noticed today the mercenary bit. One of my favorite recent WoBs was that someone is going around the Cosmere getting powers through hemalurgy. Perhaps it's a mercenary. Either way it's interesting to hear. And welcome to the Shard!

You don't have to be rich to be my girl, you don't have to be cool to rule my world Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with, I just want your extra time and your… … … … … svrakiss

Well played, Sirs, well played I shall diminish, and go into the West.

Cheers Erunion Consider me memeducated. Mestiv has kinda owned it. As the first person to vote for him, I can't take all the credit. But I'll certainly try.

Ok now I need to know what the 'correct' use of that meme is. Coz at the moment, this makes no sense to me.

Yeah I think Nightblood is far more powerful than has been hinted at. Brandon said, directly comparing it to a Shardblade, that it can do really freaky things when consuming investiture. And I always think back to the painting in Warbreaker that shows Nightblood being wielded and basically waves of dead bodies around. I think Nightblood is effectively a WMD, with somewhat limited range, and accessing enough investiture. Being in sword form doesn't mean it's limited to direct contact. More generally

Morgan Freeman as the voice of Nightblood.

One thing that occurred to me reading through this again is that it sounded a bit diplomatic-corps. We know that the orders that visited the Cognitive Realm, but particularly the Elsecallers, were emissaries for other Orders to the spren. As to the other orders that were inferior in this visiting of the far realm of spren, the Elsecallers were prodigiously benevolent, allowing others as auxiliary to their visits and interactions; though they did never relinquish their place as prime liaisons with the great ones of the spren; and the Lightweavers and Willshapers both also had an affinity to the same, though neither were the true masters of that realm. —From Words of Radiance, chapter 6, page 2 Perhaps it could be the blade of the head of the Elsecallers at that time, and the spren turned into a blade that marked the KR as basically the chief diplomat, hence ‘representing’ all 10 orders. When the bond was broken and the spren trapped in that form, the glyphs remained.

This is quite interesting, I've been sure of that for a long time but I've done quite a large search and..nothing. I've probably missed something because there are constant references from Sharders to this being WoB fact, even from several years back. I can find a lot of WoBs saying that the investiture will seek a holder or gain sentience. But not a single one saying that it will self-splinter. I'll keep hunting but this has me quite curious now, if it's just an old one I can't find, or if it's an example of Sharders being sure of something and repeating it for years. I should note that I certainly think, realmatically, that it would self-splinter. The closest I can find is this. The main reason I can think he would link Kelsier with the Seons and Skaze, and spren with Roshar, must be to say the Preservation would have automatically splintered without Kelsier picking it up. But that's the closest I can find. Hopefully someone can trump me. I feel...uncomfortable having basic realmatic theory unconfirmed.

Ah. Ok that was one of my less useful posts you're right Oversleep, I thought it was an ongoing pool for June but it's over with the answers to come during June. My bad. With the bow and arrow one I was mistaken I think. He RAFOd a question on it But I was thinking of a thread where we discussed it. I assume as well that a Shard can be given up but I want confirmation and I'm hoping he gives more detail about it.

Here is the relevant clarification that Argent got.

The questions for June are up. There's a few of realmatic interest which I've underlined. I like the last one particularly but let me know if we already know. The first is interesting but we have a bow and arrow answer already. The Shard one could be interesting just in case he elaborates more on the categories. Would it be possible to have a “shardgun”? (shardblade in the form of a gun) I’m not good at writing sexy scenes. Can you give me hints on how to imply that sexy stuff is happening behind the scenes? Are there parallels with your own personal spiritual journey that come out in characters like Hrathen in Elantris and Sazed in Mistborn? My husband and I have noticed parallels in each of the cosmere books with Socio-political structures and events throughout history. Have you drawn inspiration from historical events for how certain situations would evolve or are these parallels mere coincidence? One thing I wondered throughout Mistborn was if Ruin represents the concept of Entropy or the concept of Decay? It seems that the Shards seem to represent universal constants, and while it is evident what Preservation or Cultivation represents, Ruin seems more ambiguous. If a fantasy book had a bad (Not Happy) ending, would it affect the sales, the Goodreads rating, the overall satisfaction of the readers? Would publishers even publish a fantasy book with a bad ending? Can you give any tips for writing metaphors? In the first draft of The Way of Kings Kaladin was called Merin. Are there any other characters whose names you’ve changed? Can holders of Shards give them up voluntarily? I think this is what we see in a certain long novella, but can any vessel do this? If they do, will the power splinter quickly after they release it? Vote!

This one?

Time on this site is like space in the Cognitive Realm.

Care of @SnopyDogy, here. Ha and i love that one, @The One Who Connects And the last line from one of my absolute favorite signing transcripts, from @Pagerunner The whole thing spoilered for size, coz it's too good I'll probably have to rename this thread to classic Sharder statements if I continue on this track

Totally adding it to the list.

Yeah sanderson does that so well. Game of Thrones deals with disturbing concepts and makes them more disturbing by going into graphic detail and reminding you it could happen. Sanderson takes utterly horrifying concepts and plays them down, letting the reader get as disturbed as they want to. It's why one of my favorite lines is "Marsh struggled to kill himself". So simple. Such a horrific concept, desperately wanting to die to avoid pain to others, and being unable to. And it's why one of the feelings that will stick with me forever is the idea of stubbing your toe and the pain NEVER getting better. Sanderson has the dark mind of Stephen King with perfect restraint. And yeah it certainly makes you understand the Parshendi choosing to lobotomize themselves rather than face that again.

I'd never thought of that but as soon as you said it, it rang a bell. This. Thanks for again adding to my head-canon

I assume you've seen this one Calderis? So yeah I've always seen it the same way, that when Eshonai bonded a voidspren, it has a built in hole, exactly like Ruin designed (through TLR) Kandra, to enable him to possess the Parshendi at any time through direct access to their spiritweb (the spren integrates into their spiritweb and the hole allows possession). I actually don't believe the screams are like Szeth's ones, or the spiritual stuff Nan Balat is tapping into, I think it's, as you said, directly comparable to Marsh where he has his own thoughts only sometimes (when control is not active) but the rest of the time his thoughts are really someone else's.

The only mention of Malchin in the books is the excerpt quoted. I've kind of pictured those days as people knowing all about spren, Nahel bonds, surges and Oaths, that there were many, many spren and people could almost lobby them to form a Nahel bond. I picture Malchin as being part of the Radiant armies, but not actually a Radiant, basically a great fighter or General who wanted to become a surgebinder and specifically wanted to become a Lightweaver. He tried to convince the Cryptics to bond with him, and maybe even convinced one to give it a try, but the bond ended up dissipating because he couldn't fulfil the Oaths (Truths) they need. All pure speculation of course, but that's the way I picture the pre-Recreance days.

They're was a similar idea put forward last year by @ccstat. Personally I'm sceptical and still think that Odium's prison comprises of taking an Oath that Honor could magically enforce on even a Shard. Hence things like nominating a champion. I also think that you can trap an Unmade but not a full Shard. But the idea has merit.

I lasted 5 minutes. I was thinking about asking people to down-vote me but then Chaos would bring out the ban-hammer.