alder24

I don't think it's something wrong. When you go to the Wikipedia page of Germany for example, under the section History you see short descriptions of its history from even before there was a country named Germany - German tribes, HRE, Prussia, unification etc. All of it. The same applies here. Hanald is an important part of Hallandren's history. It should be on this page. The description of it is really short, because there is almost nothing more we know about it. If there was more information, you could make a "Hanald" page and add "For more information, see Hanald." I will agree that "Vo, Expansion" subtitles should be made into one "Hanald". I would left "Founding" like it is now.

I've always thought those rips on his cloak were because it didn't stop a strike - a sword pierced the cloak and wounded Vasher in those spots.

A hair and a human shape both made it much cheeper. Hair gives a lot. Time consuming and laziness. When you have so many Breaths like Vasher or Vivenna you stop caring about those things. Plus Brandon wanted to make action more dynamic. No. 1 hair is the focus, adding more won't make it any cheaper. Why make them lighter when their heavy weight is a positive feature during a fight? You can just pour a solid metal statue. He likely hired stonemasons/sculptors to create statues made out of parts with holes for bones. He Awakened it and Breaths held it all together. The description of Phantoms mentioned excellent craftsmanship and detailed work. He could melt stone and pour it into molds, then make sculptors carve details on it, but I doubt it, this would likely destroy bones. So it's most likely the first option, a hand made out of 2 parts - palm side and dorsal side - with bones in between, a joint/wrist for a movement, which is attached to an arm, all held together by Breaths.

The story takes place in the future. Awakened, sentient AI on a rocketship is a dead giveaway. Not to mention Tress mentioning "Death with spikes in his eyes". Iriali came to Roshar thousands of years ago, long enough to create one of the Silver Kingdoms - which was pre-Aharietiam.

Around 25 to Awaken a strawman with hair as its focus, and around 25 to Awaken a cloak to protect, with a hair as well. Warbreaker prologue. Not a meat shield, a companion that helps him fight. He did that because creating a Lifeless isn't that good - you not only lose that 1 Breath, but you also have to seal all wounds on the body and make the body's muscles work, sewing them if needed. If you can't do that, Lifeless would require more Breaths to compensate for the damages, which means you would lose more forever. That's why people don't create Lifeless left and right. Breaths are worht a fortune. It takes like 100 of Breaths to Awaken a Phantom, probably even more to make the sinew to make him move. They can take a lot of damage. But 100 normal Lifeless could probably pile on top of a Phantom and immobilize it. ch 46: It depends on my needs. Do I need 1 powerful soldier or a small army? Lifeless can be your servants, a single Phantom not that much. But a single Phantom can last for centuries, a Lifeless for decades at most. Several Phantoms were lost after Susebron sent them and they were outnumbered 40:1. If you equip your Lifeless with hammers, poleaxes and pickaxes, they would destroy a single Phantom, but also suffer some serious losses. You can also give plate armor to your Lifeless and they would be almost as invulnerable to regular weapons as Phantoms are. A 100 Lifeless in plate armor would be almost unstoppable. Phantom would be cooler, so I would want that one. Maybe? I wouldn't want to use concrete. I would rather use the best, the hardest and the less brittle type of stone and use it for my Phantoms. I don't know what's better. They're Lifeless... ch 58: You know he didn't create them in our modern time? Sure there was concrete in ancient Rome, but it didn't use rebar. Vasher couldn't use concrete, because he didn't have one. The better you are at visualization, the better is an Awaken object at fulfilling his command. So yes, he has a lot of experience and his visualization encompasses a lot of his fighting skill -they aren't as good as Vasher is, nor as good as a skilled swordsman is, but they would be really good for a piece of fabric. Well, I wrote this comment while scrolling and reading through this topic, a lot of what I've written here was already said by others, but I'm too lazy to change it so consider this a

Malen and femalen are said to be asexual but I can't find anything about them being infertile. The WoB @Trusk'our provided earlier is strong evidence that not only mateform is capable of reproduction, others simply don't have any urge to it.

It should but it depends. If Preservation's fragment in Scadrians is like Atium - Investiture splintered from its Shard and locked in independent cycle. Atium after getting burned didn't return to Ruin, it returned slowly to the Pits of Hathsin. The same might be with Preservation's fragment. It might be a predetermined amount of Investiture, splintered and locked away in the cycle of life and death. If that's how it works, then Preservation himself (Harmony) would have to absorb that Investiture to balance Ruin. At this point Shard's "mind" and Vessels' mind are one and the same. Power has no mind of its own. A Vessel is the mind of a Shard. Vessels have the desire to create sentient life and they used the power and knowledge of the Shard to do that. Vessels not only knew how humanity looks but the power of their Shards knew precisely what to do and how to do that, because it knew humans as well. And if the power of a Shard knows something, its Vessel can access it and know it too. Not in the way you're thinking. Their minds were being slowly aligned with intents of their Shards. But Vessels don't lose their minds, they don't become less aware. At the point of Scadrial's creation it wasn't that bad yet. Later Preservation used his mind to trap Ruin and that indeed caused him to slowly lose his mind as he was dying over millennia. Ati and Leras were fully aware of what they can do and how to do it when creating Scadrial and its population - just like Vin got instantly aware what's wrong with Elend, how serious and deep is his wound, what was damaged and how to fix it, when she held the power of the Well of Ascension, despite having no prior anatomical knowledge.

It would work in the same way. The power the alloyed spiked holds is not aligned with the metal, thus you won't be able to get that power from it, there would be interferences. Something might happen, your soul might get a bit invested - or not at all. Like with metalminds that were alloyed, the power will be blocked from accessing it. It should still be counted as a Hemalurgic spike, it would still damage your soul, but you wouldn't get much from it, certainly not the thing you've stolen. I also thought that a spike placed in a wrong binding point will cause pain, but I can't find any confirmation of that now. If that's the case then an alloyed spike will always cause excessive pain, because of power misalignment with metal holding that power.

It depends on the type of stone we're talking about. Some are more brittle, others are less. We don't know what type of stone Vasher used. Generally stone will break, crack, splinter or even shatter if hit well enough. Doing that to a hardened steel armor is much, much harder. It can dent, sure, but it's really hard to pierce it - it requires a specific type of weapon and it still isn't enough to hurt or kill because the opening is usually small and there are multiple layers underneath the plate. Sure, blunt force is the most effective against plate armor, but so it is against stone and bones encased in stone can still be broken that way. Where did you get Phantoms being twice as tall or 4 meters tall? There is nothing like that in books. Phantoms are described as large, sometimes oversized - they are larger than humans, but not that big. They have human bones inside, they can't be 4 meters tall because bones wouldn't fit. I imagine them being at most as large as Returned, which is around 2 meters tall. Still large and bigger than humans, but their bones can form a full and functional skeleton. I also didn't want to pitch a Phantom against a Lifeless in plate armor. That's not a competition, Lifeless would be tossed around like a doll. I simply stated that if you want to have invulnerable force just give Lifeless plate armor. It provides excellent protection and it makes killing them really hard. Not every army on Nalthis is made out of Lifeless, Idris is an excellent example of one such force. Most countries aren't wealthy enough to afford a Lifeless army. Hallandren seems to be unique in this as its army is composed primarily out of Lifeless - they are rich, they can afford it. For others it's much more difficult. Even during the Manywar, many combatants were living, not Lifeless. During the Battle of Twilight Falls most, or maybe even majority of fighters were alive (Lightsong description of painting, ch 26). Normally Lifeless would be facing either a living opponent or another Lifeless and for that having plate armor is ideal. Phantoms are still superior in combat, but extremely costly. Not only do you need to have an excellent Awakener, but also hundreds of Breaths per Phantom. To add more, the stone can't be just some random stone, you need to have skilled stonemasons carving the shapes for you and that can take decades. Phantoms are a masterwork. Lifeless don't breathe as well. They need to only see. And for that there are many different kinds of visors, like vertical short slits, round dotted holes or thin horizontal slits. Not to mention how hard it is to slip a knife into the visor of a moving and fighting person - you're dead before you can get that close. Joints are well protected in plate armor. They're not exposed but they are nonetheless a weakness. However Phantoms also have to have joints. They can't be a solid, stiff statue, they have to have movable parts, be able to bend, twist and turn. Those parts are weak, especially against blunt force.

WoB:

I know almost nothing. People call Damascus steel everything that has nice patterns on it, but that's not real Damascus steel. Damascus steel was made by using a special steel which has a very high carbon steel content, which creates those patterns. But as I said, I know almost nothing. One of the modern ways to recreate Damascus steel is by wielding different sheets of metals together but this isn't real Damascus steel, it just looks like one.

I still disagree. It's the tip that rips and steals the spirit web. No. Melting several different types of metals into one piece isn't "Damascus metal". It's just melted metals. Damascus steel is defined by it's unique microscopic structure, not visible patterns (which is still steel). No? Firstly, you would massively weaken the structural integrity of your wea[pn by doing that. It's better than pure aluminum, worse than steel. Secondly, it might generally work to resist investment, unless you're fighting with someone like Wax or Marsh, who can look closer and split steel lines and push on steel parts, not aluminum. It's possible that aluminum field effect will prevent even this form working, but it's hard to say, I personally would say if you look close enough, you can overcome it. It's really over complicated way of making an aluminum weapon, just use already practiced approach and use specific alloys of aluminum that works as weapons.

Stone is brittle, metal, especially hardened steel isn't. Stone will crack and shatter, metal will only dent. Metal is strong and it’s better as armor. Full plate armor provides excellent protection against any kind of weapons - it's not just a plate, there is padding and chainmail underneath it. You are basically invulnerable in it. It's really hard to kill someone in full plate armor. Therefore yes, full plate armor provides almost as good protection as stone, in some cases even better (because it won't shatter). Yes, they need to see. Phantoms see like other Awakened objects, Mistborn spoilers WoB:

True, expositions in TLM were a bit too much, RoW was fine in my opinion, but TLM was the first book that kind of introduced the bigger Cosmere to us and its affairs. TLM is more connected to other works of Brandon than any other book (except for the Secret Projects). It needed this info dump (maybe it could've been done a bit better) because the book still needs to work on its own. Mistborn Era 2 was not planned. It wasn't supposed to happen. Mistborn was going to be a trilogy of trilogies. AoL was meant to be a stand alone but it quickly grew to Era 2 and became the piece that introduces to us what Era 3 will be about. That's why the story is a bit open ended, but the character arcs are fully concluded, which is more important. He he, yeah, imagine not knowing... I didn't connect the dots that "the Lord of Scars" was Kelsier on my first read, despite my a bit nerdy knowledge of Cosmere... I don't think I lost anything, it made the realization so much more impactful later when I finally got it. Brandon doesn't just put a certain information once and moves on, he keeps repeating it so you can easily miss something at first, there would be other chances for you to understand it fully and still not lose anything from your reading experience. If something is important to the plot, Brandon will make sure you won't miss it easily - he still doesn't expect his readers to know the entire Cosmere at this stage. I had a bit of a different experience. I love Malazan, but at certain moments it was overwhelming and confusing. I had a feeling that stuff was just happening out of nowhere and I didn't understand it. I still don’t understand the magic as well as I wish to know. I’ve never had such a problem with Cosmere. Your criticism is valid and understandable. I hope Brandon will get better at crossing different stories in the future, as the info dumps right now are a bit too heavy. I on the other hand love the way Cosmere is progressing and I can't wait for the different stories to start crossing each other - this won't happen in the near future, but far in the future (un)fortunately. I love to see how different magics can interact with each other and what can be done with magic-tech. Cosmere started as a typical fantasy but now it's growing slowly to our modern times and then it will expand into the future - which is a concept that isn't often explored in the books and I love it. I don't expect SA 5-10 to be so much about Cosmere that it will be overwhelming. It's still too early for that, stuff might still happen, there will be an introduction to bigger Cosmere, but the story will be about Roshar and it will be concluded on Roshar. I'm not worried that there will be too much Cosmere there. The full Cosmere scene will open with Mistborn Era 4, not Era 3 even. Era 4 involves space travel and that's when it all will be connected and concluded.

That's Marsh for you in HoA. He didn't break free but he had enough determination and strong will to remember who he was, his mind snapped free for a second and he acted in the most important moment. I agree, determination can make it easier to resist Hemalurgic control and Marsh showed us that. HoA ch 66 epigraphs:

Phantoms were actively involved in the warfare and there were 3 other brilliant scholars who survived the Manywar that knew about them, yet they didn't bother to recreate them. The only thing that was remembered about them are legends, which clearly speak about their destructive power, indicating people saw them in action. That's what I've meant. You need two substantial influxes of Breaths - first large one to Awaken Lifeless bones (which needs tens of Breaths per Lifeless and not retrievable), second one to create sinew holding the stone together. Either the second one is done by Awakening the stone itself (possible) or by doing something extra and special with Lifeless, it's still very expensive to make. You need a lot of Breaths for both of those. And if the second Awakening is not done by Awakening the stone, that means Vasher discovered a new way of Awakening Lifeless, something unique and different that works with Lifeless and allows you to recall some Breaths. You can't recall Breaths you've used to Awaken a Lifeless, those aren't yours anymore, they don't have your Identity. What Vasher did was something very difficult and different, not easy to recreate - if it's not simple Awakening of stone (because Awakening stone doesn't mean it has to be super expensive like Nightblood - they have a human shape and bones as the focus, they would be cheaper, but still require lot of Breaths). People won't be able to create their own Phantoms if they won't figure out the way Vasher did it and for all they know, Susebron just Awakened stone statues, not Lifeless. They will never know. Just knowing what Phantoms really are isn't enough - you need to know precise Command structure, precise way of visualization, both are something that they won't be able to figure out just like that. ch 46: A regular Lifeless requires 1 Breath, Phantoms require 50 or even 100. Those Breaths you won't ever get back. You can only retake some of the Breaths working as joints, but not everything as you need to leave something to still hold the stone together. ch 46: No. A small nation won't be able to afford to lose tens or hundreds of Breaths to make a single Lifeless, they would prefer to create regular Lifeless because they would be more numerous and more useful to them than a single Phantom. Edit: You can put full plate armor on Lifeless and you have a force as invulnerable as Phantoms, but costing only 1 Breath each.

Highstorms predate the Shattering of Adonalsium, they predate Honor and Honor's death. They were created by Adonalsium. It's very likely that the Stormfather, or at least entity that existed before Honor's arrival, was created by Adonalsium as well, or created by perception of the first inhabitants of Roshar. Moreover, the Stormfather used to be different. When Honor was dying, he prepared the Stormfather and invested him more. After Honor's death, Stormfather merged with Honor's Cognitive Shadow, investing him more. This is not because Stormlight was investing the Stormfather overtime, but because Honor shaped and made him this way, when he was dying. Stormlight is needed not just for a light and Surgebinding, but it's essential to the life on the entire Roshar. Without it, Roshar would die. I don't know what you mean by "to provide Investiture that can be stored and used strategically."

Well, technically what everyone would know is that Susebron, who has more than 50000 Breaths, Awakened all stone statues and made them fight. Not that they're Lifeless. Only like 4 people know what they are. Kalad's Phantoms were used 300 years ago, there were at least 4 people who knew about them and knew how they were made and yet they didn't become widespread. People witnessed them in action, saw them in battle, saw them moving, yet they were forgotten. Plus they are extremely expensive. You don't need just Breaths to Awaken bones, you need Breaths to Awaken stone, Breaths that would act like sinew to enable movement. That's not something that everyone can afford. It's cheaper and better to make an army Lifeless that can serve as servants or city guards than just a dozen of Phantoms. Regular Lifeless won't be replaced, they are just too cheap and too multifunctional. The creation of tanks, who are just like Phantoms, did not make infantry obsolete. There are multiple ways to immobilize a Phantom - Awakened ropes, stones and rocks being thrown at them, hammers or pickaxes etc. They aren't that indestructible. If you use them alone, without any support, they will be defeated, just like tanks with no support are super vulnerable.

No, I'm not going to discuss guns and gun related crimes again. It's a really, really bad example. Just look at news and that is the end of this discussion (it's against the site's policy to discuss politics). A person doesn't need to start killing, they just need to get out of the building, which is easy if you have Breaths. Then use Breaths as bribes and leave the country escaping its jurisdiction or hide in the criminal underground. Or not - D.B. Cooper, with today's 1.5 mil $, was never found. A chance of this happening and losing fortune is just too big for this to work, even if most people won't do that. The chance of someone bringing a bomb on a plane is small, yet there are still limitations on liquids in your carry-on baggage and bombing attacks on a plane still are happening. Even if you catch this Breath thief you have no guarantee that he gives you Breaths back, he can keep them indefinitely and you still lose fortune. It's simply too risky. A single Breath can feed the family of 8 for an entire year (Jewels). Breaths are worth a literal fortune. They aren't cheap. Not to mention that being a Drab isn't good for you and has bad consequences to both your mental and physical health - people will be less willing to sell them when they become aware of it. Losing 600 Breaths or so is a disaster that can't be easily replenished. Even staff members can easily steal Breaths. All it takes is to put Breaths in their clothes and walk out of the hospital - nobody would even know. Even a small risk is too much with that kind of fortune. Cosmere spoiler: Corruption exists, criminals and thieves exist, scammers exist, desperate or opportunistic people exist. Vasher and Lemex were literally criminals and got their Breaths illegally by seizing the opportunity. A healing method like this would attract all sorts of people that see this as an incredible opportunity to get rich fast and easy. Just because most people are generally honest and law-abiding, doesn't mean that you should trust them with wealth like that. Nobody will give you a million dollar loan if you can't prove that you can pay it off - being nice doesn't work. Breath healing like this would be available only for the richest, who can afford buying 600-2500 Breaths. They can deposit the money first and get them back when they return Breaths, with some loss to a payment for the service. But that's still stupid idea as they can literally buy and always have this amount of Breaths and be forever immune to any illness, poisoning or even aging. We won't reach conclusion, we won't agree. I don't have that much faith in people, that's not how the world works.

How would you make them give your Breaths back? They can Awaken clothes, sheets or some other objects and jump out of the window. Screaming "that's illegal" doesn't work when you give people superpowers and expect them to be nice. It's simply too risky and there are better, cheaper cosmere ways of healing.

It heals you. That's how investiture works - your immune system gets a massive boost and kills diseases within moments. While at 3rd Heightening you are practically immune to normal illnesses, you can still be affected by strong toxins and poisons - that's why Lemex could be killed, he was poisoned, he wasn't ill. Why would you pass your Breaths around? They are worth fortune, why would you assume the guy you're giving them to, will return them to you? It's like passing a million dollars for someone to hold and expecting they will just give it back, if you ask nicely. That won't work. Ch 57:

No. Rashek turned every Feruchemist into a Mistwraith and then when it didn't work, he tried to exterminate them. He paranoically feared Feruchemy mixing with Allomancy, which might result in another Fullborn, someone that might rival him. He tried to prevent it at any cost. He would never dare to use Feruchemists as Inquisitors, because they would be able to compound - a knowledge that was kept away from Inquisitors. He allowed his Inquisitors to gain only F-gold powers, nothing more, because any other useful power might lead them to discover compounding- a secret to his power. Plus Feruchemists were very rebellious by nature. HoA ch 65 epigraphs:

I didn't want to say it's a necro-posting, I just wanted to point out that this particular branch of discussion is really old, thus I don't remember it well, and it was mostly resolved when I've corrected myself 2 posts later. This is an open topic, it's not dead, responding to it is fine, especially if you want to talk about twinborn combos. Personally I would avoid correcting someone's post from almost a year ago, unless it paints a vastly wrong image about one of the combos, or new information came out recently, changing the way some combos might work. But that's my approach, which others don't have to share.

Yeah, there are things happening with Shallan that not everybody likes how it's progressing. It leads to something, you're gonna see it later. If you're interested, there is a short, deleted WoR chapter from Jasnah's perspective about that. It explains a bit how she survived. https://www.tor.com/2014/08/06/stormlight-archive-scene-after-words-of-radiance/ For me that's the most Jasnah thing ever. Shallan agreed to train under Jasnah to be a scholar. She hasn't finished her training, she isn't a scholar yet and being a Knight Radiant doesn't make her a scholar. Those are two separate things. True. But Shallan is working with Ghostbloods now, Shallan might want to know if Jasnah is aware who tried to kill her this time.

No. Even a supernova wouldn't be able to do that. It's a planet. I would guess it's about Shards - a device to Splinter Shards, or trap them, or merge them forcefully?