Thought

Because they've been horribly, horribly offended by the accusation and are fighting to restore honor? Because there was another assassination that we didn't see which set the Parshendi off? Because a highly important figure is being held with the war as ransom? Because of a better reason that Sanderson hasn't revealed yet?

And that nicely illustrates the dangers of getting one's information about people from books rather than those people! Sorry about that. @Happyman, To note, while the Kabbalah is supposed to be a metaphysical Tree of Life. It's not like Yggdrasil or other such trees: it's far more abstract. Here, take a look: Compare to:

To note, Latter Day Saints are known for subscribing to the tripartite perspective (the idea that people have three parts: body, soul, spirit). I don't believe this is required doctrine, so Sanderson might not himself believe in it, but it's almost certain that he was exposed to it at several points growing up. Nothing about the power of creation shattering, that I am aware of at least. Additionally, the glyph tree in the inside cover of Way of Kings was based on the Tree of Life/Kabbalah, an important symbol in Jewish mysticism that, to my understanding, has similarities with... something in Hinduism (sorry, not very knowledgeable about Hindu mysticism).

Just finished and validated. Oddly gained a little less than 2000. The story itself is almost done. I am thinking another 10-15k, which is good, because I think there is about 10k I can cut from around the middle. I'm planning on writing up a sort of "what I learned from NaNoWriMo," to help me process the experience, and might post it here, too.

Miz? Oh wow, I feel sorry for that kid.

I took that as part of the humor. Like when the coneheads said that they were from France.

Probably for the sake of efficiency. After all, compounding age required that he burn Atium, which released the power of the metal back to the Pits, where it would take a long time to grow again. The more wasteful he was, the more Atium might be around for Ruin to get a hold of if he escaped. Being an old dude some of the time would slow how quickly he was draining age from his bracers, so it would mean that he'd have to compound less frequently, and thereby release atium but into the aether less frequently. As far as your example of 1% health being turned into 10,000% health, that would presumably take a costly amount of gold. Allomancy gives you 10% back, so the sick dude would have to store health, burn it to get 10% health for 1 second, store that, burn that for 100% health for 1 second, store, burn, store, and burn, just to get to 10,000% for one second. Then again four more times to get an hours worth. I'm not sure how small metal can be and still be used as a metalmind, but that could get costly quick. Even storing more health for longer could still be costly, and not possible for the very sick. Perhaps a better process would be to use a hemalurgic spike to take feruchemical healing, give it to a gold allomancer to fill all at once. Afterwards, the spike is removed and given to a patient, who taps just what they need, then taken back and given either to another patient or back to the allomancer, who fills and keeps it until needed again. That would allow the costs of the compounding to be shared among patients. Though... having a doctor who might eventually develop homicidal tendencies could have its drawbacks.

My development seems to be in the exact opposite direction. I outlined and prepared more for this story than any other ever, and man, it's going great! Well, I should clarify: the quantity of writing is great. I make no claims as to the quality. I'm not sticking firmly to the outline (chapter 1 is done, for example, and I skipped ember getting in trouble for passing notes), but knowing the sequence of events to aim for is really useful. My scenes and sequels are still sloppier than I'd like, but that just means I can be intentionally working on them. Quite true. Though in this case, the emotions aren't supposed to be lasting that long, sorry if I implied it. The transition to review is a little delayed here because one of Ember's attributes is that she's aware that she's in the wrong, and she's fine with that. To me, at least, that seemed to indicate she'd be unlikely to start reviewing her actions until prompted. However, it's written now, so this is a question for January! Quite likely. I'm sort of using these bullet points as more of a complete outline than they're probably really meant for. Actually, I hadn't considered "finding out what Cliff knows." Definitely something I should be! I had been including notes about him because, while Ember's going through her sequel, he's going through his own (just not on screen). Perhaps in the future I should make two separate sequels, to make sure I remember that when I review later if nothing else, and just highlight the parts of the off-the-screen sequel that influence the on-screen sequel directly. Well, then, good luck on the new! Anywho, as implied, NaNoWriMo is fully underway for me, too. As the song goes, "To write! To Write! l'chaim! l'chaim, l'chaim, to write!"

Fair enough. After all, "noli equi dentes inspicere donati"! But if you are feeling indulgent, and if I might be bold, I'd recommend you double check with your friend. Even if that's a spelling variation I'm not familiar with, it looks for the world to be an imperfect subjunctive, not a present subjunctive. As for hemalurgy taking powers from an animal, yes, it's not definitively confirmed, but for it to not work would be more unusual than for it to work. As for why not use animals to create koloss, the answer is probably simply that humans, having more of a shard in them, have more to steal. So an animal might physically have more strength, but spiritually less to take. Just a Sententia

First, shouldn't that be "Feles Regant"? "Regirent" is modern French, while "regerent" (the closest Latin version that I can think of) would mean something closer to "The cats would reign." "Regant" is the 3rd person plural active subjunctive conjugation of "rego" (a 3rd conjugation verb meaning to rule). Second, I was basis my statement off the assumption that since hemalurgic spikes take part of someone's spirit web and pin them to someone else's spirit web, the ability to give attributes to animals necessitates that they have a spirit web, and so if that exists, it seems to stand to reason that it could be taken as well. No, no direct evidence. Which brings up an interesting question: can Nightblood be spiked, or could it serve as a spike for others? Also, if animals can't have attributes taken, then that speaks against Windrunner's theory about cognitive overlap...

You can steal an attribute from an animal. Is that significantly different than eating meat, which most people don't consider evil? What if Hemalurgy was used as a form of capitol punishment? Someone's convicted of a particularly heinous crime, and they are sentenced to death by spike, with the resulting tool being used for the good of society. Hmm... Spike Guns to be used in warfare! Shoot the enemy full of hemalurgic spikes and you might be lucky enough to steal an attribute! All the while protecting the homeland. Or perhaps hemalurgy as a means of administering euthanasia? Point being, there's nothing inherent in death that is evil. We see this in other works as well. Tolkein, for example, portrayed it as a great gift given to men that Melkor, The Enemy, corrupted them to fear. At the end of the day, Ruin is about as evil as Cthulhu or any of the Great Old Ones. Ruin! Ia! Ia! The Rust in the Blade With a Thousand Koloss!

First, bwhahahahahahahaha Second, depending on what Sanderson thought the second question was, that might not mean that the original rate of storage isn't important to the overall effect. The rate of loss appears to be based on a percentage. So, doubling means you loose roughly 16%, tripling roughly 24%, etc. Those rates would presumably remain regardless of the original rate of storage. It doesn't matter if you are doubling 50pts stored for an hour or 100pts stored for a an hour, you are still doubling, so the rate of loss is the same percentage. But if you originally stored 50pts for an hour and 100 points for an hour, then to get out 100pts, under Sanderson's new comment, it is still reasonable to suppose that you'd be doubling one and not the other.

There's the curious case of cloth. Put breath into it, tell it to lift you up, and it will do so, yet it will lack the three B's (bones, brains, and beefcake-y muscles). It will, admittedly, take the shape of muscle with veins, but, as Vasher noted, that isn't needed. Point being, Breath might have the power to force muscles to move without oxygen, but it certainly has the power to force limbs to move without real muscles! If cloth can move without muscle, if it can follow a command without a brain, then those things are not particularly necessary. The reason that corpses make such good Lifeless, probably, is simply just the low breath cost. Awakening a lump of straw takes more Breath than awakening a straw doll, for example. Form is important. Likewise, we might assume that it would be possible to awaken the corpse of a horse, but that would presumably take more breaths than a human shape (as Vasher and specifically made his clock to look like him, not just a person, we can assume that the closer to the original user the subject is, the fewer breaths are needed). Awakening skeletons probably does take more breaths than a corpse, but then, we also know that there used to be other commands to create lifeless that took more breaths as well. What we are dealing with is a question of efficiency. Its reasonable to assume that breaths do indeed piggyback on normal biological functions, but we know as a fact that they can replace those biological functions as well. Ichor-Alcohol preserves the body's circulatory system, in a sense, and certainly far better than decayed blood, leaving breaths an easier time to doing whatever it needs to do in order to make the rest of the body work. And if the rest of the body isn't there, oh well, the breaths will make do. From this, it seems quite reasonable that if a brain is important in lifeless, then whatever important function it serves could be replaced by breaths (and a skillful command). That is, I'd expect that it would be possible to awaken a random corpse to be like Arsteel in skill, with enough breath and skillful enough commands. No. Returned biology is really messed up. They age rapidly to a point, then stop. Their bodies remold themselves to how the Returned see themselves. Returned are able to live and function without calorie or liquid intake (and, presumably, without normal bowel movements or eliminations). They're capable of sexual activity, but not procreation (at least, not using normal means). I dare say that Returned biology is like friendship, because it is totally magic. ... yes, that was a My Little Pony reference...

First, I would like to register a complaint. I find myself agreeing with Kurkistan, and that just feels really really weird. Second, lifeless don't need to be corpses, and thus don't need braaaiiiins. Skeletons work well enough if, as Vasher noted, you can find a way to keep the bones together. To, we can be relatively assured that whatever benefit there might be from squishy grey matter being present, they're relatively minor. As I understood it (same as Kurkistan, curses!), the ichor-alcohol solution is largely a preserving agent. Maybe it's also a lubricant, but even that is stretching things. That is, it is replacing blood because blood clots, dries out, and generally helps with the decay process. Alcohol, on the other hand, is wonderful for pickling and preserving. Formaldehyde would probably be better still, but that's a bit beyond the tech level we see. Point being, it's not really good for transporting oxygen, which is what a lot of the body needs to act. Presumably, the breath fulfills whatever need a body has for such things. The short is: a brain full of ichor-alcohol is effectively the same as a brain sans blood, which is largely (if not totally) the same as a skull sans brain.

Aethling, here's the problem: Amazon performed an illegal search and seizure. The only oddity is that they did so electronically, rather than physically, but that makes it no less improper of them. No contract can give them the rights to do so. If the customer did something against policy, the most Amazon can legally do is deny future service and cancel current service. They cannot legally take things that a person has already bought, nor can they maliciously modify a customer's electronic device. Even if Amazon was within its rights to demand a cessation of service and a return of goods, they are not a law enforcement agency. They would have needed to turn the matter over to the police, who would then contact the customer and retrieve the goods. And, generally speaking, in doing so they'd be required to refund the customer the original costs. It was, after all, a proper business transaction. Amazon sold a good, and so if they require a good returned, the customer is within their rights to demand a return of the monies paid. Both those things aside, the customer didn't use a fraudulent address. Address fraud is when one uses a fake (or inaccurate) address to commit theft, hides one's location from authorities, or to obtain benefits/services that they would otherwise not be legally entitled too. Norway is entitled to use UK and US coded books, so that's fine. Repair services aren't denied to Norway. It appears that the only oddity is that she used a shipping intermediary, since Amazon wouldn't ship to Norway. That is entirely acceptable, especially since that was a valid address through which she could be contacted (albeit remotely). In abstract, Amazon had no leg to stand on, and in this specific case, it had no legitimate justification.

But what he wanted them to believe wasn't reality. That's the point. If belief is sufficient, then shards could easily start their own churches (it seems) in order to gain a cognitive aspect and more power. I did not, thanks! That, however, wasn't the quote I was thinking of. Perhaps I just imagined it, but I'll be sure to look through the records and see if I can figure it out. Thanks again.

Always glad to provide interesting information, especially when it's about language. While I'm not a linguist, I've had historical training, and from that I "know" Latin (Classic and Medieval), Ancient Greek, modern German, Old English, and a smattering of Icelandic and Spanish. And by "know" I mean I can barely muddle through a translation provided I have a dictionary by my side and plenty of paper to take notes on, and recently had a refresher of some sort. I'm still working through Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis and it is very slow going.

Gather 'round and you shall hear a tale of the internet from yesteryear. It was ages ago, oh so long now, that much has changed, I wont say how. Then I was but a young whippersnapper, arrogant yet witsome and slightly dapper I posted on bulletin boards you see, for that's what forums used to be, And the software used was slipshod, and the format! It was rather odd. I used to use the name Jorrel, originally coined for a multi-user-dimension-al But the BBS, it updated its software, and so we all had to re-register, And my name! It was taken so quick! And this is where I use the rhyme of "Saint Nick." I hemmed and I hawed for a new name, till at last I found one and met my aim. "Thought" it was, and it seemed clever too, for it inspired a sig that seemed totally new. Now, my every post ended almost the same, with the phrase "Just a Thought" making a frame, and a pun too, oh I loved it so. And over the years the name on me did grow. Till now, its as good of a pseudonym as anyone could wish, even captain's called Jim. So as I go around the interwebs, I make sure to register the name and call dibs. Which brings us now to the end of our tale, I hope you've been amused as I've regaled. Unfortunately I'm not sure how to end rhyming verse, so I'll give an example, Just a, Thought that's not terse

Again, most my distinctions are baseless (I do hope I am driving that point home enough), but my reasoning was that Endowment seems close to the social relationships that a number of mammals display (and the parent/child bond that even more creatures have). Look at a dog: it can tell when it's own pups are hungry, when they need to go relieve themselves. It provides them with warmth of its own warmth, food from its body, etc. And, many dogs are aware of their owner's emotional state as well. If you are sad, your dog will likely try to cheer you up. Hence why I went with spiritual. But that is certainly not to say that things are this way, just how I interpret them.

First, keep in mind that you have to be particularly strong to push or pull on metals piercing someone, presumably including yourself (or did you mean something else?) Second, while that's an interesting idea, it seems likely that it would injure the user. Reduce your mass, and then have something heavy slam into you to send you flying is sort of like a bug trying to use a truck's windshield as a landing pad. What might be more reasonable is having a ball and chain attached around your waist via some sort of harness that distributes the force. Increase your mass, pull on the ball hard, it shoots towards you, reduce your mass and step aside, then let the chain's slack get caught up and pull on your harnessy thing. Very Thor-y. However, on the topic of the flying lurcher, I'd like to point out that in the Q&A, Sanderson stated that he thinks its possible, if one could get around the problem of the counterweight hitting the user. I had previously solved that problem by proposing a second counterweight (which means that no counterweight should ever be traveling along a path that intersects with the twinborns own path). Booyah, grandma, booyah!

First, it's not cognitive because, under my baseless groundwork, it's not sentient behavior (although certainly sentient creatures can cultivate land). It's not spiritual, either, because while it is concerned with life, it is really more about making the natural world suitable for life, rather than being something that life itself does. That is, the sun provides energy to a system, thereby enriching it. It also causes water to evaporate, turn into cloud, go over land, and rain, thereby making it more suitable for life. Its a matter of weather and seasons, soil and streams, than else. But it isn't really like we've seen much of Cultivation, so my interpretation of it is entirely baseless.

Devotion, Domination, and Endowment all seemed fairly basic, something that even animals (that is, things with a low cognitive presence) would have. Honor and Hatred, however, are relatively abstract concepts that require a good deal of cognition to operate. So basically, physical=things that can occur without life (like Rust, aka Ruin), spiritual=things that can occur with any life, and cognitive=things that require sentient life. Just unsubstantiated suppositions, though.

Ah, but Suvivorism gets Kelsier rather wrong in many ways, too, so does that eliminate Kelsier's physical aspect, and in turn limit his cognitive aspect in the AoL era? Yup, and hopefully you noted my similar response to your address (namely, that to my memory, Sazed noted that the imbalance was necessary). Alas, that would be in one of the chapter bumps, and my books are currently in storage, so I can't find that at present. But as soon as I can...

Since this is a thread about insanity, it seems appropriate to be far too linguisticy. Actually, it's really -um, and that is a Latin case ending for neuter nouns of the second declension. The i is part of the stem (so, Ati-um, Adonalsi-um, Odi-um, etc). For example, Adonalsium's proper declension is: Sg. Pl. Nom. Adonalsium Adonalsii Gen. Adonalsii Adonalsiorum Dat. Adonalsio Adonalsiis Acc. Adonalsium Adonalsios Abl. Adonalsio Adonalsiis Voc. Adonalsium Adonalsii Loc. Adonalsii Adonalsiis While Odium's is: Sg. Pl. Nom. Odium Odii Gen. Odii Odiorum Dat. Odio Odiis Acc. Odium Odios Abl. Odio Odiis Voc. Odium Odii Loc. Odii Odiis This ending is commonly added, even in the real world, to metals and elements (like einsteinium). For various linguistic reasons, -ium is usually added instead of just -um, but the quick explanation is that it helps the faux latin words to not sound too lame (einsteinium is much better than einsteinum, as americium is better than either americum and americaum). The curious thing is that most shards aren't Latin based. It's Ruin, not Ruina, Preservation, not Custodia, Devotion, not Devotio, etc. Odium and Adonalsium are the odd ones out. Pretty standard, really. H is a sad, pathetic letter that often gets left out of other languages, since really it just designates a heavy breathing sound, not a proper consonant or vowel. In Greek, for example, it is either left out entirely or signaled by a simple ' (as in ἱστορία, aka 'istoria, aka history). More relevant here, though, is the TH sound, which is technically a single letter in many languages (because they have a letter for it: it's a digraph in English), as is sh (I believe, I'm not as interested in that combination as I am in th). For example, theta (θ), eth (ð), and thorn (þ) can all be translated into modern English as th, and vice versa. So what is probably going on here is native linguistics being translated into English. H by itself probably doesn't always count as a letter, and its a part of a digraph in other places. So Valhav would be closer to Val'av, while Thalath is more of þalaþ, and Rishir is closer to I-don't-know-haven't-I-given-enough-useless-information-yet. *ahem* So, to bring this all around, clearly Adonalsium is related to consonant shifts between languages. Or something.

Probably an artifact of how we view the summary stages differently. For me, the summary stage is a time for getting down the underlying umph of a story (and adding important fluff in where possible). That is, if I were making a summary of your story, I'd consider the why behind the mad rush to be more basic and fundamental to the story than the mad rush itself. But again, it seems we just prepare things differently (indeed, I noticed that my summaries are more verbose than your own). Certainly something to consider. I'm a bit worried about things being too slow as it is, but then again, if I'm not making the characters relatable, the pacing doesn't really matter. Possibly. For me, my first outline tends to be an almost quasi-draft, where I move around plot points, split and combine events, etc. quite a bit. Ideally, this is also when a decent amount of foreshadowing gets planned. For example, in working on the outline yesterday, I realized that a character needed to know how the roads in DC are designed. I jotted that down where she needed the info, then went back through the outline looking for an appropriate place to foreshadow, and dropped that note there, too. The setback seems a little disappointing, I think because it is caused by adversity rather than conflict. That is, Guntram doesn't get to finish the fight because of deus ex machina. If the story doesn't require that fight to be stalled, then perhaps let him be beaten before the message arrives (which, instead, might just interrupt any attempt of his to save face). If it is that the fight can't be resolved now, but rather is part of a climactic point, perhaps go with the karate kid method of raising tension? That is, have other notable figures who succeed in the early rounds of the tournament, only to get easily knocked down by Damien. Meanwhile, if Guntram struggles mightily through each round, the anticipation is that he'd lose against Damien. Then, the messenger stops the fight from starting, rather than pausing it midway. Just a Thought, as always. This sets your story up as a bit of man vs self. I love those stories, but they are harder to pull off, and still tend to need a strong external plot to push things along. The John Clever series is great at this: the tension in the plots are almost entirely centered on John's internal struggle, but the external conflict provides the motivation for change. So, I guess, I'd just recommend making sure that the external conflict is there, and that it is interesting enough to help balance the internal conflict. Or, if the plot isn’t man vs self, perhaps reworking the skeleton? Love the "it's Polish" joke. For exotic position, that just seems to be more of an exaggeration. To my understanding, the exotic position would be the ablative of location in "he's a super spy... IN SPAAAAAACE." However, exotic positions are based on the individual. An alien on Raxacoricofallapatorius is old hat, the same alien waiting in line at the DMV is exotic. So, in your case, I'd think (but I can very easily be wrong) that the exotic location is more of "Allen is a hideous mutant attending a sleepy-town’s only highschool" or something like that. The introduction also seems good. Just reading it makes me think of several different ways I might start a story, so it seems like a good launching off point. Not being his fault doesn't exactly make him empathetic by itself, but could work well if you particularly play up the "it's not fair" aspect, and in all parts of his life. People feel for the good guy who doesn't get a break. Make it so that it's not his fault that he has mutant powers, not his fault that he was late to school, not his fault that the family car got wrecked, not his fault that his bike got stolen, not his fault that his science project blew up the chemistry lab, not his fault that Rome fell, not his fault that someone set up us the bomb, not his fault that Lincoln was assassinated, not his fault that Firefly was canceled, but that everything is constructed in such a way that everyone else reasonable thinks these things ARE his fault, and punishes him accordingly. From my perspective, any kind of wings still seem cool. Perhaps start out smaller, and more socially unacceptable? A second thumb on each hand, a third nostril, or a tail? Or, cool but awakward: boney armor-like growths that, when he wears a shirt, makes it look like he's developing breasts (or like he’s fat), or chameleon-like skin that accidentally gets stuck on “Pinkie-Pie Pink.” Point being, I think you can make this a little stronger with a weirder first mutation. Anywho, in general it sounds quite interesting. Good luck.