Scion of the Mists

While Hoid's Lightweaving abilities predate the Shattering, he only had partial access to it. It's apparently "the fulfillment of a long, long quest of hist to finally get full access to Lightweaving." So, missing things in Brandon's books in no way makes you stupid. Brandon packs so much into his books that it's impossible to catch everything. Even the really knowledgeable people on the Shard (of which I am not one) miss plenty of things. However, if you did want to avoid posting something that's already been found, why wouldn't you do a quick search on Elhokar? Maybe not read every single post, but at least check out his Coppermind page (which does talk about this).

I'm really not sure how you don't think that the "for Odium" side is the bad side. Odium is literally Hatred personified, who's goal is killing.

Two questions: Doesn't Taldain's Investiture come from the sun? Or is this not confirmed? Wouldn't your model for Nalthis be basically the same (i.e. Investiture is radiated from the sun, and absorbed/stored by lichen/pigments)? I see you left Scadrial off of this list. We know that Scadrian metals are not inherently Invested - the Investiture comes directly from Preservation in the Spiritual Realm, with the metal acting as a focus for that power. Why couldn't "color" (whatever that ends up meaning) act in a similar way for Awakening? P.s. Completely agree with your point about Breath itself not being the fuel (that wouldn't make sense as it's not consumed).

The Entities are a new thing that Brandon made up and are distinct from the planeswalker spark. However, that begs the question of whether the Entity itself confers the ability to Planeswalk or if it just ignites a dormant, preexisting spark. That was the big question that I had after reading the book, but Brandon answered this on the Reddit AMA. Basically, there's no canon answer - it's deliberately ambiguous. However, Brandon's head canon is that the Planeswalking ability comes only from the Entity, neither Tacenda or Davriel have their own spark (although Davriel thinks he does).

Mayalaran and Clubs are both blue agents! The red team's next clue is: Blushweaver 2 @Ookla the Skeptical @Rhapsody @Ookla the Inconceivable @Turtle373 Countdown: https://pending.me.uk/cd/red_1545325200.png

@Totally_Not_A_Worldhopper, @Ookla the boombox, @Ookla the Indefatigable, @Ashspren - any guesses? Your team's turn it technically up, but since you guys weren't tagged let's give it another day.

Again, if you read the WoB that I linked, it tells you exactly where the atium comes from. It's the bag that KanPaar sent to be sold. Brandon also confirms that it's "the only remaining atium in the world." The atium from the kandra horde was burned off during the final battle in Hero of Ages. Sazed has no plans to make any more.

Here's the quote from the very end of the book:

I thought there was no atium left after Harmony took up Ruin's power and all that jazz. They call it the lost metal in Era 2, and I seem to remember a mention of it being gone in Era 1 at the end. If I'm right, that couldn't be how he's stayed alive so long. If you read the WoB that I linked, there's some leftover atium from Era 1. However, he'll run out eventually, which is why it's not true immortality.

@Landis963, regarding Tacenda's abilities at the end of the novella,

1. Awakening CAN be used off-world. It just requires draining some other PR Investiture than Endowment’s. Rosharan Awakening runs on Stormlight. Awakening IMO needs “color” because Endowment’s “primal force,” her “means of access” to Investiture, is EMR. It doesn’t matter what PR Investiture activates that pathway. 2. Interesting point. Do we know they can’t? (I don’t remember one way or other.) If a colored object can be re-charged and re-drained, that doesn’t tell us much. But if it can’t be, Investiture loss must permanently change the object (like Rosharan gemstones). Mere color loss wouldn’t do that. 3. Un-Invested objects can’t be used, IMO. How the object becomes Invested doesn’t matter as long as the object can transmit the energy down an EMR pathway. 1. So you think that Azure used Stormlight to perform her Awakening in Oathbringer? I don't think that makes sense - isn't a key obstacle they have in the Shadesmar sequence a lack of Stormlight? 2. There are a couple of scenes in Warbreaker that deal with the color-draining on the Returned palaces. In one, Vasher drains color from the roof of God King's palace. He then chuckles, thinking how upset the priests are going to be that the palace is messed up. This wouldn't make sense if the sun would just "refresh" the color. Additionally, Lifeless stay grey, even when exposed to sunlight. Also, having an Awakener-specific prison cell, made entirely out of white/grey things wouldn't be very effective if they could regain their color at any moment. As you say, Awakening has to permanently change the object, which mere siphoning off of Investiture wouldn't do. I agree with @Energy Surge and others that Awakening permanently affects an objects pigments (i.e. the molecules that determine color). I think this is inline with all of Brandon's WoBs The red light can't be used because the pigments are in the light bulb You can Awaken in darkness because the pigments are still there regardless of whether or not light's shining on them This mirrors Roshar where the pigments are what determine what "type" of gem it is

Marsh is alive due to the same "trick" that the Lord Ruler used: atium compounding. It's functional, if not technical, immortality (he'll run out of atium eventually). Regarding Spook, I don't think we have confirmation of how he lived so long. I think that Hemalurgy is the most likely answer, followed by Harmony.

Someone could give them to you.

Most magic systems do not have a way to directly access the Cognitive Realm. In fact, I believe Roshar is the only ones who have a confirmed method (the Surge of Transportation). Selish magic can probably manage it, because it seems like they can program the Dor to do basically anything. The majority of Worldhopping happens via Perpendicularities (i.e. Shardpools). These are places where so much Investiture is collected that it "pierces" between the Realms, allowing access between them. On Scadrial (Mistborn spoilers): On Sel: On Roshar:

I don't think this is the way that Awakening works for a few reasons. This would mean that Awakening wouldn't work off-world, when we know that it can (e.g. Azure on Roshar) This would mean that objects could be "reused." Just put them back out in the sunlight to be recharged with Invested photons. This would mean that objects that have never been in the sun could not be used to Awaken (although I suppose we don't have any evidence as to whether or not this is the case, it seems odd).

Yes, the pool is Devotion's Perpendicularity.

As @TruthlessofShinovar says, as long as you start at the beginning of a series, you can't really go wrong. Just pick whichever book sounds most interesting to you. Brandon does have a nifty page on his website providing a little bit of guidance: https://brandonsanderson.com/books/where-do-i-start/

Anybody had any luck finding the "free download" on the Wizards website?

If you're sure you don't mind spoilers, check out the summary here: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Mistborn:_Secret_History

More Oathbringer spoilers:

Tyn, Gaz, and Kokerlii are all red agents! Great job @Rhapsody, @Ookla the Inconceivable, @Turtle373! @Ookla the Phoenix - the Blue Team is up. P.s. The timer doesn't seem to be updating for me. Make sure you check the date/time listed, not just the time remaining.

What distinction do you draw between them? From a real-world science perspective, we use AI to refer to a number of different techniques (e.g. reinforcement learning, neural networks), but in fiction it generally refers to "true" artificial intelligence (i.e. machines who have consciousness).

Regarding Shards smiting people:

It's something that Cobb says to her. He talks about legends of "machines that can think." It definitely stood out to me too. It's a pretty big leap to go from "Krell supercomms" to "Cytospace enables AI." It does kind of sound like Brandon is straight up telling us how Skyward AI works, though. I guess it could make a kind of sense - tech meshing with Cytonics is what powers FTL travel. I doubt that the causality goes AI -> Cytonics. We know that the various alien races were all much farther behind on technology when they developed Cyto, so it's unlikely they got to true AI.

I was misremembering this WoB. I thought it was more explicit about him pushing romance off to later books, but I guess it's ambiguous.