Pagerunner

Well, it has been a hot minute since I've posted in this forum. In 2020, I shared a story (The Elemental) that was part of a project I had been tinkering with since 2017. Not a great pace, I know, especially since I said back then that I already had two more written and on-deck. But here's what had happened. I decided that, since this is a Brandon Sanderson fanfiction forum, I needed to have my next story be one of the ones I planned with clear and obvious ties to the actual, published Cosmere. So I started working on my idea that was set on Scadrial. And, boy, it turned out to be pretty tough. For one thing, it ballooned in size; it's longer than the other three I had written put together. (I plotted it slightly longer, at four chapters, but then my last chapter turned into three.) In terms of content, balancing all the new powers I created was a challenge, since I kept writing myself into plot holes. And finally, keeping it relatively canon-compliant was a challenge for reasons that will come up in some of the later chapters. (I could have probably hit the books and done some more research before posting this, but I've gotta get this story out of my head. No time for a reread.) All these things kept hanging me up, and it took me a few tries to get through it. But I finally did, and since it's so long (almost 30,000 words), I'm gonna break it up into chapters and post one every week. On Tuesdays, in honor of preview chapter day from the last few large Cosmere books. The premise of this story comes from the magic system. In Mistborn, the chapter headings feature Allomantic symbols; in the original trilogy, in particular, chapters 19-22 contain four symbols that do not have any known metal associated with them. The 'official story' from Brandon and Isaac is that the symbols only exist for the sake of the Steel Alphabet, to give it enough letters to match the Latin alphabet, but I've always been intrigued by them. What if there were four more metals? Why wouldn't anybody know about them, and what might happen when they started to be discovered? (Oddly enough, because I started planning this story before Rhythm of War, I put my four metals together before silver started to become more prominent in published works. Nowadays, I'm pretty sure that one of those symbols will match silver, but I didn't work that back into my story at all.) I wanted to keep the story to four chapters, so that each could get one of those symbols as a chapter heading, but... well, here it is at six chapters. If I knew how atium alloys worked, I could get four more symbols and probably two more chapters out of it, but I hate how long it took to write already, so that's just gonna be a neat little plan of mine that I'm gonna pretend I never had. There's some more I can say about this story, but I'll wait until it's all up. For now, enjoy the second installment of Apocrypha Unbounded.

Table of Contents Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Epilogue and Ars Arcanum Prologue Toral lived in a world that others could not see. He wasn’t like his master; no, he hadn’t exchanged his natural sight for a more powerful, magical kind of vision. Most objects looked the same to him as they did to any other man. He could still clearly observe the ramshackle houses in this forgotten backwater town, the swishing of the tattered robes of its forlorn inhabitants, and the ceaseless gray cloud of ash that drifted above them. It was only when he looked at a person that his unique ability manifested. Instead of seeing faces and expressions, he saw God. Well, the piece of God that everyone had inside of them, the shred of deity that the Lord Ruler allowed all to partake of. The brilliant silver light twisted across their visages, pulsing in mesmerizing patterns that were only faintly reminiscent of Toral’s original ability. He’d been one of the best Seekers in the Ministry, but after his… bestowal, it had taken him weeks to learn how to interpret the souls of others. On nearly all the faces around him, the light languished, moving slowly and forming simple patterns. That was to be expected; out here in the Remote Dominance, the skaa and the nobles intermixed out of apathy and necessity, so the bulk of the population would have a very dilute divinity. Even the pure skaa (if such a phrase wasn’t self-contradictory) would each have a shred of potential, but it was almost unheard of to see it come to fruition. If he strained, he could tell the patterns apart, even the slowest of them; but since the power was dormant, there was no need for Toral to waste his concentration on them. Other individuals stood out from the crowds around them (to Toral, at least). Their faces, while they didn’t shine more brightly, contained much more vigor in the shapes and pulses of light. These sorts knew to hide on the outermost reaches of civilization to avoid the long arms and keen eyes of the Final Empire, but Toral could see them for what they truly were. Allomancers. They’d laid hold of their innate spark; they had Snapped, and their powers had awakened. There were very few of this kind in the city, but whenever he encountered them, Toral studied their faces fiercely. He couldn’t see whether they were suspicious, panicked, or offended at his intrusive stares, but what he could see was the exact type of power they held. Here, a Thug. There, a Soother. Oh, look, someone with a pattern similar to what Toral saw in the mirror every morning; there was another Seeker in this town. But Toral let them all go about their business; he had a greater prey. He stalked across the entire town; it only had a few thousand inhabitants, so he was able to do it in a day. From the way the crowds cyclically gathered and dispersed around him, Toral suspected that his entourage was all that kept him from being driven out into the unforgiving wasteland. Wair and Dair struck intimidating figures with their bone-studded leather armor, their eyes barely visible deep within the skulls of some long-extinct, cat-like creatures. These were two of the finest hazekillers in the Final Empire, the ones who had gutted several Allomancer rebellions all on their own. Though the stories of their exploits had been suppressed, of course, their bone-clad visages bespoke enough of the twins’ ferocity to the onlookers. And, in fact, the disturbance they created suited Toral’s goals; curiosity would ensure that all the townspeople came to see the strange visitors, and Toral would be able to look into the souls of each and every one of them. As the hours dragged on, Toral’s disappointment began to blossom faintly, but he didn’t have to fight hard to stifle it. This was the first stop on their circuit, after all, and a very small waypoint on their grand tour. He expected he’d need to visit some of the larger cities, or even the nomad-warrens, before he found what he was looking for. But then, as he led his procession back to the town’s gate, Toral saw him. A middle-aged farmer, leaning on a walking stick and plodding slowly into the town, crossing under the wooden archway right as Toral and his group arrived at the square. And on this farmer’s face was a pattern of light that Toral had never seen before. The moment struck him speechless and senseless. He was familiar with the patterns of all ten metals; he’d seen them many times before. This was none of those. He even knew of the secret seven; he’d been allowed to study a Mistborn. As a matter of fact, he’d even seen those mysterious patterns on the faces of nobles, powerful men and women who were unaware that they could use Allomantic abilities only known to the Lord Ruler. But this farmer didn’t wear one of those, either. This pattern… this was something entirely new. Wait. The farmer turned to the side as soon as he was through the gate; Toral was about to lose him in the crowd. His mind raced, but his body refused to respond. He felt frozen in place, watching this farmer, this man with an unknown Allomancy, walk slowly out of his sight. His master came to his rescue. The fourth member of their small group, he had straggled behind Toral and the guards all day, letting himself remain in the shadows, shrouded by his enveloping dark cloak. But he must have tracked Toral’s gaze, for he strode past him with a commanding gait and seized the farmer by the arm in a rough grip. “Is this it?” he growled harshly, turning back to Toral. The light on his master’s face was alien and bizarre compared to the citizens and skaa around him. It didn’t shine silver; instead, it burned a ferocious red, and the patterns it formed quavered destructively against themselves. Two vicious spirals, in particular, outlined each of his eyes. Or, rather, each of the steel spikes that lay where his eyes used to be. The visage of the Inquisitor snapped Toral out of his stupor. He rushed over, babbling. “Yes, it’s true. We’ve done it already; we’ve found one!” The Inquisitor grunted. “A good sign, then.” He heaved the farmer over his shoulder and carried him out of the town, ignoring his protestations. Nobody moved to stop them. Toral hurried after him, his thoughts frantic and excited. He had eagerly agreed to be spiked with additional bronze Allomancy, but he’d always harbored an undercurrent of doubt, an uncertainty whether the hypothesis of their mission was anything more than a fanciful dream. But now, the truth was undeniable. There were more Allomantic metals to be found. Metals that even the Lord Ruler did not know.

You know, I can see that. I'm half expecting Dan's name to be on SA5 for other reasons, so having some actual writing in the book would make that seem a little less weird, and an interlude would be the place to put it. (Kind of like how Isaac writes the broadsheets, but a little meatier than that.) Now, would it tie in with his new series? All the same points about the Sleepless would still fit for an interlude, but that would leave the new series to be completely open, no ties to Dawnshard necessarily. So maybe we're back to square 1.

I subscribed to Dan's newsletter once the news broke he'd be working with Brandon and writing stories in the Cosmere. And he has finally dropped the first actual hint about it: So, why is he reading Dawnshard? I think it's gotta be connected with his Cosmere series. So let's put on our speculation caps: I don't think it's for the deep Dawnshard lore. Brandon's not gonna outsource that. I don't think it's to continue Rysn's story. I guess the series could be adventures of Rysn, but what would that look like? A Roshar worldbuilding tour? Again, doesn't seem like a great fit. I'm gonna guess it's Sleepless. I think Dan's Cosmere series will incorporate Sleepless into it in some form. I haven't read any of Dan's stuff, but I've heard he's a horror writer, and a non-Rosharan Sleepless as a big sentient spider colony could be a nice Cosmere cornerstone concept that doesn't tie Dan's hands too much in terms of integrating his story directly with Stormlight. On the other hand... a year and a half. Why that date? The other projects that Brandon and Dan have worked on (Apocalypse Guard and Dark One) have both languished, so I don't think they'd be so optimistic as to plan a release a year and a half away when Dan's still doing research by reading Dawnshard. No, I think we'll get an official announcement of something, then. A year and a half is kinda close to Stormlight Five's planned release date; I don't think they've been any more specific than Fall 2024, although I'd expect early November if they keep the release convention pattern, and that's a year and eight months away. So maybe Dan's series is something that will follow up Stormlight Five?

They're just going in numerical order down the Steel alphabet, so #5 is Alloy-era zinc. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Steel_alphabet I think any thematic ties to the content of the books are purely coincidental.

In The Lost Metal, we are introduced to the concept of purified Dor. (I haven't reread Secret History with it in mind, but even if the Ire use it there, I'll call this its introduction. Secret History was more like creeping on it through a window, rather than being properly introduced.) Standard Dor, you have to access through AonDor or some other Invested art from Sel; but purified Dor can be used by TwinSoul or by Armal and the other kidnapped allomancers. It's still Dor (which is why they still call it Dor), but now it's in a form that anybody can ingest it and apply it to their Invested art. Impure Investiture If this is "pure Dor," then what is the impurity in regular Dor? There's some retconning going on right now around atium versus pure atium, and I don't think that's the same situation as Dor versus pure Dor. The impurity in atium is electrum; it manifested in the pits as an alloy of "true atium." I don't think that Dor has a material contaminant, but it's going to be more like a property of the substantial Investiture, why it's only able to be used within the context of its Invested Arts. Think of it like Identity on an unkeyed metalmind. Normally, the Identity associated with that metalmind prevents anybody from accessing it through their Feruchemy. When you strip the Identity off of it, anybody can access it Feruchemically. Now, take that a step back: Investiture like the Dor is inherently tied to its Invested arts, and it can only be accessed through them. I'm going to go out on a limb and call it "Connection to a magic system" up front, and I'll make callbacks to the concept in later sections as it becomes relevant. Pure Investiture has that Connection stripped away from it so that it can be used by anybody, even if they don't have access to the appropriate magic system. This also kind of gets into why Rysn, as a Dawnshard, isn't permitted to bond a spren. She's the flip side of the coin; the Dawnshard allows her to manifest Investiture with dangerous flexibility, so she's not allowed to gain the ability to breathe in Stormlight. Pure Dor, on the other hand, can be used by anybody, but it doesn't do anything on its own. (As far as I know, it doesn't innately heal you like Stormlight does.) But, by the nature of the purified Investiture, it has been stripped free of the "locks" that normally prevent anyone from Investing themselves with it. But is this actually the first time we've seen pure Investiture in the cosmere? Medallions Did you know Brandon alluded to medallions containing pure Investiture six years ago? Relevant portions bolded below There is a parallel between pure Dor and medallions in that you can access it without already being its magic user. There's something special about the piece of Investiture stored in the nicrosil portion of a medallion. (Which is a discrete piece, like what is stored in a coppermind.) So, you've got this piece of Investiture that grants, say, iron Feruchemy and brass Feruchemy. Not only is it unkeyed (no Identity), it is also pure (no Connection to Feruchemy), so anybody is able to tap it. (I don't think it needs to also grant nicrosil Feruchemy, but that's just my gut feel.) But hold up, isn't this getting too complicated? Why put pure Investiture in nicrosil, instead of just doing it to the brass metalmind, for example? That gives you something anyone can tap, but the Bands are more complicated than that. And the weight medallions; you need a medallion anyone can fill. And it also wouldn't let you make allomancy medallions; nothing to tap there. So, practically speaking, you wouldn't be able to replicate all the observed effects without pure Investiture in a nicrosilmind. But beyond that, it also begs the question of the specific mechanism for removing this Connection and whether it could be done to other metalminds, or if the phenomenon can only be accomplished on nicrosilminds. We know how to blank the Identity. But how to remove the Connection? Well, this touches on the mystery of why Feruchemical duralumin (i.e. storing Connection) is relevant to the creation of medallions: I don't have a great handle on exactly how it's relevant yet, but I think it's something a Feruchemist does to themselves while they are in the process of creating a medallion. Because, when you think about it, nicrosil Feruchemy is the only type of Feruchemy where there is no conversion of an attribute into Investiture. For pewter Feruchemy, you can't "purify" your strength, because your physical strength isn't Connected to a Shard. You convert that strength into Investiture and store it in pewter, but then the Investiture is in pewter; if you tap it to manipulate it, it turns right back into strength. But Investiture that you store in nicrosil, you can manipulate it while it's still part of your own spiritweb, and then that purified Investiture can merely be moved out of your soul (or compounded to duplicate it) and placed in nicrosil for anybody else to use. So, a lot of details there. But take a step back and think of the big picture: both pure Dor and medallions are types of magic that anybody can draw on, even if they are not a magic user. I think that's the big takeaway of what pure Investiture is and why it's important to the future of the cosmere. Other pure Investiture Where else have we seen Investiture that can be used by anybody? There's a WoB making a direct parallel between medallions and Honorblades. I think the "same princple" is that they are both pure Investiture; Honor made ten pieces of pure Investiture that anybody could use to Surgebind. Breath is another candidate for inherently pure Investiture. Which would be kind of a revolutionary concept; can you use Breath to power Allomancy without any hoops to jump through? I suspect you can, but the utility of Breath is greater than just using up as an Investiture source (i.e. holding Breath doesn't run out, and it grants you Heightenings). But three things make me wonder in that direction. First is how anybody can be invested by it, same as pure Dor. Second is the mother-of-pearl description it gets, same as the pure Dor. And the last is how it can be transported offworld, made intentionally by Endowment without some of its otherwise-expected Connection. And I think pure Stormlight is where we're heading in the books, with everybody trying to get it off-world. The same WoB I shared for Breath ends with a bit about Stormlight, that it needs to be "refined" before anybody can use it. And Kelsier knows how to purify some forms of Investiture (since he made the Bands of Mourning), but if we ever get the full medallion creation flowchart, I think we'll see that his mechanism for creating the Bands of Mourning and the medallions won't quite work for Stormlight (somehow). They need a new mechanism, one that could work on both Stormlight and on spren. Autonomy? Bonus theory that I came up with while researching purified Investiture. The perpendicularity that Autonomy was creating may have been made through pure Dor, as well. It's described as being visually similar, and it gets used up by allomancers in the exact same way. Combined with two of our Ghostbloods in Rhythm of War being Selish exiles, I'm worried Autonomy has already gone to war with Sel. And won. And now she's got access to all of this purified Dor to use to make perpendicularities, but her adversaries just have little bits and pieces of it that they save in jars. And, out-of-universe, that's the reason Brandon's still saying that Elantris sequels are important to Mistborn Era Three. Because Autonomy is the antagonist for both of them.

I had a fun time at the con. It was great being able to argue about theories with everybody in-person, instead of doing it over the internet. Although it was a little frustrating to have to keep track of who had read TLM previews, who had read the SA5 prologue, who had read Secret Project sample chapters, etc. (If any of you were in the Radisson bar on Sunday night, I was the spoiler police who was keeping a very well-read and very inebriated fellow fan from blurting out everything that popped into his head.) Also a highlight was the long Monday night for those of us who were not going to sleep until we'd finished the book. (Although I did have to crash for a few hours at 3:00 AM, I managed to get up early and still finish it before the con started on Tuesday.) Shoutout to the other night owls who ruined their sleep schedules to get answers. Airport con was fun, too. Everyone was wearing their con shirt for their flights home, so we were all just walking up to each other and talking about the book. I had, like, a dozen other fans on my flight. I picked up a few WoBs: Spoiler Q&A: I was one of the lucky ones who got my name selected, and I have my transcription up on Arcanum already. It's a question about internal/external and pushing/pulling Surges, and the answer is unfortunately a little less concrete than I had hoped. There is a pattern there, but it might be more like Hybrid Feruchemy, where the pattern breaks down as Brandon needs to make all corners of the magic system actually useful. Brotherwise panel: There were four of the miniatures that are candidates to get turned into painted figurines: Shardplate Kaladin, Syl, Navani, and Leshwi. Brotherwise plans to make two of those four into figurines, and they polled the crowd as to which two they wanted the most. The crowd began to chant "All Four!" Kickstarter panel: The Words of Radiance Kickstarter will have Radiant Order-themed swag, in the same vein as the WoK Kickstarter. I also got to chat with Johnny from Brotherwise in the game room. The next Cosmere board game they are working on is not a Stormlight game. Hmmm... Karen has "KAFO" cards, now, which she will give you when she looks up something for you in the wiki. I took a few WoBs where Brandon said "I'll have to have Karen look that up later," but had never been followed up on. The one I got an answer for at the time was: the basic form that parshmen awakened to after the Everstorm (which is not workform) doesn't have a canonical name yet, and is referred to in the wiki as the "awakened parshman basic form." There are a few more that would have taken a little longer to get answers for, which I'm going to email to her later. I don't expect I'll be at next year's con, but I'm planning to go to Stormlight Five's in 2024. Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

That's when the book releases, midnight EST. For any other physical location that's distributing the book (i.e. bookstores that haven't broken release date), you'd have to wait until Tuesday morning, so getting it Monday night is already giving it out early. If you're not able to stay that late, I'm sure that you'll be able to pick it up when you return to the con the next day.

I think we need to be a little more specific than anti-Investiture. Stormlight spoilers:

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that these shavings are not iron. Keep an eye out for where this Chekovium dust comes up again later in the book. I've got a sneaking suspicion it's something else "important to the cosmere and to Scadrial," per this WoB from a few years back. Still not sure what the byproduct could actually be, though.

I've been negligent in participating in discussion so far, so I'll lead off with my latest observations and then drop in all the stuff from prior chapters. Chapters 14-15 Hey, there's our Hemalurgy chart appearance. But not quite, no more info on linchpin spikes. There have been a few comments about linchpin spikes in the preview chapters, so maybe we'll finally get the detailed Hemalurgy chart poster to go along with the book. Strange reactions with a lot of ettmetal in one place – I guess it’s gonna start punching through to Cognitive and Spiritual realms. Disagreements between VenDell and Harmony as to Bleeder’s madness. Hopefully another loose end for the book to tidy up. Dividing harmonium – we see Towerlight get split, why not harmonium? Trellium… it isn’t anti-Investiture, is it? The explosion and the response, they are reacting in ways that mists and atium notably didn't. The mists did pull away from Vin when she was spiked, but I don't recall atium driving back the mists on its own. So this more severe reaction (both pushing away spikes and in causing the explosion) seem very much more like Rhythm of War's anti-Investiture experiments. Chapters 1-2 Old metal door that got forgotten through "bureaucratic nonsense" and the Terriswoman vice governor pushing for the vote - certainly seems to me like there's something more nefarious going on behind the scenes. “Anything Varlance accomplished… was probably her doing.” I'm betting she's Set. How does Wax Push on a medallion? Shouldn't it be too Invested for that? Chapters 3-4 Well, we've got Nazh and what are apparently "hellguns" flying around. I guess this doesn't bode well for his Stonward aspirations. I'm still not quite sold on this gang stuff. It seems like a really bad cover to pretend to be normal criminals while you're actually a different kind of criminal. Just draws police attention to yourself. I'm wondering if this is bait of some sort. New Allomantic grenades. All power goes into the box; it’s not resonating with a power, it’s just absorbing and delaying the manifestation. But how does it actually work? And what does the ettmetal actually do? The grenades now seem different than when they were called "primer cubes." Now, they're batteries for an Investiture manifestation, but before they would tie in an ettmetal power source to a particular kind of manifestation. “Just like the Lord Ruler when he’d lost the Bands of Mourning centuries earlier.” Here we go with the casual inaccuracies. Chapters 5-8 The earring. “You’ll need to make a second, once the proper metal arrives.” Is it actually from Harmony? Or is this Trell reaching out to Wax? “These brick walls were so old. Who had built them, centuries ago?” As an author, why does Brandon have Marasi ask this question? Could they be from an unexpected source, like ancient Trell followers? Trell from White Sand had plenty of time to Ascend to an Avatar before the time of the Final Empire. Eyes glowing red, Trell choosing avatars. The Cycle isn’t an avatar yet; so what’s going on with the red eyes? Is there a Trellish spren or something Investing him? Is it a new kind of compounding (which is why he wasn’t worried about running out of strength), powering Feruchemy directly from Trell? “A shot to the head should stop a Bloodmaker from healing.” Didn’t Miles take a shot to the head in AoL? Is it getting retconned to have been unusual, now? Radiants don’t have a problem healing from head wounds, either. “The ash comes again. The world will fall to it. You will get what you deserve, and all will wither beneath a cloud of blackness and a blanket of burned bodies made ash. Your end. Your end comes. Either in ash, or at the hands of the men of gold and red. Gold and—” I think there are two things going on here. Gold and red is Trell. Ashfall is Discord. Trell is fighting Harmony to take over the place, Discord wants the world and its inhabitants to meet their rightful end that they escaped three hundred years ago. I've always been partial to Discord theories, but I couldn't reconcile them with Trell coming from White Sand. Two separate catastrophes - Harmony's losing it and Trell is coming in. “One day, the men of gold and red, bearers of the final metal, will come to you. And you will be ruled by them.” Trell's group doesn’t want destruction under ashfalls, they want to rule the world. Chapter 9 No ability to maintain medallions. That’s refilling, right? My thoughts have always been that it needs to involve compounding. Not refilling nicrosil, but refilling heat and Connection and such. Can't store it quick enough the old-fashioned way. “Why weren’t there Feruchemical soldiers in the Malwish army with extremely heightened strength, mental speed, or other dangerous Feruchemical talents? Why weren’t there Allomancer medallions? The more they learned, the more certain Wax became that there was a secret there, indicating the medallions were not as effective or as versatile as the Malwish would like people to believe.” Questions I’ve wondered about. They’re obviously possible, since the Bands do all that and more. Did the medallion creation devices come from a Fullborn (read: Kelsier), and he only gave them the ‘templates’ to create a limited number, so to speak? That’s why they want the Bands back, so they can make any medallions they want? Small bathroom. Is it a child bathroom as a cultural thing? Or are there little people among the Southerners? Chapters 10-11 Smuggling into Elendel. Trying to sneak people in, would be my guess. They’re gonna try to overthrow Elendel. Not just break away with rebellions. A typical Sanderson super-escalation at the end of a trilogy. “And is this all?” Is this a hint of Marasi freezing herself and showing up in the Era 3 books? “Why would Harmony tell him to make a second earring, presumably out of Trell’s metal?” Because the letter didn’t come from Harmony. From the way MeLaan talks, she’s not the kandra on Roshar in SA. Chapters 12-13 “first kandra to go out there long-term, with an official mission.” So the kandra on Roshar isn’t sent by Harmony. Malli, Felt’s wife, is still my best guess; the couple is just traveling and vibing. Wayne's breakup. He's gonna become an immortal worldhopper, isn't he... “God metals were the source of the mists back in anteverdant days.” What? Spectroscopy is very reminiscent of RoW experiments with Light. Which are both just… very odd. Trellish Light through a prism would have an extra large red band. Or is it infrared? It looks like harmonium... how similar to harmonium? Weird spectrum like harmonium, or exactly (anti-Investiture) like harmonium? “Harmonium wasn’t affected by acids” now what on earth does that mean? The reaction of alkali metals with water is because water is an acid with a pH of 7. More acidic solutions will react more violently. Why does harmonium behave this way?

Regarding individual miniatures: you can't get individual miniatures, but you can get just the RoW set (for example). From the Kickstarter's FAQ: EDIT: Also worth mentioning is the upcoming Taln miniature, which isn't on the campaign yet but will be available as an add-on. It will be part of the Secret Project Kickstarter's Stormlight merch box, for those who are pledged at that level to the other campaign. But anyone will be able to add it to this new campaign.

Brandon will be making appearances at both of these conventions this fall. We are not allowed to put recorders on the signing line table anymore, but there's a good chance he'll be doing readings or Q&A panels, so it would be good to get those recorded. Is anybody planning on attending either convention who could get audio on your phone? FanX, historically, has been a good place to get some facetime with Brandon, since he's had several signing timeslots in past years. NYCC could go either way; he's much less of a celebrity in New York than he is in Utah (smaller fish in a bigger pond), so there might not be as much demand for his signing lines there. But there are going to be a lot of people there.

You can look on the About page: https://wob.coppermind.net/about/ It has some high level info, and some links to more detailed guides for searching or editing.

That's how they looked for the Oathbringer previews on Tor.com. The formatting doesn't get finalized until the end of the process.

Hoo, boy, I work on transcribing the thing, and I miss a whole bunch of pages of discussion. (Transcription is here, by the way. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/495-prologue-to-stormlight-book-five/#e15580) I've got a few things back from my first post to expound on. First is the bit about Mishram that gets a little funky. Gavilar assumes that the "him" in "one who could rival him" is Thaidakar. But Mishram is the "other god." In contrast to whom? Not Thaidakar; the timelines don't work out, and also that's ridiculous. Odium? That's what seems to be implied by the Stormfather later. Or, perhaps, is it the Rider of Storms who betrayed the singers so long ago? And he's just lying to Gavilar again? And second are the peculiar bits about the Stormfather's presentation to Gavilar, unlike how it manifested to Dalinar, that make me think there's something else going on, that perhaps a piece of Tanavast is hiding inside the Stormfather and manifesting himself on occasion. Note how the Stormfather sometimes acts human (Tanavast), sometimes inhuman (real Stormfather). And the way it says "I have decided," which is a task that Honor set the Stormfather upon. And the eyeless infinity, reminding me of other times people have come face-to-face with actual, full Shards. Oh, and the connection to the Oathpact. It was between Honor and the Heralds; the Stormfather had no place in it. Honor himself would feel the pain of a Herald death, not the Stormfather. Lots of little circumstantial things, but I think they're all pointing towards Honor, the Shard, being around a little more than we'd thought.

I'm looking forward to spending some time tonight going through it again in detail. A few thoughts and impressions (aside from the Chana Davar bit): I'm not sure if this Stormfather was really the Stormfather. Obviously, Gavilar's visions and the way the prologue Stormfather talks about Dalinar are points in favor of it being the true Stormfather. On the other hand, there are some notable differences with how he's manifesting: as an individual, and the distinctly Shard-like infinity sensation I seem to recall at the end. (That's one of the lines I want to get the exact wording.) I don't see it being Odium or another Herald manipulating Gavilar; I think, if this isn't the Stormfather, it's something very close to the Stormfather. A remnant of Honor, somehow; there's another line about "choosing to" vs "being commanded to" that make me think it's Tanavast pretending to be the Stormfather. But if it is the real Stormfather, his mission of choosing a new Herald (and then lying about stuff) and his active lying to Gavilar also throw a lot of his later interactions with Dalinar into question. Where did Gavilar get the anti-Voidlight? Also, what was the information that Gavilar tricked out of Thaidakar? I'm thinking they're one and the same, that Kelsier gave Gavilar the secret to creating anti-Voidlight. The Everstorm is still a bit of a mystery. I've gotta refresh myself a little bit on it; the storm was already in Shadesmar, I believe, back here when the Alethi first met the Parshendi, and it didn't get pulled into the Physical Realm into Words of Radiance. It allows transportation between Braize and Roshar, even from where it is in Shadesmar. But where did it come from in the first place? I had something else, but now I can't think of it, so I'll edit it in here after the transcription gets done and I can do some digging. But it was a good one, I promise. EDIT: I got it. It was Ba-Ado-Mishram as a "puzzle piece that doesn't fit," which is exactly how I've felt since RoW. Is Thaidakar interested in her, or was Kalak rambling about Odium or the Stormfather or someone when it came to "someone who could challenge him" or whatever that line was? (Ooooh, this makes me think of Stormfather as a secret villain again, like the first bullet point.) EDIT2: Here are some longer thoughts on my first and last bullet points, with the actual quotes.

Apprentice theories have been pretty much quashed by the stream. Of the remaining two, one we haven't met, and one Brandon couldn't remember if we met. So that eliminates all the major characters we'd been discussing. I suspect that Rysn's Dawnshard is the same as Hoid's/Sigzil's, and it's been passing hands recently. The very interesting thing was Brandon's particular phrasing about whether Hoid/Sigzil had the same Dawnshard. We'll need to wait for the transcription, but in the moment, it made me think that Hoid has his old Dawnshard back. So I'm thinking the chain of ownership was something like: Hoid, one of the original Sixteen (who used it for the Shattering), someone on Ashyn, the mural, Rysn, Sigzil, and finally back to Hoid. The Night Brigade is chasing Sigzil since they think he has the Dawnshard; but if they catch him, they'll realize he doesn't have it, and then they'll realize Hoid has had it the whole time. That's why Sigzil has saved "the cosmere" or "just Wit"; by taking the heat off Hoid so he can hide the Dawnshard.

The bracers do more than just leach away body heat. They also did a "buzzing and vibrating" when Beacon's invasion force hijacked then. It had an effect on the cinder killers, but it didn't have an effect on Sigzil, so I don't think it was just sucking the heat out of them. I think that effect was more like allomantic chromium or a larkin, pulling away their Investiture for a short time, much like Nikki Savage did to Nazh's gun in one of the broadsheets. Sigzil, not being Invested at the moment (in terms of having anything to be drained or used by Auxiliary), didn't have anything to be drained. I'm thinking the bracers are more a straight up energy transfer system. They can take away heat, they can take away Investiture. I wouldn't be surprised to see it going the other way at some point in the story, too, someone getting supercharged through bracers.

I'm not sure if she's disqualified, since we may know her better than Sigzil, but Shai seems like a strong candidate of a character in the same vein of potentially becoming one of Hoid's worldhopping apprentices after her standalone story has completed. We know she did track down Hoid eventually, whether off on Sel or off, and Brandon has had plans for her outside of a planned Emperor's Soul sequel and that we will see more of her , even if he doesn't write the sequel. I do like the Worldbringers idea, potentially giving Hoid a kandra apprentice out there (if the Worldbringer in question was one of the First Generation Feruchemists). Although a regular, boring old Feruchemist also has pretty good story potential, I guess. EDIT: Forgot to link the "really cool kandra character" Brandon's waiting to fit into a book, which would be my candidate for Hoid's apprentice #3.

I'm not a huge fan of that category, because it includes main characters, it includes non-Cosmere characters, and it includes characters who only had one viewpoint. I'm looking, instead, at the statistical analysis pages: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Category:Statistics There aren't any stats for the standalone novellas, but those are mostly single-character or dual-character affairs, so I don't think those will be worth looking too much into. There's also no White Sand, but the graphic novels are by nature kind of screwy in terms of "viewpoint." I don't think there was anything in the prose from Baon's viewpoint, though; we had Kenton/Khriss/Ais as the main viewpoints, with a little bit of Aarik. In Elantris, Lukel (8) and Galladon (5) look like the only two candidates. In Warbreaker, Vasher (12) has fewer viewpoints than the other three main characters, but I would still call him a main character. The book's named after him, after all. In the Mistborn Era 1, I see Spook (14), TenSoon (13), Breeze (9), and Marsh (8) as the candidates. I don't see anybody in Era 2, unless Brandon's counting stuff from Lost Metal that we can't see yet. Stormlight, as you would expect, has a lot of potentials, but it also begs the question of what makes a main character. I'm going to exclude our back-five flashback characters and Bridge Four; I would expect any of those would count as a Stormlight side novel, not a standalone novel like this has been marketed as. Which leaves us with Moash (12) and Taravangian (11), which both would fall under the same objection as the previous group. I'm keying in on one of the Mistborn characters. I know Brandon's backup plan for Thaidakar, if he couldn't work out Kelsier's survival, was going to be TenSoon wearing Kelsier's bones. So the Big Outline has, at least at one point, had TenSoon as a worldhopper, even if we haven't seen evidence of it yet in any of the canon books. If SP4 is the Count of Monte Cristo story, like I suggested above, a kandra would be pretty well suited for running a con like that. I'd also be interested in seeing what Marsh or Spook was up to. (Spook just resigned; he didn't have a recorded death, did he?) All the Mistborn characters would tie in pretty well with Kelsier and his mission, which took a larger role in RoW and looks poised to be big in TLM. So it would be pretty timely for a Mistborn side character to have a novel. But that gets back to: is it a standalone, or is it a Mistborn side novel? And that ultimately leads me back to TenSoon; as a shapeshifter, I think he can carry a book for newcomers in a way that Marsh or Spook couldn't.

Brandon gave some more clarification on the SP4 protagonist, for some last-minute theorizing: Hoid's officially off the list. Somebody who has had viewpoints, though; that's new, right?

All those options, but no Hoid. When trying to comb through WoBs to find retroactive clues to Secret Projects, I was reminded of Brandon's Count of Monte Cristo story. He's talked about the idea a few times, and while I suppose that someone could twist each of the other three Secret Projects' premises to sound like a Monte Cristo inspiration, the fact that Brandon hasn't mentioned it in any of his previews makes me think he's got something more explicit in mind. So, if the SP4 preview reveals a name we don't recognize, keep that in mind. The nature of the story might involve some deception, even toward us readers, of the character's true identity.

Hey who remembers this WoB from last year? Compare that with lines from the story about the Chosen: Looks to me like there are no actual omens; I'm sure that's going to be a big turning point for Yumi's character arc once she realizes she isn't inherently special and that the spirits didn't choose her.

Ah, I see it. My first reading, I'd thought she'd made a copy of him while he was frozen, but you're right, it looks like he was the actual coatrock.