Pagerunner

Well, this event is less than a month away; is anybody going to be going who could drop a recorder or a phone on Brandon's signing table? No details yet on the website as to when exactly it would be, though.

I think it's a good idea to keep this one; there are a few WoBs it hasn't been applied to. (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/201-words-of-radiance-los-angeles-signing/#e4441 and https://wob.coppermind.net/events/361-skyward-pre-release-ama/#e11415). It's often been conflated with the hide-and-survive Shard despite the WoR tour WoB, and though I happen to agree with that view, I don't believe it has officially been confirmed.

The FanX site doesn't have anything yet. (And from what I recall from prior years, the website might not be that promptly updated.) I haven't seen anything from Brandon's social media, either, but that will probably the best place to keep an eye out. https://fanxsaltlake.com/guests/brandon-sanderson/

All right, here's the story. Brandon's signing started on Friday (and was gonna run about 2 hours), and then Isaac had a panel showing off some White Sand art that started a little after. So nearly all the Sharders went to Isaac's panel, while I stayed behind and kept an eye on the recorders. And wouldn't you know it, the panel was really popular, and since there was another Brandon signing on Saturday, the line was pretty much empty. So people would come right up and get their books signed, no waiting, and when no ody was there, I was sliding in with a quick question or two. Whenever someone else showed up to get books signed, I got out of their way, which was why I got in a lot of pretty quick questions this year, but no really long ones. And while I'd step away, I'd go flex about it in the Discord chat. And jof, green with envy, DM'd me a question to ask, which I was gracious enough to do for him. So, then the Saturday signing comes around, and there are, like, a half dozen of us hanging around this time. But the line never died down like it had on Friday. It got real close; there's be, like, one or two people left, and all the other Sharders would get real excited, but then a new group of people would come up and get in line. We did get a couple more over the day, but not a lot. Of course, I made sure to antagonize the others as much as possible. "Oh no, more people coming? Isn't that a shame." If there were such a thing as sarcasmspren, I would have my Shardplate from the Order of Buttheads.

Funny story about that. I asked this on @Jofwu's behalf because he had something better to do than hang around at Brandon's signing table to ask questions. So he should be the one to comment.

Good weekend, all said and done. First things first, Brandon read the prologue to The Lost Metal: Not a huge Wayne fan, so I didn't find the chapter all that exciting. But as I was working on transcribing it, I remembered the recent Lost Metal Outline reveal. I couldn't help but notice that Wayne's Ma's story had three parts, and some of the descriptions of Jak felt a little more like Wax. So I'm wondering if that's some foreshadowing for the structure of the rest of the book. But let's get back to the beginning. On Friday, Isaac had the first signing, and I got him to personalize all of my Arcanum Unbounded star chart prints. I asked him to put a snarky Nazh comment on each one, complaining about every planet. He said they are non-canon, of course. Here's what he wrote and said for each: And then, during Brandon's signing right afterwards, I got him to add a new planet to my constellations print: He drew in the dot, and then wrote "Here there be Aethers!" He said he did not have a name he could canonized there, though. Isaac took a picture of the chart afterwards, so I believe this will be the canon location on future star charts. So I now have a very nice set of personalized cosmere space-stuff to go up on my office wall. I got in more questions in the signing line, and the line was actually pretty empty for a while (thanks to an art panel that Isaac was doing at the same time), so I got to slip in a few extras. They'll all be transcribed eventually, but here's the gist for now And those were all the questions I got in. I got a good haul on the opening day, so I let off the gas for Saturday. Brandon and Isaac each had another signing, and then in the evening Brandon scheduled a last-minute reading and Q&A. Everything there got recorded. (My recorder unfortunately ran out of batteries during the Q&A portion, but a lot of other people got it. It was great seeing everyone again who I saw again, and meeting everyone I wasn't seeing again. Until next time!

FAQ's been updated with how to find Brandon: Which doesn't seem quite right, since Isaac's Saturday signing appears to be double-booked with the Team Sanderson panel. But maybe he's not gonna be on it this year.

JordanCon schedule is up. I made an easily digestible version at the bottom of the post. It's certainly more sparse than last time I was there (in 2018, where each track had a full slate of programming in every timeslot), and there's nothing on there officially that Brandon's scheduled for. So maybe we'll see some more additions to this; I'd be very surprised if a RAFOlympics doesn't manage to sneak in there, oh, say Saturday at 5:30. I'll have my recorder, for sure. None of the panels look all that enticing to me, so I'm probably going to set up shop in the game hall for a good chunk of it. I'm planning on bring House War and its expansion, Call to Adventure: Stormlight, and the Mistborn RPG and all the fancy new dice that Crafty put out last year (metal and acryllic). I've got an idea for an RPG adventure; maybe I'll spread it across three days.

Not a ton to add, but we did recently get a new WoB that lines up pretty well with what I've been saying about avatars as a manifestation of a Shard: And we also got a little bit more about the Nightwatcher in Rhythm of War, about how she was created specifically by Cultivation differently than spren are created, and she had her personality specifically guided and influenced: So I haven't seen anything in recent revelations to contradict my theories. Cultivation made Nightwatcher with a specific persona in mind; for many other avatars, the Shard could use a cheat-sheat of an existing individual like Patji or Trell.

Registration is up. There are 119 available as of right now (12:17 eastern) before they hit their cap of 500 attendees. https://www.jordancon.org/product/three-day-membership-2021/ Edit: 99 left as of 12:29. Edit: 88 left as of 12:47. Edit: 77 left as of 01:35. I promise, I'm not trying to get all these doubles; I'm just refreshing at what are apparently the perfect times. Edit: 66 left as of 03:37. The bizarre coincidence continues. Edit: 53 left as of 10:40. The curse has been broken! (Close one, though.)

Registrations for scrubs like me open up on noon eastern on the 29th (so next Saturday). I don't see on the website how many are remaining, so I'm planning on playing the old F5 game. Last time I went, we didn't do anything formal, but those of us from the Shard were basically going to the same panels, and then we all kind of hung out in the game hall or the lobby. I'm planning to bring Mistborn: House War and Call to Adventure: Stormlight, and maybe some RPG books so I have an excuse to bring along the fancy new metal dice, so you'll probably be able to find me with the board games, at least.

Brandon talked about the poll results today. Medium was the winner, around 30%; Legacy and RPG were both around 20%; and Light and Heavy filled out the bottom. Next step, they'll look at both a Medium game and an RPG (so as not to saturate the market). If an RPG comes out before Book Five, I wonder how it'll deal with Tension...

On Brandon's website, he's looking for feedback for what kind of board game his team should investigate potentially designing for a Stormlight tie-in. The five options are: Rules-Light, Rules-Medium, Rules-Heavy, Legacy, or RPG. (There is no sixth option. I'm sure the poll will bear that out, and we will see 100% as the total for those five options.) https://www.brandonsanderson.com/wax-wayne-update-stormlight-archive-game-question/ Some of my favorite board games are rules-light board games. But I don't think any of those would make a good tie-in; the ones I like are things like Resistance, where there's a simple rules framework that relies upon social interaction for the nuance. There's really nowhere in rules that simple to fit a Stormlight theme; might as well just make Stormlight Monopoly or a Roshar Ticket to Ride map. (Although, honestly, the latter wouldn't be all that bad.) There has been a glut recently of what I would call rules-light card games, like Unstable Unicorns or Exploding Kittens, that I don't really enjoy all that much. They're focused on having some sort of theme, but there's not enough meat to the game; draw off the top, make the obvious moves, and hope nobody else draws something good. Uno with a gimmick. Some of my favorite board games are rules-medium board games. In fact, my favorite two games, Dominion and Small World, would be in this category. What makes them so good is the expansions for them; the base game has a lot of room for design space, and an extended production lifetime for the game lets the designers explore every possible cranny of what that game could do. But most of the licensed games I've seen and enjoyed (including House War) get maybe one expansion, maybe none, which really limits the replayability and potential of rules-medium games. I'd be a huge fan of Stormlight expansions to some already-existing games, like Stormlight Call To Adventure. (Small World may be reaching the end of its lifecycle, but it's already had some licensed tie-ins.) Some of my favorite board games are rules-heavy board games. Cosmere Space Age Twilight Imperium would be where it's at, man. But here's where I think a Stormlight game would have the most room to maximize its potential, both in rules and flavor. (And this was what I voted for.) Several Shattered Plains board games have been rolling around behind the scenes, but none of them have apparently panned out. That really seems like the most viable option, either something homegrown, or something that draws heavily from another game (like Star Wars: Rebellion draws from Twilight Imperium). These are the games where you see things like victory condition cards, which could fit in book events (ones that did happen, and ones that were averted) in a similar style to Call to Adventure, if you wanted a full-Roshar war game. I haven't actually played any legacy games. But you want to have a real game first, and then tweak it into a legacy version. So don't start there. And RPG, it's always a good bet, and I think that Crafty could fit decent Stormlight rules into there. The thing I like least about their system is the micromanaging of metal reserves; but I think the rest of the system is pretty neat, and I've toyed with making Star Wars rules out of it. (Since my RPG group only plays Star Wars systems.) Not to get too nitty-gritty into the details, but I think there's room to treat Powers like Resources, which I think would fit pretty well with Stormlight. Instead of having to actually track your character's Stormlight reserves, you'd just get temporarily worse at using yours powers after doing impressive feats with them. So I'd be down to see Crafty come out with a Stormlight core rulebook. (Although I have found their expansion books to be very fluffy, almost no new rules in them.) What do the rest of you think?

Watch there be only one ticket available, and they make you and me do a WoB-off for it.

Nothing formal, although at the end of each livestream Brandon usually says his expected plans. It was every second Thursday for a while, then went to Wednesdays while he was teaching a class, and now it's the first Thursday of every month. But it's been pretty flexible, so the only way to know for sure is to keep an eye on Brandon's social media for announcements the day of or the day before. Same thing pretty much for Reddit AMAs or interviews with online Q&A; you never know until they're announced, and they sometimes get very short notice.

JordanCon will be happening this year, and according to the FAQ Brandon will be in attendance. https://www.jordancon.org/jcon2021faq/ However, attendance will be capped at 500 people, and those slots are being offered on a rolling schedule to those who have already purchased tickets (I believe for the 2020 event, before it was cancelled). If there are not 500 people from that pool who choose to attend it in-person this year, registrations will be opened up to the public, at some point after May 22nd. The FAQ says that there are no ways to transfer existing memberships, so if you're in my boat (wasn't going to attend 2020, would like to attend 2021), then all we can do is wait and see.

In last week's stream, they tentatively decided on the June stream to be a spoiler stream, full Cosmere spoilers. If it's the first Thursday of the month, that would be June 3rd. I'll keep an eye out if they come out with any plans for taking questions; I've gotten stuff in on Twitter early on, but haven't had too much luck lately.

I'm hoping to see some references to silver and a certain silver-nickel alloy, either worked into the story itself or in the Ars Arcanum.

Pulleys is where I looked to understand conjoiner and reverser physics, as well, and I came to basically the same conclusions. The math works out nearly identical, but then things get a whole lot nicer than they do for real pulleys. We can have negative tension force, and when the weights on either end move in multiple directions, the vector for the tension force doesn't have to change due to physical limitations. I've attached my current understanding of the system below. (Or tried to attach; it usually takes me a few tries to successfully put a picture in a post.) The equations can be derived using just gravity and the lifting force in one dimension; three equations (sum of forces on each half, and the physical constraint of equal or opposite accelerations) and three unknowns (both accelerations and the tension force). Moving in three dimensions, you just set up those same three equations for each dimension (or use simplified versions if you've isolated that particular plane of motion). I haven't looked too closely at the "inefficiency" situation, but I suspect it will be a property of both distance and the magnitude of the tension force. Like if the rope for the pulley went across a speed bump; farther you are, the bigger the speed bump (more surface area for friction); and the harder you pull, the harder the rope rubs against the speed bump. But I haven't compared that to the text, yet; if you are able to post the passages and find any specifics, that would be appreciated.

I've proposed this exact thing before, along with quite a few other potential avatars. You may be interested in reading through this thread:

I thought it matched Braize pretty well. Selections from Kaladin's vision: The wind and light that hate align with Odium's presence on Braize. And the phrase "windswept crags" is specificially used by Raboniel to describe Braize: Tangentially, since Hoid doesn't recognize Braize in Kaladin's visions, this seems to resolve The Biggest Rafo:

Brandon's publicist Adam pulls together questions from a variety of sources; Facebook, Twitter, I believe Instagram, and the live chat on the YouTube video. It's a mix of questions asked beforehand on other avenues and stuff coming in at-the-moment. I'd recommend watching for the social media posts next week.

While not quite the same, I've been struck as I've been going through the book again (did a day 1 read, still working through a slower in-depth reread) about several sentences that appear in two places, almost word-for-word. There's a line about how spren don't die if they're killed, they reform in the Cognitive Realm; it gets dropped in two different passages. (There were at least two more that I can't remember off the top of my head; I wasn't taking notes on the phenomenon until I got to the third one.) And in a similar vein, in Lasting Integrity, we've got Shallan observing how if stuff gets too far "up" from any one face, it gets caught in the normal Shadesmar gravity; but soon afterwards, Adolin spends some time wondering about why the buildings are all so short and what would happen if you got too far up, as if the reader hadn't just seen that in action a few pages earlier. The stuff I noticed is more out-of-universe, yours was in-universe, but I think both are ultimately due to a lack of editing. When an author finally makes it big, you hear a lot of the criticism mention "editors don't even try"; Robert Jordan, George Martin, Brandon Sanderson, I've heard it pretty frequently for all of them. Usually, it comes up for bigger-picture story grievances; how does the publisher let him get away with dragging these sequences out or putting the character down such-and-such a path. But where I think it actually hits is in the smaller stuff. Brandon does have a new Tor editor (she appeared on one of the release day YouTube videos), and the timeline for editing is as fast as the publisher can get it. What's been striking me on this book (and maybe it's been there for previous books, and I just didn't notice it) was the lack of polish on little things like this. It's not stuff that'll ruin the book, by any means. And with the way Dragonsteel has been treating the leatherbounds, using them to catch up on ten years of crowdsourced editing, I think it matters even less in the long run, since the release day book isn't the "definitive edition." So I wouldn't be surprised if Mraize's lines got tweaked at some point down the road, if they were just an oversight that got lost in a 1200 page book.

Thanks for the translations. I posted some longer thoughts over in the Fabrial Metals thread (with light Shadows for Silence spoilers), but long story short I think the silver-nickel alloy is there to retain an imprisoned Cognitive entity. It doesn't directly affect the function of the knife as Navani was using it (to transfer Investiture), but naming a specific alloy like that has to be a clue to something, and I think it has to do with keeping a Herald from fading away.

The sketchbook pages have been translated, and I think we have a new fabrial metal from the soul-stealing dagger: (top is Navani notes, bottom is Raboniel) The silver-nickel alloy has to be significant. Why use a particular alloy if there was no reason? What is the dagger's function? To guide Investiture, to rip out a soul and send it somewhere else. That is all accomplished through the raysium; it's what's responsible for the "dagger's function." The silver-nickel alloy (no specific products jump out at me), if it has a function, would be something ancillary. So, what might a silver alloy do in fabrial science? The trivial answer is that it would do the opposite of purse silver. Which is not all that trivial, truth be told, because we've seen how silver interacts with Investiture. Silver repels Shades and reverses their whithering; it is bad for them, good for people. And the Threnodite chain (in the chapter 64 epigraph, almost certainly the one seen in Celebrant) is able to anchor someone through Cognitive anomalies. (Whatever those are.) This might be a positive effect on the being or a negative effect on the Cognitive anomaly; I can see it either way, depending on if the chain is true silver or a silver-nickel alloy, as well, or if there is also Threnody-specific Investiture associated with it in addition to silver's natural realmatic properties. So, what does this have to do with the soul stealing knife? These were created to trap Heralds. But Jezrien didn't persist in the knife; once he was removed from the Oathpact, he faded away. There was nothing to stabilize him, according to Kalak. I think this silver-nickel alloy is a late modification to the knives to try to retain the soul of the Herald after it has been taken. Whereas silver in the cage would drive the Herald's soul away, the alloy does the opposite and keeps them there. (Or is supposed to help with that, at least.) So I propose that silver repels Cognitive entities, and that the silver-nickel alloy attracts them. (I promise I won't talk about silver's allomantic symbol as an external metal, or whether an Allomancer would only be able to burn it in the Cognitive Realm, which is why it has been believed to be Allomantically inert.)