Pagerunner

Welcome to the deep end! A lot of the story behind the Shards has been intentionally left out of the limelight of the books, to let each series stand on its own. It's hidden beneath the surface, and fans who follow all of Brandon's Cosmere series can find similarities and easter eggs to connect everything together. Similarities in the fundamentals of magic, characters in the background hopping from world to world, and the story behind the worlds' deities (the Shards) don't need to be understood to enjoy a particular series, but they are all there for those who want to look for them. Have you read Mistborn yet? The original Mistborn trilogy gives a really good introduction to Shards, since the characters are learning about the Shards in that world. The readers learn along with the heroes over the course of the three books. And, without straying into spoiler territory, let's just say that the Shards become somewhat active players themselves. Much more so than in Elantris or Warbreaker, and I'd even argue that they're more active than what we've seen so far in Stormlight. But especially after the publication of Hero of Ages, the third Mistborn book, and Warbreaker, people started to look into the connections between Brandon's books, and he gave out some really cool info in interviews. A lot of it has been documented on a site called Theoryland, in their Interview Database: here is every Q&A that has been tagged with 'shards': http://theoryland.com/intvsresults.php?kwt=shards

Duralumin? When I follow the link, I'm seeing Malatium as the exclusive dice for newsletter subscribers. That wasn't even one of the three chosen for the kickstarter exclusives, I believe; those were Duralumin, Electrum, and Lerasium.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on how well the board game integrates the IP of Mistborn with the game itself. It draws heavily from the Final Empire... except, you're playing as the antagonists, trying to deal with the problems of the uprising. The gameplay is drawn from the glimpses of Noble culture seen in the books: imagine every Deal-making session takes place at a ball, as the heads of houses discuss how to keep their Empire from falling apart. In the books, we see informants, Inquisitors, Allomancers, and hazekillers dispatched against the heroes; those are just various tools in the players' arsenals. The heroes spent a lot of time starting riots, sabotaging equipment, and stealing goods; their accomplishments become the player's Problems. House War is not a game based on the book, it's a game set in the world of the book. First impressions remind me of the Portal board game, another licensed game I think should be on the list of good ones. It got a lot of bad reviews, saying 'it's not like the video game at all,' but it's a great game nonetheless that shares the tone and feel of the games. Same with Final Empire - it shares the hopeless, overbearing setting of Mistborn (you're not building the Final Empire, you're just trying to get yourself ahead when it collapses, if you're not actively trying to collapse yourself), an aspect of the series which sold me on Brandon being chosen to finish the Wheel of Time. Sure, the game isn't what you personally might envision a Mistborn board game to be, but you're comparing the game to a hypothetical, nonexistent game and saying it doesn't measure up. I think part of why you think it feels 'generic' is because Allomancy is not unique mechanistically; in this game, Allomancer cards reflect the results of the magic, none of the specific detail-based Allomancy that the books are full of. Again, I'd refer to the point of view of the game: we're not playing as the heroes, we're playing as the heads of noble houses, many of whom are not Allomancers. The players aren't supposed to be running off and using Allomancy, they're coordinating groups of Allomancers to fit into larger plans. So, I think they made a good decision with how to treat Allomancy, and really push it to the sidelines to highlight the deception and social interaction. If you want to be play around with the magic of Mistborn, you buy their other product, the RPG. But, even without Allomancy, I'd say that it looks like the game draws from the setting of Mistborn, rather than the plot or story, possibly to a fault. I don't see how being able to de-skin a game means it's not a good integration of the IP; I'd actually view it as a positive. I've struggled in getting the Mistborn RPG to gain traction in my gaming group, simply because it cannot be taught without an understanding of the Mistborn world, in a way that hasn't been a problem for us for D&D, Star Wars RPG, WoT RPG, or a number of other RPG systems I've played. I can see that to some degree with House War, as well; Personality cards named after Mistings aren't going to mean anything to the uninitiated player, so they are going to be functionally nameless, an extra piece of flavor text on the top. If they were more like Event cards, with names that were evocative of what they did, that would allow Mistborn fans and non-Mistborn fans to pick up on it. Lastly... the optimal social interaction level of games is a personal preference, of course, so I can't say you're wrong. But to dismiss any game with politics is a bit extreme. Social interaction in a board game is not an unfortunate bug, it's a feature, and it's a big reason people play board games in person instead of just Magic Online. Yes, this is all about the politics, but there are many very successful games (Diplomancy, which you mentioned above, Small World, Munchkin) that do the same. It's okay if you do not want to play them, but saying they're all essentially Bohnanza is like saying, "If you don't want that element of social interaction, why don't you just play Solitaire over and over?" Social manipulation is a part of the game, but it is not the only component or necessarily even the major component, just like every game with random elements (like dice) isn't War.

But we don't know when Shadows takes place, do we? All we know from Brandon is that it's in the later half of the Cosmere, but before Stormlight. http://theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1112 I've made a case before that it needs to precede Secret History (spoilers): But that's setting a limit on how late it can occur (~20 years after SH, I think I estimated). I don't think we can set any bounds on how early it occurs. Odium has been bound for over 4500 years on Roshar; if the Evil is the Deepness, then it occurred 1300 years before Stormlight begins; that might fit the bill, timeline-wise. Ultimately, I disagree that it's the Deepness. But not for in-universe timeline reasons; rather, out-of-universe timelines. In the introduction to the short story, Brandon says that the concept for Threnody was a very early idea, developed in 1999 around the same time as Elantris, White Sand, and Dragonsteel. Mistborn was developed later, after Elantris had been successfully published. The concept of Threnody predates the concept of the Deepness (at least, it appears that way; I'm not a time-travelling mind-reader). Brandon could have repurposed the backstory of Threnody to fit with Mistborn, but I still think that Homeland was a new world we haven't seen yet.

First of all, welcome to the Shard! The border on the Silver Kingdoms map is a mirror image of the border on the Surgebinding chart, mirrored top-to-bottom. (Starts with Jezrien in the top-right, Nalan below him.) On the chart, there is a clear correspondence between the Herald and the KR Order; Jezrien is closest to Windrunners, Taln is nearest to Stonewardens, etc. All of the maps in Brandon's books are in-universe documents; I think we know from Word of Brandon that these decorate a cathedral somewhere, but I may be misremembering. Anyways, the importance of symmetry may be the only reason for the arrangement of the Heralds as they are. (Unless each Herald is aligned to a Silver Kingdom... but, no, that doesn't seem to make sense because Taln appeared in Kholinar, and he's nowhere close to it on the map.) But I'm not sure there's any significance to the order of the Heralds in the image you used. (From the Coppermind, right?) Just looking at Jezrien and going clockwise, they are arranged 1-8-10-2-9. As opposed to the chart, where they are arranged in numerical order. I'm not even sure where the image came from... it looks like it might have been put together by a fan from what Brandon's illustrator put on the web here. (I see some pixellation at the very top, especially, which makes me think it wasn't done by Isaac.) So, the order of the Heralds in the circle isn't necessarily significant... but going counterclockwise from Jezrien on the map is significant, and will line up in numerical order.

Brandon has been very open about his future plans for the series, and has given us the names and extimated lengths of a number of Cosmere series. For example, Stormlight is going to be 10 books, and Mistborn was originally going to be three trilogies (Wax and Wayne will have 4 books, bringing the total to 13 Mistborn novels... for now.) As Tobar said, there will be two big Cosmere series, ones where Hoid is a main character: the Dragonsteel trilogy (earliest Cosmere series), and the fourth Mistborn trilogy (described as the 'grand finale'). As the 'bookends' to the rest of the books, these will most likely contain a lot more general Cosmere worldbuilding than usual. Dragonsteel is especially interesting, since it actually occurs before the Shattering of Adonalsium, and features all of the Shardholders as characters. I don't think it's been confirmed, but I know a lot of people speculate that the Shattering happens in the Dragonsteel series. Brandon's plan has changed over the years - at one point, it was 7 books, 2 of which were a Hoid-centric prequel duology (Liar of Partinel) a 5-book main Dragonsteel sequence. The rough draft of Dragonsteel was Brandon's thesis project, and one of the earliest Cosmere stories he plotted. Now, unfortunately, both of these series are a long way off, according to Brandon in his yearly State of the Sanderson update. Dragonsteel won't be published until Stormlight is finished. A few years ago, he wanted to write the third Mistborn trilogy between writing Stormlight 5 and Stormlight 6, but it sounds like he's pushed it back to make room for Wax and Wayne, so the third trilogy might also have to wait until the end of Stormlight, which means we'd have to wait even longer for the last Mistborn trilogy. Fun fact: in 2007, Brandon was going to kick off the Dragonsteel series after writing Warbreaker. He had a draft of the first book (Liar of Partinel), that didn't turn out great, and then when he was approached to finish Wheel of Time, he stopped working on Dragonsteel. When that one WoT book turned into three, Brandon's editor felt that Brandon needed to publish something of his own during that time, as well. Brandon, feeling that Liar wasn't ready, turned to another one of his old drafts - The Way of Kings. So, if things had turned out differently, we'd be getting Dragonsteel now instead of Stormlight. EDIT: Here come the sources! Shardholders are Dragonsteel Characters: http://theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=977#127 Dragonsteel is first, Mistborn is last: http://theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1112#30 Also relevant: http://theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1042#4 Dragonsteel has the Shattering in it: http://theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1094#39 Hoid is a main character in Dragonsteel and Mistborn: http://theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1076#2 Dragonsteel and final Mistborn will be Cosmere-centric: http://theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1076#7 Liar of Partinel history: http://theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=995#2

Looks like the Kickstarter will be up on June 15th. Just a little bit later than anticipated...

Search, search, search, search through the forum archives. http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/39982-order-of-the-stick/

It will work for as long as ettmetal is providing power. There's a small amount of it in the cube, enough to power a few seconds worth. The ships have larger stores, which will continue to provide power. The ettmetal in the cubes is just enough to hold the 'charge' between the Allomancer or Feruchemist and the larger ettmetal power source.

I've made a case elsewhere for why I think Justice and Honor are two distinct Shards. (http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/52690-unknown-shards-and-opposition-in-the-cosmere/page-2#entry395974) It boils down to what the definition of Honor is. I think there's a faulty but easy assumption commonly held that Honor is a synonym for doing good. I have a different definition: I think it means "keeping your promises." Oathpact, Oathgates, the Radiants' Oaths and how they abandoned them... making agreements or covenants seems to be an integral part of how the Shard of Honor interacts with the world. He even managed to bind Odium to some sort of contract or agreement, trapping him in the Roshar system and setting up a system where they would name 'champions.' So, the ways that the various Knights Radiant act aren't necessarily the best definitions of Honorable (capital "H") actions. Windrunners take an oath to defend others, Skybreakers take an oath to be enact justice, Stonewardens take an oath to stand firm when others fall... but it's not what they do that is Honorable, but that they do what they promised to. Justice, on the other hand, is independent of any agreements or promises; it is tied to the inherent morality of actions. Murder isn't wrong just because everyone agreed not to do it; it's wrong because it is wrong! So, Dracnor, I actually hold the opposite view of what you've presented; Justice is the natural laws, and Honor would be more concerned with the human compacts we call the legal system. I have an illustration, but I don't think it makes things that much clearer and has a ton of potential tangents, so I'm just gonna throw it in spoiler tags. Uh oh. In that example, I was talking about violating the terms of a contracting, rendering it... VOID. More contractual-style language coming from Roshar, and I didn't even realize it until I was proofreading my post. Anyways, a much simpler example would be S1 Rumplestiltskin from Once Upon A Time. He kept all of his deals to the letter, but he was in no way Just with how he executed them.

I bet its Shardpool is a super-intelligent shade of the color blue.

Here's the quote in question from Secret History: Hoid is talking about how Kelsier destroyed a Shardpool, about stopping people from worldhopping. I think it's obvious that he isn't referring to the effects on Scadrial's economy; we saw its economy in Well of Ascension, and it wasn't "upended." (Well, not as a result of the Pits being destroyed, anyways. The koloss were another matter...)

If I recall correctly, Suit said that they couldn't figure out the southerners refilled the heat medallions, so we don't actually know either. There are a couple of theories that have been posted, if you look through the Bands sub-forum. I think they Compound to fill medallions, having received powers through Hemalurgy. It's also possible that they use ettmetal to provide the Investiture to fill metalminds. Lastly, there are some terms that Allik used (Firemothers and Firefathers, Excisors) which are not understood completely; there could easily be an entirely new phenomenon that is used to fill medallions. But, the big answer is, we don't know, since Brandon hasn't told us yet.

They're not Cognitive Shadows or Elantrians; they're living people from other Shardworlds. Khriss is from Taldain, the planet White Sand will be set on, and will be a character in the graphic novel and Nazh is from Threnody, the world of Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell. Both of them actually appeared in Bands of Mourning; Khriss was asking Wax questions at the party in New Seran, and Nazh is the mysterious man in the broadsheet stories who is after a map. Also, what line are you referring to? It sounds like something in Secret History, when the Ire were talking about taking Preservation: Alonoe was going to take Preservation and become a Shard; apparently, they couldn't take Devotion (possibly because it is still splintered at this point in time).

Another brain blast! What if it's connected to the system of trade that Hoid said Kelsier destroyed in Secret History? The people in the Restaurant can't grow their own food, mine their own metals, or anything like that - they need to import everything from other Shardworlds. When the Pits were destroyed, the Restaurant lost access to its cheap and plentiful metals!

SA5 is roughly concurrent with Wax and Wayne. The original Mistborn trilogy was 300 years before Stormlight. Considering we've seen Demoux, one of Felt's contemporaries, show up in Stormlight as well, I don't think there's any issues with that backstory being true. I can't imagine Brandon would make up a fake backstory for an annotation; if he's straight-up lying to us here, then what's the dependability of any annotation or WoB?

To get really crazy, we need to try to connect the Restaurant to Vax. Maybe it's a physical place entirely comprised of a Shard's Investiture; the ground, the air, everything, is all made out of this one Shard that's not on a planet. The place is named after the person; that could help resolve the seeming conflict of Ati's last words with the mentions in the Elantris Ars Arcanum. When you called the hypothetical Shard the "proprietor," I got a really cool mental image of a giant complex (I pictured the Jedi Temple, for some reason) floating out in space. People come and go, but one guy is always there at the shardpool, greeting newcomers, answering questions, and catching up with travelers. Nobody realizes he's actually a Shard. Anyways, I feel like I've been saying this a lot, but I'm sure the short story collection will give us some concrete information on the subject. We're not sure when Khriss's introduction is going to be set, but Brandon specified that it's prior to Sixth of the Dusk. As long as it's not set too far before Stormlight, then I think it's a guarantee that the Restaurant exists and that Khriss knows about it. It's a worldhopper hub, and Khriss is a worldhopper.

I think, as long as they didn't try to serialize the show (a.k.a. standalone episodes), they could get away with sticking to the major points, possibly reshuffling them. Here's what I would think would be a decent plan for 4 seasons of 10 episodes: Season 1: Beginners. Book 1. Straight-up EoTW. Get to know the world and the characters. Season 2: Learners. Books 2-4. Have the girls in the Tower and meeting the Seanchan, have the boys out with the Aiel. Perrin can be in Two Rivers to show how things are going back there. Maybe rearrange the plot to put Tear as a three-episode arc at the end of this season, to tie everyone together. Season 3: Leaders. Books 5-11. Everyone starts to develop their armies/nations, fight some Forsaken. Keep the big stuff - Dumai's Wells gets an episode, the White Tower split gets an episode, the battles of Caemlyn and Illian each get an episode. This season would contain political conflicts, but would most likely conclude them (like Elayne's succession, Rand building his empire, and Perrin and the Shaido) Season 4: Legends. Books 9-14. Here's where we really start to fly. Skip most of the talking and the political drama that wasn't covered last season. You cleanse saidin, you restore the White Tower and have them attacked by Seanchan, you have Rand accepting his madness, you get the rescue of Moiraine, and of course you get the Last Battle. Going big or going home, every episode is crazier than the last. I think that tracks with the big-picture character development in the series - I think the two big problems the series had towards the end was that the world got too big (spent time in Arad Doman, with the Whitecloaks, in Ebou Dar, chasing the Shaido all over the continent), and that the characters regressed from Legends to Leaders (after Rand cleansed saidin in book 9, we spent a lot of time with Perrin and Elayne dealing with their respective nations, you have a lot of drama with the Rand and the Seanchan), spending too much time on political conflict when it could have been personal conflict. All that goes to say, I think a show would need to stay focused. RJ spent a lot of time exploring the world while not actively moving forward with the story (looking at you, Bowl of Winds!). I think comparing recent adaptations (Legend of the Seeker vs Game of Thrones) shows that viewers want to follow an overarching story. I thought Seeker was a huge wasted opportunity, since there were so many one-shot episodes. I wanted to follow a story; I didn't want to watch characters face a bunch of mini-crises that they would solve and there would be no lasting repercussions. I think, as long as the show takes the simple characters we start the series with and build them into the leaders of the world by the end, that would be faithful enough in my mind. I won't fret if there are only 5 Forsaken, or a couple of nations get cut, or the Whitecloaks get entirely decimated at Toman Head and never come back. Keep the focus on Rand and friends, and the show would be worth watching.

"Vaeria" is what my copy says. I'm holding out hope that we'll see it mentioned in the star chart that will be coming this fall in the short story collection.

Considering Mistborn Adventures are set between SA5 and SA6, Wayne would be keeping one heck of a secret for him to have worldhopped prior to Alloy of Law. Vasher's not from off-planet - he's a native to Nalthis. I think he was referring to Hoid; we've seen him use perfect pitch. I wonder what else he's been using his breath for... possibly just the life sense. I don't think we've seen any Awakening from him.

My money is on this question: He avoided discussing whether or not Nale or Taln is actually who they claim to be, but still gave an answer.

Brandon first mentioned the Lift novella in his email newsletter, IIRC. He wanted the short story collection to have at least one piece of new fiction, and since SA3 is still a year or so out, he felt a story set on Roshar would be good for the Stormlight fans keep us interested. There's also the possibility of a Lopen story (if he finds time to write it; personally, I'd rather he spent the time working on SA3 directly).

Here's the quote in question: So, it looks like it will be closer to an overall Shadesmar map. Which is just as good, in my mind.

Only mention I could find was that some announcements were referring to the release as a "deluxe hardcover" that would cost $24.99. None of them look like they are contrasting several versions (deluxe version vs chump version), but just using "deluxe" as a description.

Amazon says November 8th for Arcanum release. We'll see what they give us as previews before then... we might be lucky enough to get the introduction, so we'd be able to get the Khriss piece even sooner.