Ixthos

If I'm following you correctly then the system is: Week 01: tWoK: Prelude to 15: The Decoys (treating Prelude and Prologue as one chapter due to Prelude's short length) Week 02: tWoK: 16. Cocoons to 31. Beneath the Skin Week 03: tWoK: 32. Side Carry to 50. Backbreaker Powder Week 04: tWoK: 51. Sas Nahn to 66. Codes Week 05: tWoK: 67. Words to Epilogue: Of Most Worth, and WoR: Prologue: To Question to 8. Knives in the Back - Soldiers in the Field Week 06: WoR: 9. Walking the Grave to 23. Assassins Week 07: WoR: 24. Tyn to 38. The Silent Storm Week 08: WoR: 39. Heterochromatic to 57. To Kill the Wind Week 09: WoR: 58. Never Again to 73. A Thousand Scurrying Creatures Week 10: WoR: 74. Striding the Storm to 89. The Four, and then one more for Epilogue: Art and Expectation Week 11: if we include Edgedancer then the total 20 chapters of Edgedancer so as not to divide reading into 19 and 1. Otherwise shift week 12 to here, 13 to 12, etc. we also might want to re-read Warbreaker as well, preferably before Words of Radiance but if we do re-read it we should definitely do so before Oathbringer Week 12: OB: Prologue: To Weep to 18. Double Vision Week 13: OB: 19. The Subtle Art of Diplomacy to 34. Resistance Week 14: OB: 35. First into the Sky to 53. Such a Twisted Cut Week 15: OB: 54. An Ancient Singer's Name to 69. Free Meal, No Strings Week 16: OB: 70. Highmarshal Azure to Interlude I-7: Envoy Week 17: OB: Interlude I-8: Mem to 102: Celebrant Week 18: OB: 103. Hypocrite to 118. The Weight of it All Week 19: OB: 119. Unity to Epilogue: Great Art So this pattern would you say? Of course if someone wants to check I have gotten this list correct I would appreciate that :-P Also if anyone can think of more appropriate break points, or days to stretch it a bit further, etc., or if Edgedancer and Warbreaker should or shouldn't be in the list.

Sounds good to me :-)

Sounds fun :-)

Please note I haven't read the Dark One yet, and it will be a while before I am able to, but I don't mind spoilers :-P I'm listening to the Shardcast podcast at the moment, and something just occurred to me, but please note once again this is speculation based on what I've heard others saying, so if I misunderstood anything, I apologise. This isn't so much a theory as it is an observation. I heard in the podcast that Shakespeare is referenced in the story, implied to have known or known about one of the Dark Ones or someone else on the planet. This has got me thinking ... Shakespeare is often called the Bard, and his stories always had a strong narrative (or Narrative). Could Mirandus be in the Dark One setting the inspiration for Shakespeare to have written the Tempest, about a powerful wizard named Prospero who only became a wizard after his exile and orchestrated a plot to manipulate those who become trapped on the island of his exile (a Narrative, perhaps) in order to reverse the wrong done to him, with a daughter called Mirand(a/us), and as tempests often have lightning so then tying to the electrical phenomena, and ... well, I don't really have much else ... ... Okay, so this isn't even a full observation, but I hope the general idea has been conveyed. Can anyone see any connections besides this tenuous one to Shakespeare's works, especially the rest of the Tempest? Or that Mirandus is somehow a place where story ideas converge?

Well when aluminium is more prevalent and medallions are in common use, I suspect that might change ;-)

If you use another browser, or open an incognito, etc. tab, does the problem persist?

Here's one from the 1980's, and can be found here: http://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/alice-and-bob. Cutting out the preamble: Alice and Bob have been used to illustrate all sorts of protocols and bits of coding theory in scientific papers. Over the years Alice and Bob have tried to defraud insurance companies, they've exchanged secret messages over a tapped line, and the've played poker for high stakes by mail. Now if we put together all the little details from lots of papers - a snippet from here, a snippet from there - we get a facinating picture of their lives. This may be the first time in the history of coding theory that a definitive biography of Alice and Bob has been given. Take Bob. Bob is often selling securities to speculators so we can be pretty sure he's a stockbroker. But from his concern about eavesdropping he is probably into something subersive on the side too. Take Alice. From the number of times Alice tries to buy stock from him we can say she is probably a speculator. And she's also worried that her husband doesn't get to find out about her financial dealings. So Bob is a subversive stockbroker and Alice is a two-timing speculator. But Alice has a number of serious problems. She and Bob only get to talk by telephone or by email. And in the country where they live the phone service is very expensive. And Alice and Bob are cheapskates. So the first thing Alice must do is MINIMISE THE COST OF THE PHONE CALL. The telephone in their country is also pretty lousy. The interference is so bad that Alice and Bob can hardly hear each other. So the second thing Alice must do is to PROTECT HER MESSAGES AGAINST ERRORS in transmission. On top of that Alice and Bob have very powerful enemies. One of their enemies the is the Tax Authority. Another is the Secret Police. These enemies have almost unlimited resources. They always listen in to telephone conversations between Alice and Bob. This is a pity since Bob and Alice are always plotting tax frauds and overthrowing the government. So the third thing ALICE must do is PROTECT HER COMMUNICATIONS FROM EAVESDROPPING. And these enemies are very sneaky. One of their favourite tricks is to telephone Alice and pretend to be Bob. So the fourth thing Alice has to do is to BE SURE SHE IS COMMUNICATING WITH WHOM SHE THINKS SHE IS. Well, you think, so all Alice has to do is listen very carefully to be sure she recognises Bob's voice. But no. You see Alice has never met Bob. She has no idea what his voice sounds like. All in all Alice has a whole bunch of problems. Oh yes, and there is one more thing I forgot so say - Alice doesn't trust Bob. Now most people in Alice's position would give up. Not Alice.She has courage which can only be described as awesome. Against all odds, over a noisy telephone line, tapped by the tax authorities and the secret police, Alice will happily attempt, with someone she doesn't trust, whom she can't hear clearly, and who is probably someone else, to fiddle her tax return and to organise a cout d'etat, while at the same time minimising the cost of the phone call. A coding theorist is someone who doesn't think Alice is crazy. (C) John Gordon 1984

*Laughs merrily* They are! ... well, the maths can be :-P Good luck and God bless :-) control theory really is facinating, I hope you enjoy it :-)

It relates to control theory. Basically the poles and holes of a system, plotted in the s-plane (a complex plane), describe how the system behaves - basically they describe signals that either decay (the left half) or grow to infinity (the right half), and so a stable system only has poles on the left half of the plane. Think of them as sine waves that, for poles on the left half decay in amplitude, and those on the right half are sine waves that grow in amplitude, the frequency of those sine waves is defined by the pair of poles' y-value - the further from zero, the greater the frequency. The x-value then is in effect the exponent of the number the sine wave is multiplied by. ... of course its been a while since I took control courses, so I might have screwed up the description in some ways, but that is the general idea :-P Hope this helps! [Edit] Also, this might help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-plane

They might be viewing it as Harmony the shard rather than Sazed the vessel having done it. Even though Rashek ordered them to be made, and without using the power of the Well, he was once part of Preservation, and making those acted according to Preservation's designs, so Harmony, the union of Ruin and Preservation, "planned" for the caverns to be made, and so those actions are assigned to the shards.

The extreme right is Taldain, I think, as it is an "eyeball" planet that is tidally locked, a landmass on Dayside surrounded by ocean and covered in white sand. The green one next to it might be Nalthis, as it is giving a bit of a "breath" vibe with the green clouds. I think the extreme left one might be First of the Sun due to all the water.

Okay, its taken me longer than I had expected to get back to this, sorry about that. I haven't been giving much thought to this lately, but I do still want to put down some more of the ideas I've had for this story from before. These are just a few points for the setting, but later I'll try to expand on them slightly. Post 2: Focusing I've decided that the magic is actually shared by both groups, but used in different ways, the one binding them entirely to organic beings and trying to increase the amount of magic in the world, the other trying to harness that magic and restrict it, keeping it contained and under their control. Also, as dwarves are in mythology actually a type of elf, I'll make all the elves actually dwarves, but different human cultures that interact with them see some as one type, and others as another type - as in, their contact with one group in person makes them think of them as traditional elves or dwarves, but their indirect contact with the other means they think they are a different species, and so they view the other group as traditional dwarves or elves, or even orcs and goblins. Elemental magic system. I like to do variations on elemental systems, and usually with five elements, so lets use that idea, and tie it into the genetic engineering and prison system. Also, unless the abilities are tied to a mythical creature, they CANNOT be used as standard attacks, so no fireballs or throwing rocks - they can only be used as part of these systems: Fire: Energy and power sources, including running the steampunk engines Aether: Dimension affecting, so affecting time and space as well as accessing other universes, including the universe where magic comes from Water: ties to genetics and manipulating life, so allowing one to form mythical creatures, which themselves can be bound to one of the elements, giving them abilities, such as dragons having fire and one or more of the other elements, nymphs having water, giants having earth, and the Minotaur which is in the prison system having aether. This power is mainly used by the genetic engineering dwarves, and they also combine it with aether to allow the mythical creatures produced to be a source of magic, in essence making each - except the Minotaur - act as an inflowing portal from the world where magic originates. The Minotaur, however, is produced by the steampunk dwarves, based on something the genetic engineering faction produced, that acts as the reverse, a portal that flows the other way, sending magic back Earth: Steampunk material working, so forming the materials and giving them certain abilities - in essence metalurgy and materials science amplified with magic, someone with these abilities able to forge and craft materials with magical properties Air: flight, weight, and tying machines together, so a leaver will affect something at a distance, but this requires tying it to aether Fairy tales to try to use, and a mixture from across the planet, and parts to focus on: The Soldier and Death (Russian) - soldier who traps death Theseus and the Minotaur (Greek) - battling the Minotaur in the labyrinth Pandora (Greek) - how misery entered the world, possibly tie to how magic came about Various tales with Anansi the spider (Africa) - mainly the story of trying to gather wisdom and then wisdom being scattered. TIE TO PANDORA Jake and the Beanstalk, Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks (Europe) - various, but mainly involving humans interacting negatively with monsters, not always the monster's fault Various animal brides stories, and The Little Mermaid (all over the world) - various, but mainly involving humans interacting positively with monsters Repunzel (Europe) - escaping a prison. TIE TO MINOTAUR Look more at various fairy tales around the world.

Hmmm ... how about Calculation? (either that or Batman :-P )

Indeed! :-D You know, I'd forgotten I'd made this thread. Here is an old one, but that just means its a classic ;-) A mathematician, an engineer, and a statistician went out to hunt deer. Soon they spot one, and the mathematician carefully calculates, based on the weight of the bullet, the speed at which it will leave the barrel, the distance to the target, and the projectile's arc due to gravity, how to hit the target. So the mathematician takes aim, fires, and misses by one metre to the left. "Ahh!" Says the engineer. "You forgot to take the wind into account. Here, let me try." So the engineer takes the gun, eyeballs it, fires at the deer, and misses by one metre to the right. "Ah ha!" Says the statistician. "We gottem'!" (Of course the real flaw in this joke is the statistician should know better than to only use two samples. That's why they should have used a shotgun - it would have increased the sample size.)

@jamesbondsmith Have you watched any of Brandon's lectures online? I can't exactly recall if he did this, but I think in one of them he might have gone through the pitching process. I took notes from them but I'll need to search through them to see if he covered this, but either way you might find those videos helpful in the entire writing process. Good luck! (Oh, and I think he does still have to pitch stuff, you never stop, but it is easier for him to do so now because he has a reputation of writing books that sell.)

@Snorkel Is it any of the entries in literature on this page? There are quiet a few of them .... Either way I hope this helps!

Spoilers for something completely unrelated to Brandon - the original Thief trilogy of games :-P This is a little random, I know, and this isn't a new observation for me, but if anyone here is a fan of the original Thief series (Thief: The Dark Project / Gold; Thief 2: The Metal Age, and; Thief (3): Deadly Shadows), did it strike anyone else as interesting that: All in all this is something I'd been meaning to talk about before, but kept forgetting to do. So, anyone else a fan of the Thief series?

@aneonfoxtribute I don't mean the ship uses the perpendicularity to travel, but rather than the core of the ship - the warp drive of the ship - would be a perpendicularity as a possible side effect due to the amount of investiture contained, allowing for cognitive realm travellers to board the ship while it is travelling. So do you think that might happen? :-P Also, for the spren, something I'm wondering about is if the spren would be at risk of dissolving into the shard, or their mind merging with the knight, or both minds simultaneously holding the shard while being separate. If I'm following you correctly your take is that the spren maintains their bond to the knight but now investiture can flow back into the spren? :-)

In many ways I think Nightblood represents the other half of Endowment than what is typically thought of. The shard Endowment is, I think both taking and giving, not just giving, and as one of Endowment's signature traits is making cognitive shadows - shadows which require the constant influx of Breath, thus removing them from the system - Nightblood is likely to be even more damaging to a cognitive shadow than to someone who isn't. Think of it like heat drying up a puddle. A cognitive shadow is the puddle directly exposed, while a normal person is the puddle shielded by a piece of cloth. Both will disappear, but one will do so more slowly. Cognitive shadows are made of investiture, and contact with Nightblood would be investiture being directly in contact with something that consumes it. Unless their is more to their investiture mass than a normal person has, they probably would be consumed more rapidly, and even if they have a greater investiture mass they probably lose it at a faster rate than a normal human would, even if they would last longer.

Happy to talk :-P What do you think would happen to the spren of a knight if that knight were to take up a shard? Do you think era 4 ships will have perpendicularity warp cores?

What scenes are you waiting for, in any individual series or in any conflux book, including late Stormlight Archive (if I'm right about it being conflux or partially conflux) and Mistborn era 4? These can be scenes you are sure will happen, as well as scenes you hope will happen. Awakening a Mistcloak / Mistborn fighting while wearing an Awakened Mistcloak Mistborn vs Radiant Two shards communicating, things from their perspective but both long accustomed to being shards - bonus points if there are scenes from both shards' points of view Cyborg hemalurgy Forger and Lightweaver interacting Perpendicularity warp core Kandra and Sleepless interacting Someone and their spren - or ten people and their spren :-P - taking up a shard, and what happens to the spren Elsecaller Scotty ("Ten to beam up, Mr. Scott.") Wired - and wireless - communication's impact on the cognitive realm / "wireless" communication made using wires in the cognitive realm Zinc / Brass Misting or Mistborn using pulses to remotely control a machine attuned to soothing and rioting Space ships, each powered by their own magic system or combinations - so Surgebinding fabrial ships vs Allomantic ships vs Aether vs Awakening vs Dor What are you looking for? :-)

I'll do another world building update for this setting later - I'm thinking of adding an elemental system, as well as some of the natures of the societies, as well as the prison - but I'll only do that in a week or two or three. Until then, here are some other ideas - and please, if you like, post here also :-) Nobles have abilities that the serfs/peasants don't, but interbreeding has allowed some to gain these abilities (Mistborn) One nation that was once part of another and is smaller and weaker but whose royalty once ruled the nation it came from (Warbreaker) Knights in magic power armour (Stormlight Archive) Hero with the memories of other heroes (The Wheel of Time)

@Snakenaps Narnia really is a great series :-D The Magician's Nephew and the Last Battle are my favourites, something about the birth of a world and its death and what comes after really appeal to me, and more than any other book in the series the Magician's Nephew gave me a love of portal networks :-) Hope you like Eddings and Asimov. Eddings writing is full of cliches, but the characters are very enjoyable and he handles them well, and oh the snark! Asimov also wrote a few mysteries as well, including the short stories of the Black Widowers, a gentlemen's dinner club where each meeting one of the members would invite a friend who posed a puzzle in their life to the group, and which the waiter would always be the one to solve :-) and he also did some science fiction mystery as well, so you can always combine your reading of the two. Agatha Christie is probably my favourite non-science fiction and fantasy writer - she MADE so many of the twists that pervade the genre to this day. I actually named the main villain (well, sort of - it mainly works for the force of evil, but is the main leader of that force's forces) of my setting after one of her villains due to them using a similar method to ... well, better not spoil it :-P but if you love twists and fair play whodunnits, then definitely read her - as you say you are also a writer, and mystery can really help gear up the mind :-) It's the reason mystery and science fiction and fantasy appeal to me so much, as they all make you think, and so they go together well. Hope you enjoy them, and if you know of any science fiction or fantasy mystery books please let me know :-)

@Snakenaps Welcome! Glad to have you here :-) Glad you like the Dragonriders of Pern :-) Have you read: The Wheel of Time - bonus in that the last few books were written by Brandon Chronicles of Narnia - for more than just the young, and my own introduction to fantasy The Lord of the Rings - you probably have, but it is a classic, and one of the best in the genre The Elenium and the Belgariad by David Eddings - showing how you can take cliches and still make a great story Foundation by Isaac Asimov - one of the greatest classics of science fiction, and the future of his Empire and Robot's series also, tying them together Dune by Frank Herbert - philosophy and ecology all wrapped up in a feudal future And moving outside of the fantasy and science fiction genre, have you read anything by Agatha Christie? One of the finest mystery writers ever. Hope you enjoy them!

@Honorless on this topic, what is your take on Terry Pratchett's Discworld, with Carrot and Vetinari?