Shivertongue

He's totally doing that right now.

So much yes on this! In fact, I did restart it the moment I finished. The book is fantastic, and so much fun. Ask in the chatroom, I was raving about it a few weeks ago.

I got a nice little surprise in the mail today, at least a week earlier than I had expected it. My copy of the Mistborn Adventure game, special hardcover edition, arrived along with my phone bill and several items addressed to 'Resident', whoever that shmuck is. Noticing the sender was one Crafty Games, I tore open the box - somehow cutting myself on the piece of packing tape - and then the bubble-wrap envelope inside. With baited breath I drew it out, and for the first time, I saw the cover in person. The sexy, sexy cover. I admit, for a short time I just stared at it, absorbing the artwork of Ben McSweeney, also known around these parts as Inkthinker. Utterly gorgeous, with an amazing use of color and space that makes me equal parts inspired and jealous. After that, I spent some time just touching the book, feeling the smooth cover, and then smelling it. It smells... like awesome. After that, I carefully removed the dustjacket to admire the gold-embossed lettering on the spine. It's very shiny. The inside cover contains the Table of Allomantic Metals, as amazingly beautiful as ever. And yes, I spent time looking over this as well, despite the fact that I have the poster of the exact same thing on my wall right above my bed. Before opening the book, I turned to the back to see the Feruchemical table. What I noticed first, however, was a quote from out very own Kerry Stuart (KChan). Kerry's quote! And then, even more awesomely, a quote from me! My name and my words, in print for the first time. I will admit.. I squee'd. Multiple times. The inside of the back cover contains the newly-released Table of Feruchemical Metals, looking just as snazzy as the Allomantic table in the front. Whoopsie... two little mistakes down in the corner... Unfortunately, I'm not going to provide pictures of the inside of the book. There has to be something for you all to wait for, doesn't there? But let me say that I am very excited, and feel a burning need to spend time paging through this, and preparing my first game. What I can say, right now, is that Brandon's short story, The Eleventh Metal, is a real treat to have in the very beginning, providing players who might not have read the trilogy something of a stepping point into the story of Mistborn and the world of Scadrial. Further in, we get to game rules, the best character creation section I have ever seen in any game, detailed descriptions of how the metals work, interspersed with more incredibly illustrations that make me jealous. Taking in the entire thing overall, though, this is the most beautifully-crafted game book I have ever seen. The wait for it was long, but with all the effort and astounding results, I can only say it was well worth it. Fantastic work, Crafty Games, and I'd like to give my personal respect and accolades to Ben McSweeney, Isaac Stewart, and all of the other artists and designers involved in the creation of this book. It would not be nearly so epic without your work, turning it from a mere game book, into a work of art unto itself. A tip of my hat to you all.

I have one, and it's signed, but it's on my bookshelf. xD Good luck with the search, and welcome to 17th Shard!

Happy Birthday Josh (Rubix)!

The lower body looks too much like the thorax of a wasp for them to be dragons. I might be willing to accept that it is a crabdragowasp, but that takes too long to say and is not as cool as a crabwasp.

And believe me, I have been keeping an eye on the debate even as I engage in it. If immaturity and name-calling do surface - and I am endeavoring to keep such conflict out of this and all threads - then I will personally step in as an Administrator, and not as just another member.

Why, exactly, would they have myths about dragons? Are we presuming there were dragonlike creatures at some point on Roshar, and if we are, upon what basis do we make this assumption? Considering the fauna of this world, their legends and myths would more likely be crustaceans or arthropods. Besides, that image looks like a crabwasp if I ever saw one.

There definitely is not a rule, and nor will we make one. It's more of an unspoken thing, that asking for upvotes is poor form. As the entire system is anonymous, upvoting and downvoting have no rules attached to it. People are free to upvote and downvote anything they choose, for any reason they choose, and with the anonymity they are assured freedom from being flamed or argued with for disagreeing. Asking for upvotes, or encouraging downvotes, or asking who up/downvoted you is, while not against the rules, frowned upon by many.

A fair point. But I have to counter with the fact that, to me, Vorin keteks are not holy, precisely because I am not a believer in Vorinism. To me, they are just poems; to an ardent, they may be up there with holy scripture. Just because another religion, real or fictional, believes something to be holy does not mean that I have to regard it that way as well. My previous post was specifically in regards to Reader. He stated that a ketek about Jesus was truer to source than just about anything else, and I wanted to make the point that this isn't true for everyone. If you are a Christian, then yes it is. I am speaking only for myself, and while I respect and take no issue with the religious beliefs of anyone else, a broad statement such as that could be taken as offensive.

I have to respectfully but utterly disagree with that. Ketek about Jesus are holy, presuming you're a member of one form of Christianity or another. To those of us who are not Christian, a ketek about Jesus is a ketek of just another man, possibly fictional, and thus in our eyes is definitely not truer to source. Keep that in mind, if you would please.

Some people find asking for upvotes to be crass and in poor form.

I deny it. Dragons in general tend to bore me, for the same reason typical fantasy races do. That said, I love finding new takes on dragons, even small ones, such as what Jessica Day George did with Dragon Slippers.

Welcome! Have a waffle, courtesy of your friendly site admins! Don't listen to dhala, the waffles are flaky, golden, and delicious. And they smell heavenly.

I imagine that some keteks are entirely verbal, otherwise men would not be able to write them. In fact, with that in mind, homophones would have to be allowed, because the men wouldn't know if they were spelling a word wrong - for all they know, 'rain' and 'reign' are spelled the same.

I think this is a relevant doublepost. A ketek about Eric's story, which is an epic retelling of Harry Potter from Ron's perspective. A powerful story of love, loss, and triumph against the odds. Also, Ron is a bulldozer. 'Raining bulldozers/run crap over/Ron's over crap/running/bulldozers reigning.'

Okay, this is diverging too much. Let's get things back on topic, with what I think is the best subject for keteks... WAFFLES! Perfect deliciousness/flaky golden disc/beautiful waffleness/beautiful disc of gold/flaky deliciousness perfected.

Which is what I was trying to do as. Boiling an entire book down to a few bits of content which do not represent the story is doing a great disservice to the book. It'd be like if when someone told you about Well of Ascension, all they talked about was Vin killing a dog.

In the version YOU came up with. In the idea I was referring to, the memories do fade unless you store them again. Additionally, if you permanently encode memories, with perfect clarity, into your mind, then eventually it would drive you insane. The human mind can only contain so much information.

We were talking about this same thing in the chat room a while back, and came to the conclusion that the coolest way for Copper Compounding to work would be, when you burn it, you relive the memory from an outsider's perspective. So you can relive it, but also look at it from different angles, in ways you weren't able to when you were experiencing it the first time or simply tapping the memory in a coppermind. Naturally, you could only use one memory from a coppermind, so you'd want to burn one that didn't have anything else in it. But the things you could do with this would be very interesting - forensics scientists compounding a memory of a crime scene, for instance.

I didn't get this one. Would you be able to send it again?

with a unibrow.

Okay, I can't just sit by and let this happen. Gaiman deserves more love here, as does American Gods. Sit down kids, Uncle Shiv is gonna set you straight. First of all, never go with one person’s suggestion. No offense to Aethling, but his interpretation of the book is tremendously flawed. Everything Aethling said does occur in the book, but they are minimal aspects to the overall story. I don’t know what bookstore Jack the Halls works at, but the idea that few Gaiman fans are avid readers is laughably false. Additionally, it says something when people who don’t read as much find a book they love enough to say they love it. Food for thought. His books are full of likable characters and beautiful prose. Stardust has one of the most tragically beautiful endings I have ever seen, Neverwhere is beyond description, and Good Omens is one of the funniest books I have ever read. I have loved everything I have ever read of his, and count him among my favorite authors. But onto, specifically, American Gods, and why it’s a big mistake to just discard it. The scene in which Shadow's dead wife tells him that his best friend was a better lover is not “the tamest scene” in the novel. The book is rather graphic - I will fully admit to that - but American Gods is a novel that is about more than it's story. The plot follows a man named Shadow, who, upon his release from prison, finds that everything that gave his previous life meaning is gone. His wife, killed in a car accident, along with his best friend, with whom she was having an affair, and the job he had waiting for Shadow upon his release. With nothing left, he accepts an offer from the mysterious Mr. Wednesday, and is drawn into a cryptic world where myth and legend coexist with reality. The old gods came to the new world with every human incursion, but their power has dwindled over the centuries as their followers have waned. New gods of the modern world, gods of technology, celebrity, and media, now threaten them with extinction. That is the basic plot, but it goes so much deeper than that. As I said, American Gods is about more than it's story. It is about America, and the truth of this country - that every person who has ever lived here has roots from somewhere else. We have crossed oceans and land bridges, by foot and by ship, bringing with them the culture and beliefs of their native lands and weaving them into a tapestry that forms the American society. It is about Gaiman, having recently moved to the US from the UK, attempting to discover an America uniquely his own. This is a novel that resonates at many levels, levels that I cannot completely put into words. Shadow's quest along the back roads of America occurs alongside Gaiman's search for the American identity. Gaiman paints vivid landscapes with quick brushstrokes, bringing out the beauty of the mundane. There is an undercurrent that runs through everything Gaiman writes, a thread of darkness hidden among poetic prose. Yes, there is graphic content, but this is a story that is about more than it's content. There is a humanization to the gods, bringing them down to the level of mortals while keeping their attitudes and characters true to the myths about them which have endured for millennia. And if you have read mythology - Greek, Norse, Russian, etc - you know the gods have tastes that mortals would deem crude, and seeing these deeds enacted by beings that seem so human can be disturbing. There is not crudity for the sake of crudity, violence for the sake of violence, sex for the sake of sex. This is not Abercrombie or Martin or Morgan, being graphic in an attempt to shock you or seem gritty at the expense of story and fully-developed characters. It does not hold back, though, and does not whitewash the darkness in which some of the characters dwell. It is a rich, complex story, staying true to the mythological characters it uses despite how disturbing it might be. I read this book a few months after it first came out, back in 2001, and it blew me away. It was one of those books where, as soon as I closed it, I just sat there, holding it as I stared off into space for a solid thirty minutes. I have reread it several times since then, at least once a year, and I recommend it to anyone and everyone. I can understand how some of the content might not be for everyone, but I urge you to give the book a chance before you discard even the possibility of reading it. Gaiman is a fantastic writer, every one of his books definitely worth reading. So give the guy a bloody chance, okay? Some people might have found him boring - which is odd, considering that it seems people bored by most books were not bored by his - but give him the chance to bore you. He is one of the best writers I have ever encountered, and a damnation nice guy in person as well.

Actually, I thought you already had to inflict an identical wound on yourself.... I suppose I read that wrong, then. I think there has to be some way to link the two ideas together. They're already quite similar - perhaps a set that requires leeching from others, and a set that requires "leeching from yourself"? It might be a way to get flames still. Overall, though, don't go with what some random - if awesome - person on a forum says. Write the story you want to write, with the characters and the setting and the magic that YOU want to write. I'm happy to give suggestions and critiques, but I would never say "No, you HAVE to do this!" If the I Ching system was exciting you more, then by all means, use it!