bacontime

It's the earthquake part of that suggestion I find most interesting. Since the sunlight and zephyr spores already cover two flavors of explosions, what if these spores create vibration as their main product? Motive Spores: Pale yellow. When motive spores are activated, they let out a burst of electrical sparks which cause struck objects to start vibrating. Whereas zephyr spore eruptions are accompanied by a sharp boom, motive spores are accompanied by a roar that very slowly fades away. Both the intensity and duration of the vibrations increases with the amount of spores activated. ("motive" as in "causing motion") A particular sequence I'm imagining is a person holding a sword being hit indirectly by motive sparks. They're wearing insulating gloves (always be prepared) so the motive sparks don't jump from the sword into their body, but they have to throw down the shaking sword, where it continues clattering across the ground. I'm also imagining that skilled shapers would be able to control the frequency of the vibrations and use that to either control the noise or to destroy things by vibrating them at their resonant frequency.

Void spores: Shimmering opalescent white. When void spores burst, they compress and vanish nearby matter. Matter which is invested or just plain durable is more resistant to the effect. In addition to the obvious dangers, void spore eruptions can leave large gaps in the sea during a stilling. The gaps can cause rapid shifts in the spores which bury entire ships.

In the WoB about Crimson, he says that the crimson sort of corresponds to the essence of flesh. Here's a grosser take on a flesh aether: Bilious spores: Chartreuse. Bursts into slimy writhing tendrils. These tendrils have the curious property of adhering to - and sometimes even assimilating into - exposed flesh. A skilled sprouter can use bilious tendrils to patch wounds. (An unskilled sprouter can use them to make the problem much worse.) Additionally, some residents of the Chartreuse Sea say the tendrils taste great when fried. (They don't.) @Lord Spirit, those are some fun ideas. You know, actual amber can be burned as incense and comes from sticky solidified resin, so your ideas for gray and orange spores could be folded together into a thematically coherent package: Amber spores (again but more ambery): Amber orange. Amber spores initially burst into a sticky viscous liquid which then solidifies as more water is added and the growth potential is exhausted. Amber resin is flammable and its smoke is woody and intoxicating. The long-term effects of "glue smoking" are debilitating, and glue addiction is a serious issue in the Principalities of the Amber Sea. I like your idea for slippery pale blue spores. Since they aren't cold, something like "slipstone" might be a good name, but "frost" does evoke the idea of the stuff creeping across surfaces when the spores burst. Depending on how durable it is, it could be very useful for transporting goods over land. I'm thinking something like canal systems, but instead of being filled with water, they're lined with pale blue tiles. That's a fun image for imaginary infrastructure.

We see six different types of spores in Tress, and are told that there are six more. We'll have to wait for future aether-centric novels to know for sure what these are, but wild speculation is fun! As a reminder, here are the canonical spores: Verdant spores: Emerald green. Bursts into ensnaring vines. Technically edible. Zephyr spores: Azure or sapphire blue. Bursts into breathable air. Used to launch projectiles. Roseite spores: Rose pink. Bursts into glassy crystals. Used for repair and containment. Noted for its resiliancy. Sunlight spores: Golden? Bursts into heat and light. Flares, cookery, etc. Crimson spores: Crimson red. Bursts into spikes (which are made of coral, according to WoB) Midnight spores: Black. Summons a little shadow buddy. Also technically dead spores, which are gray. WoB also tells us that all twelve spore types are at least subtly different in shades. Basic colors not yet represented would be white, purple, brown, and maybe orange. At least a few of the spores would need to be variants of the same color - perhaps a second shade of blue to go alongside zephyr, or a pale matte pollen-like yellow. A metallic Silver Sea would look gorgeous but might be too close to gray. With all that in mind, here are some other spores I think would fit in on Lumar: Silken spores: Dusty white color which could be mistaken for sand. Bursts into a snarl of pale thin fibers. The chief export of the Silken Sea is cloth woven from spore silk, valued for its durability and insulating properties. (It's a bit rough though, so nobles prefer worm silk.) In naval combat, spore silk snarls are less effective than verdant vines at immobilizing ships, but they might work better for Tress's net gun. Also, big snarls can sometimes get lifted from the sea and carried in the winds - something to keep an eye out for. Penumbral spores: Purple. Penumbral spores burst into a frigid plume of cold smoke which obscures sight and leaves behind a violet residue. Sometimes thought of as the inverse to the sunlight spores, which create heat and light. Besides its use in smoke signals, economic applications of penumbral spores are currently limited. The residue makes for a gorgeous dye, but nobody wants clothes which self-bleach near salt or silver. The residue is also a problem for most applications where you'd like to rapidly cool things down on demand, though there's always a few tinkerers in the Amethyst Sea working on perfecting the design of the "penumbral freezer". Umber spores: Brown. Bursts into something resembling rich brown clay. Umber clay, once fully grown, can be baked into porcelain or mixed into compost to aid plant growth. Umber clay is rarely a immediate hazard to ships, but can accelerate the decay of lumber with prolonged contact. And no, it's practically odorless, despite what some sailors like to say. Note that my goal here isn't to try to figure out what the other six spores actually are. (The correspondence to the vorin essences is a good theory along those lines.) The goal is to come up with strange and novel ideas of what the spores could be. Let me know if you have any fun spore ideas.

Based on comments from the SP3 livestream, Virtuosity is indeed about artistry. In fact, the shard was very nearly called Artistry. Ah well, it was a fun theory. Also, someone did end up asking whether Hoid was offered Virtuosity

I had pegged Ingenuity as proto-Invention, but yeah, it could be proto-Virtuosity instead. Nice spot.

My personal guess is that the final shard is something like Mystery or Transcendence. The shards of Adonalsium are fragments of the divine, and the ineffability of God is an important part of many people's faith. A Shard of Mystery seems like a good fit. It also has that dual personality trait/cosmic force kinda vibe that a lot of the shards have.

I'm partial to this theory as well. If the shard's intent were simply to create art, Sanderson could have named it "Artistry" or "Creativity" or something like that. Virtuosity isn't artistic ability. It's the mastery of the technical aspects of an art form. It's the intersection between showmanship and expertise. The word "virtuoso" is most commonly applied to those who can expertly play music, but a hacker can be a virtuoso at manipulating computer systems; an athlete can be a virtuoso at their sport. And the word "virtuoso" was historically applied to refer to a scholar or a connoisseur. I'm a bit biased though. My personal guess for the intent of the similar-to-wisdom shard was "Perfection", so my guess will have been close if Virtuosity's intent is about technical mastery instead of art appreciation. Virtuosity might be God's own perfect skill, separated from the virtues that give meaning to that perfection. Also, as a little bonus theory: I propose that Virtuosity was initially offered to Hoid, but he turned it down. It fits with his personality and powers.

I looked at the "canonical" MtG colors of the Shards, and tried to fill in the gaps while keeping the color-pie balanced and symmetrical. I propose that one of the unknown shards is Mystery. Obviously, I don't think that Sanderson actually designed the Cosmere with a symmetrical color-pie in mind, but hey, check out the results: Looks pretty neat. 1. The Canonical Shard Colors: This imposes some constraints: 2. The New Rhythm of War Shards: In Rhythm of War, we learn of the Shards Invention, Mercy, Valor, and Whimsy. Whimsy is Blue/Red. It just feels right. Mercy has shades of White, Green, and maybe Black. We're told that "Mercy worries [Harmony]", which makes me think of mercy killings. And hey, there actually is a MtG card called "Mercy Killing". It's White/Green, so let's go with that. Valor feels White and/or Red. Valor means Courage and Boldness. It's about taking action, which is very Red-mana. And it's about heroic self-sacrifice, which is very White-mana. Ideally, I'd assign Valor to White/Red, but it's not possible to have White/Red Valor and Blue/Red Whimsy without unbalancing things, and I feel more strongly about the Whimsy Connection. It can't be Mono-White because I already have Mercy taking up the empty White slot. So Valor is Mono-Red. Finally, we have Invention, which is firmly within Blue's slice of the color pie. The act of invention can be all sorts of colors depending on what that invention is being used for. But Invention for it's own sake? That's Mono-Blue. 3. The Two Unknown Shards: Based on the Choices above, we need a Blue/Black Shard, and one more Mono-Blue Shard to complete the set. Blue/Black is the color pair of Cautious Scheming, Shrewdness, and Ruthless Rationality. Sanderson has mentioned that there is a shard which "just wants to hide and survive", and Blue/Black seems like an excellent fit for that pattern of behavior. There is a popular fan-theory-shard that this 'Survival Shard' has an intent that is something like Prudence, which seems to fit Blue/Black well. Another fitting Intent for this shard might be Perfection. Mono-Blue can be taken many different ways. It's the color of formalized learning and systematic perfection. It's the color of illusions and trickery. And it's the color of the cold dark depths of the sea. Remember that the shards of Adonalsium are fragments of the divine. And the incomprehensibility of the divine to mortal minds is an important part of many people's faith. A Shard of Mystery thus seems like a good Mono-Blue option, representing the ineffability of God, but separated from the virtues which make it worth pursuing understanding nonetheless. One of the shards, which explicitly isn't the Survival Shard, isn't on a planet. Whimsy seems like it could fit that description, flitting about from place to place. But a Mono-Blue Mystery Shard also could have thematic ties to the dark depths of space. Such a Shard might also be called Transcendence. 4. Bonus Material Here, I relax the constraints to allow some of the canonically mono-color Shards to be dual-colored. That way, I can match up one Shard with each mono-color and with each color-pair: And here are some templates if you want to make an MtG Shard diagram yourself:

Ah! I didn't know that was possible. That does make things much easier. It would apply torque to your own body, but since you need to be a mistborn to pull this off anyways, pewter can help with the strain. So you'd just need to make sure you're firmly attached to something large enough to keep you from beyblading.

Oh absolutely. Someone commented on the image in the gallery that you'd probably need Feruchemical Zinc to switch target points quickly enough. And I'm inclined to agree. Instantaneous thrusts à la Kelsier's battle in the square are much more feasible than hovering. Say the radius of the idol is 10cm. (That's actually a bit too large for 25kg of brass, but eh, round numbers.) The moment of inertia of a solid ball is (2/5)*m*r^2, which works out here to 0.1 kg m^2. The depicted forces apply 600 Nm/rad of torque. So the angular acceleration is 6000 radians per second per second. In other words, ignoring friction, it would take less than a second of constant hover juggling for the surface of the ball to accelerate past the speed of sound. I don't know enough about tensile strength to say exactly when the idol would explode, but yeah. It would heat up, start creating small sonic booms, and then rip in two. (The second scenario avoids these problems by transferring all the force into the ground, which makes the system static.) If you actually wanted to hover juggle something without Lord Ruler level skills, the ideal candidate would be something like a wide, lightweight hoop with a metal ring on the outside. (Cylinders have high moment of inertia for their mass.) It would also help to line the ring with some sort of structure to create plenty of drag and slow the spin. You could probably rig it up to make a musical sort of buzz. Spinning - that's a good trick!

This is entirely possible without allomantic friction, but would take extreme finesse. Please refer to the following doodle technical diagram: Suppose you have an mistborn skilled enough to apply forces to parts of objects rather than the entirety of an object. He wants to pick up a brass idol from a pedestal without getting close (scary spiders are at the base of the pedestal). The idol has a mass of 25 kg and its height is 1/6 of the distance between the allomancer and the idol. The bottom of the idol is level with the allomancer's center of mass. For simplicity, assume that gravity on Scadrial creates a downwards acceleration of 10 m/s. In order to overcome gravity, the allomancer needs to exert more than 250 N of upwards force on the ball. Let's double it and say that they want to produce 500 Newtons upward. In order to apply that much vertical force by pushing on the top of the ball, the total force of the push must be (500/sin(9.824°) = 3041.38) N. But this push also results in a perpendicular force of 3000 N away from the allomancer. If he pulls on the bottom of the idol to counteract this force, then the net forces will lift the idol straight upwards. (Also, the idol will start spinning like mad, so if the allomancer wants to keep applying the force, he needs to be very good at juggling his target points.) A corollary to this is that a mistborn can theoretically hover in midair using multiple anchors which are neither above nor below her. The closer the anchors are together, the more power and finesse are required to pull this off.

Sodium and Halite complete the quadrant of bodily metals. Sodium Internal Pulling Bodily Metal Screeners can allomantically burn sodium to gain awareness of their body. A Screener becomes intuitively aware of everything happening in their body. The can feel their own bloodflow, detect infections, and sense the position of every internal organ. Sodium, like potassium reacts with water, making long burns of sodium dangerous. But the quick bursts accessed by ingesting small flakes of sodium are still immensely useful for the purpose of health checkups. The interest in sodium mistings has been bolstered by the recent discovery that sharing blood with another person allows a Screener to sense the other person's body as well. The medical potential is enourmous if a method can be devised which does not involve risky blood transfusions. - Painbearers can use sodium to feruchemically store bodily awareness. Storing in a sodiummind is primarily used to numb pain. This can be dangerous because it also makes the ferring unaware of injuries. Tapping a sodiummind gives an awareness of one's body similar to allomantic sodium, but also increases the intensity of aches and pains. Halite (Sodium Chloride) Internal Pushing Bodily "Metal" Dancers can allomantically burn halite to exert control over their body. Halite is viewed by some as an inferior version of allomantic pewter. This is because while both halite and pewter enhance dexterity and balance, halite lacks the boost to strength and healing. But halite grants control over all bodily functions. A Dancer can release or supress the release of adrenalin, granting some level of resistance to rioting and soothing. A Dancer can also cry on command, control their heartbeat, and contort into bizarre positions. A Dancer would rarely beat a Thug in a fight, but it would also be quite difficult for the Thug to actually land a hit. - Nimblefingers can use halite to feruchemically store dexterity. While storing dexterity, a Nimblefinger trips and fumbles. While tapping, they gain the grace of an acrobat and precision of a surgeon. It is interesting to note that storing in a halitemind seems to make a feruchemist extremely irritable. It is unclear whether this is a direct side-effect of the ability, or just a normal consequence of the inconvenience of floppy fingers. Hemalurgically, halite steals human dexterity and sodium steals bodily feruchemical powers. (These metals were inspired by the role of potassium and sodium in controlling the skeletal muscles.)

Sylvite (Potassium Chloride) External Bodily Pushing "Metal" Burning sylvite allows an Allomancer to push on muscles, forcing them to relax. Sylvite mistings are often called "Salt Masseurs" or simply "Masseurs" after the most common career that such mistings find themselves a part of. At a low burn, sylvite grants the ability to sense nearby muscles. Instead of the blue lines of steel allomancy, this extra sense takes the form of external proprioception. That is, burning sylvite allows one to feel the position of other's muscles as if they were your own. There has been much research comparing the limitations of steelpushes and slyvitepushes. Both are more difficult when directed at a heavily invested target. Steelpushes are limited by intervening material, but sylvitepushes seem completely unimpeded by any material except aluminum. Skeletal muscle is the easiest to push on, and pushing on cardiac tissue is thought to be impossible. Sylvite pushes are also limited by some more ephemeral factor thought to be the Allomancers' connection to or familiarity with the target. Masseurs need physical contact to sense or push on a stranger's muscles. But the muscles of a repeat client can be pushed on from several meters away, and some elderly Masseurs report being able to sense their spouse from across the city. Notably, this connection seems possible to build even when not actively burning sylvite. - Feruchemically, sylvite is used to store bodily waste. Filling a sylvitemind can empty the bladder, cleanse the bowels, or purge the blood of certain toxic compounds. Tapping a sylvite mind is seen as mostly pointless, though some ferrings are known to use a sylvitemind to store and tap blood alcohol content. Sylvite ferrings are sometimes referred to as "Cleansers", but the most common name for such ferrings is much more rude. Potassium External Bodily Pulling Metal Burning Potassium allows an Allomancer to pull on muscles, forcing them to contract. Potassium mistings are derisively called "Potassium Gnats" due to the difficulties of actually using their power. Potassium reacts explosively with water, and so consuming any significant quantity of pure potassium risks injury or death. Safely using potassium allomancy involves consuming extremely small specks of potassium suspended in oil and burning them immediately, reducing the practical applications to simple parlor tricks. - Feruchemically, potassium is used to store bodily excretions. Seperate potassiumminds can be used to store sweat, saliva, milk, tears, and sebum. Potassium ferrings are called "Pureskins". Using potassiumminds is far less dangerous than trying to burn potassium, but still carries some risk. The reactivity of the metal, along with its softness, makes it impractical to carry as jewelry. Thus the metalminds are usually used in the home and kept in watertight boxes. Applications include personal hygiene and as an aid in wet nursing. Hemalurgically, sylvite steals bodily allomantic powers, and potassium steals muscle memory. Thanks to the laws of chemistry, both of these forms of hemalurgy prove difficult to actually use.