KandraAllomancer

39 minutes ago, seriodor said:

Also what mistakes on Yolen? We haven't heard about anything really bad happening there other than the Shattering, which I don't think involved microkinesis.

Microkinesis allowed for, among other things,  nuclear fission:

Quote

Snipexe

Could you create a nuclear bomb using the Surge of Division?

Brandon Sanderson

Not Division, but there are cosmere powers that are built around splitting atoms.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

We don't know the details, but nukes + bronze age level societies certainly looks like a bad combination

1 hour ago, AndrolGenhald said:

It's just Odium's rhythm though, 180 degrees out of phase. I would think each Shard would have their own rhythm, as most people seem to be assuming.

Absolutely, but I think each Rhytm corresponds to some Intent, which, following the same rules as Investiture, would be some linear combination of 16 Shardic Intents

On 23.11.2020 at 9:17 AM, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Whimsy is probably Kite Magic.

Kite magic is from a minor Shardworld:

It would work perfectly with Whimsy though

5 minutes ago, Brgst13 said:

I disagree with your characterization of anti-Light.  The Intent seemed to me simply being Navani's intent to create anti-Voidlight.  It seemed like the anti-Light was produced by inverting the frequency of Voidlight's tone, so that it created the Investiture equivalent of antimatter and destructive interference.  It does not seem necessary to involve other Shards here, as it only required Odium's tone and Navani's Intent.

Anti-Light is built from Investiture (like everything in Cosmere) and all Investiture got assigned to Shards at the Shattering, so I would assume that anti-Lights and their Intent must be some combination of Shards

I had this idea today. We know that Brandon initially intended the special number for Scadrial to be four:

Quote

King of Herdaz

Roshar is themed around the number ten. Scadrial and the cosmere as a whole is themed around the number sixteen. Are there any other planets themed around certain numbers? And if so, where and what are they? Or Read and Find Out?

Brandon Sanderson

Read and Find Out for that, but yes, this is a thing that I wanted to do at the beginning of the Cosmere and really leaned into in a couple of them. Honestly, with Mistborn, sixteen became the thing, but I was planning to lean into four more than sixteen for that series. But then sixteen became so important to the whole cosmere, and I wasn't sure... let's just say, four is where I was gonna go with that one.

But yes, there are others. Whether I'll actually really lean into them or not remains to be seen. But yes, I have plans.

YouTube Livestream 13 (July 23, 2020)

What if the four Dawnshard Commands were hidden in plain sight somewhere in Scadrian magic - namely in Feruchemical Spiritual attributes? They are exactly the basic building blocks of Cosmere, which would make the four basic Commands used to create the world to be:

Let there be Investiture

Let there be Connection

Let there be Identity

Let there be Fortune

Investiture

Investiture Command would cover Shards that give away their Investiture to create sentient life or beings. Definitely Preservation and Endowment, other possible candidates include Invention and Valor (the latter might be under Connection, we don't have enough information)

Connection

Shards that share the Unity theme - Honor, Devotion, Dominion, possibly Valor

Identity

Shards that embody living up to your Spiritual Ideal and/or helping others do the same. Cultivation, Ambition, Autonomy and (semi-confirmed) Wisdom. Rysn is this Dawnshard and interprets it as Change / Improvement

Fortune

Shards covering luck and the ultimate fate of things. Ruin, Odium, Mercy (complements the divine wrath represented by Odium) and Whimsy (as in capricious fate). The common theme is Passion. Futuresight provided by these Shards is described as dangerous (WoB). If Mercy is the Anguish Shard, then these four Shards would be most prone to be being warped by the lack of context from other Shards

8 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

The Mist does seem to have a faint light, and does not behave like normal mist. Also, I think WoB says that both Mist and Stormlight are forms of gaseous investiture.

They kind of are gaseous, but the type of gas seems to be different on every planet (unlike solid state always being metal and liquid being Shardpools). I would assume that Preservation Investing on Roshar would result in Preservationlight, and Honor would produce Honormists on Scadrial, for example

7 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Preservation’s color is White and Ruin’s is Black. The Mist is analogous to Stormlight, with both being the ‘gaseous’ form of Investiture.

There are two major differences though:

• mists seem to be pure gas, while Lights are some gas/liquid state
• mists have colors, but they don't produce regular light (or suck it from the surrounding space)

20 minutes ago, megafox said:

Was Rayse acting against his Intent? The only thing I can think of was his insistence that his was the shard of Passion, which would then be against the Intent of the shard, however it seemed to me that he was still acting pretty Odious.

My guess would be that he wanted to control people and take their pain - promoting apathy rather than hatred or passion. What happened to the Fused is an excellent example - they're just tired or broken rather than eager for war

18 minutes ago, Blackwarder said:

As we’ve seen in Navaho experiments each light breaks up into a rainbow with one color being disproportionately represented, I believe that if you could somehow combine them all you’ll end up with a perfect rainbow of colors.

I'm not sure about this, as we have 16 Shards and just 7 colors of the rainbow... Plus, Shardic colors are complicated. Voidlight is hyperviolet, the corresponding rainbow color is violet (with an extremely broad band) and the color of Rayseium, also used by Odium in his visions, is gold and white.

Also, we haven't seen Ruin's or Preservation's Lights, just their godmetals (solid state), Shardpools (liquid) and mists (gas), while Lights seem to be something between liquid and gas

We have four confirmed new Shards: Invention, Mercy, Whimsy and Valor. Wisdom (or something similar) seems to be confirmed as well:

Quote

Paleo (paraphrased)

Is Wisdom a Shard? If so, how bad does it want to survive?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There is a Shard with a similar intent. The Shard has realized that survival might not be the most desirable/important.

Footnote: Paleo later asked Brandon for clarification on this one because he couldn't quite remember the survival part when he wrote it down. Brandon stressed again what the Shard has realized.
Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

which leaves us with just one, 16th unknown Shard.

We also have some information about previously unknown Shards:

Quote

Pagerunner

Four clues you've given over the years about unknown Shards: 1) One that wants to hide and survive. 2) One that's not on a planet, but not Ambition 3) One that Hoid would have taken 4) One that would have been used for Rithmatist

I'm not looking for a new clue. I'm wondering if there's any overlap between the clues. Are these four separate Shards? If not, which hints apply to the same Shard?

Also, since clue #3 was from before Ambition was revealed, was Hoid going to take Ambition? He certainly is an ambitious individual.

Brandon Sanderson

I'll tell you this--those aren't necessarily four different shards. But I do have to RAFO which one Hoid might have taken.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 27, 2018)

I would also add:

5. The one that would be used for Dark One, if it was part of Cosmere

6. The "Anguish Shard"

7. Odium's ally that isn't Autonomy

8. The Shard that will be used for Aether magic, as it will be probably changed not to be pre-Shattering

Here are my propositions:

1. Wisdom, probably, although they don't want to hide anymore. Seems like a good Shard to be associated with Silverlight, if there is a Shard there (currently RAFO)

2. Probably Mercy, although Wisdom would count in the past

3. Whimsy, maybe? I'd like to hear your opinions on this one

4. The Initiation that seems both random and affected by mechanical devices makes me think Invention and Whimsy. Both also work quite well for magic that combines exact geometric blueprints with chalkling unicorns We'll get more information in Book 2

5. The original idea was based on works of Tesla, which heavily implies Invention. If the Narrative existed in that version, it could have been of Whimsy, making it the same potential combination as the Rithmatist

6 & 7 My guess would be Mercy

8. Could be any Shard(s), really, so I'll go with Valor and the 16th unknown Shard

I believe that the behavior of different Lights, their combinations and anti-Lights can be easily described using simple physics analogies.

Shardic Intents are pure states, that, like quantum states, can be added together in any proportions, creating custom Intents / Rhythms.

The easiest examples are Investitures of two different Shards mixed in 50%-50% proportions e.g. Harmony (ettmetal) = Ruin + Preservation, War (Warlight) = Honor + Odium, Science (Towerlight) = Honor + Cultivation

Rosharan spren are different mixes of X% Honor + Y% Cultivation, where X and Y add up to 100. This would, fortunately, make creating custom anti-Lights rather difficult.

Anti-Lights are Investitures of opposing Intents, for example Ruin and Preservation. As Odium seems to lack a directly opposing Shard, anti-Voidlight is some combination of other Intents that doesn't occur naturally. I would assume some mix of Honor, Devotion and maybe Dominion (since they share the Unity theme) and maybe others, mixed in the exact proportions that create the Rhythm exactly opposing that of Odium.

With this assumption, two planets of Cosmere (Scadrial and Roshar) correspond nicely to the behavior of two types of hadron particles: mesons and baryons.

Mesons are built from a quark and an anti-quark and are inherently unstable. Ruin and Preservation's Investitures being their own anti-Investitures explains a lot: the explosion of power that kills Vin and Ati, Ati being unable to splinter Preservation to Khriss' confusion, mists avoiding hemalurgic spikes. Ettmetal exists only because both powers are held by one individual, and, as mesons, is extremely unstable.

Baryons are made of three quarks, so neither can each other's anti-quark. They are bound together in a way that makes them confined together: pulling one quark would require more and more power the further you take it from the particle. It is exactly the same behavior that seems to bind Odium to Braize and H&C to Roshar, the latter described exactly by Mraize in his talk with Shallan

There is an error in OB text, Bondsmiths have Tension and Adhesion. Their application can have some effects similar to Stonehshaping, but it seems to be mostly Cohesion which Bondsmiths lack:

Quote

Pagerunner

I was at the Houston signing, and Brandon referred me to you on a few technical questions that I was asking him, since he he was quite "brain dead."

First was what Surges the Bondsmiths have. Based on the ordering in the Ars Arcanum in WoR and OB, they should have Tension. But the application of the shared Surge we saw for both Stonewards and Bondsmiths in OB looks to line up more with Brandon's previous description of Cohesion from the Words of Radiance tour. (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/223/#e6061, although he did identify it as a Willshaper Surge there.) Brandon believed it was an error in the Ars Arcanum, and that Bondsmiths do have Cohesion, but he told me to confirm that with you.

Peter Ahlstrom

What power did you see in the book that Bondsmiths and Stonewards share?

Pagerunner

In Chapter 38:

The Shardbearer pressed his hand against the incline leading up to the Voidbringer, and again the stone seemed to writhe. Steps formed in the rock, as if it were made of wax that could flow and be shaped.

...

"And that Shardbearer I saw? A Herald?"

No. Merely a Stoneward. The Surge that changed the stone is the other you may learn, though it may serve you differently.

Which seems to align with how Brandon has previously described Cohesion in the past, as opposed to Tension.

I assume this Surge is what Dalinar used to repair the temple of Talenel in Chapter 59, but that's not actually essential to the point.

Peter Ahlstrom

I think this has to be an error in the text.

Pagerunner

Sorry, which do you think is the error? The order of Surges in the Ars Arcanum? Or the Stormfather's statement to Dalinar?

Peter Ahlstrom

The Stormfather's statement.

Peter Ahlstrom

I have verified with Brandon that what the Stormfather said here is wrong and will be corrected in the future.

General Reddit 2017 (Dec. 14, 2017)

Also, on a more symbolic level, Truthwatchers are exactly opposite to Bondsmiths in the Surgebinding chart

On 21.11.2020 at 1:52 AM, DracostarA said:

We haven't seen any individual magic systems yet so I assume that each Shard lacks an inidividual magic system, although I think a magic system comprised of all 3 is possible.

We do have the Surges of the Fused, but they are technically from Braize, so they hardly count. My guess would be that dual Shard magic system are created when two Shards cooperate (Feruchemy, Surgebinding, Surge Fabrials) and possibly when their Investiture is forced to merge somehow (Voidbinding, Threnody might be a minor Shardworld version of this). Neither situation has happened for C&O or H&C&O so far, but they seem entirely possible in the future

On 21.11.2020 at 8:17 AM, ftl said:

2. Sometime before the False Desolation, Odium and Honor have one last clash. (I think we don't have info on this, yet. Maybe it was Odium trying to do something to force Taln to break?) In this, Odium wounds Honor, but at the cost of Investing himself more heavily in Roshar than he wants.

I agree with all your points except this one. Odium was completely bound to Braize at this point and BAM started to act against his wishes and interest (and using Adhesion as well). Something happened to her that did Connected her to Roshar, but my bet would be on "uncorrupting" her with Honor's Investiture, leading to the creation of the Rhythm of War and corrupted spren of Honor and Odium like Glys

11 hours ago, LiftIRL said:

2) The -ium suffix is weird. If we take Nazh's version of the name at point-value, Cultivation's god-metal would be Koravelliumium. Or Koravellium Avastium, which is only slightly less silly. could this not be the purest version of her name, but a reference to some aspect of her?

The godmetal's name would be simply Koravellium:

Quote

Questioner (paraphrased)

If Waxillium will become a Vessel, would the godmetal created by him, be... the waxillium?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He laughed and said it will be right in that way.

Lucca Comics and Games Festival (Oct. 28, 2016)

11 hours ago, LiftIRL said:

3) Avast, like in Tanavast. Is this a coincidence, a sign of being from the same culture as him (like a lot of alethi names end with -ar or -in), or something else? 

Cultivation seems to be the only Vessel with a surname or a family name, which could imply a Yolish noble or even royal origin. It would certainly explain her more reserved and haughty attitude towards Dalinar compared to Tanavast and Rayse. The 'avast' part of Tanavast could mean something akin to 'prince/king consort' then

Edit:

Cultivation's Vessel being a dragon has just just confirmed:

Quote

asmodeus

In Words of Radiance, Hoid says that there's only one person as old as him around, and seems to be referring to Cultivation's vessel. In Rhythm of War, he mentions there's a dragon on Roshar.

Are these two individuals the same, or are they separate?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. These two are the same.

General Reddit 2020 (Nov. 22, 2020)

The Sibling also uses the term, so I would assume it is from the pre-Shattering times, probably of Yolish origin.

Also, if we're talking of weird linguistic coincidences, Navani uses the word Figgldygrak... Did she lean that from Wit? Or is it some kind of secret clue, maybe?

Voidbringer Cremling. Voidbringer. Storming. Cremling.

OK, so the fact that Jasnah's name sounds very much like the Polish word for 'bright' ('jasna') has been recognized: it's in the Stormlight Archive Wiki article and even has it own WoB:

Quote

Questioner

Jasnah's name. What was the origin for it?

Brandon Sanderson

Jasnah's name predates most of the language work that I did. It comes from ancient, kind of Semitic languages-- playing around with those. And then her name became one of the ones that I built the language around. Because after I had named her, and written the whole book, I had named her and Dalinar. Kaladin's name changed once I had rebuilt the linguistics. Shallan's name changed once I rebuilt the linguistics. But Dalinar and Jasnah kind of became the origins. But it's ancient-- you know, a blend of Arabic and Hebrew. It's kind of-- yeah.

Questioner

Because I have an interesting tidbit--

Brandon Sanderson

Uh-huh

Questioner

"Jasna" in Polish actually means "bright."

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I've been told that! Just-- I went to Poland, like, last-- like a couple of months ago, and they're like, "Did you know this?" I had no idea.

Ad Astra 2017 (May 5, 2017)

Less know fact is that a name of one Herald (Vedel) also sounds similar-ish to Wedel (pron. Veh-del), a well-recognized brand of candy in Poland (I think Lift would approve).

And now we finally have the name of Cultivation's Vessel: Koravellium Avast / Koravari. 'Kora' means 'tree bark' in Polish  

tl;dr version: In this post I will try to convince you that Voidbinding is a nascent magic system of both Odium(“void”) and Honor (“binding”), and present a theory on how it was created

Voidbinding doesn't make sense as Odium's magic system
The name: we now know from multiple sources that Adhesion, the Surge of binding things together, is the one closest to Honor. The Fused don't even recognize it as a Surge; they talk about Surges, but don't seem to use the word Surgebinding. They are called Voidbringers (I'm sorry, Singers ). Why would Odium's magic have 'binding' in its name?
It's pointless: why would Odium grant anybody the power of futuresight if it interferes with his own and ultimately leads to his downfall?
10-centric: Voidbinding has ten levels. Yes, there are nine Unmade and they lack the Bondsith one, but that's just happenstance – we know from the Sibling that the tenth Unmade can be created. Why would Voidbinding be based on the number associated most closely with Honor? Why is the Voidbinding chart so similar to Surgebinding and so unlike the Fused abilities?
Lore: the first mentions of mortals using Voidbinding abilities we know seem to be from around the time of the False Desolation: Listener songs mention the Nightform (and BAM as a source of Forms of Power) and we see potential information about corrupted Truthwatcher spren in Urithiru Gem Archive. Besides that we only have the general idea that futuresight is of Odium, but that could have come from the Unmade alone (per Taravangian's word, they all can grant it). There's rich lore about the Unmade, but none about Voidish Surges besides Illumination. The Fused are surprised that Voidspren can bond with humans and they don't see anything weird with the fact that there are no Nightforms around during the Final Desolation. Previously I believed that Voidbinding might have originated on Ashyn, but BAM's deep ties to Roshar seem to disprove that
Unexplained phenomena: what's the source of BAM's massive Connection ability? Why did her imprisonment caused so much damage to Roshar if she was just Odium's splinter? Why did the Sibling stop hearing Honor's Rhythm? How could BAM and Sja-anat rebel against Odium's will? Why was Warlight never discovered before?

Surgebinding vs fabrials
Before we move further, one more thing needs to be discussed: why are there two magic systems of Honor and Cultivation? The Rhythm of War finally gave me some idea about the difference. The fabrials are like feruchemy – they are a perfect balance between the powers of two Shards, as indicated by the nature of the Sibling and the Towerlight. Surgebinding is also of both Shards, but it's biased towards Honor. It uses more of his Investiture: it's powered by Stormlight, Honorblades are Honor's splinters, the most powerful and mystical Order is based around uniting, not growth. What happened with the surplus of Cultivation's Investiture then? It's simple: it became the basis for the Old Magic, a magical “appendage” originating from a single Shard

Ba-Ado-Mishram is the source of Voidbinding
I believe that's what Odium wanted: a simple set of magical powerful abilities to be used by the Unmade to do his bidding. That's why the Voidbinding was called the cousin of the Old Magic. It was always meant to be used by the Unmade only, not become a full magic system.
I believe, however, that at some point something extremely important happened – BAM was infused with Honor's Investiture and completely transformed. I'm not sure how or who did it; we have several plausible suspects: Ishar, Honor, Cultivation and (Dawnshard spoilers)

Whoever that was, as a result of their action BAM became deeply Connected to Roshar and turned into something similar to the Sibling. She was suddenly able to produce Warlight and use it to control the Singers, just like the Sibling controls fabrials. She was able to grant Forms of Power from a completely new magic system: full, 10-centric Voidbinding, whose relation to the original Unmade abilities is just like the relation between the Old Magic and Surgebinding. Her abilities (and newfound autonomy) extended, to some extent, to other Unmade, especially Sja-anat, allowing her to corrupt True Spren. The one thing she couldn't do in the days before her imprisonment, however, was to create spren that would grant full Voidbinding – there wasn't simply enough Odium Investiture on the planet. Now, however, the situation has changed: the Everstorm circulates Roshar and clashes with the Highstorm, providing the exact conditions that she needs, once she's released (most likely in Book 5). This will lead to unleashing the full power of Voidbinding, which will become a major plot point (and a weapon against Odium) in Arc 2

I'll search for the illustration showing all the Radiant spren, then probably take a quick glance at Ars Arcanum and start with the interludes

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

I always considered the spear a way of talking about Kaladin.

That is also a possibility, especially if Kaladin ends up being Dalinar's Champion (though I'm leaning towards Szeth these days, to be honest)

12 hours ago, ftl said:

Hm. Interesting. Would be good to ask! I've interpreted the commonality there is that the spear is always the weapon of the underclasses - nobility have forged swords, but peasants always have a stick with a point at the end. But maybe there's more to it than that!

It does explain the symbolism of the spear on Scadrial, and it extends to Roshar as well (spear being Kaladin's weapon of choice, Moash killing Elhokar with a spear). Its connection with Dalinar is more mysterious though; his family crest does include a crown and a tower, but not a spear. Also, as I found yesterday, Rathalas was located on the shore of the Sea of Spears