Wonko the Sane

True, but I highly doubt that has anything to do with his translation. Not only is there absolutely nothing to indicate that that's what the Scepter does, it seems fairly certain that Hoid was translating long before he acquired it. I don't actually know how to TES fits into the timeline, but surely at least Elantris comes before it?

But he's demonstrated that he has tremendous command over his self-image. He goes from thinking of himself as a vagabond, to a god, and back again at the drop of a hat. Is it too much of a stretch for him to start thinking of himself as Alethi? That said, I think that would have to be a special case. Returned have an innate ability to change to match their self-image. Demoux has nothing of the sort.

Vasher's been established as good at manipulating his Identity. It's how he hides his nature as a Returned. Maybe he just has to live somewhere long enough that he starts seeing it as his home. I can't think of anything for the Seventeenth Sharders, though, so it's probably something else.

M'Hael, you changed your profile pic! Also, the format of the entire site changed, but somehow, yours strikes me more.

What does the L stand for? EDIT: did not see the fifth page. So, Ninja'd, sort of.

If you turn out to be Raoden in disguise, I will be so happy.

I know a thousand Breaths seems small. I think so too. But that's no reason to ignore the numerous times that Brandon has emphasized just how Invested Nightblood is. There is a bunch of WoB to that effect, but all you really need is this one: Maybe someone should ask him how this can be the case, but for now, we kind of have to accept the WoB.

I'm not sure about the cognitive shadow, but I definitely think the idea that the original mind isn't driving the body anymore has merit. Divine Breaths are Splinters -- something that has long perplexed the Shard community, as they don't seem to fit the definition or the other examples we have. A Splinter is a piece of investiture that has developed its own sentience. So on some level a Divine Breath must be sentient, by definition. How about this (spoilers for BoM):

More than 100%?

More than 25% of players so far say they shouldn't be playing, but are going to anyway.

Finished the rules. No more questions come to mind right now, but I'll probably have more for you later. With regards to RP, it occurs to me that a Cosmere-wide game like this is an excellent opportunity for me to develop the Abundance some, so I think I'm going to try and put them center stage in my posts. Other than that, I've got no specific plans. Maybe something will come to me once I learn who Idem is.

I suppose that's probably for the best; better to give me a character I'm familiar with, so I can RP them effectively in the future. Really, though, I'm not concerned with spoilers. If there's a Taldain character you want to put in the game, and you need someone to give it to, I'm fine with it. Like I said, I'll just have to spend some time perusing the Coppermind for general info. @AliasSheep I would love to do some RP, but I'd rather wait until I know Idem's actual identity before I start writing her fake one. Also, as I said above, my activity is probably going to be a little spotty this game. @Conquestor Technically, that's your character's disguise. The RP for this game has us all as bona fide named characters from Brandon's books, like Kelsier, Kaladin, Raoden, etc. The names we're giving now are false ones we're using to keep our true identities a secret from one another. That's why I named my character Idem Occulta -- It's Latin for Secret Identity. (Sort of. I don't know Latin, so I probably butchered the translation.) I have new questions: 1) "Follow and Report", "Watch and Alert", "Protect Me", most Surgebindings, Emotion Bracelets, Half-shard Shields, and Aons Daa and Kii all allow Self as a valid target. Am I missing something? Is there a situation where I would ever want to point those abilities at myself? 2) I think this must just be a grammatical error: "Grab Things" cancels "...one other randomly chosen action your target attempts...", but the only legal target is Self. It doesn't cancel my own actions, does it? 3) Am I allowed to sheath *Nightblood, or does he just automatically drain my investiture until I run out or drop him? 4) If I Store in a Coppermind, do I get any charges if I wasn't going to be Informed of anything in the first place? 5) Similarly, if I Store in a Chromiummind, do I get charges even if you don't make any rolls concerning me? 6) Can I make and use a Fabrial on the same turn, assuming the action type of the Fabrial occurs after [assist]? 7) Not really a question, but it's interesting you gave Artifabrians the ability to make Small Soulcasters, considering how big a deal that is in the books. 8) Elantrians don't appear to have any ability to generate investiture. Will they be able to draw on the Dor when on Sel, or do they have to get all their power from things like Spheres? 9) Likewise, where are Forgers supposed to draw their investiture from? I only read up through Soulforgery. I'll do the rest later.

Okay, yeah, I'll think of something once I've seen my role. Idem stands as female. It only matters to me because I have this thing called The Abundance, where I try to maintain a semi-consistent meta-story between all of my Elimination characters, as well as those of anybody else who wants to join in. Depending on who I get, I'm actually considering letting them stick around after the game is over. So there's a good chance that my guild may have an actual cosmere character as one of its members soon, and I don't want that character's first run as a member to come across as silly. (Don't worry about me making a joke of it. The whole reason I'm even thinking about this is to make sure that it isn't overly ridiculous.) Give me any character you like, and I'll find a way to roll with it. Worse comes to worst, I'll just retcon this particular game out of Abundance lore. So I haven't read everything in the Common Powers section yet, but I think I've got a basic grasp of the game. Let me first shower you in praise over how amazingly together you're being about this. That introduction is the most well-organized, clearly explained, and ambiguity-free rules explanation I've ever seen in front of an Elimination game. This promises to be one of the more complicated games I've ever played, and you got virtually the entire game across to me in a single read-through. I think that we'll be seeing a lot less of the mistakes, misinterpretations, and confusion that have plagued the other large games I've been a part of. So, bravo for that! I also find myself loving the hidden-information structure you've got going, which is strange for me. In the past, I haven't been much of a fan of secret rules and the like, as it's always seemed like they derail any attempt at actually playing the game. Here, though, I can't wait to start trying to figure out just what everyone else is capable of, and what they're trying to accomplish. I suppose the difference here is that you've been upfront and clear about exactly what it is we don't know. I may not know everything that's possible, but it's realistic for me to try and find out. Which, as I mentioned, I can't wait to do. I have just a couple of rules questions, though I may be back with more after I've finished reading the Common Powers. 1) Am I right in inferring that, for the most part, the only difference between the Give action and the Offer / Take combination is which player spends an action on the transfer? 2) You said that we have three actions per night, and that all actions of the same type happen simultaneously. Are the three actions consecutive, or do they get handled as a block? For example, if my actions were an [assist], an [attack], and an [assist], would the two [assist] actions be handled simultaneously? Finally, I'd like to note that I haven't read White Sand, but I've decided that I'm not going to worry about spoilers on this one. So, it's fine if I get handed a character from Taldain, or if anyone needs to talk to me about something that involves a super-secret plot twist. I just wanted to let everyone know that if you reference anything from White Sand at me, I'm gonna need some time on the Coppermind before I understand what you're talking about.

I'm going to regret this, but I'm going to go ahead and sign up anyway. Dr. Idem Occulta is here to represent the Abundance. As of yet, none of Idem's fellow doctors are aware of her secret identity (i.e., my Character Role). I'd like to stress that my access to the Internet is very limited right now. I will try to be as active as possible, but there will be frequent periods of time during which I will be unable to get on, especially over the weekends. I should be able to participate in almost every cycle, but I simply can't maintain the level of involvement I've shown in the past. I'll be back after I've actually read the rules to discuss. EDIT: Wait. I just realized that I've established Idem as a woman, when I don't actually know what my gender will be. I could wait until I know, but giving my Role's gender would be a clue to who I am. Does anyone have a way I can hide my actual gender without being weird? I know that I could just say I was only disguised as a woman, but I feel like that only works for some characters. Obviously, it would fit perfectly if I ended up as Wayne, but can anyone honestly see, say, Dalinar being comfortable with cross-dressing, no matter what the circumstances?

it should be noted that Divine Breaths aren't really Breaths. Breaths are, as best we can tell, fragments of a human's innate investiture that can be separated from the whole and transferred elsewhere, while Divine Breaths are Splinters doled out directly by Endowment. They're both discrete packets of investiture, so they share a lot of properties, but they're still fundamentally different things.

Hoid's unlocked coppermind shows Kelsier's arms covered in scars. If our Sovereign is wearing Sazed's body -- or anyone else's -- he would have to have deliberately carved up his own arms for the sake of brand recognition. That's possible -- it's definitely something I could see him doing -- but it does make it a little less likely. Shadows of Self, hardcover p. 133: It would appear that Sazed has not heard from Kell in some time. Since the Sovereign has at least one spike, Harmony should be able to make contact pretty easily, so I'd take this as evidence that Kelsier has gone off-world.

More and more, I'm convinced that the game isn't coming. It's tough to imagine that they've been working on it all this time. Apparently, even Brandon hasn't laid eyes on the game.

It fits pretty closely with Breaths = 50*2^(Heightening). It's nowhere near perfect, but it's interesting how closely it lines up with a whole-number function.

First, my username has finally found a home. I don't know... if your host is Aggrajag, your security team needs to be constantly on watch for an Arthur Dent-incursion. Drake Marshall has the right of it. The Question is not "What do you get when you multiply six by nine?", and it never was. That is the broken, Golgafrincham-descended answer -- their crash-landing in prehistoric Earth disrupted the program and completely invalidated the results. We aren't actually allowed to know the Question, because we already know the Answer. It was stated by Prak, who knew everything that was true, that if any being ever knew both the Question and the Answer at the same time, the Universe would spontaneously vanish and be replaced by something infinitely more complex. There is, of course, the possibility that this has already happened, but we needn't get into that just now.

But Kaladin has no way of associating that particular glyph with the Windrunners. I hadn't thought of Syl, though. Perhaps she subconsciously remembers a time when that symbol was important to her.

Right, we're talking about the same thing. That oath is his Second Ideal.

Wow. Thank you for that. I don't spend much time on the Coppermind unless I'm looking up something specific, so I'd probably never have noticed that.

Hang on... I don't want to derail the discussion, but this caught me off-guard. bleeder, I just reread your post and noticed this (emphasis added): Is this true? Can you point me to a reference?

What bugs me is that other than this, we've had no indication there was anything magical about the glyphs. If Harakeke and co. are correct -- and it seems strongly likely that they are -- they aren't even a discovered language, like the Aons -- they evolved from the Thaylen script. So why do they appear at magically significant moments. I wonder if it's like the Commands in Awakening. Is it only a glyph because Kaladin happens to be Alethi?

This has always seemed like a description of Kaladin's Second Oath to me. Other Sharders have disagreed with this, but the "feast I must drink" bit sells it for me.