Argent

Yea, that's a really good Shallan.

I didn't get a chance to take any photos in Chicago, and only two people filled out those cards (I blame Barnes & Noble!) - do you even want me to send anything? I mean, we had Where is my Chull? and that super popular photo of me and Brandon, but other than that it was all pretty uneventful.

One of the questions we should be asking is why Stormseat's Oathgate was left functional when all the others were locked. Could we, maybe, link the Heralds and/or the Orders to the capital cities of the Silver Kingdoms, and by extension - to their Oathgates? I am thinking, what if the 9 Heralds who survived Aharietiam went and locked "their" Oathgates? This would leave Talenel's Gate open, because he was not around to lock it. This mini-theory could even work, if we can link Stormseat to Talenelat'Elin, the Ancient of Stones, somehow... and we kind of can. Stormseat was the capital of the Silver Kingdom Natanatan, which according to the Coppermind, was known as the Granite Kingdom. Some of Taln's titles include Ancient of Stones, Herald of War, Stonesinew, and Herald patron of the Order of the Stonewards - it's easy to link him to granite, then to the Granite Kingdom, then to Stormseat. Alternatively, maybe it wasn't the Heralds who locked the Oathgates, maybe it was the Radiants. We know that one Order performed some great subterfuge at the expense of the others, and the unlocking / refusal to lock the Stormseat Oathgate could be a part of it. I like the Heralds version better, but the Radiants had a much closer relationship with the spren, and the Oathgates feel like something the Orders would've built (they require a Sprenblade to unlock, they work like a fabrial - which in modern age are powered by spren), so I don't know...

This should be useful.

Don't trust it. If you can't find a release date on Brandon's site, there is a very good chance sites like Google (Play / Books), Amazon, iTunes, etc. also don't know what they are talking about. There should be an official announcement today, I think.

Yea, I am with Kaladin on the "rainspren are creepy" boat.

Because of how dependent cosmere magic is on belief and expectation, I doubt you could fit Plate on non-humanoids. It's armor for humans. Plus, it's one thing for a suit of Shardplate to adjust itself a few inches here and there, but growing (or shrinking) several times seems unlikely.

This.

The term "voidspren" refers to a category of spren, not a specific type - all spren whose Investiture comes from Odium are known as voidspren, Pattern explains this towards the end of Words of Radiance when one of the scholars assigned to Shallan considers the possibility that he is a Voidbringer. Other than that, I like the idea of handing emotionspren to Honor and naturespren to Cultivation, but I'll probably leave the more... ambiguous ones to be either a mix of both Shards, or of Adonalsium.

Email Team Sanderson about and ask for it. There is even a dedicated forum thread about White Sand and where to get it.

You mention Shardpool in the Sel post - you should probably include its definition somewhere, probably in the Cosmere one.

Wasn't there an excerpt from the in-world Words of Radiance that referenced the Lightweavers' role in the Orders, something to do with... change? diplomacy? something like that?

Yea, but because she is a side character - and a kid at that - it's okay for now. Plus, if you are reading Brandon for his following of the genre stereotypes, you are doing it wrong.

The endpages drawing is 567892789+678976+712989+87489 times better anyway

By the time Lift gets her book, more than 10 (I'd guess closer to 15) years will have passed, so she'll be about the age Adolin is now. Plenty of time for her to grow out of whatever makes you cringe.

Huh, good catch on the different meters in the songs.

As you might know, Michael Whelan is the artist who did the cover art for both The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. What you might not know is that he published three of his early concepts for the Words of Radiance cover a few days ago. There is nothing to them other than "hey, this is some cool art," so my internal cosmerologist was a little grumpy, but in the end of the day, art is art, and it's neat. So go take a look at them: Jesus Kaladin Colored Kaladin Tarzan Kaladin EDIT: Turns out he posted some other stuff a while back. Namely, more Jesus Kaladin, even more Jesus Kaladin, a metal Bridge Four... thing, some Shallan endpages sketches, and a (non-spoilery) scene from The Way of Kings.

Alethi Glyphs 101: Screw You

Guess, sure. We don't know anything concrete.

The only situation I can imagine where Thunderclasts would bleed is if they resembled the Lifeless and had some equivalent of ichor alcohol running through them... which seems far-fetched. Also, not only chasmfiends have purple blood - I believe we've seen a couple of other native animals to Roshar (axehounds come to mind) whose blood is the same color. So I would guess all of the native fauna has purple blood.

I and a childhood friend of mine used to do this kind of stuff ages ago (though we limited ourselves to only lyrics, chainsaws have better singing voices than us...), I should hit him up.

Hmm, no. Kaladin fits the Dalinar-model - it's nowhere near symmetric enough to be filed under Shallan's. To make Kaladin's name symmetric, you'd have to replace half of it, which is about as asymmetric as a name can get. It does come from Kalak, but it's modifications were not inspired by symmetry. Kalakdin just doesn't sound good.

The red & orange would be pretty terrifying in combat.

Yea, you became much more boring with that admission There are (at least) two different naming conventions in Alethkar btw - one is the "symmetrical except for one letter" (the Shallan-model), and the other one seems to favor three-syllable names with no symmetry anywhere (the Kaladin-model / Dalinar-model). Kasimir fits that.

You are thinking Cultivation & Ruin, not Cultivation & Odium. Odium is not really about change.