Argent

I don't know, all spren are Cognitive beings. I am not sure the Cryptics are special enough to warrant such treatment - but then again, they might a little more special than regular spren, being tied to Soulcasting and all (which is a little weirder form of Surgebinding to begin with).

Aw, bummer. We really need a better organizational tool for those kind of things - the interview database is nice if you have a specific topic in mind, but it doesn't work as well if you just want to read everything. Reading further down that thread, Cultivation might end up being Nightwatcher though - Lift's interlude adds some light support to this claim. Still, maybe I am onto something with the spren living on a gradient...

I asked about this today. David was absolutely correct with his final guess - Steelheart can only be hurt by someone who doesn't fear him. We will also find out more about weaknesses in general in Firefight. I also asked whether the Epics' weaknesses are related to things, events, or phenomena they experienced negative emotions (fear, hate) before their transformation. This one is waiting for Firefight.

Hey (again), folks! I just came back from the http://brandonsanderson.com/upcoming-events/#860'>Wheeling signing in the Chicago area, and it was pretty wonderful. Better than the Naperville one a few days ago. Brandon started off with a little off-the-record kind of chat during which he talked about a number of random things, including but not limited to how he once got lost driving to a signing (which is why they now drive him around), and how he was not actually Brandon Sanderson, but a bot. Mark XVII, if you are curious. With the preliminaries done, Brandon talked about what inspired him to write Steelheart. The story was published on his official website a couple of weeks ago, I think, but I can't find it quickly for some reason... Anyway, once that was done, he answered a few questions he gets on every signing (questions about his favorite books, favorite characters, what got him into fantasy/writing, which of his books have sequels in the near future, etc). He then did three readings from upcoming books (Eshonai's viewpoint chapter from Words of Radiance, Wax and Steris' wedding planning from Shadows of Self, and Stephen's date with Silvia from Legion II), separated by general Q&A sessions. He did the signing and personalization of books after that and answered a few questions. And then I interrogated him... So here's what I (and 1-2 other people) asked. My questions come mostly from the http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/383-the-ultimate-list-of-questions-for-brandon/'>Ultimate List, similarly to the first Chicago signing. --- From the general signing Q&A --- Q: Pat Rothfuss recently worked with the folks from http://goo.gl/8vwi1c'>Albino Dragon to create a Kickstarted Name of the Wind deck of cards in which each face card features a character from the book. All those designs were discussed with Pat, and the final result is shaping up to be pretty spectacular. Are there plans, or if not - are you open to planning, - to do something like this for one or more of your own worlds? A: I know about Pat's deck, it's really awesome stuff! I can only say that I do have plans to do something similar, but you will have to wait for Words of Radiance to find out more about it. [At least that's what I think he said. This was my question, so I didn't think to record it, and frankly 10 seconds after he was done talking, I realized all I remembered was "yes" and "Words of Radiance"...] Q: Anything you can tell us about Steelheart's sequel, Firefight? A: It starts off in Chicago, but then moves to New York. It will show off an... interesting version of Manhattan, similarly to how Steelheart's showed off an interesting version of Chicago. It will also introduce three new Epics. Q: Was Hemalurgy inspired by your time in Asia, and more specifically - acupuncture? A: Yes. A lot of the stuff in my books that looks like it came from Asia really did come from my time there. [This relates to something Brandon said in the previous Chicago signing - that the drawing on the front sheet of the Way of Kings, the one with surges and Knight Radiant orders was inspired by the Kabbalah ] Q: Was Calamity and its appearance in Steelheart just kind of an ad hoc? We know that it showed up about a year before the Epics started showing up, so people naturally assume one was the cause and one was the effect, but was that really the case and are both of them just the effects of something else? A: Good question! I will say that this is something I've done before, so my fans will kind of expect it. I am aware of this expectation too, and I am careful about repeating myself. [He didn't actually say "yes" or "no" here, just kind of danced around the question] --- From my "Preliminary questions" thread --- Q: Feruchemy is the “balance” between Ruin and Preservation. Would any combination of Shards create a “balance” magic, so to speak, or are only certain Shards compatible? A: [Heavily paraphrased:] Feruchemy ended up being a balance system, because of how polar Ruin and Preservation were. Any world with at least two Shards will result in a similar phenomenon. Q: Like Roshar? A: Like Roshar. There is something like that going on there. Q: Aside from the Greater Roshar system, are there any other multiple shardworld systems? A: Yes. You have not necessarily seen them though. Q: How do you spell "Lyss" the woman Jasnah meets with in the WoR prologue? A: Not sure, but I think it's Lyss. --- From the Ultimate List --- Q: Could a Seeker who was properly trained and experienced detect AonDor or Awakening? Similarly, does a Coppercloud block an Awakener's life sense? A: A Seeker could sense somebody else using magic not native Scadrial. RAFO on the Coppercloud blocking similar magic. Q: If Ati had somehow managed to give up Ruin and returned to being a regular person, would his mind have gradually reverted from its corruption by Ruin’s intent, or would he always be determined to destroy? A: Over time Ruin's influence would fade, but Ati would remain a Sliver, so there would be some permanent effects. Q: Do the Spiritual and Physical Realms have names, like Shadesmar is the Cognitive Realm? A: Kind of, but not really. Shadesmar is just a rough translation of "Cognitive Realm" in the language of whoever first found out about it. Other people, planets, and worlds wouldn't call it Shadesmar - they would call it whatever their words for "Cognitive Realm" are. This applies to the Physical and Spiritual as well. Q: Are all of the Heralds who gave up their Honorblades still alive? A: Good question! RAFO. Q: Are Renarin and Adolin Dalinar's legitimate children? A: Good question! Yes, they are both legitimate. Though Renarin didn't get as much of the hair, which is probably what people are asking about. Q: Fabrials replicate Soulcasting abilities. Is it possible for fabrials to replicate all such Surgebinding abilities? A: Yes, good question! Fabrials can replicate all of the Surgebinding abilities. Q: If a Dhakor (Dilaf) could erase a symbol written by an Elantrian (Raoden), could an Elantrian erase/heal a Dhakor bone-symbol? A: This is a theoretical possibility, but not a specialization of AonDor. Q: Is there any other canonical way to refer to a set of Shardplate and a Shardblade other than Shards, so as to not confuse them with the Shards of Andonalsium? A: They call them just Shard(s). It is a little confusing, because there are other Shards, but they don't know about them. I call them a set, but there is no canonical way to refer to them. Q: Is Cultivation's Shardholder still alive. A: Good question, what do you think? Q: I want to say, but that's based on my knowledge before I read Lift's interlude from Words of Radiance. Now I am leaning towards no. Based on that interlude, it looks like spren have essence from both Honor and Cultivation. It's almost like they exist in a spectrum, on one end of which is Honor, and on the other - Cultivation; so there are spren that are, for the lack of better example, 90% Honor and 10% Cultivation, and there are spren that are 15% Honor and 85% Cultivation. A: That's a very astute observation! Q: And since we know that Honor is Splintered, then it might be the case that Cultivation is also Splintered, and their Splinters form the spren. Q: Are Honorspren Splinters, or do they hold Splinters? A: Honorspren would be termed Splinters. Q: What is Stormlight? A: I don't want to answer this, but I'll just say "Investiture." Q: Did David get Steelheart's absolutely correct, or was it just close enough to allow him to destroy Steelheart? A: It was absolutely correct. This is something David and Reckoners will actually discuss in Firefight. The second book will reveal much more about the Epics' weaknesses, and you will find out that there is actually a pattern to them, even though everyone thinks it's random. Q: Are weaknesses somehow related to things, events, or phenomena the Epics feared, or hated, or disliked before they turned Epic? A: RAFO, second book. This is the exact question people - and David - are asking in the second book. Good question though. Q: Are there still no Splinters on Scadrial, after the events of the Alloy of Law? A: Yes, there are no Splinters on Scadrial. Unless they've been brought. [several people cried out "Hoid!"] There are no Splinters of Ruin or Preservation. Q: Does Nightblood need to sleep? A: (Laughs) Nightblood does not need to sleep, but he sure thinks he needs to. Q: Will Llarimar become Susebron's high priest? A: I would not be surprised of the events too him there. Q: Do you think he would be unhappy with the position? A: No. Susebron is going to make at least, if not a good God King, then at least an earnest one, and Llarimar would approve of that. Q: What command would you have to give to an Awakened object like Nightblood in order for it to not go insane? A: I am going to RAFO that about Nightblood, but - is Nightblood insane? It just has no concept of... It was commanded to do something it was not equipped to judge. I would not call Nightblood insane. I would say that you have commanded something with no concept of morality to make moral decisions, and that's very confusing to him. Q: Ashe says to Sarene "your god" (emphasis added). Do Seons (and Skaze) have a religion/god? A: They have an inkling of the nature of their original Shards, which they would consider their gods. Q: Kind of like a first, a prime, a parent? A: Yes. They kind of know what happened that created them, and they also know this is not the god being worshipped (by Sarene), so... I once again feel like I could've asked better questions, but even after going through the entire list, those are the ones I found most likely to not be RAFO'd, while still getting us some meaningful answers. Maybe, maybe not. At the time I was too busy being a fanboy.

He, he told me to choose my best 5. I told him I had about 15. He said 15 was fine, but he was going to immediately RAFO some. I maaay have pushed it a little bit, but even after the 15 I had prepared, he kept looking to me expectedly, so I figured I might try to squeeze a few more. I soon felt a was really pushing it, so I said I'll do one last question, and stopped. Could've gotten more probably... Anyway, I am typing them now. To the Staff: Feel free to lock this thread, I am putting my questions and answers in a new one.

Signing is over. Got some 20 or so questions, few RAFOs. Will post latest today.

Very likely and I like it. I am curious about whether Megan was spying for him since she joined the Reckoners (unlikely), or was only able to serve as a mole after her death. In which case, we'll have to revisit the book and see how much information Steelheart could possibly have access to.

It should be noted that the book itself doesn't use the capitalization shown in the first post. "The Shadow of Self" sounds much more... concrete, definite, special even than "The shadow of self," which is how it appears in HoA. The former adds additional significance.

Here's a quote from the Reddit Q&A about Shades and the Truthspren: This is something I haven't seen discussed. The only visual references I can find somewhat quickly read: All in all, not terribly helpful. There might be something in Elhokar's chapters, but I can't find it now. The angularity at least should rule some options out. My gut feeling is that there will be no relation to the other Cosmere worlds (and least of all Scadrial whose symbols often, if not always, feature an arc). We know they are not glyphs - so no straightup Roshar writing. Could they be something from the http://coppermind.net/w/images/TWoK_Front_Endsheet.jpg'>WoK endsheet?

This might be better suited for a separate discussion thread, but I thought I'd try here, in case I've missed some piece of information. Which is entirely possible. As I was doing my catch-up-on-cosmere-lore spree, I found myself reading Brandon's http://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/1a3fj0/discussion_of_the_week_shadesmar_truthspren/'>Shadesmar & Truthspren Reddit discussion. In it, one of his replies reads the following: This made me wonder - why are Seons and Skaze together less numerous than Roshar's spren? If anything I would expect things to be the other way around, considering that Sel had to suffer the Splintering of two Shards, while Roshard had only one (that we know of? Cultivation is presumably still around). I'd try to discuss this on my own, but my realmatics has never been too strong, and since my hiatus from the forum, it's even worse...

I am strongly leaning towards a negative here. I don't know whether you've had the chance to look over the Steelhunt secret material, but some of it is my main justification for this hunch (it deals with what spren are). I'll ask it if I have time though.

Yea, I could probably add a reference to our 1700s+.

I'll probably get to writing a more full comment, but I am leaving work in less than 5 minutes, so I wanted to make a note of something before I left (and potentially forgot!). There are two ideas I am interested in: Three are three types of Shardblades - one for each magic system, so to speak. One is "good" (Honorblades / Surgebinding), one is "neutral" (Shardblades / fabrials), and one is "evil" ("Voidblades"? / Voidbinding). Labels are loose, obviously. We kiiind of know how two of the magic systems work - Surgebinding works because of a (willing) bond between a spren and a human; fabrials work because a spren is (unwillingly) bound to an object, effectively trapping it but not killing it. It strikes me as obvious that the third magic system must work in a way that resembles Voidbringing, or "badness," somehow. Surgebinding and Honorblades are the nice kids in town, they don't harm spren in any way, shape, or form that we know of. Fabrials take the middle ground - they kind of hurt the spren by entrapping them, but don't actually kill or torture them. It stands to (shaky) reason that in order to Voidbind, you mustn't bond with a spren, and you mustn't imprison one - it almost feels to me like you have to devour one. Destroy it. Forcefully take its essence, its ability to manipulate the surges.

Worst case scenario, I suspect Brandon will make all of the Steelhunt information available to the public once the hunt itself is over.

Is this something that has been discussed before? It looks like an interesting idea, but I haven't spend time thinking it through.

I think I'll dig through my books sometime this weekend and provide reference quotations for each book, because I doubt anyone remembers them all. I certainly don't...

I too don't see how he could recognize the 8 years old kid in the 18 years old young man. Even with perfect memory, he will only recall the image of David has he was at the time.

Since I am a little out of date on the latest theories and discussions about Brandon's secrets, I wanted to post a list of questions I plan on choosing from when I go to the second Chicago signing event tomorrow. This thread is directed mostly to the more hardcore theorycrafters, but I suppose anyone who has been following the discussions can pitch in. I am interested in finding out whether A question in my list is very likely to be RAFO'd A question in my list is neither terribly interesting, nor is it relevant to how Brandon's worlds work. I am trying to dig for answers here A question in my list has either been answered before, or we are confident enough about the answer that we can afford to wait. This being said, here's my list. All of this (except for the first one) comes from the ultimate list. Questions marked with an asterisk (*) are ones I am not feeling completely confident about. Pat Rothfuss recently worked with the folks from http://albinodragon.com/'>Albino Dragon to create a Kickstarted Name of the Wind deck of cards in which each face card features a character from the book. All those designs were discussed with Pat, and the final result is shaping up to be pretty spectacular. Are there plans, or if not - are you open to planning, - to do something like this for one or more of your own worlds? * Feruchemy is the “balance” between Ruin and Preservation. Would any combination of Shards create a “balance” magic, so to speak, or are only certain Shards compatible? * The Well of Ascension regenerates every 1024 years. The atium takes time to collect in the Pits of Hatshin too. Does using a Shard's power always cause downtime before it can be used again? Could a Seeker who was properly trained and experienced detect AonDor or Awakening? Similarly, does a coppercloud block an awakener's life sense? If Ati had somehow managed to give up Ruin and returned to being a regular person, would his mind have gradually reverted from its corruption by Ruin’s intent, or would he always be determined to destroy? Do the Spiritual and Physical Realms have names, like Shadesmar is the Cognitive Realm? Is gunpowder going to be featured in the Cosmere other than on Scadrial? Are all of the Heralds who gave up their Honorblades still alive? * Did Gavilar get the mysterious sphere from Jasnah? (Think this one might be RAFO'd) Are Renarin and Adolin Dalinar's legitimate children? Fabrials replicate Soulcasting abilities. Is it possible for fabrials to replicate all such Surgebinding abilities? What happens to a Surgebinder and his spren during the Weeping? Are they affected by the lack of Stormlight? If a Dhakor (Dilaf) could erase a symbol written by an Elantrian (Raoden), could an Elantrian erase/heal a Dhakor bone-symbol? It's said that the Shaod usually comes at night. Does it always come at night? If so, why? Is there any other canonical way to refer to a set of Shardplate and a Shardblade other than Shards, so as to not confuse them with the Shards of Adonalsium? I meant to post this a little earlier, so more people get a chance to look at it, but 24 hours isn't too bad, I think.

Aye. Though if I recall correctly they are not exactly Splinters. Think there was a catch.

I wouldn't be so quick to make this conclusion. If invisibility and illusionism are distinct powers - and I think they are - then having one does not necessarily grant the other. There may be a correlation, but no two powers come "bundled up." If anything, Megan should be able to create an illusion that mimics the environment around her, effectively rendering herself invisible, but such a thing would be difficult to maintain, especially in motion.

Sorry, my entry wasn't actually complete. I didn't mean to imply that the lack of prime invincibility is weakness - I just forgot to finish that point =\ There, all fixed now.

I am not sure maintaining this link counts as using the power. I think of it in terms similar to how denizens of Nalthis invest their Breath - the act of doing something with their Breath(s) is magic usage, but once an object has been invested, the Breath is just sitting there, not requiring active maintenance.

It's entirely possible that the people had a different name during the first year or so, and then quickly switched as they saw the havoc the Epics caused. I think this would be an interesting question to ask Brandon though.

I'll be there for the entire duration (most likely), so I can ask some more questions in the end.

Yea, I kind of missed the second part regarding the Heralds. I remembered something about them being broken, but didn't think much of it, because it didn't sound like news - they did look broken, crushed, in the opening scene. Good call on them not being honorable though - this might affect their powers in the present, I think. Another good call on the societies and violence remark - I did remember that one, but didn't think much of it again... Working off memory alone during the general Q&A didn't work entirely as well as I hoped