Argent

Technically, both Elantris and Warbreaker can - and for now, should - be considered standalones. Even if Brandon never gets around to writing their sequels, they are compete stories. Warbreaker is a little weird because of whole worldhopping thing, but its own story is very much a finished thing (as opposed to Wax & Wayne, where each book suggests a sequel).

Elantris was a full novel, so I imagine any sequel will also be one. Which means it is unlikely to share a publication year with another novel, even if The Lost Metal will likely end up being a medium-length one. I imagine Elantris 2 will come out in a year when we are getting a YA novel.

We know that the highstorms predate the arrival of Honor and Cultivation on Roshar, and so if they were invested back then as well (which I find likely, as a lot of the ecology of Roshar seems to depend on Stormlight - investiture, in other words), then that investiture must've come from somewhere else. Knowing that there have only been three Shards on Roshar, and all three are accounted for, the only other source of investiture we know of is Adonalsium. Whose investiture we already suspect was a part of Roshar because there were spren there before the Shards showed up too.

Kandra specifically are actually a little ahead of the rest of Elendel Basin in terms of science. Their access to the Words of Founding, plus occasional chats with Harmony, allows them to get a head start on pretty much everything (e.g. see VenDell's comment about projectors - evanoscopes? - likely becoming common place a year or two in the future). But generally I like your idea. There are some holes in it, there is some serious evidence that suggests it is Paalm who speaks to Wax, not another entity, but even those can be explained away (e.g. you could make a claim that Bavadin, via her spike in Paalm, has some measure of control over the kandra, in a manner similar to how Ruin and Harmony can control them; maybe her twist on Hemalurgy allows her a smaller measure of control, kind of like a middle ground between Ruin/Harmony's no control at one spike and full control at two). EDIT: It would be also be neat if Rian foreshadows Autonomy, parallel to how Reen foreshadowed Ruin. The nameplay is fun.

This might (eventually) be relevant to the discussion.

Some follow-up on savants: [link].

Several days ago I mentioned somewhere (I did, didn't I?) that Brandon is maybe considering backpedaling on some savant... stuff. I felt that his original comment to me was unclear, so I reached out and asked for a bit of clarification. Here it is: The TL;DR of all of this is: Wax was intended to be a savant of the combination of Allomantic Steel and Feruchemical Iron. Originally, savantism was meant to come with a consequence, a danger to it (e.g. see Spook) Three three published Wax & Wayne books don't seem to explore that - Wax experiences no downsides to his savantism So it's possible that some stuff will change in the future - whether it is Wax's status as a savant, whether it is how savantism and/or resonances work, whether it is some slight retcon, nobody knows ('cause it might not even happen). So take all this as a word of warning that any discussion about how savants work might end up being wrong and/or incomplete, even if all the information in it is currently accurate.

Yeah, but even if your body goes poof, your other Realmatic aspects are still there, so you've still absorbed the power. Plus, there is some weirdness with the Vessels' bodies, as we see a few of them come back...

Probably not. In theory a person could invest themselves with all of a Shard's investiture, at which point they Ascend and become the (Vessel for that) Shard. Stormlight might be a little stranger, however, as there is some strong evidence that it is (or at least was) Adonalsium's investiture, not a Shard's. Still, my money is on "probably not."

Which Cosmere Discord would that be? They've been popping like mushrooms recently, it's hard to keep track...

This looks really cool, but we don't have any complete Shardworld maps (though I think Roshar will be mostly correct). I think we'll need to wait a little bit before this becomes useful.

Find one more and cosplay younger Brandon & sons.

I don't think we know that.

Yeah, I think that pretty much settles it.

Yeah, this has been my understanding of those things for some time now. I think we've seen hints (outside of books) that this is the case, but it's nice to get it in plain text, straightforward and all.

Well, I think a lot of the work on this transcription has been yours, @Khyrindor, so good work and thank you! I don't think many (any?) other signings get 20 page reports, so it's always a point of particular pride (alliterations ftw!) of mine when the Chicago events get such an amazing turnout. Though I also feel a tiny bit guilty because some poor soul will have to transcribe all that - since I rarely have the time these days. @Volratho, can I ask you to update the first post in this thread with a copy of the entire document hidden behind a spoiler tag (so people can search for stuff on the forums)? If you are feeling extra generous, you could go over all the comments we have dangling and see if anything needs additional addressing (e.g. unclear/incomplete questions), so we can address it before you update your post. On a different note, I've been thinking about how I feel about signings, and how my experience attending the Chicago ones and contributing information from them compares to events and reports from other places, and I've decided that, for whatever reason, the information we get in Chicago is more... diluted. I feel like the Utah signings tend to get the best WoBs in terms of Cosmeric significance, but the Illinois ones tend to produce more WoBs (of lesser significance) overall. Anyone else notice this, or am I just high on coffee?

This is, undoubtedly, one of the weirdest topics I have read in a while...

Yeah, maybe. I seem to recall something similar. It does? My understanding is that there is no actual conflict here, just a cultural one - the Terris people have always been a secluded bunch, not exactly frolicking with outsiders every chance they get. Not to mention Rashek wasn't fond of the idea either.

So are we done with this transcript? Any questions we need another pass on?

He not only made Spook a full Mistborn pretty much immediately after Ascending, he also fixed the Spiritual damage he had done to himself on his path to savantism. Not to mention that he changed the entire process of snapping, which strikes me as a far more difficult thing to do. So Harmony's inexperience definitely doesn't affect his ability to create Mistborn. Allomancy is getting weaker - and it has been since the days of Rashek's Ascension. Harmony might be able to do something about this though, if he finds his world in peril. In theory? Sure. It's just a matter of probability.

Alright, stuff's uploading right now. You can get all of my recordings here (though maybe not at this very moment, because it's still uploading). #1 is the reading + Q&A, #2 is pre-Mama Jen outside Q&A, and #3 is post-Mama Jen outside Q&A. Sorry for not organizing this a little better, but I am in a bit of a rush at the moment.

The questions were difficult to pick up in the first place, not everyone projects their voice by default So I doubt my recording would've picked them up (not to mention that I think I had my mic covered for like half of the Q&A...). I'll upload my file in a bit.

It's really hard to pass a verdict on Taravangian because of how different he can be on different days. I think there is an argument to be made for his "real" personality being the one where he is smarter than the average (because that one seems to be one driving his long-term plans), but on some days he really is a kind old man. It's just on those days his influence over the world is restricted, and so he doesn't get to balance out his more intelligent - and cruel, most might say, - half.

@Volratho and @Zmann966 are in charge of this. Unless you want my phone audio - I can post that one in a few hours.

Then you should add something like [AU Spoilers] to your thread's title