TheSurvivorofDeath

Okay this is like the third time I've done this and I have never finished any of those projects, but I swear I'm gonna finish this one. I just wanted to share my first chapter and maybe my prologue to get some basic feedback on style and voice and that kind of stuff before I continue writing. I will not be sharing further progress until at least a first draft is done, but I wanted a bit of feedback before I continue. Anyway, here it is. I do have a prologue that I am debating keeping, but I can share that if anyone wants. Otherwise, feedback is welcome and encouraged. Thank you.

One piece almost certainly did become kaladins spear. Another was likely absorbed by Syl, explaining her altered appearance near the end, as she seems on track to in some way replace the Stormfather. The others, however many there were, could be doing any number of things. They may be sitting around, gaining sentience, or they may have gone off to invest individuals who align with Honor’s intent, or they could be doing some other things entirely. I’m sure we will learn more about what some of those pieces did.

1. Yeah that is the prevailing sentiment. This book was a wild ride with a doozy of an ending. 2. Kaladin is going to help the Heralds heal from millennia of trauma, while healing himself, and eventually return to help Roshar. 3. That epilogue does hit pretty hard. 4. The time dilation makes time pass more slowly on Roshar, with its early manifestation making Rosharan months equal to Cosmere years. The dilation seems to surround the entire Rosharan system, and is weakening with time. The Ghostbloods believe it will end in approximately 70-80 Cosmere years, roughly 10 on Roshar. 5. WaT happens before the Lost Metal. I believe it happens a solid bit before the Alloy of Law. The entire Wax and Wayne series takes place in the time skip between Arc 1 and 2 of SA. 6. There is a solid chance that Shallan will come across Retributions Perpendicularity at the Shattered Plains, letting her escape Shadesmar. From there, who knows how she’ll get anywhere. 7. Lots of stuff is gonna happen in 10 years. Lots and lots. No idea what. I think I got it all. Hope that helps. I’m sure others can contribute more.

I’ve considered chemical compositions to an extent, and I reckon I’ll do more as I assign specific focuses. I haven’t thought much past steel and iron, so there’s a lot of room to consider composition and chemical and physical properties of different materials.

I like metal as the highest level of Focus because metals have unique traits, unique chemical makeups, and a unique role in mankind’s development. Apart from that, metals are slightly rarer on Nexum than on Earth, but not to a major extent. They are, in this story, rarer than you might expect, because this story takes place in a sort of mid-Industrial Revolution society, in an area akin to the Old West. It’s not incredibly rare, but rarer than in the modern world. Additionally, metal has more of an inherit limit than any other material. You have to carry it with you, because you’re not reliably likely to simply find it. It’s heavy, so you can’t carry massive amounts of it. Maybe you can get a screw to use, depending on where you are, but would you rather have slightly more power for a scant period or much more time with a bit less power with a chunk of rock? And metals are less attuned to nature, technically, than other materials, sure. But this magic system deals more with physical connections. Animancy, the other magic of this world, deals with connections to natural concepts and phenomena. Nexu, the God of this world, is deeply connected to nature, but also to humanity. He is a god of connection, not of nature, so the human nature of metal as a material doesn’t stray from the source of the power. Besides, with metal as a source of power I get to name my main character Cadmus Steel and have that name be slightly relevant to the magic system. So there’s that. Thank you for the feedback.

The system is not Cosmere, it is for my own world I’m building. A Somatic can use a maximum of 5 Focuses at a time, though only one mental attribute can be accessed at a given time. To activate a Focus, the Somatic must touch it and focus intently on their desired attribute. A single Focus cannot grant multiple attributes at a time, so a single piece of stone is only going to give either strength or durability. Multiple pieces of stone could be used independently to get both attributes though. When a Focus is activated, it will immediately disintegrate and the power will pass to the Somatic. The power itself comes from the God of this world, who focuses on Connection between people, objects, spirits, and nature.

So I had a magic system for a world I’m working on, which I’ve posted about before. But I realized that not only was it extremely similar to the mechanics and powers of Allomancy and Feruchemy, but it also simply didn’t work. It was weak, unbalanced, and overly complicated for the lack of power it provided. So I made something new. Somaticism: Somatics make use of a physical Focus in order to produce an effect. These effects are mostly physical, with a few cognitive possibilities, and they are limited to the user’s own body. Each effect can be achieved with multiple Focuses, though some work better than others. Some Focuses can also be used to achieve multiple different effects. For example, a Somatic can use stone as a Focus to increase their physical strength, but steel will make them far stronger for far longer. Stone could also be used to increase physical durability, though iron is the better option. In both of these instances, the metals are Perfect Focuses, which yield the greatest possible output for the longest possible time. All Perfect Focuses are metals, and are only associated with one attribute. What do you think? Feedback is welcome.

This is really cool. I always love to see world building projects, especially magic systems. I can advise on magic systems if you’re looking for that. Not so much on the political stuff or anything unless you have super specific questions. Deities and magic are my focus so I love what you’re doing here and look forward to seeing more.

I have some suggestions, if you don’t mind. 1: Make it universal. Everyone has the power to generate electricity based on the food they consume. Having it nutrition based keeps the true power in the hands of the rich, however, as the poor can’t buy as much food. 2: It could be illegal simply because the government doesn’t want its citizens to have free, unregulated electricity. The governments of the world would likely enslave people to generate power for cities or countries, as that’s the most efficient way to make electricity. It could also obviously allow for large burst of electricity that could cause damage to infrastructure and possible high death tolls. In general the basic ability to produce electricity is extremely wide-ranging and doesn’t actually need anything additional to improve it. It’s simply a matter of fitting it to the world to get the best result. 3. Setting it in the 18th century in North America would be great. If you have the power be ancient, which I think you should, industrialization would have started with electricity, making for a wonderful almost sci-fi setting. Colonial culture, Cold War government, modern or post modern technology/technological themes? Sounds pretty cool to me.

You could maybe burn someone if you had enough stored heat and tapped it fast enough, but it probably wouldn’t be that efficient. As for frostbite I believe storing that much heat that quickly would probably kill you. There aren’t that many crazy things you can do, even if you have compounding. Burning people would be made easier if you could compound, but I can’t think of any super interesting things can be done with brass in particular.

Okay does the blood have to be inside of you? Because that makes it harder. However, if you can use any blood as long as it’s your own, you can just store your blood into a stockpile until you need it. Then you can make effects with far more power than you would with your own blood volume, and can even avoid negative effects from depleted blood. It’s an interesting idea.

Shallan has a general lack in soul casting, but it is possible she was combining her surges. Both these surges manifest in ways that aren’t as tangible as gravitation and adhesion, so it’s less visible if there is a combination between them. Lightweavers are different from other orders, so it’s not guaranteed they have this combined ability. There’s no guarantee that any orders have this combination, apart from Windrunners. Bondsmiths manifest something similar, with their repair of solid objects, but Bondsmiths are also a special case. I have no idea what combined ability might manifest from gravitation and division, if one were to manifest at all. It’s possible that the production of lightning is what they can do, but we haven’t seen that for sure. There’s still so much we don’t know about Surgebinding, so we can’t do anything but speculate.

I suppose that makes sense. I do feel like it would be more reasonable to have this Storyteller cite some other fictional creation that isn’t from a real-world fictional story, as that makes this multiverse separate from our world. You could use real literature to explain things but I feel like that would be jarring as a reader. At the very least just say cuts like a Shardblade and cut out the “from the Cosmere” part, since if the Storyteller is just citing things he’s seen out of habit he wouldn’t say where it was from. Just saying. I do like this story idea, my only real issues are the sentence structure and immersion.

Even if it’s set in the real world it still draws away from the immersion. It’s generally advisable not to compare things to other fictional things. There’s no guarantee a reader has seen that thing and it’s better to just describe the thing with real description. Describe it as cutting the soul, not as being like a Shardblade. Just my two cents

Well there’s no evidence that’s what she was doing. Jasnah says Stormlight has mass in itself, and she wasn’t actually sure if Shallan was soulcasting her illusions. Besides, I don’t think the combined ability of Lightweavers would be something that basic. Just using one surge in the other surge, soulcasting an illusion, isn’t very creative. I suspect it’s something different that the Lightweavers can do, if they can do anything at all.