Windrunner

I've got some more points for Dalinar being Order Eight. His Devotary is the Order of Talnelet (sp?) which is related to Taln, Herald of the Eighth Order. Also I read in a thread that I can no longer find, that Shallan feels sick when she lies, which fits with Order 6, and I think that Kaladin feels bad when he can't protect people, which would make sense for why he's so depressed. Dalinar feels sick when he's at his most destructive and unsure, (killing and worrying about his sanity) which is the exact opposite of Resolute Builder. It just seems to fit.

I agree that life was barren when Ruin and Preservation got there, it just seems to me that someone else being there first makes the most sense for why Scadrial has a name.

There could have simply been a planet of origin before the shattering that named many nearby local solar systems, and those names were inherited by the planets after the shattering of Adonalsium.

I think my point from above still holds true. You simply can't name planets originally if you're studying them, there are simply too many, even if they're relatively close. We don't even have original names for most stars, let alone their planets, and it makes sense that any other advanced stargazing society would do the same thing. I also don't think that any Shardworlds are very close to each other, save Roshar and the Silence Divine planet, which are potentially a special case.

The only thing we know for sure about someone from Scadrial getting to Shadesmar is that it's possible. Maybe part of their FTL Travel?

How could a person from Scadrial access Shadesmar? An alloy of a god metal?

• He RAFOd me on this one and said it was a plot point for future novels.

I forgot to mention my other favorite character, Wit/Hoid from the Way of Kings. This might be cheating a bit but I found his teasing to be hilarious throughout the book. I hope that he is acting at least somewhat like himself. I'd be disappointed if the whole funny guy thing was just an act.

Is it possible that flaring tin allows him to see where the blue lines end better, making it easier to tell the depth of various parts of the metal so he can read it easier? I'm gonna agree with everyone here and write it off as savant level abilities. If you can see color, you can judge thickness.

17th Shard: Tucker asks, "Will you ever write a book or series where different magic systems come into the same world?"

Brandon: Where different magic systems come into the same world. Um…I have already.

17th Shard: (confused) Published novels?

Brandon: Yes.

17th Shard: I mean like different magic systems from different worlds.

Brandon: That's what I said.

17th Shard: He's being really clever about this, Eric. (Eric says) Okay, okay, sorry.

Brandon: You're asking if I'll do it obviously.

17th Shard: (laughs)

Brandon: Where that's the focus of the novel? Someday I might. Right now I've been planning in the back of my head, but I'm not sure if I'll do it. See, here's the thing: I like all of this stuff to be behind the scenes; I don't want any reader to walk up on the shelf and pull it out and feel like they are completely lost because they have to read 27 Sanderson novels before this one makes sense. And so that would be my hesitance in ever doing that. But I already have in very subtle ways. And if were going to do a conflux book, I might just post it on my website. I don't know, I'm not sure. It depends on how popular the things are and whatnot. But, I don't think I want to do that to my casual readers.

17th Shard: Right, they wouldn't have any of the background.

Brandon: Right, they wouldn't have any of the background. Thing is, some of the magic systems do cross worlds, and have before. And that has not happened obviously; you haven't really seen it. Right now Liar of Partinel [an unpublished book —ed] and Stormlight Archives share a magic system, because with the unifying theory of magic there's a certain number of things that magic can do, and there's a lot of different ones, but when they get similar they tend to work in the same way. So Lightweaving shows up in both books. I may change that for Liar of Partinel, but it's kind of integral to that book and it's kind of integral to Stormlight Archive right now too. This is one of the reasons why I had to decide to do either Dragonsteel or Stormlight Archive as the big epic.

Some of the magic systems have been discovered on different planets, and some of them do work. A lot of them don't, but some of them do. It depends on your spiritual DNA, what people are able to do, and things like that. But, if you find a way to do illusion magic in one of my worlds it's going to work pretty much like Lightweaving, regardless of which planet you're on. If that makes sense.

Here you go, its a really long one haha, but it's better then it being under explained. I've noticed one other between magic systems similarity. Regrowth from Surgebinding, and tapping a goldmind in Feruchemy have almost identical affects. They both don't actually fix what's been damaged, like reattaching a finger, but rather make a whole new one grow. I'll get ahold of relevant quotes if anyone ones to see them.

Well even if Adonalsium named it I still think that the fact that it had a name before Ruin and Preservation implies that there was something special there. Even if you're almighty I wouldn't think you'd waste your time naming barren worlds for the fun of it.

Nice catch! Brandon says that if one power appears in more then one of his worlds it tends to work the in the same way, so this transformation could very well be just like Soulcasting, except powered by Aona instead of Honor. Another example of this is Lightweaving, it works the on Yolen, but is also one of the powers of the Knights Radiant.

There are a couple of sample chapters if you want to read them. The one in the Unfinished works section is short, somewhere there is another longer version that I read. They still ride horses everywhere, so I doubt they can see exoplanets yet. The Liar of Partinel and the Lightweaver of Rens (1st and 2nd books of Dragonsteel) are Hoid's origin story. And Hoid was there when the Shattering of Adonalsium occurred, so Liar is pretty much the only confirmed Pre-Shattering book.

I don't see that just because the planet has a name it necessarily had to have people living on it before the Shards arrived. Look at our solar system, 8 (9) planets all with names, but only one has life. Stars, planets, solar systems all have names throughout our universe even though we've never even been remotely close to investigating them ourselves.

Maybe wherever the Shardholders came from was a somewhat advanced culture like ours with telescopes and such, and so named some of the planets they could see as we do.

I understand where you're coming from and I thought about this a bit too before I posted this topic. It is extremely unlikely that Scadrial and Yolen (where the big Pre-Shattering events are going down) are in the same system. Brandon told us Roshar and the Silence Divine share a system, so I think that he would have mentioned something momentous as Scadrial and Yolen being in the same system as well. This removes the possibility that it would have been named Scadrial because they were in the same solar system, so logically Scadrial must be an exoplanet.

Assuming that those Pre-Shattering had the technology to see exoplanets, which seems unlikely from what we've seen from Dragonsteel, they wouldn't name it something as distinct as Scadrial. Recent evidence suggests that there are at least 160 billion planets in our galaxy alone. Assuming the cosmere is of similar structure to our own universe, they're going to have far more planets then they can name distinctively. If you look at what we're doing now, we use nomenclature to name planets so they're are easier to remember. For example we recently discovered a system with planets that are Mars sized in the habitable zone. If any discovered planets deserve a distinct name it's these ones. But we refer to them as planets 01, 02, and 03, of the KOI-961 system. This is necessary when dealing with the vast number of planets out there and any Pre-Shattering astronomers would likely have done the same thing, not naming a barren planet, way out in the middle of nowhere, Scadrial. It makes more sense to me that there was a group of people there before the Shattering who named the planet.

I don't think that world hopping surveyors would have named either, for same reasons I said above. If it was just a barren planet there would be no reason to give it a distinct name. There had to have been something special there, and to me, the most likely thing is that there were people there. It's almost a certainty that many planets were populated Pre-Shattering so it's not much of a stretch to say that Scadrial had people too, who vanished for some unknown reason.

Sorry for not putting a citation in, I was feeling a bit lazy. It's from the Alloy of Law Release, and the rest of the the information we got there can be found here in the Clues, Questions, and Answers from 11-08-11 thread. I'll edit my original post too so there's no more confusion.

I always thought in the back of my head that Hemalurgy could be used to steal the piece of Ruin that's inside everyone's soul. My main logic on this was it would be weird for Ruin's magic system to be able to steal pieces of his opposite Shard, but not be able to steal pieces from Ruin, the very shard that powers Hemalurgy.

If you hold all the power that makes you a Shard, but the Lord Ruler held a little bit of it and then let it go. From then on they referred to that change in him—the residue, what was left—as a Sliver. When he held it he became the Shard for a short time, and Vin was a Shard for a short time. After Vin gave up the power, what Kelsier is at the end of the trilogy—that's a Sliver of Adonalsium.

Do we have any idea of what impact being a Sliver has on a person, after the power is gone? What is this residue of power Brandon talks about?

I was browsing the Brandonothology and found this quote.

Who names the planets? You've said once that "Scadrial" was the name of the planet as Ruin and Preservation knew it, but where'd they get that name? Do the Shardholders all get together and vote on it or something?

• He said thay already had their names and that the all the planets existed before the shardholders got there.

This made me think a little bit. Ruin speaks of how he and Preservation created humanity themselves, albeit in the shape of other humans. But in order for a planet to have a name before the Shards got there, there must have been people on Scadrial Pre-Shattering. So my question is, what happened to all these people? They can't have just vanished. Did they evacuate to another Shardworld? Did the Shattering of Adonalsium kill them all? I don't expect any definitive answers but this seemed to me like something that had never really been discussed.

It's description always reminded me of a cognitive aspect like the spheres Shallan found in Shadesmar, but I doubt it's as simple as that.

I know I wouldn't want to meet a Shard who's intent is Avarice, but I'm not sure it's base enough. However I think that Hoid's grudge with Rayse and Bavadin is rooted in the era before the Shattering, back on Yolen. Neither of those character names appear in the sample chapters of Dragonsteel but if I were Brandon I would have changed their names from the original draft.

Don't worry I don't think you're being pedantic. We have to get the details right or we won't end up with the bigger cosmere picture that we're trying to piece together here. I think I might have been a bit unclear. I don't think that Marsh ever had his metals/Allomancy powered by Ruin, or even that Ruin could have without expending his power in some mysterious way. I was trying to say that if Marsh was Ruin's champion (which I don't believe) then Marsh would have been having his Hemalurgy fueled by Ruin, like Elend's Allomancy was fueled by Vin as Preservation. What fueling Hemalurgy would do though is beyond me. Maybe less power loss? Does that make sense? Or am I crazy? Haha

I'm going to go with Marsh was just a tool, like Zas said. I see a champion as someone with free will, powered by the Shard, but not controlled. If Marsh was evil and Ruining things because he liked it, and Ruin chose to power his Hemalurgy, then he would be a champion. This is likely why choosing a champion will constrict Odium, he will have to limit his power to one person. I wonder also if faith is part of being a champion. The second Elend thinks about his faith that Vin will save him, she is able to start powering his Allomancy

Urg, I agree with you that determination seems mental, but I hate breaking the quadrants like this, it'll look so inelegant... I'm glad that it's actual physical warmth that is stored, not a mental feeling of warmth, because then, for all intents and purposes, there is no survival benefit.

Edit: Found a relevant quote and remembered something I forgot to say.

Are the usual quadrants (Physical, Mental, Temporal, Enhancement) preserved in Feruchemy and Hemalurgy? Status:No. In Ferchemy, it is based Realmantically. There is a quadrant of Spiritual, a quadrant of Cognitive and two quadrants of Physical.

So quadrants are still in effect, but perhaps they're divided differently? I don't like the idea that a base metal and it's alloy could be in different quadrants though.

I think that Feruchemy almost has to be divided up differently of Allomancy. I was thinking the other day about how Feruchemy fits in the Realms and I realized that the temporal metals of Allomancy don't make any sense as the cognitive metals of Feruchemy, as I had assumed they were. It seems like gold, electrum, cadmium, and bendalloy are actually Feruchemical physical attributes, along with iron, steel, tin and pewter. This means that the mental quadrant of Feruchemy is actually the Cognititve quadrant. But then I think about warmth and I'm a little unsure. Is it a feeling of warmth or actual physical warmth? But mental speed, wakefulness and memory seem to fit wonderfully into the Cognitive Realm.

Hoid can move through time, but only forward, at least so far...

Chaos2561: Can Hoid jump through time? If so, can Shards jump through time?

Brandon: Hoid, so far, has only moved forward in time. He has not 'lived' all of those years, but has used some time dilation techniques. That said, he is far older (both in relative and real time) than a normal person can live.

The Valley of Truth or the Valley of the Nightwatcher? (or maybe the are the same one like it says above?)

I would like to announce that I now have the same number of Rep points as there are Shards! Thanks to everyone who upvoted me It's been really great to meet some new friends here!

I'm not convinced that killing King Gavilar would be the way to gain his trust. They already had a treaty why not just tell him the Voidbringers are coming? If I were murdered and resurrected by someone I thought to be an ally, not only would I be pissed, I'd never trust them again. What can Gavilar the Parshendi do that Gavilar the King, with a whole nation under his control could not?

Thanks for the upvote, whoever did that! Elend did indeed burn the lerasium when he ingested it, Brandon said so in an interview.

17th Shard: If a Mistborn burns lerasium, as in, not just ingests it, what effect would it grant Allomantically?

Brandon: That is a RAFO. It would do something, but the thing you've gotta remember is that, when ingesting lerasium for the first time and gaining the powers, your body is actually burning it. Think of lerasium as a metal anyone can burn. Does that make sense?

17th Shard: It does.

Brandon: By burning it you gain access to those powers. It rewrites your spiritual DNA, and there are ways to do really cool things with lerasium that I don't see how anyone would know. Were most Mistborn to just burn it, it would rewrite their genetic code to increase their power as an Allomancer.

So there are some really cool things that lerasium can do, but Elend is definitely burning it. I don't think that atium alloys would make Ferrings, at least not one of the basic 16 alloys. We saw malatium, which was gold and atium, and it didn't make Vin or Kelsier into Ferrings, or at least as far as we know. I'll agree it seems odd to make a Feruchemist by burning a metal, but I figure it would probably still work like lerasium, a metal anyone can burn. I also can't think of any other way to make a Feruchemist, without a Shard directly using its power on someone.

I wondered about how many earrings the Inquisitor's spikes could create but I came to the conclusion that probably a lot of Pathians just have regular spikes, and Sazed only gives Hemalurgic earrings to those he wants to be involved with.