Windrunner

This makes perfect sense! I didn't realize that each order got a special combo power. Is it general consensus that the Windrunner's combo power is riding the Storm? I was going to say that visiting Shadesmar could be Shallan's combo power, but Jasnah goes there too and she's in a different order. Wait, Shoot! Jasnah and Shallan both Soulcast so they have the same power. Unless they do it in different ways? I seem to remember Jasnah saying that something was different between them but she might have just been referring to their different orders.

If anyone is at a loss for questions to ask him (but I think its impossible that any 17th Sharder wouldn't have a boatload of questions) here are a few good Alloy ones that I would ask Brandon. They don't spoil the story and are relevant to current discussions. What is different about Allomantic Snapping now that Sazed has changed it? Are chromium and nicrosil known to any of the inhabitants of Scadrial? Do the people of Alloy of Law have any form of electronic communication? (telegraph, phone etc.) If not, Why? If you've got your own questions that you like better, no worries, I'm sure they're great too Edit: Ignore question three, Peter just more or less answered it. Small area of significant population density combined with a minimal understanding of electricity have created a society where the need for long distance communication is less necessary.

I'm kind of thinking that they have 14, know about atium, and malatium and have references that Sazed left, two more base metals, one of which, cadmium, has already been discovered. This gives them the count of 18. I can understand how you could interpret the quote the other way though. I think that they may have discovered chromium and nicrosil in the southern hemisphere. Whoever wrote the Ars Arcanum said that when Feruchemists store investiture in nicrosil, they definitely don't know what they're doing. This implies to me that whoever wrote the Ars Arcanum has seen a Feruchemist store investiture, or else the author wouldn't know what nicrosil did. And since he saw them using the alloy, they must have known about the base metal. However I'm not sure if there are any Feruchemists in the southern hemisphere, since the Terrismen spent most of their time in the far north.

I'm sorry for this, I wasn't disputing the fact that transformation is a surge and and that fabrials called soulcasters can do a weaker version of this. When I said someone using the powers of the Radiants, I was actually thinking about Szeth, since he's not a Radiant. This was my last post of the night and I was running on empty, so I'm sorry that I said something that could have multiple interpretations. This is a good point, Regrowth does sound a lot like Lashing. But would you agree with me that if Regrowth may be the subset of some Surge except Transformation? (& Gravity & Pressure & Travel of course) Regrowth doesn't seem to fit well under Transformation but maybe that's just because we don't really understand how the Surge works. I was just thinking, does each Order interpret their shared Surges the same way? Like does Order 2 perform the full lashing with the Pressure Surge, and Order 10 perform the basic and reverse lashings with the Gravity Surge? It seems to me that it might be more interesting if they manipulated the Surge differently depending on their order and we would get to see more cool powers!

So for Surges we have: Gravity-Windrunners and Order 10 Pressure- Windrunners and Order 2 Travel Transformation-Soulcasting, Jasnah and Shallan's Orders Light-similar to Lightweaving (I'll find the quote if you want) Heat?-Melting Stone Maybe Dustbringers Regrowth?-Maybe Stonewards Assuming all of those are right, we have seven surges. However I'm still not sold on Regrowth being a Surge. In no other point in the text has any Radiant or someone using the powers of the Radiants used an object to perform their surgebinding. Sure this could be a Radiant using a fabrial to access the powers of another order. But not all fabrials fit directly with the surges. Navani's pain knife and emotion reader don't seem to be surges. Also Regrowth doesn't seem to fit to me. Brandon said that magic of Roshar is about manipulating fundamental forces, and I don't think that Regrowth if fundamental enough. Funnily enough, the fact that flesh doesn't really repair itself but regrows reminds me of Alloy of Law Spoilers

In a perfect world that followed the Lord Ruler's decrees this would be true, however there have been a lot of broken laws, with nobles having children with skaa. Most of the nobles had already been beaten to the point where their Allomantic abilities would have been uncovered. I'm sure that a few have Allomancy that could be brought to the surface by the mist snapping but since Allomancy is, as a whole, stronger in the nobility, most of those who could be Allomancers would have probably been snapped by the beatings. Most of those who snapped were skaa. Those who had noble ancestors, but so far back in their family tree that their powers wouldn't be brought out the regular way. The mists snapped all these, whose Allomancy was too weak. The real question to me is why 16%? I know it is important to the cosmere, but what is the likelihood that exactly 16% of the Scadrialese(?) had Allomantic ability? The odds would be phenomenal. This suggests to me, either that the mists were leaving some unsnapped or, (but probably more unlikely) were creating extremely weak Allomancers who's only ability comes from the tiny piece of Preservation innately inside of them. My other question is, how does snapping work, now that Sazed changed it? The only thing that is for sure is that in order to obtain the power of Allomancy, the person would have to do something inline with the intent of Preservation (and have the correct sDNA).

How does this differ from it being a fabrial? The quote says that the topaz and heliodor thing was bright. Since they were fighting at night, Dalinar probably wouldn't have noticed that they were shiny, I think this means that they were infused. Fabrials use Stormlight as a power source for some unusual magical affect that is determined by the type and cut of the gems. So if she is using Stormlight through the gems I think that that makes the item a fabrial. The only other possibility I can think of is, like I said above the gems are basically the equivalent of a Stormlight purse where she keeps it until she needs to Infuse something.

There's also the possibility that Regrowth is done with a fabrial. Here's the quote emphasis mine. The Way of Kings Hardcover, pg 303 This confirms almost for certain that Stormlight was used, based on the icy feeling that is associated with it. This doesn't mean for sure but I'm convinced at least that Stowmlight is from Honor, meaning this is Surgebinding. But I can't decide about the topaz, heliodor thing. Is it a fabrial or just a glorified carrying case for the Radiant's Stormlight? Topaz's focus is bone, and Heliodor's is flesh, making it ideal for healing. The fact that she can use it makes me want to put the woman in the 9th Order which might be the Stonewards.

Well the Lord Ruler didn't seem to have that much trouble keeping thousands of years of age stored in two bracers, so I think that it wouldn't take too much atium to store 20-50 years of age in. You could make the argument that the Lord Ruler wasn't actually tapping age, but compounding atium at the time. However he would have to be constantly swallowing atium beads to make this work and, to make it even more unlikely, atium burns extremely fast so he would need to be practically stuffing his face to survive.

Ok here are the most important ones I could find using origin(courtesy of Amazon look inside, this thing is awesome) pg. 382 pg. 142 pg. 193

I am certain that Roshar is a sphere, based off of (sorry for the spoiler, if you haven't read the rest of Brandon's cosmere books you might not want to read this.) But for other purposes I'm not sure that the Highstorms just go around the planet. It makes sense but the fact is that they would be able to be predicted more accurately. There would be a predictable interval wouldn't there? It's the Stormwardens' job to predict them and they would have noticed a pattern by now. But in the books, they often predict storms that don't arrive, or storms come that weren't predicted. Do you have any ideas why that might be?

You are correct MasterGhandalf, this is from a Reddit Q&A

On the subject of uses for a Pulser I was thinking bomb squad. They could throw down a cadmium bubble and work on diffusing it in slow motion. While the building was evacuated around them. The other thing I was thinking was that if the explosion was inevitable, and there wasn't enough time to get civilians out, a heroic Pulser, and maybe a Nicroburst too, could effectively stop time around the bomb (or more likely make it go really really slow), sacrificing their lives in the explosion to let everyone else get out okay. I'm not sure if a Nicroburst would be a good idea though, it would slow down time inside the bubble more, but it wouldn't last as long, slowing time extremely for a second, and then no more. You might be better off with just a PulserBut it would be so sad to stand outside the bubble and watch as the Pulser was slowly consumed by fire of the explosion. This makes me wonder, when would the bubble go down, would it stop as soon as the Pulser ceased to live or when the explosion hit the edge of the bubble. It wouldn't matter to the Pulser but to the outside world it could buy them a few extra seconds

Don't get to attached do these phonetics just yet. This is by Peter from the same thread, talking about that exact post.

This is exactly what I meant! If I may ask, what criteria did you use to make those groupings? I can't decide yet which Nexuses and Seas I would fit with each Shard. One of the names for the Almighty, is Elithanathile (I think) which means one who changes or something like that. But truth would also fit, it is actually honorable.

This is from a signing that Brandon did at Milton Keynes. It appears to confirm that the Lord Ruler did compound his atiumminds for his immortality. I'm actually kind of sad about this, I really liked this theory.

This is awesome! I'd love any of these prize!!! It's great how 17th Shard is so active with all the the interviews, giveaways, and whatnot.

I am aware of how maps work. I don't think you and I see eye to eye on why the Shadesmar is shaped like Roshar in the map. You claim that it doesn't really look like Roshar because it is an artists interpretation, which is a good theory. However that does not make it fact. We know it is an in-world artifact, and subject to bias, but that does not make it certain that that part of Shadesmar is not an inverted Roshar. Just because it is an interpretation doesn't make it completely untrue. After all there was an artists interpretation of the Alethi War Camps in the book. Sure it wasn't perfect but that doesn't invalidate everything about it. The camps are round, there are ten, and they are even ordered correctly. So you can't just assume that the only accurate part of the Shadesmar map is the names of the Nexuses, Seas, and Expanses. In fact from what we've seen so far of Shadesmar, the map can't be proven inaccurate. Shallan is standing on land in Kharbranth, and when she arrives in Shadesmar she is in a Sea of Cognitive aspects, which is what you would expect from a part of Shadesmar that is shaped like an inverted Roshar. I thought this is what you were saying from your earlier post, but now I don't understand what you think they are. If not a portal to a part of Shadesmar that is shaped like its corresponding world then what is it? I also don't think that it makes sense that only the ten planets with Shards would be represented. Brandon says there are other inhabited planets in the cosmere with no Shards but the people there would still have cognitive aspects, am I right? If you can't find those aspects in the Cognitive Realm, then where are they? I did notice something else today in the Hero of Ages. While Vin is holding Preservation, she refers to the place where her mind and power are mainly located as a Nexus. And coincidentally there are three Nexuses on Roshar, and three Shards as well. I don't know is this is happenstance or what. It makes me think though, there are also three Seas, one for each Shardpool. And we know for sure that at least one of the Expanses is another Shardworld, maybe the others are as well. I don't know if this is just idle speculation but it sure would wrap up nicely.

But there's a problem here. There are ten nexuses, seas, and expanses. If you are seeing the Roshar Shadesmar, there should be only 9 portals to other Shardworlds, not ten, because if you are on Roshar's Shadesmar you don't need a portal to Roshar's Shadesmar. So we end up with an extra portal.

I don't think the Heralds can or would want to summon the Honorblades. The way that they gave the Honorblades up, to escape the cycle of Damnations they were forced to endure, makes it seem that the Honorblades are tied directly to the Oathpact. It seemed to me that the swords were at least in part the source of their power(the Heralds are still immortal without the Honorblades). By giving them up and walking away from their duty they overturned the Oathpact, which has unknown consequences. I think since the Heralds gave up their burden willingly they wouldn't be eager, or at least too ashamed, to bind themselves to the Oathpact yet again by reclaiming the Honorblades.

Okay I did a bit of digging and found some things out. This is from chapter 44 of the Warbreaker annotation This is from a Twitter interview in July of 2009 This clears up the Returned having children, their is something odd going on, a secret, but it is clearly possible. Warbreaker Chapter 32 Okay I was right, Vo did die after a week, but I'm thinking they already had Breath, because then he wouldn't have Returned looking like the other Returned that were to follow. We have no idea how different the other type of Returning is from the one we know. And now I have something of a timeline, from Chapter 32 as well. So this says that Vo Returned 300 years before the Era of the Manywar To put this in context it was talking about the royal family during the time of the Manywar. So when those two quotes are put together, a bit of a timeline can be put together. According to my theory, first Endowment arrived on Nalthis, and probably not too long after, Vo Returned. 300 years later came the discoveyr of Awakening, the 5 Scholars, and the Manywar. Around 400 years after that comes the events of Warbreaker. I was a little off on the dates so I'll edit the first post soon, but so far, nothing contradicts the basic precepts of my theory. Possible, but personally, I doubt it. I don't see any possible motivation for leaving Nalthis. The only Shard that we know for sure has left it's planet is Odium, who went to murder Aona and Skai. I can't see a Shard with an intent that means giving, going to kill anyone else. Maybe she was escaping Odium, but I don't see him leaving the inhabitants of Nalthis unharmed. I don't know that the Returning would stop if Endowment left, Preservation had no mind and it still was on auto-pilot snapping people. Also Vo probably wouldn't be called the First Returned, because there would be myths of others from before Endowment left.

The bones are twisted into glyphs. Urg! I'm away from home and have no cosmere books but in the end of Elantris it says Raoden recognizes the twists of bone as ancient Fjordell characters. My running theory is that, much as the focuses on Scadrial were metal, the focuses on Sel are languages. Hrathen remembers monks chanting over him in Dakhor, when his change began. So the power of AonDor is in symbols and the power of FjorDor is in the spoken word. My problem with this is that I can't figure out how the chanting and sacrifices fit together. Maybe I'm totally off base and the chanting just serves to mystify the fact that sacrifices are providing power. My other problem is ChayShan, I cannot figure out how they could incorporate language into their movements. The only idea I have had is that, similar to what you said above, they have basic forms that they fall into, moving in the shape of Jindoeese symbols, and modifying them with other moves, just like Raoden modifies the Aons. If my theory is right, then there would be a nice symmetry going on, one with power from symbols, one from words, and one from motions, just like the three parts of language, reading, speaking, and writing.

Hmm, this is a bit of a problem. Returned can return without Breath, but without one a week they will die after 8 days. Maybe the original Returned just died after a week? When they discovered Breath they would be able to keep them alive. I can't remember if it says that they lived or died. Let me check my Warbreaker and I'll see if I can find any quotes the give evidence one way or another. The only thing I can think of, off the top of my head is Vo the First Returned came back, gave them the 5 Visions, got his wife pregnant, with a baby who would found the House of Idris and had that color-changing hair, and then Vo died. I'm pretty sure that all happened in a week.

From Brandon's signing in York This instantly set my mind spinning and gave a solution to a problem that had been bothering me, what changed on Nalthis that started the people Returning, and the discovery of Awakening? It only happened 300-500 years before and I couldn't understand why Endowment would suddenly make such a big change. Maybe they could have Awakened all along and didn't know how, but AonDor which is just as complex had already been in use for centuries, if not millennia. So what changed? My answer is this, Endowment came to Nalthis. Before it had just been of those Shardless worlds, perhaps left over from the Shattering of Andonalsium but then Endowment came. She (maybe a he?) started returning people 500 years before. after the people of Nalthis had spent time around her, they began to change, kind of like mutation, and started having pieces of Endowment inside them, Breath, which culminated in the discovery of Awakening around 300 years ago. I'll expand on this more later, when I get home and can examine some quotes from Warbreaker and work on the theory. Until then, any comments, questions or concerns?

Can I just say wow! Here I was hoping for maybe eight Shardworlds, and there are ten important ones! Also, worlds with Splinters and some with no Shardic influence at all! It makes me wonder if maybe Nalthis had no Shard on it until recently, just inhabitants left over from the Shattering. I'm pretty sure that Taldain is the name of the White Sands planet, home of Bavadin and whatever Shard he holds. We don't know the name of the Silence Divine planet.