Windrunner

Well the only way to forcibly transfer powers is with Ruin's magic. Not every planet has some inherent transfer magic. Scadrial has one because Ruin is powering it, it's his only magic system. The reason Awakening has some transfer of power is because it follows Endowment's intent of giving. Dakhor is... I don't know we haven't seen enough, sometimes people are killed and sometimes not. If you think about it killing is a pretty ultimate type of Domination, but not the only type. We know that getting powers does require the death of people though, but it's difficult to speculate on something under-explained. Transfer of power works, but if you're looking for a stealing type magic, Hemalurgy is your only option. I still don't think Szeth has stolen his powers from anyone. One idea, Nohadon mentions Surgebinders that aren't Knights Radiant, could Szeth be one of these?

b4dave did say something about using actual spikes. My explanation is about how Hemalurgy is Ruin's system, it doesn't change on each world because it is tied to him. All that matter's with magic is where the Shard is, not where you are. (Although if you're an Elantrian on another world you'll be weaker)

The problem is that Hemalurgy is Ruin's system, using spikes is just how it works. Short of Ruin leaving Scadrial and going to a different Shardworld I don't see the focus/physical aspect changing at all. Hemalurgy doesn't change from world to world just like Allomancers on different worlds would still need to burn metals, Awakeners would still need Commands/color, and Elantrians would still need Aons. The metal itself is important, it is actually charged with a part of a person's soul. It would take something extremely drastic to alter a magic system that much, and from the way Brandon's talked about it, focuses/physical aspects don't change from world to world. We've asked him about Allomancers being able to use the metals of different planets and he said it would work fine. Unless something huge changes like Ruin leaving Scadrial, and perhaps not even then, Hemalurgy should always work the same way, regardless of the world. Magic doesn't depend what world you're on, it's all about what world the source of your power is on, whether it be a Splinter or a whole Shard. Does that make sense?

Except to this guy.^^^ He called it way before anyone asked Brandon about it. If anyone wants to see his original post it's here.

Upvoted! Thank you for that, I was freaking out a little bit. It's such a small mention that I guess he forgot. I wonder how the Tears fuel Awakening? I have no idea... Also why is Edgli crying? Because she got chased away from her original Shardworld and all her old people are dead? I would like that a lot.

So I like, most people I think, have always assumed that the Tears of Edgli are the physical aspect of Endowment. They provide color for dyes of course, and since colors are the physical aspect of Awakening it makes sense. The physical aspects of Ruin and Preservation are metals after all just like their Investitures. But today I found some evidence that it isn't true. This on its own is unimportant. Vivenna simply sees the Tears of Edgli. But then I read this: So since the Tears of Edgli appear in-book does this mean they aren't Endowment's physical aspect? Did Brandon just forget such a throw-away appearance or add them on a late edit? What does everyone else think?

If I'm remembering correctly those are made from Rubies, not Heliodor. If I'm right in my thinking then each surge is tied to a gem type, so they wouldn't be manipulating the same surge. But that it's only true if I haven't missed something.

This has been discussed a tad before right about when Alloy of Law came out, we were discussing the essay in the back about how Hemalurgy is of great usefulness cosmere-wise. As I understand it Hemalurgy will steal part of your spiritual aspect. What Allomancy and Feruchemy have is spiritual DNA (or sDNA as we will sometimes refer to it). It seems that some spiritual traits, like what Metallic Arts you have access to, are hardwired into your Spiritweb and will be passed down like regular genetics. We don't know why this is, although it is possible that the parent's spiritual aspects give rise to their children's spiritual aspects, so they end up being similar. I think Surgebinding works kind of similar to Hemalurgy. The spren grafts onto your Spiritweb in a certain location, just like giving someone a spike in a certain place. (This is all speculation) There is a problem though. It may be that Hemalurgy will only work on people from Scadrial regularly. Also if you look at how many things regular Hemalurgy can steal, there's no way there are enough slots left in the base 16 to steal all the magic systems we know of. The best solution I've seen is that atium alloys will allow you to steal from other magic systems. This could potentially override any problems that might occur because other people have different Shards inside them. Also since we know that there are more then 16 but less then infinite atium alloys, there are plenty of possible metals that could steal any type of Investiture. Does this help? (Sorry that I posted this twice, I'm a nut)

I think I'll break this down so I can give it a proper reply. My first quibble. Detection isn't a fundamental force which Brandon says he wanted to base the surges off. In all fairness, Transformation and Travel aren't all that fundamental either, but I think it's because we don't understand them well enough. Is there another way Detection could be phrased, so it's more fundamental? Maybe detecting sound waves? Well, all fabrials can't be surges. What of the pain knife or the fabrial that reads emotions? There are just way too many. I think they're probably all specialized affects of surges though, so it could be one. The way I see it, the type of gen determines the major affect then the cut further specifies what it does. Different gems and cuts could attract different spren as well. It's kind of like Aon modifiers in my opinion. But it's a possibility, I can't count it out. I just assumed when I read it that she would be keeping her ears open for any calls for aid. She could have meant more, but that's just how I read it, so I could be wrong. I have no idea how they knew to come. They're something that we don't understand about the Radiants appearances though. Sure that girl could have teleported but the Windrunner fell out of the sky. I don't think he flew all the the way from Urithiru, so they could have just been in the area. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm trying to shut you down here, I could be completely off base. I'm just trying to get a debate going, because I'm sure you're on to something. I'm virtually certain that all fabrials are tied to a surge in one way or another.

The admins switched profile names and pictures, making it very difficult to tell who was who. Zas and Kurie Shardweaver switched and so did Chaos and Shivertongue. I'm pretty sure that they were all responsible for it but Chaos said it was a hacker (Yeah right). Anyway the "hacker" showed up in the chatbox under the name Cheese Lord and we verbally assulted him until he was reduced to ashes. There was way more but it would take like an hour to explain it all, and the chatbox doesn't save many comments so you can only read the tail end. I feel bad that you missed it

Dakhor is Dominion's magic, and as far as we know unrelated to Hemalurgy. Hrathen never thinks about any spikes making him a Dakhor monk, and he was running around shirtless so Sarene would have noticed any pieces of metal sticking out of him. I would believe Szeth had been spiked if it had happened on Scadrial. We know that Ruin's direct intervention was necessary for Spook and others to get spiked, which couldn't have happened for Szeth. It would take very specialized knowledge to know where to place the spike to steal Surgebinding. It also might require the alloy of a God Metal to steal from other magic systems. (There's no room in the base Hemalurgic table to steal all the magic systems we know to exist) It's an original idea and I wouldn't say never, but I think it's extremely unlikely that Szeth has a Hemalurgic spike. I think it would be too overt for Brandon's hinting about the cosmere, everyone would say, "He already did that". It's a good idea though, and one of the few that could explain how Szeth got his powers.

Well, we know that the black smoke from Nightblood is corrupted Breaths. I personally believe Breaths to be a large component of a person's spiritual aspect, a fragment of Endowment. It makes sense to me, because the Divine Breath is of Endowment, and gathering enough smaller breaths produces the same effects. Brandon also said that a Divine Breath is just like a super-breath. So if the black smoke is a corrupted piece of Endowment that was once a part of a person's spiritual aspect, then I imagine the smoke from the eyes of those killed by a Shardblade are corrupted pieces of Honor. An interesting question is, why would these spiritual aspects become corrupted? I've heard people say things about Nightblood being against Endowment's intent, taking life rather then giving it. Assuming that is true then the reason Shardblades corrupt spiritual aspects is presumably because they are killing the people they were made to protect. I don't know what's wrong with the Shardblades, but I still firmly believe they are of Honor. We know that "once these weapons meant protecting" so these weapons of Honor are clearly being turned against their purpose by killing the people of Honor. My biggest question right now is, what happens to these corrupted spiritual aspects? I believe that a Shard cannot lose it's power permanently so they must come back. I personally believe that these are examples of a Shard's power being, "expended in ways they were hesitant to". I personally believe, like the Principle of Intent says (or will say when Chaos revises it) that it takes more power when Shards go against their intent it takes more power and longer to return. So eventually the Breath will return to Endowment and the spiritual aspects to Honor, but it'll take awhile.

I personally think that Taravangian is just a regular king. I'm not sure if you've heard about this, but Brandon has confirmed that Taravangian went to see the Nightwatcher. One of it's affects is a fluctuating IQ from day to day, but whether it's his curse or boon or both is yet to be seen. Every night before he goes to bed he'll write a math test for himself, and have his stewards or guards give it to him in the morning. If he can't get above a certain score, his retainers will keep him away from any important decisions. If you've already seen this, then I'm sorry I just went through a whole paragraph on it, but it does explain the reason he moves so abruptly from kindly grandfather to world dominating murderer. But as for how he discovered the death visions, I think it probably went like this. Kharbranth surely had some hospitals, Taravangian may have originally built them to help his people even. But when he visits, and sits by those dying he hears them whisper their visions, and gets reports from other doctors as well. He probably decided that these visions had to be significant, and started collecting them. It just seems the most straightforward idea to me, although that doesn't mean it has to be true.

I would like to announce that I learned three things from the explostion of awesomeness on the chatbox Underage drinking is apparently okay if it produces semi-coherent theories Spren taste great on toast The combined powers of Chaos and Windrunner using a hybrid of Surgebinding and Lactomancy can easiy defeat the abomination that is the fusing of Zas and Hoid, even if he is powered by the Cheese Lord This was a crazy amount of fun!

I would like to announce that I'm reminiscing about this time last year. When I first discovered this site, it was April Fools day as well. (I lurked for awhile before joining) The article about Brandon splitting AMoL was on the top. I think I might have almost kicked something, because I didn't want this other series not written by Brandon to become part of the cosmere. (I was a little naive back then) If you guys had gone with plan B and said that Brandon had been in a car accident and might die I would have actually kicked something. (I'm terribly gullible) I would also like to announce that I'm afraid because I haven't yet found the joke for today... Edit: Found it, very subtle indeed.

I think this is a tiny bit of a misconception. Shards don't consciously work to create magic systems. I think of it this way. It's like mixing chemicals together. Which ones react isn't because of whether or not they choose to react, their chemical properties define if reactions occur, and if they do occur what effects will take place. Shards and planets react in the same way, sometimes their properties don't allow for a reaction and sometimes they do. To fall back on Ruin and Preservation, their Shardic properties allowed the two to react with each other. Preservation didn't call up Ruin one day and go, "Yo dude I got this sick idea for a new magic system, come on over and we'll work it out." As a matter of fact Ruin and Preservation were fighting even before humanity existed, and thus before Feruchemy existed. However, if you look at Roshar, Cultivation, Honor and Odium don't seem to have balance magics. Their properties aren't right for a reaction to create a balance magic. It's not that they decided not to, it just wasn't possible. (I think a Shard will react with any planet it's on, the effects just vary depending on the way the Shard works with the Realmetics of the Shardworld.) Does that make sense? However, I think it's very likely that a fall out between Devotion and Dominion caused the rift in Shu-Keseg. It's an excellent idea. I wish we knew if Odium was responsible for it.

I don't think we've seen all the Windrunner powers yet either. Szeth explained that basic and reverse lashings are very similar, and both related to gravity, and that the full lashing is related to pressure. We haven't seen this "something of their own" yet, but it may be related to this. This "riding the storm" may be the Windrunner's specialized power, but it isn't confirmed.

Upvoted! I've been trying to convince people about this, but it hasn't been working. Ruin and Preservation's intents are both in there. I think people get the idea that Preservation has to be end-positive because of Allomancy but that's never been said. I think the power is of both, but the reason an attribute is stored is because Preservation's intent needs to be followed. Another point in favor of this is that you can always feel your Feruchemical stores, even when you aren't tapping them. So they can't have been destroyed if you can always feel them.

Eh, I'm not really sure if I buy the partial complements thing. In my opinion, it makes the systems overly complex. I think that Dominion has no part in why the Aons mimic the land. It's how the Shard interacts with the Realms of Sel, the magic copies the actual physical form. I also don't think you need Devotion to become Dakhor. Hrathen isn't an overzealous madman, but he was chosen to become one. He just didn't have what it took, but if he had hung around he would have completed his change. However, I do like how you've described ChayShan, it mirrors my own thoughts. I think in a balance magic both shards must be represented. In Feruchemy, you Preserve your power temporarily to Ruin it later by using it up. You need Devotion to the learn ChayShan's forms and you must have utter Dominion over your own body to do the moves perfectly. Oh, incidentally I love, love the Three Parts of Magic theory. When I first came here, I read the first sentence about the Realms being represented in magic, and the whole theory popped into my head the second before I read it. It makes perfect sense in my mind, and in my opinion, its a virtual certainty that it is true.

You can't learn all the Aons and their modifiers. Brandon has said that not all the Aons have even been discovered yet. I'll try to find the quote if I can. Edit: Found it!

It is a side a affect. Burning lerasium gives you a greater connection to Preservation. It just so happens that a greater connection also allows you to be a Mistborn. Hmm I just had a thought. Do lerasium Misttborn have to snap? I assumed no, but when Elend burned it, he was already in so much agony that maybe he snapped instantaneously. The way I see it, Preservation was trying to get a replacement for himself. The Well would attune the person to Preservation, the lerasium would turn you into a Mistborn, (if you weren't one already) and allow you to burn the Mists, making you able to become the Shard. There may be other ways to do this, because anyone can hold a Shard, but this might be the easiest.

Ok, I’m going to preface with a couple things. One is that I would appreciate if you didn’t interject suddenly with capitals. That’s seen as online shouting, and is typically considered fairly rude. I can’t tell you what to do, but I think it will be easier for us to have a civil conversation, if you don’t scream your points at me. Another is that, while you are correct in saying that Reader and I cannot definitively prove anything with our theories, they are an acceptable reason for us to believe the way we do. I would also like to point out that your belief in what definition of Odium Brandon is using, isn’t any better proof then our theories are. I wasn't trying to use my theory to destroy your's I was trying to explain my way of thinking to see if you ended up agreeing with me. Alright now that that’s out of the way I’ll get back on topic. You say that Odium is a highly obscure word, which Brandon chose for a purpose? I would counter with that it’s not that unusual of a word, certainly not more so than Dominion. I personally knew what Odium meant when I read TWoK, as a matter of fact it tipped me off to the cosmere because it seemed odd to name a god after a feeling. Although I will concede that I misremembered the quote, there is no mention of unique in it, so you had me there. He says that Odium is bound by the same rules as all Shards, and may be required to choose a Champion. As for the Oathpact, it binds Odium, stopping him from directly attacking Roshar with his power. I see it as a massive chess game, if Odium wins, he can destroy. Aona is dead, the TWoK epigraphs say so. If you believe her to be watching from the beyond then again that is your own belief, not a point you can use to prove something. I personally think Raoden feels the effect of the Shard’s intent, it’s Devotion to its people rather than a consciousness, but that is also just my opinion. We can’t use this as evidence either way. However Odium did not destroy the Elantrians, the Reod did, which he was uninvolved with. It happened centuries after his departure. Honor lived until the Herald’s broke the Oathpact. They broke the rules of their chess game, and Odium no longer found himself bound. Here’s a quote to at least prove Odium wasn’t toying with them, Honor opposed him until the Heralds quit. Well if you want to use his name as evidence here’s the an alternate definition that I have found No mention of dishonor here. And if you really want to dig into its meaning Od- comes from Latin meaning to hate. It really depends on what definition you chose to believe Brandon means. I hope none of this comes across as harsh or rude, I really do love debating the finer points of the cosmere with people, and you seem to have some really interesting and unique ideas. Just out of curiosity, what did you think of my speculation on Cultivation’s magic system? Do you have other beliefs of your own?

I would like to announce that I just made my longest non-theory post ever. It was like 5 paragraphs. I think I'm catching some sort of disease.

I'm pretty sure Brandon has said that Miles's red and gold cigar box is tied in with this. I think it's related to the people from the southern continent. The company could be a front for the southerners to get information on the people of Elendel. Miles knows about it, and says it as he is dying, a kind of last slap in the face for his executioners. It seems that the people from the southern continent will be attacking before too long, in my opinion probably during the other Wax and Wayne books. This comes from my belief that, if the people on Scadrial have twentieth century technology in the second trilogy, surely they would have some explorers who have gone south and said, "Hey guys, there are people down there". The scariest thing I've heard about these people is what someone said in another topic. They've been advancing for 1300 years, whereas the people of the north were held in stasis for 1000 of those years, The southerners are going to be way technologically superior. It does provide an explanation for why the 20th century trilogy is only 50 years away, which doesn't seem long enough to develop sufficient technology. In my opinion, it doesn't really sound like one of the death visions. He's talking directly too the audience the whole time, which I think only happens in one death quote, briefly("Healer why do you take my blood?") It really seems to me that he's going, "See you later suckers, you're all going to be dead before too long anyway." It just occurred to me that Edwarn and Miles were trying to take over Elendel's government. Maybe as a peaceful way, they could hand it over to the technologically superior foreigners, and perhaps be left in charge.