Inkthinker

Yeah, I suppose we didn't think through all the possible interpretations. Still find it hilarious. Someday... maybe a patch.

Wax? Wayne can't push. Wayne slows time and heals. Wax pushes and messes about with his weight/mass.

Inkwing (run by Isaac Stewart, Brandon's cartographer/graphic designer/all-around illustrative mastermind) has posted three potential new designs for Bridge 4 T-shirts, and he's looking for votes to determine which one makes it to print. If you haven't seen 'em yet, I think you might dig 'em http://inkwing.blogspot.com/2012/02/which-design-do-you-love-contest.html Personally I'm a big fan of "I'm Wearing Your Mom", but I'm equally into "All I Got Was This Soup". Either way, I'll be wearing mine all the time. (Full disclosure, those two are my designs. I ain't nohow impartial).

I started reading it, and then stopped as the fiction appears to assume you've fully beaten the game (the game has multiple paths/endings, of which I've only seen two). It's a damnation fun game, easily the best-looking game you'll find on iOS. The gameplay is actually very reminiscent of the classic "Punch-Out!", where you essentially stand in one place and you either dodge, block or attack... there's a few other options, like parries and magic and such, but the basic gameplay is from the same school. It's definitely worth checking out if you have an iOS device capable of running it. I had actually bought it a year ago, and only after purchasing it did I learn I couldn't run it on my 2nd-generation iPod Touch (you need a 3rd or 4th-gen Touch). My wife got me an iPad a few weeks back, and I was finally able to load the app and play it, and since then it's been my go-to game of choice. I'll go back to reading the novella, but I'd like to see if I can get down into some of the parts that the fiction discusses but which I didn't yet experience. And then after I read the book, I reckon I'll buy the second game. Which was, after all, the whole point of getting Brandon to write it in the first place.

If Dalinar was drawing stormlight, shouldn't that have drained his Plate at least somewhat? I seem to recall that unexpectedly drained Plate gems is a major clue suggesting that Elkohar is channeling stormlight, but I don't remember anything of that sort related to Dalinar. Dalinar is an exceptional warrior, but I don't know if there's been anything to indicate that he's superhuman (at least, not outside of the Plate). Though I am doing a re-read soon, so I'll keep an eye out as I go.

So far as I understand, all Shardplate wearers can feel sensation through the gauntlets, and are granted enhanced speed and strength and balance. It's all a part of why anyone in Plate is an instant badass. One guy in Plate (if rumors follow, a relatively inexperienced warrior) was able to tear Kaladin's entire regiment to shreds single-handedly, and was only defeated when Kaladin essentially rolled a called shot at DC 20+. Dalinar is a badass out of the Plate, so in it he's exponentially moreso. As for the glowy, I think that's coming from the gems within the Plate, not within Dalinar.

Well... not about the original Mistborn trilogy. I don't know a lot more than any other avid reader, 'cause Brandon was largely done with that series before I got involved.

Nah, he says right there he's partway through book 2. At any rate, I wouldn't call it passionless, but it's not as if this was a romantic series. Each character expresses their love for the other, and if we don't get a lot of steamy scenes it's because we spend more time with the characters during the moments that are of interest to the plot. Their private time isn't germane to the progression of the overall storyline, and Brandon wasn't comfortable adding that sort of material just to titillate.

She's not stealing the soulcaster to sell it, is she? I thought the plan was to steal it and then use it. Her family's problem's run deeper than just debt, selling the blade (which, as mentioned, it may not even be known by her brothers that she HAS it) is a short-term solution, not a method by which her family and their holdings may be saved.

I think it's still coming out. It's just not coming out this year.

Spikes were solid metal and generally quite large. An earring, especially a stud, is a very small piece of metal. You could get a lot of little stud earrings from one spike, let alone several dozen or more. There's no reason to believe that any Pathian is given a placebo, especially when you include the fact that the Path isn't one of the more popular religions.

Are they still unknown? I thought the RPG had answers for this now.

Hemalurgy still works, after all, and the Koloss have known how to make other Koloss for at least as long as HoA, and presumably before. Just because they can breed now doesn't mean that the spikes in the final TLR generation just vanished, and as we know those can be reused again and again to make new Koloss (not sure how many times, though... do they get a new Hemalurgic charge every time they're used?). This may create some internal, sociological differences between Koloss who are born from Koloss parents and Koloss who are made (I wonder which is considered by the Koloss to be "better"), but there's no reason at all to think that the original methods for creating a Koloss have changed one bit.

They could be re-using old spikes, as Human did in the third book.

Not bad! Do you feel that you're done with it, or do you want me to put on my work hat and pick at it?

Hm. Interesting... Well, you can't beat that for an answer. It makes for an interesting limit to the power. So, if Wayne gets into a fight on a moving vehicle (train, car, stagecoach, boat moving more than a few feet per second) then his power is kinda useless? He'd have to run to the back of the train to keep it working. No fast costume-changes or blurring from foe to foe through the car.

Not to mention that we've had a few times where we (humanity) might have progressed faster if not for some quirk of fate, society, business, or individual personality. We've come a LONG way in a century, but it feasible that we could be further. Throw in the advanced metallurgy of Scadrial and I'm willing to go along. Though it'd be nice if he touches upon the social effects of rapid advancement. If society progresses to near-modern technology levels (with everyone owning a little computer in their pocket, and widespread connectivity on social and informational levels) within 50-60 years, it means someone like Marasi (who's almost certainly still alive at this point then, 'cause she's not that old and she's a Pulser to boot) would remember a time when the horseless carriage was still a controversial technology.

It's worth noting that been a while since I read the text, but it seems to me that any player with Hemalurgy needs a good reason for HOW and WHY. A good GM probably shouldn't let a player write some nonsense backstory to excuse having spikes. It's also worth noting that just having Hemalurgic powers sets you up for madness and worse. Anyone with a spike is being influenced and observed by Ruin at best, if not outright controlled.

Thought some of you guys might find this useful if you're ever looking for artistic/visual ref on volcanoes and ashfall. I wish I had these when I did the cover for the RPG, it would have been useful! http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/12/the-year-in-volcanic-activity/100209/ Particular favorites for MB ref are 1, 2, 7, 9, 11-16, 27 and 35.

I don't recall anyone really running headlong and dropping a bubble. Wayne runs up to people, drops a bubble and fights with 'em inside it, but I don't recall him really dropping one while attempting to keep moving. Beyond that, I think having a static object (like the ground) intersect the bubble does have SOME effect. If he drops one inside the train, it'd more more inclined to move with the train than if he dropped it outside, because the floor and walls affect the bubble through resistance (especially objects intersecting the bubble). If he dropped it on the roof of the train, I think it would still resist changing position beyond relative inertia, but less so. It seems like a question worth putting to the boss next time one of us runs into him at an event, but I'm not bugging him about it anytime soon. He's all up in The Wheel right now and will not be sidetracked. Woe be unto thee what tries it.

The trick to beheading would be to separate the head and keep it separated. Someone compounding Gold like The Lord Ruler or Miles does can actually heal the wound almost instantly, the cut healing on one side while the blade is still slicing through the other. As you say, you need a blade thicker than his neck (like a koloss blade, perhaps?) or you need a way to pull his head clean off at the same time you cut it. I also wonder how badly a Gold compounder can be inadvertently deformed or mutilated, if the bits heal incorrectly. For instance, snapping bones that heal in incorrect positions. Or do the bones and such set into their proper place on their own, as some side effect of the process?

I expect most solutions involve using technology as we know it, and then just augmenting that with allomancy/feruchemy, etc. So for instance, you wouldn't want to entirely forego a space suit (thought with the right powers you might, for a little while), but you could totally use allomancy to make a space suit less of a bulky, uncomfortable affair. For instance, storing breath not to avoid air supply altogether, but to make it last longer.

I'm not sure why a bubble should change position because of spin and orbit any more than velocity or momentum. It's in relative equilibrium with those forces in the same way that anything else that exists on the surface of a planet is. Though I suspect at a certain point in the physics we have to accept some handwaving. For instance, I'm not sure why the bubble isn't centered on the caster the way Push/Pull is. You would think it centers where the metal burns, but it appears to center at a point in space/time when it's cast, because the caster moves around within the bubble. Yet it must still be connected in some way, because it's drawing "fuel" from the metal burn. I'm supposing that the point in space where a bubble is created comes pre-loaded with an existing momentum equal to that of the metal being burned at the moment the bubble is created, which is why it maintains relative position in space. But once it's created, the source fuel can move away while still fueling the reaction, and even a pedantic bastard like me has to throw his hands up at SOME point and go "magic! Whaddyagonnado?".

Given that we've shown how Wayne's bubbles remain static relative to their velocity and direction when placed (they don't "appear" to move, but they're on a planet spinning through space so they MUST be moving. Extrapolating from there, if you formed one on a train it would remain static in terms of velocity and position relative to where you placed it, and if the train went around a bend the bubble would keep going forward, because the train has moved away from the bubble), we could probably expect the slow bubble to do the same thing. (SUPPOSITION EDIT - The part of the train which is within the bubble might drag the bubble with it, but I bet there's slippage. On the upside, within the bubble you should have PLENTY of time to recognize that the ground beneath you is moving away from your bubble position, allowing you to drop the bubble. I bet you probably fall down if you don't account for the ground suddenly moving very FAST when you drop into real time) So I would say no... if you fire off the slow-bubble after having reached terminal velocity, then the bubble is going to fall with you in it. If you fire off the bubble in mid-air before you reach terminal velocity, then you'll probably fall out of the bubble (as Wax and Wayne and Marasi do in avoiding the bomb at Wax Manor). Though perhaps you would fall out more slowly (relative to the outside world) so it might allow for a BIT of time for others to help cushion your impact. It's really all about how fast you can bring up the bubble. If you did it right as you began to fall, it might make a real difference. The bubble could arrest acceleration (or appear to, in relative terms... inside you'd feel like you were falling just as fast), but not existing momentum. EXAMPLE: Marasi hangs by her fingertips from a ledge 10 stories up. Her fingers slip and she falls. IF she fires off the bubble before she slips, or even just at the moment she slips, to the outside world she appears to slip and begin falling in slow motion. Her bubble is either static (if she fired it off before falling) or it moves at whatever rate she was moving when she fell. If she's falling, she falls out the bottom, but to the outside observer this takes a little while to happen (inside it appears to happen as fast as it ever would). IF she fires it off after she slips and begins to fall, but before she gets to a proper clip, the bubble continues to drop but she falls out of it. To a person outside, she falls very slowly for a moment, but eventually she does drop out of the bubble. Inside, she doesn't notice that she's going any slower at all, and for her it would only last a second or so. IF she fires it off halfway down, she and her bubble continue to fall at the same rate, she just looks frozen inside. When her bubble impacts the ground, conservation of momentum suggests that she still goes splat (but at least it happened really fast from her perspective). In either of the cases where her acceleration is arrested for a moment, if you could take advantage of that time to move a big crash-cushion under her, you might save her life. From her perspective, it would appear like film in fast-forward, with people zipping about and the cushion just appearing in place.

I was about to say, steel pushes against what? Even if you dropped a coin (or whatever) and pushed on it, you would end up pushing the coin away more than moving yourself, because the coin's mass is significantly smaller than your own. As pointed out, Brandon is very much against "screw the rules, we have magic" as a line of reasoning. If anything, magic is treated more like "physics we don't fully understand". Magic has rules, and half the fun is in finding ways to make things work within the rules. I do really really look forward to the day when Brandon writes about the use of Push and Pull in a zero-gee environment. THAT is gonna be wicked. Now, tapping Breath or Warmth as a means of assisting survival outside of an atmosphere... that I can definitely see working. You'd still need a suit to shield you from radiation and such, but you might not need as much of that bulky exo-gear that bog-standard humans require.