Inkthinker

I think you might also be underestimating the mathematics involved in actually launching yourself from one planet and hitting another. As Adams puts it, "space is big". In order for us to actually send something off to Mars, for instance, we've got to launch during just the right windows of opportunity and follow a mass of complex calculations involving our orbit, our velocity, the orbit and velocity of the target planet, and the effect all of that has on the trajectory of the launched object. I don't buy steering through mass effects. You'd need to adjust your mass HUGELY to be affected over interplanetary distances (much less interstellar), and even my grade-school physics remembers that you're equally going to affect anything that affects you. Increase your mass sufficiently to be pulled into planetary orbit, and you're pulling on the planet with your own mass. Plus... that's a lot of mass. Where is it coming from? How long does it take a human storing all their mass to equal enough mass when tapped to affect gravity over a bajillion miles of space? Re: Gold and it's ability to keep you from dying; just because you survive the damage through gold feruchemy doesn't mean that it isn't incredibly painful. In fact, Wayne illustrates that it very much is. Imagine experiencing the effects of deadly temperatures and pressures over and over again, constantly, for however long it takes to get there. And it would take a LONG time to get ANYWHERE. I'm quite sure that there is a way to work out interstellar travel using the combined powers of Scadrial, but I don't think it's as easy as flinging yourself into space.

Sliding would be more useful for theater, since the effect would be close to what Wayne does on a regular basis. An audience would (I think) prefer to have a show go more quickly and effectively rather than have themselves held while the world moves around them. The various uses of stasis in any sci-fi setting apply though. I could also see a Pulser using it as a sort of personal one-way time machine. If the next Mistborn trilogy is set in a contemporary period (and more-or-less 100 years after Alloy) I'll be very surprised if we don't see Marasi around, much older but certainly not as old as someone who couldn't slow down their personal time on a regular basis, stealing a day or two here or there across a lifetime. (I'm guessing about Maraci being in the next trilogy. I'm not speaking based on any internal knowledge).

Ahhh, I misunderstood. Now I'm on the trolley. What about "surge"? I kinda like "surge". "Wax surged a week's worth of weight in a single moment, shattering the floor". "Wayne surged his goldmind, drawing upon three months spent sickly in bed, to heal the damage in a matter of seconds".

"Sapping"? It has a nice rhyme with "tapping" and it's synonymous with depletion and draining of a resource. Hell, what's wrong with "tapping"? I'm pretty sure Wax, Wayne and Sazed are all described as "tapping" their metalminds at some point or another (and probably more than once). But I could see "sapping a metalmind" working just as nicely.

He's never once been killed while wearing that hat. I had meant to mention this before, but now that the book is out I've posted higher-resolution images of my favorite illustrations from the broadsheet, as well as the prototype composition that Peter properly type-set and tweaked for the final layout. Check 'em out sometime: http://inkthinker.deviantart.com/#/d4fothu http://inkthinker.deviantart.com/#/d4fovmh http://inkthinker.deviantart.com/#/d4fowr4 It was a heck of a fun project. Next up, I think, it's back to being a 17-year old girl.

Brandon tends to Hollywood his gunplay a bit. He's not immune to the Rule of Cool. In the case of "reacting to the shot", it's reasonable to suggest that the shot they react to misses, even if it's aimed at them. It's harder to hit things (especially with guns that are 1910-era equivalent, and especially at any serious distance) than movies and video games might have you believe.

One more thing to keep in mind about soulcasting is that it's not a common, everyday occurance. It's done by a single group (the ardents), they have a monopoly on the process (Jasnah being the exception, hence her heretic status), and they charge a lot for it... hence it's more effective to pay them for soulcast food than it is to pay for soulcast bridges. Bridges come in handy for certain tasks, but EVERYONE needs to be fed out there, and there's very little forageable resources on the Plains. Even if it's reasonably as easy to create bridges as some of you think it is (remember that most soulcasters can only affect a single type of transformation), the ardents have no incentive to play that hand. Remember as well that the Plains War is being treated as a competitive game, not as an existential battle for victory or supremacy. Now, if Dalinar takes control of all the armies as Highprince of War and proceeds to make them treat the conflict seriously, then we may see a change in tactics (like creating more permanent bridges). But under the status quo, where's the benefit that outweighs the cost?

I'd either leave out the nostrils, or place them at the very top of the "nose", where the beak meets the carapace (one segment above where you've placed them now). The eyes would probably be dark brown or black. As for the rest of it, almost any color or pattern of colors would be reasonable (like dogs, there ought to be a wide variety). We also talked about people painting them, given than they have a combination of hard and soft shell.

Not a bad start! Some easy notes to start with: (this is presuming you're wanting to model one the way I designed 'em. If you're wanting to create your own variant breed, you can do as you please). -The basic inspirations include lobsters, snapping turtles, and arthropods in general. You won't go wrong looking at the way lobster scales or turtle scales fit together and around each other. -The mandibles along the jaw line are designed to fit seamlessly with the lower jaw, so that when the mouth is closed they tuck in smoothly along the jaw and under the beak. -The inner teeth should be set further back than you're showing here. The outer beak is for shattering shells, the mandibles feed bits into the inner teeth, and then cilia along the inside of the inner mouth help push it down the throat. Axehounds eat their food in big chunky shreds, and the space between the inner jaw and outer beak helps give them room to really tear in. -The carapace along the back of the neck, as well as the neck itself, should widen towards the base/back. It becomes a bit of a flattened diamond shape, wide at the top, sloping up to a shallow peak and sharply down into the neck. -The neck from the throat to the jaw is covered soft, flexible scales like a snake belly. The back of the neck forward to the head is covered in hard, thick, segmented plates. The head and face are covered in fused scales of varying density. -Don't forget the antennae! They're not only major sensory organs, they're very expressive. They're based on moth antennae, but are more flexible. When the axehound is feeling agressive, they cling narrowly to the central spine and lay against the head. When the axehound is happy, they lift and spread out. When they're curious, the spread out further and lean forward. The Axehound was an incredibly challenging design... it had to be aggressive and threatening, but also potentially adorable, and at the same time (like everything on Roshar) it had to start off with arthropods. I dunno if you ever tried to make a lobster look cute, but it ain't easy.

Real silencers aren't really anything like movie silencers. The real thing makes a loud sound into a not-quite-so-loud sound. It's still pretty damnation loud. The "phutt" or "pwhiit" noise is pure Hollywood hokum, finest brand. I think the Treatise Metallurgic (part of the upcoming Mistborn RPG) describes what happens if you burn copper with memories in it.

Heh... just to throw a spanner into the works (MWAHAHAHA!!), I'll point out that he writes "Rust & Ruin!" in a LOT of the books he signs.

I have an image in my head of a Pewterarm/Thug carrying either a cannon, or a gatling gun in Vulcan Raven fashion. Recoil? Weight? Psshht...

It's typically ironic of Brandon to have a good character be perceived as wicked. Marsh may be a messenger of Harmony, but he's misrepresented due to his appearance and 300-year-old legends/myths of the Inquisition. He's scary, so by default he's seen as demonic. This ain't hard math.

I wouldn't suggest coating it with lead, per se... that rust is poisonous. Maybe if you used an allomantically active metal though, like copper or steel or tin, etc. Though the other problem is that when you need your atium, you usually need it right then, not in a minute or two when the coating is burned away.

I so wanted a High Imperial slogan for the Elendel Daily. "Alls the Knowings Wasing Fit for the Reading" or some such. The idea that his cant became the equivalent of Latin or somesuch gave me giggles to no end. Isaac's suggestion (Newsworthy Content for Every Octant) was better, though. SO, now that we're in here, I can ask, what did you guys think of that train fight? Or the final fight? I liked Miles as a villain, kinda sad to see him go.

If anyone does have a private thread/forum going, I'd be interested in it.

Peter should correct me if I'm wrong, but I think chasmfiends are related (taxonomically/geneologically, anyhow) to axehounds. Hence the resemblance. Remember, however, that paintings and illustrations may represent unreliable narration (unless they're Shallan's, in which case it's much less likely, at least from a visual standpoint). Chasmfiends are WAY BIGGER, of course. And have several times the number of legs (didn't the one that jumped the King's party have 14?), but I think they share a common genetic ancestor. Thunderclasts, I actually have no idea what they look like, exactly. Somehow I thought they were related to stone. Chasmfiends are big on my list of stuff to draw. Now that I have some time again, I think maybe I will... gotta get back into the groove soon anyhow.

Man, times like this I miss the ol' TWG forum. We had something like 15 pages on the subject of bridge warfare and the Shattered Plains.

Pretty slick! I'm not usually taken in by fan trailers, but I liked a lot of things about this piece. You mostly got me when the intersections of the nobility kicked in, and the Underworld clips worked surprisingly well. Ellen Page would make a cute Vin. Though I think she's better suited to Book 2 or 3 Vin.

Don't the cannonballs still weigh 30lbs or whatever, the entire time?

oh... wow. That's actually quite clever. In some respects, the stormwall does resemble the eye of a hurricane, inverted (former Florida resident, me). Hmm. Someone should ask him on Twitter. Or maybe Peter can tell us. Now I'm all curious about the marine life on Roshar... I wonder if there's a lot of whale/dolphin-type seafaring mammals out there?

oooh... if you're right (about the emerald broam), that's pretty good. That fits better than most theories I've heard.

This is one reason why we don't do much (official) portraiture... neither Brandon nor I are interested in railroading the reader's vision of the characters so much. It's better to let each of us imagine the characters in our own ways, as it allows everyone to participate in the "vision" of the book, and each of our visions are equally valid. Plus, I'm just not that great at portraits. My background is in comics and animation, and those fields tend to influence me stylistically. It's challenging enough for me to rope that in while illustrating chulls and axehounds, when I illustrate people it's even more so (especially given that Shallan appears to illustrate through eidetic memory as much as practiced technique, meaning her portraits should be nearly photorealistic). A good example of someone with Shallan's skills might be Stephen Wiltshire, an autistic architectural illustrator who's famous for being able to draw buildings and skylines that he sees only once (sound familiar?). Whereas I'm just a monkey with a pad and a couple decades drawing experience.

More credit to Brandon than to me... he has a solid idea of what illustrations should represent (thematically speaking) in his books, and my job is merely to translate what he describes. It also doesn't hurt that we appear to have similar tastes and appreciate the same influences (we're also about the same age), so when he describes something in text, we're usually coming from the same place when interpreting it. Additionally (and this is just good advice for anyone who's into visual development and adaptation), I'm not the sort of artist who's particularly hung up having my own "vision" of his material... I'm here to adapt more than create. And really, there's plenty of space in the cracks and around the edges where I get to be creative, if anything Brandon takes the heavy load off my shoulders by devising solid core ideas, and then letting me gussie 'em up. I get as much (or more!) of a kick out of expanding upon his content as I do creating my own stuff. Maybe that's weird, I don't know, but it sure seems to work here.

I suspect that the idea of Iron/Steel push/pulling ALL metals is a case of unreliable narration. We get it from watching Allomancers do their thing, and telling each other that's how it works, but that doesn't mean they're 100% infallibly correct. Heck, the only way you'd likely discover that you couldn't push/pull a metal is if you happened to burn Iron/Steel in the presence of said metal, and discovered that you couldn't. If you're flying around in the night, and you see hundreds of lines in all directions, are you likely to notice that you're not getting lines to every single piece of rarely-used metal in the environment? Instead, one assumes that since you can affect all the metals that you tend to run into, you can affect "all metal". But you'd be wrong...