darniil

I must apologize for this, but it popped into my head, and I had to share. (This presumes that Dominion is responsible for the Dakhor Investiture, of course, but according to the wiki page, we don't have any solid evidence that the two are not related. So this works for now.)

So we've got Skai, who took the Shard Dominion. Dakhor Investiture involves lots of chanting, whereby the skeletons of someone in their ritual are altered in various ways. A different chant (song?) can alter the bones in different ways, leading to different outcomes for the recipient of the chants, the one "listening to the song".

Secondly, we have Rayse. Odium. He goes around picking fights, breaking other Shards. He's the bully of the cosmere, right?

And finally, we have Sazed.

Together, they are Bone, Thug, and Harmony.

Not sure if this is the right forum, so apologies if it's not.

After I got out of work yesterday, I was able to stop by JordanCon for a little bit.  During his signing, I asked him a question:

Q: Zahel has parted ways with something he's had for a while.  Will we ever get to read about how that happened?

A: I may not write the actual story, but you will find out what happened, yes.

Later, at the Write-a-thon, I asked another question:

Q: Shadows for Silence - where does it fall in the overall cosmere timeline, in relation to the other books?

A (paraphrased): In the latter half of things, but before the Stormlight Archive.

He didn't clarify - and I forgot to follow-up for clarification - whether he meant before the main arc of Stormlight but after the prologue to WoK, or if he meant even before the prologue to WoK.  Personally, I think SfS happens between the prologue and the main arc, considering how much time passes between the prologue and the first chapter.

This question was asked during the Write-a-thon, so if anyone was recording that, we should have Brandon's exact answer.

During the Write-a-thon's "intermission", Ben McSweeny and Isaac Stewart came down while Brandon took a break, and Ben did some drawings.  The first one was of Stick, and then he added Shallan to it.  The second one was Syl, with part of Kaladin's head, too.  Third was a Parshendi in warform (though I do remember someone in the chatroom requesting a Parshendi stickform), and the fourth was Szeth vs a koloss.  The first one was just Sharpie on paper, but the other three began with a pencil sketch.  Someone from the Waygate Foundation took pictures, so hopefully they'll be up on WF's website sometime soon.

I'd bet Mraise is based on his collection

Yes, one of my friends pointed that out to me when I finished the book.  He said the other people who were reading at the same time as him exploded when Mraise's shelf contents were described, linking the sand and the crystal to other books.  (And I, personally, thought that maybe the flower was a Tear of Edgli.)

I was always under the impression that "allomancy is of Preservation", "hemalurgy is of Ruin", and feruchemy came to be, involuntarily, as an interaction between Preservation and Ruin.  Now, why it was limited to the humans in Terris, I don't know.  (Perhaps because they were the only human population near "ground zero", the place where both Preservation and Ruin primarily existed [the Well of Ascension / Ruin's prison]?)  But that's the way I always read it, since feruchemy is a net-zero ability; equal parts Preservation and Ruin.

Thank you, Moogle and Kurkistan for the WoBs.  

Edit: darniil, you have managed to ninja me twice in the same thread. I congratulate you.

Apparently I did it to myself, too, as I didn't even realize I did it.  >_>

We have WoB that Hoid does not have access to all of the magic systems of the worlds he's been to.

 

We also know that he originally intended to get lerasium to become an Allomancer.

 

I don't think Yolish DNA is special - Hoid just has some special knowledge, and possibly some Hemalurgic spikes.

We do have WoB for that?  That's great.  I'll try to find that, then.  Thank you.  

Remember also that moment when he was talking to Shallan in a flashback and used Allomancy, so he most likely burned his lerasium (also  suggested by the Letter). That explains his access to that. Don't know how he could have gotten Feruchemy, though we have had discussions before of a way to obtain that similarly to how one can obtain Allomancy with lerasium. I don't really feel that one could need a particular type of sDNA to accept a Breath, however. Breath is basically pure Investiture that can be taken into the body, similar to Stormlight. My guess is that Hoid simply got Breaths like any Nalthian can, like Baine said.

I just read someone's thread pointing out how he poured something into his drink in that flashback.  I'm going to have to re-read that tonight when I get home, since I glossed over it the first time.

You may be right about there not being a special sDNA requirement to accept Breaths or Stormlight.  I'm not yet convinced that that's the case for either of them, but you may be right.

I suspect that Yolen DNA is kind of an archtype DNA, that has the *potential* to hold any of the other magic systems.  So he could use Breath, and anything else that doesn't require a specific bond/add-on power.

That's one of the thoughts that ran through my head - that either something about Yolish humans gives them potential access to all Investitures, or perhaps anyone who was around pre-Shattering would potentially have access to all Investitures.  They'd still have to "learn" them, but they would have the potential to learn them.

Well Vasher is able to suppress his Returned aura, perhaps Elantrians just haven't figured out that particular trick, or maybe Hoid is just far enough away.

 

On the other hand, I'd be kinda surprised if he actually was Elantrian, but perhaps there is a way to acquire some of their powers in the same way that you can use Lerasium or be an Awakener/5th Heightening without being Returned.

Well, whatever Hoid is doing, he's certainly devoted enough to it to trigger a Shaod in someone from Sel.

hoid doesnt glow like ealatrin so he doesnt have that I think

That's true.  However, just because he hasn't used something in front of us doesn't mean he doesn't have it.  Also, the dor may be difficult to use on Roshar (or any other planet), since physical proximity to Elantris is important.

Well, we know that Hoid has a bead of Lerasium, and Breaths are easy to come by in Nalthis if you have enough money... but I don't know how he could use Feruchemy.

 

Ooh! Maybe he stole an Inquisitor's spikes!

He does have the bead of lerasium, but I don't think there's any evidence that he's used it.  Some people think that he's stashed it away somewhere.  Stashed it, perhaps, because he can already use allomancy, and he's saving the bead for someone else.

Breaths are easy to come by, but could a Shin accept a Breath given to her?  Or a Terrisman?  I was thinking that without Nalthian sDNA, someone could try to give you a whole host of Breaths, but you couldn't be a receptacle for them and therefore couldn't actually take any.

I don't know how he could use feruchemy, either, but check the link in my first post and you'll see where Brandon said he does have it.

He could have stolen some spikes, but I thought I read somewhere that Brandon said a spike will degrade if it's removed from an Inquisitor.  (Maybe I'm mis-remembering that, though, since Vin's earring didn't seem to degrade when she had it removed.)

I just finished Words of Radiance last night (not much time to read, plus I like to savor my books).  I wanted to wait until I finished it before I posted my thoughts on this.

Hoid has an ability from Yolen called Lightweaving.  As the WoR Ars Arcanum states, there is also an ability on Roshar with the same name that is very similar.  Similar, but distinct, and distinct likely because the Yolish version does not involve spren.

However, when Hoid visits Kaladin in prison, he says something that tells the readers that he is, at that point in time, at least at the Second Heightening.  We also know, according to WoB, that he uses feruchemy to determine where he needs to be. (Chromium, perhaps?  Eh, that's a tangent.)

What isn't tangential is that Hoid originates on neither Nalthis nor Scadrial, yet he's able to use Investiture that originates from those planets, Investiture that should only be accessible to people with the appropriate spiritual DNA.  Yet Hoid, to the knowledge of the fans, has three Investitures (if Yolish Lightweaving can be considered an Investiture).  This could mean that Hoid is using hemalurgy.

However, as near as I can tell, Hoid is not an evil man.  He may do things that aren't nice, but not for the purpose of being mean or bringing harm.  In his interactions with the various protagonists, he's generally been helpful.  (I could certainly see the Ghostbloods using hemalurgy, but it seems unlikely to me that Hoid would.)

After thinking the thought that Hoid probably does not have any hemalurgic spikes in him, I was hit with this thought: what if Investiture in general is like allomancy - you get one, or you get them all?  (Also, I guess, like feruchemy.)

When Kelsier tested Vin, he didn't stop with one metal.  He tested a second one, because he knew if she could burn two metals, she could burn all the allomantic metals.  And here we have evidence that Hoid, who does not have Nalthian or Scadrian sDNA, has access to both of their Investitures.

I spoke with Joe ST about this briefly, and he thought that Hoid might have the ability to alter his own sDNA such that he could make himself capable of using whichever Investitures he wanted.  I'll admit that we know little enough about Hoid that this could be possible, but I also wanted to see if anyone else out there disagreed with my thoughts on this, and if so, why.

So please, poke some holes in this.  If I'm wrong, tell me why.  I'd like to know if I'm totally off course here.

I've been reading Brandon Sanderson's books for several years now, and always look to see if he'll be touring within 500 miles of where I live...and I have NEVER seen a tour come as close as even Atlanta, which is about 420 miles from me. 

 

Does Brandon just not care to tour in the Southeast?  There are huge cities, with populations in the millions, but they never seem to make the cut. 

 

Im not whining, Im simply curious. 

Man, 420 miles is a pretty big radius.  Not sure where you fall into that circle, but I can tell you that Brandon has been to Dragon Con twice in the past four conventions - 2012 and 2010, IIRC.  Now that WoT is completed (and the WoT track no longer exists as its own entity at the con), I don't know if he'll be showing up quite as frequently.  However, as near as I can tell, he enjoys meeting the fans here, and he certainly has a good Magic crowd to play with during his downtime.

I'd say just keep an eye on his touring schedule.  I'm sure he's bound to show up in Atlanta again at some point.  (And who knows?  Maybe he'll get closer to your location than Atlanta.)

Who'd'a thunk it?

Xerox Photocopiers Randomly Alter Numbers, Says German Researcher

-Slashdot, 6 August 2013

Xerox Confirms To David Kriesel Number Mangling Occuring On Factory Settings

-Slashdot, 10 August 2013

Negative. I was the guy who, Sunday night in the WoT room, apologized and asked who you were dressed up as. (Something like, "I feel horrible for asking this, but are you dressed up as anyone in particular?" I have a friend who has, like zero ranks in Diplomacy, and he was always saying, "Excuse me, but what are you?" After hearing him do that a bunch, I'm a little apprehensive about asking people about their costumes when I don't immediately recognize it.)

I thought your face looked familiar for some reason, but I couldn't figure out why. Probably because of whatever photos you've posted here, plus your Vin & Elend costumes from a couple years back. (Got a picture of the two of you then.)

Had I known that was you, I would have sat down and chatted a bit. :-/

I'm willing to bet yes. The staff (and the small black arc of a hat) on the right looks like it probably belongs to a guy cosplaying as Mat Cauthon. And if my mind is functioning properly, she was also dressed up as Mara Jade tonight (Sunday night), and I didn't realize it until I asked. (I only know that much because I was hanging around during the M:TG draft tonight, and got to talking with a guy dressed up as Loki [the only male I saw dressed up as Loki this year], who filled in all the blanks for me.)

Friday brought us a pretty good Steel Inquisitor.

It's only Day Zero, and it's already enjoyable. Saw my first Mistborn today, too.

Anyone else attending?

Sorry for jumping the gun, then. Good to know it's already being worked on.

Since we now have the feruchemical symbols, should we update the Coppermind's logo to have the feruchemical symbol for copper on it instead of the allomantic symbol? I know the feruchemical symbols may not be as recognizable as the allomantic, but since metalminds are feruchemical "artifacts", I figured it might make sense.

Ah, just got a response from Isaac about the roads on the map of the Basin. (Quoted here with his permission.)

As for what everyone thinks are roads on the map...they are actually the canals that run into the city, which is why one of them cuts through a mountain range (though there was a natural depression there--a gap between the two mountain ranges, which is the reason people took that route to establish the Roughs in the first place). Only one of those is a true river, the Irongate River, which runs east to west.

Ooh, map stuff! *wrings hands greedily*

Ideally, a map should have the more important data stand out from the less important data. The whole point of maps, after all, is to inform the viewer of where things are in relation to other things.

Consequently, one thing you don't want to do is color the lines of latitude and longitude. They're helpful, yes, but making them stand out more than they do will add too much noise to the signal, making it harder to read the map.

One thing you might want to consider is looking at current atlas maps, (as this map is close to what we recognize these days as atlas maps). You could add light coloration to certain symbols on the map, for example, a light brownish-green for the patches of grass outside of the basin, and a more "healthy" (yet subdued) green for the lines within the basin. You could have the color be right over those symbols, extending only a little bit past them, fading to the background color. Something similar could be done to the earthen terrain of the basin's ridge, too, to show that it's more mountainous. (Ditto for the water along the coastline.)

The blue for the river, however, shouldn't be quite so intense. Main waterways like that are important, yes, but since this isn't a navigation chart, the water shouldn't be the aspect that draws one's attention. A more subdued shade of blue should be used there.

One thing to keep in mind, then, when choosing what to make stand out and what to subdue is this: "For what purpose did the Canton of Cartography make this map?" Well, we can tell it's not meant to show only general locations, as they have clearly given us latitudinal and longitudinal marks as well as a scale bar. As mentioned before, it's not a navigator's chart. It's also not a map for train engineers or those in that business; rail lines aren't even shown. (Unless, of course, those main "road" lines are actually the primary rail lines.) The CoC is also not trying to show us how the "Greater Elendel Region" relates to the entire planet of Scadrial; the lines of longitude and latitude being nearly parallel indicate that this map has been projected in such a way that all we're concerned with is the Elendel Basin and the nearby surrounding areas.

So what did the CoC intend? I think they wanted to show cities, their precise locations, and the routes by which one would get from one to another. Perhaps some planner in the Canton of Travel wanted to see which major cities didn't have convenient access to each other - for example, Rashekin to Steinel. (Or, we could look at the map's title for a clue: "Survey of the Elendel Basin and the Northern Roughts". ) Since there's no legend, the map was not intended for a wide release to the general public; it's intended for a specific audience that already knows what they are looking at/for.

With that in mind, you'd want to draw attention to the cities and the roadways (or railways; whatever those lines are). (And you would definitely want to have the city names be on a higher layer than the roadways so you don't have the roads covering up the names as in the cases of Mycondwell and Wyllion.) Brown is probably not the best choice for the roads. If you're actually recreating the lines rather than simply coloring the existing ones, you might want to consider something other than a single, solid line - maybe a single line of two alternating colors, or a thin central line of one color outlined on either side with another color (black?). The city names could be made bold, with an "outer glow" to help them stand out from any background coloration that you might do for the fields within the Basin.

Additionally, some words should be made not to stand out. "Elendel Basin", for example, should not stand out more than the city names. The names of the seas can certainly stand out against the water, and the names of the ranges should probably stand out against the terrain they're printed over, but the intended audience already knows about the Elendel Basin and the Northern Roughs, so those shouldn't stand out over the other information. (You can already see how that was implied by the fact that those letters are written with thin lines that break periodically, versus the constant, thick, bold lines showing the city names.)

Personally, I think coloring the map is a neat idea. But then, I'm the guy who got a degree in geography with a focus on geospatial information science, so I'm biased.

http://io9.com/5887014/meet-thiotimoline-the-chemical-compound-isaac-asimov-invented-to-spoof-boring-science-writing

I saw this article about Asimov today, and thought it was pretty interesting. When I got to the part where it was talking about the fourth thiotimoline story, all I could think of was the proposed third Mistborn trilogy.

Asimov's final thiotimoline story, "Thiotimoline and the Stars", is set in the far future and explains how thiotimoline ultimately led to the creation of endochronic starships, which allows sufficiently talented pilots to match the endochronocity of the ship's building materials with relativistic time dilation, allowing ships to travel interstellar distances and age at the same rate as the rest of the universe.

I'm going to have to go find these things now. This thiotimoline stuff sounds great.

(Oh, as for how this applies to You? I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.)

I seem to recall Brandon saying that the pairing of Preservation and Ruin was unique among the Shards. Now, that's not to say that there can't be other pairings, other similarities, other opposites, simply that Preservation and Ruin were paired in a way that the other Shards weren't. (Personally, it kind of reminded me of yin and yang - opposites, but in such a way that it's a perfect duality, drawing them together like opposing magnetic charges.)

Consequently, it might be counterproductive to attempt to find reasons for pairings (triplings, etc) with other groups of Shards.

Edit:

In a textbook case of l'esprit d'escalier, I thought of something else for the following:

Derailment: what if someone were very Devoted to advancing something morally wrong or ambiguous, such as, oh I don't know, the political power of the Derethi religion? It doesn't seem to fit with Skai's shard (do we have a name for that yet?), but if he'd been around longer maybe Hrathen could have become an Elantrian.

This could be pretty much what happened with Shaor - devotion to dominion.

Well, according to what Brandon said, there was a concept sketch done, but not the whole piece. I image that this was still part of the timeline, so I doubt it will delay AMoL.

I hope that the publishers use Sweet's concept as the final cover, even if another painter has to paint it. It would make nice symmetry with the words of the last book having their outline, but with the final manuscript(s) penned by another author.

I think I remember Brandon saying that the chart was written "in-world", much like the map of Middle Earth was drawn as if made by people form Middle Earth.

In a sense, Hoid isn't "in-world" when it comes to Scadrial, so we could say that, even though the chart shows up in the AA, and the AAs of all the books were written by the same author, the chart was drawn up by someone native to Scadrial. (And maybe it was, and the AA author just decided to include it rather than making one him/herself, and without commenting on the name of atium.)

Some time ago, I floated the belief that the Shard's ability to see into the future is essentially "Atium, writ large," which is what I think you are saying (More accurately, I would say that Atium's ability to see the future is Ruin's ability to see the future, writ small).

One thing to keep in mind is that different Shards have different levels of precognitive strength, and Ruin couldn't see as far/as well as Preservation could.

Beyond that, very interesting thoughts.