darniil

I had an odd Mistborn-related dream a few months back. I don't remember much of it - I can't remember who I was supposed to be, for example - but it started off with me having to fight the Lord Ruler. Except, I thought of him more as "Rashek" than TLR, even though it was definitely Final Empire era. He told me how he was going to fight me using the Holy Weapon. I obviously had never heard of this before, and the dream shifted a bit to where we were no longer about to fight, but he was going to teach me about the Holy Weapon. He said the first part of fighting with the Holy Weapon was to have a proper Holy Stance. This involved standing with one foot more forward than the other (and your hips pivoted slightly, of course), knees bent slightly, shoulders parallel to your opponent (so that from the waist up you were fully facing the person you were going to fight), upper arms straight down, and elbows bend at 90 degrees, fists straight in front of you. He then produced the Holy Weapon, which strongly resembled a three-section staff, only with more sections. (I think it was closer to five or seven. Not sure.) He then demonstrated its use, which in retrospect looked a lot like using nunchaku.

I like it. Just make sure you write one more for each of the other books, too.

Real Time Tactics? Is that what the other T stands for? Personally, "tactics" and "strategy" seem close enough to each other in meaning that they're interchangeable. Which then, (again, to me), just means that "RTS" is the wrong name to use for games like Starcraft. Those games aren't very strategic, to be honest. Not like chess or go. They're much closer to "he who clicks the fastest, wins". I'm biased, definitely, but to me there's a greater chance of using tactics and strategy if the game is turn-based rather than real-time.

To me, this just says that the Lord Ruler really was much stronger than anyone else when it came to allomancy. Simply put, he could do things nobody else could. Doesn't say why, of course, but that's what this thread was here for - to debate that.

Actually, I think the passage you quoted does explain that:

Where were the sizes of the Blessings mentioned? I was under the impression that they were around 6" - 8" long.

I have a very long background with art, so these are questions that I've had for almost just as long.

I'm also of the opinion that the kandra are the faceless immortals mentioned in the AoL broadsheet.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that they weren't any of Alendi's droogs. The Party line is that they were people who supported TLR, as CrazyRioter says, although there's no evidence that they were given their lerasium beads immediately after TLR reshaped the world. There was a lot of fighting right afterwards, and I imagine they all came at various points over the century or two that followed Rashek's use of the Well.

Assuming this position deals with art like cover art... When it comes to choosing a piece for the cover, who chooses what scene? The author? Editor? You? And how is the scene conveyed to the artist? Is the artist sent that portion of the book to read, to create his/her own mental image from the author's words? Once the scene is chosen and the artist works on it, I imagine that various sketches are proposed by the artist before a final version is chosen and created. How many sketches are usually needed - and does that simply depend on the artist's skills? What determines whether or not a front cover or a wraparound cover is used? And along with that, what are the criteria used to determine just how much of the painting needs to be left "empty" for the text? What media are preferred? Digital? Traditional materials like oil? If traditional media, on what - canvas? gessoed masonite? What sizes are preferred? With physical paintings, does the artist have to send the finished piece to the publisher, or is a high resolution and high quality digital photograph sufficient? Does the artist get to retain the piece and copyright, or are they considered works-for-hire, and the paitings/copyrights belong to the publisher?

Okay, let's just remove the genetic requirement, then, for the sake of argument. If that were not in place, then yes, I would say that someone with the same level of devotion to Shu-Dereth as Hrathen could be taken by the Shaod. This person would probably end up going through some kind of religious crisis at that point, but I would say it's possible (minus the genetic requirement, of course). Morally wrong or morally ambiguous doesn't matter to the Shaod, from the information we have. It's not a matter of morality, it's a matter of devotion. Art is morally neutral, yet Taan was taken by the Shaod. And I think we'd be hard pressed to find a moral good that Shaor was devoted to.

I ordered two - one for myself and one for my mom - but I didn't ask for any personalization. (I was at work and didn't want to take too much time while placing the order.) Besides, I figure if I really need some personalization done later, he'll probably show up at another Dragon*Con at some point, so I can get it done there.

One other thing to keep in mind is that there appears to be two requirements for the Shaod: devotion to something, and specific genetics. Without that genetic requirement met, it wouldn't matter how devoted someone was.

I do, too, but I'd personally prefer turn-based rather than RTS. I've never liked RTSes.

Which, in turn, sounds like the Storyteller system that White Wolf uses, just using the d6 instead of the d10. No idea which is older, so I can't comment on who was influenced by whom.

What chapter is that WoK quote from? My version doesn't have a page 1246.

If I remember the scene from the book correctly, the flame would go west if you're facing east. (I seem to recall Raoden having to "make a reflex save".) This fits, though considering how the Elantrians of the time considered it such a basic mistake to have made, I also like the idea that Dilaf's Dakhor modifications flubbed the Aon as it was being implemented.

Maybe. Except we didn't see something similar during the Final Empire. Preservation's pool was right there in Luthadel, but we saw no signs of things being preserved. And Ruin's pools were there at the Pits of Hathsin, right next to the kandra Homeland, and we didn't see any signs of accelerated decay there. Then again, it could be argued that this was because both Preservation and Ruin were, at that time, shadows of their full potential.

Ha. Marsh is Sazed's avatar.

Spiritual DNA is a term that Brandon used to suggest that people from certain worlds can use certain magics. So, for example, people with Scadrian sDNA have the potential to use the Metallic Arts, people with Selian sDNA have the potential to tap the Dor, Nalthians have biochromatic breath, and Rosharians have surgebinding, windrunning, etc. It also means that a Selian could not use biochromatic breath, nor could a Scadrian use surgebinding. (Tangent! I'd love to see Vin and Szeth spar.) However, we do have evidence that one planet's magic system can work on another world. We don't know how it was done, especially considering this particular system's known limitations, but we do know that it did work.

Very cool. Definitely going to have to check this out when I get home from work.

Looks like the game was delayed until November 8th.

Something else I noticed when I was reading this quote again: Hoid uses names of people, not Shards. Brandon seems to blend the two - which makes sense, in a way, since that's what happens over time - but Hoid, even after all this time (however long that is), still refers to the holders by name, as if they were independent of their Shards. I just thought that was interesting.

I've seen on these forums a few different ways to refer to it. Off the top of my head, I remember FjorDor and DakDor. Both of these terms are been based on: 1. The fact that the Dakhor Monastery taps the Dor to do what it does, and 2. The Elantrian magic system is called AonDor. Since the Elantrian magic system seems to favor Aona, wouldn't it follow that the Dakhor magic system, which presumably favors Skai, be called something like SkaDor? (This, of course, presumes that someone in Fjordell knew of Skai's existence and assumes that the early Elantrians knew of Aona's existence, as has been proposed elsewhere.)

Hey, welcome aboard! I remember seeing that link in his tweet, but I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet. I've been wondering though, (since I haven't had a chance to listen) - is it metal as in steel, lead, brass, etc, or is it metal as in Mötörhead, Slayer, Amon Amarth?