Authorspren

"Wait, it's glowing," Oradin said. "Could be some kind of spren." He ran through several meditation techniques to calm his emotions just in case.

"Quill, what's that bird?" Oradin asks. "Am not sure," Quill replied, sitting down next to Oradin. "Could be danger." "Of course it could," Oradin said. He raised his sword. "Quill, paddle the raft this way. I need to be ready to fight."

Oradin draws in Stormlight from the perpendicularity. After removing the batteries from his flashlight gift, he Soulcasts one battery into a metal canteen for water and the other into an aluminum-alloy sword and sheath. The flashlight itself is Soulcast into a carrying pouch, into which Oradin scoops some loose sand and pebbles. As he prepares to use the perpendicularity, Quill's voice interrupts his concentration. "Do not be going through. It is... of the danger. Remember?" Oradin curses as he remembers that Shadesmar is ocean where Roshar is land. He instead throws a cloud of sand from his pouch into the water rapidly flowing towards his feet. "You are not sand to be scattered in a stream. You are a raft to float above the chaos." The sand happily obliges, and a large new raft floats into Oradin's waiting hand. After scooping up water in his canteen and Soulcasting it to be free of impurities, he climbs on the raft and uses the Surge of Transportation to escape to Shadesmar.

IDK, I feel like a Lightweaver could win with illusions. Question for the gamemakers: do our characters have to follow the Ideals of their Order, or do they get a free pass for the Games? Some orders could probably do fine, but I feel like at least Windrunners would probably have a bit of trouble with their Oaths.

I'm not ready to commit to an alliance with anyone, just because it doesn't really fit my loner character. Thanks though!

Is there still time to join? If not, that's all right. If there is time to join, here's my character:

We all know that shades become aggressive based on certain conditions. But what if this wasn't always the case? Think about it. Nazh implied that there were certain rituals to becoming a Cognitive Shadow. Since he's from Threnody, we all assume that the type of Cognitive Shadow he referred to was a shade. But, without going into possible spoilers, the Cognitive Shadow that prompted this comment was that of a (relatively) ordinary human. Further, why would anyone want to become a creature that is mindless half the time and an uncontrolled murderer the other half? Even if it grants immortality, that doesn't seem like a very desirable fate. Another clue that shades might not be in control is their red eyes. Red is the color of corrupted Investiture. Finally, something happened on Threnody that nearly wiped out a continent. We don't know what the Evil was, but it is probably related to Investiture in some way. At least one other series has had a disaster that affected its magic system, and I'm fairly positive that Threnody used to have a different magic system. That brings us to my theory: the magic system of Threnody used to be that people could transform themselves into Cognitive Shadows (or something along those lines). Then the Evil showed up, killing a bunch of people and forcing the others to flee. In the process, it corrupted the magic system as well. The Cognitive Shadows were corrupted by the Evil, becoming mindless and aggressive shades. Thoughts?

I think this could work especially well if the assassin was a Radiant. If they were the right Order and didn't violate their Oaths, they could just stab themselves for real and then heal the wound. Their target obviously couldn't.

People can't normally summon their Shardblade in the Cognitive Realm, because the act of summoning a Shardblade is pulling a spren into the Physical Realm where it manifests as metal. And you can't do that while you're in in the Cognitive Realm. However, Ishar has been experimenting with pulling spren into the Physical Realm - not as metal, but as their own forms. If a Radiant was bonded to one of these Physical spren and he traveled to the Cognitive Realm, could he summon the spren there as a Shardblade?

Well… I have appeared online and am now interacting with people because of a great author.

This makes a lot of sense. The only problem with this theory that I can think of is that Talenel wasn't affected by the Shaod, meaning that his body's natural healing probably wouldn't be stopped. He'd be able to recover from any physical pain then. Maybe his condition is more of a "mental Hoed", where instead of his body and mind being broken by the pain, it's just his mind. That would explain why he acts like a madman but his body isn't affected (except for stuff like uncleanliness, which could fit with insanity).

Rust and Ruin. This is the third time I’ve lost the game today. At least I’m noble-blooded, so you aren’t going to spike me.

Thanks everyone! Ooh, that's a tough one. I've got to give it to Mistborn Era 1 just because that's the first one I ever read. Coming in a very close second is Stormlight Archive.

YKYASF when you're reading an article in philosophy class and the teacher comments on how the author believes we worship our autonomy. And now you're wondering who Autonomy's avatar is on Earth.

YKYASF when you take the Knight Radiant quiz and get Truthwatcher. From the Coppermind:

Obviously, Secret Project 1 spoilers ahead. Tress takes place in the future of the Cosmere, and spaceships are a thing. However, that doesn't necessarily explain the presence of Hoid. How did he get there? It could have been on a spaceship, but we never see any evidence of him having one. Lumar has no shards, but that's not the only way to have a perpendicularity. As we know, a large concentration of Investiture in one place can create a perpendicularity. The entire planet has oceans of Invested aether spores, and is surrounded by twelve Invested moons. I guess my question is, could a high enough aether concentration cause a perpendicularity, or at least some way to travel between realms? And that brings to mind a second question: in the space age, when people begin to think about the vastness of space, will the space between worlds in the Cognitive Realm increase and make worldhopping via perpendicularities take longer?

The sport of spikeball on Scadrial would probably be far more interesting.

Granted, but it only accelerates up. I wish for a Stick.

Granted, but you now have horrible eyesight. I wish for a heap of good cloth, which I will sell to keep my family from starving during the lurnip famine.

YKYASF when you read the Shard for fun before even making an account. YKYASF when you’re bored because SP4 isn’t out and you’ve read everything else.

Ok, this is going to be long, so TL;DR at the bottom. Also, just so no one accidentally gets spoilers, this contains full spoilers for Warbreaker and some for Stormlight Archive. Now that that's out of the way, we can get to the good stuff. Why did Vasher return? We know it wasn't an accident, since Returning only happens if the Returned actually chooses to Return. According to WOBs, Endowment chooses them, shows them a vision of the future, and lets them decide if they want to come back and change the future. Therefore, Vasher returned for a specific reason. We know that this reason had nothing to do with Warbreaker, because according to WOB, We know he hasn't had the opportunity to do what he Returned to do. But we can still guess at what he Returned to do. What do Returned actually do on Nalthis? From the Lightsong POVs in Warbreaker, we know that they all hear petitions to heal people by giving away their Breath. This is something that, at least on Nalthis, only Returned can do. Because of this, it's probably the reason that the majority of them returned. We know that Lightsong at least returned for this reason, and that most Returned - even God-Kings - do this eventually. Therefore, it's a pretty good possibility that Vasher also returned to heal someone that couldn't be healed in any other way. If this is true, and he hasn't had the opportunity to accomplish what he Returned to do, it might only be because he hasn't encountered the person he's meant to heal yet. Now, completely changing gears, let's talk about what else Vasher has. Breaths. He can Awaken things by Commanding them. Further, he still has some Breaths left on Roshar, as seen during the sparring match with Kaladin and the cloth. That's about all that's currently relevant, because we're moving into the second half of the theory - which has interesting parallels between Lightsong and Susebron. Imagine Vasher as Lightsong. Both are Returned, both hold Breaths, and both can heal nearly any injury. (In fact, Divine Breath is more powerful than Radiant healing). Now, who could the God-King in this scenario be? Someone with an unhealable injury, with access to immense power through Commands, but with no way to use or control it? Rysn. Bearer of a Dawnshard, one of the most powerful Commands in the Cosmere. If Vasher transfers his Divine Breath to Rysn, lots of fun stuff happens. Rysn's legs cannot be healed by anything but possibly the most powerful healing, so the Divine Breath might be able to restore the use of her legs. But, regardless of whether or not her legs are healed, Rysn could gain access to all of Vasher's other Breaths as well. Rysn was forbidden from bonding a spren, not gaining access to other forms of Investiture. And both Dawnshards and Awakening are related to Commands, and both Dawnshards and Breaths give Heightening-like effects. Therefore, Rysn at instant 5th Heightening from the Divine Breath might even be able to use the power of the Dawnshard, which Brandon Sanderson gave her for a reason. Needless to say, such a massive power boost would be a major factor in the future of Roshar, and Vasher is pretty much the only one on Roshar realistically capable of Investing Rysn without her bonding a spren. It's probably even significant enough to get Endowment's attention, and definitely worth it for Vasher to Return to do it. TL;DR: Vasher returned to Invest Rysn with his Breaths, which could conceivably allow her to use the Change Dawnshard.

I've been wanting to get on this site for a while now, and I finally got around to doing it! I love to play games, occasionally write/roleplay, listen to music and of course read - especially Brandon Sanderson. So I'm really looking forward to my time here! One more thing: be on the lookout for a massive theory post coming soon in either the Cosmere or SA forums...