skaa

Regarding the idea of handling the extra Ruin by creating a stockpile of atium (that @TwelfthOfSnackTime and @WindrunnerRadiant proposed), that may or may not work, but since we have no evidence that there is currently any atium at all outside of Marsh's reserves, that makes the atium idea less congenial to my mind than the Splinter idea (which actually has evidence, as I pointed out above). In fact, we've got multiple WoB hinting that Sazed does not want to make more atium yet. Not that the idea is impossible (Sazed had 300+ years to change his mind about atium after all), but it doesn't have as much explanatory power as the Splinter idea. I have thought of the possibility of a deceptive/manipulative Harmony even before Shadows of Self (see this post), and honestly I try to read everything he says in the Mistborn Adventure books with the assumption that he's trying to manipulate everyone. After all, Ruin was a rusting liar, and his power is part of Harmony now. But that doesn't mean he's not trying to be a benevolent god, whatever his definition of benevolence is. It's like how Kelsier was a sociopath who still tried to do what he thought was right, even if it involved the crazy notion of being worshiped by the oppressed skaa. I think it's kind of poetic if Sazed made Kelsier a god like a lot of people thinks he is. It's even more poetic (and in my opinion, noble) if he's planning to actually make his favorite religion, Trelagism, as real as possible by giving the role of Trell to Kelsier and the role of Nalt to himself. Notice how Harmony insists on not being worshiped even by Pathians. That may not be just his modesty showing. I think Harmony is purposefully distancing himself from the adoration of the people. I think he would even prefer being hated, even if only for being a manipulative god. Because if they hate him enough, that will just be one more reason for them to leave the planet and reach for the stars. Spreading across different star systems will ensure the survival of the Scadrian humans. This, I believe, is Harmony's ultimate goal.

Welcome to the 17th Shard! Do you like reading spoilers? Because I do, and sometimes I feel like I'm the only spoiler-loving Sharder around. (Although no, I try not to spoil other people.) Anyway, I look forward to seeing your thoughts on the metals system. See you around!

@Curiosity: I think these (questions 17, 18 and 29) imply that the Parshendi were around before those Shards:

If you agree with my Realmatic String Theory, then you can simply imagine the "strings" making up a person's physical body each being pulled out of the Physical Realm upon Ascension, causing the appearance of vaporization. The strings are still there, though, so when the person dies, releasing the Shard, the strings making up his physical body reattach to the Physical Realm. That's why we see Leras', Ati's, and Vin's dead bodies in HoA.

Indeed. That's why I believe Harmony did saw this coming, and that he (reluctantly) allowed it. From Harmony's conversation with Wax, he talked of the need for "the potential of murderers". He then confessed disappointment that the small bit of paradise he gave the northern Scadrians (the Elendel Basin) has only made them too content and therefore technologically stagnant relatively speaking. The intended connection, I think, is that surviving various dangers (e.g. murderers, revolutions, threats of destruction) may help society grow more capable. On the other hand, Sazed also confesses to being uncomfortable with the idea of letting people suffer, even if it will help northern Scadrians advance. But because his Intent forces him to be neutral, he can only rely on his agents to mitigate this suffering. This idea that Harmony uses agents as a workaround for his Shardic limitations is interesting, but what's more interesting is that he labels each agent according to whether they are meant to preserve or to destroy: Harmony's perception of Ruin as a useful tool is something Wax failed to fully grasp even till the end of SoS, which led to this heartbreaking scene: In light of all this, I don't think it's that far-fetched to speculate about Kelsier being another one of Harmony's agents of destruction, and that he gave him a mission very fitting for a Sliver of Adonalsium: to become a god of rebels, to become Trell. I think Sazed knew the risks. He knew that Kelsier's god metal will be impossible to track. He knew the suffering that Kelsier will bring about. Most importantly, he knew that some of his agents will start hating him, that he will receive the role of Nalt, the unloved god. It was probably a difficult thing for Sazed to do, but he allowed it, because he believes it is necessary to allow a certain level of anarchy to happen. It's all part of the plan.

I think Sazed did not want to name it after himself for two reasons: Terris modesty. As I theorized before, a powerful metal that isn't part of the base 16 metals and that, like most things on Scadrial, contained both Ruin and Preservation... might have existed before Sazed. If so, it would not be proper to name it after himself. This substance might be how Southern Scadrians create Allomantic technology.

During the Final Empire, gold was considered one of the two "high metals" (Kelsier's term) along with atium. From the scenes with Camon, having a suit with gold buttons and having a golden pocket watch were considered signs of wealth. There was a golden altar within Kredik Shaw. Why would they use a worthless material for the altar of their god? The Lord Prelan Tevidian (the highest ranking obligator) wore a golden "robe-scarf" as part of his administrative robe to distinguish him from other obligators. It appears to be a symbol of honor. The following lines also imply that Era 1 Scadrians valued gold more than other metals:

Maybe. Cryptics don't like honorspren, though, so Syl may be the reason of the symbolheads' departure. I agree that those Cryptic-looking spren probably weren't there to bond Elhokar, but that doesn't mean he won't get his own spren later on.

From the cover of WoR:

Not sure why nobody has answered you, and you've probably discovered it on your own by now anyway, but it's the very first WoK interlude, "Ishikk".

Good point! Perhaps trellium, being the god metal of something that is part Preservation, can be burned by anyone (just like lerasium). Or maybe Kelsier, who appears to be communicating directly with Paalm ("I wasn't talking to you that time, Waxillium"), turned Paalm into a trellium Misting directly. I don't know. I'll think more about it. He's a Sliver.

@Moogle, @WeiryWriter, @Blaze1616, and @ParadoxSpren have all convinced me of something: that "Trell" is of local Scadrian origin, not some alien Shard like Autonomy or Odium. Incidentally, I really like Moogle's idea that Harmony took the extra Ruin in himself and gave it to Kelsier's cognitive shadow, but my thoughts on that will come later. For now, let us start with the possibility that "trellium" (what I've been calling Paalm's mystery metal) may actually be just the god metal of a Splinter. The "local origin" theory of trellium is also supported by this WoB: This implies that the only metals that will ever be involved in Scadrian Metallic Arts are the sixteen base metals, atium (and all its varieties), lerasium (and all its varieties), and harmonium (and all its varieties, if there are more than one). Because of this, I don't think Brandon actually plans an alien Shard to ever Invest enough in Scadrial to form its own god metal. Since trellium is the god metal of a Splinter based on Ruin, it's easy to conclude that it must be a variety of atium. This must be why trellium is Hemalurgically versatile like atium. But it's not pure atium, obviously, otherwise Harmony would know about it: Instead, trellium is a bit more akin to alloying atium with a specific base metal. Right now I'm thinking zinc, because I believe Paalm's ability to insert herself into the minds of those with Hemalurgy is actually the Allomantic power of trellium, a Mental External power whose effects remind me of Ruin's similar ability, and I've always thought Zinc to be the more ruinous of the Emotion metals. And there's also this: Note that I am not claiming trellium is an atium-zinc alloy. As I said, I think it's Kelsier's god metal. It's just that this particular god metal is a weaker, modified version of Ruin's power in physical form, one with a molecular structure identical to the atium-zinc alloy. Some of you might object that if trellium is based on a weaker piece of Ruin then Harmony should still be able to recognize the metal, since he should still be able to detect Ruin's power in it. That's where the title of this post comes in. I would like to propose a modification to the Ruin Splinter theory, and it involves the concept of a Sliver. As we know, Kelsier's cognitive shadow held the power of Preservation in between Leras' death and Vin's final battle with the Inquisitors. This makes him a Sliver. I theorize that upon receiving the piece of Ruin from Harmony, his Sliver nature encountering the piece of Ruin led to a weird Realmatic reaction. We know that Ruin and Preservation normally annihilates each other, but somehow Kelsier managed to mix a small part of Preservation's Intent with the piece of Ruin and ended up holding a mixed Splinter of Preservation and Ruin. A Splinter of Harmony?! No. Yes. It's complicated. The thing about Harmony is that he is more or less equal parts Preservation and Ruin. This became even more true after he got rid of the excess Ruin inside him. What Kelsier's shadow has, on the other hand, contains significantly more Ruin than Preservation. This Splinter is neither Ruin, nor Preservation, nor Harmony. It is its own thing that is mostly Ruin but not quite. That's why Harmony couldn't detect trellium. It's because none of the three Shardic Intents he was familiar with matched the new god metal. And yet, if trellium is a (mostly-Ruin) mixture of Ruin and Preservation's powers, why would it act like atium-zinc, as I proposed above? Shouldn't it act like the atium-lerasium alloy? And isn't that what harmonium is? And shouldn't Harmony be able to recognize harmonium? When we say that harmonium is the alloy of atium-lerasium, we are making the assumption that there is only one way to mix Ruin and Preservation's powers. I don't think so. I think that there is a continuum of Ruin-Preservation mixtures, and that only the most balanced mixture (i.e. equal parts Ruin and Preservation) can be called harmonium (which I still think will end up being a real world metal). The rest are just shadows of harmonium. How do these "shadows" of harmonium behave? I think that mixtures involving more Preservation than Ruin lead to god metals equivalent in molecular structure to various lerasium alloys, while mixtures involving more Ruin than Preservation (e.g. Kelsier's Splinter) lead to god metals equivalent in molecular structure to various atium alloys. In other words, the god metals on Scadrial are in a continuum: Lerasium--------(mostly Preservation god metal with a bit of Ruin)--------Harmonium--------Trellium--------Atium (I should probably draw a better visualization later.) I'll probably heavily edit this tomorrow when my thoughts are clearer, but for now feel free to give your comments. Again I'd like to thank the wonderful people who came up with the inspirations behind this theory. You guys are awesome.

Finding Hoid in Shadows of Self is pretty straightforward since someone calls him by name. In Alloy of Law we have Brandon's word that he's this guy:

Thanks for getting the answer for us, Argent. As someone from the losing side of that debate, I feel oddly excited by this, for the following reasons: The metal we're calling "trellium" can steal a wide variety of attributes, not just Feruchemical and Allomantic powers, but also other spiritual traits (e.g. the "chimera" spike that latches a canine-like soul to a human soul, which affects the human's Cognitive and Physical aspects in turn). This Hemalurgic versatility reminds me of atium, which can steal anything. It's possible that trellium can only steal spiritual attributes (including any Invested power), but that's obviously still pretty cool. Trellium might also be able to store various Feruchemical attributes. Either that, or Paalm was just carrying some non-Hemalurgic steel to store her speed. But if it's the former, then that's interesting because even atium can only store one Feruchemical attribute (youth), at least from what we currently know. I now have a feeling that Paalm's Ruin-like spike-based telepathy and mind control are not stolen attributes. First, who would she steal them from? Second, in one scene she was communicating with Wax mentally while using Tin, which would be impossible if her telepathy power was a stolen attribute because (as we now know), she only used one spike at a time.Rather, I now think it is an inherent property of trellium. Since it doesn't fit the pattern of Feruchemical powers, I conclude that spike-based mental manipulation is trellium's Allomantic power (it can be categorized Allomantically as an External-Mental power), which means Paalm has bits of non-Hemalurgic trellium that she burns whenever she wants to communicate with or control spiked people. The Hemalurgic versatility of trellium, combined with its spike-based mental manipulation property, makes trellium a bit too Ruin-like in my mind to fit the Trell is Autonomy theory I once proposed. It makes me want to espouse Moogle's theory that Kelsier is holding a Splinter of Ruin, which if true might allow him to manifest his own god metal that is still somehow related to Ruin, hence the similarities.As for the Autonomy connection ("I will make you free" says Paalm), I would chalk that up to Intent splintering shenanigans. We know that Splinters can have their own Intents, and we've seen a Splinter whose Intent matches a Shard other than its origin Shard. I'm talking about Nightblood who, being magically attractive to odious people and being quite odious himself when unsheathed, acts more like Odium than Endowment. It's possible that the Ruin Splinter Kelsier has a rebellious Intent, which coincidentally fits Kelsier's nature as well as Autonomy's.

Also, when a person edits his post, the username in the "Edited by <username>..." line that is automatically appended to the post will not change even after he changes his username, unless he edits it again. So you'll see a bunch of old posts with "Edited by Ookla the <something>" if you look around.

You've read Words of Radiance, right? Otherwise this subforum is full of spoilers.The voidspren that bond the Parshendi to form Voidbringers are Splinters of Odium. The Parshendi themselves weren't created by Odium; they just have the ability to bond spren in a more straightforward manner than how humans bond spren, and Odium exploited this ability to create his own army on Roshar.

The cycle of weather patterns on Roshar have been regular enough that they can be used the same way we use astronomical data to define the year. On Roshar, the year ends on the Weeping, the four weeks of light rain that marks the end of the cycle. Edit: Ignore what I wrote above. I should have read Melriken's longer post first. I failed to see the context of his shorter post before replying. Sorry about that. By the way, Melriken, this is why double-posting is often a bad idea. Please just edit your post next time.

You're forgetting the distinction between a Type III BioChromatic entity and a Type IV. By "Awakened object becomes sentient", I was referring to Type IV. Of course, my idea that you can't call your Breath back from a Type IV entity is pure speculation, but I think it makes sense. You've created a new thinking person, so the Breaths inside it should start behaving as Breaths do inside any other person and not be easily retrieved by their previous owner. The entity owns the Breaths now.

But that's just another evidence against the idea that Arts and Majesty was Hierocratic in origin. If I was a priest ruling Alethkar during the Hierocracy, one who was also an artist or a scholar, I wouldn't have supported some book that said I am less of a man because of what I do, even if I were celibate, because I know that I'm a man, not a blob of religious flesh. And if a female priest truly believed that the safehand makes women more dignified, why then would she lower herself as to forfeit that dignity at the time when she had great political power? Also, we do have WoB that the author of Arts and Majesty was part of a misogynist conspiracy to take Shardblades away from women. Why would the Ardentia, who does not seem to have a problem with equality of the sexes, be part of that conspiracy?

My thought is that once an Awakened object becomes sentient, the Breaths you put in it is no longer "yours", because they have become part of a person separate from you. For the same reason that you cannot claim ownership of a Breath you've given another human being, you cannot claim ownership of the Breaths you've given a sentient Awakened object. The difference is that unlike Command-based Awakening, which explicitly sticks Investiture on a target object and leaves it there, Allomancy basically just passes Investiture through a body; it normally doesn't stick around unless you trap it before it leaves. I think this is true even for Allomantic power that's been given a non-Allomantic "flavor", as in the case of Feruchemical Compounding. Remember, there is a distinct difference between a Feruchemist's body and his metalminds: he can store Compounded attributes in his metalminds indefinitely, but within his body these attributes fade over time. If you are correct that BioChromatic Compounding still results in "sticky" Investiture, then that's very handy. But I think I'll invoke Sanderson's Second Law on that one, at least for now. I've thought of this, too. I was hesitant to describe this possibility earlier because... actually, I forgot my reasons. Maybe I should get some sleep first. #TimeZoneProblems

Burning a regular metal object that contains the Breaths of another person (e.g. Nightblood) would be like burning a metalmind that isn't yours. Assuming the metal is one of the sixteen Allomantic metals, you would just get that metal's Allomantic effect. This is what Brandon said specifically about Nightblood's case: Now... if the Breaths in the metal are yours (i.e. you were the one who transferred Breath to the metal, and you didn't put enough to actually Awaken it into sentience), then that might produce a more interesting effect. I speculate that it will allow you to temporarily experience higher Heightenings until you stop burning or the metal runs out. Of course, whatever the effect is, you won't get any of that Breath back afterwards (though if you're also a Feruchemist, you might be able to store the compounded BioChromatic Investiture in a metalmind, you lucky person you!). As for Stormlight, I suppose you could burn a piece of metal that is actively infused with a Surge, e.g. Gravitation. I'd guess the effect would again depend on who infused that metal. And again, this might not be too useful unless you could store the compounded Surge that is released. If you could somehow trick a poor Nahel spren into transforming as a tiny metal bead... Nah! Too silly. I have a feeling that metal infused with Selish Investiture (e.g. via AonDor or Soul Forgery) cannot be burned without destroying the Form required by Selish Investiture, so that probably won't produce anything worthwhile. Don't burn silver in the Forests of Hell in Threnody. That's probably an unspoken Fourth Simple Rule there meant only for Worldhoppers, because it's just plain stupid to burn an Allomantically inert metal that protects you from the local malevolent Cognitive Shadows.

Not everything has to be Religion's fault, you know? Some in-world scholar who may or may not have been religious wrote Arts and Majesty at an unspecified time in the distant past. Seeing that ardents don't follow the precepts of that ancient work, I highly doubt that original Vorin doctrine had anything to do with it.In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Sunmaker (the famous enemy of the Hierocracy) was a big supporter of Arts and Majesty, what with his macho way of thinking. He might have even enforced the traditions based on it all throughout Alethkar during his reign. Anyway, from what I could see, the Vorin priests in general seem much more egalitarian in terms of the sexes. The safehand thing may have somehow become associated with Vorin morality over the years, but then the religion has gone through major changes due to Sunmaker, so this might just be one of them.

You mean the kind that the Stormfather uses? Not necessarily. From what the Stormfather says in Words of Radiance, the Everstorm contains voidspren that can forcibly bond parshmen: I don't think they could use the Everstorm to bond non-voidspren. Remember, it is not a storm itself that bonds them to spren, but a powerful spren that resides it. In the case of the highstorm, that would be the Stormfather, who appears to only bond Parshendi who are in a certain frame of mind (depending on which spren they're trying to bond with); i.e., the Stormfather bonds conditionally. On the other hand, the voidspren of the Everstorm as described are not likely to wait for any preparation on the parshmen's part before bonding them. I think the best chance of a Parshendi becoming a Knight Radiant is to first attain a form that could attract the Radiant spren in the first place. Rlain, being a Squire to a Windrunner, might have a chance.

Not quite sure what you mean here, because the freeing of Ati happened in WoA, and we've never seen him become imprisoned again afterwards. Do you mean how long did Ati roam around free before Vin killed him? According to this, it was about a year. I don't think so. In fact, given that Marsh obtained his atium spike from another Inquisitor, it appears they didn't all have the same kind of spikes. Maybe, but he might have to give up his many Breaths to be considered one, because a Sliver (as per this) is someone who has already released the immense Investiture he once had.

If the battle occurs outside of Roshar and Scadrial (meaning there's no local source of god metals, Mist, and Stormlight) then Lift with at least four Honorblades (Nale's, Ash's, Kalak's, and Ishar's) and with sufficient training and lots of calories should be a good match even for a Mistborn of Vin's skill-level and who has vials of all sixteen regular metals. This is assuming neither of them will use Hemalurgy and that Wyndle will cooperate fully.