ROSHtaFARian2.0

Honestly, I'm most intrigued by the implications that Vivenna is able to Awaken things on Roshar, given that Vasher according to WoB still has not figured out how to do the same. Is it a case of the student surpassing the master, with Vivenna having figured out a workaround that hasn't occurred to Vasher, or is it that Vivenna is working with others who have the necessary knowledge/skills to help her figure out a workaround ahead of Vasher.

True, but there are a number of ways for this still to work with that. If Honor and Cultivation had been Invested on Ashyn previously, Odium could have then arrived after them and Invested in other to Shatter and kill them, and in the process gained the worship of the humans of that world (as well as potentially altering or adding to the magic systems in such a way as to lead to the cataclysm that resulted from magic). Perhaps Cultivation and/or Honor fled Ashyn before the cataclysm and sought refuge on Roshar, with Odium arriving with the original human Voidbringers after the cataclysm. Or Cultivation came to Roshar first, and Honor followed either at the same time as Odium or after. The sequence of things is up in the air still due to a lack of more information, but I don't believe there's anything in this theory that dictates the order in which the three Shards moved from Ashyn to Roshar. As for the Dawnshards, I wouldn't be surprised if that gem is an example of one of the Dawnshards but this is less about what the Dawnshards are now and their specific form or function and more what they represent in terms of the history of Roshar and the Tranquiline Halls, and their connection to Honor. As far as the boon granting food during a famine, I confess I don't remember that example, but even if I'm correct about the Nightwatcher and the Old Magic having some connection to the disease magic of Ashyn via Cultivation's (possible) previous Investment there, that doesn't preclude the Nightwatcher having access to more venues for granting boons as well as that. My point about the neurological basis of most if not all the boons/curses we've seen so far is only meant to draw a connection between the Old Magic and Ashyn's magic, it isn't necessarily meant to limit them to that.

So now we have confirmation that humans came to Roshar from somewhere else. People have theorized before that humanity might have come to Roshar from Ashyn, and I believe more than ever that this is the case. Firstly....from what little we know of Ashyn via WoBs and his readings from it, that world suffered some form of cataclysm in the past, stemming from the disease based magic people used there. However, just because humans on Roshar arrived there after a great cataclysm on their original world, that doesn't mean that ALL the humans from their original world left it. Some might have remained behind, and that, I posit, are the people in the scattered cities that make up the remnant of civilization on Ashyn. Secondly, we know that humans, as the original Voidbringers, were responsible for the destruction of their original world and the Recreance and Nale's later actions resulted from a fear that Surgebinders, unchecked, would do the same to Roshar. However, this does not inherently mean that Surgebinding was responsible for the destruction of the first world. Indeed, we have this line from Chapter 113: The way this is phrased makes me feel that Honor was not saying that Surgebinders would destroy their world again, but rather that Surgebinders would do to Roshar what the humans of the Tranquiline Halls did to their world with the magic system of that world. We know that magic systems are born of the interaction between a Shard's Investiture and the planet they're on, and while they have some control over how their magic system works or is shaped, there are some things they can't control. Due to the greater presence of Adonalsium's Investiture on Roshar in the form of spren, Honor and Cultivation, upon arriving and Investing in Roshar, found spren the channel through which their Investiture and magic was shaped. But on their previous planet, whether that was Ashyn or somewhere else, their Investiture might have resulted in a very different magic system (or more than one). We know that the magic on Ashyn takes the form of diseases (or more accurately) bacteria, that when infecting a human host also grants that human some form of magic ability for as long as they remain infected. Some of these abilities are innocuous, some moderately useful, and others catastrophically destructive. However all of them, regardless of the end result of the ability, play into the same underlying nature: gain comes at cost. Power paired with weakness. And where else have we seen such an underlying nature? With the Nightwatcher's boons and curses, rumored to be associated with both Cultivation and the Old Magic. Petitioners seek out the Nightwatcher to ask a boon, a favor, something that can be used to better themselves or their situation or act as some form of power or ability....but such a thing comes at a cost, as they are stricken with a curse as well, something that takes something from them or impairs them in some way. Not unlike a disease. In fact, consider that the boons and curses bestowed by the Nightwatcher all seem to be neurological in some way, from what we've seen so far...and bacteria and diseases can certainly affect neurology. On Ashyn, it's not just that diseases grant magic, from what little we've seen of it in Brandon's readings. From what we've seen, the civilization on Ashyn actively CULTIVATES these diseases, employing people as human incubators to keep certain strains of bacteria around and viable should they ever have need of the ability bestowed by that disease. My theory is that the disease magic of Ashyn was Cultivation's original magic system, the form her Investiture took when interacting with Ashyn, and some Splinter of her still remains behind on Ashyn even if no Perpendicularity does, and fuels what's left of Ashyn's magic. When she moved to Roshar with the humans who fled from it, her Investiture took a new form, as did Honor's, and created a new magic, Surgebinding. However, perhaps some remnants of her original magic came with her and is evident in the Nightwatcher, or perhaps some magic practitioners from Ashyn carried some lingering strains with them when they came....and this is the Old Magic, echoes or pieces of Cultivation's first magic system, which exists separate from Surgebinding but can still manipulate biology (and neurology) in some small ways, even stranded from Ashyn, the planet that birthed this magic via its interaction with Cultivation's Investiture. While the epigraphs in Oathbreaker seem to imply at least one Shard (most likely Autonomy) claims "many lands" and as such, possibly is Invested in multiple worlds and magic systems, we have no real idea yet of what that might mean, or how different magic systems born of a Shard's Investiture might look given the key role a Shardworld plays in shaping these magic systems. My theory is that it's less important to look at the trappings of various magic systems, the mechanisms or the fuel sources, and look at the Intent underneath for any commonalities. If I'm correct, and Ashyn's disease magic is born of Cultivation, same as the Nightwatcher's boons and curses, and half of Surgebinding, the unifying commonality in all of Cultivation's magic is that to gain something, you must give something. That reward comes at cost. Even at its most base definition, cultivation by its nature is progress resulting from labor, effort and time. Nothing is cultivated for free, or even cheaply. The more you put into trying to cultivate something, the greater your gains. By extrapolating this union between Intent and magic, the greater the power resulting from a disease on Ashyn, the more deadly the disease or more horrific or taxing the symptoms are likely to be. The greater the boon, or gift, or request made of the Nightwatcher, the more debilitating or impairing the curse granted alongside it. And with Surgebinding, the greater the skill and power wielded by a Surgebinder, the more effort, honor, sacrifice the Surgebinder has to put into Cultivating their bond with a spren. The most powerful abilities are unlocked only at the recitation and understanding of the highest Ideals, which as we've seen, do not come cheaply to Surgebinders. To wield Surgebinding at its most powerful levels, a Knight Radiant must all but give him or herself fully over to the bond with their spren and their service to certain ideals. To gain you must give. The more you give, the more you gain. Something too that I've noted, is that Cultivation's magic (via this interpretation) is not aimed at being most beneficial to an individual, but rather to a civilization or society as a whole. With the disease magic on Ashyn, the civilization we saw is structured around employing people as incubators to specific diseases not for the benefit of the individual who gets that disease, but rather if the greater populace has need of that ability. We didn't see people running around infecting themselves to have abilities, but rather society doling out diseases as befitted the needs of society. Similarly, on Roshar, the Cultivation of Honor that fuels Surgebinding is not in service to the individual Surgebinder, but rather advocates by its very nature for a Surgebinder to become a champion of society, of the greater good, the overall populace. Power granted in largest doses not to the individual who seeks it for himself, but doled out instead to the individual who seeks to use it for Honor, for Justice, for the good of all. All of this matches the Intent of Cultivation, which is a term generally used on a large macro scale, rather than a micro. You can cultivate things for and of yourself, but for the most part, cultivation is done on a society wide level. According to this interpretation of magic and Investiture, had Ruin Invested on planets besides Scadrial, other magic systems of his might not have matched hemalurgy in that it required spiking various points in a spiritweb, or using metal, or even in stealing attributes. But its likely that all magic systems fueled by his Investiture would have the underlying commonality that they feed entropy. They Ruin, they enhance decay or degradation, they follow a law of diminishing returns. Were Endowment to Invest on other worlds and fuel more magic systems, they would all likely involve a gift, as in Breath, as a catalyst, with the act of gifting or endowing being crucial to the advancement of magic. And so on. Which brings us to Honor, and the Dawnshards. From what little we know of the Dawnshards, they have the power to bind any creature, voidish or mortal. By this theory, if Honor were to fuel more than one magic system, the underlying commonality due to his Intent is that his magic is always a thing of binding. On Roshar, with Investiture resulting in honorspren, that magic became Surgebinding, creating bonds between humans and ideas-made-flesh, with this bond being what allowed for the governing of natural forces such as gravity and friction. On Ashyn, where there were no spren, the magic that resulted might have looked very different....but still involved the binding of things. The only part of this theory I'm uncertain about is whether all Shard's Investiture, as influenced by a Shardworld, MUST take the same form - or if a Shardworld could interact with two different Shards in two different ways. This is true of everything we've seen so far where two or more Shards Invest in the same Shardworld, with spren on Roshar, metals on Scadrial, geographic identities and shapes on Sel. But just because it's all we've seen so far, doesn't mean that its automatically true for all Shards and all Shardworlds, and that there aren't exceptions or loopholes. I believe that Honor was previously Invested on Ashyn, along with Cultivation, but while her Investiture manifested via bacteria and resulted in disease magic....I believe that Honor's previous Investiture on Ashyn took the form of the Dawnshards or rather that whatever it is they truly are, they're the remnants of Honor's magic that were brought to Roshar when he and the humans came, just as the Old Magic is the echo of Cultivation's previous disease magic. Whether there is some link between the Dawnshards and disease magic, or that Honor interacted with the disease magic in Ashyn that I'm not thinking of because we have so very little information there with which to speculate - these are entirely possible. Or, alternatively, the Dawnshards represent a wholly different magic system that was fueled solely by Honor's Investiture while the disease magic was fueled by Cultivation (at least until Odium arrived, and possibly Invested on Ashyn resulting in bacteria/diseases that led to the humans of that world largely destroying it). Related to this theory but slightly tangential: Following the line of these thoughts, I do think that the fact that The Silence Divine reveals there are still people living on Ashyn and still using the disease magic means that there must be some Investiture still fueling it....meaning that Cultivation likely left a Splinter of herself behind, either intentionally or on accident, when she left for Roshar. However, if this is true, it could be the reason why Honor took the brunt of keeping Odium imprisoned via the Oathpact and his Heralds, while also explaining why Odium might have a trickier time Shattering Cultivation than he did Honor....because she's not entirely there on Roshar, and to completely kill or Shatter her, Odium would have to return himself or part of his Investiture to Ashyn and eliminate her there too, which he's either unable or unwilling to do, given the nature of his imprisonment and his focus on Roshar.

If you don't mind asking, there's a fairly non-spoilery question that I think has a shot of being answered in vague terms, and I'm kinda curious: Hoid has a particular talent for ticking people off, especially other immortals, and we know Cultivation and he don't get along, and he has grudges against Bavadin and Rayse. Are there any Shards he is fond of and vice versa?

Apologies if somebody has suggested this already, but we've been focusing on three Bondsmith spren and three Shards on Roshar and trying to draw a line between those two symmetries, but what if the third bondsmith spren is born of the resonance of Honor and Cultivation? We know when two Shards power a magic system, there's a side-effect or resonance that's not quite another power in and of itself, but is something unique to the interaction of the two Shards....what if the bondsmith spren break down as the Nightwatcher is to Cultivation as the Stormfather is to Honor, and the Sibling, the third bondsmith spren, is to the resonance of Honor and Cultivation, the interaction between the two that fuels Surgebinding and creates the spren that govern human access to each of the ten Surges?

Quick note that affects your math here....the WoB about roughly half-ish the Shards being alive used Shadows of Self as the timestamp for that. Which means Ruin and Preservation weren't necessarily whole depending on if Brandon was thinking of the question in terms of the status of the original sixteen. You have Ruin and Preservation listed as still alive, but Brandon could have been thinking of them in the dead column, if he were assuming that the questioner was asking for insight into the original sixteen Shardholders....which would put the count at Ambition, Honor, Dominion, Devotion, Ruin and Preservation - with the living as Cultivation, Odium, Autonomy, and Endowment. So of the six unknowns, there could still be three, four or even five that are still alive, if half-ish means as little as seven "dead" or as many as nine. I do like the idea of Justice as a Shard, but I wonder if it might be considered a sub-Intent of Honor, especially given the focus and aim of the Skybreakers. Which, again, from a certain POV might make Brandon's coy reference to a Shard of Justice being dead true in the sense of Honor is dead, and if Justice is of Honor....well. Something I've been thinking of in regards to what's happening on Roshar is that we talk a lot about potential combined Shards and what might happen if say, Dalinar were to take up the restored Shard of Honor or take up a combined Shard of Honor plus Odium. However, we've seen both of these things happen before with Vin temporarily taking up Preservation and Sazed taking up the combined Ruin plus Preservation. Rather than repeating the same thematic beats, it occurred to me it might be interesting if the Stormlight Archive ends with a new variation.....what if the series results in recombining Splinters of Honor, but falls short of restoring Honor as a single entity and instead results in a couple of Vessels picking up Shards of Honor's subdivided Intents, like a Justice Shard and a Loyalty Shard, etc? We have WoB that its theoretically possible for Splinters to have their own Intents if they're large enough....it could be interesting if the Stormlight Archive culminates in not a new batch of Heralds with a new Oathpact but rather a group of Vessels holding Intents that are all derived of Honor?

I like it. It makes a certain kind of symmetry, especially when you consider that the Shards are essentially divine intent devoid of context. Odium is Hatred, but as part of a greater whole, his Intent might in context be considered Hatred for things that are evil. After all, there's nothing inherently wrong in hating things like oppression or murder. It's when you remove Odium from any other factors that give hatred context and just cast him adrift with a mind married to the idea of hatred and no direction to how and where it's applied....that's when you get Odium the villain. So when you give a piece of yourself a mind and will of its own, the freedom to make its own choices, you can no longer guarantee that new intent will ultimately be in accord with yours. It might at first, is likely to at first, especially if you think of these things in terms of parents and children, with the latter more predisposed to follow in their parent's footsteps (especially if they're a fearsome, authoritarian parent who brooks no disobedience) - but ultimately, it is as free to choose its own way as Odium was free to pursue his Intent of Hatred indiscriminately.

Actually, weirdly I think there's a lot more going on with Shalash destroying images of herself than mere insanity or guilt. I think it has something to do with the nature of magic on Roshar and the Oathpact and Heralds. Basically, every time it comes up, it makes me think of the Interlude from Way of Kings where we saw those two researches studying how the act of observing spren affects them. Surgebinding has a lot to do with quantum mechanics, and in quantum mechanics, the mere act of observing something has a lot to do with defining and shaping reality. Add to that the fact that Shalash is the Herald most closely linked with the Surge that allows for crafting illusions and affecting how people see and perceive things. Now again, this might just speak to Ash's state of mind and her guilt as others have said, but I do wonder if all of the above plays into the why her actions revolve around destroying her own iconography. Perhaps, either metaphysically and magically, or else merely just psychologically, for her the art that depicts her AS SHE WAS is similar to watching a spren to lock it into a certain state or form....as in art that shows her as a Herald, as Honorable, has connotations of binding her to that state of being and thus destroying that art is not mere self-loathing for her, but to her mind is an act of active rebellion, of breaking free of that state of being, that incarnation of herself, in a way that just breaking the Oathpact didn't. Alternatively, depending on how deep the connection to quantum mechanics goes in this magic system (and we know it goes pretty deep), destroying the images of herself as a Herald could be a result of manipulation, could have actual real, metaphysical consequences that keep her separated from what she was, from reclaiming her honor and her former nature as a Herald. Maybe similar to Nale killing off potential Skybreakers? Like, what if the Heralds' insanity might be a result of an Unmade taking advantage of whatever weakness walking away from the Oathpact left in them, and actively widening the cracks to keep them weak and unable to become the threat they once were? And thus the particular shape their insanity takes is directly linked to a means of KEEPING them weakened and insane, such as the Herald of Illumination and sight, perception, etc, destroying the very images that cast her as a Herald, as Honorable, as perceived by the masses as a being of power and a force for good.

We know that there was at least one more race of sentient being on Yolen aside from humans and dragons, and we know that not all of the Shards are human. I agree that Letter #2 is Autonomy given the references to not suffering Hoid's interference, one of their worlds being well hidden (ie Autonomy closing off access to Taldain) and other little context clues. The wording actually made me think of the cremlings, and how Axies' species are able to separate into hordes of little creatures. I don't think this is what Autonomy is, as it doesn't match how we've seen them refer to themselves or speak or think of themselves, but it made me think that Bavadin could possibly be one of the third species from Yolen and that they're some kind of gestalt being....and that's why, when magnified by a Shard's power, Bavadin acts as multiple incarnations and has been entire pantheons in the past....as well as why Brandon has been coy in reference to their gender. Acting on the assumption that Letter #2 is Autonomy, I do have some thoughts counter to what others suggest: I don't think we can assume that Obrodai is a new location. It might merely be a new name for a familiar location - my impression is that Scadrial is Obrodai, and Autonomy merely has her own name for it. Most of the Shardworlds were named pre-Shattering and thus the Shards and others from that time like Frost and Hoid would likely use the same names for Roshar, Sel, etc....but Scadrial is one of the only worlds we know of that was created fully by Shards. As such, various immortal beings might have different names for it or might not be in universal agreement on the name that eventually became common usage. Autonomy might simply be using a name she's more partial to or from a previous era when she had prior contact with Scadrial, perhaps. In addition, the 'we have claimed that land for our own' sounds an awful lot like it could be a reference to Trell's actions on Scadrial right now and Autonomy warning off other major players from interfering with whatever her goals are there, and the new incarnation of their being spoken of here, as well as instilling this new avatar of an intense dislike of Hoid as a precaution could refer to Trell directly. Like Trell is Autonomy, but Trell is not all of Autonomy, if that makes sense? Also, I wonder if the references to the sea and the waters might have something to do with the Cognitive Realm? Gut impression here, but reading Letter #2 I had this sensation of Autonomy existing primarily in the Cognitive Realm where she can watch over or readily access all of the many lands she claims for herself, rather than existing primarily on any one singular world? Even if we think of Taldain as HER Shardworld, consider the fact that the reigning theory is that Autonomy's Invested in Taldain's star, rather than Taldain directly. It makes a kind of sense that Autonomy would choose not to be beholden to any one singular world, especially if she has many lands she considers to be hers, and thus even if she has a home base or a world she prizes over others or focuses on most directly, she took care not to bind herself to it or in any way limit herself from coming and going as she pleases....as happens to other Shards when they Invest heavily in a single world. Lots of cultures in Earth's history refer to the heavens or space as a kind of sea of stars, and given the inverted nature of land and sea in the Cognitive Realm, the way Letter #2 reads makes me wonder if a Shard who Invested in space or stars rather than a planet and who elects to move through the Cognitive Realm more frequently than the Physical might think of their surroundings or base of operations as the waters of a sea. But for me the big takeaway of Letter #2, the most interesting element was that whoever the Shard who wrote it is, they seem to claim many worlds as their own. We already knew Autonomy meddles in a lot of places, but of the ten core Shardworlds Brandon talks about, this Shard clearly has no interest in Roshar (and since Rayse is said to be bound to the Rosharan system, probably not Braize or Ashyn as well, given the reference to Rayse's prison). Similarly, I don't see any evidence that Autonomy has any claim over Nalthis or Sel like this Letter writer claims to have over Scadrial currently. Point being, I don't think there's any way one single Shard could claim all or even a majority of the core Shardworlds as their own, which makes me feel like there might be a LOT more minor Shardworlds out there (like Sixth of Dusk) than I think we've previously suspected.

Not trying to beat a dead horse either, but I do feel that the WoB we do have still discounts this further theory about Vasher having knowledge of how to convert Stormlight into Breaths in the past. That WoB that I quoted earlier in the thread says 'He's tried, but he has not figured out how to awaken things with Stormlight.' As I mentioned previously, I feel what you're describing is quite possible, but it does seem to me that this quote is definitive in terms of Vasher's knowledge of how to do this. Brandon wasn't addressing Vasher's ability to do this currently, which would fit with the idea that he as the God King originally had this knowledge but then forgot it due to his use of Commands to do just that. He said 'he has not figured out how to awaken things' which - while your interpretation may vary - to me pretty clearly states that it's knowledge that has thus far eluded his reach. There was no stated timeline or context to the question when it was posed to Brandon, so there's nothing that grounded the question as being about Vasher and his knowledge at a specific point in the cosmere timeline. Thus Brandon's answer reads as a more general response covering the breadth of Vasher's own history....and according to that response, Vasher has tried to do this, but has not figured it out.

I bolded that bit for emphasis, because I'm not entirely sure that's a given. I mean, yes, we know that Adonalsium is shattered, but we do know of at least some instances where his Investiture remains independent of the sixteen Shards that are made up of most of it. After all, many of the spren on Roshar are specifically said to predate the Shattering, and to be splinters of Adonalsium and his Investiture, right? So its not beyond the realm of possibility that there might remain some lingering, ambient Investiture outside of the Shards themselves, and that this could be used to power Yolish Lightweaving, at least if you're someone very knowledgeable about magic, like Hoid is. Actually, given that the only time we've seen Hoid use Lightweaving is on Roshar (correct me if I'm wrong, but his tricks on Sel and Nalthis are not confirmed to be Lightweaving and could have been done in other ways) - so perhaps its better to say that if indeed, Roshar is the only place we've seen Hoid use Lightweaving, that could possibly be because its one of the few places where Adonalsium's pre-Shattering Investiture is present enough for him to hack and power a pre-Shattering magic.

To clarify, my belief is that Cultivation PREVIOUSLY invested in Ashyn, before she came to Roshar and Invested there. That whatever magic is on Ashyn currently is what remains of her Investiture there, filtered through the system she designed when she was focused on it. We still don't know exactly what the process is for a Shard de-vesting themselves from a world and going elsewhere, just that it is possible, albeit difficult, so my supposition is that inevitably some Investiture is left or unable to be fully reclaimed. And Oversleep, I'll have to get back to you on the exact WoB....I know its a recent one, it was only in the last couple of months or so and it might have been in the reddit thread? But essentially, he was responding to a question building on stuff he's said about magic arising from the interaction of a Shardworld and that Shard's Investiture, and he clarified that what he meant by that was never that the magic systems were accidental or unintentional, or that the Shards had no control over what form they took, but rather that certain Shardworlds had certain frameworks already in place (like the spren on Roshar) and the Shards had to design their magic systems in and around those existing frameworks.

(I too am very curious to hear if there's any Cultivation/Ashyn connection, as I believe she's the most likely to have Invested there, given what we know of the magic system. Ever since that WoB where he said Shards do design their magic systems, they just have to work within certain parameters like fitting Surgebinding on Roshar to work with what Adonalsium had already established there, I've been pretty convinced. I can't imagine anyway a magic system designed to cultivate certain powers via different strains of bacteria/disease isn't born of Cultivation's Investiture).

If anyone is looking for a more general question, not too cosmere-indepth to ask, I've been wondering if he would mind telling us where in the cosmere timeline we'll know of all sixteen Shards. Is it only in Dragonsteel or the space age (Era 4) Mistborn that we'll know all the major players, or will we know them or at least have heard of them all by the time those series start? (Basically, I just mean he's said he doesn't want to reveal too much too soon, and I'm just curious if he has a certain point on the cosmere publishing timeline predetermined for when all the Shards at least will be revealed).

Its worth pointing out that we have to remember that at the end of the day, a large part of this is just semantics. All the Intents are deliberately broad and open to being interpreted in a number of different ways. Many of the themes or ideas being presented in this thread cover very similar ground, and it will all just come down to what specific word Brandon uses to focus these fairly broad concepts into a single, condensed Intent. With the established shards, some of his word choices are absolutely what we'd expect - Devotion, Honor, these absolutely make sense as divine attributes and were of no surprise to anyway. Others like Odium or Autonomy were a bit of a surprise, not because 'god's wrath' or 'free will' are surprising in and of themselves, but because those specific word choices weren't necessarily what we personally would've thought or predicted for those concepts. So I think there's actually more agreement than disagreement overall on a lot of these, when it comes to the underlying ideas....its word choice where most of us part ways.

I think there's any number of possible connections Rayse could've had to Aona and Skai to get fully on board with the parents theory with so little basis, but I do agree that their deaths were probably personally motivated, and for whatever reason, he really hated the two of them. Could just as easily be a jilted lover thing though - lol maybe Aona had a thing for the bad boys but ultimately she chose Skai for a turbulent on-again off-again relationship instead of Rayse.

I agree with you in theory, but I would caution (heh) against us limiting ourselves by trying to view Adonalsium as a god of any of the religions we're familiar with. I believe Brandon's expressed on multiple occasions that while he is influenced by various religions including his own, he did not set out to mimic any of them with his cosmere mythology. And yes, I long suspected Adonalsium was an homage to the Hebrew Adonai even before it was confirmed.....but that could just as easily be an homage or an Easter egg as an indication of how we're meant to view Adonalsium. The fact is, we really have no idea yet what kind of god Adonalsium was. He's referred to as the power of creation at various points, but does that mean he actually created everything in the cosmere pre-Shattering, or simply that he possessed the power of creation? He predated the Shards, but did anything predate him? Zeus and the Christian God are both gods, but of very different sorts and capabilities, and we really don't know what Adonalsium was like, either as an individual or as a force. And as such, while I do think that looking for divine attributes is a way to contemplate remaining shards....what those divine attributes are depends on how you view this particular divinity. I would agree with your points regarding Caution if it weren't for the existence of Ambition. I feel like some of the Shards, like Ambition, are not necessarily Intents we would inherently view as being aspects of a divine personality....and perhaps its simply that they're the words that best describe the Intent Brandon is trying to indicate. For instance, by your same logic regarding Caution.....an all powerful God is unlikely to be described as Ambitious, because the most common perception of ambition is 'a desire and determination to achieve success'. What need does an all powerful God have of a strong drive to succeed when his success is inevitable due to his omnipotence? However, ambition can also be defined as 'a strong desire to do or achieve something, typically requiring drive and hard work.' That I believe is where we find the divine attribute of Ambition within Adonalsium....Ambition is the Intent to accomplish, no matter the effort required. An adherence towards a goal and the will to actualize that goal and see it done. (Hence Cognitive but requiring a strong Physical influence). Similarly, my argument with Caution is that most commonly, the instinct is to link caution to fear....we think of it as something born of fear, which as you pointed out, is something an all powerful divinity is unlikely to have. However, caution is also defined as 'care taken to avoid danger or mistakes.' As such, like I suggested earlier, I would say that Caution could be viewed as another way to describe the attribute of divine patience, of knowing when NOT to act. Any creation inevitably requires at some point a step back to evaluate what one has created, view how it is turning out before deciding whether to proceed with the creation, start over, or just leave it alone. This is what I believe Caution is. Consider, we still don't know why Adonalsium was shattered. Obviously, there are many possible reasons. For all we know, the original Vessels viewed Adonalsium as an enemy or a threat. That seems more likely than people like Tanavast and Ati plotting to steal his power for the sake of their own empowerment. However, another possibility is that Yolen faced a terrible threat, and the original Vessels didn't think that Adonalsium was doing enough or anything to stop it. That they plotted to kill him and take his power for themselves so that they could act with the power of creation for the betterment of all. My point with this tangent is that there are many scenarios in which even an all powerful god CHOOSES not to act or to intervene, preferring to see how humanity handles it for themselves, like a parent standing back to let their child accomplish something for themselves. Its this Intent to not act, but rather to wait and see what happens, that I argue could be called the divine attribute of Caution. This is also my reasoning with Revolution (though I feel less strongly about this Shard's potentiality than I do Caution). The thing about Revolution is that our default perception of the word goes hand in hand with violence, the violent overthrow of a government or a regime, something which as you said, doesn't seem a likely attribute for a god who is himself the power of creation. However, once again, that is not all that Revolution means. It also describes a 'sudden, complete and marked change in something' or 'a radical change in society and the social structure'. Essentially, it is the Intent of Dramatic Change. It keeps the status quo from becoming stagnant. It is the divine attribute that would keep a creator god from being content with one singular creation that lasted unchanging for all eternity.....and instead would drive him to periodically shake things up so that new potential could emerge. Revolution could alternately be described as Reinvention, but I passed on that because I felt that one Shard was likely to be called either Inspiration or Invention, the Intent of creating, revising or originating. Revolution could also be described as Transformation, true, but I think its extremely unlikely that any of the remaining six Shards share a name with a subset of another Shard's magic system, like Surgebinding. With Transformation, Illumination and Progress being Surges, I highly doubt we'll end up with any Shards who share those same names...similar to how I don't think there's a Shard of Justice, given that one aspect of Honor's Intent and Investiture seems dedicated to Justice already. Edit: Regarding Harmony, I admit I have not worked him into my theory fully yet. However, currently I'm of the mindset that its probably a mistake to view Harmony as being simply the combination of Preservation and Ruin, rather than a wholly new thing created of two different Intents. What I mean is, Brandon's spoken about how Harmony is now its own, coherent Intent. Ruin and Preservation are both part of him, but he's not simply half Ruin and half Preservation, you can't split it apart that cleanly. So I don't think combining two strongly Physical Shards inherently makes one supercharged Physical Shard.....I think it creates something wholly new. We know that Adonalsium could have shattered along different lines, resulted in different Intents. The Spectrum of Intents I've created here is based on the INITIAL Shattering....we don't know yet why each Vessel got a specific Intent or how much the personality of the original Vessels influenced what Shard they got or perhaps even what Shards emerged from the Shattering. The confluence of events that resulted in sixteen Vessels each walking away with a different Intent is I think, a large part of why Adonalsium shattered into these specific sixteen Intents. Harmony however....is born of an entirely different confluence of events. Unrelated to the Shattering. So I wonder if the answer to this question is Harmony CAN'T be mapped on the Spectrum of Intents that resulted from the Shattering....that his creation puts him on an entirely new spectrum or in a wholly different order. Like I mean....if Sazed were at the Shattering instead of Ati and Leras, would Adonalsium have Shattered into fifteen Intents, one of them Harmony? I don't necessarily think so. Because I think that just like Adonalsium could have Shattered into different Intents, the combination of Ruin and Preservation could have resulted in a different Intent than Harmony if someone other than Sazed had been capable of taking them both up instead. I think Harmony is the result of Ruin & Preservation because those were the only Intents available to take up. If Sazed had been there at the Shattering, fifteen Vessels instead of sixteen....I think ALL the Intents would be different, not just the other fourteen Intents remaining the same and Harmony in place of Ruin and Preservation's original Shards. So my point is, Harmony isn't supposed to fit on the Spectrum of Intents, because Harmony literally didn't exist when the Shards originally split along these lines. I don't think any super-Shards that are formed by combining two or more of the remaining Shards can be retroactively shoehorned into a spot on this original spectrum....because the existence of these combined Shards or the Vessels of combined shards like Sazed were literally not a factor in whatever caused Adonalsium's initial split into sixteen Intents

I wasn't trying to be pedantic, I just couldn't track down the specific WoB at the moment so I was affirming what others had said, about there having been an answer on whether or not Vasher could Awaken with Stormlight YET. Here it is: Interview: Jan 21st, 2015 Changing Hands, AZ ZenBossanova Can Vasher use Stormlight to Awaken things? Brandon Sanderson No, all it does is keep him alive. But he has tried and has not figured out how to awaken things. Edit: I do understand that your theory was about converting Stormlight into the Breaths that form the God King's treasure trove, and again, I do agree that is probably possible, but I believe that's still precluded by this WoB.....given that Vasher used the original treasure trove of Breaths to Awaken his Lifeless army, it seems to me that if he had somehow converted Stormlight into Breath to form that treasure trove, that would count as him having Awakened things with Stormlight.

Again, nobody is saying that using Stormlight to Awaken isn't theoretically possible, but I believe Brandon was asked specifically if Vasher could Awaken things with Stormlight and Brandon said no, he hasn't figured out how to do that yet. He can keep himself alive with Stormlight, but that's it. So it seems extremely likely that Stormlight can potentially be used to hack Awakening and fuel it in place of Breaths, but nobody's figured out that particular hack yet. Meaning there's no way the original treasure trove of the God Kings came from the Scholars bringing back Stormlight from Roshar and converting it into usable Breaths Vasher later used to Awaken his Lifeless army.

LOL my favorite topic. I'm in the camp that thinks that all sixteen Shards are divine attributes but do not directly fall into pairs....nor do I think that groupings are necessarily the best way to describe it either, because its rare that a personality (which is kinda what we're describing here, Adonalsium's divine personality shattered into sixteen specific attributes) can be cleanly sorted into groups. Instead I picture the Shards as being on a spectrum, that encompasses all three Realms. Much like most things in the cosmere touch or span all three Realms in one way or another, I think all sixteen Intents have some Spiritual, Cognitive and Physical aspects to each of them....but that each Intent is described better by one of the three than the other two. For instance, on one far end of the spectrum would be the more Physical Shards, like Preservation and Ruin. Both these Shards have cognitive and spiritual aspects to their Intent as well, but they're more strongly of the Physical than either of the other two Realms. Consider the Intent of Preservation.....its best defined or expressed through actions, through physicality. You can be spiritually devoted to the essence of what preservation means, being a person devoted to preserving life, society, any of that. You can be cognitively focused on the intellectual essence of what preservation means, whether saving one person is more important than letting one person die to save multiple people. But at the end of the day, the Intent of Preservation is most clearly expressed through action....the intent to preserve something means nothing without the actual action, your reasons for preserving something or why you choose to preserve one thing over another doesn't alter the actual end result of the actions you took. I believe this also plays into why some Shards and their magic systems seem more rooted in the Physical Realm than others. You initially access allomancy by physically acting to preserve. The focus, the fuel, pretty much all the fundamentals of the metallic arts are rooted in the Physical Realm. Now look at the other end of the spectrum, Shards that are more of the Spiritual than the others, even though they, like Preservation, do still touch on all three Realms and have aspects pertaining to each. Honor and Odium....both divine attributes like Preservation, but their essence is more of the spirit than of specific actions or physicality. With Honor's magic system, a person's spirit matters more than just their actions. Without special 'hacks' like wielding an Honorblade, you can't become a Surgebinder just by going through the motions.....performing specific actions doesn't cut it, its not just about the end result, its about the WHY of your actions. You only attract an honorspren by being honorable. Kaladin's reasons for doing certain things, the SPIRIT of how he wields his shardblade has an actual impact on Syl, their bond, and his ability to use magic that is of Honor - all in a way that just fundamentally isn't true of Preservation and how allomancy works and its relationship with mistings and mistborn. And then in the middle of the spectrum, you have Shards that are primarily Cognitive, they're the in between Intents, just as the Cognitive is kind of the 'middle' Realm in between the Physical and the Spiritual. Primarily cognitive Shards have aspects to them that are strongly of the Spiritual and the Physical Realms, but their Intents are most strongly defined and expressed via how the mind interprets the juxtaposition of spiritual essence and physical action - primarily cognitive Intents are ones where why you perform specific actions sometimes matters more, but sometimes the reverse is true. Its the eye of the beholder, or more accurately, the thought process of the Vessel or the magic user, that matters most. I'd say that the Cognitive Shards are like the 'gray area' Shards, like Devotion. With a Spiritual Shard like Honor or Odium....there is no real way to act against the SPIRIT of Honor or Odium. Your access to their magic system is contingent on being true to the essence of what is 'true Honor', something immutable, the personal views and belief system of the Surgebinder can only stray away from this to a minimal extent. I don't think you can really use Odium's Investiture for something good, because Odium is pure spiritual hate, there's not a whole lot of leeway for his Intent to be interpreted in a non-destructive fashion. But by contrast, I'd call Devotion and Dominion more strongly Cognitive Shards. We tend to view Aona and Devotion as a benevolent Shard, but Devotion is named what she is for a reason I think. While there are synonymous interpretations of devotion and love, the Intent of Devotion is not innately the same thing as the Intent of Love, which I'd call a Spiritual Intent. Devotion though, is more ideological. More intellectual. You can be devoted to negative pursuits just as easily as you can be devoted to positive ones. Unlike the spirit of divine hatred, which doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room to use that power for good (to be clear, I think there are plenty of ways to use say, anger for good or put that to productive use, but hate, not so much) - with devotion, the focus of your devotion matters as much as anything else. A person who is devoted to their country above all else is as much in tune with the Intent of Devotion as a person who is devoted to life in general....but the diehard patriot devoted to their country is going to be willing to kill or destroy in the name of their country without acting against Devotion's Intent, no matter that this puts them completely at odds with the person who is fiercely devoted to making sure all life is preserved regardless of nationality. And like with Preservation and Allomancy, I think Devotion and Dominion being Cognitive Shards has a lot to do with the nature of Sel's magic systems....and might well have to do with Odium being able to bottle their Investiture up in the Cognitive Realm after shattering them....something that perhaps was only possible because they were already more strongly concentrated in the Cognitive Realms than the other two Realms. So again, I don't think splitting the Shards into four groups of four or something similar is the way to go. I think mapping them as a spectrum might glean more insight. You have the Shards that are more strongly of Spirit at one end like Honor and Odium. Shards more strongly of Physical at the far end, like Ruin and Preservation. And I think most of the other Shards fall somewhere in between.....some in the middle, strongly of Cognitive more than anything else, but others that are a blend of Spirit and Cognitive and others that are on the further end of the Cognitive, mixing with the Physical. Personally, I'd look at the Spectrum of Intents (the ones we have so far) as looking like the following: ODIUM -- HONOR -- ENDOWMENT -- DEVOTION -- DOMINION -- AMBITION -- AUTONOMY -- CULTIVATION -- RUIN -- PRESERVATION At the farthest Spiritual end of the Spectrum, you have God's Divine Hatred, Odium, an almost purely Spiritual Intent that can easily applied to the cognitive or the physical, but can not truly be altered by either of those things. No matter what mental gymnastics you perform, no matter what actions you take with Odium's Investiture, Hatred is still Hatred. A little to the right of Odium is Honor because it also is a predominantly spiritual intent, there does seem to be True Honor, the distilled essence of what Honor actually is, and this seems to be a barometer that spren like Syl use in determining who appeals to them most, when it comes to forming bonds. However, I put Honor a little more towards the cognitive than Odium, because Honor is more easily diluted than Hatred is, the Cognitive and the personal views and ideologies of a magic user, an individual's view of what constitutes being honorable does have some sway. A little further towards Cognitive is Endowment, another Spiritual Intent because the primary focus of it is the essence of bestowing, of endowing. On the surface this sounds more like a Physical thing, a specific action, but I'd argue this isn't so, because of how Shai describes the spiritual essence of things in TES. If you look at how the magic works in Warbreaker, Endowment seems to be an immutable Intent, at least so far as Awakening goes. It doesn't matter what the individual's view of endowment or gift-giving is, it doesn't matter why they give up their Breath, if they're being coerced or tortured or something. All that matters is that they endow their Breath, that they give it away 'willingly' - even if external factors are being applied to force the person to give up their Breath. This implies to me that the Intent of Endowment is one of the most spiritually pure, in the sense that there's not a lot of room to deviate from its essence. HOWEVER, Endowment has a second part to its Intent....an endowment is meant to be used, by its very nature. Its giving something with the intent or aim of that gift being used to help the recipient of the gift. And this is why I put this Intent a little more towards the Cognitive, because how the gift of Breath is used resides more in the Cognitive realm (hence the Spiritual fuel of Awakening, but the Cognitive focus of commands). Devotion I've already described above...it has a stronger spiritual aspect than it does physical, but its largely dictated by the cognitive, what a person is devoted to, how they apply that devotion. But access to Devotion's Investiture seems to be a combination of the spiritual and the cognitive....all Elantrians are devoted to a specific thing or person or ideology, and then of course Elantrian magic is largely Cognitive in its mechanics. Dominion is a little further to the right, because its like Devotion in a lot of ways, but a little bit more towards the Physical act of exerting dominion. Devotion is a bit more spiritual, a bit more cognitive, a bit more focused on the ephemeral or the abstract.....Dominion is still very much a Cognitive ideology, but requires a bit more Physical action than Devotion, IMO. They're close though (part of this idea of the spectrum is that while not all Shards are paired, the ones that are will be found next to each other on the spectrum....the further away two Intents get on the spectrum, the less they have in common and thus the less accurately they can be argued to reflect each other). Next I would put Ambition. We don't know much about Ambition, next to nothing, actually....but Ambition to me strikes me as another gray area shard, an Intent that is very much influenced by the personal views or goals of the Vessel or anyone using Ambition's Investiture. It's a bit more Physical than Devotion or Dominion, because Ambition by its very nature demands action. If someone just sits around all day, it doesn't really matter how big they dream, they're not usually going to be regarded as very ambitious, because they're not DOING anything to make those dreams happen. We also know that while Ambition was actually shattered somewhere outside of Threnody's system, the weirdness around Threnody and Cognitive Shadows and Shadesmar there has to do with Odium wounding Ambition while in that system....and much like what happened on Sel, Ambition having a largely Cognitive nature could be tied to the fallout of its wounding having largely Cognitive effects on its surroundings. I would also suggest that if my theory on a spectrum of Intents and Ambition's place on it holds true, then if Ambition did at any point have its own magic system, it was probably Cognitive fueled and focused, like the magic on Sel. Next we have Autonomy, a little more towards the Physical. I think Autonomy is another primarily Cognitive Shard because there doesn't seem to be a distilled essence of what it means to be Autonomous in the cosmere....all Bavadin's actions (and Trell's, if related to Bavadin either as a pseudonym or a proxy of hers) seem to suggest entirely different approaches to gaining or maintaining autonomy. Sealing Taldain off from the rest of the cosmere to maintain its autonomy makes sense for that Intent....but meddling in the shaping of other cultures as Bavadin is said to do is not as in keeping with that Intent UNLESS that Intent has a lot of Cognitive leeway to make all kinds of different arguments for what it means to be autonomous and how to go about achieving it. So far, Bavadin and Autonomy seem to embody the argument of 'do the ends justify the means'....if total autonomy is only the END goal, then there's plenty of room in the meanwhile to interfere and meddle in pursuit of that end goal. In a lot of ways, the Intent of Autonomy is like the divine focus on free will....and as such, it makes sense that the Intent most like 'Free Will' would be extremely cognitive, given that the very nature of free will has spawned countless intellectual arguments throughout human history. I actually think that if my spectrum theory pans out, once all sixteen Shards are mapped out on it, we'd find Autonomy right smack in the center of it, maybe just leaning SLIGHTLY more to the Physical than the Spiritual given the seeming physical focus and nature of magic on Taldain thus far, and the fact that like action is required to preserve something in according to Preservation's Intent, action is required to act to free oneself from outside influences to act according to Autonomy's Intent. (But since external factors shackling one's autonomy are rarely as cut and dried as the physical threat one needs to act to to preserve something, there's a lot more Cognitive involved in an individual determining what is oppressing them and what they need to be free of). Next I would put Cultivation, who despite having a close relationship with Honor and Honor's magic system, is a very Physical oriented Intent and magic. Cultivation is the physical act of building upon things, developing them further. It still has a strong Cognitive element because there's no singular action taken to cultivate things or systems or ideas. If you look at Surgebinding as a combination of Honor and Cultivation, as we know it to be, then Honor's part of it is a distilled spiritual truth at the heart of the magic that causes different spren to seek out bonds with people who act with 'true' Honor and in pursuit of 'true Justice'. Honor is the basis of the oaths the Knights Radiant take to fully cement their magic. However, Cultivation's part of Surgebinding is the physical and cognitive act of growing those bonds, deepening them, learning new oaths, taking where the magic user started and adding more magic as that magic user works to become more in tune with Honor, to grow his or her personal service to the ideals of the Knights Radiant and Honor. It fits that Cultivation and Ruin would be next to each other on the spectrum, because Brandon said once that they would complement each other well, if Ruin weren't already paired opposite Preservation, which of course is on the other side of Ruin on the spectrum. And of course on the far Physical side of the spectrum thus are Ruin and Preservation...Preservation being the furthest right because it as an Intent is almost wholly of action free of Cognitive ideology or Spiritual purity. The act is all that matters with Preservation....action also largely defines Ruin, as he's at times been described as mindless destruction, but I put him ever so slightly more towards the Cognitive than Preservation because most of what we've seen of Ruin and his Investiture in the cosmere is conscious will shaping the entropy it causes or embodies. Allomancy, you act in self-preservation, you Snap. You drink a vial of metal flakes, you're fueled to use Allomancy. Ruin's magic requires a little more conscious intent in what you're stealing via hemalurgy, where you apply spikes, etc, and so while Ruin and Preservation are a true pairing of Intents and thus right next to each other on the spectrum, I weigh Ruin as being incrementally more of the Cognitive than Preservation is. Now all of this is pure theory at this point, but I do think if it pans out, a number of things about the cosmere would fall into place, and it would glean a little insight into the six remaining Shards. For instance....I don't think we'll find out six of the remaining Shards are more 'purely Spiritual' than say, Odium, or more Physical than Preservation....I think they anchor the spectrum pretty well and any remaining Intents are going to fall somewhere in between, even if there's another Spiritual Shard that's right next to Odium thanks to having a pure essence of what its Intent means. We know that the Shard that just wants to survive has an Intent that's only tangentially related to its desire to stay out of things happening elsewhere in the cosmere....that to me suggests that this is a Cognitive Shard somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, one whose Intent gives it a lot more flexibility and leeway in interpreting it than Odium or Ruin have, as an example. I think the cluster of four Shards or so in the very center of the Spectrum are going to end up being Shards whose Vessels are unaltered by their Intent far more than many others....because their Intent is so Cognitive based that their personal perception of what it means matters a lot more than with most Shards. This certainly seems to be true of Bavadin thus far, from everything Brandon's said about her. So, the Shard that just wants to survive seems to motivated more by personal choice or agenda than Intent just by Brandon's choice or wording (ie Brandon specifying that first, one Shard just wants to hide and survive but second, that this want is not specifically in service to their Intent)....it having more freedom to act based on personal wants suggests to me that it is has a great deal of leeway in how its Intent is interpreted....which again, suggests that its very near to Autonomy on the spectrum. That's why personally, I think that it has a possibility of pairing with Ambition, also close to that center of the spectrum, and that's why I think this Shard is Caution. If Ambition is the divine urge to act, then Caution is the divine urge to wait and let things develop, divine patience if you will. I do think we'll see at least one or two more Shards that fall strongly in the Cognitive/Physical area than anything we have so far. Something that I'd place more towards the Physical than Autonomy, but not as far as Cultivation. Like for instance, Invention or Inspiration. Cognitive inspired, but requiring Physical creation. I also think we'll see another Shard or two that's somewhere around Endowment, maybe between it and Devotion. A mostly Spiritual Shard but with a stronger Cognitive influence than Endowment has....Judgment, the Intent of Divine Condemnation perhaps. I do think there's a strong possibility for another pure Spiritual essence Shard, something like Enlightenment or Mercy, that relies on the idea of a 'true' essence of being merciful. I also like the possibility of another strongly physical shard, such as Revolution, the Intent of change through action. Caution, Invention, Revolution, Judgment, Enlightenment, Mercy - those are my favorite six picks for the last remaining Shards.

I always figured it might also have something to do with the fact that there's a popular series of books by Simon R. Green called the Nightside series. Green is a long time client of Brandon's agent, Joshua Bilmes, and while White Sand was written before Brandon signed with his agent, he's mentioned that it took him a few years worth of trying before Joshua actually signed him. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Brandon stayed away from calling it the Nightside, because he'd done his homework on Bilmes' other clients and the first advice anyone in the industry gives a querying writer is avoid potential conflicts of interest with agents. (For instance, if you're a brand new writer just signed with an agent, and you and one of the agent's other long term clients both have manuscripts with specific plot points or place names or other sizable elements in common, you REALLY don't want your agent to have to make a choice between which of your manuscripts he pitches to editors first. Obviously this would not be an issue for Brandon now, lol, but at the time he was writing White Sand, I could see him having gone 'no, wait, there's already a series called the Nightside, let me call it Darkside instead').

I've always considered the relatively recent beginning to the Returns as having to due with Endowment's gift for foresight. Given what we know from Lightsong's experiences and POV as a Returned, it feels like a pretty safe bet that Endowment is one of the Shards that's more capable than others when it comes to glimpsing the future.....which I always took to mean Endowment started Returning people five centuries ago in response to something she saw happening in the future. Its the butterfly flapping its wings somewhere creates a hurricane somewhere else nature of extreme variables. Her decision to start Returning people could very likely have had nothing to do with Nalthis itself, but might have been brought about by a shift in her foresight....a change elsewhere in the cosmere caused ripples in what she saw coming down the pike and suddenly she felt she needed a more proactive stance on Nalthis...even if it wasn't BECAUSE of anything on Nalthis. However what that catalyst for change was could have been any number of things in the cosmere. I mean, given that Warbreaker was only written to be a prequel to Vasher being in The Stormlight Archives and to show where he came from, for all we know, Edgli started Returning people because she saw Vasher and Nightblood needing to exist and be on Roshar in order to defeat Odium.

Plus Bavadin does seem like the kind of individual who would be more than happy to let somebody else THINK they were in charge of a partnership with her, while she subtly guided their actions along a path that benefits her at minimal risk to herself, since Odium's hogging the spotlight.

Well the way I was thinking about it, on Scadrial, Spinners and Soothers would be like the equivalent of card counters here in our world.....a lot of the security countermeasures are observational in nature, watching for cues or signs that someone is using Allomancy or Feruchemy to influence the outcome of games, or employing Seekers burning bronze to detect anyone using allomancy at the tables, etc. Whereas it would be more technological countermeasures employed to try and prevent the use of hemalurgy or medallions....like metal detectors that are somehow keyed to pick up on the presence of chromium spikes, and so forth.

So this is kind of random, but I was just watching a Criminal Minds episode on Netflix, where the plot is the killer of the week is a gambler who believes that killing people in a ritualistic fashion will improve his luck and lead to him winning big at the casino. And it just kinda hit me...that's something that would totally happen in a modern Mistborn setting. Like, that's the kind of crime police would be investigating. I could totally see hemalurgists killing people to spike their fortune and add it to their own, among other things. Imagine casino owners who've come up with systems for trying to make sure nobody is roaming around their establishments with chromium spikes in them. It's stuff like that which makes me love Brandon's worldbuilding and how extensive it is, even when it applies to something that likely is not ever intended to be a focal point of one of his stories.