18th Shard

4 hours ago, mathiau said:

I'm reposting this question here because I assume not everyone is reading the Metallurgic Emporium thread.

 

On a completely unrelated note, Brandon said nicrosil didn't work the way we though, it works like copper meaning all the cool thing we had our characters do with it don't actually work and it basically has no use beyond hiding yourself from an awakener's lifesense.

Have you read Bands of Mourning? Because that one is definitely using feruchemical nicrosil in a very potent way. We have no info on its use Hemalurgically except that it steals Investiture, whatever that means. 

It's on a Facebook page for the Orem Mission, I believe. Google "Brandon Sanderson why I believe" and the reddit thread on it should have a link.

RoW Spoilers

I think Wit went into it planning to con Rayse. He went into it knowing he would be attacked however Odium could. But the terror came when he realized it was Taravangian, not Rayse, he was dealing with. Rayse was a known figure whose intent had pushed him for millenia. Realizing Odium has a new vessel is absolutely terrifying, even if Hoid got what he wanted from the interaction. 

1 hour ago, Truthwatcher Artifabrian said:

Parshendi overall.

 Listeners and Singers for individual nations.

I'd disagree. Parshendi is the Alethi name for "parshmen who can think" - essentially an unintended racial slur. I think until the most recent Desolation, Singer was the species name. Thus the Listeners are a break off nation from the Singers. 

Terrible theory here: what if that child is Gavinor? Taravangian picks Elhokar's son as his champion, knowing Dalinar won't kill him. 

Here's a question: would the Radiant suppressor work on Renarin at all? Same question for Venli. Our two 'odd' cases both have some ties to both Honor and Odium. 

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Josh

The Allomantic metals are separated into four quadrants. Do the Shards have classifications as well, in groups of four?

 

Brandon Sanderson

This division, the Allomantic division is a thing researchers and scholars placed upon it.

 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/295/#e10095

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Oversleep

So you have said previously that you could categorize metals in Feruchemy like 8 Physical, 4 Cognitive, and 4 Spiritual. But the Hemalurgy chart says they are Hybrid <Feruchemy> metals so...

 

Brandon Sanderson

So they are what?

 

Oversleep

The Hybrid metals.

 

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, remember that all of these categorizations are by in-world philosophers doing their best to come up so you can decide how you want to categorize them, alright.

 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/398/#e13198

On 8/7/2020 at 10:51 PM, Wax said:

I think we'll find out by SA5.  Have been betting on (since WoR) that Gavilar will have the prologue for Book 5.

Obviously, that's a guess and it can stretch out to beyond book 10 in a separate novella.

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Extesian

Can you confirm whether Navani will be the prologue viewpoint? Or you want to keep that quiet/ haven't decided yet?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, she is the prologue viewpoint.

AridholGM

Wouldn't it be dope to have the book 5 viewpoint from Gavilar himself, and it finally revealing what exactly he was up to..

Brandon Sanderson

That is what I have planned.

General Reddit 2019 (April 17, 2019)

10 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

I'll get to an analysis of fabrial mechanics of airships in a later post. It's not quite adding up for me. I can see two possible mechanisms, but I don't like either of them. First, you could place half in an aluminum container, isolating the connection and allowing free movement of each half. But then how do you stay afloat when you isolate the vertical lattice so you can move horizontal? The second is that aluminum obstructs the movement without breaking the connection, but I don't like that in terms of historical aluminum Realmatic interference (where you can't Push directly on aluminum, but it doesn't impede your movement any more than your regular weight, as evidenced by Wax flying around with an aluminum gun), and it would seem to make the whole ship susceptible to one chump with a piece of aluminum stopping the whole thing. But I'll go into that in more detail later, when I've got some more time to think it over and write it up.

I am thinking that the aluminum is used on a portion of the fabrials at once, which are reset, then rotated to a different set. So if you need 70 fabrials to lift the ship, I'd have 100, and have them split into 5 groups of 20, each offset in their starting point by 1/5th the overall displacement. Once the first group reaches max displacement, place aluminum over those ones, then move them back to the start, then remove the aluminum. Cycle through repeatedly. 

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DrogaKrolow

OK, I’ve got a question about AonDor.

Brandon Sanderson

Ok.

DrogaKrolow

So it's a lot like functional programing.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

DrogaKrolow

And my question is: could you write a higher-level language of programming with that?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

DrogaKrolow

Oh...

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm. But. Only an Elantrian could make it, like, work, right? Not compile but could execute the function. They would have to type it out and execute it. Like if you were just-- Even if you just gave it to them, they would have to retype it and go. But yes, you could.

DrogaKrolow

Couldn't you like-- Is there an Aon for define, definition? So like you could go and define some really long sequence of Aons and then assign it to a simple shape.

Brandon Sanderson

Right.

DrogaKrolow

Then draw the symbol, and would it work?

Brandon Sanderson

Right right, object-oriented. This is realistically plausible, you would have to write all this stuff and call the function and have this constantly in a state of kinetic Investiture. But that is reasonable. I mean it's not so far off from things they actually did with much fewer-- much fewer lines of code, if you wish, in the past. It's what Elantris itself was.

DrogaKrolow.pl interview (March 17, 2017)

I believe they are used numerically to represent the chapter numbers.

4 hours ago, Gears said:

"Now, the first step will be infiltration. We must gain as much information as possible concerning the inner workings of the guilds. Preferably, the Guilds can destroy themselves when we cause some minor disputes. Of course, we can always go about assassination or explosions of major areas or things of that sort if infiltration goes sour. The problem is the Dark Alley. This guild is a shadowy figure that is a complete unknown. We desperately need information about them. Depending on how successful infiltration is, we'll continue from there. Pick a Guild you want to infiltrate and put that on your registration forms."

@DramaQueen

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FYI, the Dark Alley is not a known guild this Era. They exist as more of mythological boogeyman. They live within the Alleys which aren't widely known or explored this Era. And even if you did know they existed, infiltration would be impossible - there are spikes given to all new members to guarantee loyalty. 

A nutritionist opened the door to Sanax’s room. The lights were off, and she seemed surprised he was awake. Sanax wasn’t sure why. It was the safest policy when the light itself might be lying to you. Sanax didn’t like the nutritionist. She seemed to think a Lifeless body required calories instead of quanta of Investiture. Plus, she didn’t smell good.

“Miss food dictator, where is Emily? She was nicer than you are. At least she listened to me. You just want to pretend you know what a dead person should eat, and then tell the people hiding in the walls I’m eating enough..” Sanax narrowed his eyes. “How do I know you aren’t telling the tar people where I am?”

The nurse folded the blanket he’d put on the table and put it on a cart outside the door.  That was good. Sanx had counted on her obsessive controlling-ness that she wouldn’t leave his table messy. He’d hidden the soul of a fork inside. The fork hadn’t been very nice to the spoon she’d given him. It kept trying to take the spoon’s pudding, which was ridiculous. You can’t eat pudding with a fork. Forks were for vegetables and meat and pitch and rivers. She didn’t answer him, choosing to ignore him. The nutritionist, of course, not the fork. He’d taken the fork’s soul, so of course it didn’t talk anymore.

“Miss culinary tyrant, I believe I asked you a question. Would you answer if I had my sword? Sometimes, people talk more when I have a sword.” He looked around the room for his blade. It wasn’t here. He looked back up at her. “Can you get me my sword?”

The dietician continued to ignore him as she placed food on the table. It looked like Hallandren-style seafood. That would probably taste good. He’d told Emily he really liked it earlier in the day (or maybe it was last week, or tomorrow - he liked tomorrow, traveling there was always nice, though it took a long time, and sometimes you missed and just ended up today), and she’d said she’d see if she could get him some. Why wasn’t she the one doing this instead of the deaf lady here? He could see the little machine in her ear that was supposed to amplify sounds. Sanax’s eyes lit up. Maybe her machine wasn’t working and she really was deaf! That was an easy fix. Sanax pointed at the window, gesticulating wildly for her to open the blinds. She shook her head, and moved past the bed to open them.

As she turned her back, Sanax darted for the open door, locking it behind him. She’d left a tray on a seat next to the door. There was a metal chopstick for one of the other meals - it looked MaiPon. Fortunately, it was a tin chopstick. Sanax was pretty sure they tried to hide the more dangerous metals in case someone who was actually crazy checked into the hospital. He held the chopstick out, and the darkness ate it, leaving it pointed. He’d been training the darkness to eat his food. He didn’t like all the boring food they’d been giving him. Too many genetically modified vegetables, not enough Stormlight grown ones. The deaf lady pushed the door behind him, but Sanax knew the locks would hold. He and the door had a deal now - they only locked and unlocked when told to, unless the tar people came back. Sanax had given the lock permission to ignore tar people, and it had agreed as long as Sanax promised to give it a triangle. 

Sanax darted down the hall to his next door neighbor. The man lay in bed, unconscious. His chart had said he was on a forkroot dosage to keep him from destroying the hospital. That was ridiculous. Forkroot would just keep the guy from using saidin to destroy the hospital. Most people could destroy it a couple of ways. Using only forkroot was sloppy work. Plus, this guy said he could feel the aliens attacking his brain - that was a kind of situation to put in quarantine. Sanax took a quick look at the room, memorizing where everything was, and then wrapped a towel around his head. Aliens weren’t getting in his mind.

He opened the door, darting in, and quickly and efficiently slid the tin chopstick through the man’s ear, neatly piercing the concha cymba. It was one of the nicest bindpoints, and one of the few that wouldn’t cause permanent bodily harm. Plus, it stole human hearing (and hearing from basset hounds), which was nice and symmetric since it was on the ear. Ears were good things to have working if you were a nutritionist - how many times would you miss hearing someone tell you they didn’t want your gross food, or the sounds of the souls of spoons, or… Sanax had a thought. The man who was missing his hearing struggled to sit up, reaching for Sanax. Sanax could hear him fumbling for him, and stepped away from the bed. Couldn’t be too careful with brain-aliens. He signed, “Good luck with your brain monsters,” then walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him. What if the deaf person was deaf so she wouldn’t hear the light whispering to her, lying? He’d have to make sure she wasn’t hiding from the light with her broken ears. He unwrapped the towel, and sat down on the chair by the door. The dietician - ician was kind of a fancy decorator title, wasn’t it? Mathematicians took numbers and then made them look more interesting, physicians did the same things with particles, rhetoricians, morticians - maybe that’s why the food was so bad: it was just supposed to look good, not taste good.The dietician had finally made it past the door. It looked like she was angry at the door. Sanax would have to talk to it later about manners. She walked over to him.

“I’m really sorry about the door, miss. I’ll talk to it about having better manners tonight. But, I got you a treatment! As long as you don’t mind the light being able to lie to you, I took some hearing from the guy with the crazy brain aliens, and so you won’t be deaf anymore!” Sanax beamed, then realized he should probably have signed that instead. He started signing out what he’d said when she interrupted him with a yell. 

“What are you thinking? What is wrong with you? You refuse to eat your food, lock me in your room, call me deaf, and then assault another patient with my chopsticks! No, I don’t know where Emily is, no, I don’t know where your sword is, and no, I wouldn’t give it to you if I did. I am not dealing with crap like this anymore, I quit!” She stormed down the hall toward the exit.

Sanax gaped at her. She wasn’t deaf? That wasn’t very nice, to pretend like that. “You probably shouldn’t yell. It might scare the crazy people,” he called after her. He looked down at his chopstick. He should probably hold onto it, make sure no one else wanted it before he got rid of it. He walked back to his room and sat back down on his bed. He stared out the window for a while at some birds. They weren’t very interesting. He kept the lights off. He liked it dark.

Behind him the door opened. “Sanax? How are you doing?” Emily stepped into the room. “I heard Brittany quit while she was up here. She said something about you locking her in here and then attacking another patient? That doesn’t sound like you. Do you want to explain that one to me?”

Sanax sighed. He turned toward Emily. “She wasn’t a very good listener, so I figured she just had to be deaf. So I made this to help her, but she wasn’t actually deaf and she wasn’t very happy with me.” He held up the chopstick. Emily took it carefully. 

“And how was a metal chopstick going to help a deaf person?” she asked.

“It’s tin. If you have tin, you can help most sensory problems. That’s how Hemalurgy works.” 

Emily dropped the chopstick. “They didn’t say you’d killed a patient!” She looked horrified.

“I didn’t! I just took his hearing through his ear. He’ll be fine. Deaf, but fine. Besides, he’s crazy. It’s better if his hearing went to someone normal, like me or you, or the cranky dietary despot.”

Emily carefully picked up the chopstick again. “You’re right, but make sure you talk with a nurse before you try to do something like this again. You don’t know if there might be complications or situations you don’t know about. I’m gonna take this spike and see if there’s anyone in the hospital who could really use it, okay?”

Sanax nodded. “You’re not gonna quit cause I made it, are you? That would be really sad.”

Emily smiled. “No, I’m going to keep working here, don’t worry.” She wrapped the chopstick in a napkin, then stood up and walked to the door. “Bye, Sanax.” He waved as she shut the door again.

He started watching the birds again. He liked watching the fun birds.

1 hour ago, agrabes said:

I believe it is a requirement to be a piece of investure that is intentionally broken off from a shard.  I don't think you could call Nightblood a splinter of Ruin, at least so far as we know currently.  The way Sanderson discusses it, a splinter is always intentionally created.  You can't have a chunk of a certain shard's investure just coalesce and become a splinter on its own.  It's either intentionally separated by the main shard, or broken off by a rival shard.  At least, that's my understanding.  So I don't believe it's possible for the Heralds who are basically splinters of Honor (or maybe just the Honor Blades are splinters, but either way) to have parts ripped off which would then become splinters of Odium.

I really like the idea of the Unmade being parts of the Heralds, but I feel like that requires the Unmade to not be splinters of Odium.  They would be corrupted splinters of Honor in that case.  Basically, pieces of Honor's investure that are warped and twisted so that they are separated from the 

 

It's also hard to say for certain if the Fused are splinters.  I think if you read between the lines, then they are probably bonded with a splinter similar to the Returned or some other similar mechanism.  But it also seems like it's possible they are not splinters at all - that they are just the cognitive shadows/spirits of regular people that Odium himself can snatch them up before they go beyond and keep them and then send them back into someone else's body.

I suppose it's possible that Odium's plan is to split off as many pieces of the Heralds and other investure from Honor as possible and then try to force it to work against its intent.  But it still doesn't make sense why he'd bond them with splinters of himself.  Why not just store them up until he has enough to Splinter honor?  To be fair, I suppose he may have done that and the Unmade may have only appeared around the time Honor splintered.  But, it still seems unnecessarily complex to me.  I think that Odium could have forced Honor's investure to work against itself much more directly by just torturing the Heralds into doing something wrong.  That may have been the whole point of the torture and desolations to begin with - force the Heralds to break their word over and over?

I agree with you on your definition of how a Splinter forms, and I think this explains the mechanism theorized here: "It's either intentionally separated by the main shard, or broken off by a rival shard." The OP essentially said that part of the Herald (not necessarily the Splinter of Honor joined with them) was broken off, and merged with a Splinter of Odium to become an Unmade.

Cognitive Shadows exist when a soul is suffused with Investiture. It's implied this was due to the direct action of Odium, as he tells one of the Fused he could "reclaim that which gives you persistent life" (paraphrased, sorry. Don't have my book handy). 

Without Allomancy and Feuchemy's existence, or any other system of magic, I can't see very many situations where Hemalurgy could be positively used. Human attributes could possibly help someone who is deaf or blind, or who is emotionally unstable - but there would be a net loss of those functions, since someone else would have to lose their capacity to make a spike, and Hemalurgic decay would occur. Duralumin spikes have some other potential, but I can't think of one that would be worth someone's life. The only potential justification for it are those Spook offered, and without the incredible power and benefits the other Metallic Arts offer, it just isn't worth it. 

6 hours ago, agrabes said:

Don't agree - that's a completely different Shard and completely different situation.

Returned = People chosen by Endowment who, when they die, are reborn with the Splinter attached to them.

Endowment is a shard whose intent is to give its power to others (AKA endow them with power). ... This WoB indicates the Divine Breath is the splinter, not the Returned.  

Unmade = (if your theory is correct) Pieces of the Heralds, shredded off by Odium, then fused into a Splinter of Odium.

Odium is not a Shard whose intent is to grant his power to others.  He also is a Shard who specifically wants his power to remain pure and unmodified by other influences.  This makes it highly unlikely that he would fuse parts of himself with parts of others.  It seems needlessly complex - why create splinters of himself, then fuse them with ripped off pieces of the Heralds?  If he can truly rip off pieces of the Heralds, why not just destroy them or lock them away?

Personally, I don't think the above theory is true, but I think it is interesting and novel. 

As for Odium and Endowment being different in Intent - yes, that is true, but counterexamples abound: The Fused are deceased persons who are literally Splinters of Odium, and are repeatedly reborn, just like the Heralds (albeit they do need someone else's body). 

As for why take a Splinter of their soul instead of destroying them entirely - many theories on the Shard have guesses Odium may Splinter a Shard by forcing it to work against its Intent or by corrupting its Investiture. The Heralds may not have been the ultimate target, but merely a means to strike at Honor. 

4 hours ago, agrabes said:

I really like the theory that the Unmade are pieces that were "unmade" from the Heralds.  But I think Sanderson has directly said it's not true, unfortunately.  They are simply Splinters that Odium made from himself.

This WoB doesn't contradict the theory at all - Returned are Splinters of Endowment, but they are definitely made from a piece of a mortal.

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Questioner

How did the name Bridge Four [come about]?

Brandon Sanderson

So, I stole Bridge Four (there's an interesting story to it)... Dragonsteel was my seventh novel, and it's Hoid's origin story, and it takes place... the series is Hoid's origin story, though that book doesn't really get into it. We have a few viewpoints from him, but it's not really about him. And the idea was, I was gonna kind of lead into this epic fantasy, and then start talking about this mysterious character who was a big part of it. And the main character I decided to lead in with that was this person who got stuck in a bridge crew. It's not Kaladin, it's a very different character, but the idea of the bridge crews. Well, eventually, I took Dalinar out of... even before I was writing Dragonsteel, I pulled him out, set him for a different book. And eventually it became clear to me that I needed to pull the bridge crews out and move them to Roshar because they just worked better. I had this great idea for these bridge crews, but the world they're in just didn't match. And the chasms and things matched very well. So I moved them out and made them a part of Kaladin's story. What I'm getting at is, I came up with the bridge crews, like, twenty years ago, and I have no idea why I picked four, other than... I have no idea. Bridge Four has been Bridge Four to me for years. In fact, if you read Dragonsteel, you can still find Rock in Bridge Four from twenty years ago, acting kind of the same. And a few of the other characters are still there, as well.

Shadows of Self San Jose signing (Oct. 9, 2015)

I like the ideas presented, though I do have the same question as rosin_the_beau above: Why would it be Ishar without a corresponding Unmade rather than Taln, the Herald who never broke? I'm not saying your theory is wrong - I am aware of the WoB on the lack of an Unmade that corresponds to Bondsmiths (though their connection to an order is implied to be bit more nebulous than a straight match). However, in the context of your theory, it all points to Taln being the one who wouldn't match up. 

So my question to you is: why is it Ishar, not Taln? What mechanism or reason would you propose?

Granted. You, however, are now deathly allergic to it.

I wish for my bane to undo my wish.

6 hours ago, RadiantDramaQueen said:

All that I need is a very simple, broken down explanation of the Cosmere, but it would be nice if it was really in-depth and effectively explained all of the everything.

Here is an excellent explanation from the News part of the site:

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Amberite is physically crystalline, so it's pretty tough. It's also invested, so I imagine it would resist Division somewhere between either a fabrial or metalmind and Shardplate. It's a little tough to tell because, while Invested materials do resist other Investiture, Radiant surges are pretty high power magic.

On 7/1/2020 at 9:39 PM, R J said:

Yeah, as I said, I read that as her doubting the Unmade's nature. Plus, Shallan's thoughts on the book in OB.

The quote means that Jasnah doubts Taxil's mention of Yelign-nar, while Hessi supports Taxil's statement. 

1 hour ago, Straw said:

1. Balancing around having 31 players isn't ideal, since most LGs trend a bit lower than that. Why do 24/24 cycles for a LG instead of the standard 48/24?
2. Locking in the members of the Set restricts your balancing options quite a bit, so I wouldn't recommend doing that. Since seven or eight elims would be the normal balanced number for a 31 player game, you'd have to give them a lot of strong roles.
3. Just to clarify, can the Koloss convert multiple times? If not, I'd recommend scrapping the death counter. I assume if the conversion fails, they get to try again for free? I think that the Kandra and Dark Alley member should both be convertible, and I don't see much reason why they shouldn't be convertible. I'm not sure how I feel about them being able to convert Set members, since that'd end with the Set member selling out one of the two factions, which isn't very fun.
4. I really don't see much reason for the Southern Scadrian faction/role to exist, other than as a game mechanic. They want to survive, but they don't really have any mechanics to help them survive, other than the threat of blowing people up. That would be a pretty good threat, but every elim will just claim it as well if they're getting lynched, so I don't think it's terribly useful. I'd recommend giving them some kind of ability that helps them while they're alive, or at least give them an extra life.
5. So, I'm a bit confused about the Inquisitor. You say that they're a jack of all trades in Hemalurgy, but then say that they just have one use of each Allomantic ability, but like the Mistborn. Did you mean to say that they have one use of each Spike?
6. All of these seem fine, other than Aluminum, which is pretty problematic. I'd really strongly recommend removing their ability to switch factions, since that's not going to end well. Iron should maybe be given a limit. Not being able to protect yourself or not being able to protect the same person twice in a row 
7. Why does Bronze storing affect the Archivist? That doesn't make sense. Aluminum tapping seems weird? It doesn't really do much, since you can just go back and figure out what the real vote count was.
8. Cosmetic roles is a term usually used to refer to roles that people can choose for RP, not for actual roles. For the Worldhopper, what do you mean by "false positive"? Do you mean that it returns random results?
9. EDIT: Forgot to comment on role assignment. What do you gain from assigning roles like this? Balance would vary massively, since one faction (out of Basin and Set) could get all the roles and dominate the game. Why not attempt to make it balanced instead of doing it randomly?

1. Having the 24/24 cycles is partially to help balance the large number of players. There are that many players simply to help balance between the Set and Koloss factions.
2. I'd read somewhere (I can't find it now) where they said a balanced number of Eliminators was the square root of the number of players, rounded down. I could definitely increase the number of Set. You said 7 or 8 would be around where you think it would be balanced? I wanted there to be balance between the Set and the koloss, with the Set having an advantage at the beginning, and the koloss an advantage late-game.
3. Koloss get one convert for every four deaths, although they do have to use that conversion before they can use another (i.e. once 3 people have died they may convert once, but if they don't convert before 7 have died, then they lose that opportunity and still only have one convert). Yes, if it fails, they get to try again. I could definitely make Set immune to being converted, and Dark Alley able to be converted. The point of the Kandra, SoScad, and Worldhopper all being immune is that the koloss would know that their target was one of those roles, but are unsure whether they should try to kill them (Kandra) or avoid killing them (SoScad), with the Worldhopper being a false positive.
4. Again, the SoScad, who no one wants to kill, is meant to be a counter to the Kandra, who everyone wants to kill. I agree that another ability in life would be helpful - any ideas?
5. That is indeed meant to be Spikes, that's a typo.
6. Will remove the alignment change on Aluminum. Iron not protecting self would be a good balance.
7. That should be Sentry, that is an artifact of a copy and paste that didn't get changed. Aluminum is essentially making an anonymous vote on a person in the name of someone else - if the Trueself votes for Player A, and Player B votes for Player C, and then the Trueself taps a charge of aluminum to make it appear that they voted for Player C as Player B, the the final vote would appear as Player A (0) and Player C (2 - Player B, Player B). It would appear similar to using Allomantic zinc on oneself.
8. Yes, Worldhopper returns random results on scans.
9. I thought it would be interesting to have a game where all the roles and alignments are transparently shown, but it is unknown exactly which ones are in the game. On average, one of the Jack of all Trades or Special Factions (Koloss, Kandra, SoScad) are not in play. Also, while there is possibility of a significantly unbalanced game, most of the times I have run the assignment have assigned relatively balanced numbers of metalborn to Set members. If there was a game outcome that was significantly unbalanced, I could just run the assignment again. I'd prefer creating a system that was perfectly balanced based on RNG to avoid personal bias affecting assignments. If you want, I could attach some of the assignment results.

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it. 

EDIT: Note on the RNG for Mistings, Ferrings, and Spiked overlap: I wanted there to be a small chance of there being twinborn/"tripleborn" in the game to mimic the books, so the majority of the complex RNG there is to give that possibility a chance. It means that there is a much higher chance of a role being assigned to a player without a role, but there is a chance a misting could receive an additional ability. Compounding is very rare due to this chance being small multiplied by the chance of getting the same metals.