PorridgeBrick

That would be a great twist. Unfortunately, the one who's waiting for Jasnah is Hoid. I very much doubt he'd be duped by Zombie!Jasnah. With any other character, it would be plausible, but probably not Hoid.

Diamond is a polestone. You can't Soulcast it.

Did a little deciphering. Couldn't make much out, but I did get a little.

This one is Ruthar. There's an R directly around the central line at the top, as clear as can be. Can't seem to find the other R as easily, however.

This one is strange. The innermost line looks exactly like the G in Gesheh. Since there's no G in the Highprinces' names, this might be a case of a letter that can represent multiple consonants. From the Thaylen key, I'm guessing H, for Hatham? Or it might just be a screw-you line.

No idea.

The straightness of the inner lines looks very much like V as in Vamah, but that's already taken. So this is probably an extremely straightened/truncated version of one of the letters.

Shadesmar is just the region of the Cognitive Realm encompassing the area equivalent to Roshar in the Physical. While they are Cognitive beings, they're not from Shadesmar, any more than Sarene is from Roshar.

The idea that all of Roshar's distinctions are some fundamental law of the entire Cosmere has always seemed fishy to me. Why does Roshar get to be the representative of all the Cosmere's essential laws? There's Scadrial too, Sel, Nalthis. Is Pulling vs Pushing some essential law of the Cosmere? What about the various quadrants, Temporal, Physical, Mental, and Enhancement, which Brandon has himself said are rather in-world and arbitrary distinctions? I think we should always keep in mind that SA magic is likely to be just as arbitrary as any other magic system. Just because on Scadrial, the power can be expressed as an Iron-pull, does not mean Iron-pulls are an essential component in every Shardworld's magic.. By the same token, the surge of Transformation shouldn't be involved in every use of magic ever.

You're right on the money here. Spren, Seons/Skaze, and Awakened objects are all the same sort of thing, Transformative Cognitive Entities if you want to sound fancy like the Ars Arcanum author. Realmatically, they've all got a similar composition: a Cognitive idea/Intent (the Fire in firespren, or the Command in the case of Awakened objects) given life through a Splinter of Investiture (like Breaths and the Dor). These can be bound to physical objects as in fabrials and Awakened objects, form bonds with humans, grant powers, etc.

Quote dump here, since adding quotes everywhere makes me seem so much smarter.

I agree here with pretty much all of Tempus' critiques. But I still very much like the main gist of the theory– that Stormlight is the Unified Surge. IMO, the same principle applies Cosmere wide. Adonalsium would be the Unified Magic of the entire Cosmere, with the Shattering splitting all of the Investiture into different wavelengths/Intents (Stormlight, the Dor, Breath, etc) just like the Unified force split into Gravity and the electronuclear force. Then each magic system splits these further into individual powers– Allomantic iron, Feruchemical steel, Adhesion, etc– a la the splitting of the electronuclear and then electroweak forces. And then, in some cases, the force is split even further, such as in the division of Soulcasting, where each gem can Soulcast a different Essence.

Some thoughts on fabrial spren. I've never found the effects of fabrials to fit very well with the ten Surges we know of. What if the fabrial spren are simply splitting this Unified Surge up in a different way than the ten Nahel spren? The ten Nahel spren split the Stormlight into the ten normal Surges we're aware of, but a firespren/other spren they put in fabrials is not the same spren as any of the ten Nahel spren. Why should it split up the Unified Surge into the same surges as the Nahel spren do, instead of having its own surges– like a "Detection" surge, or a "Linkage" surge, "Pain" surge, etc?

Returned and Nightblood

One thing that has so far been relatively unique to Nalthis is the idea of things "eating" Investiture.

 

The Returned must consume a Breath each week, else they consume their Divine Breath and die. Nightblood, in his own special way, consumes any and all Investiture (including the spark of life, which kills anyone who holds him too long). This is fairly straightforward.

 

Honorblades

Honorblades are less efficient at using Stormlight; it is said that they "feed" on Stormlight, hence why Szeth can't heal his wounds in record time like Kaladin (he's less efficient with a constant drain on him). Seems like Nightblood to me. I wonder, do they do anything with this Stormlight? The weapons are supposed to be even more powerful than Shardblades.

 

Unmade

Well, I think the Unmade are similar to both Nightblood and Returned. Here's some quotes:

 

This "spark of death" business is interesting, because we have this WoB in regards to Nightblood:

I think that the Unmade are much like the Returned, and have to feed on some Investiture every so often or else they die. But, like Nightblood when sheathed, they can "turn this off" and go into hibernation mode to conserve energy until a Desolation happens.

 

My theory is similar here to Feather's theory, though she goes more for "there is something wrong with people attempting to pass to the afterlife on Roshar" and I go for "the Unmade suck in the souls of anyone who dies in a quarter-continent radius (which may or may not have effects on their afterlife)".

 

For example, the Thrill, caused by Nergaoul, causes death, which is something Nergaoul could feed off of.

 

Why don't the Unmade just feed on highstorms? Perhaps the highstorms contain high doses of Honor, and so the two Investitures react violently. Or, perhaps, the Unmade just prefer to kill people. Ideas on this would be appreciated.

This bit is very interesting, and I agree that there are likely similarities going on here. However, I wouldn't call this Investiture consuming Investiture.

Skyler

If a returned gives away his/her breath they die right? So why doesn't Vasher die after he gives his to Denth?

Brandon Sanderson

They will die the moment they run out of breath to harvest. Once a week their body needs a breath in order to survive. Each Returned has one single superpowered breath. Imagine it as one breath that propels them up through the Heightenings, but it is only a single breath. It's what we speak of in Shard world terminology as a Splinter. And when the seventh day comes, if a Returned does not have another breath for his body to consume to keep him alive, his body will actually eat his divine breath and kill him. So they don't die immediately after they get rid of the breath, they're sort of put into a state of limbo where if they don't find more breath by the time that their feast day comes, then they will die. (Vasher did not give his Returned breath to Denth, just a number of normal breaths.)

Their body consumes the Investiture. It's not the Divine Breath, the Investiture, that eats it all up. Instead, the Divine Breath is what gets eaten. Same with Nightblood, Honorblades, Unmade. I don't think the Breaths inside Nightblood are the consumers here: it's Nightblood itself, the Nalthisian Destroyevilspren, the Cognitive being housed inside the sword, that is the consumer here.

Feruchemy

Feruchemy has an interesting property: when you attempt to tap large amounts of your stored attribute, you get diminishing returns. You can get 2x speed for an hour, but you can't get 4x speed for a half hour. You'd get 4x speed for maybe 20 minutes. In this regard, it seems like something is feeding on the Investiture, or perhaps the link from the metalmind to you is "leaky" and the higher pressure in the conduit means more leaks. I think you might be able to work this into a relationship in general with the idea of Investiture-filled things consuming Investiture, though.

This doesn't really seem to be the same phenomenon as what's going on with the Returned, IMO. It's just another example of a reactant (not fuel, I hate calling it that) for a magic system. Awakening drains the Cognitive concept of color, Surgebinding heat, Allomancy metals, Feruchemy the stored attributes through decreasing returns. With Returned and your earlier examples, there's an Invested being/object actively taking in Investiture in order to survive, feeding off Investiture like we eat food. With reactants, it's more of a natural consequence of the magical reaction. Perform x magical reaction, and y gets consumed in the process. It's not a major energy source like it is for Returned.

[*]A lot of Investiture seems to use up a fuel to move from where it "wants" to be. Want to move Breath? Use up some color. Allomancy? Metals. Feruchemy possibly seems to feed on the stored Investiture to move itself, rather than use a fuel. Want to use Stormlight? Oops, some heat was used and now you've got frost all over your nice clothing. (Surgebinder clothing should be specially treated to be water-resistant.)

Maybe we can use this property to explain why the Returned need to feed on Breath every week: the Divine Breath isn't "bound" to them, and so it needs a constant pressure on it (analogy: Kaladin constantly breathing in and never out so he doesn't lose Stormlight). The pressure can be applied by the usage of Investiture perhaps.

I'm searching for help here specifically - what sort of mechanism makes it so Investiture would feed on other Investiture? Why do you need a fuel to use magic in a lot of cases when the Investiture itself provides the power?

I'm not sure you really need help with explaining reactants, here. The movement explanation you've given works pretty well: Investiture doesn't like moving, so use some energy to give it a shove. Move more Investiture, you have to give a bigger shove.

It's the second bit that's harder to figure out. I don't quite think the reason Returned/Nightblood/Honorblades/Unmade eat Investiture is as simple as maintaining bonds to their physical aspects. If that was so, Nightblood and Honorblades would be constantly draining Investiture, not just when unsheathed/being used to surgebind.

This quote is actually what I was thinking of! I really like the idea of each order being something other than just A+B, B+C, and so on. 

 

Incidentally, the part where he's talking about the squires seems almost evasive. He tells us that some orders don't have any squires, and the Windrunners have more than the others, and possibly more powerful ones than the others. But he sort of evades saying anything about whether the squires of different orders will have different powers. Makes me think they won't - that they'll be able to use stormlight, but not surges.

Well, something I've been thinking of for a while is whether they get the "something of their own" bit that each order has. So a Windrunner squire would have the crazy space perception/battle senses, Skybreaker squires would be human lie detectors perhaps, etc. That way, all the different squires are differentiated, but still less powerful than their Radiants, who have the surges. It also unifies each order more, as both Radiants and their squires would have one ability in common.

So if the planet where illnesses provide super powers, suddenly occured on earth, then doctors and nurses assigned to the child ICU job's have suddenly gotten A LOT more interesting.

Iirc the illnesses and powers both come from magic bacteria/viruses. I don't think all illnesses give powers, just the ones given by those specific organisms. The majority will be just like normal.

If you stuck a camera down an Allomancer's throat while he burned metals, what would it see? Do the metals give off light as well as heat? Do they simply disappear, bit by bit, or do they disintegrate as they burn?

Why is it so dangerous? I don't think we have a definitive answer on it, so I'd suggest that it's corroding something by having that much Stormlight.

While this could be from the properties of Investiture itself as you were saying, that is not the only reason high Stormlight levels could be dangerous. I suggest reading the thread "The Physiology of Holding Stormlight" in the main SA boards. With high Stormlight levels, that means lots of high pressure pseudo-gas flowing through your veins, your circulatory system expanded to cope with much higher flow than it can normally take. That could cause nasty effects long before any causticness comes into play.

Adonalsium was indeed on Roshar at one point. He left some splinters of his power there too, as Adonspren. There's been some theories (ones I subscribe to) that he was responsible for creating Parshendi, the highstorms, and all of Roshar's wildlife, since we know from another WoB that neither H, O, or C were responsible for creating the Parshendi.

However, Adonalsium was not Shattered on Roshar. Iirc, he was Shattered on Yolen. Roshar could be considered his 'prototype', so to speak, a planet he created before he moved on to Yolen. So the Parshendi really would be the "Ancient Ones"– a race that lived even before humanity existed.

Read Alloy of Law. It's set in the same world as Mistborn, but ~300 years later. Then read Warbreaker, which is available for free on Brandon's website. After that, Elantris. Once you've read all of those, you're ready to read the Stormlight Archives, which are the best of his books by far (you technically don't have to read them last, but you'll miss most of the awesome easter eggs).

Ah! Now they have Georgian advice/spells, I guess so that it's easier to marry your cousin.

Lopen would have a very easy time finding a bride, then.

Actually it comes out and says that it is a Christian sect in the book.  More specifically I would say it is a parallel to the Anglican Church, i.e. the Church of England (for the most part-ish).  Both are headed by the monarch of England (or Brittania).

 

They also both give out magic powers.  Oh wait... I'm not supposed to talk about those am I?

It's pretty fine. The magic powers of the Anglican Church are very well known already. Where else could the greatness of British accents come from but from magic powers?

Sure. The one snapping is the recipient of the spike– Inquisitor, Kandra, Koloss, etc. In order to accept the Investiture in the spike, they need to be Snapped. This happens manually– the process of being spiked tears a hole in the recipient's spiritweb for the foreign Investiture to fill. But the "holes" in the spiritweb made by the spikes are too big to be filled completely by the small Investiture of the Spike, so big gaps are still left in the recipient's spiritweb where unwanted Investiture can invade.

At a guess, I'd say Winter is coming.

Hemalurgy, IMO, is forced Snapping. You take a giant metal spike, and impale someone with it, ripping apart their Spiritweb so they can access the Spiritweb fragment inside. Of course, it goes rather overboard, leaving empty gaps where other Investitures, like that of Emotional Allomancy, can invade.

I think that probably has to do with the nature of those surges themselves. Gravitation, atmospheric pressure, light, they're all natural forces we're familiar with, that we understand intuitively. Transportation and Transformation are both powers native to the Cognitive Realm. They're alien. They work under different laws of physics than we understand, the laws of an entirely different plane. To learn those two, you have to familiarize yourself with a whole other universe.

Well, with air, you're much faster, and you're light as if you're storing Feruchemical iron. But your coordination isn't improved at all. Water just makes you much more skillful, dextrous, graceful, flexible. Earth is just muscular strength– you punch way harder than everyone else. Metal by contrast, only allows you to endure more. If you get slashed up, bruised, you're still not dead. And yeah, boundless energy basically means you never get tired.

Anyways, to your earlier question I missed about my ideas on Aether. Yes, an Aether mage creates Aether, which can magically mimic one of the elements. It grants much more flexibility. Take fire: under this system, normal fire users could manipulate any fire they want, but they cannot create it. Aether mages can shape their Aether however, and spontaneously create fire that they can then manipulate– thus, flinging fireballs around whenever they want. Normal Metal mages can produce any metal they want, but they cannot manipulate it. Aether Metal, however, can be manipulated, allowing for the use of all that crazy stuff Kurk was talking about– Metal armor, spinning razor blades through the air, etc.

Maybe enhancers could kinda be like taking the essence of an element into yourself? For air, you become like the wind: fast, agile, light on your feet. Water, you flow, becoming graceful, better coordinated. Fire, you are filled with boundless energy. Earth, you are gifted with incredible strength. Metal, you are tough and resilient. Wood, you... become green and photosynthesize?

I kind of want there to be uses for the magic other than Avatar-like bending abilities, but I am at a loss to relate the elements to other things. I was hoping I could get some suggestions. Also, as a point of clarification: wood, earth, and metal are constructive elements meaning they can build things and are primarily defensive, while water, wind, and fire are destructive (typical caster-type attacks) and they are primarily offensive.

Hmm, this gives me an idea. Basically, what this boils down to here is that wood, earth, and metal can be produced but not manipulated, and air, water, and fire can be manipulated but not produced. I think this gives a nice symmetry to the magic system. What if Aether allowed you to both produce and manipulate something? Essentially, you would be able to create something that simulates one of the six normal elements, and then manipulate it to your heart's content. With this idea though, I think you would need to restrict Aether to one of six pseudo elements– so Aether-Metal could create and manipulate weird, magical matter that simulates metal and disappears when you're done with it, Aether-Water strange magic liquid that again disappears, etc. And now you have twelve elements. IMO, I prefer this to having Aether just be the Mistborn of the system.

Drabs are less than normal people. All people have some Innate Investiture– Scadrians, for example, have a bit of Preservation in them, Nalthians have a bit of Endowment. Nalthians have the ability to detach this bit, leaving them entirely without Innate Investiture. There's quotes for this, but I'm feeling lazy.

He does say "just before Harmony". Scrounging up a spike right after Vin ascends would certainly fit well with that. And the fact that he specifies "just before" means he must have gotten to the count of 22 pretty late.