Ari

Cheers Voidus! Might imply he's moved them, might imply there's just Harmony's Well... who knows!

That really depends on how you view Breaths. Are they composed entirely from a person's own soul? Or is there some power from Endowment involved? IIRC Brandon's only made implications here, but look at this partial WoB: This seems to say there is some gift from Endowment involved in forming a Breath, but it doesn't outright go and say that.

In principle I agree, although we should be careful to state that the WoB doesn't directly imply this. Forging a spike from "whole cloth", (ie. from a generic spike) so to speak, would definitely seem to have the same issues as making someone an Allomancer with no prior spiritual alignment with that power. Now, if you were restoring decayed Hemalurgic power to an existing spike, that might be possible.

Haha that gives me an idea: It should be called Sanderson's Boson.

Dalinar was already broken before the betrayal, FYI, as the hints he's a proto-radiant have been around from before Sadeas proved himself an irredeemably nauseating traitor. I expect we'll find out more when we see more of his flashbacks.

Now, if you had a Forger who was already also a Misting, or an Elantrian, or whatever, and they survived having that investiture stolen with a spike... Then that WoB would imply they could forge it back, although possibly with interesting tug-of-war consequences depending on the type of Investiture.

True, but it sounds and looks so much like Adonalsium that that would get confusing!

So perhaps Brandon needs to contract out to someone as prolific as him, but with Etsy instead of writing.

It's probably Preservation's shardpool, as Brandon has said the pits are Ruin's equivalent.

I think Brandon is increasingly getting "tell me about x" questions, and doesn't have time to look up things he can tell people easily. Technically pre-AoL "Rust and Ruin," would be something about Ruin that they we didn't know. *shrug*

I nominate TwelfthOfSnackTime as Postspren General.

It actually doesn't exactly say that. It says there's an effect beyond the interaction of the two powers, a "perk," for each type of Twinborn, similar to the perks of the Knights Radiant, like Shallan's ability to take Memories.

How about:

Lirin is a pacifist. He believes that violence is always immoral, and doesn't solve any problems. Kaladin believes in a bit more of a nuanced worldview, where there is room for violence in order to protect. I think under Syl's influence, he's coming towards a worldview I hold that's somewhere between "Just War", where it's sometimes okay to be the aggressor, and pacifism, where it's never okay to even defend yourself. This is known as "pacificism," or thinking violence is unnecessary and aggression is immoral, but being okay with defending yourself or others when you can't negotiate reasonably with an aggressor. Brandon presents the debate between these two views well, as Mirahound alludes to in discussing his philosophy on writing about political or moral debates. I think Syl's influence might actually help Kaladin come closer to common ground with his father, if he manages their reunion carefully. But we'll wait and see on that front! edit: While I don't agree with Lirin entirely, I will note that we should all have enormous personal respect for true pacifists, who believe so strongly in non-violence that they wouldn't even use violence defend themselves. (They might run away, or say, wear armour or a bulletproof vest, but they'd never use violence as a defense) That takes extraordinary courage in a dangerous situation.

The best I could think of was "Omegon", because it got added on to the end of ordinary physics.

I definitely agree that the "Divine Breath" isn't "bonded" to anything in the same way other Splinters are, rather whatever it does to bring about Returned, that probably expends its capacity to bond, either directly, or in preventing the Splinter from attaining sapience. I asked the question that way because I expected Brandon to smack down the framing, as I also disagreed with that assumption. I'd add to your list of powers the ability to control your own appearance to a degree, however. We can't explicitly say Returned aren't "bonded to themselves" 100% for certain, but they certainly wouldn't exhibit any special powers on Roshar. It sounds like you're right to caution on that Seon WoB, Brandon's hedging there could basically be "well the bonds are the same thing, but they don't grant any special powers beyond what they do anywhere else." It still kinda leaves room for something like Knights of Devotion showing up, possibly, but yeah, it's good to be cautious about exactly what he's saying. It's certainly correct that only the ten varities of Spren on Roshar would grant the surges we've seen in the way they're granted.

Did this need to be bumped from 2014?

I really want to know what that quantum of Investiture is called, because all the names I come up with are silly.

Or he could just store feruchemical luck, then tap it before deciding where to go next. edit: LOL and somehow I missed that you said that exact thing >< On the OP, I'm not entirely sure that's how sDNA works. I always viewed it more as the "spiritual" things about yourself that don't change over time, eg. where you were born, your species, etc...

Brandon's creative writing thesis is called Dragonsteel, and it's a cosmere novel he wants to come back to. (The version some people have read has had some of its best content lifted and put into The Way of Kings, apparently, so it would need re-writing) People who have read said novel have a guess as to which Dragon is being referred to, but it is technically an unpublished work, so the information in it isn't final, although it makes sense to give him a name of some sort. As to the OP, contrast letter 1, from WoK: (emphasis mine) with letter 2 from WoR: (again, emphasis mine) The "old reptile" is replying to Wit/Hoid, as he references what is said in Wit's letter, allowing us to place them chronologically. Sorry to bust your theory. The letters are in a lot of ways a mirror to each other, but that's simply because they both disagree with each other so much, but clearly have some sort of relationship the two are both still invested in, as each of them wants to convince the other of their own position.

Oh he'll be lashing out at things through the air alright...

There's definitely something interesting going on with the invested storms. I wonder if it's simply that the level of compatible investiture makes it easy for Spren of Honour or Cultivation to cross back and forth from the cognitive realm, (and hence the fact why we get friendly Spren in Highstorms, but unfriendly Spren in everstorms) but compressing the realms is certainly a viable explanation too, if that compression centres on a different place in Shadesmar for Everstorms than it does for Highstorms. (Presumably in theory the Stormfather could try to touch Everstorms from the Spritual realm if they are a compression of all three Realms, given the fact that location works oddly/is largely irrelevant in the Spiritual Realm, but then would just hurt himself if he tried to oppose Odium's investiture in it, and similarly for Rayse trying to touch Highstorms through the Spritual)

Well, it makes them different in a concrete way because we got this answer when I was asking him if Returned would exhibit the Splinter-Bond investiture that he's stated that Spren and Seons give on Roshar. (And presumably the Skaze would also function the same way) So there's something different mechanically in Realmatics about the Splinter/Divine Breath the Returned have not itself being sapient that causes them not to achieve magic powers on Roshar. That mechanic may be as simple as "the Splinter can't bond to an intelligence as it's already used up that capacity in resurrecting the Returned individual" or it could be something else going on. edit: You can see the source tweet here, btw, for full context. It could even be simply that you need two intelligences to form the sort of bond magic that happens on Roshar.

Chimeras has an interesting implication, which somebody seized on elsewhere, that they've been spiked with animal attributes instead of human ones. Spiking someone with an animal mind at the correct bind point, for instance, might do interesting things to their behaviour. What we have confirmation of is that someone has brought an alien God Metal to Scadrial. To me, like Voidus suggests, that implies agents of another Shard interfering on Scadrial, but you can also argue that someone from Scadrial may have worldhopped to another Shard World and brought back some powerful investiture to make spikes out of. (There was some good speculation that Paalm might have been assigned to spy on Taldain, for instance) That said, it would be odd that Harmony would make such a big deal about the metal not being his if he had assigned Paalm to go to another world.

Yeah I was completely ignoring the picture on the same basis.