Confused

Stormgate, I did read your post when you published it. I think my description of Connections for the most part encompasses your ideas. Let’s work through your specified Connections: Person to Person I stated that Connections include “the relationships between Souls and Essences.” The Person to Person Connections you describe are between Souls. Note again that Connections are not an “on/off switch,” to quote Brandon. We meet someone and Connect with them. As we fall in love, our Connection with them strengthens. We break up, our Connection weakens. This suggests that Connections – made from Investiture – can be as thin as a filament or as thick as cable, and the same Connection can shrink or grow over time. Person to Location IMO this is a function of Connection AND Spiritual DNA. Person to Location is a Connection between each person’s Soul and their planet’s Essence. A planet’s Essence – consisting of its own Spiritual DNA – includes the different places located on that planet. A person’s Soul Connects to the person’s place of birth, making that place part of the Soul’s Spiritual DNA. In your example, when Allik in BoM uses his medallion, he’s simply Connecting his Soul to a different “Spiritual gene” of Scadrial’s Essence, a different location on Scadrial. He nonetheless speaks with an accent because his Soul knows he is of Malwish descent, his own “Spiritual gene.” I believe the Souls of different Selish Magic Users have different “Spiritual genes” based on their birth location: “Spiritual DNA is what encodes the Magic System into [Magic Users].” (Source - Q 55.) This is why Sel has multiple Magic Systems (although Brandon says they’re really one System). When Dominion and Devotion Splintered, their Investiture encoded different Spiritual DNA into persons located in different places on Sel. Person to Shard All people have “innate Investiture,” a “spark of life.” This Investiture comes from either Adonalsium (on a Minor Shardworld IMO) or a Shard (on a Major Shardworld). In that sense, everyone on a Major Shardworld is Connected to a Shard. To become a Magic User, however, requires a person to become additionally invested by a Shard (post-Shattering). That Investiture Connects the Magic User to the Powers of Creation (that is, to the Shard itself) and enables the Magic User to perform magic. Examples: Lerasium changes an Allomancer’s Spiritual DNA (invests them) to allow the Allomancer to burn metal and Connect with Preservation. Nalthis inhabitants invested with Breaths (Endowment’s Investiture) can Connect with Endowment to Awaken. Surgebinders on Roshar invest themselves with Stormlight to Connect with Honor and Cultivation (that is, Connect with their Splinters, the Radiantspren). Again, Shards and Splinters ARE pieces of the Powers of Creation. You propose that a Person to Shard Connection is “formed by adhering more to a Shard's Intent, which often leads to access to that Shard's magic system.” This may be true in some cases, like with Surgebinders – at least to the extent that the “right” Cognitive DNA (psychological profile) attracts a corresponding Radiantspren. But it’s not universally true. Mistborn inherit their Connection to Preservation. Their “adherence” to Preservation’s “Intent” (Preservation’s Mandate to “preserve”) has nothing to do with their ability to Connect with Preservation. Kelsier and some of Elend’s Noble friends were hardly the “preserving” type in their actions or thoughts. “Time Lines” I’m unsure what you’re saying here. Are you suggesting that Time itself is a Connection or are you simply commenting on the Cosmere’s foreseeability restrictions? I’ll address the latter of these issues first. Future Sight Foreseeability restrictions IMO are NOT a function of Connection. Brandon says he views Time in the Cosmere as subject to the probability framework of quantum mechanics. He explicitly rejects the deterministic approach (the past ineluctably determines the future) of Spinoza, one of his acknowledged influences. Both Shards and Magic Users see the future through a probabilistic lens, one of possibility not certainty. Kelsier’s observation of the future in M:SH makes that clear. Specific Shards and the Magic Users who rely on those Shards for their magic have additional impediments. Recall Preservation’s metaphor of the Realms: the Cognitive Realm filters the perfect light of the Spiritual Realm before that light illuminates the Physical Realm. That is what Mandates do – IMO they ARE a Shard’s Cognitive Realm filter (or at least part of it). Thus, different Shards, with different Mandates, have different abilities to look into the future. Honor’s not so good at it. Cultivation is. Preservation is better than Ruin. I suspect Odium’s pretty good at future sight as well. IMO Mandates are part of the Cognitive DNA of each Shard. Mandates themselves form Connections with each Shard’s Soul, since I believe an entity’s mind, body and Soul are Connected to one another. These are different Connections than Time. Is Time a Connection? Based on M:SH, I think Time is a Connection, but one with branching forks the further into the future one goes. Cosmere inhabitants live in their own Time – they are Connected to that Time, just as we are “Connected” to Earth’s 21st Century. Time in the sense of “age,” however, is part of a Soul’s Spiritual DNA and not a Connection. I quote Brandon in the OP that “human Souls are ‘aware’ of a human’s natural life span and will age a person to their ‘normal’ age in the absence of magic.” But that makes “age” part of the Soul, not a separate Connection. There is a Connection between the Soul and the body, so the body ages as the Soul tells it to, but that’s not Time per se. * * * * * I hope that answers your questions, Stormgate. Except as I express above, I think your post fits within the framework I describe. Regards!

Following is a glossary of terms I deem important for understanding the magic of the Cosmere. This list grows out of a post I wrote about the relationship between the Powers of Creation, Investiture and Adonalsium, and the Realmatic implications of that relationship. In that post you can find the source references for those definitions where I provide no source here. Please note these definitions reflect MY speculation about the Cosmere and how things fit together. Feel free to disagree and/or to add your own “Cosmerically-significant” terms to the list. “Adonalsium” – Adonalsium is (or was) the Cosmere’s God (capital “G”). He originally consisted solely of the Powers of Creation. Those Powers originally had no mind to direct them and consequently developed sentience on their own. Adonalsium was the mind the Powers developed. He thereafter created the Cosmere. Because the Powers of Creation predate the Cosmere’s Realms, Adonalsium himself may have been the “God Beyond” – the God “beyond the Cosmere’s Realms.” The Powers of Creation comprised both Adonalsium’s mind and soul – Adonalsium is an anagram for “a mind, a soul.” “Cognitive DNA” – Brandon has stated that “people have three sets of DNA.” (Source - Q 55.) Cognitive DNA is one such set. While Brandon has said nothing further about Cognitive DNA, I surmise it refers to each person’s unique psychological profile, his or her Cognitive Realm makeup. “Cognitive Realm” – The Realm of the Mind, of ideas, feelings and perception. In M:SH, Preservation describes to Kelsier a metaphor of the Cosmere’s Realms in which the perceptions of the Cognitive Realm filter the Spiritual Realm’s perfection on the way to the Physical Realm’s “floor.” IMO all Cosmere magic – including magic conducted by Adonalsium himself – begins with some thought, some cognitive act. Jasnah in WoR tells Shallan that the Cognitive Realm is the place of the unconscious as well as the conscious. The Cognitive Realm on Roshar is called “Shadesmar.” Each planet with sentient life has a unique version of the Cognitive Realm, reflecting the unique ideas and feelings on that planet. Distances between Shardworlds are collapsed because of the absence of ideas between Shardworlds. “Cognitive Shadow” – This term refers to the Cognitive Realm remnant of a person who chooses not to pass “beyond” and suffer a final death. Brandon likens it to a ghost. Examples are Kelsier, the Threnody Shades and the Stormfather (Honor’s Cognitive Shadow). A person must be invested to become a Cognitive Shadow, as with Kelsier. Cognitive Shadows retain their Souls, but their Connection to the Physical Realm has been severed. “Connections” – These are the relationships between Souls and Essences, as well as the relationships that span the Realms (that is, that Connect an entity’s mind, body and Soul – its Cognitive DNA, Physical DNA, and Spiritual DNA). Collectively, such relationships form a Soul’s or Essence’s SpiritWeb. Magic Users are also Connected to the Powers of Creation. Connections are not an “on/off switch” but take effect on a relative scale; a person can be “more” or “less” Connected to something. “Essence” – This term refers to the Spiritual Realm aspect of each inanimate object. What the Soul is to a living organism, Essence is to an object. An object’s Essence is the Spiritual Realm’s Platonic ideal form of that object. (I am not using this term to refer to the “Essences” described in the SLA Ars Arcana.) “Focus” – This is a non-canonical term for which there is no commonly-held definition. The most widespread use of the term refers to something that “shapes” a Magic User’s use of the Powers of Creation to avoid having the Powers “rip troughs” through the Magic User’s body. Allomantic metals and the form of Elantrian Aons are examples of Focuses. “Intent” – Intent is the non-canonical term Chaos invented to explain the compulsive characteristics of each Shard. See Mandate. “Investiture” – Investiture is the result of the creation process. Adonalsium (and then the Shards) used the Powers of Creation to invest the Cosmere. Investiture is the “building blocks of the Cosmere.” Invested people and objects may be able to “touch” and “use” the Powers of Creation through their Connections to them. There are limits to how much Investiture an object or person can hold. Each Realm has its own form of Investiture. Spiritual Realm Investiture, for example, comprises Souls, Essences and Connections. Investiture is convertible into matter and energy, which can also convert back into Investiture or other matter or energy. Investiture (and matter and energy) obey the conservation laws of thermodynamics. “Magic System” – A Magic System is the unique way a Shardworld’s inhabitants access the Powers of Creation and the unique magical effects they then create. It results from the interactions of the Shard’s Mandate with the planet’s Essence. These interactions in turn affect each inhabitant’s Spiritual DNA, limiting a Magic User’s ability to use the magic of a different Shardworld without Spiritual “reengineering”: “Their Spiritual DNA is what encodes the Magic System into them, their Investiture. So if you can find a way to rewrite your Spiritual DNA, you can do all kinds of funky things.” (Source - Q 55.) Shardworlds with more than one resident Shard have multiple Magic Systems. “Magic User” – This non-canonical term refers to an invested person who is able to touch and use the Powers of Creation to create magical effects. (“Magician” is another non-canonical term for such a person.) Mistborn/Mistings, Feruchemists/Ferrings, Hemalurgists, Elantrians, Dakhor Monks, Soulforgers, Awakeners and Surgebinders are all examples of Magic Users. Unlike Adonalsium and the Shards, who are comprised of the Powers of Creation, Magic Users require Investiture to access the Powers. “Mandate” – This term refers to the unique compulsion that attaches to a Shard’s use of the Powers of Creation. The term derives from Sazed’s observation that, without a mind to direct them, the Powers of Creation have “only a vague will of their own, tied in to the mandate of their abilities.” (HoA, Chapter 79 Epigraph.) IMO the Mandates reflect the dominant psychological belief or trait comprising each Vessel’s Cognitive DNA at the time they ascended: each Vessel was more Connected to that aspect of Adonalsium than to any other aspect. Shard Mandates can be combined or “meshed,” as Honor and Cultivation did on Roshar. “Major Shardworld” – This is a planet a Shard has invested in and is present on. Native Magic Users can touch the Powers of Creation and perform magic on a Major Shardworld. Examples include Sel, Scadrial, Roshar and Nalthis. “Minor Shardworld” – This is a planet that Adonalsium and/or a Shard has invested in and left “ambient magic” on. No Shard is present on a Minor Shardworld. Magic is part of the natural environment, but there are no native Magic Users on Minor Shardworlds. There are many Minor Shardworlds. Examples include First of the Sun and Threnody. “Perpendicularity” – This term, which Brandon has yet to fully flesh out, seems to refer to the place in a Shard’s Realmatic structure that connects the Physical Realm and Cognitive Realm. Perpendicularities enable Worldhopping. In M:SH, Hoid demonstrates that the Well of Ascension (Preservation’s Shardpool) is a Perpendicularity. Hoid also states there that the Pits of Hathsin were a Perpendicularity that Kelsier’s destruction of atium has temporarily closed. Brandon first publicly used the term in an early draft of an Oathbringer chapter: Ivory and Jasnah discuss leaving Shadesmar through “Honor’s Perpendicularity.” “Physical DNA” – This is the genetic makeup of the Physical Realm structure of living things. It corresponds to Earth’s DNA. The term may also refer to the chemical structure of all things, whether organic or inanimate, but Brandon has not clarified his meaning. “Physical Realm” – This term refers to the physical structure of the Cosmere, the “floor” in Preservation’s M:SH metaphor of the Realms described in the Cognitive Realm definition. It corresponds to our own universe. “Powers of Creation” - These Powers ARE the magic of the Cosmere, the "magic of Adonalsium." They pre-exist the Cosmere and were used to create the Cosmere. Adonalsium was the Powers of Creation before the Shattering. The Shards are “pieces” of the Powers of Creation after the Shattering. Splinters are even smaller pieces of the Powers of Creation. Magic Users “touch” and “use” the Powers of Creation to perform their magic. At some point, the Powers of Creation became Spiritual Realm Investiture - either after the Cosmere's creation or after the Shattering. Currently, the Powers of Creation are part of the Shards' Spiritual DNA. “Realms” – The three aspects of Cosmere reality: the Spiritual Realm, Cognitive Realm and Physical Realm. “Shard” – The “Shards of Adonalsium [are] pieces of the Power of Creation itself” that passed in equal parts to the sixteen Vessels that Shattered Adonalsium. The sixteen Shards thus formed originally were of equal power, but four of the Shards have since been Splintered and two Shards are now held by the same Vessel (Sazed). A Shard’s power is also reduced by its investment in the Cosmere. A Shard’s expression of the Powers of Creation is filtered by its Mandate. Shards are “mostly Spiritual” but exist in all three Realms, just as they did when they were mortals. Sazed says that the Powers of Creation originally lacked “thoughts and personalities” (presumably when comprising Adonalsium); but “thoughts and personalities” are now “attached” to the pieces of the Powers of Creation comprising the Shards. (HoA Chapter 55 Epigraph.) “Shardpool” – This non-canonical term is commonly used to describe the pure liquid manifestation of a Shard on a Shardworld. The term is still not clearly understood. Shardpools may simply be one form of a Perpendicularity, since Worldhoppers can use a Shardpool to emerge from the Cognitive Realm onto a Shardworld. Confirmed examples include the Well of Ascension and Devotion’s Shardpool just outside Elantris. “Shardworld” – This term refers to the Cosmere’s planets: “There is inherent Investiture in every world created” in the Cosmere. Most planets are Minor Shardworlds, but a few are Major Shardworlds. “Shattering” – This is the event by which the mortals who became Shards broke Adonalsium into sixteen equal pieces of the Powers of Creation. These persons used some “weapon” to accomplish the Shattering, though I suspect Adonalsium foresaw the Shattering, planned for it, and committed Divine Suicide to help achieve it. I partly base my supposition on the fact that Adonalsium Shattered in equal parts, unlike what happens when a Shard is Splintered. “Soul” – This term refers to the Spiritual Realm aspect of each living organism. IMO an organism’s Spiritual DNA determines its Soul’s unique characteristics. The Soul of each type of organism is an ideal Spiritual Realm form for that organism. Thus, human Souls are “aware” of a human’s natural life span and will age a person to their “normal” age in the absence of magic; that’s what killed the Lord Ruler when Vin removed the Bands of Mourning. “Spiritual DNA” – A person’s “Spiritual DNA is what encodes the Magic System into them…” (Source - Q 55.) As with Cognitive DNA and Physical DNA, Spiritual DNA comprises the unique Spiritual Realm characteristics of living organisms (their Souls) and inanimate objects (their Essences). “Spiritual Realm” – The Realm of Platonic ideals and perfect forms. Souls and Essences are each the “perfect form” of the organisms and objects they represent. Brandon calls Investiture in the Spiritual Realm “true” or “raw” Investiture – it is the material comprising Souls, Essences and Connections. Investiture in the Spiritual Realm is “consistent” throughout the Cosmere; I understand this statement to mean that Spiritual Realm Investiture is compositionally identical throughout the Cosmere. This contrasts with Investiture in the other Realms, since IMO both Cognitive Realm Investiture and Physical Realm Investiture are unique to each Shardworld: such Investiture reflects the Mandate of the resident Shard, the Shardworld’s own planetary influences, and the unique culture of the local populations. Location is not “important” in the Spiritual Realm – an Allomancer can access Preservation throughout the Cosmere because of his or her Connection to Preservation. “SpiritWeb” – This term refers to the combination of a Soul or Essence and its unique network of Connections. “Splinter” - “A Splinter is a term used by certain people in the Cosmere for the power of Adonalsium which has no person caring for it, no...no person holding it, which has attained self-awareness." Source (Q 15). IOW Splinters are sentient pieces of the Powers of Creation carved voluntarily or involuntarily from Adonalsium or the Shards. Splinters can independently perform magic. Other Investiture Connects a Magic User to a Shard, which is the source of the magic. Adonalsium’s Splinters are Mandate-free and resemble lifespren rather than Radiantspren. Source (Q 53). Shard Splinters IMO do carry their Shard’s Mandate. Confirmed examples of Shard Splinters include Radiantspren (Honor and Cultivation), the Unmade (Odium), Divine Breath (Endowment), and Aons (Devotion). “Vessel” – This term refers to a mortal who becomes a Shard. Their “thoughts and personalities” remain, and they continue their existence in all three Realms, but their physical bodies have been vaporized because they hold so much of the Powers of Creation. “Worldhopping” – This term refers to a person’s movement between Shardworlds. Brandon has RAFO’d whether a person needs some magical ability to Worldhop. A person can Worldhop by travelling through the Cognitive Realm between Shardworlds and emerging through a Perpendicularity located on the destination Shardworld. We don’t know whether other means of Worldhopping are available. EDITED to reflect the changes I made in my post The Making of the Cosmere: Relationship among the Powers of Creation, Adonalsium and Investiture.

Brandon’s use of the terms “Powers of Creation,” “Investiture” and “Adonalsium” has confused me. In this post, I explore the precise relationship among these three terms and the implications that flow from that relationship, including some issues of Realmatic theory. SUMMARY 1. “In the beginning,” the Cosmere consisted solely of the Powers of Creation. No mind yet existed to direct the Powers of Creation into any creative acts. 2. Power needs a mind to direct it or it will develop sentience on its own. Eventually the Powers of Creation did develop their own mind, and that mind was Adonalsium. Adonalsium became the Powers of Creation. 3.. Adonalsium’s mind and Soul together were the Powers of Creation, and they pre-existed the three Realms. In a post below, runyan_ft mentions that “Adonalsium” is an anagram for “a mind, a soul.” Because Adonalsium had not yet created the three Realms, he may himself be the “God Beyond” the Realms. Even after the Cosmere’s creation, I believe Adonalsium’s mind and Soul remained outside the Realms rather than become a part of them, although that's unclear. 4. The Powers of Creation were not originally Investiture themselves. Adonalsium’s creations were Investiture: “Investiture is…the building blocks of the Cosmere.” IOW Adonalsium directed the Powers of Creation to create everything else, and that “everything else” consisted of Investiture or the matter or energy Adonalsium converted Investiture into. 5. The Shattering caused the Shards to become “pieces of the Power of Creation.” Unlike Adonalsium, the Shards inhabited all three Realms, as their mortal Vessels did before they became Shards. Thus, the Shattering invested the Shards' Souls with the Powers of Creation, turning the Powers of Creation into Spiritual Realm Investiture. Splinters are even smaller, "self-aware" “pieces of the power of creation,” also composed of Spiritual Realm Investiture. ANALYSIS What Are the “Powers of Creation”? Brandon has given us few descriptions of the “Powers of Creation.” In 2008, Brandon said that the “Shards of Adonalsium [are] pieces of the power of creation itself.” Source (Q 18). In 2012, Zas asked Brandon whether “the power of creation [is] this thing of power that powers Allomancy and powers the Aons, or is the power of creation just what each Shard has?” Brandon responded: “I would say [the power] each Shard has is more the definition.” Source (Q 7). And 10 months ago, Chaos asked Brandon, “Is Adonalsium and the ‘power of creation’ synonymous?” Brandon’s answer: “In some people's usage.” The earlier snippets confirm (to me) that Adonalsium WAS the “Power of Creation” despite Brandon’s later equivocation to Chaos. Shards cannot be “pieces of the power of creation itself” if Adonalsium wasn’t first that power in whole form. The 2008 quote is also noteworthy because of what immediately followed it: “Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them.” Source (Q 18, emphasis added). IOW different Magic Systems permit mortals to “touch” the Powers - through Connections to the Shards - but that does not thereby convert these mortals into the Powers themselves, into Shards. Mortals can pluck the guitar strings, but they are not the guitar. In the current Cosmere, only the Shards are guitars. Brandon has not defined what the specific Powers of Creation are, only that they do create. Some time ago, Kurkistan argued that Cosmere "magic" applies to the Connections between Souls and Essences, for example, changing the direction of gravity (the relationship between a Soul and an aspect of a Shardworld's Essence). The closest Brandon comes to identifying these Cosmere-wide Connections are the Surges of Roshar, which correspond to the “fundamental forces” of our universe, as modified by magical influences: Q: “The ten Surges on Roshar, I think you said are basically a different set of laws of physics.” A: “Yeah.” Q: “Are those laws of physics consistent throughout the Cosmere?” A: “Um, y-y-yes, to an extent. You would consider, like - it's kind of weird because I based them on the idea of the fundamental forces, but this is kind of like a human construction. Like you could say that physics is pure and natural, but we're still putting things in boxes. And the scientists on Roshar would for instance consider being able to travel between the Cognitive and Physical Realms as a force, the thing that pulls people back and forth between that, as a fundamental force. I don't know if it would fit our definition of a fundamental force.” Source at [1:41:30]. I suggest that the Powers of Creation, therefore, are the magic that both creates Souls and Essences and changes the Connections between them. What is “Investiture”? Let’s start with a review of some relevant WoBs, which we’ve all seen before: Q: “What is the Realmatic composition of investiture?” A: “Investiture is intended to be the building blocks of the Cosmere so I would say for the most part it transcends the different realms. Probably more of the Spiritual if anything but more accurately it transcends them.” Source (Q 39). Q: “What can you tell me about investiture?” A: “That is the word for someone or something which has gained a portion of the magic of Adonalsium…” Source (Q 45). Q: “Is there a Cosmere-specific term you use to describe, say, a Shard's power inside someone?” A: “In my own terms, I refer to all of this as types of investiture. The degree, and effects, can be very different – but those people are invested.” Source (Q 13). Brandon’s focus on “building blocks” and someone or something that has “gained” magic distinguishes Investiture from the Powers of Creation, at least pre-Shattering. Investiture seems to be the result of Adonalsium's creation process, enabling an Invested person or object to “touch” or “use” part of the “magic of Adonalsium” (the Powers of Creation). Brandon has said that objects have a limit to how much Investiture they can hold (Q 16). People apparently also have such a limit. Here’s how Brandon described Vin’s use of the mists to fuel her Allomancy: “So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak — though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she's doing just that — using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself [the powers of creation] — to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips ‘troughs’ through her body. It’s like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive.” Source (Q 18). At the point of vaporization, Vin is no longer “Invested” by Preservation. She instead becomes the holder of the Preservation Shard. Again, that is the difference between a Shard and other magicians – an Invested person can access the Powers of Creation through his Connection to a Shard, but a Shard IS the Powers of Creation (or at least pieces of them) through the Shard's Spiritual Investiture. What Is Adonalsium? Let’s start with this well-known WoB: “Somebody needs to hold the magic. If no one holds the magic, the magic will start to gain sentience. Interesting and bizarre things happen then...” Source (Q 47). The mindless Powers of Creation eventually did develop a mind to direct them. That mind, that directing creative entity, was Adonalsium. And he began to create the Cosmere by Investing in it. Because Brandon calls Shards pieces of the powers of creation, Adonalsium himself must have become the Powers of Creation. REALMATIC IMPLICATIONS Was Adonalsium Part of the Cosmere’s Realms? By definition, the Powers of Creation predate the Cosmere’s Realms. Before Adonalsium used the Powers to create (that is, used himself to create), there was no Investiture, no “building blocks of the Cosmere.” That means “in the beginning” there were no Realms, since Investiture “transcends the Realms.” That suggests that Adonalsium’s mind, when it did coalesce, was simply a property of the Powers of Creation. As runyan_ft points out in his post below, “Adonalsium” is an anagram for “a mind, a soul.” Did the Powers migrate to the Spiritual Realm after its creation? It’s unclear. Though the Powers are not Investiture, they might have co-existed in the Spiritual Realm with Investiture. The M:SH scene where Preservation shoves Kelsier “upstairs” to see Time suggests the Powers of Creation were then located in the Spiritual Realm. But that scene occurs after the Shattering, when the Shards (who did exist in all three Realms – see below) had become "pieces of the Powers of Creation." It’s equally unclear whether Adonalsium’s mind ever became part of the Cognitive Realm. The Cognitive Realm is the place of perceptions. But Adonalsium was God – he was perfect. His mind either continued outside the Realmatic structure altogether or it remained a property of the Powers of Creation that migrated to the Spiritual Realm. The Spiritual Realm is the place of perfection, of Platonic forms and ideals. The perfect mind should exist only in the Spiritual Realm. If Adonalsium did become part of the Cosmere’s Realms, the best we can say is that Adonalsium co-inhabited the Spiritual Realm with his creations. It's possible Adonalsium's migration to the Spiritual Realm caused him to become Spiritual Realm Investiture at that time. Alternatively, the then-existing Spiritual Realm Investiture - Souls, Essences and Connections – might have remained separate from the Powers of Creation. We do know that, pre-Shattering, Adonalsium did allow some Souls to touch him (whether he then consisted of separately constituted Powers of Creation or as Spiritual Realm Investiture), since magic existed before the Shattering. I believe, however, that Adonalsium remained outside the Realms. He WAS the “God Beyond” the Realms. To the extent Adonalsium Invested himself in the Realms, or created Splinters of himself in the Cosmere (like he did on Roshar), or left “ambient magic” on certain planets, he entered and left parts of himself in the Realms. But I believe his full creative force stood apart and “beyond.” The Shards’ Exist in the Three Realms Pre-Ascension, the Shards’ Vessels were all mortals composed of Investiture who existed in all three Realms. Each Vessel had its own body, Soul and mind, its own personality, and its own Connections. Sazed has said that the Powers of Creation did not have a personality before the Shards acquired the Powers (HoA Chapter 55 Epigraph). I’ve proposed that Shard Mandates (Intents) developed precisely for this reason – each Shard’s personal Connection to the aspect of Adonalsium that became their Mandate. While ascension vaporized the Vessels, their personalities and Connections remained. I believe the Shattering invested the Shards with the Powers of Creation, causing the Powers to became part of the Shards’ Souls, Spiritual Realm Investiture. The Powers of Creation became the bulk of the Shards’ Spiritual DNA that comprises their Souls. (I say the Powers are only part of the Shards’ Souls, because the Vessels’ original Souls still seem to be lurking within them. The Vessels do drop out of the Shards when they die, as Leras, Ati and Vin all did.) Also, unlike Adonalsium’s mind, originally a property of the Powers of Creation, Shard minds continue to occupy the Cognitive Realm. Adonalsium, IOW, was either “beyond” the Realms or was purely Spiritual, except to the extent he chose to manifest himself in some other Realm. The Shards exist in all three Realms, and the Powers of Creation are now part of the Shards' Souls in the Spiritual Realm. That is why Brandon says the Shards are “mostly” Spiritual, but transcend the Realms. It is the difference between a true “God” and the Greek gods subject to their mortal foibles that Brandon has described the Shards as being. Splinters vs. Other Shardic Investiture Splinters are carved-out bits of a Shard's Spiritual Realm Investiture (the Powers of Creation) that have developed their own self-awareness. Source (Q 15). Unlike the resot of a Shard's Spiritual Realm Investiture, Splinters can independently create magic. They have no need to Connect back to their Shard for Power. By themselves, Splinters can perform the same magic as their Shard, though on a smaller scale. Other forms of Investiture allow a Connection to their Shard, but it is the Shard’s Power that performs the magic. This difference can be seen by comparing Divine Breath with mere Breaths. Divine Breaths are Splinters, but mere Breaths are not. A Returned, bonded with a Divine Breath, can perform magic on its own. Breaths OTOH Connect an Awakener to Endowment's Investiture. This Connection enables the Awakener to "touch" and "use" Endowment's magic. IMO post-Shattering Splinters carry the Mandate (Intent) of the Splintered Shard, despite the following WoB from August 2011: Josh: “Do Splinters have their own Intent, in addition to the Shards?” Brandon Sanderson: “Splinters often have their own intent.” “Intent” is a non-canonical term that Chaos invented in February 2011. While Brandon from time to time has used the term in the sense that Chaos uses it, it’s unclear whether six months after Chaos’ post Brandon would have interpreted the question as referring to “intent” in other than its normal meaning. To the contrary, the HoA Chapter 79 Epigraph (published in late 2008) uses the word “Mandate” to refer to the concept of Shard compulsion: “[Power without] a mind to oversee it [has] only a vague will of its own, tied in to the mandate of its abilities. [Emphasis added.]” Evidence: we’ve never seen a Splinter act other than in accordance with its Shard’s mandate, whether it be Divine Breath, Radiantspren (which have “meshed” mandates of both Honor and Cultivation) or Aons. But we have seen Radiantspren with their own “intent” – that is, personality and motivation – Syl, Pattern and Ivory. I think that’s what Brandon’s statement means. Adonalsium’s Splinters would not be subject to a Mandate. That’s why Brandon has said, “Spren could exist on a [world without a Shard], but they would be like the minor spren. You wouldn't find Syl, but you would find something like lifespren.” Source (Q 53). FINAL THOUGHTS: OVERARCHING THEME OF THE COSMERE SAGA In the WoR Epilogue (Kindle p. 1080, emphasis added), Wit/Hoid has the following conversation with Jasnah: “You’re so convinced that there is no God.” “The Almighty is – “ “Oh,” Wit said, “I don’t mean the Almighty…I just think you’ve been looking for God in the wrong places.” “I suppose that you’re going to tell me where you think I should look.” “You’ll find God in the same place you’re going to find salvation from this mess,” Wit said. “Inside the hearts of men.” “Curiously,” Jasnah said, “I believe I can actually agree with that, though I suspect for different reasons than you imply.” I believe this conversation expresses the overarching theme of the Cosmere Saga. In a post-Nietzsche universe where “God is dead,” we must rely on our “innate investiture,” our “spark of life” for salvation. God may be dead, but, to paraphrase the last sentence of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, “We endure.” EDITS: I've made a number of edits to this post to reflect the comments made by other posters below. Some of these comments were purely editorial, such as the inputs of Argel, who suggested a more readable “Summary,” and runyan_ft, who pointed out a relevant Reddit post. Other changes result from the debates you'll find in those posts. I urge readers to look at those debates, because they contain more information than this edited post and highlight the collaborative nature of theory-building. As examples, there's some interesting discussion about the meaning of "living" investiture and much more about the nature of Splinters. My thanks to all who have participated . Regards!

First, thanks again, Pagerunner, for pointing out that WoB about Adonalsium being dead. Have an upvote for your correction. I’m embarrassed to have overlooked it; hence, the amendment of the OP. You may still disagree with what I said, but at least I won’t have been factually wrong. I wanted to respond to the rest of your post here. You cite a WoB that “Splintering a shard is essentially the same thing as the shattering of Adonalsium, repeated on a smaller scale.” [Emphasis added.] “Essential” is not “identical.” I think that the broad method is the same – you have to kill the mind that wields the power. But the result is not. The difference lies in what I pointed out in the amended OP: splintering leaves bits of power seeking new minds to direct them, but the process doesn’t necessarily result in equal pieces of the resulting free-floating investiture. And there are so many more splinters than there are Shards, if Sel is any example. The Shattering OTOH did cause Adonalsium’s power to allocate itself to each Vessel in equal portions. That suggests the specific method involved in the Shattering was somewhat different – more focused and intentional. You agree that splintering and Shattering are not precisely the same thing: “So, the way to kill Adonalsium is different than the way to kill a human Shardholder, and that difference also Shatters the power that is being held.” As I state in the OP, I think the difference was that Adonalsium’s killing and the Shattering were different steps. The conspirators needed to obtain the power quickly because, as mortals, they would not have lived long enough to become Vessels if they waited for the power to leak out in its natural course. Ruin had killed Preservation hundreds if not thousands of years before the events of Mistborn. His long slow “strangulating” death wouldn’t have left splinters until his mind – his Cognitive Shadow – was completely gone. Because the Shattering appears to have happened over a short period of time, some different process must have been involved.

I’ve speculated a lot lately about Adonalsium’s Shattering, including Frost and Hoid’s role in it and whether Adonalsium anticipated and planned for it. I want to take this discussion one step further, tying in Iriali mythology and the existence of unique Shardworlds; and exploring whether Adonalsium is actually dead and what was actually “Shattered.” Unlike other of my posts, this one is pure conjecture without any supporting evidence. Is Adonalsium the Iriali “One Who Became Many”? Many posters (most recently Stormgate, who reminded me of Ym) have pointed out the similarity between Ym’s description of the “One” and Adonalsium’s Shattering: “Long ago, there was only One. One knew everything, but had experienced nothing. And so, One became many—us, people. The One, who is both male and female, did so to experience all things...Eventually, all will be gathered back in—when the Seventh Land is attained—and we will once again become One.” [WoR Interlude I-2.] “People” already existed when the Shattering occurred. Rather than a reference to the Shattering, we could interpret Ym’s statement as the reason why Adonalsium created the Cosmere’s Physical Realm in the first place: “One knew everything, but had experienced nothing.” Adonalsium converted part of his own soul into the Physical Realm to gain such experience, at least in Iriali mythology. And his conclusion sounds like the end result of a dynamic system that has wound its way down, reverting to its original Spiritual Realm state. But Ym’s statement is also a fair metaphor for the Shattering and a clue to what might have been Adonalsium’s “plan.” Brandon does love foreshadowing. Perhaps Adonalsium had become “bored” with the universe he created. He may have felt his “wholeness” diminished his creative capacity. He needed to “shake things up” to get past his “writer’s block.” Maybe he not only knew in advance but actually engineered or permitted the conspiracy that Shattered him. Did Adonalsium Have “Perfect” Foresight? Could Adonalsium have engineered events even if he wanted to? Unlike the Shards, whose ability to see the future in many cases is limited by their mandate (intent), Adonalsium should be omniscient. Omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence are the three characteristics of God in monotheistic religions – “all-knowing” about the past, present and future; present everywhere; and all-powerful. Brandon has said the Shards, in comparison, are like Greek gods – mortals who have ascended to hold great (but limited) power and who remain subject to their mortal foibles. If Adonalsium is like “God” and not a “god,” he should have perfect foresight. But Brandon has also said that “future sight” in the Cosmere is based on quantum mechanics probability principles, rather than the “deterministic” mechanisms proposed by his influences Baruch Spinoza and Isaac Asimov (in The Foundation Trilogy). The M:SH plot demonstrates Brandon’s approach. It is unclear why Adonalsium should have greater foresight than the most far-seeing of the Shards: presumably Cultivation, Odium or Preservation (of the ones we’ve seen). Maybe the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but this at least raises a question about the infallibility of Adonalsium’s future sight. Foreseeing the Shattering and its results may not have been easy even for Adonalsium. At best he could hope to see the “main line” of probabilities and place his bets accordingly. That’s partly why Hoid is such an interesting character. He is the “wild piece,” the joker, the chance element anticipated by the Diagram (WoR Chapter 85 Epigraph.) How much Hoid helps or hinders Adonalsium’s plan should continue to be fun to follow. Did Adonalsium Create the Future Shardworlds for More Varied Magic Systems? Assume that Adonalsium did intend the Shattering as a way to spread new and different forms of himself around the Cosmere, and assume further he had the foresight to set up this possibility. The future Shardworlds he created would by his design then be different from one another. Adonalsium would WANT new and unique magic systems from the interaction of his Shards and the Shardworlds. Forum speculations about different planetary “essences” and “foci” may simply be a reflection of his plan. To “experience all things,” he would further want his magic to be passed down to “us, people.” This may be the reason investiture wants to be used. Through “cracks in the soul,” genetic manipulation and the gift of Shards, investiture seeks out and enters the SpiritWebs of sentient life. People become magicians, creating greater magical diversity across a wide swath of the Cosmere. Magical entropy in action! Is Adonalsium Dead? As pointed out by Pagerunner below, Adonalsium is “undeniably and reliably dead.” [“Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead,” The Wizard of Oz.] Pagerunner reminds us that “death doesn't always mean the end of the story, in the Cosmere.” Leras tells Kelsier in M:SH that the more heavily invested a person is, the longer it takes for them to “die.” Brandon has also said killing a Shard takes a very long time – how much longer would it take for Adonalsium himself to die? It’s hard to imagine the Vessels waiting around for their allocated share of power. If the power were already leaking away, like Ruin and Preservation’s power when Sazed held out his hands, why would it have divided itself equally among them? I’ve suggested elsewhere that Shard mandates (intents) came about because of the psychological make-up of each Vessel – the power entered each Vessel based on the Vessel’s individual Connection to that aspect of Adonalsium. But it wouldn’t have entered them in equal shares unless the Vessels took some action to ensure power equality. Which brings me to the next question… What Was Actually “Shattered”? Hamilcar in an interesting post opined that Adonalsium was the “god metal” of the God named “Adonai.” (I suppose the God could have been named “Adonals,” but whatever…) IOW, Adonalsium was the Physical Realm “power” of the God, just as Lerasium and Atium were the Physical Realm power of Leras and Ati, respectively. If so, that would explain what “Shattered” at the Shattering. Ironically, I suggested something like this in a parody about the Shattering I posted last summer – the Vessels were conducting an autopsy on a dragon named Adonalsium and accidently dropped his gemheart, shattering it. (Young Frankenstein, anyone?) Simply killing Adonalsium would not have “Shattered” his power, if Leras is precedent. Maybe that’s why Khriss in M:SH described the event in the conjunctive: the Vessels “killed Adonalsium, ripping it apart and dividing its essence between them…” First the Vessels killed him by ripping him apart and THEN divided his essence among them – by Shattering his power. This does sound like Adonalsium had a gemheart or something similar, doesn’t it? Maybe the “weapon” (for the Shattering, at least) was a simple pickaxe aimed at the precise spot to create sixteen equal parts? Or maybe the entire gemheart (or whatever) was crushed into tiny bits and equal portions assigned to each Vessel by weight. The pickaxe and other equipment they used became dulled by usage – “expended” and “changed.” (I am being fanciful here – partly…) Stormgate compared the assassination itself to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (“E tu, Cephandrius?”) (Unfortunately, he posted on March 11 – he should have waited four more days until the Ides of March.) As The Invested Beard said in response, “Leras does have a very odd relationship with that bone handled knife of his...” Made of aluminum maybe? Khriss, of course, may be misinformed about these events. It’s clear from her conversation with Kelsier that she herself has never spoken with a Shard. We don’t know how she acquired her information about the assassination or the Shattering. Maybe Hoid or Frost told her. The other question is how the Shards could have obtained access to the powers of creation simply by dividing Adonalsium’s “essence” among them. Yolen isn’t Scadrial, where an Allomancer could metabolize the ingested bits of “essence.” Or maybe they somehow could – something more for us to think about. The important point, however, is that killing Adonalsium and dividing his “power” doesn’t necessarily destroy all of his spirit (which permeates everything). Adonalsium could also have squirreled away a bit of his consciousness too, stored in advance in some remote corner of the Cosmere. Adonalsium did leave splinters on Roshar, after all. Is that why Honor and Cultivation went there, to “bind” and “regrow” Adonalsium? Is that why Odium followed them, to make sure they couldn’t interfere with his plan to be Last Shard Standing? One final thought on this subject: if Adonalsium’s essence was powdered into equal portions for the Vessels to consume, maybe they left over a tiny unseen grain. Maybe a bystander viewing these events might have noticed it and, after the Shards departed, picked up the tiny grain and swallowed it. Hoid maybe, the “smoke” to Adonalsium’s “flame”? That would explain quite a bit… How Do You Remake God? The Iriali myth contemplates a time when “we will once again become One.” Many Forum posters see this as referring to Adonalsium’s reconstruction. The shoal their theory crashes on is lack of a reconstruction mechanism: how can this happen? The answer I believe is “mandate-meshing”: Moogle’s excellent theory entitled “Intent Meshing: How Magic Systems Arise” That theory states that the mandates (intents) of different Shards can join together to create new magic systems. More fundamentally, the theory predicts that Shard mandates can merge into one another to create altogether new investiture. We know this happens on Roshar – Radiantspren are mixtures of Honor’s and Cultivation’s investiture, each of which can do things that pure Honor or pure Cultivation investiture cannot do on their own. What happens, then, if you “mesh” ALL Shard mandates together? Theoretically, the investiture should LOSE all mandates, becoming pure unfiltered Adonalsium investiture. As it was, so shall it be… This may be Hoid’s goal or the goal of or one or more of the “secret societies” lurking in the Cosmere. We suspect from Sixth of the Dusk that the people seeking to exploit the magic of First of the Sun come from Scadrial after they discover space travel. Perhaps they visit a minor Shardworld because the magic there presumably came from Adonalsium directly. No Shard (as far as we know) invested in minor Shardworlds. This magic can act as a “seed” with which to catalyze the Adonalsium-reconstruction process. Again, did Adonalsium anticipate this? Conclusion Conjecture piled on conjecture. I hope you find it entertaining during these between-book doldrums. Regards all! Postscript: I remain unfamiliar with a lot of internet protocol. When I went to college, electric typewriters were novel and expensive and personal computers had not yet been invented. I don’t know what gives cause for down-votes. I’ve assumed that if you don’t like what I post, you’ll just ignore it unless I make a personal nasty comment about someone. But this post (and another recent post) were each down-voted for some reason. Could someone explain why? I don’t want to cross any lines I’m unaware of. I look at the 17th Shard Forums as a place where we can talk about each other’s positions and find “truth” somewhere in the middle. Am I missing something?

This post addresses a recent comment Brandon made that we should be “pretty confused” about investiture: “I haven’t even dug into really what it is.” Source [30:30] [Emphasis added.] After all this time and all his statements (the most relevant of which I cite below), Brandon hasn’t told us what investiture really is?!! My “pretty Confused” attempt at an answer: Spiritual Investiture began as Adonalsium’s soul. He was the only thing extant in the Cosmere at the time. Every subsequent creation caused a rearrangement of his soul – Spiritual Investiture – to form the souls and essences of the people and objects he created and the Connections between them. Like the Sistine Chapel’s God holding his hand out to Adam, Adonalsium breathed life into his creations. His soul transformed itself into the “building blocks” of the Cosmere: matter and energy. This transformation literally lessened his soul, since investiture obeys the laws of thermodynamics. Adonalsium took from his soul to create the Physical and Cognitive Realms and their populations of sentient entities. When Adonalsium Shattered, the Shards invested themselves according to the same paradigm, converting their own souls into matter, energy and other forms of investiture. I believe the Shattering did not change the essence of the Spiritual Realm – it remained the same “true investiture” as when Adonalsium lived. All that changed were the Shards’ individual Connections to the powers of creation, causing each Shard’s power to be subject to its own mandate (intent). IMO these were changes solely in the structure of the Spiritual Realm, not in its composition. Following are the sources I rely on for this conclusion: “Everything is related to Adonalsium in the Cosmere…” Source Q 37.“The effects of Adonalsium permeate everything.” Source.“Investiture is intended to be the building blocks of the Cosmere…it transcends the different realms. Probably more of the Spiritual if anything but more accurately it transcends them.” Source. Q: “Does investiture have a consistent form (regardless of magic system and its Physical form) in one of the other realms?A: “[investiture is] consistent in the Spiritual Realm. Location isn't particularly important there.” Source “Investiture cannot be created or destroyed. It follows its own version of the laws of Thermodynamics.” Source.“Where [in our universe] we have energy and matter (simplified), the Cosmere has additional building blocks that make reality. Investiture is one of these. It IS possible to change matter, to energy, to investiture, and back. It IS possible to change matter, to energy, to investiture, and back.” Source “[The] Shards of Adonalsium [are] pieces of the power of creation itself.” Source Q 18. Q: “Is Adonalsium and the "power of creation" synonymous?”A: “In some people's usage.” Source. Q: “Was Adonalsium the one who created the Cosmere universe as a whole?”A: “That is widely assumed to be the case.” “Keep in mind that the Shards are mostly Spiritual.” Finally, I note that Adonalsium was a “mechanistic” God. He created the Cosmere in accordance with whatever rules he established for himself and his creations. But he was not a moralistic or spiritual deity. Brandon has reserved that province to the “God Beyond,” since “that level of cosmology is influenced by your own beliefs in the hereafter and in deity.” Source.

The two “Letters” between Hoid and Frost raise questions about the nature of Frost’s participation in the conspiracy that Shattered Adonalsium. Frost clearly had some role in the Shattering: “Is not the destruction we have wrought enough?” “Our interference so far has brought nothing but pain.” “[Rayse] is what we made him to be, old friend.” Brandon has strongly suggested but never confirmed that Frost is not a Vessel for a Shard. Unless there’s something peculiar about dragons, becoming a Shard’s Vessel should have vaporized his body. Yet he’s still an “old reptile.” WoB (# 124) also says that Frost is “functionally” immortal “meaning he doesn’t age but can be killed.” This phrasing suggests that Frost lacks the degree of self-healing capacity that Hoid himself has: Hoid can grow a new head if he were beheaded and is very difficult to kill (WoB). But the First Letter states “as you are now essentially immortal, I would guess that wellness on your part is something of a given.” This suggests that Frost “now” has sufficient self-healing capacity to be illness-free if not violence free. This new capacity seems to have arisen in connection with the Shattering. My speculation: 1. Because Frost and Hoid are the two oldest Cosmere characters – and presumably had the greatest knowledge of Adonalsium – they knew things the sixteen Vessels didn’t know. I speculate that they advised the sixteen HOW to Shatter Adonalsium. Maybe they designed the “weapon” that killed him. Neither wanted to become a Vessel himself. 2. Rayse and Bavadin may have persuaded Hoid to help, who then sought out Frost. That would explain why Hoid is so angry at them, “perpetuating [his] grudge” against them. Hoid may feel they betrayed him, especially after Rayse killed Skai and Aona. (And Tanavast “bought drinks” for Hoid once…one of my favorite lines in SLA.) 3. Frost OTOH seems to feel guilt over his participation more than anything else. Now he languishes on Yolen, bound by his nonintervention oath. 4. It’s possible the “price” the Vessels paid Frost for his help was his “functional” immortality. Perhaps that’s also how Hoid acquired his spectacular Feruchemical ability, as his price. These would have been "paid" after the conspirators ascended. 5. I suspect Frost’s involvement with the Seventeenth Shard is simply as a provider of information. Once Khriss discovered him (and maybe Yolen), he filled in her historical knowledge. I doubt he’s an active member, though he appears in ongoing communication with them (or at least Hoid thinks so). Rank speculation is so much fun! Thoughts?

Frost in the Second Letter suggests that Adonalsium may have planned for what would happen after his Shattering to prevent any of the Shards from causing too much damage to the Cosmere: t seems to me that all things have been set up for a purpose, and if we—as infants—stumble through the workshop, we risk exacerbating, not preventing, a problem…[J]oin me in my oath of nonintervention. The cosmere itself may depend upon our restraint. This statement suggests that someone (or thing) – presumably Adonalsium – set things up in ways that Hoid cannot understand (in Frost’s mind, anyway). This statement reminds me of what happened on Scadrial, when Preservation established his plan to defeat Ruin long before his death, knowing he wouldn’t be around to see the results. Wouldn’t that be interesting! No wonder Frost believes so strongly in “nonintervention,” criticizing Hoid for “tow[ing] chaos behind [him] like a corpse dragged by one leg through the snow.” This is the conflict between Order and Change, conservatism and liberalism – a parent “perpetually disappointed” in a wandering child. Thoughts?

There have been several recent threads discussing Hoid and his motivations. This led me to wade through the almost 200 WoBs on the Theoryland site to see what Brandon had to say about his “favorite” character (as of 2009, according to # 38 of the linked page). Here’s a collection of some of the more provocative WoBs by listed number on the linked page. Use this post as a resource for your own theorizing. If you’re aware of more recent Hoid WoBs, please add them to the list. Below I try to weave these WoBs into some semi-coherent speculations…I wouldn’t glorify my maunderings by calling them a “theory.” Hoid WoBs 23: “Hoid, so far, has only moved forward in time. He has not 'lived' all of those years, but has used some time dilation techniques. That said, he is far older (both in relative and real time) than a normal person can live.” 25: “[A]rt is a magical thing in the world of Warbreaker. When an artist creates a work of art, part of the artist's soul ends up in the artwork… As Lightsong has a splinter of divine nature inside him, he is able to interpret the paintings—to foresee, using them, and to see into the soul of the person who made them.” Doesn’t pertain to Hoid, but interesting nonetheless. 31: Hoid “may be capable of a little bit of foreseeing of certain events, not what’s going to happen, but he may need to be in a certain place in a certain time.” 32: "Hoid as a major part of things doesn’t really show up till the third Mistborn trilogy, which is the outer space Mistborn, the sci-fi Mistborn." 34: “There's just the one system in Warbreaker, and it's also a world with only one Shard on it.” Again, interesting for its own sake, especially given our speculation about Nalt and Trell. At the January 6, 2015 Firelight signing, Brandon said “There was at least one relationship” like “brother and sister or child/parent” among the original Vessels. Nalt and Trell may be the brothers if they turn out to be Vessels. Alternatively, maybe Skai was Aona’s parent, explaining his control over access to the Dor. What a terrible pun that would be (keeping a child away from the “door”) … 66: Confirming Hoid uses Feruchemy to know where to be at any given time. 78: A pre-M:SH acknowledgement that “Hoid and Kelsier do not get along. At all.” [As of April 2013.] 85: Hoid has a “home base.” I've not seen anything that suggests where it is. 91: Hoid is familiar with “very many [magic systems], and lots that you haven't seen yet” as of November 2012. 95: Hoid has “been alive since Dragonsteel. However, he may not have spent all of that time awake and alert.” 112: Question: “If Hoid were tempted by a Shard, which one would it be?” Brandon: “Endowment.” 124: Frost is a male dragon who is “[f]unctionally [immortal], meaning he doesn't age but can be killed.” 127: Khriss is the most Cosmere-aware person “by a long shot,” though Hoid is marginally more knowledgeable than Nazh. I would have guessed that Frost would be more Cosmere-aware than Khriss, based on the Second Letter, unless Brandon forgot about Frost when he answered this (in March 2014). 128: If beheaded, Hoid can grow a new head. “[W]hat Hoid does heals the soul.” 142: “Frost is almost certainly the oldest [Cosmere character] by a small amount. After that, Hoid.” This statement does give new meaning to Hoid’s and Frost’s mutually applied appellation, “old friend.” 149: “Hoid was human a long time ago. Now... It's complicated. We would call him human, and so will pretty much everyone else, but he is not exactly that.” 151: Hoid was on Roshar before WoK. This may not mean much, since he was the King’s Wit to Elokhar since before the book begins. 157: Duralumin helps with using local magic systems by changing user’s Connections to that planet. 160: Hoid was once friends with Odium. 161: The famous “sing-song” “biggest RAFO” to the question whether Hoid ever visited Braize. 162: Hoid asked Dalinar about Adonalsium to test whether Dalinar was a member of some secret society like Gavilar had been; Dalinar seemed to know so much. Hoid apparently thought that Gavilar had “confided” this knowledge to Dalinar, based on what Gavilar had learned from those societies. Since Brandon used the plural “secret societies,” the statement implies that several of the societies – and not just the Ghostbloods – have back-story knowledge. 163: Hoid shows up in so many books because he’s searching for “something.” 166: Hoid is “really scared of Odium” and many other things. 167: The Moon Sceptre is important to Hoid for unknown reasons. 168: Hoid doesn't “yet” have the abilities of each world he visits. 173: Question: “Hoid said [in Warbreaker] that he learned stories from a place where gods have died. Is that Roshar?” Brandon: “RAFO. I will say this. A god has died on Roshar. Only one, that we know. So, ‘gods’ would not be plural.” 174: The Seventeenth Shard has goals that Hoid may interfere with – which is why they hunt him. Hoid’s actions are at “cross-purposes” with their goals. But the Seventeenth Shard has other goals too, “something grander than that.” There are others whom the Seventeenth Shard is worried about. 179: Hoid stole the lerasium bead to gain “certain powers,” but Brandon is unclear whether Hoid has ingested it yet. Forum consensus is that Hoid used emotional Allomancy on Shallan during one of her WoR interludes. That suggests Hoid did use the lerasium bead sometime before that scene. 190: Hoid has “powers that predate the Shattering of Adonalsium. Not all of his powers predate, but he does have powers that predate.” We know about Lightweaving, but this statement makes clear Hoid had other powers pre-Shattering as well. 193: Question: “Worldbringers and Worldsingers - similar mission?” Brandon: “The similarity of the names is intentional.” Question: “Similar origin?” Brandon: “Yes.” Question: “Did Hoid start them?” Brandon: “That’s a RAFO. That’s a RAFO, but definitely they have a similar origin.” Speculations 1. Hoid’s Feruchemy. Hoid became a Feruchemist at birth or by some other means while still on Yolen. When Ruin and Preservation created humans on Scadrial, IMO they also created Feruchemists based on the Yolen model. Adonalsium certainly would have had the same ability as the two Shards to create a “push-pull” magic system. Perhaps Worldsingers was the name for Feruchemists on Yolen. Hoid might even have given the name “Worldbringers” to the Scadrial version. Given Hoid’s remarkable ability to use the Fortune attribute (we speculate) and to live as long as he apparently has, the Scadrian version may be considerably watered down from the original Yolish version. Questioner: How is a new Feruchemist made? Brandon: Other than through birth? ... That’s a RAFO … Right now, as far as anyone knows, it’s by birth only. But – Well, we’ll leave it there. [From the 2/25/16 Austin Calamity signing.] This would explain Hoid’s moving forward in time (“so far”), though he was not always “alert and awake” his entire lifetime. He did not “live all of those years,” instead using “time dilation techniques.” During his quiescent periods, he might have been accumulating health and time attributes to use for both healing and his time jumps. 2. Is Hoid a Feruchemical Savant? Hoid appears human, once was human, but now isn’t. “It’s complicated.” One possibility is that Hoid may be a Feruchemical Savant who has overused Feruchemy. “eing a Savant is when you burn so much it alters your spirit.” [March 29, 2014 SLC Signing Report, # 4.] Much like a Surgebinder or Elantrian is no longer completely human, a Feruchemical Savant may not be either. This might partly explain Hoid’s exceptional longevity, even as he “zones out” from time to time. Brandon confirms Savantism is possible in other magic systems than Allomancy, in the following exchange from the March 20, 2014 McLean, Virginia Signing Report, #2: IronCaf: In what ways is the process of becoming an allomantic savant like body building or other exercise? Brandon: [Paraphrasing] That is not an inapt metaphor for it. It's like a wedge gets in the soul and cracks it, and investiture can fill it up. IronCaf: And using allomancy breaks it further? Brandon: Yes. IronCaf: Do other magic systems in the Cosmere function in a similar way? Brandon: Yes. IronCaf: Which ones? Will we see them soon? Brandon: I'm going to have to RAFO that. This may be the reason that Hoid, like twinborn Miles in AoL, can lose his head but immediately regrow it. He can heal soul damage. (Hoid is like Miles in the sense that he can survive severe head injuries if he has adequate available investiture.) Hoid also may use his some of his acquired magical abilities to fill his metalminds (or their Yolish equivalents – I don’t recall seeing Hoid with metal bands or rings on his body) in much the same way twinborns do through compounding. That might explain how Hoid became a Savant, putting vast amounts of investiture into his storage device which he then flares. 3. Hoid’s Age. One gets the sense that the “old friends” Frost and Hoid were childhood pals, since Frost is older than Hoid only “by a small amount.” They are both older than any other “character,” which presumably includes the Vessels. That gives perspective to both Frost’s desire for non-intervention (as stated in the Second Letter) – he has a VERY long view – and Hoid’s “interfering” attitude toward the Shattering (as stated by Leras in M:SH). ASIDE: In M:SH, Khriss describes the Vessels’ “diverse motives” for “kill[ing] Adonalsium, ripping it apart and dividing its essence between them…” [Ed. Note: shouldn’t it be “among” them, since there are more than two Vessels?] “Some wished for the power; others saw killing Adonalsium as the only good option left to them.” What does this latter motive mean? Was it personal to some individual Vessels, perhaps because their lives had turned out badly? Or does this phrase refer to something more generic, more terrible, as if a catastrophe was about to befall Yolen or their race, and Adonalsium intended to do nothing about it? A ripe area for further speculation… 4. Cosmere-Awareness. Why should Khriss be more Cosmere-aware “by a long shot” than either the long-lived Frost or Hoid? Because she is a scholar, she has learned more than these two “people” who actually lived the events she’s chronicling? This seems odd, especially since Frost has so much knowledge about current happenings in the Cosmere. 5. Where Gods Died. Hoid learned stories in a place where “gods have died.” We know Hoid learned storytelling on Yolen. Either more than one “god” died on Yolen or Hoid learned “stories” on Sel. When does The Emperor’s Soul take place relative to Warbreaker? Was Hoid on Sel multiple times (a possibility) or just when he stole the Moon Sceptre? 6. The “Biggest Speculation” - Hoid’s Search. Hoid is searching for “someTHING” – singular. IOW, it’s not just magical powers he’s after. This may or may not be the same “thing” the Seventeenth Shard is after. a. I see two possibilities. The more obvious is that he’s looking for something to defeat Odium with. Perhaps the “something” is the vestige of the “weapon” used to Shatter Adonalsium. Hoid may want to repair the weapon or model a new one on the old and splinter Odium with it. b. The second possibility is more intriguing. Assuming Brandon wasn’t trolling, to me the single most striking WoB on the list is that Hoid would choose Endowment as his Shard if he were “tempted.” Endowment – the Shard that raises the dead and Awakens inanimate objects. Many have speculated about Hoid’s purported desire to resurrect Adonalsium. They cite Hoid’s accumulation of magical abilities as if he wants to fuse them together into a new holistic Adonalsium. They find support in the following WoB from the 2/25/16 Austin signing (emphasis added): Q: If someone goes to every planet and get invested from every Shard, if he was invested enough would he become a new Shard? A: That’s an excellent question that I’m not going to answer…That's too deeply related to things that are happening in the Cosmere and I don’t want to dig into for a little while yet. I haven’t agreed with this speculation because, even if you could fuse together diverse magical abilities into the original one that Adonalsium exercised, that wouldn’t necessarily bring him back. IMO the foregoing WoB describes the Seventeenth Shard’s “grand” purpose, which Hoid is meddling with, not Hoid’s own purpose. It may even be the purpose of some of the other Worldhopping groups. (Other posters have already made this point.) BUT – Hoid is looking for someTHING, presumably something that will defeat and/or end his former friend Rayse/Odium. I’ve long maintained that killing a god means killing its mind, depriving the power of a mind to direct it, so it seeks new minds. What if Hoid seeks some remnant of Adonalsium’s mind – in one of Shadesmar’s glass beads - that Hoid can use his magical abilities to rebuild? We have the following WoB from the 2/25/16 Austin signing (emphasis added): Questioner: It feels like Roshar is-- has an essence, where it’s like a prism, you can see all the rest of them, due to the nature of the Cognitive Realm and the spren’s ideas, Cognitive things coming to light. Have I spent too much time looking at the Shard? Brandon: No, you are on the right path. Of all the things you noted, that one is the one that is perhaps the most important. Questioner: The prism idea. Brandon: The idea that Roshar is special and a key on Shadesmar. Brandon’s comment that Roshar is “special and a key on Shadesmar” may simply mean it is located between the Cognitive Realms of so many planets. The various “Expanses” seem to match up with other Shardworlds. Roshar’s Shadesmar is like the Grand Central Station of the Cognitive Realm. But he may mean something deeper. Shadesmar seems unique in one important respect: no single idea or object is represented there in anything resembling its Physical Realm counterpart. This is unlike the mist objects we’ve seen in Scadrial‘s Cognitive Realm. Instead, each glass bead in Shadesmar carries the blueprint of its object, rather than its shape. With the addition of Stormlight, each bead snaps onto other beads to form that object according to the blueprint. The WoR prologue gives examples. We know Adonalsium invested Roshar. Brandon tells us that Roshar is “heavily invested,” though we’ve seen little evidence to date of any more investment than anywhere else. Brandon also says that Adonalsium intentionally left bits of his power on Roshar that became self-aware splinters. What if Adonalsium also left a piece of his mind, stranded somewhere in a glass bead, waiting for the right magic to unlock and rebuild the Cognitive version of his body? With his mind recovered, Adonalsium could then begin to call his power back to him, stripping each of the Vessels of their Shard. Adonalsium could re-create himself. As wild, rampant, and almost totally unfounded speculation, this ranks right up there, even for me. But, hey, isn’t that the purpose of this Forum? Conclusion Enjoy the list of WoBs. Again, if you have any to add, please do so. Regards to all!

Pagerunner and TwelfthOfSnackTime: I would not consider the “natural way” spren bond with certain fauna and flora on Roshar to be a separate magic system. (IMO Ryshadium are an example of this “natural way.”) First, Brandon didn’t identify this “natural way” as a separate magic system. Second, there’s this WoB, also from the 2/25/16 signing: Questioner: What can you tell me about where spren come from? Brandon: Spren come from where everything in the world of Roshar comes from. The[y] are a natural part of life there. They come from the same place rocks and the wind and all of that... In a sense, the entire Cosmere is “magical,” since it all began as Adonalsium’s investiture. (Brandon has said it is “commonly assumed” that Adonalsium created the Cosmere – not exactly confirmation, but I’ll go with it.) This investiture changed state into matter and/or energy to form planets, etc. (This is Spinoza’s “the universe is one substance” idea that Brandon has explicitly adopted.) Roshar, which bears Adonalsium’s “touch and design” (the Second Letter from WoR), is an example. Being “magical,” however, does not make something into a “magic system.” I think Brandon uses that phrase to refer to the ability of “magicians” on Shardworlds to use magic themselves. Ryshadium, Purelake fish and other “natural” phenomena may BE magic, but they don’t use the powers of creation to MAKE magic. It’s the same difference we see between Shardworlds and non-Shardworlds like the planet in Sixth of the Dusk. In the latter, magic is present on the planet, but no one creates magic there. Bugsy6912: That’s an interesting way to look at the differences among the three magic systems. I do view the Transformation Surge, as Shallan uses it, as a manipulation of the “cognitive aspect of a humans.” That’s why Gaz and the slave wagon driver (whose name I can’t remember) changed themselves to reflect how Shallan saw them. Shallan herself, when she assumes her Veil identity, seems to change how she views herself; at the end of WoR, Mraize certainly thinks Veil is more than a mere disguise. Sh3nahz wrote an interesting post positing that the Transformation Surge changes a person’s Identity attribute, much like Forgery. We haven’t seen all of the Surges yet, so it’s possible others have an impact on the Cognitive aspect of humans and creatures. Just from their name, “Willshapers” seem to impact people’s Cognitive aspect. Like Elsecallers, they too can use the Transportation Surge to enter and exit Shadesmar “in the flesh.” Also, from what little we know the Voidbinding system seems to manipulate the Cognitive aspect of the listeners. More to the point, since the powers of creation are simply “tools” available to every magic system, then all systems on every Shardworld share this ability. The in-world Words of Radiance states as follows regarding Lightweaver abilities: "Yet, were the orders not disheartened by so great a defeat, for the Lightweavers provided spiritual sustenance; they were enticed by those glorious creations to venture on a second assault." (WoR Chapter 47 Epigraph.) This sounds a lot like Allomantic “rioting.” I have long advocated that ALL magic begins with a Cognitive act of some kind, causing the changes in Spiritual Realm Connections between souls and essences. A mind is necessary to direct the power. You are right that the Old Magic “relies on spiritual sources provided” by one or more of the Shards. But so does every magic system IMO. The question is in what Realm does the magical effect manifest. The Nightwatcher’s curses all seem Cognitive.

At the February 25 Austin signing for Calamity, a questioner asked Brandon, “How many magic systems are in The Stormlight Archives, and how many of them [have been seen?]” Brandon’s answer: I would say the only major one you haven’t seen is Voidbinding, it depends on how you count them. I count fabrials as one, Surgebinding as one, and Voidbinding as one. And then the Old Magic is kind of its own weird thing. This is Brandon’s most definitive statement (that I’ve seen) regarding Roshar’s magic systems. Let’s look more closely at what the three systems have in common and why the “weird” Old Magic doesn’t fit with the other three. I’ll then address the peculiar features of each system. Common Features Each of these magics (other than the older non-spren fabrials) rely on spren for their efficacy, including the Old Magic. The three “systems” all use the same “powers of creation” in some fashion. They differ from one another only in how the system gives access to and expresses the powers. The Old Magic in contrast seems to use only a few of the powers of creation, if any, which differentiates it from the “systems.” Brandon has said the powers of creation are just “tools” (emphasis added): [T]he powers granted by all of the metals—even the two divine ones—are not themselves of either [Ruin or Preservation]. They are simply tools. And so, it's possible that one COULD have found a way to reproduce an ability like atium's while using Preservation's power, but it wouldn't be as natural or as easy as using Preservation to fuel Allomancy. The means of getting powers—Ruin stealing, Preservation gifting—are related to the Shards, but not the powers themselves. I interpret this statement to mean that magic systems wherever located differ only in “the means of getting powers” and how the powers express themselves. How do each of Roshar’s magic systems differ? Surgebinding We know that the essence of Surgebinding is the Nahel bond. That is the “means” by which Surgebinders “get” the ability to use the powers of creation, which on Roshar are called “Surges.” Q: The ten Surges on Roshar, I think you said are basically a different set of laws of physics. A: Yeah. Q: Are those laws of physics consistent throughout the Cosmere? A: Um, y-y-yes, to an extent. You would consider, like - it's kind of weird because I based them on the idea of the fundamental forces, but this is kind of like a human construction. Like you could say that physics is pure and natural, but we're still putting things in boxes. And the scientists on Roshar would for instance consider being able to travel between the Cognitive and Physical Realms as a force, the thing that pulls people back and forth between that, as a fundamental force. I don't know if it would fit our definition of a fundamental force. That statement is also from the 2/25 Signing. IMO the reason the Nahel bond gives a Surgebinder access to the Surges is because the bonded spren is cognitive investiture. The bonded spren uses its mind to direct the Surges it controls as the Surgebinder requests. The Surgebinder thinks what he/she wants to do and the spren does it. Forum consensus (but not canon) is that Honor and Cultivation combined their investiture to create the Surgebinding system. This is an example of what Moogle calls “intent-meshing,” but what I call “mandate-meshing” since I think “mandate” is the textually proper word for what we’ve been calling “intent.” (See the HoA Chapter 79 Epigraph.) Honor’s mandate is “to bind,” as Syl tells us. Honor’s investiture creates the Nahel bond. But the bonded spren are a mix of Honor’s and Cultivation’s investiture. The two exceptions IMO are Bondsmiths’ spren (the Stormfather, Honor’s Cognitive Shadow comprised of pure Honor investiture); and Truthwatchers’ spren (pure Cultivation investiture, though connected to their KR’s SpiritWeb by Honor’s Nahel bond). I base my conjecture on the fact that these are the only two Orders “inside” the KR Order Chart (what I call the “Round Table”) that appears on the front endsheet of WoK. Argent has asked the question, “out of the potentially hundreds, if not thousands of spren types, why do the Radiants bind with only ten?” I believe the answer is that the ten spren types who became Radiantspren imitated the Honorblades. Each Honorblade is capable of two Surges. Only spren capable of exercising the same two Surges as each Honorblade - IMO the right mix of Honor's and Cultivation's investiture - would bond with KR. Other spren would have a different mix or be something else entirely. Those spren couldn't exercise the same Surges as the Honorblades. They cannot be Radiantspren. Fabrials There are two broad types of fabrials – the modern fabrials mentioned in the WoK and WoR Ars Arcana and ancient fabrials that seem not to rely on spren at all. We’ve seen two examples of ancient fabrials – ones that enable Soulcasting and Regrowth (the Transformation and Progression Surges). We don’t know whether the fabrial “magic system” includes both modern and ancient fabrials or one or the other. Brandon has said that “Fabrials can replicate all of the Surgebinding abilities.” Arguably the Honorblades themselves are non-spren fabrials that grant the ten Surges. The Oathgates are another ancient fabrial, but they require a “living” Shardblade – a spren; these may be more akin to modern fabrials, but maybe not. All fabrials of whatever kind require Stormlight to operate. The WoR Ars Arcanum author, believed to be Khriss, is “more and more convinced that [modern fabrial creation] requires forced enslavement of transformative cognitive entities, known as ‘spren’ to the local communities.” Note that Khriss confirms that spren are comprised of cognitive investiture. Modern fabrials lock the spren into specific types of gems. The color, cut and size of the gems appear responsible for attracting the spren, its imprisonment, the amount and “wavelength” of Stormlight the spren gain access to, and/or the type of magical output the fabrial creates. Khriss categorizes fabrials into five “groupings”: Altering (Augmenters and Diminishers), Pairing (Conjoiners and Reversers), and Warning. Fabrials “appear to be the work of dedicated scientists, as opposed to the more mystical Surgebindings once performed by the Knights Radiant.” While Khriss seems to write the Ars Arcanum contemporaneously with WoR events – she knows of the Jah Keved half-Shards, a recent development – she seems ignorant of the KR’s re-emergence. IMO the two distinguishing features of modern fabrials are the use of gemstones to capture spren and reliance on merely sentient spren. Surgebinding uses the more heavily invested sapient Radiantspren for its magic. “Altering fabrials,” for example, “seem to work best with forces, emotions or sensations” like heat, pain or wind. We know that sentient spren have access to the Surges too: windspren, for example, can use Adhesion to trip people. I also believe that whatever spren is imprisoned in spanreeds gives the users access to the Transportation Surge: the writing is “transported” over distance. Voidbinding There’s been some excellent speculation about Voidbringer magic, most notably on this thread begun by Argent. Brandon’s 2/25/16 statement clarifies, however, that listener Stormform cannot be “voidbinding,” since we HAVE seen that magic. Lightflame in that thread suggests that listener Stormform is Voidbringing, since that form enables the listeners to summon the Everstorm, the phenomenon that will “bring the Void.” Lightflame distinguishes Stormform from the “Voidish Forms” that Argent lists as the believed counterparts of the KR Orders: Nightform, Decayform and Smokeform. As Lightflame notes, these forms are mentioned in the listeners' Song of Secrets. Stormform by contrast is mentioned in the listeners Song of Winds. Stormspren’s ability to cause lightning and violent winds appears innate, like windspren’s Adhesion ability. Neither seems to require Stormlight. There's no need to replicate the discussion on Argent’s thread, linked above. Instead, if you’re interested I suggest you read the entire thread, since the posters there have helpful insights. It’s clear (to me) that Voidbinding resembles Endowment’s reincarnation of the Returned more than any other magic system we’ve seen. Voidbinding in all its known forms relies on the powers granted to/by the Unmade, the listener “gods.” These former listeners are remade by Odium’s investiture. Nightform: “as the gods did leave, the nightform whispered…” (WoR Chapter 23 Epigraph). Decayform: “a form of gods to avoid, it seems…” (WoR Chapter 24 Epigraph). Smokeform: “Crafted of gods, this form we fear. / By Unmade touch its curse to bear…” (WoR Chapter 31 Epigraph). Oh well, all my theories about “Voidbinding” being a combination of Honor’s and Odium’s investiture – Honor “binding the Void” – are now out the window… The Old Magic But I still have hope for this one. Also at the 2/25/16 Event, Brandon and a questioner had the following exchange: Questioner: I kind of envision the Old Magic working a little bit like Hemalurgy, where some[one] takes a part of the Physical DNA of the person and transmutes it onto the Cognitive DNA because everything seems to be a Cognitive shift for the person. Am I thinking along the right lines? Brandon: You are thinking along very-- Yes you are thinking along the right lines. I won’t tell you exactly but you are thinking along the right lines. I hesitate to infer anything from such a squishy answer. (And PLEASE future questioners, do not invite such an answer by building it into your question, as this person did. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference, but it’s best not to provide Brandon with an “out” in advance.) I’ll assume that the “right lines” the questioner was “thinking along” refers to a quasi-hemalurgical connection between two entities affecting one’s Cognitive capacity. Brandon’s answer conveniently parallels my theory that the Nightwatcher – purveyor of the Old Magic – is a combination spren consisting of the Cognitive investiture of each of Cultivation and Odium bound to one another by Honor: Cultivation boons and Odium Cognitive curses. As Brandon says in the opening quote of this post, the Old Magic is “weird.” You can read my theory and its many detractors, so I won’t repeat it here. In summary, the Nightwatcher is the Cognitive element of Odium’s imprisonment in Greater Roshar. Conclusion That’s all, Folks! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

I’ve been a moderately active member of the 17th Shard for a tad more than two years. I’m finally ready to unveil myself. Yes, it’s true: I’m old enough to be almost everyone’s father here and the grandfather of many of you. That’s why I’m “Confused.” It’s also why I find our conversations so interesting. I feel like I’m arguing with my kids...I met my wife in 1974 and we’re still together – fairly remarkable in this day and age. I’ve already disclosed I’m a University of Michigan alum (“Go Blue!”), but I graduated more than 40 years ago. You can probably tell I was a lit major. I like to reference books of the Western canon. I’ve been reading fantasy novels since I was a kid, starting with Jules Verne in grade school. In 8th grade, I would prop a book up in class like I was paying attention, but was secretly reading Lord of the Rings instead. As a fantasy storyteller, Brandon has few peers. I’ve read everything but the “young adult” books. My personal favorites are The Emperor’s Soul and The Way of Kings. I fear I won’t live long enough to see the Cosmere story play itself out; hence, my interest in speculation. Besides raising a family and building a career, I used to climb 14,000 foot mountains (with ice axe, crampons and rope) and still enjoy exercise and a game of chess. As we continue our debates, please remember you’re dealing with a curmudgeonly old codger. It’ll help… Regards all!

Brandon has said that Nightblood is the only exception to the Cosmere’s version of the laws of thermodynamics; he causes a net loss of investiture in the Cosmere. Doesn’t this also happen with people’s souls after death? Souls are made from Spiritual Realm investiture. If souls fly to the “Beyond,” doesn’t that also remove investiture from the Cosmere? There’s a WoB somewhere that soul’s investiture somehow gets recycled (IIRC, and I may not be). That suggests the God Beyond ISN’T “Beyond” or at least has a pipeline back to the Spiritual Realm once the investiture has been scrubbed clean of the soul’s Connections. Thoughts?

Thank you all for your excellent observations and comments! ParadoxSpren: I’m comfortable that “mandate” is the textually correct description for “intent,” but the word “intent” is fairly engrained by now. Chaos did too good a job! You can see the arguments for and against my word choice in the thread “Mandates of the Known Shards.” I would now modify some of my conclusions there (about what each Shard’s mandate is), but stand by most of it. Yata: I don’t think the Vessels “forced” the Shattering into those specific Shards (if that’s what you mean by “division”). I’m simply saying when the Shattered powers of creation went looking for new minds to direct them, the powers “chose” each Vessel based on the powers’ Connection with that Vessel. The Shards each represent different aspects of Adonalsium. Other aspects – Pride, Joy, Competitiveness, e.g. – might have become Shards if those had been the dominant traits of the potential Vessels. (For what I mean by the word “chose,” see below.) thegatorgirl00: You raise an interesting point. What would have happened if there were 20 conspiring Vessels, or 100? Would the powers still have chosen only 16 of them based on your “natural fault lines” suggestion? We’ve assumed that 16 is the “magic number” (literally). We don’t know that for sure. We only know that there ARE (or originally were) 16 Shards, 16 Allomantic metals (although we now know there are as many as 256 – 162), and Preservation used the number 16 to “select” Allomancers capable of burning atium. The first may be coincidence, and the others may have been caused by Preservation’s fixation on the number 16 (“preserving” the memory of the original conspirators?) And 16 is a binary exponent: 16 = 24 supporting the notion that Adonalsium may have been a computer running a software simulation (the Cosmere). I don’t necessarily agree, therefore, that Adonalsium had “natural” fault lines, meaning divisible into some specific number of Shards or in the sense that gemstones have natural fault lines. (Gemhearts? See my parody of the Shattering.) I do agree that Adonalsium could theoretically have Shattered along the fault lines of the powers of creation, but didn’t, as I state in the OP’s referenced “Shattering” post. Instead, he/she/it Shattered along the fault lines of the mandates. Emailanimal: “Chose” is a poor word. I mean that the Vessel’s primary affinity for a given aspect of Adonalsium (its Connection to that aspect) created a Shard with its particular mandate. That sounds like your “atomic intent” algorithm. The possibility of additional “atomic intents” is a good idea, but not necessarily restricted to 16 such “intents,” as discussed above. At any number, the powers could theoretically still be equally allocated. I agree with your and Paladin Brewer’s speculation that the Vessel with “more” of a Connection becomes that Shard. That’s why Vin could accept Preservation’s power, but Kelsier had difficulty doing so. Brandon has said that Connections are not an “on/off” switch. I interpret him to mean that the degree of Connection matters. Again, thanks all for your interesting comments!

I previously theorized that Adonalsium’s Shattering caused the powers of creation to “choose” the Shard each Vessel became based on the Vessel’s dominant psychological trait. Our new understanding of Connections IMO confirms the theory: the power chose the Shard based on each Vessel’s Connection with that aspect of Adonalsium. Evidence: 1. The biggest objection to my initial theory was Ati. How could such a “kind and generous man” have become Ruin the Destroyer? But Preservation tells Kelsier in M:SH that "Everything passes, nothing is eternal. That is what Ati always claimed... [emphasis added]” Preservation here refers to Ati, not Ruin. That suggests that Ati always had an affinity for Ruin, even before his ascension, as a matter of deep-seated personal belief. He was Connected to Ruin despite his personality. 2. Brandon says that different Vessels would have had different mandates (intents). That suggests the mandates were based on something personal to each Vessel. 3. Kelsier had difficulties holding Preservation because he was so Connected to Ruin. As a “destroyer,” Kelsier has few equals: see you later, TFE… I use the word “mandate” instead of “intent” because that’s the word Sazed himself uses. In HoA, Sazed describes the mists as acting with a "vague will of their own tied to the mandate of their abilities" (HoA, Chapter 79, emphasis added.) I think that’s what we mean when we talk about a Shard’s “intent,” a word coined by Chaos in an excellent post some years ago. I prefer the textual word. Does this sound right?

What if the “ten essences” that relate to Shardworlds are all on Roshar because THEY ARE ADONALSIUM’S ESSENCES? We know that Roshar bears Adonalsium’s “touch and design.” He/She/It was there long before the Shards appeared. That’s why Brandon says ALL the Shards have been on Roshar, in the person of Adonalsium. Wouldn’t the planet thus incorporate all of his/her/its essences? Then when the Shards dispersed to planets other than Yolen, making those planets Shardworlds, they each took one or more of Adonalsium’s essence with them.

Shallan just thinks they're minks. They're really mice monitoring the computer that is Roshar before Odium's Everstorm "rayses" the planet to make room for a new interstellar highway. Good catch! Have another upvote!

I suspect Ruin - the Shard of "intelligent decay" - would have tried to destroy other planets – and possibly the entire Cosmere – once his investiture was freed from the destroyed Scadrial. This suggests that Odium may want to splinter Harmony for reasons other than his fear of the double Shard’s greater power: Odium may fear the possible destruction of the Cosmere, including himself if Harmony for whatever reason drops his Ruin component. Odium can’t be the “last Shard standing” if Ruin remains capable of destroying everything. I'm aware of the WoB that "Harmony" is now Scadrial's Shard, or will be when fully integrated. But that doesn't mean the power of Ruin, subject still to a destructive mandate (intent), wouldn't operate as it did before if freed from Harmony. Thoughts?

I’ve been touting the “investiture imbalance” theory of Desolations. Please read that post for the theory. I cited Nale’s desire to kill surgebinders as evidence, since surgebinding IMO breaks down Stormlight into its three constituent investitures, though only using Honor’s and Cultivation’s. Surgebinding thus frees Odium’s unused investiture, creating the investiture imbalance that can cause a Desolation. I now posit that the KR’s discovery of this fact caused the Recreance. Recreance theories have run aground on the question: what would lead every KR to “kill” his/her spren simultaneously? I think knowledge that surgebinding could cause a Desolation would suffice. Perhaps Nale told the Orders what they were doing. Forum consensus favors the theory that Skybreakers were the Order that used “great subterfuge” to secrete themselves. They would be the one Order that could maintain the discipline not to surgebind. Thanks, as always, for any responses and comments!

Several do. Endowment resurrects the Returned. Dakhor monks sacrifice themselves to generate magic. Odium IMO invests the disturbed remains of listeners to make Unmade and also resurrects dead greatshells to make thunderclasts, as in Dalinar's Purelake vision.

There’s an interesting discussion on this thread about the Cognitive Realm structure of different Shardworlds. Scadrian cognitive objects are made from mists and resemble their Physical Realm form. Rosharan cognitive objects consist of glass beads. More strangely, the blueprint of each object is contained within a single bead, but the object itself holds no form until it snaps together with other beads. Why such an extreme difference? (I ignore Sel for now, since its “Cognitive bubble” – is that now a canonical term? – is in dangerous disarray. And we know little of Nalthis’s.) As FirstSelector points out in the cited thread, Adonalsium himself may be responsible for Shadesmar. Substantial Adonalsium residue may linger on Roshar, including in Shadesmar. But it’s difficult to form any theory about that. (Might Roshar’s fourth “more esoteric” magic system mentioned in the WoR AA involve Adonalsium’s investiture?) I’ll focus instead on the three Shards who subsequently invested in Roshar. We would expect Shadesmar and its beads to reflect the influence of the Shards’ investitures. Here’s my explanation for Shadesmar’s structure. Odium I think Odium is the reason each bead is self-contained. Odium is the lone wolf who doesn’t bond or play well with others. We believe that Nergaoul, the Unmade responsible for the Thrill, resides in the black sphere Gavilar gave to Szeth, essentially a glass bead. To me, it makes sense that an investiture that divides and corrodes will cause cognitive objects to separate themselves from one another into their own containers – if for no other reason than to shield themselves from Odium’s influence. (A thought: could seons have formed around Aons for the same reason once Odium visited Sel?) Honor Honor binds. His influence allows each bead to snap together with other beads to form a semblance of the first bead’s cognitive object. That's odd because it means other beads temporarily relinquish their ties to their own object. Yet we see this happen in WoR’s prologue, with Taln’s statue and Gavilar’s palace. Bead construction requires Stormlight and motivation. Cultivation I now believe that Cultivation’s mandate (intent) is Time. Cultivation’s investiture permits the visualization of a future goal achieved by time compression. The beads snap together instantly, after the visualization of the cognitive object occurs. Honor and Cultivation working together undo what Odium did, isolating each object into its own glass bead. Thoughts?

I speculate that before the end of SLA Dalinar will assume Honor’s power and become Honor himself. My reasons: Dalinar is the Bondsmith, currently the only one. His spren is the Stormfather. I’ve stated elsewhere that Bondsmiths are the purest expression of Honor among the KR orders. They “bind” like Honor himself. After Honor’s death, the Stormfather assumed Honor’s power. The Stormfather has yet to manifest itself in the Physical Realm. He refuses to be a “Shard” for Dalinar. Dalinar is the first character Brandon thought of who is in SLA. If Odium is ever to be defeated, Honor’s ability to re-bind Odium seems like it would be important. That means his power, now held by the reluctant Stormfather, will have to be exercised as a whole by someone else. Add it all up, Honor will need to re-appear before the end. Who is a better candidate that Dalinar? Edited to reflect Matt Snow's correction.

1. Braize may be where Odium now is, but that doesn’t mean he invested it or that it is his “home” planet. Braize is part of the prison that holds him “captive” in Greater Roshar (Second Letter). Odium may not have interacted with Braize in the way that creates magic systems. 2. Whatever Odium’s mandate (intent) is, it does not form relationships. Unlike Honor, who binds things, Odium is a loner. That is the nature of hatred – divisive, corrosive, alone. He “pours” investiture through some “hole” in other entities (WoB). His investiture isn’t bound to those entities, like Honor’s and Cultivation’s is. It does not connect to their SpiritWeb. When listeners embrace stormform, they bond with stormspren; but stormspren aren’t bound to Odium’s investiture, they just “carry” it. (See my description of this process in this post under the "What" heading.) Odium maintains his “strength” by not investing anywhere. 3. Voidbringing is not Voidbinding. The former appears to be of Odium but the latter does not. I’ve speculated that Voidbinding is the Rosharan magic system that Honor uses to keep Odium captive in Greater Roshar – Honor “binds the Void.” (I’ve further speculated that the Honorblades are Voidbinding fabrials created by Honor for this purpose.) 4. Whether Odium is captive or it’s simply his nature, I believe that Odium’s “power” (which technically only refers to the Physical Realm manifestation of investiture according to Sazed) resides in the Cognitive Realm. He influences events through his invasion of the influenced entities’ minds. I believe Odium splinters other Shards by his conversion of the local Shardworlds’ Cognitive Realm investiture into something alien to the local Shard: a form of brain cancer that squeezes out “healthy” cells, prevents the Shard from exercising its magic, and ultimately kills the Shard. I’m beginning to think that hemalurgic spikes may play a role in accelerating this process. (I’d say more of this, but it raises spoilers from the recently published novels).

"We murder to dissect." - The Tables Turned, William Wordsworth

I thought it would be fun to compile what we now know of investiture. Here’s the start of my list. I’m focusing on innate properties of investiture, not something investiture acquires from its interactions with Shardworlds and other Cosmere objects (other than its capacity to interact). I’d like us to focus on investiture itself, not the Realms. Spiritual Investiture “True” or “raw” investiture. Wants to be used. Has “mass” in the sense that its weight “compresses” the Realms. Is composed of the same substance no matter where located – like DNA subject to RNA’s code sequencing. Its structure changes over time based on new ideals and connections. Is capable of state change - conversion into Cognitive or Physical Investiture or matter or energy. Cognitive Investiture Consists of the merged minds of Shards and mortals. Its composition changes over time based on new thoughts and feelings. May also have compression “mass.” The mandate (intent) of each Shard inheres in its Cognitive Investiture (probably). Is capable of state change - conversion into Spiritual or Physical Investiture or matter or energy. Physical Investiture Can exist in any form of matter: solid, liquid or gas. Lies latent until its power is actuated by Cognitive Investiture. Is a shard’s “body.” Is capable of state change - conversion into Cognitive or Spiritual Investiture or matter or energy. Comments and additions?