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Questioner

When you're writing maps for grand scale things like atlas style maps, they're presumably fairly straightforward because you rarely would say, "This character is moving north." You would say, "This character is moving toward the town." When you're writing (or rather when Isaac is drawing) town maps, you often presumably would say, "This character is going to dart left, down an alley." Do you wind up having to path out where a character would go in order to make the map at least somewhat accurate?

Isaac Stewart

I do keep this in mind when I'm reading the books, and I'll write it down. If something doesn't quite work I'll tell Brandon about it. There's a bit of what we call handwavium on that, with the city blocks. I'll put enough city blocks in there that-- Sometimes it doesn't matter because it will work out, if that makes any sense. But we did, on this map right here, the map of Kholinar-- Down at the bottom we have a map of one of the levels of the palace in Kholinar and we did have to do a lot of reading and going back to-- Our continuity editor, Karen, went back and found every instance of where people were at in the palace in the previous two books and then we used that to draw out this map. So we did have to make sure that left was left and right was right on this particular one.

Trevor Green

What are some of the books you've been a part of, and what exactly were you in charge of?

Isaac Stewart

I’m responsible for all the maps and symbols in the four (so far) Mistborn novels as well as all the symbols, chapter headings, maps, color end pages, and Navani's notebook pages in Brandon's Way of Kings. (The other artwork in the book was done by Michael Whelan, Ben McSweeney, and Ben Call. I'm thrilled to be showcased in the same book with these amazing artists.)

On the design side of things, I've been designing self-published books—covers and interiors—for a while, but recently had the luck to get into the business professionally with the book design for Bryce Moore's YA novel, Vodnik. I've also done covers for some ebook re-releases of some science fiction and fantasy classics from the 80s.

In addition to Brandon's maps, I've also worked on maps in the re-release of Robert Silverberg's Nebula-winning novel A Time of Changes and the upcoming reprint of his very-enjoyable Downward to the Earth.

Isaac Stewart

Last week, we made an announcement that the first Secret Project was going to be illustrated by Howard Lyon, and this week we would like to announce who the second Secret Project is being illustrated by. And that is Steve Argyle! He did a lot of the renders for the Kickstarter for us. He did the cover for Secret Project number three, that's up there, and the cover for Secret Project number two. So, Secret Project number two, he will be illustrating

Questioner

Alcatraz.

Brandon Sanderson

Alcatraz. Oh yes, Alcatraz. *crowd woos* So we got the rights back from Scholastic, who was not treating my baby with the, y'know, reverence that Alcatraz deserves, which isn't very much let's be honest *laughter* And we re-published those, they're going to start January, Tor's putting them out. Isaac has done a brand new full-color map for it. And is that going to go on the cover?

Isaac Stewart

...Yeah that's on the back--

Brandon Sanderson

So the cover you'll be able to take off and spread out, and there's a map on the back of it. The jacket cover. Isn't that cool? We want to test this out and see if we should do it for Stormlight, so you have like a map you can spread out. So it's got a brand new full-color cover art, it's got interior art done by someone who did fan-art for the series and we just loved her fan-art so we hired her. So doing fan-art gets you places. And we have brand new covers for the first four and the fifth book, the last book, that Alcatraz will write, is coming out in June. *crowd woos* And the cover is awesome. We finally have good covers for the Alcatraz books. *laughter* They've been so bad for so long.  

Isaac Stewart

Those dots [in Allomancy symbols] can move around. They are an alphabet, so you can use these as an alphabet to write things. And the placement of the dot will tell you where the vowel is that comes after it.

So, if you do tin and duralumin... tin is the "I." (It looked like an "I," so I assigned "I" to it. Plus, I thought it was cool. My name starts with an "I," and I wanted it). Duralumin is the letter for "S." And the ones that are not vowels, you can move the dot around for different things.

I think you can throw the dot outside of it, and it will make a different sound, and I can't remember. Like, it might go from "Sah" to "Say." And if you don't change it, then it just acts...

I think, on the Badali [rings], they're just transliterating it one-to-one.

Isaac Stewart

Creative Development: Isaac Stewart

The Creative Development team has been Ben McSweeney and I for the last few years, but recently we added Rachael Buchanan to assist with Brandon’s BYU class, help me with my communications with freelance artists, work on facilitating some legal things, and just in general be helpful and awesome. She recently signed a traditional deal for a book that will be releasing in 2024. So keep an eye out for that. Hayley Lazo has been working with us on the books since Tor’s re-release of the Alcatraz series. In the last year or so, she joined the Creative Development team and has been creating lots of cool things that we’ll get to reveal soon. At the end of the summer, Jennifer Neal joined us to help keep all the art assets organized, but she also does so much more. I’ve been incredibly impressed with and grateful for each one of them.

The Creative Development team has been hard at work with Editorial in putting together the Secret Project books and shepherding them through to the printer. Like Brandon said, there have been supply chain delays, which we anticipated, but even then, there are things you can’t entirely plan for. Our printing rep, Bill, has been working miracles to get us the books as quickly as possible, and we’re incredibly grateful to him and all the awesome people working hard at the printer and bindery.

Additionally, Creative has worked with the Products team to create cool things for next year’s Year of Sanderson boxes. It’s a big team effort here to fulfill on March’s Kickstarter, with all departments involved, and we can’t wait for you to see some of the awesome things that are coming down the pipeline!

This year we put together new art, broadsheets, and maps for The Lost Metal as well as worked on the art and designs for the first two Wax & Wayne leatherbound books, prep and commissions for the upcoming Words of Radiance leatherbound, and much more. Thanks to all of you who have expressed how much you like the art. That’s not just the Creative team behind that, but also all the wonderful artists who work with us throughout the year.

One of the highlights this year and a bit of last was getting to work with Brandon and Brotherwise on defining the look of the characters for the Stormlight Archive miniatures. From the beginning, we saw an opportunity to not only create cool miniatures, but to also make a body of artwork that can serve as a visual base for what we do with visually with this series for a long time. I look forward to continuing to work with Brandon, Ben McSweeney, and Brotherwise on fleshing out Roshar. Cool things are in store!

On a more personal note, 2022 marks the first time my name appears on the cover of a fantasy book! (Unless you count Monsters Don’t Wear Underpants.) Yes, the White Sand Graphic Novel omnibus released in Spain in May and Germany in June of this year! (Though, please note the German version is split into three parts.) Other languages will follow. We can’t wait for the English version of the omnibus to be out very soon! 

We all worked quite hard to make this the quintessential White Sand graphic novel experience, updating text and dialogue to be more in line with the rest of the Cosmere. There are 38 new pages at the beginning with art by Nabetse Zitro, revised text and art throughout, a new map by Jian Guo, a glossary, and fourteen Ars Arcanum pages with art by Ben McSweeney. We think you’re really going to enjoy experiencing the complete package!

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. It’s been such a whirlwind this year! As one last tidbit, Brandon’s mentioned a few times that I’m working on a fantasy novel that tells the story of some of characters we’ve seen in the Mistborn Era 2 broadsheets. I finished the first draft in September and am actively working on revising it. Time will tell if it’s any good, but it’s been a blast to write. With any luck, I hope to be able to share it (or some version of it) with you all someday.

Isaac Stewart

Rain on the planet [Lumar]. How does this work?

Brandon Sanderson

It's in the book. That is actually a spoiler for the book, because there is a part where they deal with rain. It is in the book, they do talk about it. I did think about that, if you can believe it.

Argent

I had been thinking about the Cosmere constellations map, and why certain constellations are what they are. Some look pretty obvious to me - of course the one that includes Roshar would be a Shardbearer, and of course the one with Nalthis would be somebody exhaling or giving Breath. But others? Threnody is maybe a part of a grieving woman, so that could kind of make sense, but Sel being featured in a lamp?! 

So I asked Brandon, and he said the constellations were all you. He also encouraged me to convince you to write an essay for the website about this map, but I wanted to see if you could answer some questions about this map.

Is this alright with you?

Isaac Stewart

Thanks for the email. I'll try to answer some of your questions, and you're right, an essay about the map on the website might eventually be the way to go. (Got to find time to write it.) The constellations weren't really all me. I had several discussions with Brandon, who made many suggestions. Maybe he forgets how much input he had. :) Unless he means the actual lines of the constellations. Those are purely me.

Sel's constellation is symbolic (as is the constellation Threnody is found in). As for the lamp, notice that Sel is not exactly part of the lamp. It's part of the flame. How does Aon Dor work? An Elantrian creates an opening for it to pour through and affect the world. Think of the flame as a symbol for the Dor. Does that make sense?

Send away with your questions. Maybe they'll help direct how I should handle the essay. :)

Isaac Stewart

11/30 - 3359 words (51,584 final for November)

My biggest worry is that I'm not quite halfway done with the story being told. And here I thought I'd be able to finish in 60k words! I'll keep moving through this, though, with the hope to get around 1500-2000 words a day till it's finished.

The TV Guide description of the book: An adventurous woman with erratic magical powers travels with an expedition to an island to find a legendary book with the power to raise an undead army.

This has been a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone for letting me be along for the ride!

ArtemosHyre

There was a really neat recent post that showed how they use a rotated Copper symbol like we use the "cent" symbol ¢. Are there any other examples in your mind?

Isaac Stewart

I'm glad someone noticed that we took copper and rotated it to mean "clip." Since Scadrial is the closest planet to being like Earth in the Cosmere so far, it's fun to do little things like that. I could see us doing something similar with one of the other symbols to use it to mean a boxing, maybe the symbol for Gold.

Argent

Speaking of The Scar, all the other names on the map refer to a specific planet, right? Roshar, Sel, Nalthis, etc. The scar, as far as know, is more a region, yet it uses the same typography as the planets. What's up with that?

Isaac Stewart

Same typography because when I used other fonts, it looked way out of place. If there were more labels on this map, I would've used italics probably for this feature.

escapadistfiction

I have a question about how you interpret clothing and costume descriptions.

The example that comes to mind is Sazed's robe from Mistborn, described as made of "overlapping V designs" or "colorful V shaped patterns". I envisioned the Vs as being very wide and coming all the way across the front of the robe, but my husband thought they would be more like small, overlapping scales. Very different looks!

Has that ever happened between you and Mr Sanderson, and if so, how do you resolve it? Have you ever interpreted a description in a way that surprised him but he liked better than his initial intent?

Isaac Stewart

Good question! My interpretation of Sazed's clothing is probably influenced by cosplay and fan art, so I've always pictured it like this or this. That said, however you want to picture it (or however your husband wants to picture it) is fine. You're the director of the book you're reading. You're the set designer, the cinematography, and the production designer. So I don't really think there's a right or wrong way to envision something like this. Both designs you describe could be visually stunning.

Quite often I'll show something to Brandon and he'll say something like, "That fits the description, but that's not what I had in mind," and then we'll refine what he's been imagining. Other times he'll say the same thing and add "But I like this better, so let's go with it." The classic case of this happening was when he was writing the Mistborn books. I drew some little Inquisitors and mentioned that I thought it would be cool if the Allomantic symbol for the metal representing the Allomantic power they had as a misting pre-Inquistor was also a red tattoo on their Inquisitor face tattoos. (That was a mouthful.) Anyway, Brandon liked that idea and added it to the descriptions in the books.

/u/CallumQuinnCreates

Hello Mr. Stewart. Isaac? Lord Ruler?! Well, anyway, I am very excited to hear that you are working on a Mistborn book! Can you give us any updates on your progress? Hope you are well!

Isaac Stewart

Very kind of you to ask! I just passed 100k words and am very excited by how it's all coming together.

Isaac Stewart

The symbolism [of the Threnody symbol] here has a lot to do with the star system. The three rules, right? I'm not gonna spill it out here. There's the three rules. So, each of these symbols has something to do with the three rules, and also different things that are found in the sky. I'll give you one of them. The eye is the sign of Purity. And then, I'd might as well. This is silver. This stands for "Do not run." And this one is the blood. Which, there are stars in the sky that are red there, so that's the star.

Argent

How does the government of the Kingdoms of Light work? Does the Chronicle King rule them all himself? Is it a coalition? Are there vassals? And is the Dawncoast part of it?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, boy. I would have to go back to my… that is in my outline. I’m gonna have to speak from not having read the outline in, like, six months. I was looking at kind of a… I believe there’s this idea that when it comes to matters relating directly to the Dark One, the Narrative, and things like that, the Chronicle King becomes a kind of Speaker of the House, so to speak. A first among equals. And in other areas, they did not have to necessarily take the Chronicle King’s word. And I believe that is where we would go with that. I don’t think that got changed. But the actual details of how that work, I would have to pull out the outline and talk about it and refresh myself. That’s where I believe I went with it. The idea being: in matters of there being a threat and a Dark One and the Blasted Lands and all that, then you have to listen to the Chronicle King a little more than you normally would.

Isaac Stewart

I can at least answer one part of that question. At least when I was making the map and chatting with the writers, the intention was that Dawncoast is part of the Kingdoms of Light. It just happens to be around a part of the mountain range.

Brandon Sanderson

In versions one and two, there was a separate island that Paul was from that was not either part of the Blasted Lands or the Kingdoms of Light. And that, when he of course moved to being from Earth, vanished. But that did exist for a while.

Brandon Sanderson

PART THREE: THE WAY OF KINGS LEATHERBOUND KICKSTARTER UPDATES

We had a very successful Kickstarter campaign this year for The Way of Kings! People in the first wave are still getting their books, as the fulfillment warehouse can only ship several hundred each business day, and shipping services are overloaded and behind on shipments due to COVID, increased online shopping, and the holiday season. We’re doing all we can behind the scenes to keep getting these 2020 copies out to Kickstarter backers. For more details, please check out this Kickstarter update. And should you have need to contact us about the Kickstarter, please check the Customer Service heading on this update.

I’m still signing pages for the 2021 group of leatherbounds that should go out sometime mid-to-late summer of next year, depending on when the bindery can fit us in. Please be patient. It can take up to six months for these leatherbound books to be signed, printed, and bound, their slipcases made, and the whole set assembled and shipped.

We have decided not to put any other copies up for sale, even for preorder, until these are shipped. While we could start taking orders, it just doesn’t feel right at this point—if I had backed a Kickstarter, I’d expect to get my book before there was even talk of selling more copies to other people.

Because of this, we decided not to do a new leatherbound next year. We’re moving the Wax and Wayne leatherbound release (which will include the first two W&W books sold together) to 2022. Right now, we anticipate selling those together as a set for around $150—but we’ll decide specifics later. We won’t do a Kickstarter, as we want to reserve those for Stormlight books.

Next year, our goal will be to get The Way of Kings leatherbound back in print, so people can have it for 2021 holiday presents. I’ll hop away and let Isaac take over to talk about the other Kickstarter rewards that are still in the works. Take it away, Isaac!

Isaac Stewart

Hello there, and thanks for taking a moment to read Brandon’s yearly update. He’s already talked a bit about The Way of Kings leatherbound, so I’ll focus this section on the additional rewards, breaking them down into two categories. First, the rewards that were included in some of the higher tiers, like the physical editions of Dawnshard and The Way of Kings Prime. Secondly, I’ll give updates on the stretch goal rewards that came at no additional cost to backers with many of the tiers. (Though many of these rewards were also offered for sale as add-ons in BackerKit.)

The physical editions of The Way of Kings Prime and Dawnshard are currently in production. We’ve finished the files for both of them and approved the proofs, and both books are in the process of being printed and bound, with a likely delivery to us sometime in January. As soon as we get the books, they’ll start going out to domestic backers. If your address is outside the United States, your books will be shipped together with the stretch goal rewards in order to save on shipping, as was mentioned on the Kickstarter page under the Shipping heading.

Now on to the other goodies.

The Bridge Four poster has been shipped out to all backers who have completed their BackerKit survey. So if you haven’t received this (or the digital Dawnshard novella or novella drafts digital package), then the first place to check would be to see if you’ve completed this survey.

And continuing down the list of stretch goal rewards…

The Knights Radiant Order patches, art prints, and pins (as well as our orders of the Backer Pin, Chicken Scout merit patch, epic bookmark, and drink coasters) are all done and in our warehouse.

The Knights Radiant and Chromatic Chicken Scouts sticker sheets and the Journey Before Destination bumper sticker should arrive from the manufacturer sometime this week.

The Knights Radiant Order coins have all been approved and look fantastic. They are currently in the process of being manufactured. As a teaser, here are three of the approved samples, with a special thanks to Steve Argyle for his sculpting help on these:Not far behind is the Wit/Witless coin, which took a bit more work with the supplier to figure out how to make the tails side of this coin work the way we wanted it to. We’ll know soon if our latest round of changes has the desired effect, but so far it’s looking really promising.

In order to ship all these in one package, we have to wait until all of the goodies are in hand, and the last thing we’ll likely be waiting for is the Stormlight Playing Cards. The set is done and all art has been turned in, but the printing company has a long lead time, and we’re just at the beginning of the process of approving proofs and getting things moving there.

As for the digital art package, it’s still in the making, and we’re hoping to release it late this month or in early January.

Thank you for your support of our Kickstarter, and thank you for your patience as we get all the moving pieces put together.

Pagerunner (paraphrased)

I asked Isaac to personalize my cosmere system chart set with snarky comments from Nazh complaining about every planet.

Isaac Stewart (paraphrased)

He said that they were not canon, but he would write them. For several, he made interesting comments about them.

Threnody: "Would love to get back here, if you'd just loan me that thing." This is the one that's the least canon of all of them. Isaac has some ideas about what the "thing" might be that Nazh wants, but he hasn't run any of them past Brandon yet.

Taldain: "Darkside parties are the best!" After he wrote it, Isaac noticed that it wasn't a complaint, but he said that it was true and that we'd see why.

Sel: "I cannot tell you how much I hate Sel. Yet you keep sending me back, you sadist." Before he wrote it, isaac said that Nazh had been stuck on Sel before, so he had a special dislike for this planet.

Nalthis: "Too colorful. It makes me sick... Shadows!"

Drominad: "Do not skinny dip on First... just warning you!"

Scadrial: "This place just hasn't been the same since the change in management."

Roshar: "Aggh... This place again? It smells like fish."

heynoswearing

So Haunted Man is Nazh right?

Yoitsthew

That’s what I’m thinking so I hope one day we get some context as to how he went from an antagonist to someone [Nicelle Sauvage] is galavanting around with! Maybe when u/Izykstewart finishes Boatload of Mummies we’ll know a little bit more about the in between??

Isaac Stewart

Maybe someday there will be more context to that. :)

dgrath23

Which Radiant Order do you most identify with?

Isaac Stewart

I identify with bits and pieces of most of the Orders. My gut reaction is to say Dustbringers because I love their glyph. :) But I identify with their relationship to responsibility, learning to keep the passion and rage at bay because that is the responsible thing to do. On the other side of the coin, I might identify more with the Edgedancers like Lift, who focus on helping and caring for other people, because that's also a huge part of my personality.

All that said, I took the unofficial test, and it says I'm a Bondsmith.

Argent

I'll ask you... about how you took the pretty minimal description from Brandon's books (I think we just knew that the Lord Ruler's face was on one side, and Kredik Shaw was on the other) to full coin designs.

Isaac Stewart

As for designing the coins based on Brandon's descriptions, I brought it up at one of our Dragonsteel work meetings. We discussed what the coins ought to look like, I looked up old coins for inspiration, then I worked up some really rough designs and got them approved by Brandon. You can consider these designs to be canonical as to how they would've looked in the Final Empire and later on in Elendel.

Ben McSweeney

For TLR, I actually started from the basis of this piece, but aging him further so that he appears more mature and regal.

The design for Kredik Shaw is an amalgamation of different versions I've done. I would expect that the building on the coin is merely the "main palace", and possibly only part of that. The Kredik Shaw palace complex would be much larger.

My favorite is actually TLM (Spook) "revealing the Elendel Valley" after the Catacendre. It came out much better than I anticipated.

David J. Foster

It sounds like [Brandon] identified a new shard, Ingenuity, in an interview in Bulgaria. Can you verify this?

Peter Ahlstrom

That is news to me! Maybe [Isaac] can ask him.

Isaac Stewart

I asked [Brandon]. He said readers can interpret his words how they want.

Trevor Green

I believe you create merchandise for The Way of Kings and Mistborn. How's that going? Do you ever see people wearing your stuff out in the wild?

Isaac Stewart

InkWing Arts (link here) is the business my wife Kara and I have put together to showcase the artwork I've created for Brandon's worlds. Right now we primarily sell bookmarks and t-shirts, but watch in the future as we add patches, art prints, and games. The goal there is to make cool things based on cool worlds. It's been a lot of fun to interact with fans in this way.

I mostly see the shirts at Brandon's signing events. But my eleven year old son came to me the other day and said he saw someone wearing one of our shirts at the grocery store. He thought that was pretty cool. So did I!

Paleo

How did lerasium get its symbol when it was already in use as "A" during the Final Empire? Similarly, who decided in-world what symbol harmonium gets?

Isaac Stewart

I imagine, like with a lot of symbols, these things grow organically in the world. With the alphabet... at some point, probably, what happened is: they had all of these symbols for the metals. And they started using them as an alphabet. And somebody along the line, probably under the Lord Ruler's watchful eye, assigned symbols for the different letters. And then as new metals are discovered, they just assigned symbols that hadn't been used for a metal.

So, probably what they did is, they said, "Okay, we know there are this many metals. We'll assign these symbols to letters. But hey, we have a lot more letters than we know of Allomantic metals, so we'll make more symbols." So they did. And then, as they found more Allomantically charged metals, then they would assign them the next one in line.

So, I imagine if we see more metals in the future in the books, that the letters that don't have metals associated with them will get assigned to metals. But that's what happened with lerasium.

Trev

My friends and I were arguing over on Discord over who’s who on the Bridge 4 Movie Poster made for the Kickstarter. We were wondering if you could help clear things up.

Isaac Stewart

The text at the bottom is the key to those at the top. Starting with Kaladin, it reads clockwise. So, Kaladin, Teft, Hobber, Lopen, Rock, Renarin, Leyten, Sigzil, Moash, and Skar. On the plateau L->R: Lopen, Leyten, Skar, Kal, Moash, Teft, Sigzil, Rock, Hobber (missing Renarin).

FireOx

Do we know the exact purpose for creating 3 different symbols for each book's metals (chapter symbols)? Is it for the 3 metallic arts? If so, which belong to which?

Isaac Stewart

Hi FireOx! The three sets of symbols show the progression of the Allomantic text through the ages. The earliest script is from Hero of Ages. It was changed and modified into the Terris script symbols we see in Well of Ascension. After more time, the Terris script morphed into what is now known as the Allomantic Alphabet or the Steel Alphabet, which are the symbols used in Mistborn: The Final Empire. We've extrapolated the Steel Alphabet into a script that's more-standardized and refined for the chapter headings in Alloy of Law, which takes place 300 years after Hero of Ages.

DoritoJH

I wanted to know, of all the different worlds that Brandon has created, what is your personal favorite to depict (in maps, symbology, or art) and why?

Isaac Stewart

There's a soft place in my heart for Threnody, though we haven't seen much of yet. It also has my favorite of the symbols of the Cosmere so far. I love that the rules of the Forests of Hell are imbedded in the symbology of it. Great question!

ArgentSun

When Nazh tells Kelsier that becoming a Cognitive Shadow is an "important rite" with "requirements and traditions", is he speaking as a Threnodite (in the context of Shades), or as a worldhopper who has seen more of the Cosmere?

Isaac Stewart

I suspect I know the answer here but would need to get confirmation.

Isaac Stewart

Been getting back into my book, writing Nicki Savage. I started reading it to Kara, and it got me out of a slump, 'cause it got me excited again.

Boatload of Mummies. That won't be on the front of the book, just the back of the book. It's basically Death on the Nile mixed with The Mummy mixed with King Kong with no King Kong set in the Mistborn universe with a side character that's mentioned in a newspaper.

Isaac Stewart (paraphrased)

Nazh is an embodiment of his adventurous spirit, that he expresses through the books. Nazh is also much grumpier than he is and gets visibly angry when Isaac himself wouldn't.

Nazh is basically a young Peter Capaldi and is very prone to swearing when he is off screen.

thaistro

When you drew the soul stamp symbol, did you draw what looked cool, then adapt a map to it (if one exists), or draw a map first, then make the stamp?

Isaac Stewart

It's been long enough ago that I can't remember which came first on that one. There is a map, however, and I have used it in creating soul stamps. (We probably won't see the map until Brandon returns to Sel, however.)

Isaac Stewart

Approaching the mid-way point on the book (but not quite there). I'm aiming for around 120k total, which I hope to revise back to around 100k. That seems realistic at this point. Don't know if I'll finish in December, but I'm not planning to ease up on the writing until I finish this draft.

Isaac Stewart

PART SIX: LICENSED PROJECTS

Brotherwise Games

Brotherwise Games, the team that created Call To Adventure: The Stormlight Archive, would like to announce a new project: Stormlight miniatures. They’re working very closely with Isaac and the Dragonsteel team to create official sculpts of more than 20 characters. The miniatures will be standard scale (28mm-32mm), unpainted but highly detailed. This project will head to Kickstarter in summer of 2022. You can sign up for more information at the Brotherwise Games website.

The Kings Wild Project

Jackson Robinson and co at the Kings Wild Project have created a fantastic deck of Mistborn playing cards that are currently up for pre-order. They visited a few months ago and filmed some of Brandon’s reactions to the cards themselves.

Nauvoo Games

Nauvoo Games ran a Kickstarter in late 2020 for The Reckoners: Steelslayer expansion to their Reckoners game. They have some nicely detailed updates on their Kickstarter page, including a way to lock in a late pledge. The game is being shipped internationally, and the latest update from November has some specifics for what to expect depending on the continent.

The Black Piper

The producers of the Kaladin Album are waiting on their hardcover art books to arrive and will send them to backers soon after that. They’re unable to sell the exclusive hardcover edition outside of the Kickstarter, but for the Dragonsteel convention in November, they were able to make available some softcover versions as a bundle with the album. Some of the second edition softcover art book/album bundles are still available for a limited time.

Here’s a list of our other licensees in case you would like to check out some of the awesome things they’re doing

• Graphic Audio
• Badali Jewelry
• Crafty Games
• Shire Post Mint
• Forged Foam
• Dragon Wood Shop

Jofwu

So should we *not* read into the colors [on the Warbreaker leatherbound Nalthis symbol]? Or are Tears of Edgli purple and yellow? (and some black?)

Oh wait, they come in several colors of course. Nevermind.

Isaac Stewart

Yeah, don't read into the colors of the symbol. :) That's just what looks good on the leatherbound.

Pagerunner

The Drominad name. Where does that come from, for the system?

Brandon Sanderson

Where did we come up with that? I came up with that.

Isaac Stewart

I think you just named it.

Brandon Sanderson

I think I just named it. It's a name. I mean it references--

Pagerunner

Because it doesn't fit with the First of the Sun culture.

Brandon Sanderson

I know. That's intentional, because--

Pagerunner

Is it Latin?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it's not named after-- It's not named after-- It is intentionally-- The name comes form somewhere else. It's not meant, Latin, don't read too much into Latin.

Pagerunner

It's not a Yolish name?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it's not a Yolish name. Once in a while, I'll make them very, very Roman if I want you to make that connection.

Brandon Sanderson

The publisher who's doing Isaac [Stewart]'s Monsters Don't Wear Underpants book came to use and said, "Hey, we really like this story in Oathbringer of The Girl Who Looked Up." And they said, "We think this would make a nice children's book." And Isaac knows way more about children's books than I do. And he suggested it needs some revisions to actually work as a children's book. And I suggested some revisions. And he's like, "These probably aren't actually going to work for the children's book." And he suggested some revisions which did work. And so I just said, "Isaac, you just take it over." So it's going to be co-authored by us. The first thing that's, like, officially co-authored. (Except we did get the Nicki Savage story.)

Theoretically, we will sometime... still years away. But we'll have a picture book of The Girl Who Looked Up that takes my writing from the book, Isaac adapts it so it works as a children's book, and then art directs hiring out to get the artwork done. So that will be the first thing you can actually buy from the both of us.

Isaac Stewart

Probably, yeah. I think we're looking (and it may have been in the State of the Sanderson) some time in 2021. It really depends on when the art and when the writing comes together. But we're in the middle of that process right now.

Brandon Sanderson

I've warned Isaac that Book Four has a really good one that'll work pretty well, as well.

tofrank55

How do the Tears of Edgli look like?

Isaac Stewart

You won't have to wait too long to see what the Tears of Edgli look like. We'll be revealing it before the end of the year. Watch my Instagram feed.

Frydog42

Do we have definitive art for the Shardblades

Isaac Stewart

Nothing that's released other than what you find in the books. But we will have definitive art for some of the Blades soon. :)

Questioner

I was wondering when are we going to get Doomslug plushies?

Brandon Sanderson

We are really considering it. We've heard horror stories from our friends who have made plushies. That the prototypes just all turn out terrible. That it's really hard to get someone to make a good plushie. So, we've been scared to try, but we've had some people come and offer.

Isaac Stewart

On the JordanCon website, Deana just posted instructions on how to make your own. 

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, there you go.

Pagerunner

Any in-world significance to the new symbols for E and U [on the Badali Mistborn rings]? (Tin/Pewter with dots moved) Or is that just creative liberty to give each English letter a unique symbol for the jewelry?

Isaac Stewart

From the beginning, I built the symbols to also be an alphabet. Moving the dot to create a different vowels sound is something I borrowed from baybayin: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1b/9c/6f/1b9c6f22fce5589c1d3dfc62bfc1d4b2.jpg … Also planned from the beginning over ten years ago. The rings are the first chance to use it. :)

TheFoxQR

Can you shed some light on how you went about designing Roshar's symbol?

Isaac Stewart

We knew that we wanted the Double-eye to be part of the symbol. So it was a matter of finding the right shape for the eye. We went through dozens of ideas of how thick the lines could be, what parts to emphasize, etc. We also knew we wanted swords to be a part of it, so we tried several ways of incorporating those until we wound up with what we currently have. Someday, I'll share the different iterations we went through to land on the current symbol.

Nanotyrannus

How much continental surface is covered in the maps of Scadrial (Era 1) and Roshar compared to Earth continents?

Isaac Stewart

Scadrial's map isn't completely canonized yet, so answering could be a bit spoilery, but I believe Brandon has said that most of Roshar is ocean.

Argent

Nazh is, presumably, well aware of Hoid. Have they met, and how does Nazh feel about him?

Isaac Stewart

Nazh and Hoid have met. I suspect that Nazh is just fine with Hoid, though he wishes he would say things in a more direct way. Nazh doesn't care much for riddles or flowery language and wishes people would just get to the point.

Reflex Jat

Isaac, do you plan on putting a map in every one of these four books?

Isaac Stewart

I've thought about it when I read them. I thought about, "Okay, we could do maps in these." The truth of the matter is: we've given these to other artists to do what they want with it. And if the artist says "I want to do a map in here," we're going to let them do the map. This is something that I've had to start letting go of, I've been the map guy for so long, and there's just not time to do all the maps, even in the company.

Rhapsody (paraphrased)

How much freedom do you get from Brandon for the maps and symbols and so on?

Isaac (paraphrased)

I get a lot of freedom with the maps. There were actually times we've changed parts of the books to fit the maps.

Rhapsody (paraphrased)

May I have an example?

Isaac (paraphrased)

We changed around directions in the Kholinar chapters a lot.

Rhapsody (paraphrased)

And the glyphs and other symbols?

Isaac (paraphrased)

For the glyphs I have a symmetry tool which I play around a lot with. We developed the glyphs later in full from those images we liked.

For the Allomantic symbols I had a couple different ideas which didn't seem to work well. Then I had an idea about a bunch of nails lying around haphazardly and from that image the Allomantic symbols evolved.

Sorana (paraphrased)

Do you have any tips regarding drawing the symbols/glyphs?

Isaac (paraphrased)

I always have to copy them myself. I did design a handscript of the Allomantic symbols. You might get to see them later.

Paleo (paraphrased)

Will the Steel Alphabet change further with the later eras of Mistborn?

Isaac (paraphrased)

Yes, it will. I've already got some designs that look very sci-fi-y.

Isaac D. Marble

When do you think you'll announce the secret project, will it be soon ish or around your State of Sanderson post?

Brandon Sanderson

Secret project should come out soon-ish, but I don't have control over when.

Elsecaller_17-5

I asked Brandon if it was possible for us to get a quick sketch of the mural so we try to dig into the symbology better and he responded (paraphrasing), "that's a good idea but I would have to talk to Isaac." 

Isaac

 I'm also quite intrigued by the mural, and I've created a folder of ideas of how we might approach it. Unfortunately, it would take a lot of time and continuity to get right, and right now we need to be working on upcoming books. I could see this, however, being something we include in the art book. (But I'm not making any promises.) Still, this is something I'd like to put together someday.

meramipopper

How difficult is it to come up with a design that pops on a coin?

How do you draw something that factors in the contours that will be on a coin?

Issac Stewart

Designing for coins wasn't difficult because Brandon had already created great descriptions. The real trick was to not make it too detailed for the engraver at Shire Post! I think he did a great job bringing our intricate designs to life!

Factoring the contours was something I worried about a bit, which was one of the reasons I brought Ben onto the project. I described to him what we wanted, and he painted some grayscale depth to the coins so Shire Post would have an idea of what we were envisioning.

Isaac Betzold

Could a Shard be split into smaller Intents, like if Honor were alive and then was split into maybe Integrity and Bravery?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible. Very plausible. You ask some weird things sometimes, this one is not that weird, this is very plausible.

Isaac Betsold

When we will see the Edgedancers in midwifery? They would be great at it?

Brandon Sanderson

They would be great at it, and I think you're going to start seeing a lot of that sort of stuff happening in the near future in the books.