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    Robert W

    Does Jasnah still consider herself to be atheist and what would she have to see in order to change her view?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Jasnah would stop being atheist if she got definitive proof of an omniscient and caring and omnipotent God. She does not, and I kind of agree with her, consider the Shards to be Gods (capital G). In her realm these are beings that, you know, everything is Invested, they're Invested more. Atheist means she does not believe that there is, in these terms, an omnipotent God. It doesn't necessarily have to mean loving, I might have said that. She means that there is no omnipotent, capital G God. She doesn't think one exists. She would need to have irrefutable proof that they do or that they did and then she would believe. It doesn't mean she would worship, but it does mean she would believe.

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    snowdayplease

    Eshonai's one experience as a mate was a "disaster" and Rlain's time in mateform "didn't turn out the way he expected". Is that implying what I think it's implying?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, they're implying different things. With Rlain it's just that it turned out he was solely attracted to other men. Not a disaster, just not what he had anticipated. And Eshonai, I'm not implying the same thing there. I'm implying that she... when she did a mate she just did not like being in that form. It did not mesh well with her, she embarrassed herself in ways that... Eshonai outside of mateform considers that entire time an enormous disaster and a huge embarrassment. Does that make sense? I wasn't trying to draw a correlation between those two. It's a good question to ask because the structure of how I wrote those is very similar.

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    Grif

    Are there any names you wish you could use for Shards that just don't fit narratively?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I've thrown away so many of them, so it's going to be hard for me to give you any examples. Like you know, I've been working on this for 20+ years where I'm like "Is this a good word? Is this a good word? What's a good word for the idea I want to use?" Right? And so if I'm throwing one away, it's either because I don't think it works or because there's some example in other media where that word is too prevalent and too used, so. I have to pass on this question just from I can't remember any.

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    Argent

    Are the Rhythm of War seon communication devices called Selphones?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Gaah! *general exclamations of mirth mixed with booing from Brandon's team*

    I love it, Evgeni, gold star! You're making everyone groan in a beautiful way. Nice work, you have brightened my day.

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    Zelriel

    Is Nightblood considered a Sliver after what happened in Rhythm of War?

    Brandon Sanderson

    By some definitions... *indecisive sputtering* Tenuous. I would say for the most part no. Some people might in-world disagree because Slivers are pretty... it's a moving target, but Nightblood shuts off pretty quick in terms of the amount of Investiture that would come through something like that. And so while he did get a piece of that, technically anything he eats is getting a piece of a Shard. I'm going to say no, with room for debate.

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    Luke Beartline

    Along the lines of BioChromatic Breath being akin to a person's soul, how would a Shardblade react to someone who does not have any Breath, would it cut them like an inanimate object?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No. Remember, one of the things with Breath is I consider Breath to be a part of someone's soul, but it is the extra part that the Cosmere has that non-Cosmere doesn't have. I don't know how far I want to lean into this, but there is definitely a part of me that thinks that Drabs, people who have given up their breath on Nalthis, are just like people from our world. That's what they are, that if we went to the Cosmere we would all be Drabs. Even on planets that aren't Nalthis, where you can't take part of that and give it away and things like that, people are invested. They are invested generally more than here.

    Why do I do this? There's a couple reasons. One, it's really convenient for some narrative reasons. A lot of books I'm writing are these kind of action-adventure stories, and can human beings actually take the punishment that is delivered, let's say to Adolin in the end of Oathbringer? *noncommital negative sounds* He doesn't come off well from that, but could a human being really take that? I go back and forth. Humans are capable of some pretty incredible feats, particularly with adrenaline driving them, but my kind of blanket answer is everyone in the Cosmere has got a bit more Investiture; everyone's got something like Breath. Nalthians have something kind of extra special because they can use it in different ways, but everybody's got something like that.

    It's leading to the fact that for instance, I highlighted this in the books, this part is canon: There are things about Rosharans that make it so that a lot of diseases have trouble getting a foothold. You do not have the bubonic plague on Roshar. You could maybe say this is because they are not living in close enough proximity to mammals for diseases to hop species as happens on our planet, which is a pretty valid point. Things that affect a horse or a cow (a lot of different diseases from cows come to us), things that affect a cow are much more likely to be able to affect a human than something that affects a chull being able to affect a human. Totally valid, but I also think that there is something more going on here.

    This allows me to do fantasy stories where... In Warbreaker we don't have to be worrying about the next outbreak of smallpox, which legitimately they probably would have to be worrying about. It means that, while this is kind of a trope that people, trope is the wrong term, but that people in the past did not have as bad as teeth as we assume that we do because they did not eat the levels of sugars and starches that we do. Investiture also in the Cosmere means that you're not going to... Dalinar probably would not have a full set of teeth, even without being punched in the face and stuff, if he were a human from Earth. But on Roshar he's got just a little bit extra vitality, a little bit extra something, just like everyone on the planet, that is making him a little tougher and making him a little more disease resistant and some of these things. It makes the stories more fun for me to tell and also gives us some suspension of disbelief on some of these things. You do not have to worry about smallpox outbreaks on most planets. You do have to worry about catching the curse of the Elantrian disease and being thrown into a prison city, but smallpox, not as big of a deal.

    Adam

    Yeah, but you don’t have to worry about that too much anymore.

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, but I'm saying you could have to worry about things like that. Magical diseases, totally on the board, but the big plague they're dealing with in Roshar is the common cold that got brought across by some of the members of Seventeenth Shard, and that's going to die out pretty quickly. They will get over it and their immune system is... The common cold has come over multiple times before for reasons like that, colds just from another planet. Roshar, they've got three Shards. Basically if you want something like this to happen you go to a planet that's not quite as highly Invested where they might have a few more diseases, you pick one up, you bring it, and it spreads a little bit but then it dies off. That sort of thing happens a lot in the Cosmere. You do not have to worry about during the space age that people are going to be bringing lots of diseases across planets.

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    Alex M

    What's the difference between avatar and Splinter?

    Brandon Sanderson

    These are all very weird terms that I'm just using.

    *mistakenly answering for Sliver* A Sliver is a person who has held the power of a Shard, and then let go of it. A briefly held time, holding the infinite power of a Shard, but no longer does. So what does that do? That changes your soul, and leaves markers on it. It's a real physiological thing.

    An avatar is... a Shard manifesting a semi-autonomous piece of themselves that is still connected to who they are. An avatar, for instance, of Autonomy - depending on how Autonomy creates that avatar - might know, might not know, but they are still an aspect, they are still part of Autonomy. And when you get down to it a part of them knows that, and it's almost a god roleplaying, but in a way that only a Shard, or a lowercase-g god in the Cosmere, can do.

    Brandon Sanderson

    *realizes that he answered for Sliver earlier, and clarifies*

    A Splinter is a piece of a Shard that is fully autonomous, where an avatar is not. So something that is Splintered does not consider itself - and would not be considered by the definitions  - an actual piece of it [the Shard], and has free will. So once it has free will, and/or could develop free will (because some of the Splinters haven't gotten there yet), but is fully cut off from the direct control and self-identity of the Shard, then it is called a Splinter.

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    Michael Rap

    We know that Soulcasters who Soulcast long enough become savants, and that manifests physically. Is what happens to people during the Shaod physically related to savantism?

    Brandon Sanderson

    "Related?" You gotta watch out for terms like that in detailed Cosmere questions because of course they're "related." Are they "related" in a significant way that you should draw parallels between? Probably not. They're related in that being highly Invested does things to you, so yes. But savanthood is a different style of your Spiritual DNA being rewritten. I mean, that is what's happening, when you're becoming Elantrian, so... how about I give a "halfway in between significant and insignificant?" Moderately significant relationship between these two things, but not a direct relationship.

    Sorry, that terminology is kind of weird for me to parse with "Is it related".

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    Yoonseo Chang

    Looking at Allomancy, you've mentioned that over time the power dilutes and each ability becomes less powerful. (for example a Tineye in Era 2 will generally be less powerful than one in Era 1) Does the same effect happen in Feruchemy as well? How would Feruchemy become less pure or diluted (other than Ferrings appearing)?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I have not gone as far with Feruchemy in that regard. I would say that if you're going to get a weakening of Feruchemy, which you're asking about, is the amount of stored attribute you get for lost attribute. There is decay there, you don't get a 1:1. Feruchemy generally I would say is not much weaker than it was before, a little bit but not much. This was done partially for narrative reasons. I wanted Allomancy... I wanted to back off a little on Allomancy and tell stories with it a little bit weaker. Again, mostly narrative reasons at this point. At this point on Scadrial, it's weakened about as much as it's going to because by this point people are having children that are more powerful because of the certain mixing. I'm not saying it's going up, I'm saying they have hit an equilibrium on Scadrial for the most part, at least in the Basin.

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    Vodid

    If you have caffeine, can you store that as wakefulness in a bronzemind?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I think that you can, but I think when you tap it out, you will have kind of the same effects, right. Like, you will feel like you are not quite as awake. Like that feeling you get, I think you guys know what I'm talking about. I think that you can, I think that you can hack the system with some things like that. That's my guess... That's my answer right now, but that's one pretty mutable, as we go forward.

    Adam Horne

    I'd be curious to see what you could do with that in Era 3, because pharmaceuticals will exist.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes well, you're already getting into the fact that you could replicate a lot of things, with... once they figure how to change types of Investiture and whatnot, then suddenly you've got some wacky things going on. Which is why a Mistborn cyberpunk would be so much fun, because metallurgic wetware would be fun. But no promises on that—I already have too many things to write. It's just that if I do write it, and I make it a trilogy, then we have sixteen books in the Mistborn series.

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    Nick Mancuso

    Do worldhoppers take time to adjust to the different gravity of a new world? How about in the Cognitive Realm?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Depends on how fast they get between things. Most of the time, no. Because most of the time what you're doing is you're leaving a planet and going into the Cognitive Realm, where for the most part you're going to have the same sort of feelings of gravity and then you are walking slowly through Shadesmar to another place and you're not even noticing the minute changes. If there were FTL travel or something then yeah, you would pretty instantaneously notice a difference, but that currently does not exist in the Cosmere. People who are getting between planets either are individuals with no physical form as it's currently... basically just the Shards, right, or are getting there through Shadesmar, basically by walking or riding or something like that. There are *hesitantly* no current faster ways, but I mean, there are depending on how fast you can get through Shadesmar and yeah. I mean, even when Hoid is getting between planets it's taking him weeks or months, he's not jumping. They aren't actually hopping between worlds, they are trudging between worlds in the Cosmere.

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    Cory Michaels

    Were the riders in the storm on Roshar prior to the Shattering?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No... Oh, the riders. *hemming and hawing* RAFO. I'll RAFO that. Good question! I'd better leave alone pre-Shattering Roshar questions for the most part.

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    Yosef Joe

    If Brandon got a Shard, what Shard would it be and what would he do with it?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I don't know, I've been asked something along these lines before. I do fit Autonomy pretty well, but I also feel like I fit Invention pretty well, so probably one of those two. There's definitely some that are not very Brandon. Whimsy: not a very Brandon Shard, let's just point that one out, but I could see myself with bunches of them.

    What would I do? Pocket universes and... I guess you can't really create those in the... well you can and in the Spiritual Realm, but... Y'know, building funky planets and weird magic systems, that's what I do anyway. You would probably just float through the cosmere and find just planet after planet of screwball magic systems that people are trying to figure out how to use and being like wow, the person who did this, why did they make us use magic based on bagel flavors, can't we have the one where we just fly?

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    Camposteria7

    Do Rosharans believe that their planet is flat?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Rosharans do not believe their planet is flat. 

    You could find Rosharans who believe that, but most of them that you had talked to would just be like, "What's a planet?"

    Because if you go to rural parts of most of Roshar and you're like "What do you think of your planet?" They'd be like "What do you mean by planet?" You'd be like "Well, the thing you live on", they're like "I live in Bavland". They're not viewing a planet. They don't understand that, but like sailors all know that Roshar is a sphere, and you know the educated would definitely know. This is not a question. But even talking in terminology of a planet I feel is hard for the Rosharans because when you say "The world," that they can grasp, right like, oh just everything. When you say "Your planet," or "This planet," it makes you have to be like "Wait. There are others? I suppose there are but ramifications." And so, yeah.

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    Amber Burningham

    Do you have a prediction or an estimation on when Horneater's release will be?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Horneater, if I do it right, is going to be the summer or fall before the fifth book, I think. I am, I believe, personally on the hook for that one more than I've been on the hook for other novellas and things like that, because I deliberately left these things out of Rhythm of War and it leaves a pretty obvious hole, I just didn't have the space for it and it would have been distracting if I put it in and so it is better as a novella. But if I don't do it soon, I feel like I will be breaking a small promise to the readers, which sometimes we do. Sometimes things miss deadlines and we break small promises, but it is a... it is a promise. The way that I wrote that and left out what happened, it's a promise that you will get this information, and you know three years may be a long time still to get that. But my goal right now is you know, again, the team cringes when I talk about this. But we're only two years away from doing the Words of Radiance Kickstarter and so we will. I will probably want to provide a novella for that.

    Plan is right now, if I do that, I kind of... This is a much smaller promise, not even really a promise, but then we will have a novella between books two and three, three and four, and four and five. But we will not have one between books one and two and just for sake of completionism. It feels like there should be a mini Stormlight novella that takes place between books one and two and I would want to finish that, probably for a future Kickstarter. We probably also want to do the art book though for one of those kind of things, and we do those on separate years, so. Eventually I think there will be basically big Stormlight novel, mini Stormlight novel for all of Stormlight era one, if I'm... if I'm on the ball enough to make it all happen, so stay tuned. We shall see how much how much Brandon is able to do and how much he is not able to do. A lot of these things depend on how long does book five take to write? I will be starting that in January. January 1st is the goal and we'll see how long it takes. I would say it's going to be 400,000 words, but none of them have actually been 400,000 words since the first one, so. They've all been longer. 

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    Crspu

    Is there going to be a magic system for every Shard? 

    Brandon Sanderson

    Uh, yes, whether there'll be books? We get into a problem here... is... what is a magic system, right? 

    So for instance like, would you count all of Surgebinding as one magic system, or is it ten magic systems, right? Is Windrunning a separate magic system from Skybreaking. Right, and is it the Surges? Is it that? What do you call a magic system? Is the system of fabrials a magic system, or is it a subset of what's happening on Roshar? And in that case, it's like I delineated it pretty strongly in Mistborn, but in Stormlight, it's like... kind of Surgebinding is kind of Honor and Cultivation, right? And so is there a magic system for each of them or not?

    So the answer is yes and no, in that every one of the Shards will inspire really interesting magic systems. But is there a one to one? What do you call a magic system? And beyond that, will I have time to write books about all of these, I don't know. You could even look at Sel. Sel has how many magic systems, is it one? Is it lots? Is Forging a different magic system from AonDor, or is it two aspects of the same magic system and so... It's tricky. 

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    Adam Horne

    I see people in the chat wanting you to elaborate a little bit more on Dalinar killing Elhokar.

    Brandon Sanderson

    If you haven't read Way of Kings Prime, one of the things that was interesting to me.. So if you go way back to Dragonsteel... this is Dragonsteel Pre-Prime, the version of Dragonsteel that I started when I was in high school.

    The central premise for Dalinar's character, who... he was in that book, was the person who was caught between his duty to his family and his duty to his country. So his brother dies and the new king... in the original, the one I did when I was a teen, I wasn't as good with these things back then. The new king was a baby, and so Dalinar's in that book kind of thing was how much do I take control as regent of this country and how much am I disenfranchising my nephew.

    That was less interesting than what I ended up doing in Way of Kings Prime, which is where I realized this is a way better conflict, if the nephew of Dalinar takes the throne and is a really bad king, just dreadful, and bad for everybody and then Dalinar's trapped between deciding how much he loves his family and is going to follow them and deciding how much he loves his country. And I put those two in conflict quite a bit through the course of the story until finally Dalinar duels and kills Elhokar.

    In that book they all have different names. Dalinar's is close, it's the same name but spelled differently, I believe. I don't even know what Elhokar's name is in that book. It might it might be Elhokar. The chat can tell us, but it's Elhokar. It's the same character.

    That was like heart wrenching and traumatic for Dalinar to have to go through that. And why did I not go that direction when I wrote the actual version of the book? It's a... it's a better book—I feel—if Dalinar has to continue to live with this thing, and if he legitimately, like, loves his nephew, and his nephew is trying. That makes the conflict just so much more heart wrenching, because in Way of Kings Prime—it's been a long time, guys. It has been 20 years since I have even really looked at that version of the book, but in that [version] I made it justifiable. I had to.

    Because if you're going to have a main character do something like that, readers have to dislike the person, right? And they've gotta be—I feel—on Dalinar side, unless we wanted a different arc, you could totally write a different arc for that, but in that version you get to the sense where  Elhokar has brought this upon himself, and I tweaked that by making him try harder, but just kind of be bad at it, which just led to a better arc, and it let me do things in future books where kind of Dalinar is... against his desires... he is seizing control of the throne, right. He is becoming the monarch and has become the monarch despite him claiming that he's not going to. It's just a better character treatment. You can point to a lot of flaws in Dalinar, but a big one is he is bad at delegation and he is bad at letting other people do things poorly when he thinks he could do them well. And even though he says he's not doing this, he slowly grabs power through the first three books until he's completely in control and Elhokar's been sidelined. And that's a flaw in Dalinar. 

    But it's also... if you were living in that kingdom, you are glad it happened, right? So you don't want Elhokar necessarily being in control, and it's supposed to... I feel like it just leads to better long term storytelling, the way that I did it in the finished version. But we still get the "Dalinar beats the tar out of Elhokar" scene in the in the first book so that you can get some of that still in the published version.

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    Ezio della Torre

    Was Teft's death part of your plan from the book's inception or series's inception, or did you decide his fate while writing Rhythm of War?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Teft's fate was decided pretty early on, but these sorts of things I do leave wiggle room on. When you read Teft's first appearance—it's in Mythwalker, my ninth book that never got finished—his appearance in that book was built around this kind of character arc that eventually happened. This was baked into the original idea for Stormlight once I brought over Bridge Four and once I stuck Teft inBridge Four, from Mythwalker. But I do remain pretty flexible on these things. That is one that turned out working really well, and happening the way I'd intended for it to happen from the beginning.

    But... I mean, if you've read Way of Kings Prime, you'll know that there was a point in the outlining process, and even in writing that book, where Dalinar killed Elhokar, rather than him being killed by Moash. So, you can see that these things do change, these things bounce around, but yes, the Moash betrayal and the him killing Teft was an original <incarnation> of Way of Kings. So the original 2010 version of Way of Kings, it was part of that outline.

    There are things that have changed though, over the years. A big one's, of course, a lot of Adolin's arc is not in that. I go back to that one because Adolin was involved, but he was a much smaller character than he ended up being. And Adolin changing has caused all kinds of ripples through everything in large measure. For instance, all of the stuff with Maya was not in the original outline. This is stuff that I developed over time because I was not planning Adolin to have as big a role in the series as he ended up having. That's a good example of things I've changed over time. A lot of the Cosmere-aware stuff, I didn't know how much I would push on that, and it turns out I've pushed further than in the outlines I originally thought I would. Because when I was starting this, I still didn't know if people would jump onboard with this as much as they have.

    [...]

    Reading Way of Kings Prime is a great way to see how things have changed since. The big changes you will see there between 2002 and 2010... I guess I wrote the book in 2009, so... in those seven years, you can see a lot of the transformations that the book and the world and the series went through. It's kind of nice. Those of you who've read it recently can probably remember more about what's changed than I do. I come back to the big ones, like that book had Unmade spiked with crystalline spikes, in the basement of the version of Urithiru before I changed it to what it is now, and that is just no longer in the books, right. Unmade getting spiked and being freed by spikes to the wall is not a thing. I'm sticking them in gemstones now, right, instead of spiking them to walls. I felt like the whole Hemalurgy thing we've covered well enough. But that was in the 2002 version.

    *Adam goes on a diatribe about how he'd like to see fanart of this*

    It was ten spikes too.

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    Brett Roberts

    If Taravangian had another intellectually "brightest" day before his main event in Rhythm of War, could he have seen the existence of other forms of Investiture on Roshar? For example, would he have been able to recognize areas where there is use of Sand, Allomancy or Breath, or would those have been too small for him to notice?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That would have been too small for him to notice, good question, but yes. Too small, most likely. Like he could intuit the existence of these things and perhaps the means of making use of them, but specifics of where they are, that's gonna get dicey for what could happen there. But when he had his weird day, weirder things happened on that day than him noticing something like that. I would say, in general, no, he would not have gotten that granular.

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    Jack Milson

    How many Awakening Commands are there? Is there a finite number, a finite but large number or infinite? Can you Awaken with sign language?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, you can Awaken with sign language. I would say that there are an infinite number, would be my guess. It's either finite but very, very large or infinite. But they're gonna fall into groups as things tend to do in the Cosmere, I would say.

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    R'Shara

    The Aviar that we see in Sixth of the Dusk were all fruit eaters, they all have to eat the fruit that the grubs live in. However, Mraize's Aviar seems a lot more like a predator than a herbivore.

    Brandon Sanderson

    It is!

    R'Shara

    Did his species become extinct or is it a unique Aviar like Sak?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Neither. But yes, it is a carnivoristic Aviar. I will confirm that, which it's not confirming much, you guys already knew that. But that is indeed what is going on there.

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    AAgopal

    Is Kelsier in Fortnite is canon?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It is canon to Fortnite.

    Adam Horne

    *jokes* But you're saying those dances are not cosmere canon?

    Brandon Sanderson

    There's one of the emotes that's evasive maneuvers. It looks really cool with the mist cloaked tassels, but no, not canon. I know you asked that tongue-in-cheek.

    Probably canon to Fortnite, right? One of Fortnite's canon is all these people come to Fortnite and and hang around, and you know, shoot each other. So I would say that Kelsier is amazingly proficient at firearms for it being Era 1 book 1 Kelsier. Raises some questions how he knows how to floss and shoot a shotgun so well. 

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    Kathy

    Will you base a character on Adam [Horne] and how horrifically will he die?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Adam does need a character, I haven't put you in yet. Have I? So when I wrote The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance, all of my brothers-in-law got cameos in the books and Adam has not yet had a cameo, and so we need to find a good cameo for Adam somewhere in the books. 

    Yeah, so how horrifically will he die? Well, Kathy, Adam is my assistant. I do not want him dead in any way. 

    Adam Horne

    I mean, I think it be funny.

    Brandon Sanderson

    He fetches me water, and things like that. Jane, his wife did end up in the Alcatraz books as the royal fashion consultant, and Kathy has ended up in books so we'll see. We'll see. Everybody eventually makes their way in. I'll have to leave a note to do something horrific to Adam. 

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    Avery Hinks

    Is there a canonical reason why Vasher and Vivenna changed their names to Zahel and Azure on Roshar?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, it kind of comes into the fact that Vasher has gone through a bunch of name changes and there are a couple of answers to this. One is, in the Cosmere, like in a lot of like fantasy worlds, names and identity are just a pretty big deal, part of how the magic works is how you view yourself, and I like, in that instance, indicating that time has passed and the character has adopted a new name and things like this, it's just that's a thing.

    You've also probably noticed that behind the scenes in the Cosmere there are lots of different groups vying for control and power and things like this, and so going under a pseudonym's actually a pretty good idea. I guess an alias, they're not writing books, it's not pseudonyms, you know what I mean, going under an alias's generally a pretty good idea for just if you don't want attention from the wrong people.

    That said, I do have to balance this because, for instance, in Azure's case, you know, I picked something that Vivenna had, you know, blue had been associated with her in the previous book, so it's not a completely, that's partially for the reader's benefit, so it's easier for you to track who is who, just a little bit, and just a little bit easier to figure out who is who.

    But if run into someone like Felt, right? Felt doesn't care. He's not hiding from anybody. Felt is, you know, he's more like "I moved from Nebraska to Texas," right? "And now I'm living in Texas." That's more how he views it a little bit. He's not a secret agent (ooh, big spoilers). Felt just, you know, he moved, so he goes by the same name. And that's, you'll see some of that as well. If someone's going by an alias, I'm doing it to indicate one of those two things, usually.

    YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 ()
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    Daniel Greene

    If you could write a script for any superhero, who would you like to control a story for? 

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh what a great question. I did actually see a comment on YouTube, by the way, Daniel, where apparently in one of your videos, you're like, "Brandon made a really shrewd marketing move by putting Kelsier in Fortnite," and then I released my thing where I'm like: "Yeah, Donald [Epic Games Worldwide Creative Director] and I were hanging out, being like, hey, why don't we put Kelsier in Fortnite, we like, yeah, it'd be fun!"

    It was a super shrewd marketing move on my part to go to dinner with my friend. 

    It can be both. Yeah, we were actually chatting about my son wanting to put something in Fortnite, but can't decide. And you know we ended up with Kelsier instead. Dalin can still do something if he wants, but getting him pinned down on what he wants to do...

    So what superhero would I want to write for? I would most likely pick Superman because I feel like he is the most challenging to write for and make work, and I feel like my talents would match that pretty well, but it would probably be like a weird colored kryptonite story - like a red kryptonite thing where it's like "Superman's powers have been changed in a funky and interesting way," and also let's deal with why Superman stories can be so difficult; and write that.

    Obviously that would be a bad like film sort of thing, but it would work well in a running comic where it's one installment because it's so different from the norm. 

    YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 ()
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    James Clifford

    Science question!

    Brandon Sanderson

    Ohh science. Is it real science, or fake science?

    Adam Horne

    It is Brandon science.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Fake science!

    James Clifford

    With the discovery of anti-Investiture in Rhythm of War, would the correct form of anti-Investiture be usable to clear up the mess in the Sel Cognitive Realm. If so, would this completely destroy a splintered Shard?

    Brandon Sanderson

    *laughs, coughs, and is otherwise stunned* That would not be a good idea. So why would that not be a good idea? So no, this would not clear up the problem. The problem that's going on in the Cognitive Realm in Sel is that a bunch of Investiture that should be in the Spiritual Realm has been packed into the Cognitive Realm instead, through a very weird circumstance of events. If you were to introduce a bunch of anti-Investiture of the right type there, you would just generate an explosion that would be a very bad thing. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, Investiture can't be either, so it's actually changing forms. It's going from Investiture into energy! Which you know, does not leave the system. So the investiture would eventually make its way back around, you can't destroy anything in the Cosmere, just like you can't destroy anything in our universe. But you can make it change forms. And so, what's going on there is just this hope by a certain individual that what has happened there will prevent the power from becoming self-aware.

    It's basically Odium being like "alright I just murdered you people, I don't wanna have to come back and do it again". So he's trying to figure out a way to make this happen. As it currently stands (again, these things can change when I write future books), it was partially happenstance that he took advantage of rather than something that he was able to set up very intentionally from the beginning, but he was definitely a part.

    YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 ()
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    Aria Burman

    What would the Unkalaki think of the Aiel and vice versa?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I have this feeling that the Aiel... so the Aiel I have this feeling that they would really like Unkalaki, but I can't say for sure. I just get this feeling that the fact that the Unkalaki are going to share their water and shade with you really really easily and friendily, and they have some pretty cool water is probably going to appeal to the Aiel. What do the Unkalaki think? They think that all lowlanders think weirdly and behave weirdly, and I don't know that they'd think the Aiel are anymore weird than a lot of the lowlanders they meet.

    General Reddit 2021 ()
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    Brandon Sanderson

    So, for those who don't know, I'm good friends with the director of Fortnite. Before he made this came, he made a smaller game called Infinity Blade--and we collaborated on some story things for that. (Curiously, he and art director Isaac went to school together, which is how I ended up meeting him.)

    Fast forward a decade or so, and one day he says to me, "Hey. We should put Kelsier in Fortnite." So here we are.

    I realize this probably isn't going to be earth shattering to most of you--I expect the audience who both reads the books and plays Fortnite to be somewhat small--but it was too neat not to pursue.

    ImBuGs

    Is it really only Kelsier? Or are you hiding anything else? As in, perhaps Vin too? Asking because the skins are usually like $20 and if there are more coming down the pipe i'd rather wait and buy the one from the character I like most (Vin in this case), because, well, I sadly can't afford to buy many of these. I understand if you can't say anything more, but it would be nice if you could confirm its only Kelsier :)

    Brandon Sanderson

    The deal allows them to make Vin in the future--but I don't know if they're planning to or not. So I'm glad you asked. I wouldn't be surprised to see her in the future--and though there has been not talks of it yet, because it's in the contract, I'd lay decent odds on it happening. (But it would be at least six months away, since it took around five months of working to get Kelsier in.)

    Kalinque

    Ooh, a Vin skin!

    That makes me super curious about the process that went into putting Kelsier in the game. Do you know perhaps if there's any chance we could see the concept art that went into it after the Kelsier skin is out?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'd love to do that. I'll see if they'll let me.

    General Reddit 2021 ()
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    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, it's finally out! Yes, we're doing Kelsier in Fortnite.

    So what's going on behind the scenes? Well, Donald Mustard (director of Fortnite) is a friend of mine. We worked on Infinity Blade together back in the day. So, he asked if I was interested in sticking Kelsier into the game--and I thought it was cool. So we've been working on that for a few months.

    Like I said (and several of you confirmed in this thread) it's not something I expect my general fanbase to go crazy over--but it's nifty, and I hope it will be fun for those of you who enjoy both properties. It's also been a blast to work with the Fortnite team.

    They'll release more, but don't expect a huge crossover event. It's just a little fun thing that I'm doing with my friend, who happens to have accidentally made one of the most popular games of all time.

    lazymomo5

    Are there going to be any Mistborn specific mechanics in the game? Like steelpushing or pewter vials to grant regeneration or something like that. I don't expect it to happen but it would be cool and also a new kind of thing for those who don't know about Scadrial Magic.

    Brandon Sanderson ยท

    No Mistborn-specific powers right now. (I hope to be able to work more with Epic on something like that in the future, though.)

    puhtahtoe

    Will anything about this be considered Cosmere Canon?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Nope canon here. Fortnite is all about crossovers these days, and is explicitly non-canon for all of them. It has its own canon, granted, about grabbing things from other universes--so in Fortnite this can be canon. But in our canon, the cosmere is a closed system, with no links to other universes.

    zvons

    More as in more about the kelsier skin or more like other cosmere content?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Sorry. I meant "More about this specific appearance of Kelsier in Fortnite." Don't expect other characters or things for now.

    thystephen01

    Please tell me he has allomancy? I’d love to see the knights radiants in any open world game with their powers.

    Brandon Sanderson

    For now, this is just using Fortnite mechanics. I do have aspirations for more--and think it's not impossible that Epic and I will do something more like that in the future. But don't expect allomancy in Fortnite anytime soon.

    General Reddit 2021 ()
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    havfunonline

    For the next [Mistborn] trilogy, will you do a 1.0 draft for the whole trilogy straight away, or will you do something more like:

    • Book 1 1.0

    • Book 1 2.0

    • Book 2 1.0

    • Book 1 3.0

    • Book 2 2.0

    • Book 3 1.0

    • Book 3 2.0

    • Book 1 4.0

    • Book 1 5.0

    • Book 1 release

    Brandon Sanderson

    What you wrote above is very close to what I'm likely to do--though I might not do the 3.0 of book one until the 2.0 of book two is done.

    General Reddit 2021 ()
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    marineman43

    So the Lost Metal will be done by this August and then released 16 months later? Why is that?

    Brandon Sanderson

    In most of publishing, 24 months is average from turn in to publication. Revisions, designing the cover, proofreading, etc... They take time. In the past, because my books are so successful for the publisher, they've pushed hard to shrink that timeframe. But it's been really hard on my team, as there's so much to do.

    I've wanted for a long time to start getting back on a more normal schedule. Maybe not 24 months, but closer to 14 or 16. This will relieve a lot of pressure on the revisions, and make it feel less like my team is needing to work break-neck to get things done.

    marineman43

    Does this new emphasis on the more normal schedule affect your roadmap for the Cosmere as a whole (like as it's outlined in 2020 SoS for instance) or was the switch to a more reasonable publishing schedule already part of the plan?

    Brandon Sanderson

    We'll see. Stormlight 5, for example, is likely to still be on a pretty difficult schedule for everyone--it depends on how long it takes to write, and how much revision it needs. 2023 is where we really want to hit, but I'd be more willing to let this one slide (as it's the last of the cycle, and I don't want to rush it) than I have been with previous Stormlight books.

    That said, the main way I plan to get ahead on things is to start co-authoring more non-cosmere books, like the Apocalypse Guard series, which I'll likely try to release after Skyward is finished. Also, Era Three is going to have an odd publication cycle anyway, with me writing it more like I did Era One. So...who knows? It's too early really to say.

    kthulhu89

    What was different with the writing process between Era One and Era Two?

    reuben-625

    Not Brandon, but if I remember correctly, Era One was somewhat unique because he sketched out the entire trilogy before publishing the first book, which left room for some really cool foreshadowing.

    Brandon Sanderson

    /u/reuben-625 is correct--though it went farther than that. Because I was newer, and had lots of lead time to get books ready, I wrote the entire trilogy in rough draft form before polishing and publishing the first one.

    Cosmere.es Interview ()
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    Cosmere.es

    Also we have the Death by Pizza, it's not Death by Pizza any longer, Song of the Dead?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh yeah, Song of the Dead. Yeah, that's still in revision and things, yeah. Maybe someday, well I'm hoping someday. Right now, I mean the things that are looking really good, the Reckoners novellas are done and turned in and being recorded for audio, and those turned out really well. And the first of the Skyward novellas that Janci wrote is just spectacular, I really like it. If you guys like the Skyward books, it's from FM's viewpoint. It kind of takes a character that I had done very little with and does a lot more with her. I'm really excited for those to come out, have some more expansion to some of those worlds and settings and stories. We're working on getting those going.

    Cosmere.es Interview ()
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    Cosmere.es

    We remember that you wanted to write a sci-fi story and send it to several magazines to see what happened with that. Well, we were wondering if in the end did you manage to sell it?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I did not manage to sell it. Now, I'll put it in the non-cosmere collection when we put it together. It was flash fiction; it was only 500 words long. So it's very not like my normal style. I'm not apparently good enough at flash fiction to sell without my name attached, but I haven't given up hope. I still want to write some more stories under this author's name--the pseudonym-- and see if I can get them published. I don't know if you heard, last night I talked about it on the stream, one of the things we'll be doing while I'm working on Era 3 of Mistborn in a couple years here is we'll likely be releasing the non-cosmere collection. All of my basically science-fiction/horror or whatever, the stories that are not in the cosmere that also aren't Legion, the Stephen Leeds stories which were bound in their own collection. And I want to have a few new things for that, so it's not just stories that have been published before. So these are the stories that I'm like, I'm going to send this off and see if it sells, and things like that. You'll be able to see.

    My flash fiction piece is super goofy, so it's not that surprising that it didn't sell, but I'm still very proud of it. Mostly I got confusion in my rejections, they're like, "We didn't get it, it didn't make sense to us." So we'll have to see if it makes sense to all you guys. 500 words is not very much to do a story based around, so we'll see. I wrote another short story to send out. Unfortunately, it's kind of mediocre; it's only kind of okay. Again, science-fiction has one cool concept executed mediocrely, so I don't think that one's going to sell. I have to write a real banger, I have to write something really great and then secretly get it published. But when I'm going to do that is the big question. I have no idea where I'm going to slip in time to write mini-stories that aren't supposed to be by me. This is partially just to get experience so I can tell my students, "Hey, it still works," or "It still is hard." And lo and behold it was still hard, it took like eight months to get through all of the markets and get replies to them and stuff, just for that little flash fiction piece.

    Cosmere.es Interview ()
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    Cosmere.es

    It's a random question, because we have chickens on Roshar, the other thing is are there cats in Shinovar?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So there were at least at one point cats in Shinovar. Whether cats are still there or not, you'll have to wait for book 5 to discover. But cats did make the jump. If they exist, they didn't make it past the mountains very far, but you'll have to see.

    Cosmere.es Interview ()
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    Cosmere.es

    So they were asking, because they also know that we have the Mistborn Adventure Game, and the explanation for not having a role playing game for Stormlight is because it's not yet finished and it didn't make sense, but maybe for the moment that it's at least halfway, would you consider [it]?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, I would definitely consider it at Stormlight 5. That would be a really good time to do an RPG. So it's probably time, if we haven't been talking about it, to go talk to some people and try to build one. I've been really lucky with the people we've worked with, because Call to Adventure turned out to be just great, it's a ton of fun. And the people at Crafty Games have just been delightful to work with; I really like them. We've ended up with some really great stuff.

    Doing an RPG, the big question would be do we do another indie RPG, do we ask Wizards of the Coast if they want to do a D&D tie-in Stormlight? I don't know, I'd have to get some feedback from fans on what they would want, do they want us to do it in the Crafy system, which one is most interesting to people? You guys can ask around, I think I'll probably start asking that question of fans in general and trying to gather some feedback so we know.

    Cosmere.es

    Yeah, I think Wizards of the Coast would be closer to a Magic the Gathering cosmere game.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Mmhmm, yeah. Well, you know since they're doing Lord of the Rings, it's not impossible now that we could get a Stormlight magic expansion or something like that. It's probably going to depend on how things like Lord of the Rings happen and whatnot. I'm watching all that to see how fan reactions are because fans are both excited and mad, which they seem to always be every time Wizards of the Coast does anything, and I'm not sure if they're going to settle on excited or on mad. The problem is Stormlight isn't on the size-level of something like Lord of the Rings. Not impossible, I don't think, so we'll see what happens.