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How do koloss breed with humans, because you say in Alloy of Law that one of the--
What happens is the koloss breed with each other and a koloss-blooded is the result, because a koloss needs the Hemalurgic spikes to make them full koloss. So if two koloss breed you get a koloss-blooded, which is basically a human with some weird genetics in them and if they choose to go through the transformation to full koloss they will become one.
My friend asked for Brandon to write something about Harmony in her Alloy of Law.
There's another name Harmony could go by if he weren't able to control the conflict between his halves… *to Zas* Have you guys figured that one out yet? Oh, I'm not going to say anything. You have it on recording… I was pretty sneaky with that one so I don't know if you have it or not.
So I just recently read the Allomancer Jak short story in the MAG Alloy of Law supplement. I have to ask was the dynamic between Jak and Handerwym at all inspired by your relationship with Peter? I can very easily picture you blazing some sort of fantastic literary trail and Peter following behind explaining why it isn't possible (Kind of like how you initially intended the time bubbles to do red/blue shift and Peter was like "No you'll microwave people")
Peter is not nearly as biting toward me, but always having an editor looking over my shoulder and saying, "Uh...is that actually RATIONAL Brandon?" is probably a big part of my inspiration here.
I hadn't made the connection... >_>
People are going crazy wondering if there are telegraphs and telephones in Alloy of Law. Are there? And if not, why?
There are not yet. And the reason why is because they haven’t needed them yet. Necessity is the, what the fuel of invention?
The mother of invention
Yes, the mother of invention, and they have messengers who run, Coinshots who are very fast. They also basically don’t need to go outside the City, and haven’t for a long time. They’re close, but they haven’t invented them yet for the same reason that they have very poor navigation techniques. Why do you need to ship anything or sail anywhere when you have some idyllic paradise to live in? And you have allomancers, who in some ways are preventing from achieving that next level, because a Coinshot can get it there really fast, and so you’re only waiting a few minutes for them to come back with your message, so it can actually stifle a little bit of technology by having a not-quite-as-good magical solution.
Why on earth does Marsh have a Feruchemical atium spike? You've said that Ironeyes is in fact Marsh. Did Ruin spike someone for him? Or did Sazed grant him the power?
Dead Inquisitors Vin killed. Some were granted the spike for reasons I haven't spoken of yet.
How far away from the original Mistborn trilogy is The Stormlight Archive?
From the original Mistborn trilogy? 300 years-ish. It’s happening kind of… Just before The Alloy of Law era.
You've said before that a lot of the magics we see across the cosmere come from an interaction of Shards and their Investiture with the planets they Invest in. What does this mean practically? If Scadrial explodes tomorrow, will Hemalurgy stop working across the cosmere?
Hemalurgy wouldn't stop working, most likely, but it could. There are ways that you could make it stop working. I kind of mean that the Shards are an innate part of physics in the cosmere, and the magics that arise are an innate part of physics because of that. Like atium seeped out into the Pits of Hathsin, in the same way, these magics are just gonna leak out, and different places are going to affect them. You'll see Lightweaving happening in different places, and the way the Shard is interacting with the local... The way the Shard is is going to affect how Lightweaving is administrated in the various magics, but it's still gonna be there. Hemalurgy is kind of a similar thing to that. You will see Midnight Essence, you will see some of these recurring ideas popping up, and these are like natural parts of the physics, but they're influenced by the Shards on the local planets.
I don't know if that answer, that's gonna be a really fun one for them to transcribe into the Q&A thing, because I go around in circles on that question a ton. Put this part in when you do it.
I've been trying to brainstorm what Stormlight characters would have jumped into the other books so far. You told me they had at one point.
Yes, they have but you've got to remember that The Stormlight Archive you are seeing right now, what's happening in it is like late cosmere era, does that make sense? So there are lots of people from the world that have been to other worlds but the people you know--this is happening just before Alloy of Law era-- So does that make sense? That's the first time you'd be able to see anyone here and by that era the bleed over is a lot less because we have the whole Odium trapped and things like that. There's a lot less-- There are a lot fewer people traveling in and out of Roshar than there once were.
So, in the beginning of Alloy of Law, Bloody Tan says that he has met God, Death, and the Survivor. We know that Lessie was working with Harmony the entire time. Was Bloody Tan also under the influence of Harmony?
So, "under the influence of" is perhaps a...so I would say "No," but, he is not lying at that point.
Oh, that is awesome.
So, "under the influence" is extreme, but...Harmony is also not 100% guiltless. Let's put it that way.
You know, that feels like a good answer. That way I can at least have Harmony not my most hated Shard, but...
Harmony does not deserve to be hated, but Harmony is having troubles figuring out how to make things work.
Series Wrap-Up
First Trilogy
Well, that's my first trilogy. I think I improved quite a bit as I wrote these books, and hopefully this ending will satisfy my readers. The inevitable question is going to be "Will there be more Mistborn books?" The answer is "Probably." However, know a few things.
First off, the next series—if I do it—will not include Vin or Elend. They're dead. That's just the way it is. Sorry.
Sazed might make an appearance. He is God, after all. TenSoon is still around. (Sazed stuck the spikes back into him and the other kandra.) Marsh may or may not make an appearance. (I haven't decided if he will survive or not.)
Spook, Ham, and Breeze probably won't make an appearance, though, as I would plan to write the next series some five hundred years after the events in this trilogy. (Remember, TenSoon—as a kandra—is immortal. Marsh is also functionally immortal, as he's both a Feruchemist and an Allomancer, and can combine the powers to reverse his aging. Assuming he has enough atium left from that batch he stole to keep it up for a while, and assuming he managed to grab some cover before the world ended.)
However, this won't be for some time. I've got other projects I want to do, not the least of which is Warbreaker and (probably) its sequel. After that, I want to try a longer series, maybe a five- or six-book one. [Editor's note: Brandon was referring to the Dragonsteel series, which he's now put off in favor of the Stormlight Archive, book one of which, The Way of Kings, comes out on August 31, 2010.]
We shall see.
In Alloy-of-Law-era Scadrial, aside from Marsh, is there any Hemalurgy, or has that all been forgotten about?
That is a RAFO. But if you go back and look at it, the things Marsh says at the ending, indicating the book that he has given. The book has a lot to do with Hemalurgy.
What happens when you direct a stream of water at the border of a bubble in Alloy of Law Mistborn?
Let's do a RAFO on that.
What was the metal that Hoid gave Vivenna and her crew to use the fabrial?
You're asking, what metal it was that let them use the fabrial without the screamers detecting them? So, should be aluminum. I don't think there's anything sneaky about that. The only thing that I've had to change is, I wanted the sheathes that they use with Shardblades to be aluminum, and Peter tells me I just can't do that. It's not in continuity. So we have to have some sort of aluminum... alloy, or something like that. I'm not sure exactly what I wrote that broke the continuity on that, but he is certain that those can't be aluminum. So, those aren't aluminum, but it was aluminum around that. And Hoid's bag has an aluminum lining, too.
Someone asked about the metal from if the metal of Paalm's spike could be used combined with another of the "normal" metals (maybe as an alloy?). He RAFOed that one.
Can lerasium be regrown like atium, like in a Pits of Hathsin, just for the lerasium, or no?
Lerasium did not have a Pits of Hathsin analogue... Not anymore, Leras is dead.
How could a person from Scadrial access Shadesmar? An alloy of a god metal?
He RAFOd me on this one and said it was a plot point for future novels.
In Alloy of Law there's the news-sheet, right? And advertisements for like the soothers--
Yes.
Is this something that actually works-- could help with mental illnesses or is it more like snake oil. Because it seems like-- that advertisement seems a little more like snake oil.
It seems like snake oil, the problem is it will cover symptoms. It will not get at the core root--
It won't solve the problem.
It will not solve the problem. And so it reads like that but it would actually do something.
It would help you maybe get out of the funk.
Yes, depending on the skill of the soother obviously, but yeah.
And could you-- Are there people who fake soothe?
Oh yeah. All the time.
I figured there would be.
But I mean it's not too hard for someone with means to check, because they just need someone to come in and-- it'd be a seeker and oh yeah they're actually doing it.
What is the experience of Steelrunning? ...It doesn't speed up your mind, so how do you control yourself?
Most forms of Allomancy give a small boost to any attributes you would need in order to survive and use and manipulate it, just like atium. So it's going to give you a slight ability-- might speed you up just enough to get some reactions and things, otherwise you just can't do it. What I don't have it doing is cancelling friction. I did that intentionally, so you can burn yourself up with that. But you have to use it measuredly and carefully.
It seemed like in Alloy of Law you made us like Marasi better than Steris, and then kind of switched it. Was your intention the whole time for them to end up with Steris, or...?
Yes, yes.
Okay, it was.
In fact, I like Steris a lot in the first book. But you are seeing things through the eyes of other characters. And Steris takes a little bit of time to warm up to. Like, many people like her. And once you get to know here--which, I always knew her--then there's a level of <thoughtfulness> there.
I believe /u/peterahlstrom mentioned that Mistings can only detect sufficiently close versions of their metal, and burning non-Allomantic stuff is a Mistborn-only risk.
I don't remember saying that, though it sounds reasonable.
Except I don't know what happens when you start involving god metals. How important is the alloy percentage then?
Will some of the loose ends in The Alloy of Law be tied up?
All of them will, but some are foreshadowing for the second main-line Mistborn trilogy.
So I was reading the Alloy of Law, and at the end I read through the Ars Arcanum. And I got confused because it’s written in first person, but it refers to Harmony in third person. I thought he was writing it, so who writes that part?
That’s a good question for you to be asking, one which people have been curious about, and I have not yet answered who writes all of the Ars Arcanum, but they are in-world, somebody's writing them. If you ever read The Way of Kings, it’s written in first-person too.
Are they all written by the same person?
Ah, have I answered that yet?
You should.
I should? They are all written by the same person.
Because it sounds like they’re written by Hoid, I think.
They are all written by the same person.
If I were to guess: allo- would have its roots in the word allos (Greek for different, also the root of alloy), feru- would be ferrum (latin for iron), and hema- would be haima (Greek? for blood).
Yeah, I could mix traditions and linguistics a little and pass it off based on my theory of translation for the books. The construct is that the person translating them for us is looking for words that evoke the right feel in English, not for exact 100% accuracy. So she can mix greek and latin roots, play a little loose and free, to give the right vibe to the reader--when in the world, they would have a single in-world linguistic tradition.
Either way, you've popped out the right ones, though I want to say the last was hemat as a root.
Hang on a moment.... I always assumed that the translation effect from in-world language to English (or other Earth languages that allowed us to read the books) was more of a passive thing, almost like we are 'Connecting' to the stories which enables us to read the words that make sense to us.
Are you saying here that the process is actually by design? That someone (from the sounds of it Khriss) is somehow actively translating the events of the books and that's why we read them in our native language? Is this something that has been discussed before and I missed it?
I've always imagined a hypothetical translator into English, more as a writing construct (to explain certain things and the way I do things) than anything else. I wouldn't consider it canon, in that there is no Earth in the cosmere, but it's how I frame the process for myself. It's how I explain to myself that certain metaphors work and the like.
Chapter Nine
One odd thing I've heard—and noticed—about new writers as opposed to more experienced writers is that the more experienced ones tend to make their books last longer. Many first books take place in a matter of days, or perhaps weeks. Yet, books by more accomplished writers tend to span months or years.
It might just be coincidence relating to books I've read. I mean, there doesn't seem to be any reason it would be true. Yet, it certainly holds for myself. My first books happened very quickly—even Elantris, which was my sixth, happened in only the space of two months. Yet, in Mistborn, I let more time pass between sections and chapters.
I think, perhaps, newer authors are intimidated by plotting over such a longer stretch of time. Or, perhaps, it's just something unconscious.
Either way, we've jumped in time—something necessary for this book, considering the amount that needs to be done in order for the job to get pulled off. This was one of my first clues that I couldn't do a straight-up heist novel with Mistborn. The book covers too much time, and too much has to happen before the ending can occur. I just didn't feel that most of what the crew would be doing would be interesting to a reader, and I wanted to focus too much on Vin's character growth to let me focus on the "heist" of stealing the atium.
Of the people that were sick for the 16 days in comparison to just the one day, it is mentioned that they would be able to burn more precious metals (atium). Could it also be possible they are/were Mistborn—with the ability to burn all 16 metals?
Well, what was going on here was a clue established and set by Leras before he died. He wanted something to indicate—should he be unable to inform mankind—that what was happening wasn't natural, but instead something intentional. He worried that men wouldn't be able to realize they were being made into Allomancers.
And so, the mist was set to do something very specific, as has to do with the interaction between the human soul, Allomancy, and the sixteen metals.
Each of the 'Shardworlds' I've written in (Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker, Way of Kings) exists with the same cosmology. All things exist on three realms—the spiritual, the cognitive, and the physical. What's going on here is an interaction between the three realms. I don't want to bore you with my made up philosophy, but I do have a cohesive metaphysical reasoning for how my worlds and magic works. And there is a single plane of existence—called Shadesmar, the Cognative Realm—which connects them all.
You will never need to know any of this to read and enjoy my books, but there is an overarching story behind all of them, going on in the background. Adonalsium, Hoid, the origin of Ati, Leras, the Dor, and the Voice (from Warbreaker) are all tied up in this.
So, there will be a total of four Wax and Wayne era Mistborn novels. Alloy of Law, plus a Trilogy I plotted after finishing it.
so this 5 and 6 are not the end of this era, there is one more we should wait for, right?
Yes. The last of this era is tentatively called The Lost Metal.
Are you planning on writing more broadsheet stories for The Lost Metal?
I'm assuming at this point that I'll do what I've done in the last two. I didn't do much on the Alloy ones, at all. That you, Peter, and...
On the first one, I wrote Allomancer Jak. You wrote the next two.
One of our goals is eventually to have Isaac writing some Mistborn books or graphic novels, because he's the only person who knows it as well as I do and who could do it justice. People want more Cosmere, so the goal is eventually to do that. But he has his hands full with White Sand stuff right now.
Which is preparatory for...
Outlining a couple of Cosmere stories right now.
But right now, you're the only one who's written canon Cosmere fiction other than me, because the Nicki Savage story is in-world fiction, but it's, you know.
And the other Allomancer Jak story. I can't remember exactly what it was; the Lord Ruler's cufflinks?
Originally, by the way, Yeden wasn't the one who hired the team. There was no employer–Kelsier just wanted to try and overthrow the Lord Ruler. The main way I took the focus off of stealing the atium (making this less of a heist book and more of a Mission: Impossible style book) was to put the focus on raising and training the army. Having Yeden be paying them to get him an army worked much better for this format.
So, in Secret History, Fuzz mentions a weapon that he buried? Is that the atium, or is that something else?
*hums* Go ahead Joel. *Joel holds up RAFO sign*
Is there a word that you made up that's a favorite word of yours?
I still find occasionally find myself, curse-wise, saying "Merciful Domi", which is from my first one. Otherwise there are lots of interesting words, lately I've put the word "Catacendre" into the Alloy of Law era to mean the end of the ash. And I like how that flows with kind of almost a psuedo-Latin on it and things like that. And so, Catacendre, that's my favorite lately, but I've been working on those books a lot.
So in the trilogy, we see that when someone has a Hemalurgic spike implanted in them, they can hear Ruin talking to them, both as a vision and in their head. However, we learn in the Hero of Ages that Ruin cannot hear a person's thoughts no matter how much under Ruin's influence they are.
In Alloy of Law, we see that Wax (and other Pathians) uses an earring to "pray" to Harmony, and we see that Harmony can hear his thoughts and respond.
So I guess this leads to three questions: How does Harmony hear the thoughts of Wax, when it's explicitly pointed put that Ruin cannot?
Are the earrings that the Pathians use Hemalurgically charged, as otherwise they would be of no use to Ruin, and therefore Harmony?
Or did Harmony completely change how that aspect of Hemalugy works?
How this all works dates back to the original design of the magic system.
I wanted Ruin and Preservation to be complementary opposites, like many things in the Mistborn world. Allomancy, for example, has Pushes and Pulls were are less "negate one another" opposites, but instead two sides to the same proverbial coin.
Ruin is invasive. The power is more "Yell" than "Listen." The philosopher would probably have some interesting things to say about the masculine symbolism of Hemalurgy and its spikes.
Ruin can insert thoughts. That power, however, can't HEAR the reactions. It's about invasion.
Preservation, however, is the opposite. Preservation listens, Preservation protects. (Perhaps to a fault--if there were no Ruin, there would be no change to the world, and life could not exist.) Because of this, Preservation can hear what is inside people's minds. It cannot, however, INSERT thoughts. (This is important to the plot of Hero of Ages.)
Harmony is both, the two complementary opposites combined. And so, he inserts thoughts with Ruin and still uses Hemalurgy. He can also listen.
Yes, Wax's earring is Invested. (Or, in other terms, it's a Hemalurgic spike.)
Doesn't that imply it was shoved through someone's heart at one point (ala Steel Inquisitor creation process)?
Yes, the metal would have to have been part of a spike that at one point was used to kill someone and rip off a piece of their soul.
I've been rereading alloy of law and I was wondering about a few things related to speed bubbles.
Speed bubbles can't move once they're put up, but what happens if you put one up while you're in a moving train or something? Does it move with the train? What if the train stops/turns while the bubble is up? (This might have happened and I'm forgetting in which case just ignore me...)
Can an allomancer leave their bubble while it is still up (meaning it stays up with them outside of it)?
What happens to things and or people partially inside of the bubble? Like, if I swing a pole through the time bubble, do I feel extra resistance or acceleration on it? If I stick my hand through it does it get all messed up like in that episode of TNG(S6E25)?
Is the magnitude effect that causes bullets to go off course when entering a speed bubble proportional to the slowing/speeding of time in the bubble? For example, could I put up a very slight speed bubble (gaining me an extra second every few minutes) and get the same deflection as the ones used by Wane in the books?
If you change your weight with feruchemy, is momentum conserved? For example, if I am moving while I decrease my weight, do I start going faster?
You'd be surprised by how many of these questions I answer in the next two Mistborn books. I think I might have addressed every one except number four. (In that case, the deflection is indeed proportional.) This is a RAFO, but more a "I took all this time to explain it in the text, so let's let you read it there." :)
It seems that taking something metal that is Invested and melting it down, and reforging it, does not destroy the Investiture in it. For example the spike that got turned into a bullet.
Well, and the-- yeah. There are other examples as well.
If that doesn't ruin its Invested nature, what would happen if Wax were to take one of his ironminds, have that melted and alloyed into steel, and then tried to burn it?
So you are saying mixing in-- right. Um, this would probably not work. But I'd have to go to the document on this one, because I've theorized in it. So I'm going to say probably won't work, but I have to go to my document, so Notes And Find Out. As soon as we get into the really detailed-- One of the things I want, even when I was building the Mistborn magics, is I wanted it to get really complicated. Because, my philosophy was making a wheel is easy to understand what's going on. Making a car uses all the same physics and simple tools, but is infinitely--well, you know, not infinitely--hugely more complex. Making a spaceship goes beyond that. And I wanted when we dug into all the actual mechanics it all works, but it's like the difference between making an abacus and making a computer. And we're starting to stray-- not into computer-making realms, but starting to stray into combustion-making realms, and so these are the sort of things that I just can't talk about off the cuff as easily. Because I have this document and I'm like "this, this, this, this." Does that makes sense?
So I'm going to say that probably wouldn't work. I believe what is going to happen there is you're probably going to end up with one of these things where you see a reservoir there but you can't access it that happens quite a bit when things get muddled once you mix in other metals and things like that. But I can't give you 100% on that without the notes to double check myself.
Can a Misting burn the god-metal alloys of their metal? If not, do the god-metals even 'exist' if there are no full Mistborn?
There are metals which exist that any Allomancer can burn, regardless of their own orientation.
Ati is very obviously (atium) Ruin, Aona and Sel clearly refer to Elantris though I don’t know who/what Skai is (Wyrn?)
There is a group mentioned at the end of Elantris which has something to do with Skai.
Are all Inquisitors required to have an atium spike?
No, they are not.
Can modern-day Felt get his hands on atium?
He would know how to try going about it, he would not be able to get ahold of it right now. It would be outside-- It's not something he can just pop off. He would have some ideas on how to try to go about it. I doubt he could pull it off.
How did you find the time and energy to work on The Way of Kings while you were immersed in Jordan’s Wheel of Time? Are you a hidden Allomancer, a slider like Wayne in The Alloy of Law, with the ability to set up a mind-boggling speed bubble?
I wish I could magically create bubbles of time to give myself more space to do these things. After working on The Gathering Storm, I felt more and more that I needed to do The Way of Kings—I had done it and failed once, and I began to see all of the places where it went wrong and how I could fix it. When you get excited about a book that way, you kind of have to write it—strike while the iron is hot. It's something I never want to do again—working on that and Towers of Midnight at the same time just about killed my entire family. The hours were very long, and I'm still kind of recovering from that. How did I find the time? I didn't do much else during that year when I was getting those both ready. I think it was really good for me to do, and I don't think I'll ever do something like that again.
At the Yomen wedding [in The Alloy of Law], the newlyweds are talking to "a scruffy man who looked like a beggar, dressed all in black". Is this an appearance of Hoid?
His answer was that yes, in fact, it was.
Just real quick: the short that's in the RPG, the short story. Is that ever going to be available outside the RPG?
Maybe eventually. The idea is that we gave it to them exclusively for a certain period; I don't know how long the period is. It's probably a couple of years. The idea being: the short story is there as a goodie for the RPG. You know, the RPG guys, RPGs are not big sellers. These are an independent company making it because they love it. It's not their day job. They all have other day jobs. Though, we wanted to put something in there that would attract people's attention to look at it and be interested in it. They will eventually, probably be available elsewhere. If you can read other languages, it'll probably be in the translations of Alloy of Law. But that's only if you want to read it in translation.
Can you put the Cosmere books into [chronological] order?
Here is the order that I have publicly confirmed. There are obviously other books and stories fitting in there. For those, you’ll just need to RAFO.
A question regaurding Feruchemical iron:
So, while Sazed was guarding one of the gates to Luthadel, he tapped weight to compensate, he had to tap pewter as well. Also, when he was climbing a tree, his strength to weght ratio rised, making it easier for him to climb it. Wax doesn't have to do this- when fighting Miles on the train, he's fine without any sort of muscular enhancement, and when he is climbing in the sets base, he notes that he does not make himself lighter because it would simply decrease his weight and strength equally (in contrast to Sazed climbing the tree).
So, is this difference for the same reason people can push/ pull on atium, being the you hadn't fully developed your idea for the cosmere yet? Or is it some other reason?
Hmm. I think the mistake is more on me writing the Wax scene than in the original. (For him climbing, specifically.) I'll put Peter on this and see if it's a continuity error we want to fix.
How many Feruchemical powers have you revealed in the Alloy of Law?
In the Ars Arcanum in the back, I have revealed them all. I have not explained them all. But I have revealed them all, they are in the back, so you are free to theorize what they mean.
Hello, all! After far too long, and with many apologies, I'm finally at work on your book. The Lost Metal (this will be the final title; I have more say over my titles with Tor than I do with Random House) is in progress. So far, I have around 10k words, and I'm anticipating a book somewhere in the 120k-150k range. (The progress bar on my website is set for 150k, where it was set at 100k for previous W&W books.)
A mini reminder for those who are wondering, "Why four books?" I wrote the first book as an experiment during the Wheel of Time days, when I worried about the cosmere (and Mistborn in particular) languishing while I saw to the needs of Randland.
The book turned out well--and I liked the characters so much that I outlined a trilogy to follow up Alloy of Law. Hence the four books--and this WILL be the final one.
My current plan is to try to finish this one by August 1st, with a Christmas 2022 publication date. (Skyward 3 being this year, and Skyward 4 being somewhere early 2023.) It will be followed by the fifth Stormlight book in Christmas 2023. After that, the good news is that I plan to write Era Three (three books long, 200-250k each like the original trilogy) all in a row. I'll need a few years on that project, so goal is tentatively to see those start being published in 2025 or so--with one a year for three years after that, followed by Stormlight 6 in 2028.
That's an ambitious schedule, so we'll see. Fortunately, the schedule for W&W four is not ambitious. If I finish by August, we'll be ahead for like the first time in ten years, giving my team a solid 14 months for editing and the like. (Which will make everyone very happy.)
Right now, everything is looking great for the book. Writing Group started on the prologue last week, and will be reading the first few chapters this week. Outline was well received by my team, and it feels really great to be writing Wax, Steris, Marasi, and Wayne again.
I will try to remember to give you an update here in a couple of months somewhere around the 50% mark to let you know how it's developing. (Though note, I've started doing short, weekly updates on YouTube so you can follow along there if the progress bar isn't enough.) Book will have a slightly more complex narrative than previous W&W books, but my goal is still for it to be fast paced and snappy.
As always, I'll be turning OFF replies to inbox for this thread--so my apologies if your reply or question doesn't get seen. And, as always, thank you for humoring my style of jumping between books and series.
Is there time travel in the cosmere?
We haven't seen time travel into the past, but we have seen it into the future in Alloy of Law.
Chapter Eighteen
Vindication
I didn't really intend Ranette to become a kind of "Q" figure, providing Wax with a cool gun. I had written into the outline (once I added her) that he got a new Sterrion from her.
However, I wanted some more quirk to her character. Beyond that, I felt that one of the things this book should do is show the ways that Allomancy—and dealing with Allomancers—has entered the common consciousness of the world. It makes sense to build guns to deal with them, just as now we build guns specifically to deal with armor, or specific situations a combatant might find themselves in.
I felt that I wanted to integrate the Metallic Arts more into real society. You may notice, for instance, that I worked hard in this book to work Allomancy and metallurgy into the way that people speak. The metaphors they use, the way they see the world. A person who is up to no good is a "bad alloy." That sort of thing.
It would be possible to overdo this, of course, but I feel—looking back objectively at the original trilogy—that I didn't do enough of it. That's okay, because in the original trilogy Allomancy was something that you kept hidden, and the common people didn't know much about it. Feruchemy was an underground art, and only the Inquisitors knew of Hemalurgy.
Now however, at least two of the three are very common in society. I wanted to account for that. Building Vindication, the special Allomancer's gun, was a way to integrate the two halves of this book—the historical western and the fantasy.
What would happen to someone who burned an alloy of Lerasium and lead? Would they a) gain Mistborn powers and a splitting headache from trying to burn lead, b) gain Mistborn powers and no splitting headache, c) just get the splitting headache, d) gain the ability to burn lead without a splitting headache, or e) die of lead poisoning?
This is a RAFO, not because I want to imply that lead has some big secret to it, but because I don't want to dig into the mechanics of Lerasium right now--and I don't want to kick off more questions like this at the moment.
Could you tell us a chronology of the Shardworlds thus far? Like, did Warbreaker happen after Mistborn or before, things like that. Personally, I was under the impression you said Mistborn was a sequel to Elantris, but Mi'ch and Josh disagree.
He wasn't positive on where Warbreaker went, but Elantris is first and MB is after it.
