Questioner
Are you planning to unite the Shard of Honor with Dalinar? No?
Brandon Sanderson
That's a RAFO. That's a RAFO. That's a read and find out. No answers there for you.
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Are you planning to unite the Shard of Honor with Dalinar? No?
That's a RAFO. That's a RAFO. That's a read and find out. No answers there for you.
Which of your characters do you think would win in a fight?
At what stage in their career?
Not the Slivers.
Okay, so they don't count, the Shards of Adonalsium don't count… Does Kelsier have atium?
Yes, atium exists.
A Mistborn burning atium is really hard to beat in any other way.
So you think that Kelsier would beat Vin?
Oh, Kelsier would beat Vin if he had atium and she didn't. If they both did? Vin has more raw talent, Kelsier has a lot more experience. So if you can pick Vin after she's had more experience she will give him a fair fight, but before that she will not.
Is it possible for a Shard or Shardholder [Vessel] to reproduce, other than by creating Splinters?
Yes.
Any chance we've seen the offspring of--
RAFO! *laughter*
We know that you can't Lash people in Shardplate, but can you Lash the person inside the Plate? If they had their helm off, for example. At that point Plate should be just dead weight, right?
There's a bit of an interference envelope. Wearing plate, the person has this big ball of investiture around them, and so pushing any through it--even by touching a person without a helm--is going to be tough. Easier than with the helm on though, I suppose.
Investiture acts (roughly) like a saturated solution in these cases. Sticking more power into something like a Feruchemical storage or a hyper-invested object like Plate is increasingly hard. The other part is that Investiture tends to interfere with other Investiture, unless there's a familiar resonance. (This is part of what philosophers call Identity.) Slapping your hand through a sand master's stream of sand will cause interference, and make them start to drop. It's not that the sand is supporting them, it's that the investiture holding them up gets scrambled for a moment because of your own investiture.
Investiture pushed toward someone inside a hyper-invested (supersaturated) system like a person in Shardplate is going to get hard push-back.
This is similar to the reason that it's harder to Push on invested coins. Depends on how invested they are, in that case. It's generally not as hard as doing something like Lashing a person in plate. (This is more about the interference than the saturation of investiture.) But the two principles are what I use to guide the physics in these areas.
Can we take that as a hint that the Investiture in the Plates and the Investiture that the Surge of [Adhesion] uses come from different Shards? Or do they interfere because they "belong" to different spren?
You know, I should have realized this one would bring out the follow up questions. Let's leave it at what I posted for now. This is a deep, deep rabbit hole, and I do need to try to get some more writing done tonight. So...RAFO. (Sorry.)
Do you ever plan to use bio‐chroma again? It'd be a shame to see such an interesting and original idea left with a single book.
It is unlikely that I will use this magic system in a different book because it is distinctly tied to that particular Shard. The sequel likelihood is good. There is more to tell in this world, so there is a decent chance I will return and do a second WARBREAKER book (I've been calling it NIGHTBLOOD when I've mentioned it before). That isn't to say that there will never be magic systems that will repeat across series—in fact there's a decent chance that will happen—but I'm not going to say any more on that right now.
You said that there were some things in the Cosmere that happened accidentally. What was one of them?
Shard pools is a good example. So when I started writing Elantris I knew I would have these concentrations of power. But I didn't know how I'm going to use them exactly. Like what's the connection... This was way at the beginning. By the time I had Mistborn, I knew all this. I knew I had a well of power there. What does it do? Shardpools are a good example of writing into the story and figuring out how the magic works bei actually playing with it.
One thing that I'm slightly confused about is who the primary POVs will be for the second set of 5 books in the 10-book series. I've heard a bunch of names being floated around on various online forums--such as Jasnah, Renarin, and Taravangian to name a few--but are any of these confirmed? Any word of Brandon as of yet?
It's possible this will change. But the back five have been planned as Jasnah, Renarin, Lift, Taln, and Ash. Though, once again, this isn't a promise that these people survive. You'll likely see at least one flashback set in the series from a character who has died in a previous book, and then you get to see something they experienced through flashbacks before their death.
I'm having trouble locating Ash. No direct matches on coppermind.net, 17th shard forums or google.
Do you mean Ashir from one of the WoK interludes? Or perhaps someone we haven't met yet (at least by name).
There are a lot of weird things going on with Ash, so what's up with her will be something you'll have to wait on for a long while.
But how about the characters we currently love? Are they all gone in the second half??? This is terrible :-(
No, they will be around. (Well, if they survive.) But the second series will be taking place years later, and their roles may have changed.
When it comes to the epic-level spren on Roshar, like the Nightwatcher and the Stormfather-- Is the number of epic-level spren equal to the number of Bondsmiths that you can have on Roshar?
Hmm, is the number of epic-level spren related to the number of Bondsmiths you have? Well, I've said there's a maximum of three. And there are three Shards involved in Roshar. I'm not gonna tell you if that's a coincidence or not. Sorry.
The Allomantic metals are separated into four quadrants. Do the Shards have classifications as well, in groups of four?
This division, the Allomantic division is a thing researchers and scholars placed upon it.
Is Aona's Shard name Devotion?
RAFO, but that's more of a "Email that question to me" because I would have to look at my computer to see which term I settled on, but you're basically there. I think it actually may be Devotion. So I'll have to look. It may be a synonym.
Is Skai Unity?
Um, RAFO.
Passion?
What? RAFO. I'm not going to tell you. You already kind of pulled out of me what Aona was.
What will an Atium-Lerasium Alloy do ?
Ah, I've been asked this before. There are a number of theories, but nobody's really sure, since there haven't really been any opportunities to alloy lerasium with atium. You can choose which one to believe. Most require an understanding of realmatic theory to comprehend, which you need to be a Shard or Splinter to even begin to understand.What Lerasium is, is essentially a hack for something like your spiritual DNA. It rewrites what your spiritual self is capable of. So, combined with atium, which allows you a glimpse into the vision of everything - past, present, future - the theories say it could do one of two things. It could either create a substance so volatile that it would have world-ending repercussions, or rewrite your "spiritual DNA" (his phrase, not mine) with atium's power. Is that a vague enough answer?
Some dictionaries list two meanings for the word "odium": the feeling of strong hatred, and that which provokes hatred from others. Do both of these apply to the Shard with that name?
Yes.
Just in the cosmere alone, are there any--Do you believe there are any specific magic systems that are stronger than the others, or have an advantage? Or do they kind of even out?
Oh, do-- Yeah. Do any of the magics have advantages or stronger-- Definitely some are stronger than others. Definitely. There is no attempt made on my part to power balance between magic systems and things. Power balancing is for RPGs where it's very important, it's not for storytelling.
A lot of people like to ask the "Who would win, X or Y?" sort of thing, and I don't get into a lot of that, I usually say, "Well, what's the situation?" I'm not big on the-- I will, if people clash, or if different powers clash, I will write the situation, but it's so conditional. So I have a hard time with these cage match things that people really like to do and things like that, because they're fun, but as an author I'm like, "I can come up with a dozen situations where either one of them wins or someone else does". Right? That's what you do, in writing. You say, what is the context of this?
But that's a tangent from your question, which is the powers are not equal. The Shards were generally equal. Some have given up more power than others.
Peter actually said on the 17th Shard that we should ask you about this, we'll see if I get RAFO'd or not.
Would you share with me how Vasher lost his sword to Nale?
How Vasher...?
Well uh "Zahel".
Oh, oh. *having far too much fun with this*
So how Zahel lost his "sword"...
We're talking about the same thing here. So Nightblood. How did that get in-- how did that transfer over?
I'm not sure why Peter's telling you to ask that, because--
Well he said something about that maybe you could share a little bit about, I don't know...
There will be a lot of information in the book Nightblood about how some of these things came to transpire.
Splinters are self-aware, yes? Pieces of Shard power?
Yeah. Not all.
It feels like Roshar is-- has an essence, where it’s like a prism, you can see all the rest of them, due to the nature of the Cognitive Realm and the spren’s ideas, Cognitive things coming to light. Have I spent too much time looking at the Shard?
No, you are on the right path. Of all the things you noted, that one is the one that is perhaps the most important.
The prism idea.
The idea that Roshar is special and a key on Shadesmar.
What colors are the Shards Preservation and Ruin Associated with?
RAFO!
Awakening and Surgebinding, Stormlight and Breath seem really similar in some aspects--
Yes.
--except Breaths seem to stick to things better--
They do.
--than Stormlight. So when you are holding the Breath it doesn't expire when you put it in something it doesn't go away. Can you tell me something about why that's happening?
Part of this is kind of inherent to the Shard and the power it's coming from. I mean the power of Endowment is just going to stick, that's part of the nature of its magic. Does that make sense? But it also kind of has to do with how the ecosystems are working. For instance the Stormlight is essential to the ecosystem of Roshar, it needs to be expended, it needs to get out and-- It's like evaporation, does that make sense?
Recycling? Not the recycling but the cycle of--
Yeah, yeah like the cycle of water. And so just part of the way the nature of it works, it has to get out, it has to leak out, it has to run out. I mean it leaks even from spheres, right?
And when you lash things it's temporary--
Yep. And even though Szeth says that he thought Voidbringers could hold it they can't. Like it is just not the way that it works.
Can they just hold it better?
They can hold it better. It's not permanent. Now there are things that can do it permanently but--
Like the black sphere for example?
Well we are not going to... The black sphere is something different. You guys have guessed what the black sphere is, right?
Well we have some ideas. I support that it holds an Unmade. Am I wrong?
I'm not going to answer that.
But you said--
I'm just curious what the theories are. Book 3 the black sphere is-- Everyone who reads the books will know what the black sphere is by the end of Book 3.
Yesterday you said that crem was actually like Shard poop.
No, I was saying that it was more like that than what they were saying.
It's not really poop?
No, its not.
Dang it, I like poop jokes! Can you make it poop so i can have a poop joke.
Ok, for the next thirty seconds it is.
What would happen if a Feruchemist fills, for example, a tin metalmind then mixes it to make a pewter metalmind? Does the stored attribute change? Is the Investiture gone when you melt the metal? What if he just makes it into a tin metalmind again?
If you make it impure, you'll keep the investiture, but won't be able to get it out. If you make it back into the same thing, you'll be fine, and can access it normally. If you try to fill it, after changing the composition to make another viable metal, it will act a little like a computer hard drive with corrupted sectors. Some of it will work for the new investiture, but you won't be able to fill it nearly as full. (Depending on how full it was before you melted down.)
This holds for basic uses of the metallurgic arts. Once you start playing with some of the more advanced parts of the magic, you can achieve different results, which are currently RAFO.
Similarly, if you were to soulcast a metal would it have similar effects of corrupting the investiture and making it inaccessible? Like if you turned a steel metalmind into pewter.
I've stayed away from soulcasting and forging in these types of discussions, as I feel my answers will dig too deeply and prompt more questions that, eventually, will lead to lots of RAFO type questions. I don't really want to go there--but I will say this. Changing invested objects with other magics is hard, and often requires such a force of investiture yourself, that it becomes very power-inefficient. Just like we can technically turn lead into gold right now--by spending way more money than the gold is worth.
So you could, for example, use electrolysis to dissolve a metalmind in water, then reverse the reaction later to get the investiture?
OR, better question, if you store investiture in one allotrope of iron, can your retrieve it off you change to a different allotrope?
I see no reason why these wouldn't work.
So would forging with the blood of a radiant(kaladin, dalinar,etc) work on a shard blade from a fallen radiant to say change who they had bonded, or how the bond was broken (to say death instead of giving up on the oath)?
RAFO.
Where did you get your inspiration for having kind of a kind of consistent universe; it's kind of similar to Stephen King and things like that.
Yeah, where did I get the inspiration for that? There's a couple of places, and I don't want to go off on this too long, if you go look on the Q&A database that these guys have on the 17th Shard you can find more.
But there were really two things that made me do it. First off is reading how Asimov did it and really being impressed with what he did and also noticing that he had to like do some patches in order to make everything work. Asimov connected his Robot series and his Foundations series after the fact many years later. It turned out really well; the two series, as it turns out, blend together in a really cool way but it felt to me it felt after the fact . And I wanted to do something from the get-go and say, "Well, if I've got something like this as a model." Stephen King did it also, but he did it after the fact. But I've got writers like this as a model to show how cool this can be, so my question to myself is, "How much cooler can it be if I do it from book one?" And you know, it's the sort of advantages you get as a writer by standing on the shoulders of authors like that, who have done these awesome things in the past. It allows us to kind of see what they did and say, "Okay, how can I expand on this? How can I do something new, rather than just doing what Asimov did?" And one of the approaches was to try it from book one.
And the other reasoning was that I like big epics but I also want to be writing a lot of stand-alones. And early in my career in particular, it was important for me to be writing stand-alones. And so the hidden epic behind the scenes allowed me to embed some of this depth of foreshadowing and connection in a way that would not be intimidating to readers because they could just read the story and enjoy the stand-alone. And then if it's something- if they're the type that really gets into this and really wants to dig deep, they can find the other level and be like, "Wow, there's an epic on here and Mistborn is a sequel to Elantris. I didn't know that," and things like that. Or they can be read completely independently and you never have to worry about that. So I like that versatility.
I will eventually write some stories connecting all of these things in a more obvious way, but I don't want it to come to the forefront of any series that that's not already the focus. For instance, I don't want Way of Kings to be about that, because I've already promised you what Way of Kings is about. And I don't want then to trick you into, "Oh, now it's this other thing." I have books planned that will be that, but they're a little ways off.
Was there a being/entity named Patji onworld - prior to the Shard 'interfering' - that lead a life that was more conducive to Autonomy, and was it a case of that entities (for lack of a better term) natural bent towards Autonomy naturally turning it into a portion of Autonomy (again, for lack of a better term)?
This is a good and valid theory that I don't think I should comment more on right now, as I feel like I would muddy the water more. I need to wait until I approach these concepts in-book.
I'll just say that I don't consider what you said to be excluded by the things I've said about the situation.
I think [Brandon] would benefit a lot from finding some kind of way in-universe to convey when we can be certain that the character is dead. Something like what we see of Vin and Elend in Secret History after they die. I think that he was trying to prove how definite their death was.. I don't know how he could realistically or smoothly accomplish this, but I think that until we see some proof beyond what is normally expected to see for a death, we can't be 100% sure that anyone is dead.
Yes, I've been thinking about this. Spoilers below.
The issue is, resurrection is a major theme of the cosmere. The very first line of the first chapter of the first cosmere book starts with someone dying. The story is about his return to life.
The death of Adonalsium, and the questions surrounding the persistence of his power, is THE single pervasive theme of the works. And so, I've returned to this theme multiple times--from Sazed's more metaphorical rebirth in Mistborn Three to Syl's more literal one in Words of Radiance.
At the same time, the more this theme continues, the more it undermines the reader's ability to believe someone is really dead--and therefore their tension at worrying over the safety of characters. So we need a better "Dead is dead" indication, otherwise every death will turn into Sirius Black, with readers being skeptical for years to come.
So, let's just say it's something I'm aware of. Josh, of the 17th Shard, was the first one to raise the issue with me years ago. We need a balance between narrative drama and cosmere themes of rebirth.
I figured Nightblood was your answer to dead is dead.
He's certainly AN answer. But there are way more ways to kill someone in the cosmere--I just need to be more clear on how that works, giving the right indications to readers.
Your books are unusual for the fantasy genre in that they are interested in exploring traditional Christian values, usually coming down in their favor (especially faith in providence and the willingness to believe in a divine plan for the world and the individual, something which comes up again and again in your work.) At the same time, your characters have reason to be suspicious of the specific forms of religious practice in their worlds, and the cult of the survivor in particular can be read as a conflicted portrayal of religion: it's a kind of religious belief which works in some way for its faithful despite being based on a falsehood, and Kelsier is a kind of dark parody of Christ. The cosmere seems to have an implicit theology which separates the truly divine, which is fundamentally inaccessible even to the most knowledgeable characters, from the apparently divine shards and splinters. I guess my question is, how do you think about integrating religious themes into a fantasy universe, particularly given your systematic style?
There are a lot of things mixing here--more, probably, than I'm aware of myself. (This is the sort of area where I let reader analysis and criticism do the work, as they're probably going to be able to notice connections more explicitly than I will. Like most writers, I'm working by instinct much of the time.)
One element I can talk about is the need for the cosmere to have questions that will go unanswered. This is most expressly manifest in the "big" questions. Is there a God? What is the actual afterlife like, if there really is one? Is there such a thing as a soul, and are cognitive shadows the actual person, or a manifestation of the magic imitating a person's thought processes?
The reason I don't answer these as myself (though characters certainly have ideas) is because I feel it important the text not undermine the characters who choose not to believe in these things. Though I think I've found answers in life, people rationally disagree with me--and to express only my worldview in the books would severely hamper my ability to have characters who disagree with me, and other characters.
In short, if I were to say, "Yes, there's an all-powerful God" then it would directly undermine characters like Jasnah, who argue otherwise. At the same time, I want characters like Kelsier to develop naturally, and do things that are in line with how sometimes, religions develop on our world, without having it be a statement. (Or, at least one other than, "Hey, this happens some time on our world. It happened here too.")
Fantasy offers some unique opportunities to explore the human condition with religion, and I want to take advantage of that, to see where it takes me and to see what I can learn from the process.
Warning, Evgeni. I'm really considering doing a backpedal on savants. The more i think about them, the less I'm not liking how my current course has them being treated in upcoming books. I think it deviates too far from my original vision.
Hey, I wouldn't normally contact you directly like this, but given that you thought it important enough to reach out and let me know you might change how savants work, I figured you probably wouldn't be too upset by this message. I replied to your Facebook comment, asking if you could clarify a little bit which aspects of savantism you are thinking of keeping and/or cutting. I don't need an essay on the topic (though you know I'd love one!), just some details on what we can consider canon for theories, and what we should be careful around.
Evgeni,
So here's the problem. The more I dig into savants in the later outlines, the more I feel that I'm in a dangerous area--in that I'm disobeying their original intention. (Which is that using the power so much that it permeates your soul can be dangerous, a kind of uncontrolled version of a spren bond.)
And so, I don't want to let myself just start making people savants right and left. It needs to be a specific thing. Wax is the troubling one, as I have him burning so much steel that he's well on his way, but isn't showing any side effects. If I'm going to give him savant-like abilities, he needs savant-like consequences.
That's the danger, just falling back on savanthood to do some of the things I want, so often that it undermines the actual point and purpose of them in the cosmere lore.
So if I backpedal, it will be to contain this and point myself the right way, sharply curtailing my desire to make people savants without their savanthood being an intrinsic part of their story and conflict in life. (Like it was for Spook, and is for Soulcasting savants on Roshar.)
Feel free to share this.
Okay, so - if you do decide to go this route, I see the story implications (larger focus on consequences, less easy to get to the point where a character can be considered a savant). What I am not sure about is the potential for a mechanical change. Would a backpedal on your side cause a conflict with information you've shared with us, in or out of your books? Are you saying that it's possible that Wax won't be considered a savant (if you can't squeeze a good ramifications plot for him that doesn't contradict the apparent lack of consequences so far, for example)?
I haven't decided on anything yet. It's mostly consequences for the future--just a kind of, "be aware I'm not 100% pleased with how Wax turned out, re: savanthood and Allomantic resonance."
The idea of resonance is that two powers, combined, meld kind of into one single power. This is a manifestation of the way Shards combine. Wax was intended as a savant of the two melded powers. But without consequences in his plot, I'm not confident that I'll continue in the same vein for future books.
Why are the people of Roshar so much more aware of the Cosmere? They seem to know more than any other world you've written to date.
I believe the people of whom you are speaking are mostly not native to Roshar. On another side, however, it is the first planet we've seen with three Shards, and it is the furthest along in the timeline. One final thing is that they had some very unique experiences early in the planet's history. It involves the Heralds, and various items I think would be spoilers right now.
So you talk about the residue a Shard leaves on a Sliver. So what does that residue have? Like what does it do? If anything?
Well, one thing it can include is that people capable of noticing Investiture, would know there is trace Investiture from that event.
Are you ever gonna make a book that's based on Earth, but in the cosmere?
No. The Rithmatist started that way, and I pulled it out of the cosmere, because I didn't want Earth in the cosmere. So, that happening tells me pretty surely I'll never do it.
Out of curiosity, what Shard would have been on Rithmatist?
I will RAFO that for now, because it didn't get far enough that I had even really settled. Like, it was when I was designing magic, and doing the worldbuilding. When I started asking questions like this is when I kicked it out. I didn't even write any chapters of it before I kicked it out.
Most of the magics are unaffected by being taken off world, though still subject to their own inherent flaws. Stormlight seeps out. Sand loses its glow. Metal can only be used by one with the right genetic code. Note that the magic from Sel is different, and is location dependent for reasons I don't think fandom has quite teased out.
I assumed the shard Dominion was the reason why magic's are geographically and/or geopolitically based. Is there a different, essentially unrelated reason?
Yes, there is a different reason.
How many Shards have Invested their power on Roshar?
Technically, all of them did.
Who would win in a fight, Kaladin with no Shards but with Surgebinding and his favorite spear (aluminum tip) or Kelsier with the first nine metals of Allomancy?
Kelsier, I think, if Kaladin doesn't have Syl with him. But it may depend on nearby metal sources.
Alternatively, they come to a shaky alliance where they both fight against the nobility but still get on each other's nerves. [Brandon] care to weigh in?
If they came to arms, Kelsier would try to kill Kaladin in his sleep, most likely. But it depends on a lot of factors, and I think your alternative is the most likely.
Are Shardblades Splinters? If not, are they related to Shards in some other way?
RAFO. More to come.
In Allomancy, normal metals are simply a tool that channels Allomancer's already existing Connection to the power of Preservation, which is why non-Allomancers don't get powers from digesting metal. But if I understand it correctly, god metals are an exception, since they are a form of a Shard's power, burning them directly uses the power stored within.
If I have this right, how come a normal person can burn lerasium, but not atium? Or could they, and no ones thought to try? But if that was true why are there atium Mistings?
Suffice it to say that what people both in the books and out think about the god metals has some holes in it.
Are there any fain or formerly fain holders of a Shard of Adonalsium?
What an excellent question! It's a card, it's a RAFO card.
Are there equivalents to god metals for Shards on planets other than Scadrial?
Yes.
How many magic systems are there on Roshar?
It depends on your definition. Is Windrunning its own magic system, or is it a division of a larger magic system? Are the ten different Surges each their own magic system, or...it's really how...
If you assume the surges are considered one.
Well then you would have Surgebinding, and the Old Magic, those are two at least, and there are things that are not explained in those at all, and how do you count creating fabrials? Is that a science and not a magic? Is that its own magic system?
It's a science, because anyone can do it.
So Awakening is not a magic, then? Awakening's a science? Because anyone can Awaken if they just get the breath.
That's one thing that stood out to me in your magic systems, because in all your other magic systems that we've seen so far there has to be some form of snapping to occur, and that's unique...
Not all of them because, um, let's see...
BioChroma doesn't.
BioChroma does not requires snapping.
Actually wait, is there an active magic system on Threnody?
Threnody has a non Shard-based...it depends on what you call magic. Do spirits coming back to life count as magic? It's science to them, but it's goofy science.
What differentiates a minor Shardworld like First of the Sun?
The amount of Investiture, and whether there is actually a Shard in presence.
I'm assuming there is not one there?
There is not one there.
So it's like a Splintered one from something else?
No what you'll find is that the worlds were all created with a level of-- a little bit of sort of ambient magic. What you'll find in worlds like that is things like, Shadows for Silence and things like this, the magic, it's not necessarily "people with magic" it's you can interact with nature...
So there is inherent Investiture...
There is inherent investiture in every world created but you are going to see-- You aren't going to find Mistborn on a world like that but what you might find is a way there are magic aspects to the setting. Spren could exist on a world like that but they would be like the minor spren, you wouldn't find Syl, but you would find something like lifespren.
I had asked for the Intent of the Shard beyond the the 10 (11 counting Harmony) that we knew.
RAFO, Sorry not yet...
You've said that Investiture tends to develop sapience on its own. Is this a function of the amount of Investiture alone (i.e. any pile of Investiture large enough will develop sapience eventually), or does the process require extra effort (e.g. a Command from an Awakener, an action by a Shard, etc.)?
Under the right circumstances, a pile of investiture will eventually become self-aware. But there is no specific timing. The more investiture clumped together, the more likely--and the closer to human-level intelligence it is likely to obtain.
Of course, if you leave matter alone long enough (on a galactic scale) it will eventually end up becoming sapient too. So this isn't that different. (Well, okay, it is.)
Are humans already sapient and intelligent because their Spiritual DNA tell their innate investiture what connections to make or what weird soul pattern to go into.
Let's RAFO that for now.
Is it possible to give cats intelligence with Hemalurgy? Or transfer cat's identity to a human?
Hemalurgy can do some very, very odd things. And the endowment of intelligence is a common result of tinkering with Shard-based magic.
Nicrosil Feruchemy stores Investiture. Would a Nicrosil Compounder be able to gain Investiture up to the power of a Shard by infinitely Compounding?
I talk a lot about that in an upcoming Mistborn book. So that’s a RAFO. The reading is coming. I will explain what it does.
Did the original 16 break Adonalsium with the intent to gain the shards and the power, or was that a happy/unhappy side effect?
RAFO
There's a bunch of us on 17th Shard doing a role playing game set in the Reckoners universe, and we were wondering if there are any powerful Epics on the west coast that we should know about.
Night's Whisper is a super powerful Epic on the west coast, and Obliteration could definitely be there for Oregon's destruction.
Will we see any information, book, story, or just Word of Brandon in general on the fourth Shard that Odium has vanquished?
Eventually I will talk about it. I don't want to talk about it now, but I will talk about it. So no, that’s a RAFO.
So burning prayers, is that so certain Shard’s can hear what’s being said?
I’ll leave that one vague for now.
Is Calamity a Shard?
Calamity is not, good question. I decided I would not put that in the cosmere, because there's certain rules in the cosmere it's breaking.
How significant will the White Sand be to the cosmere? Any hints on the Shard that resides there?
Moderately. (Its magic has some cool ramifications for off world use, and several characters factor prominently into the Cosmere.)
Is there more than one magic system in white sand?
Only one in the current outline.
Does the one magic have more than one variation? Because I got the impression that there was something going on on the Darkside? Though I guess the Sky Colors (I think that's what they're called, I read the draft you send out early 2014 so my recollection is a little fuzzy) don't have to be related to magic. Or you could have written them out if they were...
In intended the colors on Darkside to be more a matter of the ecology than the magic--though, on that planet, magic and ecology are very closely tied together. (Well, I guess most of the magics are.)
Out of all the Shards, why does Odium go for Devotion and Dominion?
He targets people with two kinds of ideas. Number one, he can argue they're breaking the rules they set out. And two, people he thinks are a good match for him, or a challenge, or a danger.
If Red investiture = co-opted by another Shard, what about the Thrill?
Kind of.