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Skyler Cecil

Is there an Investiture cycle on Roshar? Cycling through the crem rain and flora and fauna back into the storm, or something like that. Like the water cycle. If Investiture is finite, is it recycled back into the Cosmere when Investiture like Breath or Stormlight is expended? Otherwise, wouldn't Investiture run out?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there is such a cycle. It is renewed and changed time and time again. It gets in and out of the Spiritual Realm, often with the birth of new individuals.

Questioner

I have a question about Shadesmar. What inspired the beads where everything in the actual reality is a bead in Shadesmar?

Brandon Sanderson

If I were being truthful, it probably goes all the way back to a Michael Whelan painting I saw when I was a teenager. But at the end of the day, I thought it was a really interesting image and a good reflection. I want things to reflect the real world—the Physical Realm—but in a different sort of way. So I like the kind of crystalline nature of it and things like that.

Silasary

So Nightblood drains investiture from people. How would it operate on Sel?

Questioner 2

Oh yeah, because the investiture's in the ground, practically.

Brandon Sanderson

...On Sel-- I mean Investiture is in everything, right? So I don't imagine it having a difference on Sel in the Physical Realm from what you normally see.

Questioner (paraphrased)

In Elantris it talks about how the wood and stone in the city is rotten and crumbling. Why does this happen?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

This is because when objects become Invested for long periods of time their Spiritweb changes to accommodate the Investiture. When the Investiture was pulled up off the stuff in Elantris, its Spiritweb was severely damaged so it showed that in the Physical Realm. This happened with the Lord Ruler when the Bands of Mourning were ripped out of him.

Duck Dad

Will we see Jason Write and the Phone Company again?

Brandon Sanderson

That is within the realm of possibility. I would call it more likely than not.

wiresegal

In OB, you explained that the Singers have four sexes. I was wondering... Can the Singers have genders other than those four, like humans? Even as simple as just not going with male, female, or malen/femalen. Could a transgender Singer use their ability to shift forms to change their biological reality? And, finally, could a Spren be non-binary, if it wasn't personified in a typical male/female way?

Brandon Sanderson

In the cosmere as a whole, a person's perception of themselves has a lot of power over both their Spiritual and Physical forms. It is possible, with Investiture, to change their biology to match Cognitive perceptions--and while this could be easier for some races (like the Singers) it's not outside plausibility for any race.

There are non-binary spren, actually--and you should be meeting one important one quite soon in the books.

Questioner

Regarding Dysian Aimians. The cremlings that make them up are spread about in a large area--

Brandon Sanderson

They can lose touch if the distance is too far. They can lose contact with the mind of the whole thing.

Questioner

Would their Cognitive aspect be affected by that?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes it would be. I'll just leave it there, but yes.

Viper (paraphrased)

You said that the Pits are a leak from the Spiritual into the Physical—

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

A necessary leak.

Viper (paraphrased)

Ok. Are the spren a similar leak but from the Cognitive?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The next book [Words of Radiance] is going to explore the spren a lot further.

Questioner

If a Full Twinborn (regardless of natural or holding the Bands of Mourning) had access to unlimited Investiture, could they become the sun by infinitely increasing their gravity and heat?

Brotherwise Games

Infinite Investiture, you’re theorizing?

Questioner

Dalinar’s next to him.

Brandon Sanderson

Dalinar’s not gonna be able to provide enough. But in a thought experiment, sort of outside bounds of time and space… you are providing infinite Investiture, you are providing an infinite amount of healing, and you are having them create heat and weight? The problem is, you’re gonna need a whole lot of mass to turn into the sun. I mean, there is a way you can do this, but you’re gonna have to provide… Either the Investiture’s gonna have to become mass, or you’re gonna have to have them do it in the proximity of a whole bunch of mass to have to start causing that sort of fusion reaction where the different layers collapsing in toward the center, dense layers, that sort of thing. In the realm of complete hypothesis, then yes. But, of course, you an do that here with infinite energy and infinite mass, if you needed to, using mechanical means.

I guess the weird part of that question is: the person could retain consciousness through infinite healing, and that is the weird part and that is possible. Yeah.

MadhavDeval

So, if Dalinar used Spiritual Adhesion to forge a bond between Sja-anat and Honor or Cultivation or whoever, then could Sja-anat corrupt a spren, an Odiumspren back to Honor or Cultivation?

Brandon Sanderson

Maybe. Nyeh...

MadhavDeval

What about the Fused?

Brandon Sanderson

The Fused-- I mean, it's the same kind of thing, they're a Cognitive Shadow. Eh? Eh. I'm gonna give you an "Eh." on that one... *waves hands* I don't know how you write that on the forums.

Questioner

So Kandra that just bones. Obviously they need that physically but is there a Cognitive and Spiritual purpose to the bones too?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, no the bones are just there for the muscles to pull against.

Questioner

So they don't need it, some spiritual link for the bones to...

Brandon Sanderson

No, good question.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Are the usual quadrants (Physical, Mental, Temporal, Enhancement) preserved in Feruchemy and Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No. In Feruchemy, it is based Realmatically. There is a quadrant of Spiritual, a quadrant of Cognitive and two quadrants of Physical.

twixttwists

What would happen to Syl, say, if Kaladin dies? Can she transfer the bond to someone else?

Brandon Sanderson

So long as Kaladin did not forsake his oaths, Syl would be traumatized (as one might imagine) but be capable of forming another bond.

twixttwists

Good to know she can form another bond. I'm guessing she'll be a little more mindless in the interim, though? 

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, without a strong tie to the Physical realm, she would have trouble thinking here if she pulled through to exist here.

Questioner

With the recent release of the Magic: The Gathering Forgotten Realms set, has Wizards floated the idea of a Cosmere type set?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm obviously in pretty regular contact with Wizards, having written a story for them, and things like that. There's a lot of fans in house. So I think that probably we will do these someday. But at the same time, they are still figuring out how to make with their fanbase not rioting at them. Some of the fanbase does not like other IPs getting mixed in to Magic: The Gathering, and so Wizards is figuring out how to do that. We have talked to them. Nothing's come of it yet, but I think it's probably inevitable. I don't know. They know how much I love their game, and a lot of them read my books, so I would imagine that someday, we'll do it. At the very least, we'll do one of these Secret Lair things or something like that, but maybe something more. Like, I would hold out for a full set, like they're doing with Lord of the Rings. But they also are doing Commander decks themed to certain properties, which would be another really cool thing.

I imagine we would, but I can't... All I can say right now is, we've all been like, "Hey wouldn't that be cool?" And that's as far as it's gone.

Argent

If two Surgebinders are next to each other in the Physical Realm and their spren are with them, chatting or whatever. Would this proximity be reflected in Shadesmar somehow? For example if there's a third Surgebinder in the same physical location, but in Shadesmar. Would they be able to deduce that this is what the physical-

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, theoretically possible. 

Argent

Maybe difficult?

Brandon Sanderson

I'll dig into the mechanics. Not necessarily though.

Adam Horne

A few people have wondered if we're ever going to see time travel in the cosmere.

Brandon Sanderson

Time travel into the past is something that I decided very early in the life of the cosmere that I was not going to deal with. So people can time travel into the future, but we can do that right now - not very much, but if you go fast, you are time traveling into the future by laws of relativity, and it's easier to do that in the cosmere. There are a couple things for storytelling that really throw a lot of wrenches into your worldbuilding. One of them's time travel; as soon as you introduce time travel, it changes everything.

Another one is bringing characters back from the dead, and since my very first cosmere book starts with someone being resurrected in chapter one, I knew that people coming back from the dead was not something I could have a hard fast rule against in the cosmere. Multiple books are based on the idea of people being resurrected; that's where Warbreaker and Elantris both come from, is that kind of idea.

Since I knew I was going to be doing that one, the other two that I think that really mess with things in strange ways are alternate dimensions and time travel. And that's when I just said I'm going to put those both off-limits in the cosmere. You saw me doing alternate dimension stuff in Steelheart, in part because I won't let myself do it in the cosmere. I'm already playing with fire with the way that people can become cognitive shadows in the cosmere, and I don't want to have the other two messing up narratives and storylines and things on the level that they would. So no time travel into the past ever in the cosmere.

Questioner

I heard earlier, through people I know, that Syl will eventually develop her memories from before the Recreance. Does that mean any spren that are alive currently have been alive for that long as well? Or are they--

Brandon Sanderson

Not necessarily. Some spren-- The thing about spren is that when does the energy become conscious? So yes they will have all existed before but at what point is consciousness attained. That's kind of their birth. It happens much more rarely than it does on the other-- on the Physical Realm, like regular people and things like that. But there can totally have been spren who have been born since then. And they would count most of the spren that you see as not being alive, well not being born. Not conscious. What's the word for the difference between humans and animals, it's not just sentience, there's another word. Starts with a C. Sapient, you're right it starts with an S.

Questioner

Is there a correlation, at all, between Awakening steel, a blade, and the revival of spren every time a Shardblade is summoned? I mean, I know Invesiture is Investiture is Invesiture.

Brandon Sanderson

So revival of the spren so--

Questioner

Similar.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay. So, are you talking about a live Shardblade or a dead one, or it doesn’t matter.

Questioner

Like Nightblood.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay.

Questioner

Awakening the steel, like that, Shardblades <are like Awakening metal> and stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The big difference here is that in one you’re using a physical component, right, and Investing it. In another, a more pure Investiture is passing into the Physical Realm and taking on an embodiment, a shape. Does that make sense? And so, similar but different things. There is a correlation, but it’s not--yeah.

Songstream

Q1: Can synthetic diamond contain Stormlight?

Q2: if yes, can a perfect gemstone that never loses Stormlight be made of synthetic material?

Q3: Has anyone already tried bringing synthetic diamond to Roshar at this point?

Q4: Is the increasing heaviness caused by Connection limited to Shadesmar, or does it also apply to the Physical Realm?

Q5: Will Mraize ever say, “He who controls the Stormlight controls the Cosmere”?

Brandon Sanderson

Answer to one is yes. Answer to two is, "Never is a LONG time." Three is not yet. I'll RAFO the other two.

VergenceScatter

Do diamonds have to be clear to hold Investiture, or can they be of any color?

Brandon Sanderson

On Roshar, part of the definition of a diamond would be that it's clear.

Job601

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?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Fakjbf

When Sazed ascended into Harmony, he recreated many extinct plants and animals based on the fragments of knowledge he learned about from various religions. Many ancient and medieval texts in the real world had pictures of animals with wildly inaccurate features and proportions. Were the texts that Sazed drew on fairly accurate, or are there herds of monstrosities roaming Scadrial now like on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Fortunately, Sazed was able to work with something that you wouldn't be able to here. Which is—remember that Realmatic Theory is based on the theory of the forms by Plato. This is where I got it. I've been very open with that idea, that the first glimmers of that occurred when I was taking my philosophy classes in college. I liked the idea of there being this perfect version of something somewhere in another realm. Now, the thing I've done in the Cosmere is that that perfect thing can change and be shaped over time, but the remnants of those things were still there. He could latch onto something, something that knew what these things were supposed to look like, because he had this deific power.

So the answer is no, there are not versions of very very weird lions as drawn in illuminated manuscripts. I love where your brain went on this one. We were actually talking about, I can't remember the name of it, the wolf that they thought was killing all the people in France in the seventeen or eighteen hundreds, that they had these drawings of this monstrous wolf—where it was probably just a pack of wolves that were particularly hungry because their normal food source was being impacted by human expansion or something. But for a period of like five to ten years, perhaps hundreds of people got killed by this wolf, and all the depictions of it are these giant werewolfy sort of scary things.

I love seeing the pictures of all of those things, the pictures of giraffes on illuminated manuscripts that have just been described thirdhand to someone. Your brain is going cool places. You can make monstrosities like that with Hemalurgy, but fortunately Sazed did not run into that problem. 

Questioner

In the event that.. so, say if you've got someone who went through a certain event, and it would have Snapped them. Take that person away from Scadrial, and move them to a different world. Would that still Snap them?

Brandon Sanderson

Remember that the Shards are mostly Spiritual Realm things. Space and time do not matter to them. Time does, space does not.

Questioner

Kelsier was very clear in Secret History that his ties to the Physical Realm had been severed. Are we then to assume that the current Thaidakar/Lord of Scars is him teamed up with Spook? Or have they used their knowledge of Hemalurgy to find different human hosts? What’s going on there?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. This is partially a RAFO. But you should assume that things have happened to allow for what’s going on. There are answers coming very soon. I’m going to warn you: not a lot of answers. But some answers are coming very soon. Maybe very, very soon.

Pagerunner

In [Oathbringer], when they first enter Shadesmar, they see a bunch of spren that are a few inches tall, green or orange. Are those Cognitive manifestations of one or more Dysian Aimians that were in Kholinar?

Brandon Sanderson

No, but good question.

PrinceDusty

You've talked about some of the correlation between Aviar abilities and Allomantic abilities. Are there any Aviar abilities that are not related to Allomancy, or what are some other abilities that we might see?

Brandon Sanderson

I'll RAFO that, mostly because I want to be free to pick and choose from my list as I canonize them. A lot of Aviar abilities are Cognitive type stuff, just from the way I built them so I can separate the magics. The whole Seeker/coppercloud thing, a lot of Aviar abilities are going to be riffs on that, or they're going to be riffs on glimpsing the Spiritual a little bit. And you see a lot of that in Allomancy. There are abilities that they have that you won't see in Allomancy.

The trick is Allomany is so broad. I built the main magic systems to be able to get a little bit of everything. You see the same thing in Stormlight. So seeing Aviar abilities that you haven't seen some version of it in Mistborn or Stormlight, it's going to be... Mistborn and Stormlight touch on all different parts of the magic system on purpose. But I think you will eventually see some that don't. But they're all going to work on the Cosmere magic, so you can say they're all related.

PrinceDusty

Where might we see them?

Brandon Sanderson

Aviar are known in the Cosmere but are very, very rare. But as you move forward in the future, perhaps you'll see them more often.

The Young Pyromancer

If you built a computer and you programmed it to view the world in a certain way, would that affect the world, like, Cognitive aspect?

Brandon Sanderson

Not unless the computer starts to become self-aware.

Questioner

What if it was an Awakened computer?

Brandon Sanderson

If the computer were becoming self-aware, then it would act like any other sapient entity.

faragorn

I recently saw on TV some info about some incredibly violent physical events in our universe, namely a collision between two black holes or a star quake on a Magnetar or Neutron Star. Is a shard holder sufficiently independent of the physical realm to be immune to even such mega-violent events, or would even one of them have a tough time shrugging it off?

Brandon Sanderson

Ruin and Preservation were, together, able to form a planet--so I'd say they could shrug that sort of thing off, depending on circumstances.

FireArcadia

When Dalinar and Honor are having a "chat" at the end, Honor says "I don't know who you are, or how you found your way here." Does Dalinar visit the Spiritual Realm in his dreams then?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. (Sorry.)

Kurkistan

Okay, so I'm contractually obligated to ask about time bubbles one more time.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Kurkistan

So what's up with frame of reference for time bubbles; in that obviously if you make a bubble and it's still it's not really still, like time moves differently but--

Brandon Sanderson

We deal with that a little bit in Era 2 Book 2 [Shadows of Self], where we talk about the fact that you know-- obviously the bubble is moving with the planet. So they're not-- the frame of reference is not absolute.

Kurkistan

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

And so we talk about sorta' the idea of mass and momentum and time bubbles and things like that.

Kurkistan

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

For instance you can make a time bubble on a train.

Kurkistan

Oh and it stays on the train?!

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but when you start catching stuff off of the train, it's gonna' jar each time, and it's probably going to ruin your time bubble, right?

Kurkistan

So does it get it's "anchor" from-- it's asking all the things that are within it what they think "still" is?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. That's a good way of looking at it. Frame of reference for the Cognitive things around. Make sense?

Kurkistan

Okay, the things around or the things within it, specifically?

Brandon Sanderson

The things that it's cutting into, specifically, but yeah.

Questioner

With The Bands of Mourning, now that we understand flight with potassium, or whatever alkali metal that actually was... So is that part of where we’re starting with the Faster Than Light travel? Something along those lines with potassium and maybe like--

Brandon

I’m not going to tell you, but this is the bridge into the next Era, which the Era beyond will be FTL, but this sort of stuff needed to happen first.

Questioner

Right, right exactly and the good stuff and the technology trying to get them up to speed and plus with Kelsier going to that other realm and the glimpse of Sel and stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep, yep, there will be so much fun stuff in the next series.

Vegasdev

The other lake in Alendi's bumps?

Brandon Sanderson

A manifestation of Ruin's gathered consciousness, much like the dark mists in book two. The lake was still around in Vin's era, but had been moved under ground. (Note that the Well is a very similar manifestation. You've also seen one other manifestation like this....)

Peter Ahlstrom

Such as...this?

The "lake" was barely ten feet deep—more like a pool. Its water was a crystalline blue, and Raoden could see no inlets or outlets.

If that's what you're hinting at...I never thought of the connection before! I just kept thinking of Aether of Night, and never thought of this pool at all.

Brandon Sanderson

Both are accurate, but the first is what I meant, as most people here don't have access to Aether.

Chaos

I'm also thinking that the Dor in Elantris is another Shard of Adonalsium. Certainly in the Elantris world, where the Dor came from is rather ambiguous, which I expected it would be. Of course, if other Shards of Adonalsium do exist, the Dor could have come from that source.

Brandon Sanderson

I will RAFO from here on the other Shards of Adonalsium, as it would be better for me not to give spoilers. Please feel free to speculate. Readers have met four shards other than Ruin and Preservation.

Peter Ahlstrom

Have we met these four by name, or just by influence? I can't think of a name that would go with the one that the Elantris lake is a manifestation of.

Hoid could be one? I know nothing his purpose other than that he shows up in lots of different books, sometimes begging and sometimes telling stories. Since most of these series happen on different planets (though two of them may happen on the same planet as each other), I'm assuming he has mad planet-hopping skills.

...Nightblood...

Brandon Sanderson

Ookla, I'm going to be tight lipped on this, as I don't want to give things away for future books. But I'll tell you this:

You've interacted with two directly. One is a tough call. You've never met the Shard itself, but you've seen its power. The other one you have not met directly, but have seen its influence.

Chaos

I thought Nightblood was explained sufficiently for my tastes in Warbreaker, so I doubt that it is a Shard, but I've been plenty wrong before. Also, I don't know if Hoid could even be a Shard. Certainly he has mean planet-hopping skills, but I don't know what purpose a celestial storyteller would have in this universe. He doesn't really have the same kind of power as Ruin or Preservation did, so normally I would rule him out right off the bat. But it is possible that these Shards come in many shapes, not just in the near-deific quantity Ruin or Preservation had. I think it's a bit of a stretch to say Hoid is a Shard... but, then again, I don't have any ideas for what those four other Shards are.

Maybe Hoid is just a traveler trying to find remnants of Adonalsium and stories about them. He doesn't need to be a shard, I suppose.

Brandon Sanderson

This is slightly a tangent, but here is a relevant chunk from the Warbreaker Annotations. As this won't be posted for months, I'll put it here as a sneak preview.

Chapter Thirty-Two

This whole scene came about because I wanted an interesting way to delve into the history. Siri needed to hear it, and I felt that many readers would want to know it. However, that threatened to put me into the realm of the dreaded info dump.

And so I brought in the big guns. This cameo is so obvious (or, at least, someday it will be) that I almost didn’t use the name Hoid for the character, as I felt it would be too obvious. The first draft had him using one of his other favorite pseudonyms. However, in the end, I decided that too many people would be confused (or, at least, even more confused) if I didn’t use the same name. So here it is. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about. . .well, let’s just say that there’s a lot more to this random appearance than you might think.

Chaos

Brandon, I believe in one of Sazed's epigraphs, he actually called it "Adonasium" rather than what you are referring to here, which is "Adonalsium". I'm thinking that's just a typo, right?

I don't suppose you could tell us which book series of yours will tell us more about Adonalsium, would you? You know, just so us theorizers on the forum know when to properly theorize about these things...

Brandon Sanderson

Well, I guess this means that the proofreaders did not add the "L" when I marked the error on the manuscript.(sigh). Yes, the correct spelling is Adonalsium. I will try to get this fixed for the paperback, but I've been trying to get that blasted steel/iron error in the back of book one fixed for two years now. . .

If it helps, Sazed would probably under-pronounce the "L" as that letter, like in Tindwyl's name, is said very softly in Terris.

As for your other question, you will have to wait and see. Now, you could search my old books for clues, but I would caution against this. While there are hints in these, they are not yet canon. Just as I changed how things were presented in the Mistborn books during editing, I would have fixed a lot in these books during revision. Beyond that, reading them would give big spoilers for books yet to be released. White Sand, Dragonsteel, and Way of Kings in particular are going to be published some day for almost certain. (Though in very different forms). Aether of Nightshould be safe, as should Final Empire prime and Mistborn prime, though of those three, only Aether is worth reading, and then only barely. (It is still pretty bad).

Questioner

My thought is, you know how the Stormfather in Oathbringer says he's not able, or he's never seen Dalinar be able to create the bridge. Does that mean Honor could be reborn?

Brandon Sanderson

So, there are things standing in the way, but cosmereologically, it is fully possible that another person could become Honor. The Vessel that was holding Honor before is gone. Though the Stormfather is kind of his Cognitive Shadow at this point, in a way. But the power, something else could be done with it. Or it could remain in the state it is now. Your answer is yes, but there are some hindrances along the way.

Questioner

When Wax is talking to Harmony he mentions 'the radio' and other things. Are there already societies that have things like that and how is he getting that information. Is it like a Spiritual Realm..

Brandon Sanderson

He knows things from his Ascension. He gain an innate knowledge of the universe in interesting ways. In addition, Preservation had some minor innate progno... he could see the future a little bit, and so could Ruin in a little different way. Let's just say that there are a bunch of things mixing together that give Harmony some knowledge that most people wouldn't have.

Questioner

But will we see some of societies soon or is that further in the future?

Brandon Sanderson

*RAFOes* You'll find out.

LewsTherinTelescope

You have said AonDor comes from something analogous to a Nahel bond. What is an Elantrian specifically bonded to? The Cognitive aspect of Arelon? The Dor overall? Etc.

Brandon Sanderson

It's not exactly that, but that's the right way to be thinking.

LewsTherinTelescope

How accurate would it be to say that Allomancy is granted by a Nahel bond to Preservation?

Brandon Sanderson

Different kind of bond⁠. Different mechanics.

Faera

So in Mistborn, you have to be 'snapped' to awaken Allomantic abilities. Similarly in Stormlight, you have to be 'broken' to release Surgebinding powers.

Are there any connections between these two requirements? Does it have anything to do with the 3 realms?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes and yes.

Neal Ginsberg (paraphrased)

We have now seen shades across the Cosmere.  Please let me know if I'm thinking along the correct line. Is one of the reasons that shades form because their access to the Spiritual Realm has been altered or damaged?  

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO.  You are definitely theorizing along the correct lines.  I can't verify the exact mechanism, but you're thinking along the right path.

Questioner

So, when Vin and Kelsier are running around spewing those coins everywhere. I assume that leaves coins all over the place. So, what happens to all that money? *laughter* ...Are there conceivably skaa who could make a living?

Brandon Sanderson

...I got asked this in my writing group, way back when. Way, way back when. I got in alpha reads and beta reads too, people are like "They're just throwing coins all over!" I'm like, "Yeah, it's a meaningless amount of money to them at that point, and is cheaper, in a lot of ways, than going and buying bits of metal, because of the way--" Anyway. The answer is, they just get left there. And there are skaa who have a very lucky day the next day. Because to them, that money isn't a throwaway amount. And you could conceivably do very well watching where Mistborn went, and following after them. I'm not sure if there are people who do that. But it would make for a nice story, so we can imagine that there is at least a few people who try to track where they are. I mean, the problem is, once you start into that effort, you start to get to the realm of people who that money is insignificant to again. So, like, no underworld crime lord is gonna track where Mistborn are to go gather the clips that they drop for jumping around. It just isn't worth their money. But one of the things you see in an economy like in the Final Empire is that the wealth disparity is such that, for some people, that could be worth their time.

Questioner

What are dragons like?

Brandon Sanderson

In the Cosmere? They are sneaky and long-lived.

Questioner 2

Will they have wings?

Brandon Sanderson

They do have wings, depending on what form they're in. They are natural shapeshifters.

Questioner

Are they Cognitive Shadows or are they people?

Brandon Sanderson

They are people.

Questioner

So my quick question: Can you use Identity (I love the speed bubbles!) to anchor speed bubbles to yourself?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, this is possible. That's less a matter of Identity. What’s gonna happen there, like, the more someone uses the powers, the more familiar and intermingled with their soul the powers become, and they are able to accomplish things that others can't. This would be like a Mistborn learning to hover a coin, right, which they can do, but most think you can't. That's the sort of level we're going with.

Necarion

So a savant could?

Brandon Sanderson

A savant could totally do that. The problem is, things moving in and out of a speed bubble, there's a transference of energy. This is how we keep speed bubbles from irradiating people when light moves through them, right, red shift. And so there's a transfer of energy directly from the Spiritual Realm, which means that moving with a speed bubble, you're gonna run into that, and it's gonna be, it's gonna cause all kinds of problems, but it would be possible.

Questioner

How much of your own books were you consciously looking at books like Jordan and saying, "I like that kind of world," and trying to create that kind of world in your own stuff?

Brandon Sanderson

I spent most of my early career, as I kind of implied earlier, reacting against books that I had really liked. The main purpose for this being that I felt that Robert Jordan and various other authors really covered that type of story and that type of world really well. And so I said, "Well, what other room is there to explore?" And so you see me reacting against.

For instance, Mistborn is a direct reaction to the Wheel of Time. Mistborn began as the question, "What if Rand were to fail?" That's what spun me into creating that entire book series: what if the prophesied hero were not able to accomplish what they were supposed to accomplish? And that became the foundation of that book series. So you can see where I was going and things like that. A lot of times I will read something, and if it's done very well I'll react against it, and if it’s done very poorly then I’ll say, "Oh, I want to try and do this the right way". And both of those are kind of an interesting style of reaction to storytelling. So I would say I was deeply influenced, but it's more in the realm of, "Hey what have they done? What have they covered really well, and where can I go to explore new ground?"

Daniel Greene

Almost every other fantasy franchise I can think of that's on the scope of a Cosmere (like Forgotten Realms, Warhammer) has multiple authors contributing. The Cosmere, though, is your child; is there ever gonna be a foreseeable future where you will let someone else's pen enter that space? Or this is the Sanderson sphere?

Brandon Sanderson

I have said that I will let Isaac write in this. And if you don't know who Isaac is: Isaac is my longtime art director, friend, and now creative director at my company. And he has always had a writing bug; he's written six or seven novels. And he's asked if he could write a Mistborn novel; and I said yes. And if that comes out, and it's publishable quality, I've said he can publish it. Either with my name, and I work on it with him; or if he just wanted to publish Mistborn novels just as Isaac Stewart, I told him he would be allowed to do that, too, because he's been a longtime collaborator and helped me a lot with the visual development, and things like that.

I can see a world where I let select individuals come in and kind of do their own thing. It doesn't matter as much that it has my voice if it's their story in the Cosmere, if that makes any sense. Where something more like Steelheart, I'm like, "It's continuing my series; therefore, it should try to do some of the same things that I have been doing in the main series.

Questioner

As Dragonsteel expands and you have other writers like Janci and Dan telling stories in your worlds, how do you manage the difference in approaches to writing?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, so this is something we're kind of finding our way through. You'll notice that I experimented with this a bunch with side projects before I decided to do some mainline projects. And I picked two of the writers that I'm very closest with and know the best. I don't anticipate going a lot further than that, right? I do like the idea of seeing what a few other writers can add to things like the Cosmere, but I don't want to turn into Forgotten Realms, where there's always a new book coming out by a new author. I do think that some places have done a  better job of this though. Like, Black Library tends to have a very good reputation with the authors that they invite in and cultivate a stable of authors rather than just, you never know who's going to be writing one. I know that I didn't necessarily like this in comics, when I read more comics, not knowing when an author on a book was gonna be fired or when you were not gonna start seeing the original creator anymore. You will never not be seeing me writing books.

How do I approach it differently? When I hand it to someone, like with Skyward, I do envision it as being Janci's now. That I am overseeing. These are now her stories. It's kind of like how I felt... Harriet told me when I took over the Wheel of Time, Harriet came to me and said, "You are the author now, Brandon. You need to follow your instances as a writer and do your best job. You do want to look at what Robert Jorden was going to do and you want to try and fulfill his vision too." But she was very clear with me, it's like, "You are the writer now." And that gave me a certain level of ownership that I feel I needed. And despite some things about what I did definitely being... You know, I'm not without criticism, and deserved criticism. I think that me taking over that series went better than the vast majority of this happening in the past. You can just look at that both in aggregate reviews, you can also look at that at sales, you can just kind of look at... Really trying not to blow my own horn, but I think Wheel of Time is the gold standard in sci-fi/fantasy for an author passing away and someone else taking over the series. And part of the reason, in fact, I would say one of the biggest reasons for that, was Harriet coming to me and saying, "You need to be the author. You need the freedom and flexibility to treat this like your own series. You're not writing this for someone as just a work-for-hire; get this, chop wood, be done. We are handing you the keys to the house." And then, of course, the fact that she was also the editor to keep me a little reigned in in the right places was a big key.

But I bring that same sort of feeling to the authors I'm working with, with: "I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna help you outline. I'm gonna help you worldbuild. I'm gonna give feedback on the drafts. I'm gonna do everything I can to make this really excellent." But when you read Dan's Cosmere book, it's Dan's Cosmere book; it's not Dan writing Brandon's Cosmere book. It's Dan writing Dan's Cosmere book with Brandon deeply involved and trying to help out. And I think this is gonna lead to just better books. I think it's gonna lead to much better books.

I remember when I went to Blizzard once. They had me in (they had Pat Rothfuss in a separate time), and one of the reasons they had me in is they're like, "We would like you to write this story for us." They wanted to investigate having me write books for them. And it was a wonderful experience, everyone there was great, but I very quickly could tell I was the wrong person for the project. Because they already knew the exact book they wanted. They had every bit of lore that they wanted in that nailed down. The level of flexibility that I could have in telling a story in the Warcraft world was just almost nil. (They were actually investigating people for Overwatch back when it was Overwatch, but they also talked about Warcraft stuff.) It was like, "You could tell this story. This is what happens in it: boom boom boom boom boom boom boom." And it's all just completely already done, they just need someone to put the words on the page. And that is not me. That's not a project I was the least bit interested in.

Adam Horne

Seems like a lot of movie experiences are built like that.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, a lot of movie experiences are built like that, too. And because of that, I politely declined that opportunity. And I have learned (particularly in these kind of collaborations) that the best things that we came up with were things where I said, "Here is my world. Here's what makes it exciting. Here's what I love about the characters. What do you want to do in this world?" And together, developing something that really matches them. Particularly when I can kind of hand off characters that I have not spent a lot of time on or have them invent all new characters.

That's what you should expect with the collaborations I'm doing. Quality control, hopefully by Brandon, hopefully really great stories, but stories I could not have written, because just handing people my outlines hasn't really worked. The best example of that being White Sand the Graphic novel. Isaac has made that book great, by kind of taking some real ownership over it. The first stuff that we did (even before he did this latest revision that you guys can now get), it felt like my outline got really stiff when someone else played with it, and some of the stuff that makes reading a Brandon Sanderson book really fun and enjoyable didn't end up in there.

There's a long rambling answer to you; I hope that's relevant and helpful. But, that's the way I am approaching this.

Nesh

So some of us happened across a line in [Mistborn: The Final Empire] that gave us pause. It's in the chapter 19 epigraph:

"Not so Kwaan. In a way, he is as unlikely a prophet as I am a hero. He never had an air of ceremonious wisdom - nor was he even a religious scholar. When we first met, he was studying one of his ridiculous interests in the great Khlenni library--I believe he was trying to determine whether or not trees could think."

This sounded to us like Kwaan the Terrisman might have been looking into or might have known something about Realmatics, like for instance knowing of the Realms and that things have aspects in all three. Is this the case? If so, was such knowledge common among his people or Scadrial?

Brandon Sanderson

Realmatic theory was part of the ancient Terris religion.

Argent

I've been thinking about possession within the Cosmere - is it possible for beings (dead, alive, or inbetween) to possess other beings in the Cosmere? Allomantic control over spiked creatures, and the existence of the Lifeless are both close to the idea, but neither is quite what I've been trying to imagine. I think I am looking more into whether one being's cognitive (and/or spiritual) aspect can fully replace (temporarily or permanently) another's. I imagine the victim would natively fight this, similarly to how Rashek's spiritual aspect resisted his anti-aging trick, but... is such a thing possible?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible. (There are places where you've already seen the process either begin, or work partially.)

Oversleep

Are you talking about Ruin/Harmony controlling Hemalurgic Constructs and Odium controlling Voidbringers... or is there something else?

Brandon Sanderson

You will see soon.

Questioner

Would Hoid be able to harm a Herald or a Cognitive Shadow?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, so, he is curious about this too. I don't know if I should canonize this. Let's say: odds are, no. Cosmere scholars would guess no.

Yata

When someone dies on Nalthis, their Breaths: go away with the soul, or remain in the corpse?

Brandon Sanderson

Breaths return to Endowment.

Yata

Together with the soul? Or remain in the corpse?

Brandon Sanderson

The soul--

Yata

Passes away?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, unless it turns into a Cognitive Shadow. Then, the soul goes into the Beyond. And so the actual essence of the soul, the Investiture of it, does return to Endowment.

Argent

Do deadeyes disappear in Shadesmar when they are summoned as blades to the Physical Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, mostly.

Llwvyn

Hoid has said that what he does, when he heals or comes back to life or whatever, heals the soul

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Llwvyn

But Hemalurgy is like ripping off a piece of the soul. Could he heal that?

Brandon Sanderson

It is possible. Well, his particular brand of healing is very Spiritual Realm based. And so, it would-- he could. Not all brands of healing are capable. It depends on what's happening, and things like that. But yes, he would. Most Shardbearers [Surgebinders?] when they're in the throes of their powers would heal spiritually. *brief pause* Not all of them. Not all healing will do that, though.

Llwvyn

Yeah. Because I was thinking that maybe you could spike him multiple times and compound his power.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Spiking him could do some weird things though. But spiking can do weird things to anyone.

Leinton (paraphrased)

Is a Shard's influence of power based on Physical distance, Cognitive distance, something else, or does it vary from Shard to Shard?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It varies, but is definitely more Physical.

sebarial

Would a Feruchemist actively storing Identity be more susceptible to Forgery? Would more outlandish changes be able to take effect? Thanks for your time, and have a wonderful day.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, if you store Identity, it makes you susceptible to ALL KINDS of things in the Cosmere. Forgery would be on the short list.

bubblebooy

Does the difficulty of affecting metals in a body with Allomancy have to do with Identity?

Brandon Sanderson

No, more to do with the fact that most people are innately Invested in the Cosmere--and certain planets have extra Investiture. Something Invested is more difficult to transform/move/etc with another form of Investiture.

bubblebooy

That is what I had originally thought before you capitalized "ALL KINDS." Is Soulcasting people like Jasnah Kholin did doubly hard since people a have a strong sense of Identity and have innate Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

We're getting a bit far on this course, so it's time to pull out the RAFOs. I don't want to overplay my hand and leave the books without anything to talk about. :)

Phantine

Does that 'inside a body' thing work on most magics?

For instance, if Han stuck Luke into a Mistborn Tauntaun (a distant and unlucky relative of the mistborn llama), would Luke be protected from both the cold and emotional allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

He'd have to get him inside a living one.

It does work on most magics, though the interactions can be odd unless you know a lot about the workings. Emotional Allomancy, for example, works by lapping against the outsides of someone's cognitive self, influencing you the way music might stir your soul. So being inside a living body wouldn't necessarily stop it--you'd just have more interference. Kind of like how you can still hear music outside if it's loud enough.

Actual mind control in the cosmere requires you to get INSIDE the soul, which you've seen happen frequently enough. There has to be a gap or an opening.

Or, conversely, you just have to be so powerful that you can push through the interference.