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Rock_DS

Given the Mistborn table top game, would you be up for a Stormlight (or even just cosmere in general) table top game? When more of the stuff is out of course.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there will be. Almost certainly.

Rebecca Sito

Do any of the civilizations in the cosmere celebrate a holiday like Halloween?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

How much have you thought about the mathematical relationship between Investiture and energy/matter? Is there a cosmere E=mc^2?

Brandon Sanderson

I've thought about the concepts a lot. The numbers, I actually tried to get some mathematicians... There are some lovely folks, I'm like, can we come up with a standardization? And it kind of broke their brains, not because they aren't smart people, they're very smart people, but they're like, "Brandon, where do we even start? How much energy is being expended?" and this sort of thing. I would like to get a unit of measurement, how much Investiture equals how much energy, but at the same time, the work being done by the various magic systems, it's going to be too constrictive to put too much math on that, I feel like. I would like to. It is a much bigger project than you might imagine it being. How much energy is stored in a sphere? That's kind of where we started. A sphere stores Investiture, obviously some of that Investiture is being lost as energy, it is transferring energy as the sphere releases light. That is happening automatically, it's decaying and radiation is happening. How much is it therefore losing, how much could it do, how much of that can be transferred to doing work with a Lashing... All of this stuff, I have thought about way too much, and we have no answers for you yet because it is a really big project. Maybe we will someday, or maybe we'll just say, this is too big a project to even be able to mathematically quantify. I'm sure if you have suggestions, you can post thoughts on the subreddits, and perhaps that will get to the various arcanists who are helping me with this.

Questioner

What was your inspiration for Jasnah?

Brandon Sanderson

I had done several times, when I was designing characters in the cosmere, someone who kind of thought they were an awesome scholar but really wasn't. That's the kind of thing with Sarene and a little bit of the thing with Shallan. They're young people who haven't quite made it there yet, whose opinion of themselves is kind of beyond their actual skill level. Who would be, like, the scholar? Like, the ideal Rosharan societal scholar? And I built Jasnah out of that, and then took her in a way that would allow her to also be in conflict with that at the same time. Always a good source of writing a character.

Questioner

My fiance and I have been reading through the books, I introduced them to her, she's been reading them in Mandarin. And, so, our question is about what level of enforcement/authority you guys have at Dragonsteel for things like translations, because the atium in the Taiwanese/Mandarin version of the book is translated as "sky gold." Which loses the connection to Ati.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it does a little bit.

Questioner

How does-- has that changed, since you started?

Brandon Sanderson

It has changed since we started, definitely. We try to involve-- Those were translated by Lucy, right? We try to stay really in contact with our translators and offer them as much as possible. Who translated that one? ...Oh, no, that's not Lucy, that's-- he contacts us, too, he writes to us. And, we do our best. But sometime we just don't make people aware of things early enough for them to be relevant. Like, they start, they get a book out, and then they're like "Oh, no, this need to be related." We try, and our translators try, and usually are really good at contacting us, but things slip through. I've worked with both of the Chinese translators quite a bit, actually; Peter does most of that. But if there are things that we get wrong, we love to hear about it, we pass along to translators-- the Chinese translator is a big fan of the cosmere. And sought out the project actively to work on it. So... if there are translation issues, just write to us.

trevorade

Are you going to write all three books [of The Apocalypse Guard] at once or space them out a year or so each?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to try doing them straight, with a random novella separating them to give myself a break. I feel that Mistborn turned out very well from having had entire series perspective--and want to see if I can replicate that writing experience.

yahasgaruna

Man, does that mean no more Rithmatist in the near future? :(

Brandon Sanderson

We'll see. Rithmatist is a Tor project, and I need to do some Random House books for them. I'll get back to Tor books next year.

yahasgaruna

Yeah - I figured it was about having something for both publishers, since Tor has had the fair share of your writing time recently.

Well, I'll read anything you write, so it matters little. I guess we can wait a few more years for the Rithmatist and the conclusion of Wax and Wayne. :)

Brandon Sanderson

Current Plan (though these things get shaken up) is as follows:

Do the Apocalypse Guard Trilogy this year, moving into next year, with a novella between each book to take a break. That could take me up to roughly a year.

Do W&W 4, Rithmatist 2, and the final Legion story over the next year. That will wrap up W&W and Legion, maybe Rithmatist, depending if I want two or three books.

With my slate clean, I dive into Stormlight 4, write something bizarre and unplanned in-between, then go right into Stormlight 5 rounding out the first Stormlight sequence.

But, as I said, these plans tend to shift a lot as I work on different books.

Oversleep

Any word on what these novellas will be? Are they cosmere? Reckonersverse or greater universe of Apocalypse Guard? Something else entirely?

Brandon Sanderson

The way my process works, I'll probably need to see what I'm excited most about when I write them--something that gives me a break from what I'm writing. I've got outlines for a couple of novellas I want to do, but I can't say which I'd end up doing.

trevorade

Cool. Does your "The Apocalypse Guard 1st draft" progress indicator refer to the entire trilogy or just the first book?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm being ambitious, and trying to use the progress bar for the entire trilogy right now--since I plan to write it straight through.

Punzi (paraphrased)

Have we seen a Dawnshard in any Cosmere book?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes and no. *hands RAFO card*

Questioner

When one of the shards, like Odium, move from world to world in the cosmere, does their presence, like the metals they leave behind and their magic, leave with them?

Brandon Sanderson

Odium never really settled on a planet.  He is now settled on Roshar and his magic has permeated things.  Leaving would be very difficult for him. It would either involve leaving behind some of his power or ripping that out, which would be a difficult process.  So yes it is very tough to leave.

Cheyenne Sedai

All three secret projects we've seen so far have been different in terms of voice than your usual books. For Brandon; how did this change in voice change your stories and the world you depict in these secret projects? Is there anything you implemented that you would like to bring into other books you write?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's an excellent question. That's part why I do voice like this. To experiment with different things. Project 2, Frugal Wizard, has a kind of funny ephemera book like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I like playing with ephemera, which is a fancy word for in world books and such that's included as part of the book, and I think that my experiments with ephemera are useful there. My experiments there with that one, playing with historical settings, is also very useful for me.

On the other two it is figuring out Hoid's voice. That is the thing that will probably be most useful in the future as I work out how I want him to tell Dragonsteel, which is his backstory. Neither of these is the right voice. Yumi is closer but at the same time I wanted to have something like this. I always wanted to write something with this fairy tale feel to it, and fairy tale is the wrong term. It's like modern fairy tale, like the Princess Bride is the er-example of this but even Harry Potter one. These sort of quips in narrative that give it a feel of a narrator telling you a story, the Hobbit has this as well. I liked that. I liked the feel of that. It's a sort of different kind of story telling, it has a sort of classic feel to it and I liked doing that.

Emily Sanderson

And with both of these I feel like there were times where you were like 'Is this too much Hoid? Too little Hoid? Does this work?' And I could really tell why you were doing it and if it was too distracting to the story or not.

Brandon Sanderson

Now here is the really interesting thing. The beta readers can not agree on this. There is no consensus on if their is too much Hoid or not enough, if it is distracting or the best thing about the book. Some of you I will warn will find the voice too distracting. I'm doing what I can, particularly in Yumi where I am pulling back a little bit where I'm putting Hoid interjections in parentheses and stuff like that. It doesn't work in Tress. Tress is so much in his voice, that whenever I add parentheses it's like; 'Why did I parenthesize this one when everything is so strongly in his voice?'

Emily Sanderson

It was interesting reading them because you didn't tell me that was what was going on. I had to figure it out. It was interesting to see when I figured it out; 'Wait a second this is in the Cosmere, wait a minute Hoid is telling this story' was kinda fun. It's been interesting to see people's reaction to that.

Brandon Sanderson

The readers reading the early chapters and be like 'Hey wait a minute!' That is a lot of fun. Very satisfying to me. That they can pick out Hoid's voice that easily. Means I'm doing my job right.

Bruno Vale Fernandes

We know Herdazians and Horneaters are singer-human hybrids. My question is: Are all humans, besides the Shin, also hybrids with more diluted blood that gives them epicanthic folds?

Brandon Sanderson

No. The... oh, of each other you mean, or...? I thought you were meaning with... I would say that's not the way to look at it. I would say that yes, most people on Roshar probably share some common ancestors in some way, but you can say the same thing of most people from most regions on Earth and things like that. I don't think that's the right way to look at it. They just happen to be a large number of different human ethnicities that share some common features.

Brandon Sanderson

Tertiary Projects

Untitled Threnody Story

There's a novel in the Threnody system I've been planning for many, many years. Might as well move it onto this list. I'd originally planned it as the arrival of people in hell after fleeing the Evil that destroyed their homeland across the sea, but I'm toying with flipping this around, sending an expedition back to the destroyed continent.

Either way, a Threnody novel has been part of the cosmere since before I got published, so I'm confident we'll see more from it eventually. If you're confused by all this, might I mention again the value in grabbing a copy of Arcanum Unbounded?

Status: Very early planning stages.

SapphireBombay

The cups that Charlie sends to Tress. Should we be reading into the descriptions of those cups and thinking about where they may have come from? Is it safe to assume they have come from elsewhere in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

It is safe to assume they have come from the planet. And though there are things to read in about them, they are related only to this book, the only one that has real cosmereological significance is the Iriali cup. So, don't be trying too hard on these to be like, "This means this!" They are for this book's narrative.

Questioner

Can you do something for me on science fiction *inaudible*?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Some day. There will be some science fiction. And it'll be in the Cosmere even. *Inaudible*

Questioner

So you said you play Esper in Magic: the Gathering, the central color of which is blue. All the Shards shown black/blue. Is this intentional, saving the Shard you identify with for the later bits of the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

So, yeah, if you were going to say blue, who is blue? I would say that definitely we do have some blue Shards, but it didn't just naturally fit to do the stories the blue way, it just didn't happen. So it wasn't that I was saving back the traditionally sneaky or conniving Shards, or at least the powers that are related to that, it's just how it played out. It was very natural for Mistborn to play around with black-aligned and white-aligned, if you are giving a single color to the various Shards. And then on Roshar, it just made a lot of sense for what I was building to have a red-aligned, a white-aligned, and a green-aligned. I don't really think of the Shards that way - I can retrofit a Magic color identity to them, when thinking about it. But White Sand, there's some blue going on with what is happening there, so you have seen some, but you're right. 

Questioner

When is Rithmatist 2 coming out?

Brandon Sanderson

Rithmatist 2 is the number one requested book that people ask of me. I know more people are waiting for Stormlight 3, but they can see the progress bars and things like that, so they know it's coming. Rithmatist 2, I might write between Stormlight 3 and 4. I tried to write it, and since they were going to South America, and I had not done my research, I was not able to accurately represent an alternate Earth version of the cultures, like the Nahuatl, the Mexica people, so I stopped to stop and read, like, ten books on that, which prevented me from writing the book at that point. Now that I've done the research, I can, I feel, write the book, and do justice to it, but I have to now find a timeslot in my schedule, because the slot that was in my schedule I spent doing research. You wouldn't have wanted the book that would have come out if I hadn't done that research. You know all this buzz about Harry Potter and Native Americans? Mine would have been ten times worse, just because you write from a position of ignorance, so I was starting, and I was like, "No, I can't do this." So now, I think I can do it, and I think it will be good, but now I have to find the time. I'm sorry.

Questioner

Is Hoid the only one of his kind that we've met in the Cosmere books?

Brandon Sanderson

What do you mean by his kind?

Questioner

Is he the only one from the planet he's originally from that we've met?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Because Ati and Leras, the Ruin and Preservation, were both from that same planet.

[...]

All of the Shards of Adonalsium were from that planet.

yafeshan

Scadrial will get to space age sometime in future, what about other worlds. Will we see space tech based on other magic systems, shiny space battles etc.? Did we see space age tech of a world in another main (roshar, sel, scadrial) world(conveniently excluding Sixth of Dusk world)?

Brandon Sanderson

The cosmere is heading this way eventually.

Pagerunner

I would like my [cosmere constellations] map to have one more planet on it than everybody else's maps.

Brandon Sanderson

That's a smart idea. I'm on board for that.

*adds a new planet and writes "here there be Aethers!"*

Pagerunner

But no name on it? Just that there there be Aethers?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I can't canonize the name yet until I write the planet, right?

Paradox2063

Soooo, hope you don't mind, but not long ago I finished reading The Aether of Night and the White Sand ... books.

And I've seen that Dragonsteel exists, but there are only 5 copies and they're all in the Harold B Lee Library at Brigham Young University.

Is it possible to get a copy to read the same way we can get the first two I mentioned?

Sorry to bother you. Can't wait til January though.

Brandon Sanderson

I don't send it out yet. Maybe once I've gotten far enough in the cosmere that certain things in it are not spoilers. But the book, now that Bridge Four is gone (they used to be in that one) really doesn't have much to recommend it, unlike the others.

Maybe I'll change my mind some day. For now, I don't send it out. (Sorry.)

Brandon Sanderson

One of the reasons I've not been firm on what the names of the sixteen Shards are is because I want that flexibility to be able to say "no, this is what the cosmere needs, is a persona like this to have a Shard, and the Shard doing this." By the time Rhythm of War comes out, I think we will have canonized all sixteen or very close to all sixteen. But I wanted to take my time doing that.

Brandon Sanderson

Dark One

This is a series I've talked about for a long, long time about a boy who discovers he's the "Dark One." Basically, it's the classic epic fantasy story told from the eyes of the dude destined to try to destroy the world instead of save it. I've made good progress on the setting, which is going to be awesome. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the teen series I do once the Reckoners and The Rithmatist are both done.

As a note for fans, this is a Cosmere story.

LeFlshe

How did Autonomy isolate Taldain from the rest of the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

All of the Shards... "How"? "How" may be the wrong term.

Adam Horne

There's a followup question, maybe it's related. "Did Bavadin remove the perpendicularity on Taldain?"

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO on the second one. First one, natural processes.

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

Your languages in Stormlight, do you have a way you do names and such?

Brandon Sanderson

Usually there's two different ways that I approach it. If I'm going to spend a lot of time in the linguistics, I'll look for linguistic themes like in Stormlight it's names that are symmetrical or things like that. If I need to shortcut, I'm going to look for an Earth culture and I'm going to use the language kind of based on more themes from that culture and the sounds they have and try to replicate that but not using the actual words from that culture.

Questioner 1

Timeline-wise will Warbreaker 2 come before Stormlight Archive or is it after?

Brandon Sanderson

Before the end of the Stormlight?

Questioner 1

So Warbreaker 2 would it take place before the start of...

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, before. Yeah, Warbreaker 2 chronologically is pre-Stormlight. Before Stormlight 1, yeah.

Questioner 1

Pre-Stormlight. Okay.

Questioner 2

I'm excited for that.

Brandon Sanderson

In fact, chronologically I think it's the exact book before Stormlight 1. I don't think there's anything in between there.

Questioner 1

Will the book say why Nightblood's on [Roshar]...

Brandon Sanderson

It will at least hint at it. I mean the book is called Nightblood. If it doesn't I'll write a bridge novella to kind of do that.

Questioner 1

Bridge the gap?

Brandon Sanderson

Bridge the gap. Because the story-- I'm not sure if I can work in everything. Because the story isn't about Nightblood leaving. It's about-- yeah.

Questioner 1

Yeah, it's not about that. It's just kind of like a... how did that transition happen.

Brandon Sanderson

I mean, yeah. Vasher's cosmere-aware, and so the more you talk to him the more some of this stuff will come out.

Jackson Dickert

We learn [Yumi]'s repeated this day for 1700 years, and her memory is patched over by the father machine. If memory and Investiture are so closely tied together, is the father machine also taking her Investiture? How does that work, because she's such a highly Invested individual, it seems like if it could take any Investiture from her, it would take all of it, like the nightmares did.

Brandon Sanderson

When I play with this, with tweaking memory and things like that, my go-to in the cosmere, in the three cases where you've seen it happen, is that those excising memories have to be really, really careful, or the body will reject what you're doing. So, all three times you've seen it happen, it's been one little sliver of memory is getting changed. The father machine might even just be overwriting it each day, basically blanking that Investiture, but not stealing any of it. Vasher does pull a little bit out when he takes the memory, and the same thing happens with Wit when it happened to him. But I think the father machine's doing it in a slightly different way, and it has to be really careful, or it'll be too obvious, and the whole illusion, the facade, will collapse.

Argent

Investiture in the Cosmere when used goes to the Spiritual Realm, except in one place. What determines which Realm Investiture returns to when it's being used? 

Brandon Sanderson

Too many factors for me to actually say right here, Evgeni, so I'm gonna RAFO this one. There are lots of reasons that it could go in different ways and different places. 

Billy Todd

How many of those reasons are rule of cool? 

Brandon Sanderson

Rule of Cool is definitely a reason. I think he's trying to get at why on Sel things are weird, and I have not explained why things are weird on Sel yet. 

Questioner

If you took somebody-- an Allomancer and them in a different one of your worlds, could they still burn metal there?

Brandon Sanderson

Could Allomancers burn metal on other planets in the cosmere, yes they could. Good question.

Brotherwise Games (paraphrased)

The next Cosmere board game they are working on is not a Stormlight game.

Questioner

Hemalurgy is mentioned as something that has "broad implications." But that's of Ruin, right? (Or now it is of Harmony.)

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but don't take the "of Ruin" and "of Preservation" too strongly, but yes.

Questioner

But, I mean, somebody couldn't just walk along with a metal spike on, say, Nalthis, and stab 'em and now they have the power, could they?

Brandon Sanderson

If they knew where to stab them, yes, they could.

Questioner

Anywhere in the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

You can stab someone and get their power?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgy has been built in such a way that it rips off pieces of the soul. If you can rip off the right piece of the soul and attach it to somebody else, it will change your Identity, and it can rewrite anything that's attached to your soul. Identity, Connection, it can rewrite Investiture, all of this stuff it could potentially do.

Questioner

And do the things you stab people with—are they always metal or does that depend on the planet?

Brandon Sanderson

No, that's metal, that's—

Questioner

*inaudble*

Brandon Sanderson

Well yes, you could make it do something like that. That is totally possible. But the metal— Yeah. Anyway.

Questioner

With the other Shards you kind of have to be near that Shard to get that—there's no Allomancy.

Brandon Sanderson

To get it, yes. To have that part of your soul. But, for instance, Allomancy would work on other planets. The only one that's going to have trouble working on other planets, right now, are the ones on Sel because of the way that the magics are built.

Questioner

So I think you dropped like, so many cosmere bombs in Oathbringer. And I'm just low-key worried that there's not going to be much more to reveal. I hope that that's not the case and I just want a small confirmation.

Brandon Sanderson

There is still plenty to reveal. Remember it's two five book arcs.

Questioner

So we're okay?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. I've still got a few bombs to drop.

Chaos

In Dawnshard we learned that Intent and Command are two different things, whereas in Warbreaker Vasher is clearly conflating these two into just saying it's the Command. What's the difference between Intent and Command?

Brandon Sanderson

Intent encompasses more understanding. Command is specifically narrow. A lot of times, these things are gonna be conflated, because they basically can be. Like, if Vasher creates an awakened thing and says "go get me those keys." The Intent is: "I need the keys to get outta here. I want to be free." The Command is: "Go fetch keys." Those are two different things, but they are working toward the same goal. It is important in cosmere terms that the Intent is understood, even if sometimes the words that can speak 'em are clunky and smaller in scale by nature than the Intent.

Let's say the Intent of a Shard encompasses more than the word that the Shard is described by. It's a similar thing that the Intent of a Command is often vaster than the actual words spoken. And the magic can grasp the Intent, not just the Command, depending on the magic system and how good you are at it, and things like that. The words are there to focus Intent. How about that?

Chaos

Bringing the old word "focus" back into it. Let's talk about body focuses; what's going on there? (That's a joke.)

Brandon Sanderson

I'll throw you a kernel on that one in the fifth book if you watch for it. That old Rosharan philosophy will actually be relevant for a small thing happening in the fifth book.

PhoenixKnight777

Each Order of Radiant has some resonance between their Surges, correct? Can you give us some examples of what would happen in a Surgebinder somehow achieved an impossible pairing, such as Division and Illumination or Transformation and Gravitation?

Brandon Sanderson

I haven't really thought about it. You go ahead and theorize on that, I'm sure you can come up with interesting ones. Totally possible in the cosmere. The structure that is on Roshar prevents it from currently happening, but totally possible. I mean, very plausible. I haven't theorized on those yet, so I'm not going to right now.

Aurimus_

From a writing/world building perspective, - how much of the maths/science do you do in the background? US hardback copies of Oathbringer had a map with an inworld long/lat system, for example, and Shagomir and Jofwu worked out (with help from Peter) the amount of land on Roshar, and how much of the planet that the continent takes up. What inspired you to go to this depth? Is there anything you decided /not/ to do the maths for and just went with hand waving it away?

Brandon Sanderson

This is a thing I do more and more of as I gain access to the resources for it. (I have a few very large-scale mathematical issues I'm using people smarter than myself to solve.) I did a lot more hand-waving before I had these resources. I'm not horrible at math, but didn't go beyond college calculus, and just don't have the time to get everything right on my own.

It's something I do want to be right, however. It's more of a personal desire than anything else--but I think it's going to be important the further we move toward a science fiction cosmere.

yulerule

I know you’ve thought out a lot, especially like the Cosmere and how the magic works and everything, but I know the Sharders and everybody have been doing really ridiculous tiny details. Have they thought of something that made you revise anything or...

Brandon Sanderson

I generally try to avoid revising to what the fans come up with.

yulerule

Not what they come up with because of ideas that you haven’t thought of or…

Brandon Sanderson

Oh yeah, on occasion they say something where I’m like, “Yes, that is the right thing,” and then I just canonize it. So yes they do influence it that way.

Questioner

Do the Heralds know about Aons? I am asking specifically about Shalash. Shao, Ale, Ashe. Transformation, Beauty, Illumination.

Brandon Sanderson

Let's say that some of them do and some of them don't. The question is "do the Heralds know about Aons?" How cosmere-aware are the Heralds? It depends on the Herald.

danimalod

I just read Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell and loved it. How did the first shade come to be? Are there shades in other worlds? Do shades have bones?

Brandon Sanderson

Shades are what we call "Cognitive Shadows" in the cosmere. They're basically "spren" or "[seons]" created from human souls. (Where Investiture--or magical power--keeps a consciousness alive after it has lost its Physical connection.) Yes, shades all once had bodies.

Think of them like petrified souls, where instead of stone replacing the tissue of a corpse, magical power replaced the parts of a soul that connect that soul to the Three Realms.

Ilkhan2016

Breath and Stormlight are both forms of Investiture. AFAIK you can power any of the magic systems from any form of Investiture. Zahel is on Roshar, I believe, primarily due to how easy Investiture (Stormlight) is to come across.

AFAIK the form of Investiture doesn't change anything about the abilities. For example, Szeth was sucked out of Stormlight when he drew Nightblood; and Azure used Stormlight to Awaken in Shadesmar.

/u/mistborn is that right?

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of this depends on the Investiture and the magic in question. Azure was legit using Breaths, for example--ones she'd brought with her. But Szeth was able to feed Stormlight to Nightblood, much as Vasher uses Stormlight to keep himself alive.

To Awaken with Stormlight, the easiest thing to do would be to first change Stormlight into Breaths--something that Azure doesn't know how to do. (Admittedly, Hoid doesn't either, so it's not like it's a simple thing to achieve.) You could also theoretically use some magical (or mechanical) means to power your Awakening with a different form of Investiture.

Extesian

This is very interesting. Is it possible then in the Cosmere for the 'intent' (spin or however described) of Investiture to be changed? And I mean within reasonable limits (not the powers of six shards or any of that). Can a Shard effectively grow in power in a place (e.g. toward an avatar) through another Shard's Investiture being changed (not just corrupted)? Or is it just making one type ('intent' - you should canonize a word for this :D) of Investiture mimic the properties of another?

Brandon Sanderson

Most of the ways of accomplishing what you're talking about would involve either 1) fooling/overwriting your spiritual makeup somehow. (This is what Hemalurgy does, for example.) 2) Refining the power somehow into a more pure form.

But there are a lot of variables. The way magic from Nalthis works, for example, the system is just looking for any available Investiture to power itself--and so basically anything will do, regardless of the source. This includes consuming your own soul, in some cases...

You'll see terminology coming along eventually that facilitates talking about all of this. I'm not yet decided on some of it.

Celestial_Blu3

How many Breaths does [Azure] have by her final appearance in OB?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid.

Amaowin

So men cannot write, it is a feminine art. Women do all the writing and reading while also covering their left hand with a sensible long sleeve (not godless whores). But what if a proper Vorin woman is born left-handed? Would she be forced to wear a glove in order to write? Or would she do her best to write with her right hand to avoid her sinful nature as a lefty? I wonder if these women write in secret, away from the lecherous eyes of others, and expose her safe hand to write freely.

These thoughts keep me up at night. I pity these left-handed Vorins for the rough life they must live.

Brandon Sanderson

This isn't as big a deal as you might think, because for a lot of the population, they just wear a glove and use their left hand.

It gets interesting when you are upper class, female, and left-handed. Part of the inspiration for the safehand was the way that the left hand is regarded as unclean in some of our cultures on Earth. You might be curious to read about what left-handed people did, historically, in some middle eastern cultures.

The short answer is "They learn to be ambidextrous" but the long answer is that it can be quite a pain, and very embarrassing. So yes, you are right to feel sorry for those left-handed Vorin women.

Questioner

Are you going to have Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series pulled into the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Haylo_Alex

You've said before that Soulcasting can't create atium or lerasium which makes sense since they're made of Investiture from other Shards. But could a Soulcaster, perhaps in the proximity of Dalinar's perpendicularity, provide enough Stormlight to Soulcast something into Honor's Godmetal (tanavastium)? What about Cultivation's metal, or an alloy of both, like Shardblade metal?

Brandon Sanderson

So, creating a God Metal is not something that's done easily in the Cosmere. HOWEVER, it is possible. You'd need a ton of Investiture, and being near Dalinar's perpendicularity is unlikely to be enough. I'd say Soulcasting, or something akin to it, has the means to do this if it could obtain the proper power charge.

Questioner

Does Khriss ever figure out how to get sand [to work] on the Darkside?

Brandon Sanderson

Ohhh, that’s a bit of a spoiler.

Questioner

Essentially her reason to become Cosmere-knowledgeable.

Brandon Sanderson

It is one of her primary motivations for where she has gone, is figuring out how all that worked. But her story I want to leave for her book.

Ironeyes

We know aluminum affects mental magic and emotional magic. Would it affect the hole in your soul that’s created by Hemalurgy? If you had an aluminum spike, would that make it easier, less easy, or no difference for Ruin to take control of you?

Brandon Sanderson

Aluminum resists Investiture generally, even when it’s not Invested itself.

Ironeyes

(Brandon hems and haws a little so Ironeyes clarifies the question) Would an aluminum spike make it harder for a Soother to take control of you?

Brandon Sanderson

An aluminum spike would have no effect on a Soother’s ability. They wouldn’t see it there.

yulerule

Did you make aluminum resistant to Allomancy so that you could do the tinfoil hats?

Brandon Sanderson

No, but once I did, I was like that’s a cool idea. I made aluminum resistant to it because I wanted something to be magically inert in the Cosmere. It was a happy accident.

Questioner

Do you have any idea which book of yours might make it to the movie theaters first?

Brandon Sanderson

Which one might make it to the movie theaters first? So right now it's going to be a race because I would say that a lot of things are kind of equal footing, because most of my options that we have for films lapsed last year and then we resold them. So we're kind of starting from scratch on everything. We sold Legion again, we sold Mistborn again, and we sold The Emperor's Soul shortly before.

*crowd ooh's and aah's*

And then we sold Steelheart like on Friday. Steelheart had been optioned and they let it lapse. Mistborn had been and Legion had been, so we've got four new companies basically working on it, but every time we do this my profile as a writer has raised to the point that we get a better crowd, if that makes sense. Like the Steelheart deal I'm really excited about. I love the producer, he's the guy that did-- did you guys see Real Steel? Did you ever see that, the Richard Matheson story? The guy who did that. I loved that, I thought it was-- it was one of those movies I watched expecting it to be dumb, and it was great. But he also did the Night at the Museum stuff, and things like that, and so I'm really excited about that.

But the Mistborn script treatments are excellent, the best treatments I've gotten. What that means is that's what you write as a producer to give to a screenwriter to then write the screenplay, and then after that you get stars attached, and then after that someone finally gives you money and you make the film. So we're still a long way away, but the treatments are really good.

And then, you know, the guys who have The Emperor's Soul are super enthusiastic. They're DMG, they made the Iron Man films with Marvel, they're super enthusiastic and they went down the cosmere rabbit hole. They bought it and then they're like, "who is this--" let me see this deleted scene about this guy named Hoid. So I gave it to them and they're like, "wait a minute", and they started reading everything. And so they've come back to me and they're like "sooo, um, the Sanderson cinematic universe..." So I don't know what's going to happen with that, but there's lots of discussion about things like that. And they've been talking to the Mistborn guys, and so--

But this is all very new, meaning we're at the preliminary stages of all of it. There's like, nothing I can officially even announce other than "These people have bought these rights, these people have bought these rights". Maybe we'll get something made eventually. I've gotten really close before and it hasn't happened so, who knows.

Dan Wells

The last few weeks I've been doing a ton of writing for Super Secret Project X. I can't tell you what this is literally until it is out in the world, but here are some hints: it's three things, and they're in the Cosmere, and you should really come to Dragonsteel '24.

SapphireBombay

Is Jasnah left-handed? If so, did that play a role in her perceptions of how women are treated on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Left-handed women become very ambidextrous, kind of are forced to use their non-dominant hand, on Roshar. I will have to give it some thought whether Jasnah was originally left-handed. It seems like it would totally fit her.

And I don't think I've mentioned any lefties; I actually get emails, now and then, from people being like, "Hey, can we know who's a lefty in the Cosmere?" I think that it is something on my radar, to canonize some lefties, but I'm not going to do that now.

Yourigath

Can you access the Dor while on other planets? Can you, I don't know, "tell the Dor" that you are on Roshar using an Aon that doesn't have the base on the map of Sel but in the world of Roshar and use Elantrian magic there? An Aon with an spiral pattern with the right lines, dots, etc... that tells the Dor "I'm here. This is Roshar. And I need your power to do X"

Brandon Sanderson

Great question, and one integral to the workings of cosmere Magic! No, you cannot currently access the Dor anywhere else. The Dor is a big part of why magic on Sel is distinctive.

Yourigath

If an Elantrian worldhops does it returns to a normal human pre-Shaod state? If this Elantrian goes back to Sel it recovers his Elantrian powers or he keeps his pre-Shaod form?

Brandon Sanderson

An Elantrian away from Sel would still be an Elantrian--but many of the visible signs would fade away, much like something florescent that stops glowing when moved away from a Black Light.

Metagross22

Hey Brandon while you’re here and we’re talking about Kal’s relationship with Lyn, we know he’s had at least one romantic relationships in the past being Tarah I was wondering if he was still a Virgin. Were these relationships just romantic? Also how negatively is sex before marriage viewed on roshar and namely vorin culture? I know these topics sometimes can make you uncomfortable but I’m really curious about this part of their culture.

Brandon Sanderson

In these cases, I generally allow it to be vague enough that people can think/assume what they want. However, some of Kal's relationships in the past (including the one with Tarah) progressed to the point that in our world, most people would have been sleeping together.

In Vorin culture, I'd say that they're not as relaxed about such things as most modern cultures are, but aren't as strict as the more religious cultures on Earth are. Alethi are concerned about oaths in specific--what have you promised, and do you keep those promises. So, for example, cheating is a far, far worse offense in their eyes. And opinions and strictness in areas of moral chastity would vary depending on upbringing and personal beliefs. To some, a promise of, "We'll be together until we split" that is kept would be considered honorable--while to others, that would be too lax a treatment of oaths.

Also, lighteyes are expected to be circumspect and maintain an image of certain decorum. But that's something else entirely...

Blightsong

You've said that, AI in the cosmere, creating one is kind of like having a child realmatically. Would that extend to most sapient creations?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Blightsong

So could a created spren from a Returned inherit Royal Locks? Within a reasonable possibility?

Brandon Sanderson

*ahhing in a very curious manner* You could make this happen, but I don't think it would happen naturally.

Sullivan Wenger

Is Skyward connected to the Cosmere? If so, is it connected to anything in Arcanum Unbounded?

Brandon Sanderson

It is connected to a different story I've published. I'm keeping quiet about it, since it's kind of spoilers--but you will probably figure it out by middle of the book if you've read them all.