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Questioner

So I was reading that one of the worlds, I think it was Yolen, is going to be a disease oriented magic?

Brandon Sanderson

It's not Yolen, it's Ashyn...

Questioner

How does that work?

Brandon Sanderson

Viruses and bacteria, various strains of them, have evolved in-line with the Investiture on the planet to grant you a magical ability when you catch the disease, because they want you to stay alive long enough to--

Questioner

To transmit it.

Brandon Sanderson

--o transmit it. So it becomes part of the transmission vector. So you have superpowers or whatever-- You can fly as long as you have the common cold, but when you get over it, you can't anymore.

Chris D.

If Hoid collects a form of Investiture from every planet, will it grant him special effects?

Brandon Sanderson

He hopes so!

Brandon Sanderson

By the way, in the original draft, when Sarene gives her "All of Arelon is blessed by your presence" line when the Patriarch is on the docks, the Patriarch originally said "I know." Moshe thought this was a little overdone, so I cut it. In my mind, however, the Patriarch IS overdone and cliché–that's part of his character. But, anyway, one other item about this scene is the storm. I threw it in so that I could fudge the time of the Patriarch's arrival–the triad structure requiring me to have had him on the boat longer than the trip should take. This might actually not be necessary any more–in the original, I had him leave before he found out about the king's death. (I'm. . .not exactly sure why. Something to do with pacing and the triad structure. However, it was always my intention to have him read the proclamation at the funeral, so I had to have him ASSUME that Iadon would be executed, then take off with the proclamation. Either way, I eventually fixed this, smoothing things out considerably.)

Questioner

[...] Do you find in writing that your faith informs some aspects?

Brandon Sanderson

It’s a good question. The things I am fascinated by end up in books. I am not a CS Lewis or a Phillip Pullman. I don’t sit down with a message I want to get across. I explore who a character is and try to figure out what message they would want to get across, then try to make it work. But you can find all kinds of things. My upbringing is going to be deeply influential on what is in the books. So yes and no. I leave that more to people who want to analyze and find things. I think that’s legit--I got an English degree. It’s totally fine to take it and be like, “This is the unconscious influence.” I more just write the books. Tolkien insisted to the end of his days that Lord of the Rings was not a metaphor for WWI, and you read that book and if you know anything about WWI you think, “This really feels like a metaphor for WWI.” It’s that sort of thing. You write the book and explore themes that are important to certain characters, and theoretically some of that does come out to the readers and they can connect it and put it together.  That’s basically how I approach it. I am very fascinated by religion, as you can tell. So I try to have characters--Stormlight is a good example. I wanted to have characters who are on all different types of spectrums. You’ve got Kaladin who’s agnostic. It’s basically the classic “I don’t know if there’s a god. If there is, I’m angry at him.” You’ve got Dalinar, who’s a reformist. He’s a Martin Luther, he’s a Mohammed, he’s a Joseph Smith. You know, “Religion is not doing what it needs to right now, we need to expand this.” You’ve got someone like Navani who’s a traditionalist, who wants the old religion to really work, who is trying to reconcile this. You’ve got Jasnah who is straight-up atheist. And then you’ve got someone more like Taravangian who would claim to be an atheist, but what he’s done is taken something nonreligious and ascribed religion to it, sort of like Confucianism, where something that was a philosophy is turning into a religion. And I try to get people on all sides of this thing. And also the religions. You’ve got the Alethi, you’ve got the Passions, you’ve got different ways to approach it, because I think that makes for a more interesting story when you like all these people and then they all disagree.

Neth

How has The Alloy of Law impacted your overall plans for events on Scadrial? Is it part of the original set of trilogies you had mapped out?

Brandon Sanderson

To worldbuild the urban fantasy trilogy coming up, I need to know everything that happened in the intervening centuries. Some stories popped up in there that I knew would happen, that would be referenced in the second trilogy. So I thought, why don't I tell some of these stories, to cement them in my mind and to keep the series going.

Neth

My understanding is that The Alloy of Law is intended to be more or less a stand-alone book. However, without giving too much away, it feels like there is a whole lot more of Wax's story to be told. When's the sequel coming?

Brandon Sanderson

I will most likely write a sequel. However, what you've got to remember is that I will be writing that future trilogy, the urban fantasy trilogy. The events in this book are of relation to what's happening in the future, so you will find out eventually the answers to the questions this book gives you, even if a sequel to this book never comes. But I more than likely will write more of these books over the next few years. The Stormlight Archive is my main focus following the Wheel of Time; I don't want to leave people hanging too much where that's concerned. But between books I will probably write more about these characters.

mycoltbug

Are there any ramifications beyond leaving one's world behind when they worldhop to other worlds? IE physical ailment, aging, time travel lag X1000

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

My question was, have you ever written a scene and had it published and then wanted to change one of your scenes?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, I have. There have been a couple of them. There's one at the end of Words of Radiance, when it came time for the paperback I reverted to a previous version of the scene. So yeah you guys will see that when the paperback comes out. One of the ending scenes-- It's a very minor tweak but I had done like four different drafts of this scene and I didn't like the one we ended up with. Even immediately after we sent it in I was like "No that's the wrong one". So we reverted.

Questioner

Will you post that online?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I'll post that online when the book comes out. I'll be like "By the way guys, Warning. There's a change here."

Bystander

The internet will freak out.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. The other thing is the ending of Elantris, the spatial-ness of it, and things, I got some of the math wrong. I didn't have Peter back then. And so now that we are doing a 10th anniversary edition I actually had Peter and Isaac, who does all the maps, get together, work out the actual math. The size of the city, the size of the continent, and all this stuff and Isaac's doing a new map and we are changing the text to now match that map. So for instance where it says something is in the original text it will actually move now that we have an actual real map, rather than my MS Paint thing that I was using 'cause you know me and maps. So yeah you nodded, there are a lot of mathematical-- just problems. We've got the new map now and it all works. So I'm glad that it all actually works, once you get the math right. But like the number of steps is way off at the end of that one for instance.

*To Argent/Kurkistan* Have you guys figured that out? Like it makes the size of the planet stupidly big.

Argent

When is that coming out by the way?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not sure, we just have to see when we turn it in. I think maybe later this year. Maybe early next year. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to get it out with one of the Mistborn books, at around the same time.

TheFoxQR

What was the process that you went through for designing the various "solar" system charts from Arcanum Unbounded?

Isaac Stewart

I loved making those star system charts for Arcanum. I found an old system chart that I thought looked really cool and combined it with the style of an old Arabic manuscript that caught my eye. I bought vellum, inked the start charts on there, and started painting them. It didn't turn out how I expected, so I scanned the inked lines, turned them into brushes in Illustrator, and created the charts again from there, painting them later in Photoshop and adding textures from the physical vellum projects I'd tried earlier.

TheFoxQR

Okay, that's just cool.

How accurate would they be in-world (they are obviously not to exact scale, but what about planetary colors and look)?

Isaac Stewart

I would say that they're relatively accurate when it comes to the big stuff, but they are also done in a style that would suggest the people of the Cosmere still have a lot to learn about astronomy. Some planetary colors are right, some are just guessed at, so the simple answer to this question is: Your Mileage May Vary.

TheFoxQR

The specific instance I was thinking about was the depiction of the 10 Rosharan Gas Giants. Discarding the glyphs and the names, were the colors of those giants in the star chart a cultural projection, or does it have physical basis in how they appear in the Rosharan sky?

Isaac Stewart

All these maps are products of the cultures and eras they came from. The mapmaker in this instance is probably using reference from all over the Cosmere, and the reference he used for this system came from Roshar itself. Since it's unlikely that the mapmaker has visited all the planets in all these systems, he has to rely on others for much of the information. I suspect he has the same questions you do about this particular map, though he rendered it based on the best information he could find. :)

Questioner

I want to know how Hoid travels between worlds. Or, if you're not going to tell me right now, will we ever find out?

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid has travelled between the worlds by getting in one Shardpool in Shadesmar and coming out a different one. *pause* Okay? So that is one method he has used to travel between the worlds. The worlds are connected through Shadesmar. Um, things that people don't think about as much reflect very minorly in Shadesmar, so when you-- all the-- most of the space between planets is cut out, and there's some weird, twisted geography going on there. So that's basically how he does it, Cognitive Realm.

Questioner

In regards to the title of Dragonsteel, is Adonalsium a dragon?

Brandon Sanderson

No, good question though, excellent question. But they do live on the planet.

Jeremy_Carroll

Can you give any history on Denth? I don't know what he did as one of the Five Scholars. What was his roll during the Manywar?

Brandon Sanderson

Boy, you know, I'd rather leave the history of the Five and the Manywar for the sequel. Denth was there, and at first he tried to stop it, work as a peacemaker, and eventually took Vasher's side. Until the death of his sister.

_0_-o--__-0O_--oO0__

Do you think it ruins some of the mystique to include Shallan's sketches in the novels since her skill level is not left up to the imagination? It's kind of like the recently announced Kingkiller television show that's being developed. No matter how good of a musician they get to represent Kvothe, they will never match the skill level that I imagine him having from reading the books. Do you get what I'm trying to say?

Ben McSweeney

I totally get what you're saying.

The meta-function of Shallan's pages are to help illustrate the more alien aspects of the world around her... we focus largely on the wildlife and fauna of Roshar, with the occasional diversion into something like Shardplate. The idea is to supplement the descriptions, not to supplant them. We try to avoid illustrating characters (even though Shallan often draws portraits) in order to leave them to reader's imagination as much as possible... it's the only perfect tool for interpretation.

Unfortunately, the more popular something becomes, the greater the demand rises for visual interpretations. As such, I think it's much better to have a dedicated team directly working with the author on the subject. Because the alternative is the standard, in which artists will interpret the work at the direction of a third party (usually an Editor or Art Director), without direct, unfiltered authorial input... and possibly without even reading the book itself. I may not match Shallan's skills, but I know that I'm matching what Brandon wants to see, to the best of my ability.

Questioner

Because Zahel was especially Invested when he died, he became that other soul. Does that mean that Elend wasn't actually...?

Brandon Sanderson

Zahel is a special case. What happened with him is, on his planet, he was specifically chosen by the Shard to be Returned. That happens, you don't have to be specifically Invested for that. The god gives them that. Now, to become a Cognitive Shadow, which is what certain people in the cosmere are, you need a powerful amount, an enormous amount.

Questioner

So not the bead?

Brandon Sanderson

Not just being a Mistborn, not just... he wasn't even close to being where he needed to be, if you want to end up as a Cognitive Shadow. You need to do some special hoops. We're talking, drawing forth the power of a Shard, or being endowed with the power of a Shard, or a certain number of Breaths would do it. There is a threshold that you could get, you're gonna end up as a Cognitive Shadow.

Questioner

Would it be possible for an inanimate object that was invested to the point of sentience Ascend to Shardhood?

Brandon Sanderson

To become a Vessel of Adonalsium, or become a Shard through...? This is a tricky question because the power left alone will become sapient. And at that point, the distinction between being a Shard and a Vessel is fine but still extant. And I would say the power could not become a Vessel in the same way because it's defined as something different. But it is possible for the power to be left alone and to gain sapience on its own.

Questioner

The example we were thinking of was Sel. It was stated in Arcanum that the landscape itself was invested to the point of.. Could the planet of Sel be the Vessel of Devotion?

Brandon Sanderson

At this point, it's playing semantics, and I would say no. But there are people in-Cosmere that would argue that the semantic distinction is irrelevant and that it is the same.

Cadmium (paraphrased)

We've seen someone with a Hemalurgic spike communicate or under the control of Ruin or Harmony... Can other Shards communicate or control those individuals?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes. Good Question. Yes...  They can certainly communicate...

Cadmium (paraphrased)

To what extent?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Not to the extent that Ruin did. The others could communicate but it'd be vague or faint, not as direct as Ruin was. He connects to us, well, them through the little bit of Preservation that he had or could touch. Because the spike pierces the soul.

Cadmium (paraphrased)

What about on other planets than Scadrial?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It'd work the same way. but again probably vaguer or fainter. Might go unnoticed.

Brandon Sanderson

For those of you who don’t know, when I was writing these thirteen books.  I started working on them and I loved the big epics but when I sat down to write Elantris a lot of the advice I had heard from editors said “Don’t write a big series in the beginning.  You want to write a standalone book with sequel potential. So when you sell that you can then write the sequels to it, but if you don’t sell it you’re not locked into spending all of your time writing these.”  The idea was if you’re going to write five novels, write five first novels as opposed to one book and four more so if you can’t sell the first one the others you can sell somewhere. And that’s decent advice, it’s not the only advice. Naomi Novik who writes the Temeraire books, if you’ve read them they’re quite good, she wrote the whole trilogy right off.  She ignored that advice and when she sold the first one she had the other two ready and they bought those too and they released her books one at a time one month after another. I think the Iron Druid guy did that too. It can allow for a really explosive start where you’ve already got shelf space, you’ve got three books there. Instead of being a nobody with one book, you’re a nobody with three and suddenly you look more important.  

Anyways I heard this, and I really do like jumping to a lot of different projects so this is what I tried but in the back of my mind I did love the idea of the big epic.  It is what got me into this, I love the Wheel of Time and things like this. So I started writing a hidden epic so I embedded into Elantris hints of a character I had been developing for years which was a guy who went from world to world in a fantasy universe investigating the different magic systems.  I started embedding this story behind the story using an outline I had used for my very first book that I had never actually finished as a background for all of this. So I was basically writing a sequel to that book but on a different planet, with different characters. I started writing my next book each had these same hints and allusions hidden behind with different characters crossing between the worlds and sharing.

I eventually published Elantris and decided this is something that I thought was cool and wanted to do and I’ve seen people do it.  Stephen King connected all of his worlds. And other authors, Terry Brooks eventually combined a bunch of his worlds together and I thought that what they did was really interesting and I had never seen anyone do it from the get go though right?  Like when Asimov linked the Robot books and the Foundation books it was something he did later in his life where he’s like “I’m going to blend these two together and make one universe out of them.” I hadn’t seen anyone do it from the start, and again I have an advantage on Isaac Asimov and Terry Brooks and people because I’ve read them.  I’ve been able to see what they did and say “Well I’m going to do this from the get go, to see if I can tell this cool hidden epic behind the stories.” So that’s called-- I called that the cosmere, it was my name for it when I was sixteen. It now seems almost a little silly to me but I’ve kept with it because, you know, it is one of those old remnants that I have from my teenage days.  There are characters-- There is a character that has shown up in all of my epic fantasies, things like the Rithmatist are not part of the cosmere, Earth isn’t so if it references Earth you know it’s not. But they show up, and there’s like an underlying, fundamental laws of magic. And there’s a story that happened long in the past and a lot of these people are reacting to this and things like that.  The thing that I want you to know though is I do it in such a way that you don’t feel like you have to have read my whole body of work to read one. Like you don’t have to have read Elantris to read Mistborn. You don’t have to read Mistborn to read Way of Kings even though there is a character from Mistborn in Way of Kings. You don’t have to do that, it’s all behind the scenes and it will never take over a series.  You will never get to like book 8 of the Stormlight Archive and be like “Wow, now its all about the cosmere, its not about--” It’s not going to happen happen like that. I will write books about the cosmere but I will be upfront from the beginning about this is going to be the cosmere series. If you don’t know the different magic systems you’re going to kind of be confused because they are going to interact with each other and things like that.  Eventually that will happen but for right now, you don’t need to worry about it. They are all easter eggs, you can read them in any order and you can piece them together and stuff like that.

Sir_Werebear

Hey, thanks for doing this! Are the Ones Above from Sixth of the Dusk the Scadrians at the time of the 3rd trilogy?

Brandon Sanderson

I haven't answered this so far, except to say, "They are from a planet you know about." Scadrial is a good guess.

uchoo786

Has Vasher met Hoid, and are they BFFs?

Brandon Sanderson

Not BFFs by a long shot.

KingSloth

Has Hoid seriously offended someone on EVERY planet he's been to? Kelsier, Shai, the Alethi nobility, who knows how many shards from Yolen, AND Vasher are all out for his blood..? :o

Brandon Sanderson

That's only a small fraction of the total list.

heavyraines17

Loved the first few chapters, getting a great ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ vibe from the Frugal Wizard’s Handbook. In that vein, what are your Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy two word reviews for planets in the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Scadrial- almost livable

Stormlight- bring raincoat

Nalthis- good food

Threnody- stay away

Sel- not visited, they can't get there

First of the Sun- cute birds

There's some for you

Headpat_Thot

The Reshi King from Rysn's interlude is probably trans. This statement is based on a few points

1: Everybody but Rysn (who's whole thing is that she's extremely green and unaware of the world) uses He/Him pronouns to refer to the reshi king.

2: When Rysn first meets the king, She genders him as a man, until she notices that he has breasts. This suggests that he has taken measures to present more masculine.

3: When Rysn refuses to call the king "king" his son loses his temper and tries to send her away. Up until then, he had been firm, but that was the point where he outright tells her to leave.

There is one line in the text where The king's son says "gender is irrelevant" in response to a question Rysn has about the king's gender.

I will say that this was written before the Author stopped using Gender and Sex interchangeably according to the WoB database.

Beyond that, I doubt the language they were speaking (thaylen) would have a robust understanding of sex and gender.

Credar

/u/mistborn was this your intention with the scene if you can confirm it? Or was it more the Egyptian style Hatshepsut-like others are mentioning?

Brandon Sanderson

I love Hatshepsut as an interesting quirk of history, and have long thought about ways to incorporate something similar. I did have that partially in mind when I was writing this, but more in the way that the culture was trying to understand him, rather than his own view of himself.

The king sees himself as male, and wishes to be treated that way--not just in title. In fact, in the coming months, you will see this character again briefly in some scenes I've already written, if you keep an eye out.

Jacky_Ragnarovna

ooh are we going back to the Reshi Isles? Will we get a beach episode?

Brandon Sanderson

Ha. RAFO. :)

P. Lavy

As a beginner, I would like to ask your advice on how to narrow that gap between my storytelling and story writing. (I have watched your online lectures on fantasy and sci-fi writing).

Brandon Sanderson

You phrase this in a great way, as the writing and the storytelling are two distinct skills that often intertwine.

Reading into your question, I think that what you’re asking is how to make the things in your head (the storytelling) work on the page (the story writing). I have to warn you, however, that a lot of times there’s a little more going on than I might have mentioned in my lectures.

The metaphor I often use in the lecture is how, as an early trumpet player, I could hear some music I wanted to play in my head (specifically when doing improvised jazz) but didn’t yet have the skill to make those sounds come out the front of the horn. This is a good metaphor, but it leaves something unsaid.

A lot of writers can imagine a perfect story, but then have trouble writing it down. My experience tells me, however, that much of the time, that story isn’t actually perfect in our heads. We pretend it is because we can’t see the problems with it when we’re imagining it—we gloss over the difficulties, the issues that are quite real but invisible until we actually try to put the thing together on the page.

So you have two potential problems. One is that the story in your head isn’t, and never was, as flawless as you imagined. The second is that your skill in writing isn’t up to telling the things that ARE working in your head. Both are eventually resolved through practice.

To finally get around to some practical advice like you wanted, however, there are a couple of ways to bridge this gap. One is to practice outlining. Now, I’ve often been clear that there is no one right way to write a story, and non-outlining methods are valid. However, if you really want to start looking at the structure of your story critically, forcing yourself to outline it first can really help. Plus, one big advantage of a solid outline is that you’re able to keep less in your head while working for the day. You can look at the outline, know what story beats need to be accomplished, and focus your mental energy on things like showing instead of telling and really nailing character voice/motivations instead of worrying if this plot point will end up working or not.

These fundamentals are another really great way to bridge that gap. Few new writers fail because they lack vision, originality, or ambition. They fail because it is difficult to write a character that is compelling. Or they fail because it’s tough to evoke a sense of wonder in exploring a new world while at the same time not bog the story down with unnecessary details. Practicing things like voice, showing instead of telling, and evoking setting through character can let you make the page-by-page writing interesting and compelling, which then serves to make your story work long enough for you to get to the grand ideas.

Questioner

If a kandra were to somehow take the form of a dragon, would they notice any differences in anatomy, or is it spot-on impersonation?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to RAFO that, to leave Dragonsteel for Dragonsteel when we get there.

Questioner

Will [Hoid] be making a reappearance in Words of Radiance?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

I also heard he was part of your unpublished Dragonsteel series.

Brandon Sanderson

He is.

Questioner

Is that a series that you're going to be publishing?

Brandon Sanderson

I will eventually rewrite it; it's not up to my current standards. I consider the events that happened in it basically to be canon, with some exceptions. For instance, when I originally wrote Dragonsteel, the Shattered Plains were there and Dalinar was there, and when I split off Way of Kings into its own book, I took half of what had been Dragonsteel and made it The Stormlight Archive and I split half of it off into a separate planet. If you were to read it, half of it will be a less good version of the Shattered Plains sequence, the bridge crews and things, from Way of Kings and the other half is Hoid’s story. And Hoid’s story stuff is still kind of canon, but the rest of it got moved.

Brandon Sanderson

Happy New Year, everyone! Brandon here, with my first in a series of updates about your next book.

As mentioned in my State of the Sanderson post last month, my 2019 is dedicated to writing the fourth Stormlight book. It's a long process, likely to take around eighteen months or longer (depending on how big it gets this time...) As always, one of my goals is to be up front and forward with you about how it's going. The writing process can be a tangled one, even for simple books. And these books are anything but simple.

So, where do we stand? Well, right now, the outline is a bit of a mess. While I started with outlines for all five Stormlight books in this sequence (and some notes for each of the back five books as well) even a heavy outliner like myself changes a lot about a book during the drafting process. Each change has a ripple effect through the later outlines, which I commonly don't fix other than to note sections that will need to be change or be tweaked.

In the case of Stormlight, sequences were frequently moved between books as I decided on better places for them. (Like Dalinar and Szeth's flashback sequences in book three and five being swapped--or like Kaladin's sequence from the outline of Book Three being moved to Book Two instead.)

The further I get, then, the more messy the remaining outlines become. So the first thing I need to do is spend some time digging into the outlines of Books Four and Five, sharpening them and making them work. I need to do this now, because I don't want to get to Book Five and find it in serious trouble.

Imagine I have a big pile of legos, and I'm building five cool castles from them. I have to be careful as I use more and more of the pieces that the ones left over make a cool fifth castle--rather than just a jumble of leftovers. There are some very important and powerful sequences still to come (you all know how I like endings) but the outlines need extra special attention this time around.

My goal starting tomorrow (well, today once I wake up) is to get those outlines into shape. I anticipate this taking a month or maybe event two. I need to dig back into books one and two and make sure there aren't plot threads I'm ignoring, examine the themes of this book's flashback sequence (from Eshonai's viewpoint) and map them alongside the main themes of the major plots, then choose break points for the five parts of the story. (Along with decide who the viewpoint characters for each part will be.)

For those who don't know, I plot each Stormlight book as a trilogy written as a single novel (though in five parts) with a short story collection spliced into it. That "trilogy" then connects to the five book mini arc (in this case, the first five books) which in turn ties into ten book mega arc of the series. So, I've got a great deal of work ahead of me. Fortunately, we have an entire year for me to do it! (Though I will need to spend some of that time the next few weeks signing four thousand copies of the Hero of Ages Leatherbound, which FINALLY arrived.)

So, off I go! I'll be back here sometime February or March with another update, perhaps including a (spoiler free) visual representation of the outline like I did last time. Until then, thanks for the support! The Way of Kings passed a million copies sold in the US last year, which isn't even mentioning its significant sales around the world. I'm humbled and pleased to see so many people embracing this series, the one I started assuming it would be too long and too strange to ever sell.

I'll leave you with a random tidbit to theorize about. I'm pretty sure that at my signing last week in Idaho Falls, I was unintentionally misleading about some of the things I said about Dalinar's powers (regarding infusing of spheres.) I was trying to talk around spoilers for book four...

Just_A_Silvereye

In the cosmere, if everyone on a planet believes unicorns exist, would some kind of unicorn shadow appear in the Cognitive Realm as a result?

If yes, could you create an actual, physical unicorn out of it?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it's not going to quite work this way. What's going to happen if everyone believes unicorns exist, but they don't, there's various things that could happen. You might end up with some Investiture taking on this persona and becoming this, but it's not like you can create it, but over time you might end up with the equivalent of a spren. Then it's not going to be just a physical unicorn running around. It's gonna have more spren aspects, and my guess would be that over time these things feed each other. Right? Like people see one, and then they describe, "This is what it looked like," and that changes the public perception to better match. And then over thousands of years what you end up with is, "Hey there's things in the forest over there that are a type of mysterious creature that are transparent and look a little like a horse with a horn, but maybe fly," or things like this. You would end up with something in the middle, between the two of them.

Things wouldn't naturally pop up on Shadesmar unless there's free Investiture in that same sort of way.

simon_thekillerewok

Is Vaeria still a planet name in the cosmere or was that scratched?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Argent (paraphrased)

Do the Spiritual and Physical Realms have names, like Shadesmar is the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Kind of, but not really. Shadesmar is just a rough translation of "Cognitive Realm" in the language of whoever first found out about it. Other people, planets, and worlds wouldn't call it Shadesmar - they would call it whatever their words for "Cognitive Realm" are. This applies to the Physical and Spiritual as well.

Brainless

So if you jumped off a high place and you were a steel Feruchemist, could you store the speed of you falling?

Brandon Sanderson

No, because-- I'm going to say you need to be moving under your own-- because otherwise it's all relative, right? If you're falling, it's no different than if you're traveling on the planet or things like that.

Glamdring804

So it's related more to muscle contractions.

Brandon Sanderson

*hesitantly* Yes, kind of. Feruchemy bends all sorts of weird things, ever since I started doing the weight one. So, yes.

Brainless

The thing about Feruchemy is it feels like you could be like a savant short of it, but it would be much more minor than something like a savant for-- It would be more things like what you could get for exercise and stuff like that.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Yeah, that's possible.

Questioner

Hemalurgy, does the person having the metal shoved through them have to die?

Brandon Sanderson

It has to rip off a piece of their soul. That normally results in death.

Questioner

Because I'm thinking you're going a bit into the future, surgery, precise things like that...

Brandon Sanderson

It's plausible but-- I mean it would leave the person like-- it's ripping off a piece of their soul. But the same thing happens when you give up your Breath. So you're giving up a piece of your soul. There are-- It's plausible you could take off pieces of a soul without killing the person.

NotOJebus

Okay so Brandon, I've gotta ask, Rig's last name is McCaffrey. I thought, oh haha, nice McCaffrey reference.

Then I got thinking.

So Skyward is a story about a girl and her starship (dragon) who join a group to help defend their planet, which is made up of separate caverns (Holds) after humanity crashed (colonized) their world, and who has to defend said peoples from an enemy that periodically comes from the sky called the Krell (Thread).

Let's just assume the world takes place in the DE universe and that Spensa and Co will eventually work out how to psychically teleport and... Brandon... Is Skyward just a sci fi retelling of the Dragonriders of Pern...

Brandon Sanderson

The White Dragon (along with Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen) are direct inspirations for Skyward. And Rodge's last name is a nod to Anne McCaffrey.

I wouldn't say it's only a sci-fi retelling of these stories. But the plot archetype that inspired me is the "boy and his dragon" story. (Including Eragon and How to train your Dragon as well.) I've always wanted to do a story like this, but wanted to find a way to put my own spin (heh heh) on the story.

You'll see how they diverge as the story progresses. But much as Mistborn was inspired by heist stories, this one was inspired by dragon egg stories.

the.fulgid

It seems to be more apparent that different abilities are granted depending on the design of one's Spiritweb. Is the design of a Spiritweb, and the abilities it grants, limited to a specific Shardworld or are the designs universal across the cosmere? For example could someone from Roshar go to Scadrial and have Hemalurgy done on them and have it work?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah, some of the magics are more regionally-locked than others. Hemalurgy will work on any planet. But, for instance, you'll notice that Elantrians have trouble even going to the next nation over. There's a specific reason for that. Most of the magics transcend location.

the.fulgid

My question, in regards to Dragonsteel, is: Is there a possibility that somebody with the ability of microkinesis can see the spiritweb and alter it according to their will?

Brandon Sanderson

This is, this is totally possible. But you have to remember this is pre-Shattering of Adonalsium. Dragonsteel is the story of the Shattering of Adonalsium... the whole book is before, the whole series... So there are lots of things going on there that are-- like you will-- yeah. But it’s not canon yet.

Questioner

In The Stormlight Archive, Damnation is a physical planet, or place, to my understanding. The Tranquiline Halls seems a little less tangible, is it a physical place and will we see it?

Brandon Sanderson

So, Damnation and the Tranquiline Halls, are they physical places? In Rosharan mythology they are places, much like heaven and hell are places. Tranquiline Halls is-- and so they believe that they do exist, but they're not sure if they exist on this plane or the next plane, or things like that. And that's all I'm going to say about it.

OverlordJebus

Where is Hoid's Cryptic during Era 2? Did he have to leave it behind?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO

Brandon Sanderson

Nazh was born, as a character and as a concept, out of Isaac annotating maps, and wanting to have somebody... 'Cause Isaac was our original cartographer, been doing the maps ever since Mistborn, of basically all of the Stormlight books, until he started bringing some people in to do some of them. Not just Stormlight, but all of the Cosmere books. So if there's a map, or (particularly in the Stormlight books) ephemera, Isaac has had his hands in those, and he likes to add little easter eggs, and he came up with this persona of this character who was doing this. And we knew we wanted these to be in-world artifacts, but we also knew that we needed somebody who was kind of recovering these for some thing, and I'm like, "Well, this works very well with Khriss, probably compiling these and finding artifacts from planets and bringing them back to Silverlight." And so, that's kind of where Nazh was born. I borrowed him once before for Secret History; he makes a small appearance in Secret History. Larger appearance here. Isaac and I have talked through his history and his future, and as early as years and years ago (probably seven, eight years ago), I'm like, "What about this?" And that's when Nazh joined Starling's crew in his current incarnation.

Isaac Stewart

I think it was with Alloy of Law where we realized we need somebody annotating some of these, now and then. One of the reasons was, when you're doing a map of a city the size of Elendel, we couldn't really put these tiny street names, and things like that. So we're like, "Well, we need somebody annotating this." And many things crashing together, but that was one of them.

Questioner

So, in Allomancy, most of the metals are in pairs, they're equal and opposite, pushing and pulling, Rioting, Soothing, that kind of thing. The god metals have always-- lerasium and atium, have always struck me as kind of unbalanced in a way. Like, lerasium gives you the power to use all these metals, plus atium being one of them. Is there a reason for that?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there is, and it kinda has to do with Snapping and some of the fundamental rules of the Mistborn world and the fact that people have Preservation and Ruin inside of them and all these sorts of things. So, the answer is yes.

Partially, narratively, I built that in partially just 'cause I wanted atium to seem odd in the placement, right, when people got to it it's like "What? Why is this one-- This one doesn't match the others. This doesn't really work." When I was building Mistborn, one of the big things I wanted was this idea of a periodic table that was, kind of a flawed construct, that, as you read the books, you came to understand better and better. And that was something I executed-- I don't think I executed that 100% right, but I'm pleased with the general concept and how it plays out. And so I wanted atium to stick out like a sore thumb.

The other thing is, I knew I needed some good foreshadowing for Fortune, for people being able to kinda see the future or versions of the future, for the whole cosmere to work. And, so, I built in atium specifically to do those things. And I built in lerasium to have, kind of, the ultimate sort of benevolent endowment sort of thing. (Not Endowment the Shard, you know what I mean.) But I also wanted to show these two magics were intrinsically tied together on Scadrial because the way that humankind was created. We're getting into some deep stuff, I'll just leave it there. But that was what was going through my mind as I was building those things all out. 

Questioner

Multiple Investiture? Possible? Have we already seen it?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. And yes. Well, you've seen it, but you wouldn't be able to know.

Questioner

With that, is the planet they're on that matters?

Brandon Sanderson

For most of the magics, no.

Questioner

Okay. Since there *inaudible*.

Brandon Sanderson

Among other things, yes.

mooglefrooglian

Did Ruin and Preservation create Scadrial, as in the actual planet? The other Shards seem to have settled on already-made worlds (or at least, they did for Roshar).

Brandon Sanderson

What Ruin and Preservation did is less common, for certain.

ChaliceOfCalus

After finishing Oathbringer I started a reread of Warbreaker and noticed something.

Page 427 of Warbreaker:

Susebron: "Didn't you eat before you came to my chambers?"

Siri: "I did, but growing that much hair is draining. It always leaves me hungry."

Sounds similar to our favorite Edgedancer, but I thought she was supposed to be one of a kind on the whole getting Investiture through food? I'm assuming the Royal Locks have something to do with Investiture.

loegare

FWIW, i asked this question in my Warbreaker book and got RAFO

So in war beaker Siri is able to convert food directly into hair growth through the Royal Locks, we know that the Royal Locks are somehow related to investiture, so my question is, can Siri/Viv convert food into investiture to use in Awakening (or Surgebinding or any other uses of magic in the cosmere) similar to Lift and her awesomeness.

Brandon Sanderson

As far as I know, you were the first to catch on to this. (Or at least ask about it) so that should be a very proud RAFO. There is something here, but it's not as deep as you might assume.

Tony Patrick

Where did you get the idea to have multiple moons on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

I have no idea, it's gone back so far. I mean... Yeah, no idea. I like doing weird things with the cosmology and with planets and things like that. For the 2010 version, looking at the moons, I wanted to subtly indicate the presence of three gods and kind of subtly give some color scheme indications of them and things like that, but they aren't one to one. Just that idea, because everything was based around ten, I wanted some threes hanging around in the world building as well.

Questioner

What happened to Rand? He's not dead?

Brandon Sanderson

So Robert Jordan wrote everything from Rand stumbling out of Shayol Ghul until the ending, with the exception of the Perrin scenes, which I added to that epilogue. Harriet says--his wife--says he sat laughing to himself as he wrote the scene with the pipe, but he did not tell her what it means.

Questioner

Pipe?

Brandon Sanderson

The pipe where he-- he lit the pipe just by thinking about it. 

Questioner

That's also something-- he's using the Tel'aran'rhiod power to light it in the real world?

Brandon Sanderson

I do not know. Now, I have my theories. I think that because Rand touched the Pattern directly, when he was doing what he was doing, that he now has influence over the Pattern. 

Questioner

So he can change and manipulate things? But he's-

Brandon Sanderson

That's what I think, but Robert Jordan didn't say, and he did write those scenes himself before he passed away. So, I wrote the actual Last Battle-

Questioner

All of it? That was so epic.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. So he took over-- where he left was right when Rand stumbles out. The Last Battle chunk before that was me. He wrote Mat in the Tower of Ghenjei... He wrote most of Egwene in The Gathering Storm, and then little snippets of Egwene all the way through. Perrin was almost one hundred percent me; he didn't leave much on Perrin. With Rand, he wrote little chunks here and there...

So I do not know. Now, I can tell you that there in the notes that when the balefire streams, when they crossed, intertwined [Rand's] soul with Moridin's soul. And one thing that his assistant said is that the [soul] that wanted to live found the body that was going to live, and the [soul] that wanted to die found the body that was dying. And that's what happened.

Questioner

They swapped bodies because he had this thing-- Why didn't he go in and say "hey everybody?" ...He didn't want to be with his family and friends anymore?

Brandon Sanderson

I think he probably came back-- He just needed a break. I'm pretty sure that he eventually let them know, but he just needed a little time. So, but I don't know for sure.

Questioner

I thought it was super cool, going in, the chase between Slayer and Perrin.

Brandon Sanderson

I had a lot of fun with that scene.

Questioner

...Also, you told me last time I saw you, that Tel'aran'rhiod is basically-- Is that kind of where you got the idea of the parallel universe in the other books?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, Shadesmar. Shadesmar you can tie directly back to my love of Tel'aran'rhiod. It's kind of mixed with that in my love of some ancient Greek philosophy things that are not that important, but yeah.

-lurcher-

At the end of Oathbringer, it seems that many (including myself) felt that Szeth's return and sudden alignment with the protagonists went over a little too easily. Are they accepting of him now? Why the sudden change of heart? Are there going to be trust issues in the future?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, yeah. Obviously crazy men who shift allegiances quickly, after murdering the king and starting a war, aren't exactly the sort you leave home to babysit your kids.

Questioner

If another Shard came to Scadrial, would that be enough to create a metal like atium, or...?

Brandon Sanderson

If another Shard just came to visit, probably not.

Questioner

If they brought a spren or--

Brandon Sanderson

If they came and completely Invested the world, then things might start happening. But there's some special circumstances, remember. Ruin and Preservation created that planet. Specifically. And so there's some goofy things that happened because of that. For instance Roshar was not made by Honor, Cultivation, or Odium. That's one of the big differences about what's going on there.

AviH (paraphrased)

Was Taldain one of the planets of the Iriali Long Trail? Was Scadrial?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO

Sciencetor2

The gems on Roshar, are they the same as the gems you and me know, or are they a byproduct of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

For the most part they are the same as the gems we know, which will ask the question, "Since most of them are chemically identical, other than color, what differentiates them?" and in the cosmere, color is very important, so I'll just leave you at that, but most of them are going to be gems like we have. If you took a ruby from our world to Roshar, it could be Invested by the highstorm.

Sciencetor2

And spren?

Brandon Sanderson

We will RAFO that for now.

Questioner

What happens if there was a Feruchemist who was an Elantrian? Could they store Elantrian abilities into a nicrosil metalmind?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm RAFOing most of the stuff, but that one's a RAFO just because I am leaving nicrosil Feruchemy far away until I get there... I'm basically RAFOing everything about Investiture and Connection metalminds and things like that...

Chaos2651

Is there a rationale to how Hemalurgic powers are distributed? I tried to look for a system, but they seem rather randomly distributed. For example, the spike which steals Allomantic powers for a particular quadrant is not always in one particular spot.

Brandon Sanderson

That is correct, it's not always in one particular spot. None of them are. I used as my model on this magic system the concept of acupuncture and pressure points. Placing a Hemalurgic spike is a very delicate and specific art. Imagine there being a different overlay on a human body, like a new network of nerves, representing lines, points, and 'veins' of the soul's spiritual makeup.

What is happening with Hemalurgy, essentially, is that you're driving a spike through a specific point on a person's body and ripping off a piece of their soul. It sticks to the spike on the Spiritual Realm. Then, you place that spike on someone else in a specific place (not exactly the same place, but on the right spiritual pressure point) and 'hot wire' the spirit to give it Hemalurgy or Feruchemy. It's like you're fooling the spiritual DNA, creating a work-around. Or, in some cases, changing the spirit to look like something else, which has the immediate effect of distorting the body and transforming it into a new creature.

Hemalurgy is a very brutal way of making changes like this, though, so it often has monstrous effects. (Like with the koloss.) And in most cases, it leaves a kind of 'hole' in the spirit's natural defenses, which is how Ruin was able to touch the souls of Hemalurgists directly.

Ravi

Can someone use their native world's magic system on a different planet? (Ex. Would Galladon be able to use Aons on Roshar?)

Brandon Sanderson

Plausible. Certain things would need to be done.

mysteriouspenguin

You said that there are ten major Shardworlds. Are Threnody and First of the Sun (planets without shards) part of those ten? What other Shardworlds we know about are not part of the ten?

Brandon Sanderson

I don't know if I've said specifically, but I think I've implied that neither one are major worlds for the storytelling narrative. (Though Threnody is more important by far.) I believe that I've mentioned the others all being major factors in the story.

Sacae-

As a Stormlight reader who has only read one Mistborn book (the first) and am only comsere aware through soaking things in from Stormlight. I have to say you walking that tightrope nicely here. It’s intriguing without feeling like I’m out of the loop and it for sure fuels me with interesting things are in the background.

Brandon Sanderson

I'm glad that the tightrope is working for you. You picked up on everything you need to know--there are other planets, and being able to provide Stormlight to them (as a cheap, renewable version of magical energy) would be valuable. So the Ghostbloods are interested.

Brandon Sanderson

The initial premise of Dragonsteel, which you guys will eventually be able to read, is: the King has a bet on whether people from a rural village can be trained to be as smart as people from the noble court. And this is part of the bet. And that’s kind of the initial place that this starts and goes.

Hoid shows up pretty overtly; he’s got viewpoints in this book. He is not hidden at all; you will see him when he comes on screen, and you will know him. I think he goes by “Cephandrius” in this one.

You will be able to read that, eventually. Like I said, it’s not bad. It’ll be easier for you to compare when you get to the Bridge Four sequence, which was originally in Dragonsteel, and compare it to the new Bridge Four sequence from Way of Kings and see how the new Bridge Four sequence is so much more strong.

It is no longer Cosmere canon. Nothing in it really spoils too much. It spoils some of the magic system that’ll eventually be part of Dragonsteel, and some of those things. But when I go back to this planet, it’ll be Hoid’s viewpoint. Jerick has basically been written out of the Cosmere; I don’t know that I will ever do a book about him. It’s possible, but there’s so much overlap between his story and Kaladin’s story, now, that I don’t know if I could do it and make it interesting and distinctive. One young and somewhat brooding man raised to be a scholar from a no-name village is probably enough for the Cosmere. Even though there are distinctive different parts, since Kaladin’s father was educated.