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Is the relative positioning of the constellations' images significant in any way? For example, the Shardbearer is pointing his blade at the dragon/serpent/monster of the Scar, while Nalthian lady looks like she is blowing Sel's fire out. Do we need to be paying attention to those?
This is more compositional than anything else. Though I wouldn't discount their positions entirely.
Anything you can tell us about Frost?
What do you want to know about Frost?
Everything.
Then no. I'm not going to tell you everything about Frost. He's still alive.
He's immortal?
Yeah. He can be killed, he's just functionally immortal, he doesn't age.
Has he always been able to take the form of that-- *audio obscured*
Yes. He was born as one.
Born as one.
It is a race.
Also, is there a common reality/universe throughout all of you works (WoT excluded)? The gods and magic system of your books you have mentioned as pieces of a larger source. I know I am mistaking the language a bit; it was a while ago that I read this. But Preservation and Ruin were linked and you referenced possible deities in Elantris, not to mention Austre. I know your magic systems are all well thought out and the rules have practical founding. With this in mind, I assume your deities and beings of power would have universally applied links and rules as well. I figure they all exist in the same multi-verse.
I am remaining mostly closed-lipped on this topic, as I don't want to spoil the story and discovery. There is a lot of discussion about it on my website. I can confirm what I've said earlier, that there is a common character appearing in the books, and that there is a single cosmology to all of the Shardworlds and their books (Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, White Sand, Dragonsteel, The Silence Divine, etc. Those last three are unpublished, by the way.) There is also a connection between how the magic works in each book, as well as the fundamental metaphysics of the worlds.
In this one [Sixth of the Dusk] is the guy he [Dusk] finds dead, is that Hoid?
They guy he finds dead is not Hoid. Good question.
Is it anyone we already know?
Does Hoid make an appearance in that one?
Hoid does not make an appearance in that one.
What about Shadows for Silence?
In Shadows for Silence he does not make an appearance. I established with those two, my goal was, he-- I found that if I just shoehorned him in it didn't actually fit the narrative. Like I want this to not just be a cameo, he's actively doing things. Does that make sense? He's not just there for cameos... he's actively up to something.
Now he has been to Threnody. Threnody is very interesting to him for certain reasons. He hasn't been to First of the Sun, he's never visited Sixth of the Dusk's planet, yet.
Do you have other minor Shardworlds?
Yeah I have a bunch of them, and which ones are worth telling a story in will depend on when I get around to it whether they're worth it.
Stormlight Five is the end of the first arc of the Stormlight Archive, right? I've been saying that since the beginning, since Book One, but then I went and I ended Mistborn, and people are expecting it to end like that. That's not what I mean by the end of the first arc. This is more like an anime arc than it is like the end of Mistborn One. And I need to start preparing that for people, because one of the things I'm getting from beta readers is: number one, it's going really well, people are really liking the book. Number two, they're like, "Oh, I thought this would be an ending like end of Mistborn Three." No, it's more like the end, as I said, of an anime arc. The end of the Stormlight is Book Ten. You are going to get some decent resolutions on things I've been promising for a while, but you're not gonna get resolutions on everything, because it's not the end, yet.
In Mistborn, you say its planet is called Scadrial. In-universe, where (or when) did the name Scadrial come to be used to be describe the Mistborn planet? Did the Lord Ruler and his obligators use that as the name of the planet, or did it come later, post-Mistborn 3? Or is "Scadrial" just what you as an author use to refer to it?
It is "In Universe" so to speak, though the name itself isn't known to the people on-planet. The Lord Ruler was the only one who understood the exact nature of a planet, really, though some of the obligators and noble scholars had a general idea. Astronomy was one of the scientific areas where the Lord Ruler didn't mind people doing research, so long as it kept their interest away from chemistry or a science that could lead to advances in weaponry.
Scadrial would then have been the name that Ruin and Preservation understood for the planet, as well as certain other groups and individuals of a less directly divine nature.
What differentiates a minor Shardworld like First of the Sun?
The amount of Investiture, and whether there is actually a Shard in presence.
I'm assuming there is not one there?
There is not one there.
So it's like a Splintered one from something else?
No what you'll find is that the worlds were all created with a level of-- a little bit of sort of ambient magic. What you'll find in worlds like that is things like, Shadows for Silence and things like this, the magic, it's not necessarily "people with magic" it's you can interact with nature...
So there is inherent Investiture...
There is inherent investiture in every world created but you are going to see-- You aren't going to find Mistborn on a world like that but what you might find is a way there are magic aspects to the setting. Spren could exist on a world like that but they would be like the minor spren, you wouldn't find Syl, but you would find something like lifespren.
If a planet was orbiting a black hole, would time be distorted in the Cognitive Realm in that area the same way?
Yes. Good question. And in fact, if you could get enough Investiture, it will do the same thing.
You've once said that there were three sentient species on Yolen: Human, Dragon and [Sho Del]. We've seen a lot of 'people' on the different planets that were either descended from or intentionally based on humans. Frost is known to be a dragon.
Are any of the non-human species we've seen descended from or based on either Dragons or [Sho Del]?
RAFO! :)
What colour is Frost's blood? What color is a [Sho Del]'s blood?
RAFO, more because I'm not ready to canonize Dragonsteel facts yet, as opposed because it will be a huge revelation.
Dragons are quite the mystery. We now have five dragon names (Frost, Xisis, Koravellium, Starling and Vambrakastram (?)) and I’m not sure what the pattern is.
Frost and Starling are nicknames. And Xisis's full name is Xisisrefliel.
Is there significance in the star chart there where Nalthis and Scadrial are connected? They're the only ones that are.
I'm gonna say, not huge significance. We didn't put that in as an Easter egg, it was more like, "This looked right."
I really enjoy the systems of religion and the religious questions that you bring up and so I was wondering-- Well first whether in your worlds there is a relationship between the efficacy of religion and the efficacy of magic?
There is but the relationship is not a direct one-to-one parallel. In other words the beings that are worshiped have an influence over the magic. Whether they are actually God is disputed by various people. And there are people who worship things that are not the various beings the magic is-- Does that make sense?
Do we have yet to see a dragon from you? I was wondering if those were coming later.
I did put, one of my world has Dragons.
Is that Dragonsteel?
Yes it is!
Do dragons always go through their early life in human form? Or would being a Sho Del also be possible for a young dragon?
The way I have it right now (which, we’ll give this as a Word of Brandon that could change, because I haven’t written Dragonsteel yet), it’s a human form. I imagined dragons like amphibians, that they have part of their lifecycle… the Yolish dragons, they mate in human form, they bear children in human form, raise children mostly in human form, but their dragon form is equally part of their identity.
In The Stormlight Archive, are there any on-screen appearances of dragons in any form?
RAFO. Sorry.
Dragons can be shapeshifters, correct?
They can, yes.
Do they only have a humanoid form they can appear as, or can they appear as many humans?
Depends.
Could an AI bond a spren?
RAFO
Has Hemalurgy been used on another planet besides Scadrial?
Yes it has. Brandon did not want to give out any more details about who was getting spiked or if the spiking was successful.
Is there ambient Investiture in all of the planets, or just the Shardworlds?
*pauses* It's mostly Shardworlds. But that definition gets a little uncertain in the case of some various planets, like Threnody. There are other Threnody-esque sorts of things.
Do you think you will ever include dragons in your books?
Dragonsteel, a series I’ll do someday, has Dragons in it. Hint: This world/series is very important to Hoid..
I'm asking why they have chickens.
...They were carried with them.
So is Earth...
Earth is not. There are several Earth analogues. I go with a default, we're gonna make it easy on myself. Those planets have, kinda, Earth analogue for plants and animals. And then you can assume that they have Earth creatures until I start doing ecology really quite weirdly.
If Preservation and Ruin created life on Scadrial but did not create Feruchemy, where does it come from? The planet?
All magic systems come from Shards power in some way.
Would Hemalurgy work on an AI?
RAFO.
Aside from the Greater Roshar system, are there any other multiple shardworld systems?
Yes. You have not necessarily seen them though.
Was Tanavast a dragon?
Tanavast was not, but that's an excellent question. There are some other dragons out there. If you keep asking, you might get some yeses; but this is a no.
You’ve been known to say that the fantasy genre is the best genre because you can do anything another genre can do and you can have dragons. And yet, we haven’t had a dragon from you yet. Well we see a Sanderson Dragon anytime before Dragonsteel? I’m assuming Dragonsteel has dragons?
Yes, I smile inwardly as I say that, because I know that--indeed--I don't use a lot of dragons. I do like reading about them, but I haven't found myself eager to put them into my works. I think it's because I've read so many excellent dragon books, I figure, that area of fantasy is being covered by others--and I should try different things.
That said, Dragonsteel has dragons, and so you will eventually see them there. I don't know that I'll do them before.
In a lot of your books there are, like, things that make them seem like they might be connected...
Okay, "in a lot of my books there are things that make them seem like they might be connected." *crowd laughs* What's that?
Is there going to be a crossover?
"Is there gonna be a crossover?" So for those who don't know, my books-- my epic fantasies are all connected. There's a hidden epic happening behind the scenes. There will be someday that I will do crossovers, but I am not doing it right now. The focus right now-- I don't want people to like read the books and be like, "I am so lost." I don't you to feel like you have to read my whole body of work to appreciate what's going on in one of them. So while there will be cameos, and sometimes they will be moderately relevant to the plot, it's only gonna remain mostly cameos for the moment, until I do a series which is upfront going to be, "Here's the big crossover. You have to know all eight magic systems or you're gonna go crazy."
In at least two of the books that I know of, a god is either dead or attacked in some form or fashion. Is there any reason for that?
Yes, there is an ongoing theme there, and it's primarily because there is an overarching story behind the story. The books are all in the same universe. And there is a character that's the same in all of the books. In Way of Kings it's Wit. He's actually in all of them.
My question: do we have any updates on Isaac Stewart's Mistborn Nicki Savage book?
Yeah, so Isaac's been working away at it. He has not shown it to me yet, but he is excited by it and he has shown it to the writing group I believe. So he is working very hard at that. We have Isaac's story and we also have Dan. Dan's is just in the very early stages of concepting and things like that, so. So yeah, you can corner Isaac and ask him for updates on it. I haven't seen the book yet, but he promises me it's getting very close to where he wants to show it to me.
Are sandlings from White Sand an early concept for crustaceans on Roshar, with greatshells being a parallel to deep sandlings?
No, um, the idea for white sandWhite Sand came first, and it was more that I was exploring divergent ecology, but I've been doing that in Dragonsteel and in White Sand and in here with Roshar. I would say that the fact that white sand hadn't been published meant that I could do something's that were similar without worrying about repeating myself, but it's not like I used them specifically as models.
*jokingly* So are we going to get to see little dragons running around in Dragonsteel?
Uh, well, in Dragonsteel the dragons are sapient, so when I write Dragonsteel I will put dragons in there, but the dragons are intelligent and uh, can take human form, but there are actual little dragons.
Wait, they can take human form?
Yes, yes, yup.
Do the Heralds know about AonDor?
I would say, conceptually, a few of them do, but not in specific detail.
'Cause Ash's name is a combination of Transformation, Beauty, and Light. I didn't know if that was a coincidence, or--
There are some non-coincidences in the linguistics that people have started to pick up on, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the people who have those names know about the origins of their names.
I'm a physical chemist and I'm reading your book [The Way of Kings] right now and at some point you have someone studying flamespren and what they saw, that's one of the fundamental tenets of quantum mechanics--
Yes.
So you got that from quantum mechanics?
I did get that from quantum mechanics.
How did you come across that and decide to incorporate that into your epic fantasy?
Well The Way of Kings' magic systems are based on the fundamental forces. That was the original idea and the extrapolation from them. I'm fascinated by quantum mechanics and I have worked them into the way that-- Remember in my worlds, my books, the magics are a new branch of physics, in these worlds. And so they interact with our normal physics, it's not like they are ignoring them, so they obey the laws of thermodynamics, even when they appear to be breaking them, and they interact with quantum and all the stuff. It's just very natural that they are going to, to me if that makes sense? It would be weird if they didn't interact with them.
So, one of the things I know, you have your own universe that you've produced, and it's fantastic. what's the series you're gonna create or have created that's the cornerstone, that will have the largest impact on the universe.
I would say Mistborn going all the way through is probably the most impact. Stormlight is gonna have a decent one, so is the Elantris world.
Is there gonna be a union book or series?
Yeah, the final Mistborn series.
Should all the Shardworlds have radios and the like, and progress in that...
Should they? Not yet.
Could they?
Could they? Yes.
In regards to the title of Dragonsteel, is Adonalsium a dragon?
No, good question though, excellent question. But they do live on the planet.
In The Lost Metal, we find that Sho Del have four arms, making six appendages. In the [sample] chapters for The Liar of Partinel, we find that a fain deer has six legs. Is this pattern important?
Yeah.
Further, how relevant to this is [it] that if you count four legs plus two wings, dragons have six limbs?
Yep, that is the exact correlation that I would like you to draw! Dragons are fain, if you're wondering. If that's what the question is, yes, dragons are fain.
How long do dragons live?
Dragons are functionally immortal, meaning... maybe "functionally" is the wrong term. They stop aging at a certain point. They can die to most normal other things, though they are highly Invested beings. But they do not die of old age.
Are we going to get a star chart when we get to the sci-fi--
Yes, we will do a star chart… Isaac is working on how to design those.
Does Silverlight have a permanent Perpendicularity on it?
Silverlight has weird. So I'm gonna give a RAFO to that.
It's got a physical constellation map. So they've gotta go to the Physical somehow right?
No, no, no. That can be in the Cognitive Realm.
The constellation map can be a picture from the Cognitive?
Well, yeah, I mean, it can be a picture in the Cognitive. That is a picture that exists in Silverlight.
Right, sure, but they need to be somewhere to view those things.
Right, I didn't say that that’s from the perspective Silverlight, but what we say is the picture is hanging there.
So that was a mis-interpretation on our part.
Yeah, the picture is hanging there in Silverlight. Okay?
Is there actually anything on the Physical end of Silverlight?
That is-- That's the RAFO part... That's what I'm not answering. If there's anything Physical. There can't be a Perpen--well, there could be a Perpendicularity, but then you'd have to go someplace in the Physical, and it gets all-- Silverlight is really weird.
In Arcanum Unbounded, you have gravity ratings for different planets. Is one like Earth?
An Earth analogue, yes.
I do have a follow-up on the map? All of the constellations-- Or most of the constellations seem fairly straightforward. The one containing Roshar has a Shardbearer or Herald…
Yep, mmhmm. There are a couple--
Yet Sel gets a lamp?
Sel gets a lamp, yes.
Why?
Ask Isaac about that, he came up with the symbolism. And I like all the symbolism. But I would go to him about the symbolism of that. Ask him to write an essay for my website about it, because he has really cool-- Cause again, cause I said to him, "I want a star map" and I wasn't gonna put constellations on it, right? Just, the one in the back cover that doesn't have constellations, that's what I asked for and he came back and said "I did a constellation map with these things, what do you think?" and I'm like "that’s cool! Can you explain these to me?" so I'm just gonna let Isaac go with that, he chose it, he chose the perspective and the point of view, so it's his map, and he's canon on that.
I have a question about Iyatil, can you tell me what world she is from originally.
Originally? That is a question i can dodge pretty easily im afraid. Iyatil is not from a world you have seen.
In Secret History, Hoid says something to Kelsier about him destroying the Pits and destroying an entire mercantile system. Is he talking about literal inter-Realmic trade?
Yes. Interplanetary trade, yes.
Follow-up: Is House Venture involved?
House Venture is not involved. People in House Venture might be.
The guy who--
Here is a RAFO card for your follow-up. House Venture is-- Yes.
So is that the same thing with Commands, are there like ideals that are Commands?
This is more of a-- For you to interface with the magic, you need to be able to comprehend it. And so forming a Command-- The same thing happens in Elantris, you know they don't accidentally draw runes, right? The intention is part of interfacing with the magic. So it's like your mind reaching into the Spiritual Realm and you have to like conceive something.
One other question, what is the name of the planet that Elantris is on?
Elantris: Sel
Warbreaker: Nalthis
Mistborn: Scadrial
Way of Kings: Roshar
White Sand: Taldain
Dragonsteel: Yolen
There are others, but I haven't talked much about those yet, so I'll leave them off for now.
Is a Edgli a dragon?
Edgli, oh, from tears of Edgli, uh, RAFO.
Does a more Investiture-poor world make it so its magics are easier to use off-world? Because, you said that Scadrial is really Investiture-poor, and it can be used easily off-world, but Roshar is very Investiture-rich, and how can you get Stormlight off of Roshar?
Yeah. Um, I would say that there is a correlation.
There is a correlation?
Mmhmm.
Are you willing to comment on what it is that provides Frost's longevity, is it something innate to his race or some--
It's racial.
What was your design process for designing all of the star systems for each of the worlds?
I am lucky enough to have on staff one of my good friends, Isaac. He actually introduced me to my wife. He sent me on a blind date with Emily. He was one of my students, my second year teaching the class. He's a really good friend. At the time, he was an illustrator for a video game company who was just interested in fantasy books. And he saw that there was a class at BYU and he was like, "I'm gonna take that."
He now works for me full-time. Though, fun story on this. You know how some people joke that in their marriage there's one person they could cheat with, like a celebrity? When I hired Isaac, he was like, "I will come and do things for you full time. But if Tad Williams ever asks me, I'm doing something for Tad Williams," his favorite book series. This summer, Tad Williams needed a map for the new Osten Ard books. Isaac is like, "So, I do maps for Sanderson." He's like, "Sure, do one for me. Great!" So Isaac's been working on that and it has been a dream come true for him.
Isaac and I, we sit down and we do brainstorming sessions for the art. He's done almost all of the symbols and maps in my books, except the ones that he commissions someone else to do because he wanted to get a different style for it or the first book, Elantris, I did the symbols. That's why the Elantris symbols are not quite as visually interesting as some of Isaac's. They fit the world but I drew those and my artistic chops are... So Isaac and I sit down, we brainstorm and we say, "What do we want this to look like? What's the feel of it?" So I'll outline what the planets and the world are and then he will bring up historical- like he went and got Renaissance star charts and said, "Do any of these work? What do you like?" We kind of narrowed it down to ones that have the right feel but I said, "I want it more like this, more like this." He took that and ran with it and gave me iterations. He's like, "Here's four different versions of a map for Scadrial. Which one do you like?" And then I'll give him that and he'll then do four iterations on that, saying, "Here are different designs of this. Which one of these do you like?" Anyone who's an artist knows that illustrators, that's what they do. So we come up with it and then I say, "This style, go," and then he does all the maps.
Some stars are yellow, while others are red - is that significant?
Yes. There are other colors in there too.
