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Can you hint at a form of Selish magic we haven't seen yet?

Brandon Sanderson

It is about patterns...

Questioner

In Elantris, there's the three ways that AonDor's manifested. Through the Aons, through the Dakhor, through the ChayShan. With Emperor's Soul, there's two major ones that we see with the Forging and Bloodsealing. And also that parallels with, there's one -- kind of like, in Mistborn where there's one that's positive, one that's neutral, one that's negative. Where does the third one fit in on the Emperor's Soul side?

Brandon Sanderson

Emperor's Soul, there are way more. It's not a split of the three.

ParadoxicalZen

How exactly is the Moon Scepter linked to the Dor?

Brandon Sanderson

The Moon Scepter is-- I suppose I can canonize this, now. Okay you're getting one out of me. So the big thing about the Moon Scepter that it was-- It is a Rosetta stone for the [Selish] magics. Meaning it translates them from one to another, and what the different symbols mean, does that make sense.

OrangeJedi

If all the practitioners of the Dor but one just died, for whatever reason, would that remaining practitioner have access to more power?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Good question. There is magic systems that work that way but it is not the Dor-based magics. I've got an unpublished book that works exactly that way called Mythwalker. The magic system of that was called the Septs, and your family divided the power of the magic, but it was not a one-to-one ratio. If you had a total power, if one person had it was at a 1, but if two people have it each of them were at like a .8, and so suddenly it became this thing of, how many people in your family do you want to have power and things like that. It was really interesting. But the rest of the book was terrible.

Walin

If you had a metal plate, and you inscribed into it--with a living Shardblade--the description of a spren, so it's kind of like an Aon for a spren, in a way; if you had an Elsecaller in the Cognitive Realm force Stormlight through the bead for that plate, would it act as a fabrial for that spren? So like, if you drew a spren, like a flamespren onto a metal plate, so you'd make a heat fabrial?

Brandon Sanderson

So you're trying to trap the spren in the [plate]?

Walin

There's not a spren, it's just a drawing of a spren.

Brandon Sanderson

So you're trying to Invest a drawing of a spren, and turn that Investiture into an actual spren, and make it work...I don't think this is going to work. I can see an argument that it would; I would err on "I don't think this is gonna work." But, you know, stranger things have happened, right?

Walin

My purpose for that question was asking whether Sel is the only one that can have Cognitive Investing--er, the one that's best at doing Cognitive Investing.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it is definitely best; it is nothing to do with the Shards themselves, and everything to do with what happened to them.

Jofwu

Why did Shay-I have to draw a map of the Elendel basin, if the jar of Dor was her source of Investiture? Did the map connect her to another source of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

No, the map didn't, but her magic is still wonky. Selish magic has some wonkiness to it and it needs to be tricked.

Aurimus_

And lastly, a cosmere point of contention. You've said before the Moon Scepter works as a Rosetta stone? Is this literal, as in translating one Aon to it's MaiPon counterpart, or more metaphorical, IE allowing use of a Selish magic outside of its country?

Brandon Sanderson

The Moon Scepter does not "unlock" regional use of Selish magic, but those who wanted it believed it was a vital step in figuring this out. It's more the first, but has implications for the second.

Questioner

Would all the different powers, or magic. Would they all work on the other--

Brandon Sanderson

Almost all of them will. AonDor, and the ones from Sel, are very hard to get to work elsewhere, because of certain things, but others are much easier. For instance, if you can get Breaths to another world, you can just use them, you don't need to do anything special.

Chris King

Is Resealing a subset of Forging, or a separate system like Bloodsealing is?

Brandon Sanderson

Um...

*Looooong silence*

I'm trying to remember what I decided—I was building all of this on a fourteen hour plane flight, keep in mind—I believe it is—Let's go ahead and PAFO that one. I need to go to my notes. I can give you a tentative "I believe it is the same system and not a cousin system" but at the end of the day I kind of had to go to my notes and work things out. There was lots of wiggle room built into the Elantris magic systems but I have to know what I decided.

Questioner

So in Scadrial we know that Allomancy is end-positive, and Hemalurgy end-negative, and Feruchemy is neutral, right? Is there such a concept on Sel, with the magics?

Brandon Sanderson

All of the magics on Sel, every one of them, is end-positive.

Questioner

Okay. And what fuel-- well, it's not a fuel. What focuses it? It's-- no, not that too.

Brandon Sanderson

They all draw power from the Dor. None of it's coming from the people. That's what this refers to, right?