Shardcast Late 2022 WoBs 1

Sugjesstive (paraphrased)

How did Wax earn his moniker, "Dawnshot"?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

*big smile* He was known to show up early to his duels.

asmodeus

At the end of Stormlight 4, we see Dalinar create a vision where Kaladin is able to talk with a version of Tien. How interested would Hoid be to know about this?

Brandon Sanderson

This would be a 9/10 on the Hoid interest meter.

TeeJay (paraphrased)

Gereh, the Feruchemist in Rhythm of War, did his Aviar grant him physical abilities?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, that Aviar has mind abilities.

Cosmere.es

For the announcement that the Brotherwise <team> and you also shared, it's supposed we will have this RPG in 2024?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, we will likely have a Kickstarter for it in 2024, that's the plan. It's gonna take us that much time—uh, another two years—before we have a product. Until we know we have something that we can sell, does that make sense? We're gonna take that time to make sure that we are confident in it, that we have it done. But we probably won't be shipping in 2024 be my guess. It's possible we will be, but my guess would be we run a Kickstarter in the fall of 2024 for the RPG to arrive sometime after that.

Wizardlvl (paraphrased)

What type spren would be Axies Black Lotus? Like the spren has he never seen that he really wants to.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The Nightwatcher. He has gone like two dozen times to the valley but has never seen her.

Questioner

Is Whimsy the most dangerous Shard? Is he essentially, like, a Shard cat?

Brandon Sanderson

Whimsy is the most dangerous Shard to your sense of decorum and self-worth.

irongnome (paraphrased)

If a Radiant summons their Shardplate on Braize will it work?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well it depends, in the Physical realm or Cognitive?

irongnome (paraphrased)

Physical.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

And you are asking about Shards?

irongnome (paraphrased)

Plate specifically.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Ah, okay. So if they have already been able to summon the Plate before it will work, but it will fail if it’s their first time.

Skrimyt

Can Transportation-based fabrials be used to achieve Physical Realm FTL, faster-than-light?

Brandon Sanderson

This is theoretically possible, yes. Basically, I am pushing toward competing methods of FTL in the space age, and Roshar is one of the ones that has access to being potentially able to do that.

Questioner

Can a Shard hold on to the Cognitive Shadow of a person for later use?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that can indeed happen.

Questioner

Without it being fully Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

You don’t have to fully Invest it, no. They would have to do some Investing shenanigans, but what you’re asking is quite possible, very possible.

So, for instance, let me give you a corner case. You might be asking: could Endowment send somebody back later than immediately after they have passed away? The answer would be “yes.”

I’m gonna tell you, I have no immediate plans to do that, but it is possible within the framework of the cosmere.

Questioner

We know that finer gemstones like the King's Drop can hold Stormlight longer and encases other things that I won't say because of spoilers. Is that because of the craftsmanship, connecting their Identity in the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. "You can hold Stormlight in gemstones, and the more perfect a gemstone the more Stormlight it'll hold. Is the craftsmanship required to create it part of the reason why?" And no, it's actually the crystalline structure. Fewer flaws in the crystalline structure means fewer places for the Stormlight to wiggle out.

Questioner

Do gemstones exist naturally on Roshar? Or are they all gemhearts?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but you gotta dig through lots of layers of cremstone to get to them, so most of the time you're getting them from gemhearts.

Questioner

With all the bad things that we’ve seen the Ghostbloods do so far (like imprisoning Lift) is Kelsier no longer a good or mostly-good person?

Brandon Sanderson

Kelsier would say he’s a good person.

I would say: Kelsier’s a complicated individual whose moral compass does not align to my same moral compass. But he never was. He would say that he hasn’t changed; I would say that he has changed slightly over the centuries.

Questioner

Did Hoid join the Worldsingers just to learn about Roshar’s stories? Or is there something more going on there?

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid never joined the Worldsingers. (Can one join a group that one created, is the question there.)

Questioner

Is Tarah, Kaladin’s flame, still currently in Urithiru? Because there’s a chapter where it kind of seems like she’s there.

Brandon Sanderson

I will answer that in Book Five, so I’m gonna RAFO you. That is at least my plan; one of the interludes should be from her viewpoint. That is my plan right now.

Questioner

When a Shard Splinters, does it have any effect on the cosmere that we aren’t seeing yet? 

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Questioner

What would be the effect if all the Shards Splintered?

Brandon Sanderson

It does have, but see, there is Splintering, and there’s Splintering. Traumatic Splintering is a different event than a Shard Splintering themselves, or things like this. There’s a whole continuum going on there.

All the Shards being Splintered would, of course, have an effect. But it could have all kinds of different effects based on how, and why, and what’s going on, and what happened to the different pieces of Investiture. You can have a full Splintering, where the Shard is just completely blasted into pieces. Or you can have a Shard taking off pieces of their soul and Splintering it out and sending it off to be self-aware, and things like that. These are two different things.

Also, there’s a whole bunch of nuance in that question. But the answer is: it will inevitably have an effect, and there are effects that have happened in the cosmere that you don’t recognize yet as being the effects of Splintering, and things like that.

Questioner

In Book One, Taravangian was talking to Szeth, when Szeth confronts him at the end. He talks about the Lifebrother; but we haven’t heard any other references since then.

Brandon Sanderson

You have not. That’s a RAFO.

Questioner

At the end of Rhythm of War, we see Shard-induced time dilation; you bring a lot of Investiture into a place, and it slows down time.

Brandon Sanderson

It can also speed it up.

Questioner

How much Investiture would it take to dilate an area so that one area moves forward about fifteen years into the future while everything else remains? Like, they have ten minutes, everyone else goes fifteen years?

Brandon Sanderson

There’s a couple variables here. Number one is the length of the area, and how fast that fifteen years passes. If we want us to jump forward fifteen years, in how much time? Fifteen years compared to one year? Fifteen years compared to one minute? Fifteen years compared to one second? These are all different things. And, of course, the more you’re compressing and the larger the area, the more Investiture you’re requiring.

Questioner

Could two unchained Bondsmiths in the course of a duel do it?

Brandon Sanderson

Fifteen years? Fifteen years is gonna be a stretch for what they can get a hold of, but it depends. Unchained Bondsmith, unchained to (for instance) a deity that there is no longer a Vessel controlling that power in the way that it needs to have the limits on it is going to be able to access more than one where there was some Vessel there saying “no.” So there’s one factor in it. A Bondsmith can access a lot of power, as evidenced by the migration. The migration from Ashyn to Roshar happened with a Bondsmith powering some Elsecalling. And that allowed for some pretty crazy things. Getting an entire population moved through a portal across that much space is a lot of work and a lot of energy.

So what you’re asking, I think that’s stretching. Depends, again, on how long. Fifteen to one, not so hard. Fifteen years in a second is really hard and probably beyond what they have capacity to do.

I see what you’re doing there. You saw me talk around it.

Questioner

We have some idea that Autonomy is fiddling around in Roshar and in Scadrial.

Brandon Sanderson

And other places.

Questioner

Considering her involvement with the Ghostbloods: has she directly interacted with Kelsier/Thaidakar?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Questioner

Whether she has or not, what is her opinion of Kelsier?

Brandon Sanderson

You’re asking, directly Autonomy, not one of her Avatars? Directly, Autonomy likes Kelsier and respects Kelsier. Autonomy is a fan, shall we say.

Lotus

Can we get any pronouns for Aona and Skai?

Brandon Sanderson

Aona is definitely a she/her. I’m gonna go she/her with both of them, so you can talk about them accurately. That’s how I picture them currently in my head. I have not written those books yet, so it’s subject to change, but I have she/her for both of them.

Questioner

Could you use AonDor to manipulate Connection? If so, would a real AonDor smarty be able to do something similar to a Bondsmith?

Brandon Sanderson

The short answer to your question is: yes. Let me give some explanation.

Even when you are seeings some things happening in Elantris itself, you are seeing them manipulate Connection. It is mostly reinforcing Connection, but it is, in a way, manipulation. Rewriting Connection, rewriting Identity are both things that they can do. So with enough power, with enough smartiness, what a Bondsmith can do can be done.

In fact, we have seen short-range Elsecalling done by… Obviously Elsecalling’s not Bondsmithing, but you know that a Bondsmith powered a big Elsecalling [to migrate from Ashyn], one of the big things you’ve seen a Bondsmith do is get people between planets. And you have seen people use AonDor to Elsecall. You’ve seen them Lightweave, you’ve seen them do a lot of these things. They also could do some of this same stuff.

Basically, rule of thumb is: almost anything in the cosmere that is possible can be replicated with AonDor with the right program. But you may need an injection of Investiture in certain ways.

Questioner

Memory is tied to some level or portion of Spiritual Identity, or else Feruchemists would not be able to store it. So, Hoid lost memories at the end of Rhythm of War in his exchange with Odium. Would that mean part of his soul was stolen and then absorbed into Odium, and if so, what is stopping Odium from doing that with all of his enemies?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, what Odium split off is stuff that Hoid is storing in excess Investiture. (Basically, it was Breaths, in Hoid’s case.) And this sort of thing, where this extra memory… One of the reasons that Hoid is able to function better than, perhaps, some other very long-lived individuals is: he has found out how to keep some of this Identity in, shall we say, SD cards made of Investiture. Imagine that sort of thing. So what Odium was stealing from Hoid was straight out of an SD card. Which means that it’s not nearly as deeply ripping into someone’s soul, and it is also not nearly as noticeable.

But the other thing is: Hoid is directly in violation of certain agreements that have been made, which therefore exposes him to… He is lacking protections. As you’ll notice in the end of Book Three, where he’s like, “I need to be careful, because I am in violation.”

And so, there’s a couple things going on here. Number one, much more easy to access those memories. Number two, Hoid’s in direct violation and under no protections of any sorts of agreements and things like this.

Questioner

Other than the Lord Ruler and people that are using the Bands of Mourning, will we ever see a Full Twinborn again?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I think that you will.

Questioner

It’s really heavily implied in the first Oathbringer letter that the Shards made a pact not to settle near each other. Given that a full half of the Shards ended up doing that, what is the cost for them breaking that oath? You implied earlier that there’s always a cost for Hoid, for taking his protections.

Brandon Sanderson

The wording of those things allows them to agree together, but it also gives them a little bit of power over one another, and you’ve seen the side effects of that on the planets where it’s happened. It has not gone well for any of them, if you kind of run the numbers on that. But the wording of it allows two, later on, to say, "Okay, we both agree." (If one said no and one said yes, then they were in trouble.) This should imply to you that Odium did get permission, as well.

Questioner

Hoid is collecting Investiture abilities like Pokemon cards. I was wonder if he could… and maybe not necessarily him, but if somebody could collect all forms of Investiture and be able to use all of them.

Brandon Sanderson

He certainly would like to try. What will happen? He’s not even sure. But he would like to try. Is it possible? It is theoretically possible. We’ll see if he is able to accomplish it.

Questioner

Does the dead body of a Shard pull at time and space, thus causing time to pass slower in that place of the cosmere, almost like a black hole?

Brandon Sanderson

It could go either way in the Cosmere, depending. But the answer is yes. A large amount, like a deific amount of Investiture will... any amount of Investiture will cause a bit of time dilation, but the amount you're getting from even a Shardpool is not enough to be noticeable. I mean, it is, you can notice it even on our planet if you take a jet that goes fast enough, so it is noticeable but not relevantly noticeable. We're talking about a slippage of a day or so in a year even off of a Shardpool (don't canonize me on that one, I don't have the actual numbers). But that's what we're talking about. There are are chunks of Investiture of deific nature that can cause amounts of time dilation that would be virtually impossible in our universe, without you becoming one with a black hole. There's a story I want to tell, and I don't know if I'll ever get around to telling it, about an entire society that rises and falls in several seconds of time dilation to everyone else. I want to be able to tell stories like that, and you couldn't do that in our universe, but that's part of the reason we have the Cosmere!