Do spren feel any kind of sexual or romantic attraction?
Not as a rule. There are some orders that are more likely to do so. There are a lot of orders that you would call asexual. But it depends on the individual, and it depends on their breed or race of spren. So, it varies.
I would like my [cosmere constellations] map to have one more planet on it than everybody else's maps.
That's a smart idea. I'm on board for that.
*adds a new planet and writes "here there be Aethers!"*
But no name on it? Just that there there be Aethers?
Yeah, I can't canonize the name yet until I write the planet, right?
Taln. Did he actually ever give up? Or was it... Did he just get released when...?
You will find out, but Taln did not break. You'll find out how it happened, but Taln did not break.
Were all spren wounded by Ba-Ado-Mishram's capture like the Sibling was? Did it prevent them from hearing Honor's tone in the same way?
Alright, so first part is, were all spren wounded by it?
Like the Sibling was.
Not all were wounded in the same way.
And no, not necessarily, to the second part.
When a Shard changes hands, does the god-metal change names and/or properties?
It can. It doesn't as a rule.
So it'll still be raysium?
Yes. Well, the name, you would change the name, probably. But it shouldn't necessarily do anything different. The name that it's given is cultural. So you could continue to call it that. People might call it that. I think people in-world would call it something else. But depends on the person.
The kandra on Roshar. Is that Felt's wife, Malli?
RAFO! That is an excellent question that one should indeed be... yeah.
Is there like a Cosmere-significant reason why, on Scadrial, the Investiture is hereditary, but that that doesn't really seem to be the case on any of the other worlds?
Yes there is, but it has to do more with the fact that on Scadrial, human beings were directly created by Ruin and Preservation. And most of the Cosmere worlds you've seen don't have that same sort of aspect. It is the case on Nalthis, but it's not the case on Roshar, it's not the case on Taldain, it's not the case on Sel. And so because of that instance, that's how I'm kind of working, that changed the way people interact with magic directly. But there is some wiggle room there for me. But that's your answer, that's the actual... there's.. I'm not hiding anything there, there is wiggle room. What I'm saying is don't extrapolate that that has to happen every time that the Shards were directly involved in the creation...
With Intent and Command, I've been thinking about how these things would apply to other worlds. On Nalthis they seem kind of folded together into the same thing, but I can't crack the metals on Scadrial and the Aons in Elantris. Because the Aons seem very Command-y, not very Intent-y, right? What about the metals?
The Aons, you should be able to eventually figure it out. With the metals, when I wrap this in, it's going to be very slight, and you shouldn't assume that every one of the permutations of the cosmere magics are going to require the same levels of... I need the freedom on each one. So Intent and Command can't be a major feature of every magic, otherwise it's too restrictive. You're going to end up with too many that feel the same. You can imagine, on Scadrial, that different metals would not have had to do what they do in the origin of the magic system. That is not necessarily innate, that is relating to the creation of the magic.
How it was built manually, almost, by a Shard?
Does that make sense? You can imagine an in-cosmere magic system that is very similar to Allomancy, where each of the metals do a different thing than is in Allomancy.
So besides Sja-anat, Cultivation, and El, does anyone know about the new Odium?
I think that most of the Shards will be quickly finding out, if that makes sense. Like, this is a thing that they would know. Pretty quickly.
In The Traveler, which you read here [at a prior JordanCon], Hoid was on Yolen. He has only worldhopped with perpendicularities. Does Yolen have a perpendicularity?
Yolen has something very similar.
Okay, is it associated with a Shard?
You would call it a perpendicularity, but there is not a Shard in residence on Yolen.
Is Kelsier confirmed as the leader of the Ghostbloods?
He is. I can tell you that. They will make an appearance in the next Wax and Wayne book, now that the full secret is out.
I wanted to know if any of the non-Returned Cognitive Shadows have had children?
Yes.
When Warbreaker has the priest's daughter manipulate her Breath, it doesn't appear to be permanently damaged afterwards. Like, Vivenna notes it flickers, but it seems to go back to what it was before, and Hoid loses some when Odium does something very very similar. Why is that?
Yes. Odium was being more invasive and more destructive. And is less practiced at what was happening.
The Hemalurgy table, you wrote down "atium steals any power, lerasium is all abilities, nicrosil is Investiture"; what's the difference between those three?
Hemalurgic atium, lerasium, and nicrosil. What's powers, abilities, and Investiture?
People are Invested in ways that do not give them active powers. So for instance, everyone on Nalthis is Invested. Everyone in the cosmere is, really. You want to steal their Investiture, but they don't have a power. You're still ripping off a piece of their soul. So there is a distinction between the actual Investiture that's in a human being and a specific power that they have.
So that distinction is pretty easy. You can also, with Hemalurgy, steal specific things. You can steal just general Investiture. You can steal, if you want--this is where the kandra Blessings come from. You can instead steal specific things that are not like stealing Allomancy. Stealing, for instance, someone's mental acuity.
So abilities is like the half that's all the strength, speed, all that kind of stuff? Those are abilities, versus the Metallic Arts are all powers?
Yes.
Then Investiture, is that offworld magics?
No, no, it's the raw power.
Nicrosil is their soul?
Yes. A piece of their soul, essentially.
So how would you go about stealing an offworld power?
It's going to depend. A Breath, you would steal with nicrosil. It's general Investiture, is what you would probably going call that. You could forcibly remove someone's Breath from them. The ability to be a Sand Master you would steal with the power ability.
Was Kelsier directly involved in causing the showdown with Bloody Tan that ended up with Lessie...
No. As I have it written right now, no. Indirectly involved, possibly, but this is not an outcome he wanted, it's not something he influenced, and not something I would even say that he was aware was happening. I haven't written Secret History 2, so that's totally possible that... But I don't have it planned for him to be involved right now.
If a Cognitive Shadow or a Splinter gained Connection to the Physical Realm, could they just transition through a perpendicularity to manifest a physical form, or is something else required?
Something else would be required, because you're... But that would take you a long way. It's going to depend on the situation, right?
Because Ishar was doing something where like he was Connecting spren...
Yes, Ishar was doing something, and so for instance, spren are gonna be played a little differently than a Cognitive Shadow would be played. Like, Cognitive Shadows, that's just not gonna be enough. But spren is much closer. This has to do with how much Investiture's involved and how they're Connected and things like this, but it's not quite enough. In most cases.
So Ishar was doing something in addition to just Connecting the spren to the Physical Realm?
Yes. He was indeed doing something more.
The Inquisitors keep spikes in jars to stop the Hemalurgic decay. Is that clotted blood? Like, does it just work with clotted blood?
It will. So what's going here is the spikes have to - this is a weird Cosmere thing - the spikes have to think they're in a body and you gotta trick them. You don't need to use blood but that's the easiest thing that they could do to make it work. You could also leave it in a piece of meat.
You can put the stake in the steak!
You can put a stake in a steak. But there are plenty of ways to do this without doing that. But yes, it's pretty gross.
Not that I think they have consciousness very much, but I imagine that they're a bit stupid if they think that clotted blood is the same as a human body.
Yes. You're just tricking the stupid piece of metal that has a little bit of extra Investiture and has become slightly self-aware, and so it keeps its charge and doesn't... yeah. There are much better modern ways of doing this that have started to be used.
Did Shallan change her last name when she got married?
You do not change your last names if you are...
In Jah Keved?
Yes, so she did not change her last name. She is still Shallan Davar.
And there's also some... there's some weirdness there in line of succession stuff as well, which wouldn't be the case if she had been from Alethkar, and of certain, proper, you know... But the fact that she is not, she would keep her original name and would not be in succession for the throne.
