How did Spook not die of lead poisoning after losing the ability to burn pewter in the third book? He must have had some pewter left in him. Or was he going to die of it, but Sazed healed him?
It wasn't in his system long enough to hurt him.
What would happen to someone who burned an alloy of Lerasium and lead? Would they a) gain Mistborn powers and a splitting headache from trying to burn lead, b) gain Mistborn powers and no splitting headache, c) just get the splitting headache, d) gain the ability to burn lead without a splitting headache, or e) die of lead poisoning?
This is a RAFO, not because I want to imply that lead has some big secret to it, but because I don't want to dig into the mechanics of Lerasium right now--and I don't want to kick off more questions like this at the moment.
When you wrote the epigraphs to the third book, how much were you expecting to lead readers astray? How loony is it that I thought their author was TenSoon for most of the book? (After all, he is not a man, but a force. He defended his ways, yet violated them. He was their savior, yet they called him heretic.)
I wanted very much for people to think they'd figured it out. I was actually annoyed when my editor wrote in the jacket copy a question, implying that the identity of the Hero was a mystery. I wanted people to assume it was Vin.
What was the origin of the word "skaa"?
The Lord Ruler came up with it.
Can Lifeless talk or write? I don't think it ever came up.
Normally, no.
The man who calls himself Taln had his Blade swapped with another. Presumably, the people (or person) doing so thought he had an Honorblade.
Would the people who did the swap have known if Taln did not in fact actually have an Honorblade? Could they have been taking a chance and in fact ended up with a regular Shardblade?
This is possible. Assuming they knew just what they were trying to grab, they'd probably have figured it out very quickly.
Did the publicly known nobility Mistborn have some sort of training/play ground? Like a big space they could properly train they're abilities and fly around in?
Some built things like this.
Thinking about it more, a public Mistborn gathering place would probably be a big assasin bullseye... Better to have a place just for you where you can staff it with a lot of misting guards.
That's what I assumed the question was asking.
Are spren able to manifest Surges like the humans they are bonded to? Syl is able to stick things together are other types able to do other things or is the sticking things together something else?
The Spren are living Surges, in a way. There are some "higher" spren which have more ability than others to touch certain Surges. Honor, for example, is not a force of nature--but a force of thought. What is attributed to it relates more to the abstract.
And that didn't really answer you, did it? Well, hopefully it's enough.
Is them being living Surges the same as how seons are living Aons?
Similar.
Will we be finding out what Dalinar's wife's name was, or has her name been similarly wiped from the flashbacks like Dalinar's mind?
I feel I should RAFO questions about the flashbacks, except to say that I wouldn't jump into them without understanding what readers want to see--and either fulfilling that, or subverting it in the name of the story. (The latter happening very rarely.)
... are there also spren attracted to robots?
man, that would be terrible. Being tied to a concept that nobody's thought up yet, so having a huge identity crisis.
The way spren are created makes this not an issue. :)
One Wayne and Wax question left in me that I can't get out of my head. What exactly made you decide upon their combination of abilities? Did you focus on the abilities and what they can do, or did you want to give those two characters specific sets of weaknesses and then went from there?
I built them like I built the original Mistborn thieving crew, actually. I decided their roles, then picked powers to compliment them. This is opposite of the Stormlight archive, where I have the orders, and I fit people to them.
You've mentioned that a person's personality eventually erodes and is replaced by the will of the shard they hold. Besides Harmony, are there any Shards holders that are still actively and significantly defying the intent of their shard?
Yes.
Is Harmony ([Sazed], for instance) actively trying to fight against it's shard intent?
Its intent(s) match Sazed very well, actually, and he has the philosophy that these natural powers are best minded and not dominated. So while he pushes back against the inaction holding both of them has caused, he appreciates and understands the need for both. I'd say he has less "push back" than some others.
Did the Heralds ever temporarily swap Honorblades and learn to use more than their regular two Surges?
It has happened. (But it was not common.)
TenSoon comments that when the unbirthed are given Blessings, they lose the mimickry instinct that mistwraiths have and have to be taught anew. If their only native senses are touch and taste, how exactly do you teach a blob of muscles how to form things like eyes and ears?
Basically, you feed it some partially digested eyes, then some more eyes, then eventually it starts making eyes on its own. It takes a while; Kandra 'children' grow more slowly than human ones.
I don't know if you've considered how mistwraiths would be taxonomically classified; have you decided whether or not mistwraiths would be considered 'mammals'?
They are not mammals. Since they were deliberately created, I'd place them in their own branch.
Is Shardplate immune/resistant to regular lighting or just that of stormform?
RAFO.
To what extent could Shardplate resist a bullet?
Plate would resist a bullet well.
If a person in the Cosmere built a fully sentient and sapient robot would that robot have a soul? How would it interact with Shardblades?
Yes. It would interact with Shardblades the same way that Spren do.
How does a Shardblade interact with a Spren?
Shardblades cut on all three realms. I'm not going to say too much here, though I might note that it's possible a robot like you say would act more like nightblood than anything else--depends on what is involved in the creation, and how you determine the difference between a robot and a golem for these purposes.
Can you use Forgery to enhance or diminish a person's intelligence? If so, could you use it to uplift a non-sentient animal to human levels of intelligence?
Uplifting requires extreme amounts of investiture, and needs to be affixed permanently to the soul. This is beyond what a normal person, even a Forger, usually has access to.
And if full uplifting is practically impossible then are more minor intelligence alterations (like Taravangian) feasible?
Uplifting isn't quite as impossible as I might have implied. It would be easier, say, than making Nightblood. But, of course, making Nightblood was VERY hard.
What would happen to a bonded spren if its human was hemalurgically spiked and had his surges stolen?
RAFO. :)
What is the second ideal of the dustbringers, we know next to nothing about them.
You'll have to wait until one is a main character.
I asked you at minicon if Roshar had always been the only large landmass on the planet and I think you said that there was once no large land mass on Roshar. Did I hear you correctly? I've been kicking my self for months for not recording that small q and a.
You heard me right.
Does this mean Roshar was once an archipelago?
Not necessarily.
Are oathgates fabrials that mimic the transportation surge? You have said that fabrials can copy all 10.
This is a valid line of reasoning, but I'm not going to say yes or no.
Can you get to the Cognitive Realm using Allomancy? From what I've been reading recently, Shardpools sound like a common way to go.. but Rosharan magic can be used to get to Shadesmar without a shardpool around, for instance. Can Allomancy be used to get there too?
The parts of Allomancy you know do not allow entering into Shadesmar.
Do you plan on having a true, definite ending to the Cosmere, such that no more books will be written that exist in it?
I DO have a true, definite ending. However, I can't say "no more books could exist" as there are always more stories to be told. But when I reach this ending in the years to come, I might very well decide enough has been done on this story. We shall see.
Now that Scadrial is on a better orbit, are there landmasses between the poles that are inhabitable?
Yes, indeed there are.
Is the magic on Sel geographically based because the techtonic plates act like Aon's, or is it distance from shardpools?
No, but that's a great guess.
Does a more powerful Mistborn burn their metals more quickly, or do they use what they get more efficiently?
Metal burning speed is proportional to power withdrawn.
If Shallan's mother was a Ghostblood and Shallan is recognized by the Ghostbloods in WoR is it safe to assume that they are aware of her role in her mother's death?
Not 100% safe to assume, but it wouldn't be an outlandish conclusion either.
Is there more to metallurgy in mistborn than just trying to aim for the 'perfect' ratio for alloys? Like, can you make pewter that gives more strength but less endurance, or brass that soothes anger better, but doesn't work as well for other emotions?
No, unfortunately that isn't the way Allomancy works.
Would a Feruchemist actively storing Identity be more susceptible to Forgery? Would more outlandish changes be able to take effect? Thanks for your time, and have a wonderful day.
Yes, if you store Identity, it makes you susceptible to ALL KINDS of things in the Cosmere. Forgery would be on the short list.
Does the difficulty of affecting metals in a body with Allomancy have to do with Identity?
No, more to do with the fact that most people are innately Invested in the Cosmere--and certain planets have extra Investiture. Something Invested is more difficult to transform/move/etc with another form of Investiture.
That is what I had originally thought before you capitalized "ALL KINDS." Is Soulcasting people like Jasnah Kholin did doubly hard since people a have a strong sense of Identity and have innate Investiture?
We're getting a bit far on this course, so it's time to pull out the RAFOs. I don't want to overplay my hand and leave the books without anything to talk about. :)
Does that 'inside a body' thing work on most magics?
For instance, if Han stuck Luke into a Mistborn Tauntaun (a distant and unlucky relative of the mistborn llama), would Luke be protected from both the cold and emotional allomancy?
He'd have to get him inside a living one.
It does work on most magics, though the interactions can be odd unless you know a lot about the workings. Emotional Allomancy, for example, works by lapping against the outsides of someone's cognitive self, influencing you the way music might stir your soul. So being inside a living body wouldn't necessarily stop it--you'd just have more interference. Kind of like how you can still hear music outside if it's loud enough.
Actual mind control in the cosmere requires you to get INSIDE the soul, which you've seen happen frequently enough. There has to be a gap or an opening.
Or, conversely, you just have to be so powerful that you can push through the interference.
Hoid likes to be in interesting places. What was so interesting about the Yomen/Joshin wedding that he had to be there?
In that case, he went to congratulate friends. Not everything is about large-scale cosmere problems.
Is there anything you are willing to say about how he befriended them?
Afraid not.
If Wax bonded with an Honorspren and got to the Second Oath, would he be able to use his Twinborn powers in conjunction with Windrunner powers? Or would they draw from the same "pool of Investiture"?
He could use them, but I do warn that I don't want to dive far into questions about mixing the magics. That sort of thing is years off in the Cosmere.
You once said that Investiture follows its own version of the laws of thermodynamics. The first one is that Investiture is neither created nor destroyed.
Is the second law of Investodynamics that the amount of corrupted Investiture in the Cosmere cannot decrease?
Basically, the idea is that there is a third item in the equations--matter, energy, and investiture. That's the basis of how they work.
Entropy is not corrupted Investiture. The second law stands as is. However, there is a fourth law that relates to Adonalsium, which I'm not going to talk about at the moment.
Are all spren of a single type (eg. honorspren) going to be the same gender?
No. But some do skew one direction or another.
With bits and pieces of the respective pieces of Harmony still laying about, is Harmony actually skewed in one way or another if slightly and does Sazed's personality circumvent this in any way ?
Personality can always circumvent the powers--it just gets harder and harder to hold out as centuries pass.
I find the Shin fascinating. Given their reputation for docility and Szeth's internal monologues, am I right in thinking that the Shin do not feel The Thrill?
If so, is this due to the protection of Cultivation or sheer distance from Nergaoul? And finally, is an awareness or fear of the Thrill the reason for the Shin societal disdain for soldiers or is it primarily to discourage use of the honour blades?
Distance is the big factor here, though there are cultural reasons for things as well. In addition, being very close to something tied to Honor reduces the effects of things like the Thrill. As for the Shin culture, you'll find a great deal in the next three books, so I'd rather not say much now.
My wife really wants to know whether Vasher has had children, or wants to have children. It would mean a lot to her to find out from you!
Vasher doesn't have kids, but he really does want them. Or, at least, he has wanted them at most points in his life.
Will there be a metal called harmonium in the mistborn world?
RAFO. But good question.
Just an fyi but you have confirmed the existence of harmonium before. (And this is probably a RAFO, but is there a reason you didn't follow the convention of the other "god metals" and call it something like sazedium? "Harmonium" just seems out of place.)
Sazed didn't like the sound of Sazedium.
Can stormlight be used to fuel allomancy like the mist in the mistborn trilogy? Is stormlight therefore a manifestation of honour?
This is possible.
Hi Brandon! My friend and I are putting together a Dungeons and Dragons campaign based in Roshar, and were toying with the idea of players being Shardbearers. Unfortunately, only a few of the stances (i.e. Windstance, Smokestance) are mentioned in the books.
Have you given thought to what the rest of the stances are, and the qualities they emulate in combat? What are they?
Going into the Stances in depth is going to be tough for me as I am answering on mobile. But yes, I have thought about them all. They should all appear in the books eventually.
Do you have a plan for a central work that would connect the different parts of the Cosmere together (Similar to what The Dark Tower does for Stephen King's books)? Maybe Stormlight or the [third] Mistborn trilogy?
Yes, but it is not on a world you have seen.
Could decapitation kill a Gold Compounder? With a guillotine, for example?
Most forms of extreme cosmere healing don't care much what is done to the physical body, as the person's spiritual template is in power at the time.
So I was wondering how you'd spin Szeth's new sword into The Stormlight Archive's narrative. I know it's very similar to the Shardblades, but its differences are going to be worthy of explanation, if the new sword is going to appear as frequently as a planned Szeth-centric book suggests.
So, if I am not missing anything, either the differences 1) will be explained vaguely, or 2) will be integrated into the greater lore (Cosmere/Zahel), or 3) will be somehow integrated into The Stormlight Archive's own magic system.
And since the sword's emitted Investiture is black and compared to stormlight by Szeth, this is my question: is the blade's "corrupted stormlight" related to anything else we've seen so far in TSA? (e.g. Gavilar's sphere...)
RAFO. :)
1) How simple is it to bond an Honorblade? Is it just a matter of willing it? Shardblades need gemstones, but it seems like Honorblades might not even need those.
2) Do you need to be bonded to an Honorblade to Surgebind? Or is just holding it in your hand sufficient?
3) Do you need to be bonded to an Honorblade for it to change your eye color? Or would holding it in your hand be sufficient to do the eye color trick?
RAFO.
Taravangian: On his "Special Day" where he created the Diagram, was he actually as smart as he thinks he was, or was something else going on? It seems suspicious that any level of raw intelligence would let him deduce all of that...
That sure IS suspicious, eh? Let's just say that HE believes it was rational deduction. But other theories are valid.
The Hero of Ages prophecy: For a while it seemed to me that the prophecy was entirely bogus (invented by Ruin as a lure), but it ended up coming true! So my question is, where did the prophecy actually come from? Was it Atium in some form, or something else entirely?
The religions of Scadrial had a lot of ups and downs. First, you have Ruin and Preservation working together as two gods. Then you have the schism between them, and Preservation betraying Ruin, with Preservation adapting the religion to his own needs and trying to hide in it practices that will keep Ruin imprisoned as long as possible, and then give a chance to defeat him when he escapes. (As Preservation assumes he'll be dead by then.) Finally, you have Ruin corrupting the religions with his influence, trying to figure out what he can twist to his own needs--while missing the hidden layers that Preservation left.
Were there a lot of Hero of Ages who ascended beyond the ones we directly saw in the books?
I wouldn't say so.
Objects used for awakening turn gray. A limb cut with a shardblade turns gray. You mentioned earlier in this thread that the color of gemstones on Roshar is important. Is there a connection between these?
Between those two things? Yes.
Could a hemalurgic spike be used it ways other than just sticking it into a bind point?
Yes.
Kaladin: “Have you ever had to choose between two equally distasteful choices?” Vasher: “Every day I choose to keep breathing.”
Does that mean he needs to consume Stormlight on a daily basis rather than weekly?
This is more mundane than that. Vasher is indicating that not letting himself die is a tough choice for him.
Where will we find out what happened to Vivienna first, in a subsequent Stormlight book or will we be waiting until the Warbreaker sequel?
Warbreaker sequel.
