When we hit 15/16 in October with Yumi and Virtuosity, I started a bet with my brother that we’d know all sixteen Shards before the end of the year, banking on The Sunlit Man giving us the last one. But that didn’t happen. Any chance I can convince you to tell us sixteen and help me win?
No, I’m gonna keep that for now. I’m gonna keep that last one for just a little bit longer, so RAFO.
You implied that there’s a dragon in the cosmere that we haven’t spotted yet. Is it Slowswift? Seems appropriate for the Tolkien homage to secretly be a dragon.
RAFO. That’s a very good guess.
Will we see Xisis again?
Almost assuredly, you will see Xisis again. All of those really ancient Yolish dragons are around, you’re gonna be seeing them here and there. The story of the cosmere’s not really about them, but they stay involved. Xisis will be seen again.
Tell us a little bit about Valor. What’s her Vessel like? Any fun anecdotes? Hoid once bought Tanavast a drink; are there fun stories with Valor’s Vessel? Just anything?
Let’s put this one off for just a little longer. Let’s RAFO Valor. How about this, I’ll give you one thing: Valor is name-dropped in Stormlight Five.
We’ve seen Shallan’s drawings appear to make people into “better versions of themselves.” But we also see her draw Yalb surviving the shipwreck, and later find out he did. Is she actually seeing the future in which she just happens to inspire people to be better? If so, this would make Wit’s warning to her in Oathbringer more concerning.
As will all sort of future sight/foretelling in the cosmere, it is not necessarily telling the future so much as seeing possibilities. And Shallan has… we’ll get into this in Book Five. Shallan’s a little extra good at this, for Spiritual mumbo jumbo. (It’s not necessarily just Spiritual mumbo jumbo, 17th Shard.) In this case, we have a very distinct reason why this is happening with Shallan that you might be able to put together. It’s pretty obvious. But you should be able to see these things with Shallan very early in the books. As early as Words of Radiance, I was sticking in little nods to this. She is able to grab glimpses of the Spiritual Realm in ways that even other Lightweavers can’t do. Lightweaving always has a bit of this, right? And this comes back to what’s going on with the Realmatic Theory and Plato’s Theory of the Forms as kind of a foundational text that helped me develop this in my mind. You’re seeing more perfect versions of who you could be. When she’s doing a sketch, she’s sometimes sketching not who you are, but who you could be.
Stormlight Six?
Stormlight Six is probably ten years away. Read the State of the Sanderson, prime yourself for that. That is my expectation, but we’ll see. Who knows? This is an art as much as it is a science, and sometimes things need to be written.
What would happen if you threw Nightblood into the Dor? Could it consume Investiture fast enough to enable you to travel through the Dor?
Oh, I see what you’re trying to do, make a pocket where you can go through. Here’s the thing: Nightblood would get full pretty quick in the Dor, like you saw with Nightblood hitting a perpendicularity in Rhythm of War. So I’m not 100% convinced this could get you through the Dor. But it’s a workable theory that you could try, and you might be able to tweak it to the point that you could make it work. You’re gonna have to deal with the fact that Nightblood fills up, when there’s that much Investiture, pretty quickly.
You mentioned that there was a scene or climax that you’ve been wanting to write since an RPG campaign in 1999, which you’ve planned for Stormlight Five.
Yes.
I think you said it was one of the best endings you’ve ever written. Now that you’re almost finished with Stormlight Five, how are you feeling about that scene in the book?
I feel really good about it. It’s there, it’s written. Is it the best ending I’ve ever written? That’s really you guys’ choice, not mine. One of the things is: there will definitely be some surprising things. There will also be (for this crowd specifically) some expected things. I feel like my job is to give proper foreshadowing so that some things can be seen. And I will tell you, I’ve seen people make the right theories about a lot of the things in this book. There’s a few things that I’m gonna kind of blindside you with, but they are the sorts of things where you sometimes have twists in stories that aren’t really the sort you can fully anticipate. But I think I’ve done a spectacular job with what I’m doing for his ending. But, again, that’s for you to decide, not for me. So, we’ll see. I do think I have one of my best action scenes, as I’ve said before, that I’m very fond of. But you’ll also have to give me space from the book. It’s hard for me to look at, when I’m in the middle of a book, and have that space that you need in order to really evaluate a work. So maybe this is a question for me in five years.
Save the ketek!
The ketek is diegetically saved. It’s perfectly fine in-world. I’m not gonna put what feels like a bad title on a book just to get the ketek to work. I spent years, and none of them feel right to me. None of the titles feel right. I just gotta go with what feels like the right title for me [for Wind and Truth].
Arcanum Unbounded leatherbound, we don’t have specific plans for when that one fits in the schedule, yet. I think we’re probably going to do one. The big question is: when do we do Steelheart or Skyward leatherbounds? Do we do them? Where does Arcanum Unbounded fit in there? The only ones that are really sure are Bands, and then we’re gonna do Lost Metal after that, even though it’s not ten year anniversary We just want people to be able to complete their sets. And then, of course, the Stormlight books, we will continue to do at about the rate… Those take a lot more work. Those’ll be three to four years apart, like we’ve been doing.
Lux ever gonna get a hardcover edition?
Currently there are no plans. One reason is that there are continuity errors in Lux that we don’t have the resources to fix currently while we’re focused on Stormlight 5.
Are there any plans for further entries?
Nothing to announce, and may never be.
How's computer stuff going to work in the 80s version of Mistborn? Very rudimentarily. It'll work like you expect it to from our world in that era.
Without Aux, can [Zellion] keep doing it? Can he still sync with future worlds?
RAFO.
Has Zellion been to Nalthis? Or did he learn about the Breaths from somewhere else?
RAFO.
If Zellion/Sigzil gets rid of the Torment, could Hoid get rid of...?
Theoretically, it's possible that Hoid could get rid of the distortions to his soul. He held the Dawnshard a lot longer, and his distortions are more... how shall we say... pervasive.
If [Canticle] is spending years, if not centuries or millennia, just sucking in all that Investiture, is that gonna be the most heavily Invested thing in the cosmere?
RAFO.
It is theoretically possible to be part of two Orders at once and to have bonded two spren at once.
What I'm unsure about is the timing of when [Sigzil] gets the Dawnshard versus when he became a different Radiant.
You'll find this out eventually. RAFO.
When did Hoid give [Sigzil] the Dawnshard?
This is a RAFO.
Do the deceased that die on Canticle, do they return into this Reliquary? Was the brother really there? Or do they just die? Do they still become Shades?
They don't get to go to the Reliquary. They actually die, and their Investiture that would become a shade is instead turned into one of the sunhearts.
How old is Sigzil [in The Sunlit Man]?
RAFO.
When does [The Sunlit Man] happen?
Pretty late in the Cosmere, but not the latest you've seen.
There's this scene where there was a nightmare, and Painter didn't have a paintbrush, and he just reached out to the side and a paintbrush appeared, and there was a flash of light. I need details, 'cause that seems so much like a Shardblade!
This is also working under the exact same mechanics, so yes, Investiture that he is Connected to is indeed being manifest as something physical.
What Awakened the father machine? Was it the same system that we've seen with Breaths? Or was it something else? If it is Breaths, how did some one who can use that magic system, how did they get here?
These all work on the same fundamental mechanics. You should not be looking for someone from outside to have done this.
There's a drama, and it has a hion sword in it. Is it just for the drama? Or can hion sword be real, please?
Uh... we'll make you one.
We learn [Yumi]'s repeated this day for 1700 years, and her memory is patched over by the father machine. If memory and Investiture are so closely tied together, is the father machine also taking her Investiture? How does that work, because she's such a highly Invested individual, it seems like if it could take any Investiture from her, it would take all of it, like the nightmares did.
When I play with this, with tweaking memory and things like that, my go-to in the cosmere, in the three cases where you've seen it happen, is that those excising memories have to be really, really careful, or the body will reject what you're doing. So, all three times you've seen it happen, it's been one little sliver of memory is getting changed. The father machine might even just be overwriting it each day, basically blanking that Investiture, but not stealing any of it. Vasher does pull a little bit out when he takes the memory, and the same thing happens with Wit when it happened to him. But I think the father machine's doing it in a slightly different way, and it has to be really careful, or it'll be too obvious, and the whole illusion, the facade, will collapse.
Are you still planning to write a book with a magic system based on disease and sickness?
If I'd really been on the ball, it would have been one of the Secret Projects I wrote during Covid. But I haven't found the right story for that magic system yet. So it's still in the back of my brain, and someday perhaps I will write it, but we'll see. Yes, I still am planning it, but we'll see.
I know what was in the first four storage caverns; but what was in the fifth storage cavern? I always wonder.
RAFO.
Do any of the civilizations in the cosmere celebrate a holiday like Halloween?
Yes.
What's Hoid's favorite regional curse word from the planets he's visited?
He's gonna like something pretty weird. He's gonna like the outlandish ones. I'll have to think about it for a while. It's probably not one that I've used yet, would be my guess. Something that might sound a little ridiculous to our ears. I think he would really like the Wheel of Time one, "mother's milk in a cup," just because it's one of those things that sounds vulgar, but isn't.
I've always wondered how the Threnodites are so well known. Beyond shades, we don't see powers there. How are they so well-traveled?
There's a couple of things going on here. One is: there are ways on and off Threnody, and any of the planets that you can get on and off without needing FTL do spread through the cosmere pretty well.
The other thing is: the event that created Threnody as it's known in the cosmere (which is the death of Ambition) has wide-reaching ramifications. It's a very famous place in the same way that most people know the Bikini Islands when they might not otherwise know it, if that makes any sense. It's the source of something that has had great implications for the entirety of the cosmere.
Why did Brandon name a world Threnody?
I wanted a planet where I was making use of religious terminology (sometimes pseudo-religious terminology; things that are religion-adjacent also), and things that had to do with poetry and music. Lots of names like Elegy as a name. And Threnody, I believe Isaac suggested it. He'll have to correct me if I'm wrong; he might have named some other things in that system, but I think he recommended Threnody. And it felt appropriate, being a song for the dead, a dirge. Just kind of clicked.
What would Halloween look like on Threnody? Or would such a holiday hit far too close to home for them?
They are not celebrating Halloween on Threnody. They would not understand at all. They live lives of constant terror, so why you would want to do that to yourself...
Would a compass needle point towards a perpendicularity?
No, a compass needle wouldn't, good question. You might be able to make some other device that could do that, but a compass needle would not naturally point toward one.
On a scale of one to ten, how much terror would a Scadrian feel upon seeing one of Roshar's moons?
It's gonna depend on the individual. I think some will get a sense of immediate dread by having that thing looming over them. That would probably be the consistent feeling. But there's probably people who are just like, "Oh, look at the thing in the sky. That's cool." So, depends on the individual.
Would you consider working with a professional linguist to translate a Cosmere novel into that planet's native equivalent?
Seems like a lot of work for a very few number of people. I can imagine getting, like, a short story. Like one of Hoid's stories, maybe, translated into local. But creating the full conlang is not a thing that most of us do unless there's, like, a strict need for a film. (Dothraki didn't exist as a full conlang until the television show and they started needing to be able to speak it in full sentences.) I imagine that most of my conlangs won't get fully developed until that.
Maybe... I know people love their Klingon Christmas Carol. It is a thing. It's a possibility; it's a thing I could consider. But I think a short story is way more likely.
If koloss are made using five people, spikes, and recycled blue skin as opposed to the traditional breeding method, how can someone be part koloss?
In Era Two, koloss breed true, and are the kind of bluish-purplish-skinned people. (They'll call them koloss-blooded at that point.) And they can interbreed with humans. A full-grown koloss undergrows a ritual that adds the spikes and turns them into Era One style koloss. Allomancer Jak's story kind of gets into this a little bit.
Is there an Awakening Command that could stick a Cognitive Shadow to a corpse?
Yes, but that would be a bad way to do it. You'd need something more.
More Investiture?
Not necessarily. The body at that point died because something happened to it, plus it started decomposing. You'd need to do something to it to really get the Cognitive Shadow to stick.
like a Hemalurgic spike?
That's one way to do it.
Oh! To follow up... because Regrowth is Spiritual... if a Cognitive Shadow was Awakened into a corpse, then healed with Regrowth, would the body be healed to appear like the Cognitive Shadow's body?
No, it would heal... wait, yes, Regrowth would heal based on the Identity of the Cognitive Shadow attached to it.
Auxuiliary and Nomad, the Knight Radiant Bond is kind of flipped around a bit. Is it possible for Adolin and Maya to something similar happen to them?
There’s something that could happen there. Don’t hold your breath, but possible. I won’t RAFO that; it's possible.
Are there any other dragons on Roshar other than Cultivation?
There have been. There might be some. How about this: you shouldn't be looking for dragons among the characters of the Stormlight Archive.
Can a kandra eat a dragon? Either in human or just regular dragon form?
They can eat one in human form. Getting the whole thing in dragon form would be a little like that scene in Elden Ring.
If Mraize took an atium spike and put it through Hoid's chest and then into himself, would he gain different abilities because of Hoid's altered spiritweb?
Yeah, he probably would. That's really terrifying to think about.
I have a question about Hoid. If he was previously a Dawnshard that prevented him from hurting himself or others, how could he use a hemalurgic spike on himself?
We don't know that he has.
But would he be able to?
I think there is a way he could get around that if he needed to. Basically, he has to convince himself that this isn't actually hurting him, it's helping him.
Similar to how he could do damage to Cognitive Shadows, because they're not really...
Yep, exactly.
At any given point in the cosmere, would Yolen be more technologically advanced than any other planet or society in the cosmere?
I think Yolen falls behind because of certain things that they have access to. The point where it is the furthest along is during the early days, when it's, like, Bronze Age and everyone else is, like, Stone Age. So, right at the beginning. I think other planets have passed it by since then consistently. Once the Shards started meddling in things, planets started going faster, and the Shards weren't meddling on Yolen. So Yolen has had a more natural, maybe even slowed technological progression. Where some of the other planets have been super fast.
If I were to visit Canticle in the subastral, what would that look like?
I think it'd be pretty violent, and a source of constant shaking and tremors.
Would it be dangerous?
Yeah, I think it'd be dangerous.
A few years ago, you told us a story about the future Skybreakers facing off against Scadrians for aviar. Were they doing that on behalf of their Shards? Or were they doing it for their own reasons?
RAFO. Excellent question.
You can find that reading online, a possible sequel to the Sixth of the Dusk that I had worked on for a little while.
If a shade attacks a non-Threnodite, do they turn into a shade?
Nope.
Can regular Threnodites from Threnody exchange heat like they do on Canticle?
RAFO.
What color are the flightsuits?
Have I never described the color of the flightsuits? I've always imagined light blue. Light blue to dark blue. That's one of my favorite colors, it shows up all the time. Maybe the team would convince me to do a different color. I always end up with blues and reds; I don't do enough greens, and I see you've got green on. In your version, you can canonize it as green. But I've always imagined blue.
Originally, you RAFO'd information about whether or not Vivenna and Vasher got together as a couple. But with the fact that the Nightblood story has kind of been put on hiatus, is there any way you're going to unRAFO that information?
Nope.
