Suppression fabrials. They don't work above the Fourth Ideal for Radiants, but they work on all Fused. Why?
Fused have, in general, a smaller amount of Investiture—or access to a smaller amount of Investiture—than a Radiant of those oaths. That's the dividing line that you can use to figure that out.
I was wondering if the Skybreakers' armor spren... what spren they are?
Well... Do you have any guesses?
Stormspren?
No, not stormspren, good guess. Any other guesses?
Gravitationspren. We're going with gravitationspren for them. So you should see some little hints of that in future books.
And this isn't too much of a spoiler 'cause we will be releasing all of these when the RPG comes out, 'cause you gotta know how you get your armor when you play the RPG.
So, what's up with Canticle? You've got the sunlight, it appears to be Invested and then the planet's core is trying to suck it up. And you know, where does it go after it does that, and...
Yeah, Canticle was built for a very specific purpose by a very powerful being in the Cosmere, that I will someday get to. You're going to see some more stuff like this. Basically, megastructures that imitate planets or other sort of heavenly bodies.
So it's not like some avatar of Autonomy or something like that?
It's not an avatar of anything, it was built for a specific purpose, yes.
Just wait til I get to the Grand Apparatus, you're gonna love that. What was that voice that talked about a future Cosmere planet? Hmm!
Nomad was able to overcome his Torment. Would someone else be able to do something similar using soulstamps?
Yeah, this is theoretically possible.
Soulstamps are one of the easiest ways to play with spiritual DNA and spiritwebs and stuff like that, so yeah.
Is Hoid secretly a dragon?
Hoid is not secretly a dragon, but he did date one once.
Who is the dragon that Hoid dated?
RAFO!
Is Mraize a Sleepless?
Mraize is not a Sleepless, despite the scar. Sometimes it may be something I use to indicate someone is a Sleepless. It's an excellent question, but I can go ahead and let you know Mraize is not a Sleepless.
I'm glad somebody asked that, because I realize now if I ever give a scar to somebody they're like "oh that means Sleepless," but not always. Sometimes scars just mean you've been in a lot of fights.
<Dyel> had the most unusual of visitors. That was not uncommon in Iri these days, now that the owners had returned. They walked the streets with bodies bearing patterns, like they were painted red, white, and black. But these visitors were not of the owners. These visitors were different.
The three sat at a table in her shop, on the far side, near the cubbies on the wall where her grandfather—before his murder—had put shoes. They huddled around their table, and when they’d come in, they’d pretended they were from “the east.” But <Dyel> knew accents, and these men were not from the east. Besides, their clothing was very strange, particularly the tallest man, with the long white coat and the strange spectacles peeking from his pocket.
She hovered in the doorway to the kitchen after delivering their tea, listening in, hoping her mother wouldn’t notice her loitering.
“Are you certain this is the right time?” asked the tall man, the one in the coat. He had skin like he was from Azir, with short black hair and muscles like a soldier. She could almost believe he was from the far east, where terrible men were said to be the fiercest warriors. And he had the height to maybe fit in there. But he liked sugar in his tea. What kind of fierce warrior liked sugar in his tea?
“Of course I’m not sure,” said the tubby one, who was constantly scowling. “The device is always unpredictable, don’t you know?” This one was Azish, perhaps, and completely bald. Older, shorter. Again, he wore odd clothing for this region. Most people she knew went around without shirts, and only <bandlo> for the women. He had on robes beneath the cloak. A cloak and colorful robes, in this weather?
The tall man grunted, then sipped his sugared tea. The third of them sat quietly. A Shin man, maybe, of middling height, but also balding, with lighter skin and more normal clothing, for an outlander. Shirt and trousers. He didn’t talk as much, but he watched things. She knew people like that.
Lest they think that she was observing them, <Dyel> busied herself with other tasks for a short time. Cleaning tables, standing by the door to give welcoming smiles to those who passed on the street. She liked that part. Looking at all the different kinds of people that were part of the One. She also liked smelling the ocean air. Though they were too poor to have a shop in the best part of town, the breeze still carried crisp, salty air inward to them. A gift of experience she could add to the One.
Outside, an owner walked past, a hulking figure with carapace and eyes that glowed red. There was some discussion—were these singers, these owners part of the One? Were they part of the grand connecting experience that unified all people? Or were they something else? <Dyel> thought they must be the One. It wouldn’t be the One unless it—God—encompassed everything. Every person a piece of it, extended out into the cosmere to live a different life and bring back enriching knowledge. Her mother didn’t believe that, but <Dyel> did. Because if she did, then grandpa Ym was always with her, and she with him, because they were the same.
“Serving girl,” one of the men called, “could I get another?”
She started, then hurried back to the table with the three strangers, her hair aflutter. She kept it long, only trimmed it when Mother forced her to. She was Iriali, and golden hair was her heritage.
She quickly refilled the men’s cups, though the thoughtful one—the quiet one—sat a sphere on the table. Her breath caught. A full broam? She looked to the man, who had a round friendly face. He nodded.
She snatched it up, the azure light inside making her skin glow. But Mother would insist she ask, so reluctantly, she spoke.
“Would you like some change?”
“No,” he said, still smiling. “Thought wouldn’t mind if you answered a question or two.”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
“Have you ever seen,” the man asked, “a strange collection of lights that moves across the wall or floor, though you can find no source reflecting it?”
<Dyel> felt an immediate spike of terror. She nearly dropped the teapot. She’d suspected they weren’t what they said, but this? This?
“I’m sorry I have to go I forgot my mother wanted me to check on the biscuits stay as long as you want thank you for the tip we’re closed now good bye!”
She scampered into the back room, now kitchen and living space transformed from her grandfather’s workshop. She put her back to the wall, heart thundering, and tried to breathe in and out. He was back. The murderer. What to do?
Find Mother.
But Mother was gone. <Dyel> searched the entire shop. Wasn’t hard, considering how small it was, and found nothing but a note: Back in fifteen. Watch the shop.
Oh no. No no no no no no no.
She scrambled and found a knife—for spreading butter—then she hid in the corner holding it, trying not to be too loud as she cried and trembled. Until they darkened the doorway. Three men, two shorter, one taller.
<Dyel> yelped despite herself, holding out the knife. The three looked almost bored, as if killing her would barely bother them.
The tall one looked to the thoughtful one. “Look what you’ve done, Demoux,” he said, gesturing to her. "I told you you should keep quiet about that!”
“I need an intelligent spren to study,” he said. “They keep telling me no!”
“Perhaps that’s because you keep saying you want to study them, isn’t that so?” the grumpy one said. “We certainly frightened fewer people when your translator didn’t work.”
The tallest man walked up to <Dyel>, then knelt beside where she knelt, trying to force herself back against the wall, her skirt getting twisted and crumpled, the rough grain of the wood pressing against the skin of her back, except where she wore her <bandlo>. The man considered her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “to have—”
The back door slammed open, and there was her mother, frantic, in loose trousers and <bandlo>, a glowing mane of hair that was radiant with the light of the setting sun. She seemed alarmed, wild-eyed, then she saw the three strangers. Her Shardblade materialized a second later, bright and silver. Their family’s hidden secret, kept quiet since it had manifested a few months back. But few secrets mattered when you burst into the room and found your twelve-year-old daughter frightened by three assailants.
“Woah,” the tall one said, leaping backward.
He was the one, the killer named Darkness!
“Woah!” He pulled something from his belt, something he brandished like a weapon, though <Dyel> had never seen a weapon that was just a small tube of metal.
Strange lights followed as the grumpy one smashed a sphere on the ground, somehow cracking it. Stormlight flowed up around him, and strange symbols formed in the air. Mother leapt in front of <Dyel>, sweating, holding her weapon in two hands.
“We knew you’d come back,” Mother said. “We knew you’d come for me once you heard!”
Mother’s voice trembled. <Dyel> crawled forward and grabbed her around the legs, terrified.
They all stood quietly in the room until the thoughtful one, the Shin man said, “What the hell is going on?”
“We know about you,” Mother said, inching backward toward the door. “I spent months trying to find the tall Makabaki man who killed my father! I spoke to the families of the others you killed! We know what you are, what you do, murderer!”
<Dyel> cowered. Mother kept trying to inch them toward the door. Strangely, though, the tall man—the murderer who had killed her grandfather—relaxed, lowering his… strange weapon. The bald one lowered his hands, the strange glowing lights around him evaporating.
“I told you you looked like him.”
“I do not," the tall one said.
“You kind of do,” the thoughtful one said.
“Just because he and I are both dark-skinned?” the tall one said.
“I’m dark-skinned too,” said the bald one, “and no one says I look like him.”
“You’re silver most of the time, Galladon,” the tall one said, depositing his weapon back in his cloak. “Look, I’m not the murderer you’re worried about. That’s Nale, the Herald. I’m just a traveler.”
They both watched him in terrified quiet until Mother, strangely, cocked her head. She dismissed her Blade, which made <Dyel> quiver. Surely Mother didn’t believe the words of this killer?
Uma appeared a second later, sliding up the wall, a collection of lights like those scattered by a prism. Except none existed here. She made a kind of shimmering pattern that she said was unique to her.
“It’s alright, <Dyel>,” Uma said. Her voice was quiet, like the sound of glass when a cup vibrated in the hands of a musician. “I told your mother as well. I know the Herald Nale by sight, the one called Darkness, and this is not him. I suspect he is from very distant lands indeed.”
Oh. <Dyel> carefully stood up behind her mother, her heart still pounding, likely the same as all of them.
Until a moment later, the thoughtful one said, “Can I study you?”
“Umm,” Uma said, “no?”
“I told you to stop phrasing it like that, Demoux,” said the one called Galladon.
“I don’t want to lie to them,” Demoux said, gesturing.
The tall one cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should be going.”
Mother eyed them and was still tense. <Dyel> realized why. Yes, this was not Darkness, but she’d still burst into the room, likely after hearing her daughter cry out, and had still found three strange men in a part of their shop where no customer was allowed.
“Mother,” <Dyel> whispered, pointing, “they knew. They asked me about Uma.”
“How?” Mother demanded.
“We didn’t mean to frighten the girl,” the tall one said, with a placating hand forward. “We simply heard rumors. We’re scholars and like to study spren.”
“See?” Demoux said. “Baon uses it!”
“Baon is not an example of how to be in any way tactful,” Galladon said. “Crazyfools, all of you.”
What a curious word, smashing two together like that. He stepped forward, and though he had been the grouchiest at the table ordering drinks, he made his tone polite now.
“I’m sorry we frightened you. We will go now, with your leave, Radiant.”
Mother looked down at <Dyel>, then sighed, looking back at the men. “I have a letter for you.”
“…What?”
“What?”
“Mother?” <Dyel> asked.
“You remember when that odd woman visited last month?” she said. “She left me a letter, it’s in my nightstand. Please fetch it.”
<Dyel>, confused, did as she asked. Mother remained eye to eye with the three strangers. <Dyel> did remember that woman, the one who wore too many rings, and who had helped for several weeks at the local charity hospital. A healer skilled with herbs, and whose room had smelled of fish, from the creatures she had caught in the Purelake, then dried. She’d come for tea each morning, but had left a few weeks ago. Apparently not without leaving something.
In the nightstand beside the table they shared, <Dyel> found a sealed envelope. And on it was drawn roughly the profiles of the three men. These three men, except with quite comical exaggerated proportions. She’d have found them amusing if she weren’t so tense.
What an odd experience from the One. How had the woman known? But then, <Dyel>’s life had been turned upside down ever since Uma had arrived and her mother had started glowing sometimes. Unique experiences indeed. She cherished thinking of it that way, as she’d been taught. So many didn’t believe these days, but she did, for Grandfather’s sake.
She scampered down the stairs and handed the letter to her mother, who tossed it to the men.
“I was told,” Mother explained, “I would know who to give this to.”
The tall one, Baon, caught it. He eyed the others, then slit it open with a pocket knife. “It’s from him,” Baon said.
“Of course it is,” Demoux replied. “Right as we’re leaving. You think he wants to tease us back, make us keep wasting time?”
“What,” Galladon said, “does it say?”
Baon closed the envelope. “It has only his signature. And a crude depiction of male genitalia.”
“From the Trickster Aspect?” Mother said. “He was here too, last year.”
“Of course he was!” Demoux repeated, then sighed. “I’m ready to be off this rusting planet. What about you two?”
“Yes, please,” Galladon said. “One of the eldest beings in the cosmere, and he has the mental age of a thirteen-year-old.”
“If this man ever returns,” Baon said, “keep your distance. He isn’t terribly dangerous, but things around him always are. When he’s spotted, innocents get hurt. It’s inevitable.”
Well, of course. He was the Trickster Aspect, spun out of the One to create chaos. But you couldn’t just insult him by not serving him tea when he asked.
A ding came from Galladon’s pocket. “Time,” he said. The three men nodded to the two of them, then started out. Baon hesitated by the door.
“Things might be chaotic in your city for a little bit, but it will pass. Best stay inside.” Then he too left.
<Dyel> hugged her mother. Because they were alive, tense though it had been, but also because she was worried. Not just because of what Baon had said. Because it meant Darkness had not yet come, and they still needed to fear him.
Outside, people started shouting.
“I will look,” Uma said in her tinkling voice. “Stay strong. I do not know yet what this is.”
Mother nodded and grabbed <Dyel> and led her up the steps as Uma went out the door. Their shop was part of a larger building, four stories high, and they helped keep it tidy and fix things. Which meant Mother could take them up the access stairway all the way to the roof. There they burst out, and found what was causing the chaos.
Cusicesh the Protector had risen from the bay. The great multi-armed spren made only of a column of water. It had risen high in the air, larger than usual.
That was all? <Dyel> relaxed. She’d seen Cusicesh many times. This was nothing to fear. But why, then, were so many people pointing and crying out? Why were so many people running?
“It’s the wrong time of day,” her mother said, staring across the rooftops toward the bay.
Cusicesh, breaking tradition from the way he normally acted, waved his hands out to the sides, palms toward the city. And then, before him in the bay, the air split in a glorious radiant font, a column of light.
“The gateway,” Mother whispered, “to the Land of Shadows. Honor’s gateway. Oh, Father, Mother, ancestors become one! <Dyel>, it’s time! Run and fetch the traveler packs, it’s time!”
<Dyel> froze. Time? The traveler packs? All good Iriali kept them, of course, in case they needed to leave, but that was mostly a formality, unless…
It was time?
“PEOPLE,” Cusicesh spoke.
That spren never spoke.
The voice was deep and vibrated the city, somehow loud enough to make her soul shake, but not so loud it hurt her ears.
“IT IS HERE. I AM TO BE YOUR GUIDE FOR THE FIFTH JOURNEY.”
Time. That meant time to continue the Long Trail. Time to find the Fifth Land. Finally shocked out of her reverie, she went running for the travel packs, terrified that this great day should have come during her life. The One was certainly testing her with new experiences. She wished there were a way to explain that she was filled up with them, that she’d rather experience some peaceful days, without owners returning to the land, or her mother starting to glow, or the call to the Long Trail itself occurring.
But it wasn’t to be, as when she met back with her mother, Uma had returned. Mother was crying.
“We will try,” Mother whispered to the spren, who brightened the floor of the rooftop. “We will see, see how far you can go. Come, <Dyel>. We mustn’t miss the call. The gateway will not remain forever, and boats are already rowing out to meet it.”
And so she went with her mother. Found their way to a boat with only their travel packs. Joined with the light of the gateway, which she thought briefly must be like rejoining the One when she died. She emerged into a place of shadows with the leaders of their kind, who had already begun preparing caravans to cross the darkness. Other portals, she heard, had opened all across Iri, one in every major city. Nearby, she did spy the three strangers passing, Demoux complaining about the “odd behavior for a perpendicularity of this nature.”
Mother settled her down on some blankets to wait as she went to find their position in the caravans. <Dyel> clutched her pack to her chest, stunned by how fast it had happened. Stunned to realize that her time in the city, with the shop, was over.
And so she whispered a quiet farewell. It was time to leave Roshar.
Forever.
Is Jasnah's illness psychopathy?
That's a very good question. RAFO
Have we met the Admiral of the Night Brigade, or the family of said Admiral, before?
The Admiral of the Night Brigade is the protagonist of the unnamed Threnody novel. You have not met her yet. I didn't say "hero" on purpose, I said "protagonist"! But when I write the Night Brigade novel (it'll probably just be called The Night Brigade), she's the protagonist.
And yeah, Continuity Chains are very involved in that story if I ever get around to writing it.
Aethers in Tress seem to take over their hosts aggressively, probably without the host's permission, whereas we see in The Lost Metal with TwinSoul it's more willing. Is this related—and how—to the corruption of aethers on Lumar?
Yeah, it is related. You have the main aether planet, which we just named but I can't... so Kalyani named it for me. Well, Kalyani and Rahul. I'm relying on them a lot for this planet, and they actually just sent me a five-thousand-word world guide for it. [...] They could tell us how to pronounce it. "Dhatri" might be how it is?
Regardless. On the main planet. So the idea here is they're very formalized, how you interact with the aethers. But on some other planets (not just Lumar), aethers have gone that are not connected to the main set of them on the main planet, and what's going on on Lumar is directly related to how that separation happened.
So that answer is a long-winded yes.
Wit's dated a dragon; has Wit also dated a Shard?
Wit has dated someone who wasn't a Shard at the point, but at some point in the future became a Vessel for a Shard of Adonalsium.
You've said previously that the Oathgates don't obey Physical Realm speed of light. Do they obey the speed of light in Shadesmar? Or are they tapping into the Spiritual Realm shenanigans?
They're tapping into Spiritual Realm shenanigans. An Elsecaller is capable of creating something that can teleport you faster than the speed of light.
Do dragons in the cosmere have their own magic system? And if so, what can you tell us about it?
You'll get some answers to this very soon because you'll be able to read Dragonsteel Prime. (And some of you have read that. We'll be doing this as a Curiosity, like we did Way of Kings Prime). Dragons act in the cosmere as kind of this... the Primary magic system that they use is something akin to soothing and rioting, but they have followers who pray to them and ask for them to help them with their emotions during difficult times, and the dragons are able to do that across any distance. That's kind of the main thing that they're doing, other than that they can transform between a dragon and a person in shape. There's a little bit more to it, but I'll give you those nuggets.
What would happen if a person from Scadrial were to try to burn a manifested metal from Roshar?
So you're meaning they're in Shadesmar, they manifest it, and they try to burn it, right?
Say a Spren of a Radiant manifests as a bead of metal instead of a Shardblade?
You're not going to be able to burn that if it's something that's coming from a spren, because that's not going to be treated as a metal in your body. Like, those are God Metals, and that one is actually alive and awake and it's just not gonna work. There are ways, though, that you could make that work. So it's totally possible, but you're gonna need something that's not an alive spren that's manifest like that. You're gonna need some way to get access to some tanavastium or something like that that's not, like, some living being.
What would happen if an Awakener drew color from an emerald and then a Soulcaster tried to Soulcast with it?
That's an excellent question. The color of the gemstone is working as a sort of key to help the Soulcaster and to facilitate this. There are Soulcasters that could do it if it's been drained, but for most of them it's just not gonna work. They're gonna view that too much like a diamond or even quartz and it's just gonna fiddle with the process to the point that it won't work. There are some people who could do it anyway.
So the Threnodites are described as having a smokey shadow something to their soul; we don't really know what that is. Is it more similar to the black smoke that comes from Awakened objects in Yumi and Nightblood? Or is it more like Midnight Essence in Tress?
It is more like Breath than it is like either one of those. More like Breath, but something's a little wrong with it
We've seen on Roshar creatures like chasmfiends evolve to have symbiotic relationships with spren. Are similar things possible between animals and Aethers?
This could happen, yes. The Luhel bond is able to do these sorts of things.
[T]he last time I checked, the book was going to be called "Knights of wind and truth", but I see some people referring to it as "Wind and Truth." So I was wondering, what is the official name of the book?
I'm almost 100% in camp shorter title now. Just "Wind and Truth."
The in-world book will be Knights of Wind and Truth.
But I won't make the decision fully until the book is done, my editorial team has read it, and we can talk it through together.
Can you use gravitational Lashings on liquids and gasses?
Yes, but it would be harder than you think.
Are spores and fabrials affected by God Metals?
Yes, the severity depends on which God Metal.
Could you Awaken a chasmfiend as a Lifeless with just one Breath, or would it require more?
It probably would require more.
And would a Lifeless chasmfiend still function normally, because they use spren in order to support their weight?
Yeah, it wouldn't be able to make the Nahel bond work, so it would collapse.
What does Nightblood look like in the Cognitive Realm?
RAFO. Let's just say this has been a topic of much interest to myself and some others.
What would happen if a Mistborn ingested anti-lerasium or anti-atium, assuming they don't explode?
If you are not highly Invested yourself, and you get the anti[-Investiture], it's not gonna be a fun time. You won't explode, but it will kill you, almost assuredly. Not a fun time, but not an explosively not-a-fun-time, just a regular old not-a-fun-time. Maybe a little bit like pouring molten metal down your throat.
Is there a specific reason as to why Hoid cannot Skip, but Nomad can?
Yes, there is a specific reason for that. I'll get into it someday. Let's just say the Skipping started because of a certain event, that probably I won't write a book to talk about, but you will get an answer to that someday I hope. So it's a RAFO, but a RAFO with a little bit of a promise.
Is Hoid able to use soulstamps?
Hoid is working on how to figure out how to use soulstamps. As you have seen so far, he has not figured out how to make that work. But he only just barely managed to get access to Selish magic systems. He's working on it.
Who in the Cosmere could beat Taln in a fight back when he was in his prime?
Depends what level of abilities he has access to. If you're saying access to full abilities, I don't know of anybody who could beat him in an actual one-on-one.
Could a Bondsmith make a forgery last longer?
Yeah, they could do that.
Does Rysn have a Torment?
She hasn’t had the Dawnshard long enough for it to change her spiritweb enough.
Will she?
She may not call it that, but the Dawnshard will change her spiritweb in drastic ways.
Is Nightblood a Dawnshard?
He is not.
what inspired Lift?
(inaudible, there was a cultural influence), then he said that he wanted to have a teenager to kind of represent teenagers for his goal of representing everyone possible.
In the past, you've mentioned how Skyward was originally intended to be part of the cosmere. Were cytonic abilities originally going to be an Invested Art, or were they developed after the creation of the cytoverse proper?
Slight correction, Skyward was not going to be part of the Cosmere. It was specifically Spensa who was going to be in the cosmere. The story she was going to be part of is still cosmere-relevant, and we will still see it, but we'll see the replacement for Spensa instead. The cytonic abilities were developed afterwards, as we see in Defending Elysium.
Does the Cryptics city in Shadesmar have a name and if so, what is it?
It does not currently have a canonized name.
The story is long. This game will have to run for 10 years in order for me to cover all of the stuff in your outline.
Are you surprised?
One of the things that I definitely wanted to do with this book as I was writing it was limit the ability of the fantasy world to impact the "real world" which, um, the story that Cecil and everyone is from may not actually be, it's certainly not our world, uh, maybe our world is one upstream from that, uh, is kinda what the implication might be or maybe they're a side step from one another, uh but I wanted to limit their ability to influence one another. One of the things that makes this book work is that you're kinda going into your own isolated world, where the real world can minimally influence it but it can't influence the real world in anyway, um, real world- I say real, they're both real, but the upstream world and things like that. Um this allowed me more flexibility with the narrative uh, in was I wanted to go. You don't have to worry, as a reader, what are the implications upon my world if this were discovered well, they're very- they're very greatly limited because nothing can transfer, uh, upstream. Uh, a useful tool for just letting the reader umm, suspend disbelief a little bit more, and focus a little bit more on the story that is happening.
If you were to attend a dinner party with your characters and have three to five of them who would you pick?
Who is least likely to get into trouble and cause disaster?
Lift! Lift!
Lift? No, not Lift. No, not Lift.
Dalinar! *several inaudible recommendations*
You're naming all sorts of people that danger follows like a cloak! Alright, Alright. Let's put Harmony there because if something does go wrong having a god around is handy. Let's see, 5? ... We are going to do Steris because she'll be well prepared for everything. And then we will go with Dalinar, because I want him to maybe be able to meet Harmony, which would be kind of fun to see how that goes down. Jasnah because I'd like her to meet Harmony, that would be really interesting. And then I would pick one of the accountants from The Lost Metal because they're unlikely to cause anyone to come hunting them to destroy the room.
If Steris, Rock, and Lift had to prepare potatoes, how would they prepare them?
This is actually pretty easy because Lift would get there without her potatoes, right? Now, she probably ate some of them, she probably just lost the others, she maybe gave some of them away to people who needed them. She's not going to arrive with any potatoes. If you give Lift a sack of potatoes it's on you. You can know the potatoes went to good places. She probably tried to feed one to her chicken, it probably didn't like it very much, mine doesn't, but she tried.
Rock is going to make something delicious because it's a challenge to him. He's not familiar with a potato, he's like what do I do with this thing? He's going to figure out how to make something very very very cool with it.
Steris is going to buy a recipe book. She's going to make every potato dish in there, in case you don't like the one that she made.
So, Peter and Karen's daughter, I guess multiples, two of the daughters or many all three. But I know for sure Bridget, is very eager about creating a slug. Because boomslug Dallin, my son came up with. So I'm like we could maybe do this. They want a remote viewing slug.
Remote viewing?
Yes, a slug that creates a little thing you can see through to another location. That's what they have come up with.
That's awesome. Do they have a name for it?
They don't have a name for it. But they want us to canonize it and tell them which of these slugs is the remote viewing slug.
So I have, and I don't know what happened with Defiant, I have a list of all of the slugs that I- yeah.
So it wouldn't be any of those.
So probably it would have to be a different colored slug. So if they have a recommendation of what color slug they would like.
Would you be willing to tell us what the rainbow slug's power is?
Do you have the notes handy?
I know what it is.
Okay, you can say what it is.
That's the illusion slug. So in my mind, that's why it's a rainbow, it's not real, it's an illusion.
It's creating an illusion of itself, yeah.
I'm really curious about Boatload of Mummies because Brandon did mention on his updates that you'd worked on it for NaNoWriMo for the past couple of years which is really cool. And the title is incredible. I don't know if that's gonna be the final title, but that's what it's always been referred to. How have you been doing with that?
Thanks for asking us. It's a project that I love. So I finished it. Finished a draft in September of last year. It's rough. It's a really rough draft. There's a lot of things that I'm still working through. I'm trying to narrow down the shape of the plot in a way because there's a little bit of--it wasn't inspired necessarily by these things, but it was after the fact that I realized, "Oh, it's part this, part that." It's sort of begins King Kong, if you imagined getting people on a boat. And then it continues as Death on the Nile. Then you get to a portion on an island. And then it ends The Mummy. And throw in a healthy dose of Venom. So it's like, "Okay, am I doing too much here?" And that's kind of where I'm at. You know, is this even a thing? Have I thrown too much in? Is this too much of a storyline? And i don't think it is. It really is in the end kind of a Raiders of the Lost Arc sort of story. You could pull out those some of those same elements and say, "Raiders of the Lost Arc starts out King Kong." But the basic plot line is there. There's going to be scenes in the current draft that are basically finished. I don't think they're going to change too much from the version that it is right now to the end.
Will it be called Boatload of Mummies? Probably not. I can't see that as a title of a Cosmere book, right? But we can affectionately call it Boatload of Mummies as long as we want. The working title is Book of Nails. And whether there's a series title or not, we'll have to figure that out if it's a story that people want to continue learning about.
But let me tell you Nicki Savage is so much fun to write. Don't expect exactly what you get from the broadsheets because she is writing to a particular audience, and has learned some skills from Allomancer Jak--though I do think Allomancer Jak's stories might be closer to the truth than Nicki's are.
You will see parallels between this story and some of the elements that are in the broadsheets. But she's basically: if you can imagine a Mary Poppins. who is incredibly interested in the supernatural, and is not afraid to beat up people. That's basically your character right there. And she's just, she's a load of fun. A boatload of fun.
I imagine from what you've said that you still wouldn't be ready to give us what could eventually function as a back of the book blurb?
During the first NaNoWriMo that I worked on it we had to come up with our elevator pitch on that, and I wrote the Readers Digest, TV Guide version of it, and it was "A woman with a strange, magical power journeys to an island to find a mythical book that might raise the dead." Something like that.
This particular book is interesting because... How do I pitch this when it's a spin off of a different series. It's a spin-off from Mistborn, technically. But it's not a Mistborn book. You can't pitch that to somebody who doesn't know Mistborn. And that's been some of the fun in trying to figure this out is "How do I tell a different story here, but then have to reintroduce how Allomancy works? But now in this era, we know about Allomancy, we know about Feruchemy, we know about Hemalurgy. We have crossovers from other worlds. How do you write this book without confusing somebody entirely without... "There's like 50 magic systems in here, and I don't understand." And that then goes into the pitch. How do you pitch this book? People who know the Cosmere, you just say it's set on Scadrial, but it's not really a Misborn book. It's just hard to encapsulate and someday I'll figure it out.
I was just wondering if Sando [Brandon] has ever said what was behind the very ornate door under The First Capital [in The Way of Kings Prime]?
An Unmade was behind that door, spiked with crystal spikes to the wall, holding it and preventing it from going anywhere. I believe I talked about it on a stream somewhere.
This was very, very early Hemalurgy--and some of the things I was planning there are no longer canon. You probably could still spike an Unmade to bind it to the Physical Realm, though, so that part remains viable.
As Dragonsteel expands and you have other writers like Janci and Dan telling stories in your worlds, how do you manage the difference in approaches to writing?
Yeah, so this is something we're kind of finding our way through. You'll notice that I experimented with this a bunch with side projects before I decided to do some mainline projects. And I picked two of the writers that I'm very closest with and know the best. I don't anticipate going a lot further than that, right? I do like the idea of seeing what a few other writers can add to things like the Cosmere, but I don't want to turn into Forgotten Realms, where there's always a new book coming out by a new author. I do think that some places have done a better job of this though. Like, Black Library tends to have a very good reputation with the authors that they invite in and cultivate a stable of authors rather than just, you never know who's going to be writing one. I know that I didn't necessarily like this in comics, when I read more comics, not knowing when an author on a book was gonna be fired or when you were not gonna start seeing the original creator anymore. You will never not be seeing me writing books.
How do I approach it differently? When I hand it to someone, like with Skyward, I do envision it as being Janci's now. That I am overseeing. These are now her stories. It's kind of like how I felt... Harriet told me when I took over the Wheel of Time, Harriet came to me and said, "You are the author now, Brandon. You need to follow your instances as a writer and do your best job. You do want to look at what Robert Jorden was going to do and you want to try and fulfill his vision too." But she was very clear with me, it's like, "You are the writer now." And that gave me a certain level of ownership that I feel I needed. And despite some things about what I did definitely being... You know, I'm not without criticism, and deserved criticism. I think that me taking over that series went better than the vast majority of this happening in the past. You can just look at that both in aggregate reviews, you can also look at that at sales, you can just kind of look at... Really trying not to blow my own horn, but I think Wheel of Time is the gold standard in sci-fi/fantasy for an author passing away and someone else taking over the series. And part of the reason, in fact, I would say one of the biggest reasons for that, was Harriet coming to me and saying, "You need to be the author. You need the freedom and flexibility to treat this like your own series. You're not writing this for someone as just a work-for-hire; get this, chop wood, be done. We are handing you the keys to the house." And then, of course, the fact that she was also the editor to keep me a little reigned in in the right places was a big key.
But I bring that same sort of feeling to the authors I'm working with, with: "I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna help you outline. I'm gonna help you worldbuild. I'm gonna give feedback on the drafts. I'm gonna do everything I can to make this really excellent." But when you read Dan's Cosmere book, it's Dan's Cosmere book; it's not Dan writing Brandon's Cosmere book. It's Dan writing Dan's Cosmere book with Brandon deeply involved and trying to help out. And I think this is gonna lead to just better books. I think it's gonna lead to much better books.
I remember when I went to Blizzard once. They had me in (they had Pat Rothfuss in a separate time), and one of the reasons they had me in is they're like, "We would like you to write this story for us." They wanted to investigate having me write books for them. And it was a wonderful experience, everyone there was great, but I very quickly could tell I was the wrong person for the project. Because they already knew the exact book they wanted. They had every bit of lore that they wanted in that nailed down. The level of flexibility that I could have in telling a story in the Warcraft world was just almost nil. (They were actually investigating people for Overwatch back when it was Overwatch, but they also talked about Warcraft stuff.) It was like, "You could tell this story. This is what happens in it: boom boom boom boom boom boom boom." And it's all just completely already done, they just need someone to put the words on the page. And that is not me. That's not a project I was the least bit interested in.
Seems like a lot of movie experiences are built like that.
Yes, a lot of movie experiences are built like that, too. And because of that, I politely declined that opportunity. And I have learned (particularly in these kind of collaborations) that the best things that we came up with were things where I said, "Here is my world. Here's what makes it exciting. Here's what I love about the characters. What do you want to do in this world?" And together, developing something that really matches them. Particularly when I can kind of hand off characters that I have not spent a lot of time on or have them invent all new characters.
That's what you should expect with the collaborations I'm doing. Quality control, hopefully by Brandon, hopefully really great stories, but stories I could not have written, because just handing people my outlines hasn't really worked. The best example of that being White Sand the Graphic novel. Isaac has made that book great, by kind of taking some real ownership over it. The first stuff that we did (even before he did this latest revision that you guys can now get), it felt like my outline got really stiff when someone else played with it, and some of the stuff that makes reading a Brandon Sanderson book really fun and enjoyable didn't end up in there.
There's a long rambling answer to you; I hope that's relevant and helpful. But, that's the way I am approaching this.
With the success of the Kickstarter and those editions of the books, do you think there's any chance of a nicer edition with RP coming available upon the release of future books?
Yeah, that's something that we've talked about. People seem to want an edition in between the regular release in bookstores and the leather bounds. Some people prefer the leather bounds, some people would like something a little bit more like these Dragonsteel editions we've done, so we have had talks internally. The thing is, maybe this is something we'll need to do a poll on. I don't want to overwhelm people with editions, and I don't want to inspire this feeling like you have to own every edition, right? And so, do I want to for instance do yet another release of the Mistborn. Cause we have Mistborn hardcover, paperback, leather bound, and trade paperback, and then a separate YA edition. Do we do yet another? But having a Mistborn trilogy that would look good on the shelf with your Dragonsteel editions of the Secret Projects is appealing to me at the same time, so. <We'll maybe run> a poll, but we would like to hear kind of from you guys, what do you want, how many of you want it, how many of you would feel overwhelmed by product fatigue. There's always the joke about Skyrim, how many different releases of Skyrim can we have? I know I feel that sometimes, like Street Fighter, which I used to play with a kid, and people were like, yeah there's like 80 different versions of Street Fighter 2.
Now that you're 75% through the first draft of Stormlight 5, how are you feeling as you are quickly approaching the end of the front half of the series? Are you looking forward to the mid-series break and having time to work on other projects? Thank you for your time.
I am really looking forward to the mid-series break. I don't think more so than I am at the end of any other long, difficult write. Each of the Stormlight books I am happy to be done when I am done. I think you'll find me more so next year when I've been having to do revisions a ton. But I am looking forward to that break. That said, I am very fond of Stormlight, and I don't feel that fatigue right now, as much as I might have anticipated. I think part of it is the way I am writing it. Letting me, basically I go through one group of viewpoints, and then I start back over. It's keeping it kind of refreshing to me, and I get to have that build to a climax experience multiple times. It's also helping that I'm really looking forward to seeing how people respond to some of these things that I'm doing. But yeah, I'm looking forward to the break. I'm looking forward to going back to do some Elantris work. I'm looking forward to writing the next era of Mistborn, since that ones been planned for a long time, and Wax and Wayne kind of got in the way, even though I love Wax and Wayne, of doing this one. This ones been out lying for way longer than Wax and Wayne, and so it will be nice to be able to get to that.
When Adonalsium Will Remember Our Plight Eventually came on page did anyone else immediately think of Good Omens and Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery Pulsifer?? That was my first thought and couldn't stop laughing, I hope it's an homage
It kind of is, kind of isn't. I first became aware of this quirk of puritan societies because of Pratchett, but it was Constable Visit-The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets that did it, actually.
Truth is, these kind of names were very rare (and kind of odd) in actual puritan societies, but they're just too deliciously interesting to not riff off of. Single word puritan names, like Faith or Justice, were far more common. (Including Silence, which I used after I actually encountered it doing genealogy of puritan Americans.)
Would a mortician be able to tell that the body in front of them is a worldhopper?
Yes. But not because of the worldhopping. A mortician would generally be able to tell because... I guess it depends. There's some that you would not be able to tell if they were. If someone left Roshar and came back to Roshar and died, a mortician wouldn't necessarily tell. Now, someone who can read their spiritweb might be able to tell. But that's not going to leave an effect on you physically, unless, for instance, they're doing an autopsy of what's in your stomach. And they're like, "Oh, we found offworld food." I would say, a lot of times, there's going to be some forensic sort of things you can do to determine. Or, you might be like, "This person is a different ethnicity than we have on this planet." So, I would say, a lot of the time, but there's nothing that's gonna leave intrinsically... it's not like, "Count the rings, how many times they leave the planet."
You said before that you want to cameo in any adaptations of your books as someone who dies in each one. Assuming you do this, would it just function as an out-of-universe nod? Or would you canonically be playing a very unlucky set of identical worldhopping siblings?
It wouldn't be siblings; it'd probably be, like, somebody who keeps getting reborn. Somebody who's immortal in some way, and something terrible happens to him every time he goes. A little like the unluckiest planeswalker from Magic, if you guys are familiar with that.
I would be the same person, I think, because we'd want to keep canon, and things like that. Some dude who maybe had a certain Dawnshard that makes him indestructible, for a short period of time (not Hoid), but tries to keep going places to get out of danger and just ends up getting squashed every time.
Kind of like I'd be the cosmere's Kenny.
When Stormlight 5 is out and you've read it, remember to ask me what happened in my writing on July 18th. I wrote an important scene yesterday that I think might be worthy of a little extra special notation.
I think we're completely stalled at this point, folks--not just because of the strikes. They're a relatively small issue in regards to what we were trying to do. We got really close in some ways I'll be able to talk about eventually, but I don't see any kind of film/TV announcement coming this year.
Hollywood is scared. Even Mission Impossible is under-performing, and Rings of Power did far beneath what they wanted. I think at this point, I might have to try some smaller forays (i.e. Not Stormlight, not Mistborn, maybe not even Cosmere) into Hollywood to build a reputation before I can get the kind of adaptation I want.
We'll see. There still are a few possibilities in the works that could turn this around. If it does happen, it won't be for an announcement this year.
For someone who says that you can do anything and you can have dragons, there's a remarkable lack of dragons in your book.
Yes, I know, I know. They started showing up. Secret Project One has the first onscreen as a dragon. But yes, the dragons have been kinda hiding out. The thing is, one of the first books I wrote in the Cosmere had a lot of dragons. It was called Dragonsteel. But it didn't get published. That book, it's still canon to the lore of the Cosmere, and I know all about it, but... yeah, you're right.
Someone brings a server and computer plus monitor to Roshar and uses AI to create AI art. Would creationspren or any other spren gather?
No, because it is emotion and perception of the person doing the creating that is drawing the creationspren. However, do that long enough, and there's a decent chance that a sufficiently strong AI would start gaining sentience in the cosmere, because of Investiture and the way things work.
So what about logicspren?
Logicspren are drawn to people's arguments. It's the person's emotion and thoughts that draw the spren, not the activity necessarily, in most cases. Some of the more... There's a division line. The spren that are a little more on the Cultivation spren, they can be drawn to just... Lifespren and rockspren, they're not looking for the human emotion, necessarily. But things like creationspren and logicspren are.
