What's the timeline looking on the next Mistborn book?
Uhhhh, indeterminate. It's going to depend on how Skyward 2 goes and whether I use [The Lost Metal] as a break in the middle of Stormlight or if I do it right before Stormlight 4. It shouldn't be too long.
I'm really curious about Ryshadium. Is there something bigger about them?
It's not super-huge. They are non-native species who have started to form spren bonds like native species do. So, a symbiotic bond with a spren has started happening. Ryshadium are horses that have done that, basically. You could say that humans have done the same thing. Non-native species that have started to form spren bonds. The Ryshadium are the only other non-native species that that has started happening. Like the chasmfiends have a symbiotic relationship with the spren that they have, the Ryshadium have a spren.
It's not as visible, but it is there.
Did Harmony change the laws of Feruchemy and Allomancy just so that people wouldn't want to do Hemalurgy by making it possible to get those powers otherwise, or was that already...
No, that wasn't the purpose. It was already built in.
I made the call. I didn't build that Sazed did it, but it's a little bit of a retcon, breaking Feruchemy into its separate powers. I felt that would just be a more interesting narrative.
So, the behind-the-scenes answer is, I just broke those apart. My rationale for myself in-world was that now that the bloodlines were spreading out more, this was a natural effect of the bloodlines mixing.
Makes sense. Just Sazed didn't want people looking at Hemalurgy so I figured maybe he retconned it a little bit just so you wouldn't.
That isn't the answer I came up with. But it sounds rational. I want to be careful not to have too much Sazed retconning going on. But at the same time, it is kind of a retcon, so maybe I should have.
I would like to know more about Wit. What is he?
Wit was born on the planet where all of this started. Long ago, in the early history of the Cosmere. Certain things that happened there made him immortal. A bunch of the people who were involved in this became what we call Shards of Adonalsium. They took up deific power. He did not, but he is one of the only other people who was around during that time who's still around.
So does he get a flashback book?
He gets an entire series which is where all of this happens, in the beginning. That should be a trilogy right now. We'll see. I'm going to write it after Stormlight is done.
Have there been Mistborn, and other people from other books, with powers in Stormlight?
Yeah. Captain Demoux. You've seen Captain Demoux. You've seen, of course, Wit. He used Allomancy in one of the books. There are others. There is a Terriswoman running around. Those are the big ones. There are others, but they're much smaller...
There's Felt, but he doesn't count.
I know I don't have a lot of di-Shardic worlds to deal with, but I notice a pattern, on Scadrial you've got metals being kind of a focus of their magic. And with Roshar, it's gemstones tend to be. Is that determined by the Shardworld or the Shards?
It's kind of one and the same.
Are there Awakened objects on Scadrial because it talks like, "Hello, do any of your metal objects talk to you?" Or is that just you having fun with the broadsheets cause the broadsheets may not be a hundred percent true?
The broadsheets are definitely not one hundred percent true, but we didn't put anything in there that didn't have a reason. So that is a RAFO.
Those short stories on Threnody and First of the Sun, will we have full books for those?
Unlikely. Threnody yes. It's likely that you'll see a Threnody book. That's not a one hundred percent promise though. A Threnody book would not be about Silence or anything. Threnody's been a place I've wanted to do a book about for many years. And there's a group that's important later in the Cosmere that it'd be nice to have had a book about. But this comes down to where does my time end up getting spent? Sixth of the Dusk it's unlikely.
Will we at least get more short fiction about it then?
That is possible, but no promises.
My question is can you spike to or from spren?
That's a RAFO, right now.
So, you mentioned in your Q&A about how you're usually writing one [book] and revising another. Where are you at in the process right now?
I am writing the sequel to Skyward, I am outlining Stormlight 4, and I am revising Secret Project that I can't talk about that's a secret project. The one that was on my website. We had a progress bar for it, but I haven't said what it is. There are many, many theories online about that one.
Have you ever thought about doing like a Cosmere cookbook? Different recipes from different planets.
I would totally do this if I knew someone who was a good chef. If fans can come up with recipes, I could totally see us doing something like that.
Alberto Chicote, in Spain, I bet he could do it.
That's true. We could make a cookbook.
He wrote the foreword for Oathbringer, didn't he?
Yes, he did.
Does Vivenna's Blade have a name and if so what?
RAFO. It's intentionally not mentioned. Not an accident.
I designed a shirt with the Windrunner symbol online, and they wouldn't let me because they said a game had the rights to that.
Any of our symbols, the copyright is to the company. You are free to print off shirts for yourself and friends, we have no problem with that. Anything that contains artwork from our series, we don't let you sell. You can do it for your friends.
Or you can design something that doesn't use any of the artwork, and then we don't care. If you want to do something with the artwork and you think it's really cool, if you can convince Isaac, my assistant, that it's cool enough, there's a chance we'll just license it, and at that point, you get, I think, 15% off the top, and we'll sell it on the website.
That's the line we came down on. We want people to make stuff for themselves, but we don't want people selling stuff that has the artwork. If you're just making for yourself, I don't care.
We actually have a fanart policy that officially says you can do that. So if you can point the company and say, Hey this is for personal use only, I'm not going to sell it, here is the fanart policy from Brandon's website that says it's okay, then maybe they'll let you do it.
If that doesn't work, try a different place. Know that you aren't running afoul of anything on us. We even drew it up with a lawyer saying this is legal, you can do this for yourself.
If you use chromium with Feruchemy, would that mean misfortune to your opponents? If you were playing Monopoly and you needed them to roll like a four to...
*Hands RAFO card*
If Megan were ugly, would David have cared? Would he have still figured out the problem?
I'm not sure. David's a little shallow at times. That's a question you'd have to ask him. And he might require a little soul searching on his part. David is probably one of the more earnest but more shallow people that I've ever written about. There aren't a lot of us that aren't terribly shallow early in our lives and we kind of learn that lesson as we grow.
What would win in a fight between a sandling and a chasmfiend?
Where are they?
I don't know.
That matters a whole lot.
That really does.
Yep. That's the answer. Where are they? They would both probably win in their native environments.
The only question I have is how soon are we going to be expecting to interact with Urithiru?
It is a big question on the minds of the characters and it will be a major theme of the next book. Whether or not it'll actually happen or not... *trails off*
Talenel's Honorblade, is it still on Roshar?
It is still on Roshar, yes.
If a person who could use Stormlight went to the world of Mistborn, would they still have the same strength? Would the distance from the god depend on it?
The only one that the distance matters is Elantris because of the power being trapped in the Cognitive Realm makes distance important. The thing is, you would need to get Stormlight.
Or like Mistborn, they would have the same type of strength?
It's a lot easier for Allomancers to move between planets than the others just because it's harder to get Stormlight because it runs out. It's harder to get the sand unless you can find some kinetic Investiture to recharge it. I would say the easiest to travel is Mistborn. Sand master is probably second easiest, then it gets a little hard from there. I guess, it depends, you can just carry the Breath with you. That works just fine. Getting new Breath, though... There's a lot of different variables going on there.
Are we going to find out in the next few Stormlight books about axial interconnection?
Yes. Modern Mistborn (Not Wax&Wayne 4 I'm afraid) will delve into this.
Have we met the people that Hoid is working for?
I am not going to confirm or deny that Hoid is working for anyone. Nice try! And people who think Hoid is working for them might not be right.
Even though--with the end of Elantris bit?
Sometimes people pay Hoid to do things. And he doesn't do them. Or he does them his own way. The thing that happens in Oathbringer with him and the innkeeper, that is a really common occurrence with Hoid. There are times where he has actually worked for someone. There are times where they thought he has. And there are times where something entirely different has occurred. So, I'm not going to confirm or deny.
Is the Shaod actually random, or is it more of a chosen thing?
RAFO.
With the King's Wit, when Hoid left, was there ever a new Wit?
No. Hoid has been erratic enough that they knew he would be back. If he had been gone long enough they probably would have gotten around to getting a new Wit, but they just never did.
One question I've been thinking about a lot, and that is the black-bladed sword. Is there just one sword, or is there one for each world, that works with different...like Shard powers, or is it just one sword that can work with all?
[Nightblood] is something special. A long time ago, some people from the Warbreaker world came to Roshar, saw Shardblades, thought, "We can do this," went home and tried to make one. And that is Nightblood. And it went horribly horribly wrong. And so they didn't make any more, except now, Azure's sword is somewhat related. But that is the origin of Nightblood. Trying to make a Shardblade out of a different magic system.
Question about Elantris real quick. In your [Arcanum] Unbound[ed], they show up. Is this post or pre Elantris. Because they're so well organized in that one.
So, that is post Elantris. But, the Ire weathered the [Reod].
Oh they come back. And they remember everything.
They were not on Sel when the [Reod] happened.
Is Warbreaker 2, is that near-future?
Distant future.
So in Oathbringer we start seeing cases of Shadesmar and worldhoppers. As the series progresses, are you going to kind of like gear it into more of like, world meeting world, like almost leading up to like Dragonsteel type events?
Right, that is kind of the goal.
Like long story goal.
It's not really... People imagine it being Avengers-ish. It's not really that. It's more like the way these worlds interact is the story that I want to tell. So they will slowly come mashing together.
You know how the Cosmere all ends, right? Does anyone else know?
No one else knows right now. But I am slowly filling out that outline in my notes so that they'll have it in case something unfortunate happens to me.
When will you do the next Stormlight book?
So I divide my time between half Stormlight and half other things. So, I'm about a year into my 18 month break. I'll start Stormlight 4 on January 1st.
If the Nightwatcher was asked to bond a person with a spren, would you just kidnap a spren and force a bond, would she create a spren...?
The Nightwatcher is unlikely to force a spren to bond.
Can the Nightwatcher turn you into a different species, or like a spren or a seon?
It is possible for the Nightwatcher to change your species, yes.
Are you going to do a Mistborn: Secret History part 2 to talk about what Kelsier's doing during...
Likely, but not 100% promise. It's kinda my time frame. A lot of the stuff that's happening right now is foreshadowing for Era 3 where Kelsier will have a much bigger role. Era 3, the 1980's one. So we'll see when I'm writing those if I need a Secret History to catch us up.
Is Kelsier going to be a part of Era 2—the rest of it?
You will see a little bit, but he is not a main a part of those stories.
All right. So...things do get confusing whenever I'm trying to circumlocute spoilers. I could have smacked myself for forgetting to mention "no spoilers" before the Q&A. I keep forgetting that there are many readers who are not as sensitive to these things as I am. (Though one woman did gasp in the row behind that guy asking the question--as his original one mentioned Sadeas's death, I believe.)
I will say that there are multiple people I'd consider well on the path to being Radiants by the end of Book Three, and several of these would--shall we say--dispute KR traditions from the past, specifically on this subject matter. (What makes someone eligible to become a KR.) So this discussion is relevant for multiple reasons.
I wasn't trying to drop any bombs about Adolin, however, as I remain very solidly in RAFO territory about his future.
Thank you for taking the time to clarify this one Mr Sanderson.
This WoB created a massive shock-wave all across the fandom and many readers were taking you had officially confirmed Adolin was "well on his way towards Knighthood" which I was personally convinced was very deeply into the RAFO territory, as it should be.
Perhaps in order to also settle some additional debates, would you say Adolin would challenge what has traditionally made someone eligible to become a KR or is this within RAFO territory too? Readers can never seem to agree on how perfect Adolin actually is. We seem to find rationals for both.
I hate to use terms like "perfect" or the like. It's even difficult to (when not speaking in world) use some of the terminology the KR have used in the past--as we have to reconcile several things.
How do you decide what is a mental illness and what is simply a person's unique brain chemistry? Usually this comes down to two factors--the person's own feelings on it and the advice of medical professionals. Even language like "Well-adjusted," as I used before, is dangerous territory because it's so subjective. One need look only to the deaf community to find examples of people who challenge an outsider's perspective of what is a disease and what isn't.
So I generally prefer to talk about this through the character's viewpoint, the lens of historical commentary (which is in world, and may not therefore be accurate--but at least offers a perspective,) and the context of the book.
And in that context, I like Adolin being a RAFO. I believe that using the text, there are multiple directions one could go in discussing him.
In Oathbringer we have an example of a different form of magic on Roshar, like when Hoid uses Breaths to perform...
Yes, Hoid has used both Breaths and Allomancy on screen in the Stormlight books.
Is this made possible through the Connection of Shadesmar and the Cognitive Realm?
Yeah, you can bring almost all the magic to any other planet, no problem. The only one that there's a problem with is AonDor but that has specifically to do with the way the AonDor works.
So hypothetically, could you see someone from Roshar become a Mistborn?
That would require Hemalurgy. Could happen. A lot of times, where you were born, with a lot of these magics, is having a big influence on your spiritual make up. But it would require Hemalurgy, or there are ways to get around it. You could become mechanically a Mistborn. That's probably not a phrase we want to canonize. You could use, for instance, some of the tools in Era 2.
With Way of Kings...with Azure, where did she appear at the end of Warbreaker? Because I know it's Vivenna, but did the name appear, because when I first read it, it sounded familiar.
No... She is commonly associated with that color, but it's not like she was known by that name.
Are the Aimians, am I saying that right?
Yeah.
Are they native to Roshar?
RAFO. They are enigmatic, even on Roshar.
Are there any other Investiture-sucking creatures?
There are creatures that feed on Investiture other than the larkin, yes.
Are they on the other worlds?
There are some on other planets, not every planet has one.
Could you tell us the name of one of the Shards we have not yet seen?
I cannot. I'm sorry. I get asked that enough that they'd all be done. If I gave you one, I get asked at the next con, and all of them would be gone. Plus, I sometimes tweak them before I canonize them. The actual word I'm going to use. The Intent usually stays the same but I tweak which word I'm going to use.
I meant the actual name. Like, how Honor was Tanavast.
No...I won't do that either. But I will give you a RAFO card!
*Written down* Cracks in the Spiritweb can be filled with investiture, granting powers. Are the Drab on Nalthis considered damaged enough for this process?
They are something else entirely. So that, in world, they would say no, something else has happened.
Would a Windrunner's Investiture be able to be used in space?
Would a Windrunner's Investiture be able to be used in space? In fact, yes. Windrunners would be particularly handy in space because they can control pressure as well as move around and things. So if you were going to pick an order of Knight Radiant, and you wanted to go be an astronaut, Windrunner would be the best choice.
Will Shallan and Wit have a good mentor relationship.
Yes, they will. It will continue as you have seen it in the books so far.
How would a Cryptic deal with computers?
Cryptics would love computers. Loooovvvveee computers. They would have a blast. They might be offended that the computer isn't talking back to them, because they would think the computer's a pattern and should just be talking to them. But otherwise they would find them really cool.
I'm sad, there was a really good sequence in Oathbringer that had to get cut out for timing reasons where Pattern talked about how famous he was, that hopefully I will be able to release as a deleted scene or something.
What would happen if Lopen and Wayne ever met.
I think they would get along fantastically.
Why does Lift need Stormlight?
Lift went to see the Nightwatcher, and got a blessing and a curse in that she can metabolize food to turn into Stormlight, but she can't use regular Stormlight. And there is something else, as well.
So they have the same Surges or different Surges for Cultivation?
She uses the same Surges, but they are powered differently.
*Inaudible question*
*Repeating* Why do the Shin look different to the Rosharan significant facial -
Because the Shin have spent a long time being very xenophobic. They haven't intermixed very much. When the original event happened, that I'm not going to say because of spoilers, different people settled in different places, and the Shin in particular just have been very xenophobic.
I was just wondering if the metal used to make a fabrial matters like if it's *inaudible* or something?
*Repeating* Does the metal used to make a fabrial matter?
A little bit. Not as much as things like this do on Scadrial, but there is some influence there. We'll get into those rules eventually.
Adolin and his sword that wants to kind of wake up a little bit. Most of the Knights Radiant have some sort of break in their mind, mental <a little> problem. Where Adolin appears to be the person in Stormlight that's most comfortable with himself. Is that going to cause a problem, or is maybe the fact that he, at least in his mind, murdered Sadeas, going to help bring that to fruition or give us a way towards something like that?
Let's, first off, say I'm not going to repeat this one because it's super spoilery. So let's try to talk around the spoilers.
In the Stormlight Archive, there is a tradition among the Knights Radiant that certain traumas and/or psychological handicaps are effective in drawing the attention of a spren. I haven't actually said if that is true or if that's [just] a tradition of theirs. But there is a tradition among the Knights Radiant. that they have noticed something consistent.
Does it mean that you have to in order to be a Knight Radiant? Well, there is somebody that I would call extremely psychologically well-adjusted, that by the end of the third book is well on the way to Knighthood.
There is something going on there, they are noticing something true. But it might not be as exclusionary as they think it is.
Sja-anat tries to convince Shallan she is not her enemy and tells her, "Ask my son." Is the son that she's referring to, is that Pattern?
No. Sja-anat is referring to--I'll try not to give too many spoilers on this--if you look through the books for a spren that does not seem to belong to Honor or Cultivation, but is bonding a Radiant, that is where you want to look for Sja-anat's influence.
Is it Glys?
RAFO!
In Hero of Ages, I have a room that is both looking at the sunset, and looking north, in different scenes. In one scene, someone walks in, they can see the sunset, and in another scene, they see the army, that's to the north, through the window? And they were like, "Ahhhh!"
So I said, "Oh! Let's make it a corner room, and put two windows." So there's a solution, but it was not...
But it wasn't intended that way.
Yeah.
