What happens if you put Shardplate in a highstorm? If you are in Shardplate and you go out into a highstorm...
You're pretty well protected, but a boulder flying through the air can still do some major damage to a person in Shardplate.
What will happen to the gems in the Shardplate?
They will be recharged.
Can you use Feruchemy and Hemalurgy together like you can use Allomancy and Feruchemy to Compound?
*asks for clarification* There are some tricks you can play. I wouldn't call them Compounding, but there are tricks.
The form of the Parshendi: Are there ten of them "of power"?
No. There are more. So they are not a one-to-one correlation.
In the Ars Arcanum of Elantris, you mention Vax, the planet? What project is there?
Good question; I'm not gonna answer.
So, can we talk about your science fiction stuff, like Defending Elysium? Do you have any intention to go further with that?
I have no current intentions. I kind of have ideas for where I would go, but I just have so many projects that right now I'm letting that one lay as is.
So far all the spren that have bonded to humans appear to be emotion-based as opposed to nature-based. Is that true for all the Knights Radiant?
Well it depends. For instance: how would you define Wyndle?
I struggled with that one.
Uh hm. So I would say that you are on the right track, that there is a definite inclination that direction.
Towards Honor?
Yes. There is.
Is there other surges then, that are more Cultivation-exclusive or other Knights Radiant that are...?
We'll RAFO that, but the original Knights Radiant are more focused on Honor and his spren.
If some of the cosmere books are set in different times in the cosmere, can Hoid time travel?
Not go backwards.
Any hints on the chapter 84 code thing?
Yes, the key is somewhere in the book.
Is the God Beyond, or the Unknown God, one of the Adonalsium Shardholders or is it another godlike entity?
You got [a RAFO card].
Are the pools at the top of the Horneater peaks shardpools?
RAFO.
Any chance we'll be seeing further correspondence between the writers of the letters? In further books, perhaps?
You will see more letters.
Syl identifies herself as an honorspren.
Yes.
Would Wyndle identify himself as a cultivation spren?
He would definitely... Yes. I think you could say that he would.
By the same logic, would a voidspren follow the same naming convention, so to speak?
Here's the thing. Certain spren have decided that they are the most pure forms of Honor, or that they are the most pure form of whatever, where all of them are kind of... Syl's got a good argument for what she is. But there are other spren that would be like "well, I'm an honorspren too, I'm just this variety of honorspren." Does that make sense? Syl's like "I'm an American!" and I'm like "I'm an Nebraskan!" Yes, you're an American. I'm an American too. It's kind of similar to that. But she would be the most pure... many would view her as the purest form. Wyndle would view himself as the purest form of a Cultivationspren.
The 16 Shards, are they finalized?
I have finalized them with the reservation that I can change them when I do their adaptation if something works better. So while I have them all written out, I don't canonize. So I guess "is it canonized?", the answer is no. But they are written down, and I could tweak them. Once I put them in a book, they're canonized. I like to give myself a little bit of flexibility before I put them in a book.
So has Rock always been a third son?
Oh, clever man. No he has not.
Yay!
For the second letter, Rayse is captured and cannot leave the system he inhabits, Roshar. Is the fact that Odium can't leave Roshar a direct result of the Oathpact, or something else?
Not a direct result of the Oathpact, but the Oathpact was part of it.
Was Odium's original purpose to neutralize the threat of Adonalsium?
No. Good question.
I know Hoid jumps around and meets various people that are very influential in the various books. I'm curious as to how he knows who he needs to meet, how's he lead to them.
This is a RAFO, but it is a question you're supposed to be asking-- You know what a RAFO is?
No.
It means Read and Find Out. If you watch at the end of this book he's not always certain why he needs to be where he needs to be. So there is some measure-- something is going on here but it is not made clear yet and I don't want to clear it up with you quite yet.
I was curious if in the future Mistborn models you were gonna get into the history of the dichotomy between Preservation and Ruin.
Yes. With the history-- maybe not in future Mistborn novels, but in some novels you will find out their history and who they are.
The Heralds: I had a question if they might in fact be some form of spren?
The Heralds are not some form of spren. Good question.
I wonder if you knew what color the stone was inside of Horneater peaks and the mountains around the Shattered Plains?
Depends if-- most of it's going to be cremstone. So it's going to be various shades of tanish brown. Very generic stuff, particularly around here.
Horneater peaks, you-- *pauses thoughtfully* Horneater peaks you're probably going to get into some more slate, some more dark grays and things like this, weathered stone that doesn't have the crem buildup because the peaks are gonna pop up above where the crem is building up, so.
So that's where you're going to get some real, untainted rock which otherwise on Roshar you've got to burrow to get.
So the gray one is the untainted one?
Yeah.
So how long has "Zahel the swordmaster" been slumming it on Roshar? I mean I don't know who that is obviously.
Zahel the swordmaster has been on Roshar for a long while at this point. There's something on Roshar that's very easy for him to get that's very hard in other places. And so, yeah.
So he retains his previous abilities?
He was actually in the first draft in 2002. But yes there's something in Roshar that makes it better for him to be there.
So Nightblood. Is it going to go into maybe in the next book how Vasher loses him, because I'm assuming that's what [Szeth] gets at the end of the book?
*Coyly*
Oh you assume that this is uh yeah...
So far as we know that's the only sentient sword...
You will find answers to these questions eventually.
With the soulcasting and the spren, is there maybe some quantum physics in there that you were thinking about?
There is. Yes, very intentionally.
Is that gonna come into play?
Yes.
How many other characters are in this *inaudible*
Oh I'm not going to give you an exact number.
I'm guessing one or two, so far at least.
But there are multiples.
Amaram and Dalinar, they both talk about Gavilar a lot. How many secret societies did Gavilar know about or was he a part of?
Ah! How many did he know about? He knew of more than he was part of, but he was not part of very many.
The arches in The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. The faces in the arches, are they dependent on something that happens in the chapter, or are they random or is there a pattern?
They do, but Isaac picks them, not me. So. There is a rubric for it, but-- so there is some significance, but Isaac is behind that.
I'm sorry Brandon, you might RAFO me.
*written* For the metal in Bleeder, is it from a Shard we know?
Oh no… You drove all this way, that's what makes me. Eric comes and he's like--
You RAFO'd me at Words of Radiance--
I know.
--I asked you a question that was too much.
…you push, yeah… There you are you got your answer. You got me.
*writes* Yes.
So you mentioned that Kaladin gets sad during the Weeping. Is that due to lack of stormlight or maybe seasonal affective disorder?
It is mostly due to seasonal affective disorder. Now, you know, there are other things going on and whatnot, but yes he has strong seasonal affective disorder.
See *inaudible* and other signings that Hoid had both long life and lived through time when we was worldhopping, how about other members-- or not "other," just members of the Seventeenth Shard? Like are they time travelling or they have long life--
It is a mixture of both. Either, or, and.
And the RAFO question: where did they get it from?
RAFO! There are many methods and there is no one method, and you know some of them already.
You're going to make me. They're trying to get me to canonize Endowment's gender. *crowd goes oh* ...Yes I have... I'm going to look at the thing that you guys would just love to see--
So now's not the time to snatch that?
It's encrypted, we've been developing a language that only we can read. *laughter* It's all in glyphs.
Is it in the women's script?
Should we get Mi'chelle over here?
It’s in a language that will never be decrypted...
I can't find-- Karen must have moved this. I have the name in here. I haven't canonized the name either have I?
We don’t know. You can put that information on there too.
Yeah but Karen moved it.
People have guessed that it's Edgli but..
I think it’s gotten RAFO'd before...
*writes* Endowment is female.
There you go. You guys got two big ones out of me.
In Shadesmar, there's cities of spren, right, so-- or at least it's been said where I am. So I read that Shadesmar is kind of connected to all the worlds and that's how Hoid gets around, so why aren't there spren other places?
Okay, so that is *garbled* fallacy. You're implying there aren't.
Is there a maximum number of Bondsmiths that Roshar can support?
Yes.
Would it be too much to ask for the gender of the original holder [of Autonomy]?
Uh yeah, the original holder, what do you mean by that?
Of Bav--
Yeah, we’re going to leave that one for--
Can Shardplate be Soulcast?
Shardplate could be Soulcast, but anything Invested is very difficult to Soulcast and it would essentially destroy it. Which would be one of the few ways to destroy Shardplate.
Would you tell me the intent of Bavadin's Shard?
Hmm… Are we ready to release that?
I don't know-- well we haven't-- We haven't written it into the scripts yet, but we've only done so many of the scripts so-- I don't know if that would be better place for us to reveal it or not...
If you're confident that you like what we're doing with it then we can release it now.
Great. Well we had that big discussion and it sounded like that’s what we wanted to do.
Okay, we're going to have Isaac write it. He's in charge of White Sand now. And you can choose whether to share this with people or not because it's not on the recording.
Oh it isn't?
No, I talked around it on purpose.
*writes* Autonomy.
What is something that we don't know about Bavadin?
Somebody asked that already too… Those are both things that you will find out eventually and I'm holding those answers close to my heart right now...
So can I assume that any question about Bavadin is going to be a RAFO?
It depends on how specific it is. Like "I just want to know something more" is almost always going to be a RAFO on any question nowadays. Something asks very specifics has a better chance.
I was curious, what would happen if a full Mistborn burned lerasium? What would the Allomantic powers be?
Oohh, excellent, excellent question. So, I have not revealed what lerasium does if you already have Investiture. So, the answer to that is a RAFO. We've actually had like three people ask that tonight, so there must have been a discussion on the Sh-- the forums about it and I didn't answer them, so I can't answer you.
What was that plot point you were talking about where you had to change it?
Kaladin kept the blade and plate in the original version of The Way of Kings.
So I know the last Alloy of Law was a standalone book, not part of the next trilogy. Is this book [Shadows of Self] the start of the next trilogy?
Yeah. This is not the start of the actual, official next-- Like-- So, I'm calling these books all Era 2, I moved the next books to Era 3, but this is the start of a trilogy about Wax and Wayne.
Is that why they're kind of shorter?
Yeah. Well they're kind of shorter because I wanted something to balance Stormlight that was-- So like Stormlight you have to keep track of all these characters and they have this continuing storyline that is so deep that it's-- you kind of have to re-read each in the series each time. I did not want you to have track that in another series, any of my other series. That's why both Steelheart and Mistborn now you will see the self-contained stories, where certain things-- it's a trilogy, but it's keep track of one, or two, characters, not keep track of an entire thing. And then there's an arc and done, an arc and done, an arc and done. That is intentional. So, you might see Stormlight stories more that length when I go back to... Scadrial for longer stories.
So there's still going to be another trilogy that's more modern and then a sci-fi one?
Yes there's still going to be a modern trilogy and a sci-fi trilogy.
Are they any other continents on Roshar?
Roshar is, I haven't said that there's anything else out there, but I have said it's pangea, meaning if there's anything else out there, they are small. They are not of a similar scope and size. Now on Scadrial, there is other stuff going on. And I've told people that for years, and years, and years. So, you may find some other stuff going on there. For years, you know, the southern continent was populated on Scadrial during the Final Empire era, even. It was just impossible to reach because the heat, the poles were the only habitable places on that planet, and so anything in between, you just couldn't deal with it. The Final Empire was on the North Pole.
It seems to be more apparent that different abilities are granted depending on the design of one's Spiritweb. Is the design of a Spiritweb, and the abilities it grants, limited to a specific Shardworld or are the designs universal across the cosmere? For example could someone from Roshar go to Scadrial and have Hemalurgy done on them and have it work?
Yeah, yeah, some of the magics are more regionally-locked than others. Hemalurgy will work on any planet. But, for instance, you'll notice that Elantrians have trouble even going to the next nation over. There's a specific reason for that. Most of the magics transcend location.
My question, in regards to Dragonsteel, is: Is there a possibility that somebody with the ability of microkinesis can see the spiritweb and alter it according to their will?
This is, this is totally possible. But you have to remember this is pre-Shattering of Adonalsium. Dragonsteel is the story of the Shattering of Adonalsium... the whole book is before, the whole series... So there are lots of things going on there that are-- like you will-- yeah. But it’s not canon yet.
How do you start a new book?
I start with an outline. I like very detailed outlines, and I like to know where I'm going before I start. If I don't have an ending in mind I'm in trouble. So, I will often spend a lot of time imagining that I'm *inaudible*, you know, walking on the treadmill or going for a walk or something, and getting through my head just what I would imagine being the cool scenes from this book. What are the scenes that people are going to want to read, that are going to make it all come together. And then I build those into my outline. And I usually outline backward, start with those cool scenes, and then I write my book forward.
Safehands: Where did, that-- like why? Is there like a cultural *inaudible*?
There is a culture-- Now the actual answer to that is because different cultures have really different mores, and if you go around our world you will find places where, for instance, showing the bottom of your foot-- where the bottom of your foot is offensive, or where showing certain parts of your anatomy is not offensive that it is here. And that is very common, it's part of what it means to be human.
Now if you want to trace back in Rosharan time, there is actually a moment that you can point at and say "this is where it started" and it started right after the Recreance where all these Shardblades and Shardplate were suddenly out there everywhere, and certain people in power wanted to make sure that half the population didn't have access to them, and so they started emphasizing a certain philosophy book that had been written by a woman that said "feminine arts were one-handed, masculine arts were two-handed".
And because of this it became culturally ingrained, which then-- basically it was a misogynistic ploy to keep the women from having the Shardblades, and then in that a certain movement of the women seized writing, and that's when men stopped writing. It's kind of a reciprocation on it. But that's kind of where it went, but it's become much bigger than that, if that makes any sense.
What do you do if you safehand is your dominant hand?
If you are darkeyed it's not a problem, you just wear a glove. If you are lighteyed then you learn to write with your non-dominant hand, which is a problem.
Does metal on Scadrial hold Investiture the same way gems do on Roshar?
No.
Will there be more romantic sub-plots? I really enjoyed the section with Shallan and Kabsal.
There will be more romantic subplots. There will definitely be. If you watch there will be a lot more. I am a fan of romance.
Before Preservation locked up Ruin, or whatever, or if Ruin had won. Would atium exist?
...There are timelines where there would be no atium.
...So if Harmony exists, does atium exist?
Atium does not exist because there is no Ati. Well there is atium left over from before, but--
So it was only part of Ati's body and not part of Harmony's body.
There is no atium, there is no Preservation any longer, there is no Ati.
So does harmonium exist?
...There's no Leras and there's no Ati, there's no Ruin--
Does harmonium exist then?
Good question.
How old were you when you started writing?
I was fifteen when I started writing my first book. It wasn't very good. I had to practice a long time before they started getting good.
Miscellaneous questions about safehands. So the women are described playing instruments, are they just instruments they can play with one hand?
Yes, often feminine arts are one-handed arts, but you got to remember that one, a lot of the darkeyes will wear a glove instead, and number two, the safehands of some of the more utilitarian dresses are built with something like an oven-mitt glove on them, underneath, so you can grab things and stuff. So Shallan, she can grab her sketchbook with it and draw. But yes, feminine arts are supposed to be one-handed, so they would, y'know, try to play these it would be one-handed.
How does a bridge crew set a bridge down across a chasm in front of them?
So... I may have to act this out.
*Proceeds to act it out, no video available*
I am Kaladin, running at the front of the bridge, right? Now there's a chasm there. I'm going to step out to the side and grab the poles to the side, and lower the front bridge down. Then these guys are going to lower theirs down while I run around to the back and grab the poles on the side, which extend out. And we're going to get several ranks and then we're going to shove together.
We're waited on this side, remember, we've got the weights that roll to one side or the other. So it's weighted on this side, so we get it over and then plot it down. We're looking for a place where we're a little bit above-- with the paths, alright? And then we go to the other side, your reposition the weights or the poles or whatever it is on the thing so that it's heavier on this side and then get everyone and then you pull it back across and then you can lift it.
Okay, great, thank you very much.
Now also keep in mind a couple of things: 0.7 Earth gravity, a very important aspect for actually making this bridge weight work for carrying it; and it is a soulcast wood. The only way to get the numbers to work if you've got engineers, the weight-- you actually have to realize that we've got a wood that is slightly stronger, yet lighter, than what-- it's like a-- Peter came up, it's like a balsa, there's a soulcast wood that is really a great wood for this sort of thing.
That doesn't mean it's light, it's still a really heavy book
*Laughter*
A really heavy bridge.
Will Joel become a Rithmatist?
Oh that's totally a RAFO. Here's your RAFO.
