Did Ruin and Preservation create Scadrial, as in the actual planet? The other Shards seem to have settled on already-made worlds (or at least, they did for Roshar).
What Ruin and Preservation did is less common, for certain.
We know that Sigzil and Hoid have a previous relation but besides that the former was the latter's apprentice we don't know much, is this something that we will found out more about eventually?
Yes, there will be more.
Do those two weather related phenomenons have something in common. They both seem to have investiture that people can draw on.
Weather is important to most cosmere magic.
Is the mist creature, that was seen through out the second Mistborn book, Preservation/the mists version of the Stormfather, which seems to be related to Honor/Highstorms.
You are on the right track.
The aforementioned mist being was called a "shadow of self" in one of the original 3 MB books. Does this have anything to do with a book of the same name? The Stormfather also called himself a "shadow" of what Honor was, does this support my above theory?
The Stormfather would use the same language.
Since there's a Feruchemical metal that stores calories, is there one that stores the need to eliminate waste?
Not yet.
If Bob the Awakener Awakened fifty straw men to dance around, then died, then Returned as FormerBob the Appropriately Named, would FormerBob be able to reclaim the Breath from the straw men in the normal fashion (once he learned the "Your Breath to Mine" Command)?
Yes. He has enough of his original Identity, and the spiritual connection would remain.
What if he instead were reincarnated as a lifeless? Is there a way he could reclaim it then?
Lifeless have someone else's investiture replacing their own. (As opposed to Returned, who are augmented.) Depends on how much of them is left, and if they can achieve sapience again, but I'd say this is unlikely.
What if the Lifeless is Awakened with their own Breath? (i.e. they gave it away right before they died and the person they gave it to then used it in the Awakening)
This has happened already in the world, and it does help.
Did this happen "on screen"?
RAFO.
How significant will the White Sand be to the cosmere? Any hints on the Shard that resides there?
Moderately. (Its magic has some cool ramifications for off world use, and several characters factor prominently into the Cosmere.)
Is there more than one magic system in white sand?
Only one in the current outline.
Does the one magic have more than one variation? Because I got the impression that there was something going on on the Darkside? Though I guess the Sky Colors (I think that's what they're called, I read the draft you send out early 2014 so my recollection is a little fuzzy) don't have to be related to magic. Or you could have written them out if they were...
In intended the colors on Darkside to be more a matter of the ecology than the magic--though, on that planet, magic and ecology are very closely tied together. (Well, I guess most of the magics are.)
Are the Highprinces (back in the day) mirrored off of the Ten Heralds?
No.
Is there one shard besides Harmony that would give Odium a run for his money?
Possibly.
If you knew what you were doing could you turn a dog into koloss dog using hemalurgy?
Yes.
Why is it that Returned need to consume Investiture to stay alive? Most other Invested beings (like spren, Seons, and the like) don't seem to have a similar requirement.
There's a distinction between a being who is made of Investiture come alive and one who has been overstuffed with it. The Returned are fairly unique.
So, would a non-Returned who received enough Breath to overstuff them also need to start feeding on Investiture to live? Or would they be destroyed like Vin before that point?
I'm going to RAFO this, as I feel I should leave the details of the nature of the Returned for discussion in future books.
Here's one that's been on my mind for a while. You've said that Shardblades can take forms other than weapons/shields. Have we seen this happen in the series so far?
Yes.
In Elantris, did the Hoed actually die when they entered the pool?
Now THAT is the question people should be asking.
Can Nightblood be considered a Splinter and does it function like a spren realmatically, are there distinct differences is what I'm asking.
Nightblood is kind of his own strange thing. He's an attempt to use one magic to replicate something in another. He's closest to a spren, but kind of like a...robot spren, for lack of better words to use.
When you say that Nightblood is "an attempt to use one magic to replicate something in another," do you mean life in general, or are you referring to a specific effect in a specific magic system?
There are those involved who knew that Shardblades existed before they tried the Nightblood experiment.
So does this mean Vasher had knowledge of Shardblades before creating Nightblood?
It means what I wrote, and nothing more at this point. :)
Dude. That's the most tantalizing RAFO I've seen in awhile. Have other Shards made Shardblades besides Honor?
:) RAFO
Is that why Vasher uses the word 'Investiture' instead of some personal term for it?
I could be wrong, but I think Vasher was the first one in any book I allowed to use cosmere-aware terms for speaking of things like the magics. (Investiture is one of these.)
If Kelsier (when Vin knew him) were to join one of the Rosharan secret societies, which one would he choose?
He would become part of the Ghostbloods, most likely, and would be in charge of them within a year.
Which one are you talking about specifically?
If I'm understanding them correctly they are refering to the "Big Hint" you've said there is about Worldhopping in Elantris, which you later explained as being an Aon that Raoden misinterprets. They are proposing that the Aon is Aon Rao (I think?). At least that's my current guess (though my guess is that Rao actually translates to "Investiture").
Ah... They're on the wrong track.
I'll cut this one off right here, as I see they're misinterpreting what I said. It's more simple than that, and is something I think they have probably already figured out. The "Big Hint" I put back in Elantris are the murals Raoden and company discover. I believe this is what we're talking about, not the Aon being misinterpreted.
Is there Shard based magic that's used for translation? Hoid is very smart, but it seems like it would be a pain to learn all these other world's languages -- and he's very eloquent in all of them. Will you tell us any details you can about this? pretty please : )
There are several ways to do this. Hoid is not learning all of the languages without aid. No details, I'm afraid. Except that if you watch, you will see him slip and use words that have no meaning (or the wrong meaning) in some of the languages he's speaking. Those translate oddly, or don't translate at all.
In the WoK epilogue, Wit talks about novelty and what we value. He tells the guards that he "once asked this question of some very wise scholars." Is he referring to the Five Scholars?
RAFO.
Well Mr. Sanderson, I finally finished Words of Radiance as well. I thank you for answering previous questions of mine on this thread.
I didn't read Warbreaker but I intend to. That said, if I don't get to it (college is quickly approaching now), will it be a setback? I know that Szeth's sword is now a character from Warbreaker, but I don't want to be at a disadvantage if I can't get to it.
If you don't read Warbreaker, I doubt you'll be confused. I wrote Warbreaker as a prequel novel (after writing the original draft of The Way of Kings) to give some backstory to side characters I knew where cosmere-aware, but the story should work just fine without having read it.
What is the range on Jasnah's Soulcasting like, and is [there] a hard limit on how much she can Soulcast at once?
RAFO.
Do the Heralds have something like the Blessing of Presence protecting them at least a bit from the burden of thousands of years of torture?
RAFO.
If compounding Identity protects from mental influence like Soothing would it also protect from more mundane means of influence, like alcohol or a persuasive speaker?
Not as I currently envision it.
Is it possible to change your age with Forging?
Changing your age with Forging is very hard.
How did Spook not die of lead poisoning after losing the ability to burn pewter in the third book? He must have had some pewter left in him. Or was he going to die of it, but Sazed healed him?
It wasn't in his system long enough to hurt him.
What would happen to someone who burned an alloy of Lerasium and lead? Would they a) gain Mistborn powers and a splitting headache from trying to burn lead, b) gain Mistborn powers and no splitting headache, c) just get the splitting headache, d) gain the ability to burn lead without a splitting headache, or e) die of lead poisoning?
This is a RAFO, not because I want to imply that lead has some big secret to it, but because I don't want to dig into the mechanics of Lerasium right now--and I don't want to kick off more questions like this at the moment.
When you wrote the epigraphs to the third book, how much were you expecting to lead readers astray? How loony is it that I thought their author was TenSoon for most of the book? (After all, he is not a man, but a force. He defended his ways, yet violated them. He was their savior, yet they called him heretic.)
I wanted very much for people to think they'd figured it out. I was actually annoyed when my editor wrote in the jacket copy a question, implying that the identity of the Hero was a mystery. I wanted people to assume it was Vin.
What was the origin of the word "skaa"?
The Lord Ruler came up with it.
Can Lifeless talk or write? I don't think it ever came up.
Normally, no.
The man who calls himself Taln had his Blade swapped with another. Presumably, the people (or person) doing so thought he had an Honorblade.
Would the people who did the swap have known if Taln did not in fact actually have an Honorblade? Could they have been taking a chance and in fact ended up with a regular Shardblade?
This is possible. Assuming they knew just what they were trying to grab, they'd probably have figured it out very quickly.
Did the publicly known nobility Mistborn have some sort of training/play ground? Like a big space they could properly train they're abilities and fly around in?
Some built things like this.
Thinking about it more, a public Mistborn gathering place would probably be a big assasin bullseye... Better to have a place just for you where you can staff it with a lot of misting guards.
That's what I assumed the question was asking.
Are spren able to manifest Surges like the humans they are bonded to? Syl is able to stick things together are other types able to do other things or is the sticking things together something else?
The Spren are living Surges, in a way. There are some "higher" spren which have more ability than others to touch certain Surges. Honor, for example, is not a force of nature--but a force of thought. What is attributed to it relates more to the abstract.
And that didn't really answer you, did it? Well, hopefully it's enough.
Is them being living Surges the same as how seons are living Aons?
Similar.
Will we be finding out what Dalinar's wife's name was, or has her name been similarly wiped from the flashbacks like Dalinar's mind?
I feel I should RAFO questions about the flashbacks, except to say that I wouldn't jump into them without understanding what readers want to see--and either fulfilling that, or subverting it in the name of the story. (The latter happening very rarely.)
... are there also spren attracted to robots?
man, that would be terrible. Being tied to a concept that nobody's thought up yet, so having a huge identity crisis.
The way spren are created makes this not an issue. :)
One Wayne and Wax question left in me that I can't get out of my head. What exactly made you decide upon their combination of abilities? Did you focus on the abilities and what they can do, or did you want to give those two characters specific sets of weaknesses and then went from there?
I built them like I built the original Mistborn thieving crew, actually. I decided their roles, then picked powers to compliment them. This is opposite of the Stormlight archive, where I have the orders, and I fit people to them.
You've mentioned that a person's personality eventually erodes and is replaced by the will of the shard they hold. Besides Harmony, are there any Shards holders that are still actively and significantly defying the intent of their shard?
Yes.
Is Harmony ([Sazed], for instance) actively trying to fight against it's shard intent?
Its intent(s) match Sazed very well, actually, and he has the philosophy that these natural powers are best minded and not dominated. So while he pushes back against the inaction holding both of them has caused, he appreciates and understands the need for both. I'd say he has less "push back" than some others.
Did the Heralds ever temporarily swap Honorblades and learn to use more than their regular two Surges?
It has happened. (But it was not common.)
TenSoon comments that when the unbirthed are given Blessings, they lose the mimickry instinct that mistwraiths have and have to be taught anew. If their only native senses are touch and taste, how exactly do you teach a blob of muscles how to form things like eyes and ears?
Basically, you feed it some partially digested eyes, then some more eyes, then eventually it starts making eyes on its own. It takes a while; Kandra 'children' grow more slowly than human ones.
I don't know if you've considered how mistwraiths would be taxonomically classified; have you decided whether or not mistwraiths would be considered 'mammals'?
They are not mammals. Since they were deliberately created, I'd place them in their own branch.
Is Shardplate immune/resistant to regular lighting or just that of stormform?
RAFO.
To what extent could Shardplate resist a bullet?
Plate would resist a bullet well.
If a person in the cosmere built a fully sentient and sapient robot would that robot have a soul? How would it interact with Shardblades?
Yes. It would interact with Shardblades the same way that spren do.
How does a Shardblade interact with a spren?
Shardblades cut on all three realms. I'm not going to say too much here, though I might note that it's possible a robot like you say would act more like Nightblood than anything else--depends on what is involved in the creation, and how you determine the difference between a robot and a golem for these purposes.
Can you use Forgery to enhance or diminish a person's intelligence? If so, could you use it to uplift a non-sentient animal to human levels of intelligence?
Uplifting requires extreme amounts of investiture, and needs to be affixed permanently to the soul. This is beyond what a normal person, even a Forger, usually has access to.
And if full uplifting is practically impossible then are more minor intelligence alterations (like Taravangian) feasible?
Uplifting isn't quite as impossible as I might have implied. It would be easier, say, than making Nightblood. But, of course, making Nightblood was VERY hard.
What would happen to a bonded spren if its human was hemalurgically spiked and had his surges stolen?
RAFO. :)
What is the second ideal of the dustbringers, we know next to nothing about them.
You'll have to wait until one is a main character.
I asked you at minicon if Roshar had always been the only large landmass on the planet and I think you said that there was once no large land mass on Roshar. Did I hear you correctly? I've been kicking my self for months for not recording that small q and a.
You heard me right.
Does this mean Roshar was once an archipelago?
Not necessarily.
Are oathgates fabrials that mimic the transportation surge? You have said that fabrials can copy all 10.
This is a valid line of reasoning, but I'm not going to say yes or no.
Can you get to the Cognitive Realm using Allomancy? From what I've been reading recently, Shardpools sound like a common way to go.. but Rosharan magic can be used to get to Shadesmar without a shardpool around, for instance. Can Allomancy be used to get there too?
The parts of Allomancy you know do not allow entering into Shadesmar.
Do you plan on having a true, definite ending to the Cosmere, such that no more books will be written that exist in it?
I DO have a true, definite ending. However, I can't say "no more books could exist" as there are always more stories to be told. But when I reach this ending in the years to come, I might very well decide enough has been done on this story. We shall see.
Now that Scadrial is on a better orbit, are there landmasses between the poles that are inhabitable?
Yes, indeed there are.
Is the magic on Sel geographically based because the techtonic plates act like Aon's, or is it distance from shardpools?
No, but that's a great guess.
Does a more powerful Mistborn burn their metals more quickly, or do they use what they get more efficiently?
Metal burning speed is proportional to power withdrawn.
