Recent entries

Ravi

Can someone use their native world's magic system on a different planet? (Ex. Would Galladon be able to use Aons on Roshar?)

Brandon Sanderson

Plausible. Certain things would need to be done.

Questioner

So Rock and the Horneaters—what culture did you... Did you find any real-life inspiration?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. So they're a little bit of a mashup between Hawaiians, Scotsmen, and Russians.

Questioner

What book would come first in this timeline?

Brandon Sanderson

I've written them roughly chronologically so far, though Dragonsteel will take place first, which I haven't released yet. White Sand is chronologically (the graphic novel) before the other Cosmere books.

Questioner

My question is not really a question, it's more of a theory. How Odium keeps the Fused around is more if he has them tied to his essence, so it's like he's essentially fishing them out of the Spiritual Realm and since their minds are left behind in the Cognitive Realm and their minds are technically damaged, because their spirits are separated and it just pulls them back.

I'm 100% convinced Nightblood did kill the thunderclast, because Nightblood consumes all investiture, that's something I asked you back at Barnes and Noble a couple years ago, during Christmas and you said your soul is Investiture. So my thought is, that thunderclast isn't coming back any time soon.

Brandon Sanderson

You are correct on that one.

Questioner

When I saw that, my thought was, "Yep, It's dead." Other people were like, "I don't know, will it come back?" Nope.

Brandon Sanderson

I'll tell you this. They have not run into something like this before, and there will be ramifications of what happened there.

Questioner

That is fun to know.

Brandon Sanderson

If you are used to death having no consequence, and suddenly your friend vanishes forever...

Questioner

Yeah I know, I already thought of that. They're going to fight over Nightblood.

Brandon Sanderson

Mmm.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The knife used by Moash is "something similar to hemalurgy."

I7Ax (paraphrased)

Is it a Dawnshard?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Good question but no.

AndrewStirlingMacDonald

So there are many--According to Sixth of the Dusk, there are many commonly known aviar talents, can you give us a couple? Like examples we haven’t seen yet?

Brandon Sanderson

Those are from the notes, I’d have to dig them out. Let’s just say they’ll be very useful for navigation in the future.

Peter Ahlstrom

These pronunciations are pretty hard to say and don't make much sense internally! How do you pronounce "en" at the end of "Raoden" and "is" it the end of Elantris and "Sa-" at the beginning of "Sarene"? Is it Ray-oh-deen and Ee-lain-trice and Say-ray-nay? Or is it "-en" (as in "end" with no "d") and "-triss" (rhymes with "kiss") and "Suh-" (front rhymes with "Samantha")? Or Because if it's "-en" and "-triss" and "Suh-" then these pronunciations are not allowed by your AEIO rules, and if it's "-deen" and "-trice" and "Say-" then your listed pronunciations are not helpful.

Spelling some "a" sound with "e" instead also throws a wrench into the whole thing. Basically, the fact that you felt the need to do that should have been an indication to you that there were issues with the system to start out with, and that regular English speakers and especially Fantasy readers would just not automatically pronounce your names close to the way you meant them to be pronounced.

I will hopefully comment later, but there's nothing wrong with wanting to base a language around the just 4 long vowels A E I O (which are pronounced, phonetically, "ei ii ai ou"). It looks like there are some problems in implementation though.

Eagle Prince

I thought that only applied to the Aons. The different names and words, ie Raoden, is only part Aon... the other half is like a totally different language. Sort of like a pidgen language combines two different languages into is own sort of language, and can eventually turn into a whole new language (creole). I think that is what happened here....

I would need to reread the article, but I think it also mentioned something about only the first so many vowels being long and the rest normal. That or just the vowels that dealt with the Aon part of the word.

I also think the 'ae' thing is pretty common in fantasy.

Brandon Sanderson

Ookla,

You're missing the long/short combination. (EP has it exactly right.)

The Aon has long vowels, the rest of the word has short. Maybe I need to make that more explicit. However, reading it, it makes sense to me.

So, RAY-Oh-den would be pronounced, I think, exactly as I wrote it there. Two long--for the Aon--one short, for the non-Aon.

As for the 'A' exception, it was done out of necessity. You see, the truth is that I was creating a language to accent my novel, not the other way around. So, when it came down to writing a name like 'Sarene,' I just couldn't force myself to write it the way that looked worse, just to make the language feel a little more consistent. (There was no physical way to make the name on the page sound like the one in my head without writing something very silly, like Saraynay or Saraenae.)

I think that people in the world would pronounce her name, therefore, as "Sa-REE-Nee," as I pointed out in the article. However, I'm still going to pronounce it how I want, because I'm an English speaker, not an Aonic speaker. Just like I call Korea 'Korea,' instead of 'Kor-ryo' (or even Hanguk) as would be correct.

Questioner

If you were going to make Horneater stew here on Earth, how would you go about it?

Brandon Sanderson

If I were going to make Horneater stew, on Earth, how would I go about it. It's going to be a spicy seafood stew. When I think of Horneater stew I'm actually thinking of Yukgaejang which is a Korean dish. Or Haemultang is what I mean. Haemultang is a spicy-- spicy seafood-- it's basically whatever thing from the ocean-- I don't eat things from the ocean personally-- but everything from the ocean they want to throw in there with some spices. They stir it up and give it to you and if you like fish in there and there are like crab claws and full clams in the shells. You're like "Really guys?" But Rock would just be munching those down and being happy.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Four

Moshe and I agreed on just about every edit or change made to Elantris. There is one small thing, however, that we kind of went the rounds about. The word Kolo.

Galladon's "Kolos" are, in my mind, an integral part of his personality. I characterize him a great deal through his dialogue–he doesn't really get viewpoints of his own, so everything I do for him at least until the ending I either have to do through Raoden's thoughts or through Galladon's own words. When I was coming up with Galladon's character, I realized I would need a set of linguistic features that would reinforce his culture's relaxed nature. So, I went with smooth-sounds, and gave their dialect a very "chatty" feel. The Dula habit of calling everyone "friend" came from this–as did their habit of softening everything they say with a question tag. Linguistically, questions are less antagonistic than statements, and I figured a culture like the Dula one would be all about not antagonizing people.

A number of languages in our own world make frequent use of similar tags. Korean, the foreign language I'm most familiar with, has a language construction like this. Closer to home, people often make fun of the Canadian propensity for adding a similar tag to their own statements. I hear that Spanish often uses these tags. In many of these languages, a large percentage of statements made will actually end in a softening interrogative tag.

Anyway, enough linguistics. I'm probably using the standard "literary" posture of falling back on facts and explanations to make myself sound more authoritative. Either way, I liked having Galladon say "Kolo" a lot. In the original draft, the tags were added onto the ends of sentences, much like we might ask "eh?" or "understand?" in English. "It's hot today, kolo?"

Moshe, however, found the excessive use of Kolo confusing–especially in connection with Sule. He thought that people might get the two words confused, since they're used similarly in the sentences. Simply put, he found the kolos distracting, and started to cut them right and left. I, in turn, fought to keep in as many as I could. It actually grew rather amusing–in each successive draft, he'd try to cut more and more, and I'd try to keep a hold of as many as possible. (I was half tempted to throw a "kolo" into the draft of Mistborn, just to amuse him.)

Regardless, we ended up moving kolo to its own sentence to try and make it more understandable. "It's hot today. Kolo?" We also ended up cutting between a third and a half of the uses of the word, and losing each one was a great pain for me. (Well, not really. But I'm paid to be melodramatic.) So, if you feel like it, you can add them back in your mind as your read Galladon's lines.

Brandon Sanderson

How did I come up with the magic system for Emperor's Soul? A couple of things. One was the procedural magics in Elantris based on coding, and things. But also, when I was at the Royal Museum there in Taiwan, one of my guides was showing me this piece of beautiful jade. And it had a stamp in it. You know, the stamps, are you familiar with these? They call them chops, we call them dojangs in Korea, you use them as a stamp for your name. They're round, sometimes they're square. I saw this, I'm like, "Why is there a stamp on this piece of jade artwork? That's been carved and sculpted?" They're like, "Well, there was this emperor, who was hot stuff, and thought he was very important. And so he ordered his stamp carved into the piece of artwork, because he thought it was a good piece of art."

And lo and behold, I go through and I start seeing these. There's this great poem, and it's covered with, like, forty stamps. And I asked, they're like, "These are all the scholars who are like, 'Yeah, I like this.' *stamp*" It's like carving your signature into Michelangelo's David, like the forehead. It's like, "Yeah, I think this is pretty good. 'Brandon approves.'" And that's what these people were all doing. And those stamps, the ubiquity of the stamps... I don't know how I got from that to "rewrite something's history by stamping it." But that was the inception of it.

I have several of these stamps that I brought home with me from Korea. Mine actually says Sainja, which-- "Sa" in Korean is "Sand," and "In" is "Person," and "Ja" is "Son." So, it's the Son of the Sand Person. It's really, it's a pun. They see that, and they're like, "That doesn't make any... Oh. That's really dumb." It's exactly what I was shooting for. Either that or they look at it and "Salinja" with an "l" is "Murderer," and read it and they're like, "Oh, wait."

Anyway, it came from that trip.

Questioner

A lot of the magical methods you create in your novels carry with it the birth of nobility.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

And that reminds me a lot of the magic martial arts *audio unclear* Aside from the big influence of Dragonsbane and other novels on your fantasy novels have you drawn any other inspirations--

Brandon Sanderson

Oh yeah.

Questioner

--spiritually from Asian, Korean or Chinese *audio obscured*

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. The question is, have I drawn any inspirations from Eastern literature. Specifically he asked for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. *speaks Korean* I lived in Korea for two years and I speak Korean. Mormon missionary, right? So I speak Korean, I actually do have a Korean minor. And even before that, Hong Kong kung-fu movies. OH YEAH. *laughter* I love Hong Kong movies particularly-- You know the modern stuff is really beautiful, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Hero or House of Flying Daggers and stuff like that, but even the old stuff, it's a little bit silly. Yeah, I just ate that stuff up. Jackie Chan. You can't go wrong with Jackie Chan, right? But even the stuff that's just a little ridiculous I love. It's just-- It's cool. There's something about it. So there's that. You're also going to find echoes of RPGs I've played, obviously. I mean I've worked hard because I don't want my books to feel like a video game. But I grew up playing video games, right? That's one of my major influences. Steelheart's going to feel like a comic book, right? And some of my books are going to feel like that. It's a part of who I am, it's part of my geek upbringing, right? So yeah, definitely. There's a lot of-- now that I have become a writer through my twenties there's a lot of different influences. The Alethi are based slightly on the Mongolians specifically-- But there's no horses, which let's me divorce it a little bit. People always expect Mongolians to be a nomadic horse people but you just don't have enough horses. If you guys have studied Subutai, if you know him, a Mongolian general, I based Dalinar a little bit on Subutai. But then you are mixing in Hebrew influences and Arab influences. That's kind of my mash-up that's creating the Alethi. And so yeah,you are going to find all kinds of weird things. Art of War is of course a big influence on how I approach warfare and things. So yes, yes, it's there.

Kaladin al'Thor

I noticed my last time reading Words of Radiance that there were several times-- vines that were on Adolin's shardblade as he summoned it. So I was wondering if maybe the Radiant who used it had was an Edgedancer?

Brandon Sanderson

You are right.

Kaladin al'Thor

You mentioned before that it would be possible to revive a dead shard[blade], but it would be very difficult--

Brandon Sanderson

Very difficult.

Kaladin al'Thor

Like I think what you said is that it would have to be the same person that broke the bond?

Brandon Sanderson

That would be the-- Yeah.

Kaladin al'Thor

So if it was an Edgedancer's blade if he made those same oaths could potentially he…

Brandon Sanderson

That would most likely not be enough. Something else would have to happen. Good guess though.

Questioner

When Kaladin; when he turn's a lighteyes, how come they turn blue instead of tan or something? Is there a reason for that?

Brandon Sanderson

His eyes turn to the color of his order.

KolinahrMaster (paraphrased)

Does the Nightwatcher predate the Shattering?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO'ed on the grounds that the Nightwatcher and the Stormfather are parallel (see 1 above) and whatever he reveals about the Nightwatcher by extension spoils Oathbringer which will be heavy on Dalinar and Stormfather reveals

Questioner

You said the The Rithmatist is a little ways out, the sequel.

Brandon Sanderson

I do mean to keep meaning to get to it sooner than I have. It's one of the-- It's the one that's been the most difficult to figure out how to do the sequel. I'm confident-- Let me get Alcatraz [6: The Worldspire], which-- it should be done pretty soon here, cleared off my plate. The last book of that one is-- had significant progress on it lately. Once that's done I'll look at Rithmatist, which is the other thing that's been dangling over my head.

Kanrei

Is "Stormlight Archive" reference to any in-world or in-Cosmere place or item?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it's just archive of ten books which all have titles based on inworld books, but no Archive or something like that on world.

Questioner

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.

Brandon Sanderson

So, that is post Elantris. But, the Ire weathered the [Reod].

Questioner

Oh they come back. And they remember everything.

Brandon Sanderson

They were not on Sel when the [Reod] happened.

Questioner

Are half-shards made with Radiant spren?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO! Good question!

coltonx9

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...

Brandon Sanderson

*Hands RAFO card*

Questioner

I'm really curious about Ryshadium. Is there something bigger about them?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

Have we met the people that Hoid is working for?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

Even though--with the end of Elantris bit?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

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.

Brandon Sanderson

No... She is commonly associated with that color, but it's not like she was known by that name.

coltonx9

*Written down* Cracks in the Spiritweb can be filled with investiture, granting powers. Are the Drab on Nalthis considered damaged enough for this process?

Brandon Sanderson

They are something else entirely. So that, in world, they would say no, something else has happened.

Questioner

How many of the Stormlight Archive, how many are you planning?

Brandon Sanderson

There are two sets of five. The first five will come to a climax, and the second five are going to take place ten years later. Some of the cast will be the same. It's the same series but some of the cast will change. For instance, Lift is being seeded as a main character for that series. She'll be grown up, so she won't be quite-- She'll still be Lift, but she may not be quite as teenagery. She's a very special individual.

Renarin will be one of the main character in that series. Jasnah will be. And Taln and Ash, who are both Heralds that we barely see on screen in the current ones, they'll be main characters.

Questioner

I've read the Mistborn. What's the best way to get the full effect? My brother, I'm introducing him to the Cosmere. We both got into it through, when you finished Robert Jordan's series.

Brandon Sanderson

Full effect of the Cosmere. Do you guys have a non-spoilerific, "Things to watch for"?

coltonx9

There probably is.

Brandon Sanderson

Maybe go on the 17th Shard, which is the forum, and say, do you guys have a non-spoiler "Things to watch for" to see the Cosmere connections in action.

Watch for Hoid, obviously. Watch for... people use the wrong words. Like if you ever see anyone in a Stormlight book who accidentally uses soil or coin or things that are just not Stormlight stuff. That is usually a translation error because they're using magical means to translate into the language and they are saying a word and the magic is translating it.

Like, if you just learned the language, you wouldn't make that mistake. That's a pretty big hint that the person is non-native. Watch for the myths and legends that people tell about various places and peoples. It's all just behind the scenes stuff right now. There's nothing that you're going to miss, you're going to be like "Oh no, I don't understand!" The things that are overt connections are meant to be woven into the stories well enough that you wouldn't have to have the intros, and the ones that are not are just Easter eggs for now.

Except for things like Arcanum Unbounded, which is presuming you are cosmere-aware. 

Questioner

Using Hemalurgy, could you steal the boon from the Old Magic?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, from the Nightwatcher? This is theoretically possible.

Questioner

Would that take the [curse] with it as well?

Brandon Sanderson

*Hesitantly* Yes. Though it's also theoretically possible to split them apart, that would be a lot harder. Getting the boon, if you knew what you were doing, would not be that difficult.

Now, what Cultivation would do to you when she found out that had happened is another thing entirely. Because those are willful grants of Investiture.

Questioner

Similar to Endowment's with the Returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, things like that. When you get a Shard involved and the Shard has...power to... Same thing like...it's on a much grander scale what's happening with the spren bond, right?

Questioner

When Hemalurgy does spread, most Shards will not be happy about this, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that is correct.

Questioner

In Oathbringer we have an example of a different form of magic on Roshar, like when Hoid uses Breaths to perform...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Hoid has used both Breaths and Allomancy on screen in the Stormlight books.

Questioner

Is this made possible through the Connection of Shadesmar and the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

So hypothetically, could you see someone from Roshar become a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

I would like to know more about Wit. What is he?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

So does he get a flashback book?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

Have there been Mistborn, and other people from other books, with powers in Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

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?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

Those short stories on Threnody and First of the Sun, will we have full books for those?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

Will we at least get more short fiction about it then?

Brandon Sanderson

That is possible, but no promises.

Questioner

My question is can you spike to or from spren?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, right now.

Questioner

Questioner

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?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

coltonx9

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...?

Brandon Sanderson

The Nightwatcher is unlikely to force a spren to bond.

Questioner

*Inaudible question*

Brandon Sanderson

*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.

Questioner

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?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

Is Warbreaker 2, is that near-future?

Brandon Sanderson

Distant future.

Questioner

With the King's Wit, when Hoid left, was there ever a new Wit?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

Are we going to find out in the next few Stormlight books about axial interconnection?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Modern Mistborn (Not Wax&Wayne 4 I'm afraid) will delve into this.

Questioner

Is the Shaod actually random, or is it more of a chosen thing?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Questioner

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?

Brandon Sanderson

Right, that is kind of the goal. 

Questioner

Like long story goal.

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

You know how the Cosmere all ends, right? Does anyone else know?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

When will you do the next Stormlight book?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

Are you going to do a Mistborn: Secret History part 2 to talk about what Kelsier's doing during...

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Questioner

Is Kelsier going to be a part of Era 2—the rest of it?

Brandon Sanderson

You will see a little bit, but he is not a main a part of those stories.

Questioner

Are there any other Investiture-sucking creatures?

Brandon Sanderson

There are creatures that feed on Investiture other than the larkin, yes.

Questioner

Are they on the other worlds?

Brandon Sanderson

There are some on other planets, not every planet has one.

Questioner

Out of the named Shards, which of them, like Shardholders [Vessels], if one of them were hunting you down, which one would scare you the most? You don't have to say the name of the character, just the name of the Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

So we're talking about considering the Vessels as well?

Questioner

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

I.. *hesitantly* would probably go with Odium, looking at his track record. He has the track record to back it up.

Questioner

Will Shallan and Wit have a good mentor relationship.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, they will. It will continue as you have seen it in the books so far.

Dearius

I was just wondering if the metal used to make a fabrial matters like if it's *inaudible* or something?

Brandon Sanderson

*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.

Questioner

Would a Windrunner's Investiture be able to be used in space?

Brandon Sanderson

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.