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    YouTube Livestream 56 ()
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    Gama Ray Martinez

    For someone who says that you can do anything and you can have dragons, there's a remarkable lack of dragons in your book.

    Brandon Sanderson

    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.

    YouTube Livestream 56 ()
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    Tech Evil

    Someone brings a server and computer plus monitor to Roshar and uses AI to create AI art. Would creationspren or any other spren gather?

    Brandon Sanderson

    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.

    Gama Ray Martinez

    So what about logicspren?

    Brandon Sanderson

    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.

    YouTube Livestream 56 ()
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    Not a writer at all

    What's it like handing over keys to parts of the Cosmere to Dan and others? How do you see this collaboration working in the future once stories begin overlapping more?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It's very interesting. It's been, in some ways, a little bit easier than some of the other things. One of the things I realized in doing some of my collaborations that I did in the past was that handing over a story that I had been working on was actually kind of hard. Like, I didn't get to write the story. And once someone else wrote it, then it was written, and there was a part of me that was kind of a little bit sad. (Though some of those stories turned out fantastically, like The Original, which I wrote with Mary Robinette. She wrote it in a way I couldn't have.)

    But with the Cosmere stories, we decided we're not doing that. What's happening with both Isaac and Dan (who are working on Cosmere stories) is, we sat down and we brainstormed stories in the Cosmere using some of my worldbuilding and things, but stories they wanted to tell that match who they are and their voices. So these are not books that I was planning to write, that I had outlined. These are books we're, like, "You know what? It'll work better if someone else doesn't just try to do a Brandon story that Brandon was planning to write, and instead we let them take the worldbuilding, the basis, and extrapolate from it." So Dan and Isaac and I have a brainstorming session every week, and we are working on just, right now, the worldbuilding and the plotting for Dan's story. And we've been spending a lot of time on it. It'll probably be another six months or a year before he even starts writing it, because we want to get it absolutely right. And it's a story that's doing the themes and what-not that Dan is really interested in. We're just (Isaac and I) making sure to help out and make sure it fits in the Cosmere. So I think it's gonna be a different kind of collaboration that I think is gonna work really well.

    And I'm excited by it. There's nothing for this one that I'm like, "Oh, I wish I could write that." It is absolutely a Dan story built for Dan. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I won't say anything about it. I want Dan to come on and be able to talk about what's exciting, why he's made the decisions he has. But I'll say this: one of the nice things, we're in a spot where we can do something I never got to do when I was younger. Which is: have an art team do concept art. So Dan can say "I need this," and then the concept art team goes and comes back with twenty different versions of a worldbuilding thing done by three different artists, that he can be like "Oh, this is the one; extrapolate on this." It's actually a lot of fun. Having a concept art team is something that most writers never get to have, and I am really excited to be able to have it.

    Arcanum Unbounded release party ()
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    Questioner

    Axies the Collector, is he a kandra-like species? Are they common throughout the whole cosmere?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So, the Aimians reside on Roshar right now. They are... I would not say kandra-like, in that the other species of Aimian has more kandra-like qualities. There's two that used to live there, before it was Scoured. But they are a different species; they are not human.

    Questioner

    *inaudible*

    Brandon Sanderson

    Shapeshifters, there are multiple types of shapeshifters, but... even, you would call the Royal Locks a type of shapeshifting. So, shapeshifting is a common thing in the cosmere. Having the ability... Once you know how the magic works, you will see why. So, there are other, kind of, species of shapeshifter.

    Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A ()
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    Adarain

    There seems to be a concentration of “aliens” in the west of Roshar, with both the Sleepless and the Iriali being non-Rosharan, possibly the Siah Aimians too (though I have my own headcanon about them); and of course the Ashynite humans arrived somewhere in the west too, probably in or near Shinovar. Is this a coincidence? It seems reasonable to me that in the past, Honor’s Perpendicularity was somewhere in the region and at least some of these groups used it to arrive on Roshar.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Not a coincidence. Having multiple perpendicularities on the land, mixed with easy-to-access Investiture, mixed with a vibrant Shadesmar side with actual cultures and cities all make Roshar a tempting destination. The amount of investiture flying around (literally) also makes the place a little easier to find in Shadesmar than other destinations might be.

    There's also the fact that it wasn't created post-Shattering, like Scadrial was. There's just been more time to get to it.

    Secret Project #3 Reveal and Livestream ()
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    ArgentSun

    The way Painter transforms nightmares into other things is reminiscent of the way spren are affected by perception - only much more extreme. Is perception (and the way the world is set up) the only important factor here, or is Painter using Investiture too somehow?

    Brandon Sanderson

    What's going on here is not Painter using Investiture really. It's the fact that the nightmares have less control over them from another source. Spren have an oversight from Honor, Cultivation, and Odium, and this is kind of leaving them less at the whims of other people's perception. The nightmares do not have that. I'm not going to say they don't have it at all, but Painter is not using Investiture, but the nightmares are specifically more susceptible to what's going on. So for instance, a good way to answer this is if he went and did this for a spren he would not have the same level of power.

    Tampa Bay Comic Convention 2023 ()
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    Dairetron

    In Dawnshard, when Rysn's looking at the mural, it's exploding the sun into four pieces and then each of them is broken into four from there. Based on this, would it be reasonable to assume four Shards of similar Intent could be able to form like a super-Shard without the issues Sazed is encountering? For example, say Honor, Valor, Mercy, and the last maybe unknown Shard like Wisdom or something like that?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That is a correct line of theorizing.

    Tampa Bay Comic Convention 2023 ()
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    Dairetron

    If there was enough Investiture available, would a Forger be able to soulstamp lerasium, take it, and then remain a Mistborn after the stamp has worn off?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, they would not remain a Mistborn. They would be able to do it during the time that they... It would wear off. Because their genetics would change back.

    Tress Spoiler Stream ()
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    Ladder Contact 6814

    What are the other six types of spores we didn't get to see in the book? Were there any that you really wanted to include, but couldn't?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No. When I've written books, I tend to gravitate toward a couple of the aethers that are really the most dynamic for action scenes and things like that. Some of the other aethers are there for the necessity of the future of the Cosmere. For instance: zephyr, while very useful in this for firing cannons and stuff, is really there so that we can have propellant in space by just-add-water and make yourself some extra propellant. And atmosphere; kind of a low-tech (there's better-tech ways), but a low-tech way to: "hey, we've got zephyr aether, it makes breathable air. And so, if we've got water and a barrel of this stuff, then we'll be able to breathe." So there are some of the aethers that are there for that sort of reason, so that we can have pneumatic weaponry and some easy access to emergency propellant in space, and stuff like that.

    But verdant is the one that I just keep coming back to, that one and roseite, as making for the most dynamic storytelling. We'll see what I do with some of the others. I'm not gonna answer what the ones I haven't mentioned are, because I am saving them for future books to be used and to be interesting and engaging with them.

    Tampa Bay Comic Convention 2023 ()
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    Neal Ginsberg (paraphrased)

    We have now seen shades across the Cosmere.  Please let me know if I'm thinking along the correct line. Is one of the reasons that shades form because their access to the Spiritual Realm has been altered or damaged?  

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    RAFO.  You are definitely theorizing along the correct lines.  I can't verify the exact mechanism, but you're thinking along the right path.

    Shardcast Interview ()
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    Brandon Sanderson

    I'll release [Dragonsteel Prime] for the Words of Radiance Kickstarter.

    Basically there's not a whole lot that's canon in that anymore. The Sho Del are, the dragons are, and the Tamu Keks are. But all the Hoid stuff is not really canon anymore. He'll get a completely new book backstory. I have really done some work lately on the aethers in ways that I really think is working. So I think I can start canonizing aethers, sneaking [them] into the mainline cosmere books. Whether I can ever write the book about the aethers is another question, but you should see more than just little cameo pieces now that I'm sure about some of the ways they work. I made some major breakthroughs in how I wanted that to all connect.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    asmodeus

    A lot of the Radiantspren descriptions are in some way similar to the essence described to them.

    • Windrunner essence - Translucent gas, air | Honorspren often look translucent, and are quite similar to windspren
    • Willshaper essence - metal | Reachers look coppery
    • Elsecaller essence - oily liquids | Inkspren are regularly described as oily
    • Stoneward essence - rock and stone | Stoneward spren are described as looking very stone-like, with glowing fire within

    Yet Truthwatcher spren and Edgedancer spren seem to have switched essences in their descriptions.

    Truthwatcher spren have been described as light passing through glass/crystal, yet that is the Edgedancer essence. Similarly, Edgedancer spren have been described as looking like vines, yet plants/pulp are the Truthwatcher essence.

    Is this deliberate, or even meaningful?

    Peter Ahlstrom

    It's important to remember that the table of the Ten Essences and Their Historical Associations is an in-world document based on the understanding of the people of Roshar. Some parts of it reflect reality more closely than other parts. Some of it attempts to put things in little boxes that resist being constrained to those boxes. Some of it may be essentially irrelevant. And there may also be other associations that exist but are not reflected in the table.

    Also, feel free to quote me on this.

    Tampa Bay Comic Convention 2023 ()
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    Brandon Sanderson

    Jasnah found it difficult to sleep. A part of her wanted to blame this stupid bed. Wit adored plushness; he wanted a mattress that would swallow a person, and he had found her previous one to be unsuitable. So now she swam in stuffing, lying on her side, listening to his breathing. Wit didn’t snore when he slept, but he did occasionally whistle. She turned to her other side–which, since they both tended to sink toward the center of this awful mattress, should have jostled him. He just laid there on his back, whistling softly as he exhaled. Was he even actually asleep? Things he’d said to her indicated that perhaps he went to other places at night around the Cosmere, visiting other worlds, engaging in political machinations at which, even still, she could only guess.

    “You lie to me sometimes,” she whispered to him. “You realized that means it can’t be a true relationship. I can trust someone with secrets—but someone who lies?” If he was aware, despite his sleep, he didn’t say anything.

    She’d caught him so far only in the most mundane of ways. He’d engage with wordplay with her, or toy with puns, and she’d ask him to stop. He’d promise, and seem to have done what he said. But then she’d notice that the games hadn’t stopped; they’d only grown more inscrutable. Wit, twisting the wordplays to a deeper level, another layer of esoteric, more difficult to spot. He seemed to think it would engage her, push her. Instead, it signaled something disturbing. Wit would do what he thought was best for people, not what they wanted from him.

    Despite her efforts, she knew she wasn’t connecting to him physically as much as he’d like. That made him feel anxious, as if he were doing something wrong. He thought if he listened better, tried harder, he’d do something mind-blowing and change the way she felt.

    In turn, though, she wasn’t connecting to him on an emotional level. Something she did want—if only he’d be up front with her. If only he’d tell her.

    She turned back on the other side; a stiff pillow did little to counteract the strange stuffing. The feathers of baby chickens; or perhaps the smallest feathers of adult chickens? She hadn’t been able to parse the way he’d said, but either way, she didn’t like it. A good lavis-husk mattress was far superior, shredded to not have awkward lumps.

    Storms. And this is why it was best to avoid relationships. Nine days until Dalinar confronted Odium, and she was worrying about a relationship? Perhaps this was a way to distract herself; because despite all of her training, all of her learning, all of her preparation, it came down to someone else. She would have no part in the final confrontation; Dalinar had decided he would use no champion.

    She did not dispute that choice. He was a Bondmsith. He had built the Knights Radiant. He’d had dealings with Odium and understood the creature better than, perhaps, any mortal. Jasnah had written out her reasons that he was the best choice, and she still agreed with them.

    Yet… could it have been her? If, instead of hiding what she was, she’d gone out in the open? Told people what she was, what she could do, what she feared? Her life and Dalinar’s life seemed to be very different things. He’d burned a city in the open, and people forgave him. Yet when Jasnah had been honest about what she feared, what she believed, what she discovered… well, condemnation and judgement had chased her like twin headsmen, each looking to get a whipping in before the final execution. She’d barely stayed ahead of them. Because when Jasnah Kholin spoke her mind, people hated her. Perhaps she had learned the wrong lessons from that. But could she be blamed?

    She curled up at that thought, listening to the quiet sounds of Urithiru. Water in the pipes, moving of its own accord. Air whispering as it was pumped through vents. Voices echoing far outside, despite the late hour. Trembling there, she realized, finally, why she hated this mattress so much. It reminded her of the soft restraints they’d given her when she’d been young. When those who loved her had taken away her own freedom for her own good. Those terrible months that basically everyone had forgotten about as an anomaly. Except by Jasnah, who would never forget.

    Wit suddenly sat up in bed. “Oh, hell,” he whispered.

    Jasnah became alert. It wasn’t difficult, considering how far from sleep she’d been. She formed Ivory as a blade—short, stout, basically just a dagger—and called for her armorspren to be ready. She reached for the cover of the bowl of spheres beside the bed, but did not remove the black shroud, lest she ruin her night vision. In a second, she could have Stormlight, but she hesitated on this, too, as the light rising from her skin would highlight her in the darkness.

    Wit sat there, barely visible by moonlight, wearing his silken nightclothes. His hair was immaculate, despite having slept on it. How?

    “What?” she finally hissed at him.

    “Oh, bollocks!” he whispered, leaping from the bed. “The darkest, hairiest, greasiest bollocks on the most unkept nethers of the most wanton demon of the most obscure religion’s damnable hellscape!”

    “Wit?” Jasnah said as he rushed to the counter, searching frantically among his things. “Wit!”

    He looked at her, wild-eyed, then he pulled the shroud off some spheres and washed the room in light.

    She blinked, dismissing her blade. If Wit wasn’t worried about blinding them, then this wasn’t a physical danger. It might just be another of his strange <range of> oddities. Except… the way he looked at her. Eyes like glowing spheres. Lips drawn without even a hint of a smile. Jaw taut, hands clenched, breathing quick. Genuine panic. She felt like summoning her blade again, if only to have something to hold as a chill went through her. “Wit, she said, “please. What’s wrong?”

    “G-give me a moment,” he mumbled, turning back to his things. “I need… I need a moment.” He pulled out a notebook and began writing.

    She rose and, though the air was warm—her mother’s transformations to Urithiru heating the air to unnatural levels for this elevation—she felt cold in only her nightgown. She threw on a robe and leaned over Wit’s shoulder. She couldn’t read what he wrote. The symbols were unfamiliar, one of the many languages he could speak from worlds beyond theirs. It looked like a table, though, not paragraphs. And those notations to the left of each line? The dots and lines? Numbers, perhaps? They repeated far more often than the other symbols did.

    He wrote, increasingly furious, his handwriting growing sloppy. She didn’t miss that he’d gotten out some of the strange, color-changing sand he used sometimes when experimenting with various uses of Stormlight or other, more arcane abilities. And as he did, he seemed to grow more intense.

    The doors began to shake. Jasnah had a sword in hand a second later, but then realized it was him. Nobody was on the other side; it was exerting some kind of strange pressure that made the doors vibrate. The rings in her jewelry box, also on the counter, pushed back and began to spill onto the floor. The shoes by her head scooted across the floor, pulled by their latches. Every bit of metal in the room, save for her sword, reacted to him in some way.

    Then, the sand burst into light with a mother-of-pearl luminescence and hovered above the table. The filmy clothing on Wit’s back began to writhe and contort as if alive. His motions increasingly frantic, in a flash, it seemed like smoke expelled from his body, blown away by some invisible wind. He was another person. Similar, but different. Shorter, with stark white hair and subtly different features making him seem foreign. This is the real him, she realized. A man not from their world; a man who masqueraded as Wit.

    That man turned to her, pencil snapping in his fingers as he grabbed it and broke it across a knuckle. “I’ve been tricked,” he said.

    “How,” she asked.

    The light of the sand went out, and it sprayed back down on the counter. Wit was back as his familiar self in a blink of an eye, and the odd effects stopped with an abrupt immediacy, as if on an order from him. He stood, again taller than she was, and held up what he’d written. “I’m missing,” he said, “three minute and twenty-seven seconds.”

    “I’m not following, Wit,” she said.

    “I’m sorry. I’m trying to parse this, but… Storms, what’s happening? Sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, slumping back onto the seat beside the stone counter, a natural feature of the room that jutted from the wall, as was common in these rooms of Urithiru. “I’ve lived a long time, Jasnah. A long, long time. Longer than any mortal’s memories can track, so I must use other means to maintain myself. I store memories in something called Breath: an easily accessible, if costly, form of Investiture that a person can adopt and, with training, use to expand one’s soul and memory. That part isn’t specifically important; I periodically review memories, deciding on what is vital to keep and what can be jettisoned. It is one of the only ways to remain sane after such a long existence as mine. And in that review just earlier, Jasnah, I found something. Something unexpected. Something terrifying.”

    “Three minutes and twenty-seven seconds?” she whispered, looking again at the notes on his page. As if by force of will, she could decipher them. “Missing. When?”

    “One day ago,” he said.

    “And what were you doing at the time?”

    He let out a long breath, then met her eyes. “I was having a chat with Odium.”

    “A chat?” she said flatly. “With the most ancient enemy of all humankind? The being that seeks to destroy us, to crush my family, to dominate—perhaps weaponize—all of Roshar for his own ends? A chat?”

    “We have a history,” Wit explained. “As I believe I’ve told you.”

    Jasnah pulled a chair over and sank down, feeling a spike of pain. A kind of final spike of pain. “I asked you, Wit,” she whispered. “I asked you to involve me in any dealings you had with him.”

    “I’m telling you now, dear,” he said. “That is technically involving you.”

    She held his eyes and knew. Perhaps he did, too. He will continue to be himself, a man so full of secrets he needed some kind of strange magic to keep them all inside his head. And one, it appeared, had been excised. There would never be a place for her inside of his deepest self, would there? She’d always just be another thing on the outside, maintained as part of his collection. Enjoyed, perhaps even loved, but never confided in.

    In that moment, she knew she’d have to withdraw, for herself. She tucked away feelings of betrayal. She had known what she was getting into with him. One did not court a god lightly.

    “Why?” she asked him. “What were you saying to him?”

    “I…” he shrugged. “I had to gloat a little. It was requisite, Jasnah, considering our history.” His eyes became distant. “I remember feeling odd about the encounter… a sense of repetition? Something happened that day in the lost minutes. He got the better of me and excised the memory from my mind, letting me instead think I had won the exchange. I can find the remnants, now that I look, as it was awkwardly done, as if by one unfamiliar.”

    “This is wrong, isn’t it?” she said.

    “Very wrong. Rayse is a megalomaniac, Jasnah. For all his craftiness, it would hurt him to let me walk away thinking I’d bested him. In this case, he encouraged it.” Wit leaned forward and took her hand. “He’s grown. After ten thousand years, Rayse has actually learned something. That terrifies me. Because I can’t anticipate what he will do.”

    “Then what?”

    “We need to reread the contract between him and Dalinar,” Wit said. “Now.”

    Jasnah had a copy nearby, but before she’d opened her ledger, a pounding on a <nearish> door, real this time, drew her attention. She passed out of the bedroom, through the sitting room, and eased open the outer door to reveal <Hemnid> of the Cobalt Guard. A man with discretion to match his general poise, she trusted him as much as she trusted any, so she wasn’t bothered as he glanced at Wit as he approached. “What?” she said to him, light spilling from the guardroom into her quarters.

    “Radiant Shallan and Highprince Adolin have something to report,” he whispered. [Brandon: I’m gonna cut that out so you have some anticipation for what’s coming.] “Your uncle has called for a meeting immediately, despite the hour.”

    “Tell him I’ll be there shortly,” she said, then closed the door, looking back into the darkened sitting room towards Wit. [Brandon skips another section.]

    “It should be,” Wit said. “I need to study that contract. There might be loopholes.”

    “And if you didn’t see them?” She said. “You didn’t before.”

    “You’re right,” he said. He took a deep breath. “You’re… you’re right. We need an expert, beyond even my considerable knowledge in the area.”

    “Do you know any?”

    “From your world?” he asked. “Only one, but she and I aren’t on speaking terms. I will, instead, see if I can contract an old friend.”

    Tampa Bay Comic Convention 2023 ()
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    Tomás Amitrano

    So, in Tress's book, the last illustration is Hoid against Riina and Hoid has a very particular shirt with Mare's Flower. Does that indicate that Kelsier has interest in Lumar or was that just artist's inspiration?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, that is a canon shirt that Wit has, but it's Wit's shirt.

    Tomás Amitrano

    So that's a pun against Kelsier?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah.

    Tampa Bay Comic Convention 2023 ()
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    cosmere_arg

    I'm here as an "ambassador" of Cosmere Argentina, so, we as a community have a question that we'd like to ask. Have you taken inspiration for a character, a place, community, or whatever on a Latin American society?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes. So the main Latin American inspiration would be the Herdazians, but the secondary would be: Lift and her people are based on Bolivian indigenous peoples and kind of what is going on down there, so both in the Stormlight Archive is where I've kinda taken my Latin America inspirations.

    So, I mean, Herdazians is more Mexico than South America, but Lift is Bolivia. Kinda looking into some of the Bolivian Indigenous, and what they would look like and things like that. Obviously, I'm not saying they all act like Lift, but Lift is her own person.

    General Reddit 2023 ()
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    GeneralRane

    I’m pretty sure maipon sticks originated on Sel. Either they use eating implements from off-world, or the Rosharan audience knows them by a name from off-world.

    Brandon Sanderson

    It's the second. Maipon sticks are actually slightly different, but it's a point of reference his audience would know.

    Footnote: The 'audience' refers to the group that Hoid is telling the story of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter to.
    Sources: Reddit
    YouTube Livestream 57 ()
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    Christopher Williams

    How do you come up with interesting new races? When do you know that you should consider creating a new race, rather than using one that people are familiar with?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I do use one of the standard races (which is dragons). They haven't appeared a lot in my books, but I just think dragons are cool. And so, I actually built one of the ecologies of my early books that didn't get published around the idea of "well, what would lead to dragons? And what other evolutionary strains would be on a planet that had dragons," and kind of built all around that.

    Miscellaneous 2023 ()
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    Kingsdaughter613

    Do you know if the GB symbol/Marewill developed together/always intended to resemble one another, or was it ascended fanon?

    Ben McSweeney

    When it was decided that we needed to have a marewill design, I immediately pushed for it to resemble the GB icon. I don't think the original linked-diamonds symbol was intended to resemble a flower, but I wasn't the designer on that one.

    It's possible that Brandon intended them to match from the start, and I was just already on the same page when I got the assignment. I honestly don't recall for sure, I just remember that it clicked quickly.

    Miscellaneous 2023 ()
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    Ben McSweeney

    The early designs of Shardplate helmets had some options with holes instead of slot visors. These were specifically rejected, and thus all helms (in canon art, so far) have some variation on a slot visor.

    I tried getting 'em in there with Plate, but he's got reasons for the slot shape.

    Miscellaneous 2023 ()
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    Ben McSweeney

    [The Year of Sanderson Soonie Pup plushie is] not a diagetic pup design, i.e. a Soonie Pup as might be given to Wax's kids. But a plushie like that would be, in many respects, just like any other generic stuffed wolf-dog toy. 

    Miscellaneous 2023 ()
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    Dan Wells

    Can you talk about the person you were pitching with, or is that secret? 

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, I can. It was Joe Michael Straczynski. So Joe attached to it. Super cool guy.

    Dan Wells

    He is the guy that did Babylon 5, among other things.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, he attached to it and he and I went and pitched it together, and it got picked up. But then Joe really got excited by certain aspects of the story, not really by my outline. He really loved the idea of this—he had an idea, he wanted to do something that was very close to Castle, where there is an author in the real world writing books. We would write these fantasy novels and the show would be the fantasy novels. The author was like a character who was channeling and releasing them. Some of this was from the original pitch, but it was a video game in the pitch.

    He was really into this and so much of it changed that I called him up and I was like, "Joe this is nothing like my pitch". And he was like, "yeah I know, I got really really excited". I was like "ughh" and he was like "ughh" and I'm like "what if we just separated them" and he said "that's a great idea". So we just hand shook on, he can take his pitch and sell it, he just took Dark One off it 'cause it was changed so much, and mine just went back into the thing. I don't know if he ever got his made. He was very easy to work with, I'll say that. Very very classy in when I called him and said "this is nothing like my pitch", he was like "yeah I know, I'm sorry, I got really excited".

    Dan Wells

    Well and that’s what happens, that’s what happens in Hollywood. It is such a collaborative industry and a collaborative medium that, you know, whoever has the money and/or authority is the one that is most likely to see their vision made. Which is rarely the author!

    Brandon Sanderson

    It got picked up. They commissioned a pilot from him on that thing. Basically, I said "go do your thing, if this takes off come back to me and I can maybe write the fantasy novels in the real world". I'm totally cool with your concept here, we will just take Dark One's name off of it. Obviously it didn't get picked up, because the show never got made—

    Dan Wells

    Yeah, because we have never seen it.

    Brandon Sanderson

    —and he never came back. Anyway, that was Dark One, was my television pitch. It was multimedia in that I planned a couple of epic fantasy novels to tie in, but that was kind of like the television show was the thing.

    Miscellaneous 2023 ()
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    Questioner

    We have these moons [on Lumar], they're so very large, you have the seas that look and function so differently. Is it like an atmospheric bubble they're in? How does it work when you cross from one sea to the other. The spores are touching, there's different coloring, how does that section off so distinctly?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So it's kind of interesting, I kind of got some of this, the way I look at these seas, from real world oceans where two wave forms meet, saltwater and non saltwater meeting. And there's actually kind of a weirdly regular line between them that gets maintained. (And obviously, then, they mix, because they're both just water.) But that line was really fascinating to me.

    What's going on in my mind (and I haven't run this past the Arcanists), but the idea is that enough is falling from these spores, that as they're kind of mixing, they're also kind of going down underenath, and you've got the decomposition of the spores (which is part of what's causing the seethe) and all of these sorts of things.

    They do kind of mix. The line, it would look pretty regular from someone standing up on a ship and looking at it. But if you got close, you'd see more spore mixing and even blending pretty far in. But, then those spores are getting pushed underneath by the new spores that are coming, and the new layers, and then those spores are dying off at the bottom of the ocean and things like that.

    That's how I'm doing it in my head, at least how I'm justifying getting that kind of creepy line that you get, even in the real world between different bodies of water meeting. But, again, I haven't run that past the Arcanists. That's how it's working in my head.

    Secret Project #3 Reveal and Livestream ()
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    Conor Chamberlin

    I want to draw fan art of Painter. Would early Tokyo be a good reference for his world?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Early modern Tokyo, maybe. You could go Meiji era, right end of Meiji era, probably, and be alright. We are entering the modern early era. If you're looking at early 1900s Tokyo, you'll be fine. Or late 1800s, you'll probably be fine.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    Haylo_Alex

    You've said before that Soulcasting can't create atium or lerasium which makes sense since they're made of Investiture from other Shards. But could a Soulcaster, perhaps in the proximity of Dalinar's perpendicularity, provide enough Stormlight to Soulcast something into Honor's Godmetal (tanavastium)? What about Cultivation's metal, or an alloy of both, like Shardblade metal?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So, creating a God Metal is not something that's done easily in the Cosmere. HOWEVER, it is possible. You'd need a ton of Investiture, and being near Dalinar's perpendicularity is unlikely to be enough. I'd say Soulcasting, or something akin to it, has the means to do this if it could obtain the proper power charge.

    General Reddit 2020 ()
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    Yoitsthew

    Would a lerasium/atium alloy create a Feruchemist, rather than an atium misting?? What with the way that it’s an alloy of god metals, and the way that lerasium can be used to acquire other magics? As far as I know there is no lerasium left currently, so this one is also just for my curiosity!!

    Brandon Sanderson

    You can use the god metals from Scadrial to make a Feruchemist, but I have to RAFO the actual means.

    Firefight San Francisco signing ()
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    Questioner

    I had a question about how the Alethi women exhibit their wealth through their dresses. So I know there’s embroidery in the fabric and the fact that you're kind of disabling one arm? But besides that?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So gemstones, like well cut gemstones and then fill them with Stormlight. 

    Questioner

    Oh ok, but they're round, so...

    Brandon Sanderson

    No no, not the spheres, the actual stones. Gemstone rocks will still hold-- The sphere is just the way to make sure you don't lose them, you can make any sort of jewellery or gemstone, in your hair or anything like that, glowing would be how they would show off their wealth.

    Firefight San Francisco signing ()
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    Questioner

    What kind of embroidery is it [on Alethi women's clothing]? Is it like flowers, patterns?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No no, it is a lot of things but the Alethi's don't do the flower thing as much... It's not really an Alethi thing, floral patterns. So you are seeing a lot of designs and hatchings. They may look a little Arabic to you. Or the glyphs and things like that you will see worked in but very stylized.

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    Pagerunner

    And I noticed on the Coppermind that we haven't seen any Feruchemical symbols for [the four unknown Allomantic symbols]. So it's got me wondering if you've designed any Feruchemical symbols to go along with these four Allomantic symbols?

    I know these symbols are used to fill out letters in the actual alphabet, and that there are no canon metals assigned to them; that's not what I'm asking about. I'm more curious if the symbols even exist to round out the Coppermind's table.

    Isaac Stewart

    We created Feruchemical symbols for those four metals at one point, and I think this is the latest.

    General Reddit 2023 ()
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    u/Lobologo3

    How did Hoid get Elantrian powers and access to the AonDor simply through an invite by Riina?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Just a little help for those in this one: new Hoid-centered epilogue to the 10th anniversary Elantris from ten or so years ago is relevant here. It's not going to tell you the specifics, I'm afraid, but what happened here should be seen in the context of that scene.

    Stormlight Three Update #6 ()
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    Khyrindor

    You've said that Returned count as Cognitive shadows "stapled" back into their bodies, and that the Heralds are at least similar. Would I be right in assuming that Elantrians could be considered as Cognitive Shadows as well, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Elantrians are something different. They don't actually "die" to be created.

    Recognize that the term Cognitive Shadow is an in-cosmere theory, which I'm not going to comment on as the creator of the setting. The theory is this:

    Investiture seeks sapience. It looks for someone to control it or, in some instances, spontaneously adopts personality.

    A mind (Cognitive aspect of a person) can become infused with Investiture. This acts a little like minerals with petrified wood, replacing the mind and personality with investiture.

    When the actual person dies, this investiture imprint remains behind. A copy of the soul, but not the actual soul.

    Others disagree with this, and think the soul itself persists. Still others reject the theory in its entirety.

    linkhyrule5

    Huh.

    ... Kandra are almost literally stapled to their bodies with Hemalurgy - would they count as such, to the in-setting scholars?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, they wouldn't. They are beings who have had their souls twisted by Hemalurgy--the soul never left, it's just been messed up. Someone else who has a soul stapled to a body with Hemalurgy would count though.

    Oathbringer Houston signing ()
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    Questioner

    I wanted to ask about the Returned and the Fused. I haven't gotten all the way through [Oathbringer]... With the Spiritual Realm, is it very similar for how they don't return, versus the Returned coming back and the Fused staying?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, there is a similarity there, for sure.

    Questioner

    Is it related at all... So, a thunderclast. Is it similar to Awakening?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Kinda, but a little further out. You'll figure out-- that one's explained pretty well in [Oathbringer].

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    LewsTherinTelescope

    In The Lost Metal, we find that Sho Del have four arms, making six appendages. In the [sample] chapters for The Liar of Partinel, we find that a fain deer has six legs. Is this pattern important?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah.

    LewsTherinTelescope

    Further, how relevant to this is [it] that if you count four legs plus two wings, dragons have six limbs?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yep, that is the exact correlation that I would like you to draw! Dragons are fain, if you're wondering. If that's what the question is, yes, dragons are fain.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
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    Questioner

    I'm really inspired by a lot of the worldbuilding you do and especially some of the amazing planets such as Roshar and Teldain and especially how different they are from our own planet. So how do you come up with these sorts of planets and where do you draw inspiration from to make these amazing other worlds?

    Brandon Sanderson

    When I'm worldbuilding there's a few core principles that I follow. One is this idea that a setting should be like a character, full of quirks and flaws and advantages and all these sorts of things, you should almost have a personality for a setting. But at the same time I'm always looking for something this is going to influence the story in interesting way. What are the great visuals, what are the great conflicts that this inspires. Conflicts are the soul of all storytelling, so looking for great conflicts. But at the end of the day it's also just things I've seen, things I've experienced, like Roshar came from a mix of growing up Nebraska with these really powerful rainstorms. I remember sitting on my front porch once and the rain was blowing the right direction, so it didn't hit me and just watching this rain blow sideways. Like that's an amazing experience with lightning crashing every couple of seconds, and then visiting southern Utah and seeing the great slot canyons, things like the Zion Narrows and things like that and Little Wild Horse and just how beautiful and awe inspiring it was to be in this sort of crack in the earth and looking up and the sky seemed so distant, and those inspired Roshar. So I'm always looking, on of my guiding principles is, I talked about it a little bit earlier, fantasy, I think, should be the most imaginative genre. When I started to sell, when my books came out, I made kind of a, sort of a goal to myself that if I was going to be remembered for one thing I wanted to be remembered as someone who pushed the genre forward into different spaces and in one of places I thought I could do that was in some one the worldbuilding. You know we been kind of lock into the medieval-year-up fantast for a long time, there's a lot of fantastic stories told there. I'm like can we push other directions and can we use a little bit more of the science-fiction world-building that you from a lot of the great science-fiction stories but apply it to fantasy, because we can break the laws of physics in ways that they can't, so that is where it came from.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
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    Questioner

    They say a lot of writing is autobiographical, are there any of your characters that are very close to being you but in a fantasy world?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I have never like put me into a book, not in the same way that Clive Cussler does and Steven King does and I'd never put anyone that is particularly close to me. I often say that the characters that I empathize with is a mix between Sazed and Jasnah. But I don't know, every character has an equal amount of me and an equal amount of not me. Every character is a blend something I want to explore that is not like myself and something that is very like me. I actually have slightly different answer also, Stephen Leeds is very close to me in that sort of middle manager of a whole bunch of voices in my head, and my son is pointing out and my mother would like me to note this, that Alcatraz uses my voice in humor and so she says she reads Alcatraz and is like "Oh, I hear you!", I think I should be afraid of that.

    Dragonsteel 2022 ()
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    Questioner

    I really loved the Skyward series and now the we know that's wrapping up I want to know, is there more stand-alone science-fiction on the way?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Is there more stand-alone science-fiction on the way, alright. So the answer is there will almost certainly, if fact there better be because we signed for them, be more books in the Skyward Universe that I'm writing with Janci, yes. And that is for the forseable future my project in that kinda YA/new adult space that I been playing with The Reckoner and Skyward, that's the plan for there. That is the only plan for non-Cosmere books other than Dark One that we are doing right now. So anything else that I would plan would be tied to the Cosmere, but you never can tell, like I was not planning one of the Secret Projects, I wasn't planning any of the Secret Projects but one of them is, [Secret Project] Two is a stand-alone science-fictiony sort of thing. So you can never tell what will pop out, I have no current plans other than what we announced but it's me, so who know.

    Miscellaneous 2023 ()
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    ADHD Projects

    Do we see Allomancy in this book [Tress of the Emerald Sea]?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I don't believe you do

    Chaotic Forager

    Do we see Allomancy but not Allomancy?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Potentially. This is what I was working on 3 years ago. I am on the Stormlight world right now, writing Szeth flashback scenes. But I don't believe you see any Allomancy in this book. You're talking about emotional Allomancy?

    ADHD Projects

    Yes.

    Brandon Sanderson

    No? Hmm... *hems and haws for a long time*

    The only question mark... So, Hoid is not using emotional Allomancy on anybody, how about that?

    Tress Spoiler Stream ()
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    Madness Lemon

    What exactly do the humans that serve Xisis do? He promises that they would have engaging work. But would that just entail maintaining his home beneath the spores? Or assisting in his research?

    Brandon Sanderson

    There were select individuals who assist with the research. And he is studying the water cycle and the decomposition of the spores at the bottom of the ocean and is very, very interested in that. And some of those who work with him are allowed into that work, as well. Some just take care of things. Certain individuals may not be of a temperament to ever do more than that.

    Madness Lemon

    How honest can we assume he was being when talking about how his slaves are treated?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Pretty honest. Dragons on Yolen are deities, and they view themselves as deities. They are generally quite trustworthy in the way that they say things, but they are also quite imperious, as a general rule. Because you are an immortal being that is worshiped as a god, and that gets in your head and does things to you.

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    Lotus

    If you looked at a spore under a microscope, what would it look like? Would it be like an Earth's fungus spore? Or would they look totally different?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I have imagined, depending on the spore, them being different. We'll go with this as a non-canon answer right now. But I've imagined verdant looking a lot like a fungal spore that you would see. Some of the weird bacteria shapes and virus shapes, but larger (obviously) than that. But others, I imagine looking like sand, like pieces of sand. And yet others being more, like, perfect little sphere beads. Like, the Midnight Essence ones, just little tiny perfect dots, and things like that. So it really depends on the spore. They all, I think, will be different.

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    Escovar

    The Iriali left at least three hundred years prior to Tress's story. Xisis was said to have been on Lumar for at least three hundred years, by Crow's book. Is the arrival of Xisis and departure of the Iriali significantly related?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I did that intentionally, yes.

    Tress Spoiler Stream ()
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    Howard Lyon

    At what point when you were writing it [Tress] did you know that you were going to release it?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I wasn't sure. I wrote it; I didn't know I was gonna do any others, at this point. All I knew is: I had this really great idea, I wanted to practice Hoid's voice, and I wanted to make a gift for my wife. So I did it, not knowing that there would be any others or anything to it. And not knowing if I would release it in ten years or the next year.

    I had an instinct that I would eventually release it, but only if Emily wanted to. This was a gift for her; I told her, "You can keep this forever and never have it be released, if that's what you would like. Or you can have it as one copy that you only lend to your friends that is bound in one single volume." And she didn't want to do any of those. She did want to share it. But I had no idea when I was writing it.

    It was Secret Project Four that I'm like, "No, this is something I want to do." That was when I'm thinking, "Maybe I'll do a Kickstarter, or something like that." And Secret Project Four, then, was written for the fans, rather than... One and Three are basically the real gifts to my wife. One and Three are ones that are written specifically because of things she said, for her as a person. Two was written a little more for me, even though I gave it to her as a gift, because it's just like, "I wanna do this goofy thing. It's just a thing I wanna do."

    And then Four was written for the fans. Four was, I'm like, "If I'm gonna do a year of Sanderson, I want to have one of the books be a legitimate moving forward of the Cosmere involving some things that they will want to know about," because it's setting up important stuff for later on. I thought a long time about that one. The others were kind of just like, "This is what I feel like writing right now." And that one was, "I want to have a large piece to the puzzle, rather than a small piece to the puzzle." And so Four is for you. And Four is the one that I think is, in that regard, the least general interest. That one, I worry a little bit; it does stand on its own, but it's the only one I worry about, if you haven't read any of my other books, picking up, being like, "What is this?" The rest of them, I feel like you can just pick up and it's a great introduction work. Four, I'm not as certain on.

    Tress Spoiler Stream ()
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    Questioner

    Did you significantly adjust the number of Cosmere references in Tress of the Emerald Sea once your wife suggested you share this book? Was your first draft of Tress more or less Cosmere aware?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It was roughly exactly as it is. The later drafts of Tress fixed the ending. All the pieces were there, but it just wasn't quite clicking. So I rebuilt the ending; that's the biggest thing that I did. Tress was a little more discovery-written than a lot of my books, and if you discovery write, a lot of times your endings need some work. So I spent a lot of revision on that.

    And then polishing the prose was the other thing. Because it's Hoid, writing form his viewpoint's just a little harder than writing a normal viewpoint, and required some extra work to make sure that the prose felt Hoid-ish without being so in-your-face that it ruined the book for too many people.

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    EogelAorist

    We know that, at least as late as Stormlight Archive, Hoid can't physically hurt people. Does Riina not know that? Or did Hoid regain that ability by the time of Tress? Or does she just not want to risk it, in case he can do something to her that wouldn't technically count as harming?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It is the last one. Plus, Hoid's very good at doing things to people that do not involve harming them that can get around his particular brand of Torment, and she would fall into being someone that it would be easy to do some of those things to.