Is there gonna be any more Arcanum Unbounded-- like collections of short stories?
Yeah. I'll release short stories and every, you know, decade or so I'll collect them all into a collection.
So I have a question about Savants. Could you only get there by flaring, or if you burn it for a long period of time or like duralumin--
Yeah, you can get there other ways.
How do koloss breed? It doesn't make any sense to us?
So... A child born to a koloss and a koloss, or a koloss and anybody else, is what we call a koloss blooded. They don't become a full koloss until they undergo the ritual and are spiked.
Okay. But also they didn't have the gender parts.
They do have gender parts.
Have we seen the lady in the mask-- who's like related to the Ghostbloods--
Iyatil?
Have we seen her in another book, by any chance?
No, you have not.
So who do you think Shallan's favorite real world artist would be?
She is a classicist so-- I don't know-- Probably someone really, really classic like da Vinci or, you know, or even Michelangelo.
Where they do interesting light studies...
Yeah, where they're looking right at the musculature and things like that. That would be my guess.
I'm building Plate. I would like it to be Radiant. What's the finish? Is it different from standard Plate or is it--
If you-- like, they often paint theirs. But say it's going to be straight unpainted it's like dull slate grey steel--
And it doesn't vary order to order?
No. Well, I mean, if it's actual Radiant Plate it does-- But what you've got is-- Yeah, it glows and it has things, too.
The world that White Sand takes part in, there were things that are kind of irked me about the book. It's that on Dayside most of the characters were light-skinned and on Darkside most of the characters were dark-skinned and evolutionarily that's backwards. Is there a reason for that?
Yes there is. Intentional.
And are we gonna read and find out?
We'll see if I get around to it, but yes.
Is Wayne the author that's writing the Allomancer Jak stuff.
No, he's not. Good question, though! Good question!
You have all these magic systems within the cosmere, <Allomancy and Feruchemy> and all that, and now they're starting to come together into one body. Do you ever worry that you're gonna treat that character where, like, they're drawing from so many systems that they're almost, like, the ultimate *inaudible*, like, they're drawing from five different magic systems and just don't *inaudible* anymore?
You know, having done The Wheel of Time, where Rand was basically a deity, I'm not quite as worried about that as I was. I don't know if that'll ever even get to that point. And it turned out that that was just fine. The thing about it is, stories always happen in the intersection of what characters can't do. And there's always something you can't do. Unless you become, like, all-powerful, all-omnipotent. So, I'm not that worried about it. I have to keep an eye on it, but I'm not that worried about it.
How many of your epiphanies happened at the gym?
Quite a number, actually. At the gym or in the shower, you put things together, for whatever reason.
What is your beverage of choice?
Uh, ice water. Yep, really is. I really just like me a good-- lots of ice. Like, a big cup filled to the top with ice, and then you fill up water in it. Best stuff.
I was wondering, how many pieces of different Shards does Hoid have to collect before he is considered Ascended?
You know that's even a little bit false, uh-- not begging the question. Whichever logic fallacy is assuming that he could. Or, you are assuming that he could. Who knows if it's even possible, or anything like that.
The quote that Dalinar says at the end [of Oathbringer]. "I am Unity." Is that something that happened specifically because Honor is dead, and, for all these different reasons, that was able to happen? Also Odium said that he had Ascended. He wasn't supposed to Ascend, but he did...
I am totally RAFOing all that stuff; I knew people were gonna ask about it. You're just gonna have to wait and find out.
Unity is capital. Is there a reason for that.
*hands over a RAFO card*
How do you write books this long? Like, mental dedication to do that?
You know, it's all about breaking it down into something smaller, building it up as an outline. I couldn't do something this big without an outline. It's about step-by-step, right. Start with scene, go to chapter, go to sequence, go to book. It does take practice. Oh, yes, milestones are really, really helpful.
How did all the characters learn about the different magic systems?
So, it really depends on the character, and the situation, and things like that.
How did the first person discover, like--
Oh, Mistborn powers? Ruin and Preservation, in that case, were actively cultivating the society, particularly Preservation. Some of it comes through that. Some of it comes through, if you have the Investiture, part of you kinda knows about it. But it takes experience, so you have to know the right things, and stuff. I'll get into it more eventually.
Is there a specific mineral deposit around the Purelake? Is there a sacred enclave?
RAFO.
How much is a stone-weight on Roshar?
Uh... that is actually a question for Peter. I actually, often, will just write in brackets "this much," and he comes up with the weights and measures, because I can never be consistent in my first drafts. So, yeah, you ask Peter, he can get that for you. I do the same thing with spheres, right? I'm like, "This costs roughly 100 bucks in our world," and he'll go "All right, fine" and go look up all the things. I used to keep it all in the first book, but since then I just let him do it.
Why so many characters from Warbreaker [in Stormlight]?
'Cause Warbreaker is a prequel to Stormlight. I wrote Stormlight first, and then I actually went and wrote Warbreaker about Kaladin's swordmaster, but then that version of Stormlight didn't get published, and this one did, but they're very interconnected to me.
Can you confirm the identity of Azure.
Yes, I can.
Is it Vivenna?
Yeah.
Nalthians seem to do a really good job of passing as Rosharan. Are they just better as disguising themselves, or do they naturally look like residents of Roshar?
...Nalthians have some innate abilities that allow that.
The hair, of course.
Not just the hair.
What's your favorite Oath?
Probably the first one.
Favorite Order?
Bondsmith.
I was actually going to ask where you came up with the idea of Hoid?
Hoid is inspired by my desire to tell a story that spans other stories. I would say the origins of that are probably Asimov, when he made the Robots books and the Foundation books tie together. Something like that. Maybe Michael Moorcock, he had a similar sort of cross-world thing. I was reading both of them a lot right when I started coming up with that. So I would say, that's the origin of it. Stephen King has done it, but I didn't know he'd done it. I hadn't been reading him as much.
In Secret History the Shard shows a relatively well-written foresight. Did Adonalsium have more of a pronounced version of that?
Adonalsium was-- I would say, yes.
Did it have plans for after it's own--
That's a RAFO...
White Sand 2?
It is coming. It's not December, it's February. Amazon jumped the gun. That wasn't us, deciding on a date... It's February.
...[Skyward] is teen, 'cause it's in my Reckoners line, and it's a story I've been playing with for some four years now, and I built an outline, and it's kind of like a cross between How to Train your Dragon and Top Gun, with starfighters. A girl finds an old broken-down starship with a really screwy AI that she thinks she can get up and running. In the meantime, she gets into starfighter school and is learning to be a pilot, and there's all kinds of mysteries and things about the nature of really what's happening with the planet why they're being attacked, and things like that. It's a whole lot of fun.
For [Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell], did that take place in the cosmere?
It does. It's on a planet called Threnody. There is no Shard on that planet, however. So you can see the magic is very different in that the magic is something you interact with, not something you perform. Because there isn't a Shard there. But yeah, it is in the cosmere.
I was wondering if Sleepless-- the Dysian Aimians-- if they could hold a Shard?
Could the Sleepless hold a Shard? Could they be a Vessel? Is what you're asking?
*hems and haws* There is nothing innate about the Shards that prevents any one with a-- I have to phrase this very carefully...
Non-humans can be Vessels. Non-humans have been vessels. Certain sapient creatures in the cosmere, could not be. But that's an asterisk, not the rule.
If you could take a Shard, what would be the one that you would want? If you were forced to take a Shard, you couldn't refuse?
*Mmmmms for a time*
Feel free to name another one if you want to...
I've only got a few left that you guys don't know about.
There's six.
Yeah okay. So I haven't said-- yhm. *laughter* I would take one that I haven't talked about, probably. But, of the ones I've talked about--
I don't know-- What one would be the most fun? Endowment would be pretty fun. Autonomy? No, probably not that much fun. A lot of them aren't very fun. Let's go with--
You mean Autonomy isn't fun? Splitting into different aspects?
Yeah, that is fun, I suppose. Yeah. *unenthusiastic* Yeah...
Is Uli Da a Sho Del?
Yeah.
Can we post that?
Yeah you can go ahead and post that. That's fine.
I figured that from the...
Right, the naming convention makes it really obvious.
But that's not posted on the Dragonsteel sample so...
Right. But that's canon. It's pretty obvious to me... And so it's fine with me canonizing it. I mean, I've been coy with it for years. But when I say there are Shards that aren't human. There are three races on Yolen... Adding the math together is going to get you a pretty obvious answer.
So, at the Forbidden Planet signing you said that when Adonalsium was Shattered, all Investiture in the cosmere was associated to one of the Shards... So, what happened with Adonalsium's spren on Roshar? Were those associated to Honor and Cultivation? What happened with them?
So they were very-- They were already associated to certain parts of Adonalsium and they went with those associations. There's a lot of Cultivation in all of the spren, particularly the natural spren.
Is atium Invested?
Is atium Invested? Atium is Investiture distilled into the Physical Realm, right? So is electricity electric? Or is it--
Well I think the question Sharders had was if it's Invested, how can people Push and Pull on it. That was the struggle.
Atium breaks a lot of rules, in the same way that you will see other things break rules. Atium plays weirdly. When you get distilled Investiture, you're starting like-- My kind of rule for myself is it's kind of like when you start going on the quantum level, the rules just start playing weirdly. Because it's like, what Realm does atium exist in-- is another thing. Because-- Pure Investiture like that is like a mini black hole, right? It's like existing in three Realms at once. Kind of, and things like that... There's lots of weirdness.
The writerly answer is there is lots of weirdness because when I built atium, I didn't have the rest of the cosmere built, right? And so it breaks a lot of rules that I later set up that everything else has to follow, right? So the writerly answer is we just have to accept that atium and lerasium and some of these other distilled Investiture things are going to play very weirdly with the magic systems. But that's okay. Nightblood will too, and some of these things that were built even after the cosmere was coming together.
What are ReLuur's spikes made of? Marasi thought they were pewter, but that doesn't make sense.
It doesn't.
Another hemalurgy question: Is it possible to steal more than just spiritual DNA with hemalurgy? If you, say, infused someone with a hundred hemalurgic spikes charged from people who liked chicken, would the spike person enjoy chicken as well?
You can steal quite a lot with Hemalurgy. Anything encoded on a person's soul, really. Not sure if chicken liking counts, though...
Speaking of Rosharan calendar-- So seventeen year old Kaladin, is he the equivalent of a seventeen year old Earthling?
It's 1.1, I think is what is it. Right, they're 10% older than their accounting system. So no.
So Adolin is 27, true?
Yeah.
So then a year is obviously a lot more than 1.1 but--
Well no. The years are 500 days, but they're 20 hour days. Keep that in mind. So when you run the calculations kinda together, you end up with around 1.1.
Karen's the one who runs into all the trouble now. Because she has to make the timeline work with the highstorms. She wrote that whole blog post. You guys read that. She had lots of fun with that.
Do you have, like on-- Like the actual gem inside a Stormlight sphere, do you have an idea of how large it actually is and--
Yes, we do have an idea of that, and how much it can hold, and things like this. And that's all known so that's going to start with the basis. But it's going to take math, it's going to take real math.
Math is hard!
Yeah, math is hard! And we're going to have to look at things like-- Yeah just make stuff up then make Peter shake his head.
Do you have-- Or have you determined an equivalency between how much Breath it takes to make a certain gem's worth of Stormlight?
I have recently assigned Peter to this task, and he is feeling overwhelmed by it. It was actually during the writing of Oathbringer where I finally said, "Yeah we need to standardize this, so start working on it." So it was like, "Oh great". Which means he has to read through all the books for references and start figuring it all out. And we're going to need like an equivalent of a jewel or something like this, right? *gestures to a sphere that a fan made* And we've been putting it off because it sounds like an awful lot of work.
So the answer is no, we don't have it yet. It's something I've known for years we're going to need. And on this book, I just started saying, "All right. I'm going to have them do all the stuff they need to do. And then you're going to tell me how many spheres they need to start with." Right? Like, I write the book, and then we retrofit how many spheres they needed to have how much Stormlight, so that we could be consistent with that.
But we haven't done across magic systems calculations, yet.
So Sleepless have held Surges. Have they been Radiants before?
RAFO.
Did Unmade exist in the First Desolation?
Which definition of First Desolation are we using?
...Prior to the Heralds being made?
We'll go RAFO.
When Nightblood killed the Fused, are those Fused souls retrievable?
RAFO.
So I've always wondered, the Bands of Mourning, the actual spearhead that Wax uses. Was that made by the Lord Ruler or the Sovereign, or--
No. It was not made by the Lord Ruler. The Sovereign was involved.
In our universe, mass and energy curve space. I was wondering if Investiture does the same or something similar.
It does something similar. It draws the three Realms together. So it's got like-- Imagine a gravitational pull piercing Realms. Right? Of kind of--
And that's how a perpendicularity works?
That's not the only way a perpendicularity works, but one surefire way to create a perpendicularity is a massive collection of Investiture in the Cognitive or mostly Physical realm. But Cognitive's weird, doesn't always work the right way. But there are ways to do it that way too.
How do states of matter affect how things look in the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms?
So, generally, how people perceive something is very important to the reflection in the Cognitive Realm, and so the physical state of matter is going to be involved in that, but generally, it flows the other direction from the Spiritual Realm.
Do the forms of Investiture that we've seen, Stormlight, metals, Shardpools, do the fact that those happen in general the same types of states of matter, all physical, solid, is kinda going to be like metal for Investiture?
Yeah, that is generally the way it will be.
So Roshar is pretty small on the map. Are there other species on the planet that we don't know about?
Roshar is primarily the one continent. There are no other continents.
No other continents?
No other continents... There are no other major landmasses on the planet.
So Voidbinding is-- one part of Voidbinding is seeing the future. And atium is also seeing the future. And I notice annotations for Elantris, you said something about seeing the future could go weird-- sends assassins. Is that a running--
It is a running theme in the cosmere. And it's-- Whatever path you take to do it is dangerous in the cosmere. It's kind of a sign of-- You are in dangerous territory, and drawing upon a Shard that is--
Potentially...
Potentially-- Yes. I mean to say-- Dangerous territory.
I once--don't do this--I once lit a book on fire. Because I was reading at night, and my mom kept turning my light off so I got out a candle and I was reading by candlelight. And the book started on fire. Yeah, so don't do that.
I was wondering, with resonance. Is that a sort of constructive interference?
Constructed? No. Resonance is more about the way-- It's more of a natural interference.
So what I mean like, you have two waves, right? And if their troughs, you know--
Okay, is that the formal term? For the constructed.-- Oh constructive? I thought you had said-- yeah. So yes, I would say that that is an accurate phrase. I mean obviously it's not exactly the same thing. But yeah, that's what I was looking at when I was building it, was kinda things like this with waveform patterns and whatnot. So yes. At least, it was inspired by this kind of idea.
Is Adolin unkilling Maya? RAFO?
I'll give you a [RAFO] card.
Is Wayne sick?
Is Wayne sick? In what way?
Like, terminally ill kind of thing?
No. Good question.
