When the Five Scholars traveled to Roshar, this happened post Recreance, so most Shardblades would have been dead, how did Nightblood gain sapience?
Shardblades weren’t the only Blades around that were active, there were Honorblades. Honorblades are self-aware, but do not manifest a spren in the Cognitive Realm.
Will you delve more into the Threnody system?
I do intend to do more in the Threnody system. If I can get to it, there is a novel I want to write set on Threnody. I have, I would say, 30% of an outline, right now, for that book. Whether I'll have time for it or not is, like most other side projects, up in the air. But I do think that something will happen there, eventually. Isaac has a book that he's outlined that he would like to set on Threnody, because Isaac's gonna take a stab at writing some Cosmere fiction. If you don't know, Isaac is my art director, and basically my first collaborator in the Cosmere, way back on Mistborn. He was one of my very first beta readers and did all the maps and things, and now works for me full time.
Will the Threnody book take place in the Homeland?
The book is tentatively called The Dusk Brigade. A group wants to free the homeland of the Evil. It doesn't go well for them. Opening scene is all ships sinking and people washing up on shore.
So, the Shades on Threnody, they're enforcing the Three Rules. Would something bad happen if they weren't enforcing those rules?
I'm gonna RAFO that. The book on Threnody will not take place in [the Forests of] Hell, it will take place on the continent where the Evil is, but I hope to get into some of the rules for Hell when we're there.
You've talked about an upcoming book on Threnody called The Dust Brigade. What are we supposed to understand now that we've learned about the Night Brigade?
I've canonized that as the Night Brigade instead. I like the term "the Dusk Brigade" better, but I already have a character named Dusk, and so I decided to go with a name that's just a little more generic but doesn't copy one of the character names. So The Night Brigade will be the title of the Threnody novel. When and if I get around to writing it, you will find out who the Dusk Brigade is!
Is this a homage to the Night Watch?
It is more an homage to the Black Company.
All the physical manifestations--solid physical manifestations we've seen of Investiture has been metallic. It's been atium, lerasium, Shardblades. Is that just a coincidence?
No, it's intentional.
It's intentional so we're not going to see Investiture wood or Investiture plastic?
Right, I mean technically, like, what do you call the aethers? Those are not metal. But I do it as metal intentionally.
They could be a metal with very low boiling point.
*sarcastically* Yes, the vine ones are--
Well we've had liquid, we've had gas, the solids all seem to be metallic, so.
That is intentional, it's just one of those little laws of the cosmere, that's not meant to mean anything
Was Phendorana’s soul obliterated?
He said the soul of Phendorana wasn’t obliterated and it could’ve reached the Beyond he also added that nothing can be obliterated in the cosmere; things can be changed but not destroyed.
Do all Soulcasters risk turning into the element or is it only those using the device?
All Soulcasters have an affinity but the ones using the device are locked down much more than the Soulcasters who are Knights Radiant.
So they are protected from being turned into--
Oh no they-- I wouldn't say protected... *clarification* Protected is the wrong term but that event, the savanthood and how it affects them and things like that is much less pronounced if you are a [Knight].
Or is that counteracted by the healing as well?
Healing doesn't have to do with it because-- in cosmere terms there's nothing wrong with your body, your spirit is actually drifting, and so it's not hurting you physically by what's happening with the magics. So it's not the healing but if you have an active bond with a spren it takes a little different path. Let's just say, in simple terms--
You are not losing body parts to smoke.
Yes, you are not losing body parts to smoke.
What timeframe does it happen for the normal Soulcasters then?
For normal Soulcasters? It takes-- I mean, you've seen it happening in the books. We are talking [about] a process of years even decades, depending on the person. It happens to some--
Depending on how often they Soulcast?
It depends on how often they Soulcast, and it depends on the person.
In the Voidbinding chart, do the vertical lines [between the Windrunner/Edgedancer and Stoneward/Lightweaver-equivalent glyphs] mean anything special?
Hm, I don't know... it's been 15 years since I did that so I'll have to remember... I just see things I'd do differently. Like should there only be nine...?
Brandon had me do a bunch of stuff, so there probably is a reason. But it might be the kind of secret where he doesn't tell anybody and then way later explains it. So there might be a reason but I don't know what it is.
Can all the Shards manifest the same powers, for example could Honor create an Allomancer?
Yes, but there would be more natural ways for Honor to achieve this.
As a follow-up, do you understand what polymorphism is? If so, could all the Shards meet the same contract?
Yes, I do, yes they can. I understand what you are asking and it is a soft yes.
On [the Wax and Wayne deck of cards distributed as con swag], on the Joker, there's a figure that looks like it might be Autonomy, with a symbol in it that's kind of like the harmonium symbol but different. Is that symbol for trellium?
That's just a later version of the symbol for harmonium. Part of how the symbols evolved between eras. There are other differences too, like with the spikes. It's also the symbol for Scadrial.
The figure does look like they might be related to Trell, huh...?
On the broadsheets distributed at the con, there's this glyph in the bottom right corner of the map. But in [The Lost Metal] there's writing instead of the glyph.
Oh yeah, I used to sign my art, but I felt it didn't fit in-universe, so I started using that glyph instead, then eventually I stopped doing that. It doesn't mean anything.
Adolin's birthday is 1150.3.8.3.
Can multiple Fourth Ideal Radiants combine their armor to form a giant Megazord/Volton type thing, maybe to fight a thunderclast?
That is technically possible but it would be difficult to achieve. I have no plan on doing that in the books right now.
Are there any penguins in the Cosmere? If so what worlds would they be on?
There are penguins in the south of Scadrial that were restored by Harmony during the Catacendre.
What about the Horneater Peaks? Would there be shelled or armored penguins there?
*laughs* I don't think so.
In Oathbringer Kaladin travels with a group of freed parshmen. One of them, Sah, dies, but what about his daughter Vai? Is she okay? Is anyone looking after her?
She is okay, well, as okay as she can be considering the circumstances (dead father and living under the oppression of the Fused). She is being looked after.
I asked Brandon if Rock ever built the shrine he promised Syl.
Brandon grinned ear to ear and said "RAFO!"
Is Lirin a worldhopper?
No, I'm going to quash that theory
Do Cytoverse slugs have actual genders?
Not really, since they reproduce asexually, they more go by the genders that people give them.
Is it possible for a full Mistborn to ingest and burn a Shardblade?
It is possible, and it is possible that I might be able to see that in the future if I can fit that in.
The basic form that parshmen awakened to after the Everstorm (which is not workform) doesn't have a canonical name yet, and is referred to in the wiki as the "awakened parshman basic form."
The next Cosmere board game they are working on is not a Stormlight game.
There were four of the miniatures that are candidates to get turned into painted figurines: Shardplate Kaladin, Syl, Navani, and Leshwi. Brotherwise plans to make two of those four into figurines, and they polled the crowd as to which two they wanted the most. The crowd began to chant "All Four!"
In Rhythm of War, parts two and four, the part starts with an image of the symbol of Stonewards. I was wondering if that’s because Adolin is a viewpoint character for those parts?
RAFO.
Dawnshards. More of an Intent, or like a Command?
More of a Command.
And are they tied to the four groupings of sixteen?
That is a RAFO.
The four groupings of the sixteen. Could it also be related to the groupings of metals?
It could be related to that, but I won’t guarantee that it is.
Preservation gave up some of his power to create people. So Ruin had more power.
An edge, you might say.
Sazed took both. And I’m curious if Ruin still has power over Preservation?
It is currently theorized on-planet that Ruin does.
Does anti-Investiture react to a different Shard’s Investiture in any significant way?
The answer is kind of a no, kind of a yes. Mostly a no. Anti-Investiture is going to have an explosive reaction. But the thing is, if it’s anti-Investiture of a specific Shard, that explosion is much grander. But you can make that explosion happen in a just antimatter-and-matter same sort of thing. But you can make the explosion bigger.
Odium has a history of breaking Shards. In order to do that, it feels like he must have something that gives him an edge over the other Shards. I’m curious if Odium (Taravangian) possesses anything further than the Shard of Adonalsium?
He does not have anything more than Odium. But he does have an edge.
Like a Dawnshard?
Not a Dawnshard. No, if he had a Dawnshard, that would be very, very bad.
Does each Unmade on Roshar have a specific attribute that they embody?
Yes, to an extent they do, yes.
For one of the Unmade to be classified as Odium’s Unmade, must it have been made by another Shard or Investiture first before it became Unmade?
Excellent question. RAFO. We’re gonna delve into the Unmade quite a bit in coming books, so I’m RAFOing right now.
If you were transported in the cosmere in any contemporary period of the books (with the exception of Sixth of the Dusk) with the goal of reuniting Adonalsium, how long would it take you? Days? Weeks? Years?
Centuries. If it’s even possible, which I won’t even confirm anyways.
With all of your knowledge?
Yeah, probably. Even if it were possible, if you’re going to go into Stormlight era, there are planets you’re going to have to get to with no perpendicularities. How are you gonna do that? Depends. It’s possible, but…
Are hungerspren highspren?
Hungerspren are not highspren. Good question. Highspren are their own spren; they are the highspren.
You want to know if hungerspren are the armor of the Order that applies to highspren, is that the question? That is a RAFO.
I’m a bit of a music nerd. I would love to know if Alethi music is based on any real-world music theory? And if so, which culture?
Yes, I was going basically into Middle Eastern music, because that’s one of the basic touchpoints, particularly, for their writing system and their language and things like this. But I tried playing around with different music theory and scales (and I never had a music theory class, despite playing trumpet for years), and I talked to my writing group about my ideas, and they’re like, “That doesn’t work, Brandon. Just don’t do that.” So I didn’t end up putting it into the book, I ended up tweaking it quite a bit. But that is where the roots would be.
In Mistborn, there’s kind of a buildup where Vin is going to use the eleventh metal to fight the Lord Ruler. It’s kind of a fizzle-out moment. Was there actually a way that Vin could have used the eleventh metal to defeat…?
No. I devised the eleventh metal as a counterpoint to atium (which shows the future) with the eleventh metal showing the past. I wanted a push and a pull. In my original designing of it, it was always this idea of “you get to see the past and that is the secret.” It was an information-based clue, not a power-based clue, if that makes sense. You weren't gonna get strong enough to beat the Lord Ruler; you will get smart enough to beat the Lord Ruler.
In The Way of Kings, in Kaladin’s post-Shardbearer-kill scene, he’s in Amaram’s tent. And he muses on the fact that he had killed a Shardbearer. He says, “I joined the likes of Evod Markmaker and Lanacin the Surefooted.” I imagine, like, a Zombieland style Shardbearer-killed weak [kill of the week] thing where they’re dropping pianos on him, and stuff. Would you happen to know how either of them killed their Shardbearers?
Both of those are held up as examples because they happened on the battlefield.
Now, at least one of those didn’t happen the way it’s actually recorded to have happened. They are held up kind of more in mythology because it’s very useful for the Shardbearers for non-Shardbearers to imagine the best way to kill a Shardbearer and get their Shards is to attack them on the battlefield. At least one of those was a poisoning. But that’s not how it’s mythologized.
Could you show me the equator line on the Scadrial map?
It runs very close to Elendel. *Points to it on the map*
And the Prime Meridian runs through Elendel.
If Hoid were to leave the Rosharan system, would that kill his spren? And would he still be able to use his Radiant powers?
As currently understood by the mechanics of the cosmere, he would just not be able to leave without breaking the bond to that spren. Breaking that bond wouldn’t necessarily kill the spren, but he would not be able to leave with the spren. You have seen him off-world post-Stormlight Five. So I’ll leave that to you. But he is trying to figure out how that would not necessarily have to be that way.
You said that there’s gonna be a time jump between [Stormlight] Book Five and Book Six, the two arcs. And also going into Era Three of Mistborn. Era Three and Era Four, are they gonna go way past what’s going on in the second arc?
So, Era One of Stormlight. Break for ten years-ish in-world. (I have to write Book Six to know exactly how long it’s going to be, but somewhere around that.) Wax and Wayne happens during that break, chronologically. And Era Three of Mistborn; I would say seventy years, might be closer to fifty. But either way, it’s going to be post-Stormlight [Ten]. We’re getting a little disjointed in our timelines, just as the writing balances out, but I think it’s gonna work out. I don’t think they should be giving too many spoilers to each other. I do have to kind of talk around things now and then.
A couple years ago, someone asked the question of the creature that was pulling on Shallan as she first entered Shadesmar. Is that Ba-Ado-Mishram? Is she trapped in Shadesmar under the beads?
Ooh, RAFO. Good question.
Are all of the Unmade native to Roshar?
Yes, they are. Eh… yes, I’m gonna say the Unmade all count as being native to Roshar, yeah.
If someone was to burn atium while playing a video game, how much would they be able to see?
I’m gonna say that it’s gonna be somewhat confusing to them, but atium enhances your ability to react to what is being inputted, as well. Like, you see all these things, but you also gain supernatural ability to react. So they would see kind of a big blur on the screen, but they would be able to interpret that, and they would be fine.
You would be the ultimate Smash player.
Would they be able to see their own character’s movements?
What their own character would be doing in the future? So, usually, when I’m doing the atium shadows, it doesn’t include you. So it’s not going to include your own character’s movements.
If it were a game where the entire screen moves with you as you move around? Or would that also not show up?
No, you’d get a big blur. You’d get a huge blur of stuff on the screen, but your brain would be able to interpret it, and you’d be, like, 360 no scoping right and left.
The Sleepless. They’re not from Roshar. Do they have a single origin point in the cosmere? And if so, have we seen it?
They do have a single origin point in the cosmere. You have not seen it.
Will Wax ever meet a full Mistborn that we don’t already know about?
RAFO.
Hoid is collecting Investiture abilities like Pokemon cards. I was wonder if he could… and maybe not necessarily him, but if somebody could collect all forms of Investiture and be able to use all of them.
He certainly would like to try. What will happen? He’s not even sure. But he would like to try. Is it possible? It is theoretically possible. We’ll see if he is able to accomplish it.
Will we ever see the Origin of Storms be explored?
RAFO. It’s a RAFO with an “I intend to.” But whether I get to it or not is a question.
I do intend to. We will see. Ask me this question again in a couple years.
Would it be possible for the Fourth Bridge to do the exploring if Windrunners and maybe Dalinar used Adhesion and Dalinar’s Bondsmith powers to hold the ship together to brave the highstorms?
That’s real dangerous. Way smarter to just use Windrunner pressure manipulation to go up over the highstorms. But yes, that would be a better way to use the Fourth Bridge to accomplish that.
It’s really heavily implied in the first Oathbringer letter that the Shards made a pact not to settle near each other. Given that a full half of the Shards ended up doing that, what is the cost for them breaking that oath? You implied earlier that there’s always a cost for Hoid, for taking his protections.
The wording of those things allows them to agree together, but it also gives them a little bit of power over one another, and you’ve seen the side effects of that on the planets where it’s happened. It has not gone well for any of them, if you kind of run the numbers on that. But the wording of it allows two, later on, to say, "Okay, we both agree." (If one said no and one said yes, then they were in trouble.) This should imply to you that Odium did get permission, as well.
How do Ferrings know how much of an attribute is in their metalminds?
They have a natural sense for it when they’re touching it. It’s not like they have a number pop into their head, but it is a similar feeling to you knowing how much energy you have left, how tired you are. They can feel in their metalmind.
Having read Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, that world has got a lot of problems, and I have to ask. When you get to the end of it, what hope is there for those poor people?
You know, despite everything that’s going on, they still manage to survive. That’s pretty impressive. I would say that there is a way out for them, a way toward more stability. Because the danger is a spiral of lowering population numbers because of things that are happening. When you’re dying and becoming undead, there’s certain curves, a multiplicative curve that is very dangerous to population numbers that happens whenever you are dealing with some sort of undead thing like that. But there are ways out.
They depend on silver, which is a limited resource.
It is. But do know that, in the cosmere (it’s like when you’re burning metals), there are injection points of new metals into things that are possible to figure out.
But yes, they’re in danger. They’re definitely the Simpsons meme. That is Threnody as a whole. And maybe someday, I’ll be able to write a book there, and we’ll dig into some of these issues.
We’ve seen several groups throughout the cosmere that have the express purpose of collecting Investiture from the various systems. I have a fear that there is a group that is going to (either now or sometime in the future) go around collecting Investiture specifically through Hemalurgy.
Which is theoretically possible and horrifying to consider.
So my question along those lines was: what happens when you use a Hemalurgic spike on an Aviar?
You are a very mean person. Basically, an Aviar’s got a mini-bond, so it’s gonna work in a similar way to what would happen if you were trying to do it to a Knight Radiant, which I’ve talked about in the past. Which means it is a less effective way to try to steal something with Hemalurgy, because once you’ve got two individuals involved in it… The Aviar, obviously, isn’t exactly the same. But it’s going to work, but it may not last, I guess is the answer I would give you on that.
If that Aviar is already bonded to a person, how does that spiking affect the person they are bonded to?
That bond will last, but how long? Who knows. Basically, you’re gonna fool the system into thinking you’re the Aviar if you have done that. So the system is going to assume that’s what you are. They’re gonna see you as the bird if you put the spike into yourself. But, because there are multiple individuals, things like this, and you’ve got the whole thing with the Aviar and their symbiosis, and things like that. It is not gonna work nearly as well as stealing something from, say, a Feruchemist or an Allomancer.
Other than the Lord Ruler and people that are using the Bands of Mourning, will we ever see a Full Twinborn again?
Yeah, I think that you will.
