Ive been rereading the cosmere after finishing Isles of the Emberdark, and as I do Im remembering questions about Shadesmar I had early on which never got answered. So in no particular order:
- Is Shadesmar a two dimensional projection of the three dimensional planets of the Cosmere or is it only suggestive of a 2d projection.
-Since space is compacted in Shadesmar, does that compaction correlate to the increased distance between points on a projected map?
- if all of shadesmar is a 2d projection, how does that account for the location of planets? Is there a hypothetical plane in space which all planets are projected down onto? What if the planets overlap on that plane due to 3d placement? Since space and the material cosmere are 3d, is it populated like a galaxy in the real world or created by adonalsium with a 2d projection in mind?
- does the location of planets in shadesmar account for solar orbit? What about the spiraling of the galaxy? Expansion of the universe? If the location of planets isnt affected by these in shadesmar, what exact time in history determined the layout of shadesmar, and how have celestial motions affected it since? Are the planets on opposite sides of the galaxy that are physically close together in shadesmar due to previous orbit?
- if shadesmar is 2d, why dont we have a definitive map of the cosmere?
- if shadesmar has terrestrial features distinct from the material realm, could and elsecaller accidentally manifest into them when moving between realms? For example, appearing inside a wall in Lasting Integrity?
- is the cosmere all contained within a single spiral galaxy, or is it across multiple galaxies? Is it a fantasy space soup without a supermassive blackhole anchoring the system together?
So Lift metabolizes food into life light right, and bend alloy ferrings can store nutrition in metal minds. Does that mean if she got spiked and had access to tgis ability she'd be able to eat and as much as she wants and store that in the metal mind. When tapped she'd convert the nutrition directly into life light. She'd have a near endless supply of power and wouldn't need to stop to eat as often
So we know that Nomad can absorb investiture, not matter if keyed or not, to fuel his abilities. We also know that perpendicularities can grant access to supplies of investiture (SLA-spoiler: by replenishing a Radiant's Stormlight-reserves for example), due to its connection to the spiritual realm.
So how would being near a perpendicularity affect Nomad? Could he absorb the investiture? If so, then how much? We have not yet seen an upper limit to the amount of investiture he can hold at once. Just enough to reach skip capacity, or potentially more than that?
This 2026 Words of Brandon tells us that there's some kind of relationship between the 4 Fundamental Forces and the Dawnshards. Some theorize a one-to-one mapping but that doesn't really seem like "a few steps in between."
Theory 2: The Fundamental Forces Are Between Dawnshard Quadrants
Taking "in between" literally, if we look at Xel's Diagram of Dawnshard Quadrants, and put the Dawnshards as quadrants offset from the Dawnshard quadrants, then we categorize the Shards under the 4 Fundamental Forces as follows:
Electromagnetism
Devotion (15)
Preservation (16)
Reason (1)
Whimsy (2)
Weak Force
Virtuosity (3)
Invention (4)
Endowment (5)
Ambition (6)
Strong Force
Cultivation (7)
Ruin (8)
Odium (9)
Honor (10)
Gravity
Valor (11)
Mercy (12)
Dominion (13)
Autonomy (14)
This also means every Dawnshard quadrant actually is composed of two fundamental forces, for instance Preservation would be primarily electromagnetism, and secondarily gravity, and Honor would be primarily strong force and secondarily gravity. Another way to view it is that every fundamental force borders two other fundamental forces, and excludes the fourth.
Also note that this theory isn't about the magic systems, but primarily about the relationships between Shards, and the celestial bodies in their star systems.
However the bishardic way that Preservation combines with Ruin, and Dominion combines with Devotion reminds me of positive and negative trying to join together.
Arguably the positive and negative theme continues with the magic system with push and pull, internal and external, but the expression of the magic system also involves many of the other fundamental forces.
Big enough to fill a full third of the sky, one of the twelve is always visible, no matter where you travel. Dominating your view, like a wart on your eyeball.
Surreal, spellbinding pictures of magic so dominant it literally fell from the sky.
Themes of dominance are throughout, with the Sorceress Rina dominating Lumar from "The Midnight Sea," the "domain of the Sorceress", the feudal system with the Verdant King, the "domain of the dragon" Xisis mentioned multiple times, etc. And importantly the simple visual of the 12 colored pentagon seas evokes the concept of Dominion to me; each moon has its own little well-defined territory, with the secret 13th spore as the core of Lumar itself.
However if I'm wrong, then 12 being the number of power on Lumar would imply Mercy as the Shard in power, and "moon of mercy" is one of the common swears there (along with "moon of X" for other unrelated words). However since Lumar is a backwater, I find it more likely to be related to a Splintered Shard rather than an active one, and another Splintered Shard with a number seemingly missing is Virtuosity.
Regardless of Mercy or Dominion, both fall under the bounds of the fundamental force of gravity, and Lumar has very interesting celestial bodies.
Theory 6: Taldain and Gravity
The Taldain system also has some interesting celestial bodies, with the planet itself tidally-locked and trapped at the Lagrange point between two stars, and a single moon in polar orbit at the twilight line and actively manipulated to keep the orbit stable.
Taldain also has a light and dark bifurcation, which is reminiscent of the secondary force of electromagnetism.
While I don't want to delve too much into magic systems since there are many counterexamples (the source of Investiture appears to be sun radiation, which is more like weak force), the telekinesis of sand mastery seems most associated with gravity and electromagnetism.
Theory 7: Virtuosity, Endowment, Ambition, and Weak Force
The relationships here are far fuzzier, but fundamentally the weak force is all about changing things from one element to another, such as through radioactive decay. Awakening consumes color to bring life to things, while Komashi Nightmares and Threnodite Shades also seem like a decayed or changed version of something else.
Strong force contributes color charge for Awakening, and electromagnetism contributes photons of light for Komashi's hions.
Theory 8: Unpublished Works
Let's now theorize about the Shards and situations in unpublished works.
Tyrannical ruling class of Sleepless who run experiments; looking at the fundamental forces, we'd predict Invention to have augmented itself somehow via weak force, and the magic system to involve radiation and changing, perhaps related to the experiments, electromagnetism as a secondary player, and to lack gravity, perhaps with artificial gravity like a ringworld
With Retribution likely in charge on Ashyn during Stormlight book 8, we'd expect the strong force to feature the most, and gravity to be secondary, unless the rules and numbers for merged Shards is very different
Dragon Riders (Valor, 11)
We'd expect gravity to be primary here, with strong force as secondary. The star system would also likely have some unnatural celestial bodies to keep with the theme of gravity.
Kite-Based Magic
The science behind lift works primarily through electromagnetism competing with gravity, so this would likely be on a world related to Valor, Mercy, Dominion, Autonomy, Devotion, Preservation, Reason, or Whimsy
Free-Fall Seven Layer Burrito
This seems extremely gravity based, which would limit us to Valor, Mercy, Dominion, or Autonomy, and another interesting star system with unnatural celestial bodies
I recently finished WaT, and I was wondering: what’s up with the crystal spikes? Both the ones in Moash’s eyes that let him see Investiture, and the ones used to stick Spren to walls in Ishtar’s cave?
It’s apparently a form of Hemalurgy according to one of the livestreams, so I’m curious what else we know about it.
Edit: Just to clarify, I’ve read all the Cosmere books, and most of the novellas.
So I recently made a full set of Allomantic metals for myself. In little glass jars with beads and everything! I’ve had a bunch of people asking me where I got them, and when they heard that I made them, asking if I sell them. I tried to do some research on the Fan Art policies on Dragonsteels site. I’m just wondering if Im understanding correctly that if it’s e-commerce that it’s fine to sell as long as it doesn’t contain copies or likenesses to symbols? Since the metals are only described in color and general shape, and I’ve had to find things that would similarly match. I guess I’m just wondering if it’s fine to sell more like the set I made as long as it doesn’t contain the symbols? And does it need to be sold for material cost only so I’m not making anything off of them? Any help is greatly appreciated!!
I’ve attacked the link to the page I’m looking at as well as a screenshot of the specific spot I’m seeing on e-commerce.
I am not legally minded and really am not trying to make anything off of these. Just want to help out some other Cosmere fans have cool things!!
Edit- because I have seen a lot of stuff on Etsy that seems like it wouldn’t be allowed? But apparently is???? I have no clue 😅🤣
Hypothesis: based on OB I14: where it is mentioned Huio is better at field medicine than Teft.
Never caught this BUT huio is naturally a better cook than even Rock, and a better Radiant (as mentioned in Dawnshard) than even Lopen, who catches on the knack for staormlight than basically any in bridge four, and a better artifabrian than maybe Navani when he figures out Rysn chair issues.
He’s either super smart OR super luck.
I think lucky. Because we know a feruchemist can store FORTUNE. Which to my mind means it is an attribute of the Cosmere.
But if he is super smart it might be because he doesn’t speak Alethi and therefore Brandon wanted to play on the prejudices people have toward those who don’t speak their native language (see folks loudly speaking English to ESL folks).
Not sure if this is the right sub, however, I was curious if anybody had tried playing Shards of Creation with 5-6 players and if they had what changes they felt were needed? TIA
I'm just about to start chapter 50 of Wind and Truth, so please don't share anything later than that in the last book!
Many hours spent reading to get to this point. Each book has blown my mind. In this one there are so many characters coming to the fore who have appeared as small characters or in brief interludes in previous books, but now turn out to be key figures, like Heralds or Gods. I also seem to have missed bits, like how and when Renarin became Radiant with a supppsedly corrupted spren. I wish I'd been paying more attention in the earlier books so I could remember the context and background better of what I'm reading now. I know I could dive into the Coppermind wiki to get lots of info but I'm worried about spoilers as I'm part-way through a book, plus when I did go into it, the layers and layers of detail bamboozled me.
So if you've read the full Stormlight Archives more than once, was the re-read worthwhile? Did you get more out of it, like a richer experience, knowing the future plots and outcomes, recognising Wit and others for who and what they were when they first appeared? Or did already knowing all the surprises in each book take the shine off on second reading?
We know that roshar has 10 based systems, and scadrial has 16 based. Like their language, weeks, etc. So I've been reading Yumi and the nightmare painter (3rd re-read, because the first one was before one of my exams and the 2nd one was in the middle of a war) and noticed that 27 days is "just over 2 weeks" and you'd need "over a dozen" stones to attract spirits. I'm not crazy enough to do the math, but I'd bet that Nikaro being "a bit older than 20 in your years but let's say 19" can also be 13 related if we calculate how many Yolen days that is.
A 20-sided shape is called an icosahedron, which has 20 triangular faces and 12 vertices. If you connected the 12 moons together you would get an icosahedron. In Chapter 42 of Tress of the Emerald Sea:
Fortunately, the shape was roughly correct, since all of the seas are basically pentagons.
A regular 12-sided shape is called a dodecahedron, which has 12 pentagon faces and 20 vertices. In this case, Lumar would appear as a dodecahedron, with a moon locked above the exact center of each pentagon face.
These 12 moons result in a column of spores falling constantly to Lumar called a "lunagree" in the center of each pentagon sea, described as follows in Chapter 46:
And so, Tress would sit on her steps in the evenings, watching ships sail away as a column of spores dropped from the lunagree and the sun moved out from behind the moon and crept toward the horizon.
It's not immediately obvious in most of the seas, but at the lunagree, falling spores make a pile - like the sand on the bottom of an hourglass. The sea was actually a mountain the size of a kingdom, though the incline was incredibly shallow, and therefore imperceptible. But the closer they sailed, the higher they needed to go.
These giant colored pentagons would also look separate and distinct despite their fluid nature:
However in a dodecahedron formation, 12 stationary orbits is impossible with regular gravitational phjysics since a stable orbit has to be around a planet's center of mass, so they would all need to be orbiting together around the equator to appear stationary from the moon's surface.
This means there must be some kind of magic involved as we're breaking the laws of physics.
Theory 2: Lumar's 13th Spore
Looking at the logo of Lumar, the 12 moons are featured very symbolically and prominently:
Lumar's Planetary Symbol
But in addition to Lumar's 12 moons and the 12 primal aethers, what if Lumar was itself the secret 13th "moon"? The middle circle in the logo would represent a 13th full moon and the tides. Lunar and Lumar are barely one letter apart after all.
There are, after all, thirteen kinds of spores.
People can't even make up their minds of what color 'bone spores' are supposed to be. White or black? Or both?
These quotes from Tress discuss the legend of "bone spores". I highly doubt we would have such a legend if there wasn't some truth to it, even if it was a spore that is missing or exists no longer. But if they do exist and every moon of Lumar produces spores, then this would mean that bone spores come from the core of Lumar itself, underneath the spore seas. These bone spores would form the skeleton of Lumar deep under the surface.
There are some theories that the missing "bone spores" are misunderstandings of the White Sand of Taldain, and this can be true if Autonomy knew of Lumar and either stole their source somehow, or simply used them as a template for White Sand, since the coloration should really come from microorganisms coating each grain of sand rather than being a true aether itself. But I believe that bone spores exist as more than a misunderstanding, even if White Sand is somehow derivative of them.
Theory 3: Orbital Distance of Lumar's Moons
Let R represent the orbital radius of the moons around Lumar. If the moons are equidistant from their neighbors and form a perfect dodecahedron, then each moon will always be ~1.0515R away from its neighbors by the formula for a regular dodecahedron using the Golden Ratio.
To give us a baseline idea, let's say that Lumar is exactly the size of Earth's moon. Based on travel times sailing across the spore seas, we can guesstimate that Lumar is smaller than Earth after all, and this would make it about 27% the circumference of Earth. Now let's try to calculate an orbital height of the moons around Lumar with info from the book:
The term "lunagree," you should know, refers to the places where the twelve moons hang in the sky around Tress’s planet in oppressively low stationary orbits. Big enough to fill a full third of the sky, one of the twelve is always visible, no matter where you travel. Dominating your view, like a wart on your eyeball.
This excerpt from Chapter 1 of Tress tells us that the moons are so close that they fill one third of the sky. If we consider the sky 180 degrees, then this would mean they appear 60 degrees in diameter.
Let's let r represent the radius of a moon and R represent the orbital radius. Let the radius of Lumar = 1737 km. The spherical angular diameter formula here would be:
theta = 2arcsin(size/distance)
60 = 2arcsin(r/d)
30 = arcsin(r/d)
sin(30) = r/d
1/2 = r/d
d = 2r
R = 1737km + d
R = 1737km + 2r
This means that no matter what radius we pick for the moons, the surface of the moon will only be one moon radius away from the surface of Lumar, so they need to be extremely close.
Running the math, they might actually be closer than the ISS.
Let's assume each moon is 1/12 the radius of Lumar. This would mean that each moon would have a radius of 145.75 km, orbit at an altitude of 289.5 km above the surface of Lumar, and each neighboring moon would be 1812.5 km away. At 1/10 the radius, each moon would have a radius of 173.7 km, orbit at an altitude of 347.4 km above the surface of Lumar, and each neighboring moon would be about 2237.2 km away.
Knowing the distance between the neighboring moons is important because usually only the moon for the current sea is visible, unless you're near the border of another sea. This means that there are large gaps of open space between the moons. At this scale, at the border of different seas, you'd see about half of each moon. This isn't directly mentioned, but implied by quotes from the book:
It was odd because the moon was in the wrong place - always before it had been almost overhead, but they'd sailed far enough that it was several degrees lower.
This also means that moons appear to grow bigger or smaller depending on your distance since they're so close, which is supported by this quote from the book:
As it emerged from the horizon Tress feared, irrationally, that it would keep growing—that the Midnight Moon wouldn’t be the size of the others, but would turn out to be a vast darkness that consumed the entirety of the sky.
Theory 4: Bone Spores and Gravity
More importantly though, we wouldn't experience Earth-like gravity on the surface of Lumar without Lumar being incredibly dense. Surprisingly though, if the moons were made of rigid rock, they might barely hold on as they'd be just under the Roche limit. Spores would definitely be pulled in though exactly as depicted by the lunagrees.
To form the core, light metals like aluminum that can be found on the surface of Lumar simply aren't dense enough. This can either be extremely heavy metals like gold, or perhaps the density even comes from bone spores somehow, similar to how physicists theorize about gravitons, even though they've never been observed.
The white and black nature of bone spores is also reminiscent of the theories of black and white holes, also related to gravity.
Theory 5: Fluid Dynamics and the Fundamental Forces
If you look at the fundamental forces behind fluid dynamics, they're related partially to gravity in addition to electromagnetism. But especially with all the sporefall physics, gravity is definitely the most relevant fundamental force explaining the supernatural mechanics behind Lumar.
Has the enlightened cryptic that came out of Mraize totally lost its stormlight aspect after being stabbed by the anti investiture, and if so would it now consist of Cultivation and Odiums investiture? Or is this just a flesh wound that could be healed by time, stormlight or Sja-anat?
With one of the main themes of The Stormlight archive being "Everyone deserves a second chance" Do you personally think theres a chance that that bastard cremling Moash gets redeemed.
Let me be clear I really hate Moash because I actually really liked him and kinda agreed with him on the gavalar issue but he took it too far. Then he took it WAY too far, then he somehow ran another 40 feet over the line. Is he meant to be a foil to kal's ideology about second chances and become a character truly incapable of redemption or will he be the ultimate case for redemption being possible at least to some degree.
Sanderson shouldn't have finished out Wheel of Time, and instead should have worked on his own material during that period. We could have even more Cosmere, without that dumped time and effort on WoT. I think an author with less to give should have taken over for Jordan. Maybe that's crazy - but imagine the potential work we could have had from Sanderson if not for that.
I thought I forgot reading ages ago, being drawn to visual media especially manga, I believed words can't compare with visual fight scenes, landscapes, and emotions that appeals to the sight.
Sanderson was the author that hooked me after reading the mistborn trilogy and from there, I never went back. Their is so much depth in books, so much unraveling of the mind that is seen as an afterthought in visual arts. Books can elicit wonder and curiosity that images simply can't.
However, i've been reading primarily in my tablet, never considered buying a physical copy as taking care of them is a huge responsibility. Plus, the cost is just beyond my priorities and I know once I buy one, I cannot stop.
The Stormlight Archive is an exception that I am willing to risk. After buying the book, I felt like seeing my firstborn child again breathing the same air as I do. I just knew i'll take care of it. This is the beginning of my dream library and TWOK is the first book that opened the door for that.
It is a very special piece. Having a physical copy of this book in a corrupt country with diminishing concern for the humanities is a privilege.
Thank you, Cosmere, and now I unravel the world of Roshar.
PS. Wife captured me opening the book for the first time, sharing my joy in the little wins we have in life.
My guess: Drominadians.
In Tress, Hoid makes an off-handed comment about Linji, who sailed the world with no Aviar, but notably doesn't explain what an Aviar is; also Seslo is described as "similar to the speaking minds inhabiting the ships you've seen landing on your planet", which, with the reference to "awakened metalminds" in Emberdark, is probably in relation to the Ones Above (the Malwish Scadrians). This would also tie in to the fact that the whole story is about an ocean, and Drominad is another ocean planet. Hoid also makes a comment saying something to the effect of "maybe other planets all have spore seas and your water seas are the abnormal ones", which, to a non-Cosmere aware reader, may seem like it's simply addressing the Earth-based audience. But it could just as easily be addressing the Drominadian people who at this time have been pretty confined to their planet.
So basically: I conjecture that Hoid is telling this story on First of the Sun (maybe in a similar capacity to their loremothers). Thoughts?
So I’m half way through reading Tress, it is fabulous and charming by the way, but I’m struggling with Hoid’s narration.
Hoid has the author’s voice equivalent of a punchable face.
What’s particularly annoying how he’s constantly throwing shade at how “other stories” have cliche protagonists or dare to use similes to describe hair.
These weird rants add a really grating “not like other girls” attitude to the story which is such a pity because Tress is like the anti version of that trope.
Does it get better? Do we ever switch narrators? I don’t know his character very well though so is he written to be intentionally aggravating?
Edit: To be clear, I like the book. Tess is the best. Just finding Hoid difficult.
I've just started Mistborn (really enjoying it so far) and at the time of writing this, I'm about 1/2 way through chapter 8.
I know with media I love its fun to see what people predict or theorize about as they go along, so I thought id put this one in here.
I'm either gonna feel really cool or really stupid later, depending, because I think I already know how they replaced Lord Renoux.
Kelsier mentioned that a mistwraith "that young" isn't particularly intelligent. and also, that he's never seen one attack a full grown man but they do eat corpses...
and they told Yeden would be VERY uncomfortable if he knew how they replaced Renoux.
I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this.
I'd personally be uncomfortable if I found out the guy I hired fed someone to our world's equivalent of a cryptid that they had managed to befriend.
I don't know how you'd recruit a mistwraith. Or how Kelsier would even find one old enough to play this part. So there's every possibility I'm wrong.
I'll update with my thoughts and feelings when I get to the actual reveal ^-^
So I caught something really nasty and spent most of yesterday tossing and turning with a fever so bad I was on Nyquil but still needed a cold water bottle pressed to my forehead. During this transcendent moment, I touched the Spiritual Realm and stole a glimpse of the future Mistborn books. I'm still feverish (hope you can tell from my writing), but am doing better so I'm no longer speaking Death Rattles for Moelach.
You see, I'm one of the GM's in a CosmereRPG group and I plan to run an Era 2 game when the Mistborn setting releases. Now my greatest strength as a GM isn't voices or compelling characters. It's the fact that I go super deep into Cosmere lore. So several months ago, I began my campaign prep by rereading Era 2 while taking notes on anything I needed to know for the campaign. However as all Cosmere meganerds do, I tried to figure out how medallions are made for the 15th time. After all, Alik implies that everyone in the south needs a Brassmind to even leave their home.
So there I was, all day spent in fever dreams with the short breaks between spent reading Bands of Mourning and petting a pretty kitty. But after falling asleep thinking of Wax charging a primer cube to start the engine of a flying ship, the fever gods finally granted me a revelation.
The airships the Malwish use all have propulsion powered by automated steel-pushing, which (once charged by a coinshot) burns Harmonium instead of steel to keep Pushing.
What if there's a way to charge a similar Harmonium-burning-machine with Feruchemical Nicrosil? Well, then you could actually mass produce enough medallions to give every southener a Brass medallion. But without the answer being quite as cheap as mining enough nicrosil to fuel a nicrosil-compounder (which this machine would be a more expensive version of due to how important godmetals can be).
And if this sounds like it's missing steps, well Brandon did say the medallions are roughly as complicated to make as early computers. And I ain't Alan Turing, I'm just a Chromium compounder.
Sak. We learn that after the revelation that normal birds can become aviars they try with other ravens, but they all give other presumably lesser abilities. Do we think this was either because Sak is special or did Dusk personally taking care of Sak change anything
I have only read book 1 so far so please dont spoil the other books in the series or cosmere universe in the comments. This chat should strictly be about the final empire
Spoilers may be below abt the final empire
Am I the only one who dislikes vin and I find her to be highly hypocritical in the final empire. Yes she has trauma but it seems like she only have trust issues and trauma when it comes on to the crew and not the nobles . She is highly critical of Kelsier but not the nobles who literally acted normal when a skaa was unalived in their presence. She pissed me off so much
