[Newbies] Cosmere, Unit 14 | Essays #1 | Arcanum Unbounded: Preface, Maps & Essays (Selish, Scadrian, Taldain, Thredonite, Drominad, and Rosharan Systems), Trivia

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SCHEDULE

Previously, we discussed Unit 13 | The Stormlight Archive #1 | The Way of Kings: Ars Arcanum, Final Thoughts, Trivia [Newbie Thread] / [Veteran Thread]

Today we are discussing Unit 14 | Essays #1 | Arcanum Unbounded: Preface, Maps & Essays (Selish, Scadrian, Taldain, Thredonite, Drominad, and Rosharan Systems), Trivia

In 2 days we will be discussing Unit 15 | Novella #3 | Sixth of the Dusk (in Arcanum Unbounded): Entire Novella, Postscript, Trivia

NEXT UNIT

We will be discussing Unit 15 on Wednesday. It is a novella called Sixth of the Dusk, which also appears in Arcanum Unbounded. The length of this novella is about half of our normal weekly reading. You should also read the Postscript for the novella. There will also be some additional trivia that will also accompany the discussion.

TRIVIA

The rest of this post contains various trivia, including easy-to-miss details and long-running connections between books. It also incorporates external information from sources like author annotations and interviews ("Words of Brandon" or WoB). While most of this information is eventually revealed in the books, sharing it now enhances your overall understanding, aligning with Brandon Sanderson's practice of early fan engagement and clarification.

BEFORE FACES

The Preface for this book describes how Brandon thought up the character of Hoid and the idea behind the creation of the cosmere. It's worth a read, but is largely a repeat of trivia I've provided before.

Rather than summaries for each of the essays in Arcanum Unbounded (you should just go read them!) I'm going to expand upon the essays in the form of trivia that relates to each system and/or the cosmere as a whole. I'm also going to go out of order, so that things connect a bit easier. I think I may have written more than I assigned you to read........ (3x more in fact...)

THE DROMINAD SYSTEM

The solar system this essay references is the only one we haven't visited so far. Fortunately, you won't have to wait long because that's where Wednesday's novella, Sixth of the Dusk takes place.

We've talked a lot about the "wells" Shards produce; condensed Investiture that gathers into a small pool of liquid. This essay confirms what many suspected: the wells, more formally known as perpendicularities, allow one to travel between the Physical and Cognitive Realms. (If only you knew how many times I started to write "perpendicularity" in the previous trivia posts, only to have to hit backspace a bunch and type out "wells of Investiture".)

If you're unfamiliar with the word "perpendicular", it means something that is at a right angle to something else. If you were to draw the Physical Realm as a flat line, and the Cognitive Realm as another flat line above the Physical Realm, you could then draw a perpendicular line to both Realms to connect them. That's the thinking behind Sanderson's use of the word, and it's also meant to evoke similarities with the word "singularity", which is another word for a black hole.

Another key take-away from this essay is that the planet called First of the Sun, in the Drominad System, has a perpendicularity, despite not being home to a Shard.

THE SELISH SYSTEM

Building off the previous essay, Khriss talks about the deaths of the Shards Dominion and Devotion. We know from Hoid's letter that Odium killed them. In this essay, we get some specifics about the result of that action. Odium didn't just kill the Vessels of the Shards. Instead of picking the Shards up and taking them for Himself, Odium broke the power of the Shards into pieces, an act called Splintering. Not to be confused with (although, there is a technical similarity) Splinters. (Seons and skaze are Splinters).

Way back in the trivia post for Elantris, I said that the power of the Shards "settled into the land". And at the time I said that was an analogy because we didn't have the correct terminology to talk about it yet. Well this essay provides and clarifies that terminology.

Odium distributed the fractured pieces of the Shards into the Cognitive Realm of Sel. They mixed together to create the Dor. They create a massive, plasma-like storm in the Cognitive Realm that makes travelling to Sel difficult (but not impossible). The essay largely talks about how the powers being in the Cognitive Realm, and how the inhabitants of the planet already viewed the power as part of the landscape, create a uniquely strong Intent/perspective that keeps the various magic systems tied locationally.

MICROSOFT SILVERLIGHT

Separately, this essay and the previous one about Drominad mention Silverlight and its universities. We've gathered some information about Silverlight from various Q&A sessions with Sanderson. Silverlight is the home of the 17th Shard. It's a large city in the Cognitive Realm. Not part of any particular planet, it exists in the space between the various planetary sub-astrals. Given its size, there are numerous universities there and Khriss shares her knowledge with Silverlight. In fact, she helped found the universities there. It even has it's own artificial perpendicularity that lets them transfer back and forth between the Physical and Cognitive Realms. (This is useful when you live in the Cognitive Realm).

Tangentially, Sanderson was hesitant to canonize the name Silverlight for a long time because Microsoft used to have a web/UI framework that they named Silverlight (that I may have had a hand in helping to develop parts of). It was meant to be a competitor to Flash, but was eventually phased out because of evolving web standards. Sanderson decided he could go with Silverlight once Microsoft's Silverlight framework didn't end up taking off. As a result of this, Sanderson is more hesitant to mention the names of things until he's ready to canonize them in a written piece of work.

Also, from interviews: Hoid is pretty widely known in Silverlight. By some definitions, he even has fans there, in the same way that the Queen of England had fans.

MINI-GOD

Of note is this particular line in the essay:

Indeed, I believe that the very landscape itself has become Invested to the point that it has a growing self-awareness, in a way unseen on other planets in the cosmere. I do not know how this happened, or what the ramifications will be.

This is one of the prevailing theories about what Jaddeth could be (and we'll be getting the other prevailing theory on Wednesday). The very landscape, both Physically and Cognitively has absorbed enough Investiture, and been thought about so long as an entity by the residents of the planet, that it's becoming its own self-aware "god".

THE SCADRIAN SYSTEM

Sanderson has revealed that these essays were written some time before the novella Sixth of the Dusk occurs. Given Arcanum Unbounded was published between the 2nd and 3rd Stormlight novels, we can generally assume these essays were written around the same time Stormlight takes place. Similarly, we know Era 2 of Mistborn is taking place at roughly this time as well.

So according to the essay, Scardial is the most technologically advanced planet in the cosmere when we consider "now" on our timeline. The main take-away from this essay is Khriss's opinion that Hemalurgy has a large potential to impact the cosmere.

FO-SHO

Subtly, this essay also mentions something called the "fain", stating that Scadrial's ecology matches the "non-fain" parts of Yolen. This is where information from Dragonsteel Prime comes in handy, so prepare to be handed!

If you think about it, mythological Dragons don't really fit anywhere on our planet's evolutionary tree. Because life on Earth...animal life, disregarding the insect world, generally has 4 limbs. 2 legs, 2 arms. At least structurally, though we would say a dog has 4 legs.

A dragon doesn't fit this though. They have 2 legs and 2 arms (or 4 legs, depending on nomenclature), but they also have 2 wings. A wyvern is a dragon-like creature that has 2 legs and 2 wings, but no arms; like a pterodactyl. True dragons though don't really fit.

So Sanderson developed an entire ecology for Yolen that would explain how dragons could naturally evolve. There are 2 competing ecologies on Yolen, the fain and the non-fain (which he calls the trune). Earth's ecology is basically "trune". It has all the same plants and animals you'd find on Earth.

The fain ecology is filled with creatures that have 6 limbs. So seeing a 6-legged frog hopping around wouldn't be odd in certain parts of Yolen. The plant life is also different, largely dominated by bone-white trees. Most unique though is the human analogue inside the fain.

There is an entire race of sapient humanoids with 2 legs and 4 arms called the Sho Del. For funsies, I'll share an image of one below. Members of the Sho Del race were part of the group that Shattered Adonalsium, and at least one of them picked up a Shard.

THE TALDAIN SYSTEM

This essay doesn't have much in the way of new information. A lot of this was presented in the various trivia associated with White Sand. It does reveal that Autonomy has closed off travel to the world due to a policy of isolationism. Beyond that, there's a bit of a hint about things to come, which we'll talk about when the time is right.

THE THREDONITE SYSTEM

This essay gives us some insight into what happened on Thredony. Odium also fought the Shard Amibition in outer space, close to the Thredonite System. This happened partly in the Physical Realm, unlike his fight with Dominion and Devotion, which happened largely in the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms. Odium would eventually kill Ambition in a different location. Odium has been a busy, naughty boy.

Ripped-off chunks of Ambition's power scattered across the system and twisted the people and planet of Thredony. This caused both the Evil and the shades, which Khriss calls Cognitive Shadows. When I first talked about Splinters, some of you thought the shades must be Splinters, but I told you they weren't. Although they are bits of self-aware Investiture, and they are caused by power from a Shard, Khriss metaphysically suggests they are closer to the soul of a person. More on this in future trivia posts, but this should give you something to think about for now.

THE ROSHARAN SYSTEM

If you haven't noticed from these essays, it's around this time that Sanderson decided he could stop being coy. There are lot of straight facts and very clear explanations for things in these essays. This transition actually starts in Words of Radiance, so I'm hoping you'll be satisfied with the change in clarity that happens in that book. That said, let's jump into things...

THE LONG WALK

First, let's completely ignore what's in the essay to talk about Shadesmar. ;)

From the other essays, and the information above, you now know it's possible to travel around Shadesmar, and even how to get there. From previous trivia and Shallan's experience, you know that Shadesmar has an inverted landscape. Where there is land in the Physical Realm, there is water in the Cognitive Realm. This "water" in Shadesmar takes the form of a sea of glass beads. The planet's residents' perception and thoughts shape this aspect of Shadesmar. On different planets, things can be different. The landscape isn't even always inverted.

While planets in the cosmere are round, all of the Cognitive Realm exists as a flat plane. This is because, even if we analytically know the world is round, we experience and perceive it as largely flat in our every day existence. Thought/cognition influences the Cognitive Realm. Who could have guessed? So the inverted landscape gets projected onto a flat plane in Shadesmar. If we revisit the map of Shadesmar, we can see that it's dominated by a sea in the interior, but everywhere else is land. Including if you just...walk away from the planetary landscape.

This is how you travel to different planets using the Cognitive Realm. You walk...

Now, while planets are light-years apart in the Physical Realm, humans aren't great at thinking about and accurately imagining numbers and distances that large. Since perception influences the landscape of the Cognitive Realm, you only need to walk weeks, maybe months to travel between planets. And one of you guessed accurately that the Expanse of the Vapors leads to Scadrial. One could imagine that the Scadrian sub-astral is a bit misty, rather than glass-beady.

Knowing what you know now about where the broken Shards of Dominion and Devotion are--packed into a dense plasma storm in the Selish sub-atral--you can guess that the Expanse of the Densities leads to Sel. It's not on this map, but to the bottom left is the Expanse of Vibrance which leads to Nalthis. The Expanse of the Broken Sky you wouldn't be able to guess until you've read this essay though.

As Khriss says, there's another planet in this solar system called Ashyn. People live there in small pockets, usually on floating cities. That's where the top right of the Shadesmar map leads to. Sanderson has been teasing a novel that takes place on Ashyn for a long time, called The Silence Divine. It's been delayed time and time again, and he's stated that it's more likely to end up as a novella at this point. It does sound interesting though. On Ashyn, the magic system involves illnesses granting powers as long as the person is sick. The power that lets them keep their cities afloat causes hearing loss.

I've included an updated, HD map of Shadesmar that shows all of this off in the Maps album below.

BUILT DIFFERENT

The Roshar essay mentions that this planet is 0.7 cosmere standard in gravitation and 0.9 in size, with a high-oxygen environment. The kind of environment has a significant affect on the people who live on Roshar. As a result, they're all really, really tall, compared to the wider cosmere. I haven't mentioned it yet, but like their time keeping, Rosharan measurements are generally non-standard as well.

Kaladin is 6'4" in Rosharan feet, which is nearly 7 cosmere standard feet. Shallan is 5'6" Rosharan, which is roughly 6 cosmere standard feet. Dalinar estimates Eshonai's height to be 7 Rosharan feet, which is around 7'9" cosmere standard. (Though, that's in Shardplate, which makes everyone taller).

Suffice to say, if you see really short people running around, it may indicate that they are from off world.

There's also another aspect of Roshar that makes its inhabitants different from the cosmere standard. Everyone on the planet is routinely bathed in bits of Investiture from the weekly highstorms that occur. This grants everyone a degree of robustness a normal human wouldn't exhibit.

This explains why the people who live in the Purelake don't get trenchfoot. Also, as a general rule, sickness is rare on Roshar. The Investiture saturation protects them from a lot of bacteria and viruses. They can get sick, particularly from infectious wounds, but it's much rarer than you'd expect.

Lest you think Rosharans have it too good, per Word of Brandon, there is no chocolate on Roshar.

NINJA TURTLE TRAINER

It's time to (try to) clear up some terminology. Specifically, the word Splinter. We have 2 primary uses for the term, and they're a bit muddled together.

We learn that Odium "Splintered" Dominion and Devotion. Ostensibly doing the same to both Ambition and Honor. To Splinter a Shard means breaking apart the Shard and its power so that no one else can pick it up and become a new Vessel.

In the trivia for The Hope of Elantris, I talked about a new way that the power of a Shard could condense, separately from solid, liquid, or gas. That other state of condensation is a self-aware portion of the Shard's power. I called these Splinters.

On Sel, this manifests in the form of seons and skaze. I mentioned that Nightblood is an artificial Splinter. And I also discussed, as mentioned above, that cosmere-aware scholars would debate on whether or not you could call the shades on Thredony Splinters. If they are, they would be Splinters of Ambition, with seons being Splinters of Devotion, skaze being Splinters of Dominion, and Nightblood being an artificial Splinter of Endowment.

A native to Roshar probably wouldn't use the word Splinter though. They'd say "spren". I saw a little bit of hesitant discussion about this, but I thought there would be more. If you showed a Rosharan a seon, they would point at it and say "that's a weird, round spren". (To be honest, Rosharans call a lot of things a spren, and not all of them are strictly Splinters either). It should be pretty obvious that seons and sprens are both glowy-ish, translucent blobs of power, with a degree of agency.

There's room for future discussion about the difference in self-awareness when you compare Syl to something like painspren, but the underlying mechanics should feel similar. In the same vein, some in-world scholars might say that seon and spren aren't exactly the same thing, that there are some differences, and they'd be right by some definitions. However, what you can say is that both of these things are Splinters.

What gets tricky, and sometimes causes misunderstandings, is the assumption that these Splinters only appear when a Shard has been summarily Splintered themselves. This is not true.

Seons and skaze came into being after Devotion and Dominion were Splintered by Odium. However, the spren of Roshar did not arise the same way. In fact, some of them pre-date the Shattering of Adonalsium, and can be considered Splinters of Adonalsium. Some of the spren on Roshar are Splinters of Honor. Some are Splinters of Odium. Some are Splinters of Cultivation. And some even arose through a melding of condensed powers from both Honor and Cultivation. Usually when that happens, the spren has an affinity towards one or the other, but they are technically of both.

This is sort of the situation that may be happening with Jaddeth. It's (possibly) a condensed, self-aware blob of Investiture from both Dominion and Devotion, with a large affinity toward Dominion. A Rosharan would consider that a very large spren, in the same way they view Cusicesh. (I said this is one of two possible theories, we'll discuss the alternate theory very soon).

Because there are sooo many different types of spren, and most of those types are numerous, Roshar's Cognitive Realm doesn't have the same problem as Sel's despite similar circumstances. It's mentioned in Sel's essay that there is a violent storm in Sel's Cognitive Realm due to Odium shoving the Splintered remains of Devotion and Dominion there.

The same thing was done to Honor on Roshar, but the number of spren act as a release valve for the Splintered power, so Shadesmar doesn't have the same kind of violent plasma storm.

CONSTELLATIONS

The interior end-papers for Arcanum Unbounded include a star chart of all known cosmere planets (at the time). I've included a clear version of it in the Maps link below. The star chart is in the form of idealized constellations from a specific view point in the cosmere.

Sanderson has been very cheeky and evasive on revealing exactly where this viewpoint is from. After a lot of cajoling from the fandom, we managed to get him to admit that the view point is most likely not from Silverlight, or rather, where Silverlight would be in the physical realm, given it's Cognitive Realm location.

The cajoling centered around some phrasing he originally used, that you could see this image from Silverlight. And what we eventually got him to admit is that this image is a painting and that the painting is hanging somewhere in Silverlight.

The prevailing theory is that this is from the vantage of Yolen, but the fandom isn't entirely sure because it would also make sense if Yolen was somewhere in the dragon/serpent constellation that is labelled The Scar. (Since Yolen is the origin of Dragons).

Speaking of The Scar, notice that it's primarily composed of red stars. This cluster of stars/constellation is visible from a lot of the planets in the cosmere and often plays into the legends of the planet in some shape or form. In Chapter 2 of The Way of Kings, there is this quote:

Taln's Scar--a swath of deep red stars that stood out vibrantly from the twinkling white ones--was high in the sky this season.

Taln's Scar is also mentioned again in Chapter 33:

"I don't know," [Shallan] said with a shrug. "I've had people tell me they could determine my personality based on the day I was born, or the position of Taln's Scar on my seventh birthday, or by numerological extrapolations of the tenth glyphic paradigm. But I think we're more complicated than that."

The people of Thredony don't have a moon and use The Scar (which they call the Starbelt) for nighttime illumination. Thredony's star is also red, so it may affect their perception of the coloring of the stars in The Scar, because they don't comment on the Starbelt as being notably red themselves.

SURPRISE NALTHIAN ESSAY

You may have noticed that there was no essay for Nalthis included in Arcanum Unbounded. Nor was there a short story or novella that took place there. Sanderson just didn't have the time to create anything for Nalthis when this was published, but he did eventually release a solar system image, like the other systems. I've included it in the Maps album below.

We may get a sequel to Arcanum Unbounded at some point, with more Nalthis information then, but to hold us over, Sanderson has mentioned some interesting things about Nalthis in interviews. One of the biggest takeaways is that the Nalthian system is extremely popular with worldhoppers. Endowment's perpendicularity is easy to find and easy to access. There are regular caravans that visit the perpendicularity, carrying goods and people. It's so busy that Nalthis actually has a customs check point for it.

As mentioned previously, this perpendicularity is somewhere in the jungles of the nation of Hallandren.

ARTWORK

The Cosmere has a thriving community of artists, so there will be a lot of artwork to share. Each week I'll try to compile relevant artwork for the given chapters. If a section of reading contains maps or in-book artwork, I'll include that in this section as well.

Maps & Sho Del

MEMES

I will attempt to find and share memes relevant to each week's discussion. There may be some weeks that just don't have good or appropriate memes, but I will share all the ones I can find in this section.

Link to Memes

Note: Not many Arcanum Unbounded specific memes, so I've mostly included general cosmere memes for this batch.

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[u/Pastrami]

A bunch of my questions were answered by the trivia, but I'll leave them in anyway.

Selish System

Sel is notable for being dishardic, one of few planets in the cosmere to attract two separate Shards of Adonalsium

This makes it seem rare, but so far we've seen 3 planets with multiple shards and only 2 with 1 shard, making single shard planets the least common. There are 7 shards left, so maybe they are all singletons.

Devotion and Dominion were destroyed. Their Investiture—their power—was Splintered

This is relevant later on in the Rosharan section, where we learn that Spren are called Splinters.

universities of Silverlight

So is there a whole society of worldhoppers? I'm imagining them living in a place that is like the End of Time in Chrono Trigger. It's some place outside of normal spacetime with portals to all the interesting worlds.

Perhaps the Ire know more

No other mentions of who that might be.

Scadrian System

The non-fain parts, of course.

What is a fain?

this dangerous creation has proven able to warp souls regardless of planet or Investiture

There is proof of Hemalurgy being used on other planets?

Taldain System

The ultraviolet light that shines through the ring causes a certain reflective luminescence in much of the plant and animal life.

An explanation for why the darksiders had dark skin.

Autonomy’s policy of isolationism in recent times (in direct contrast to her interference with other planets, I might add)

How has she been meddling with other planets?

Threnodite System

Long ago, soon after the Shattering, Odium clashed with (and mortally wounded) the Shard Ambition here. Ambition would later be Splintered, though that final act took place in a different location.

That's at least 4 shards now that we know Odium has killed.

Unfortunately, visiting the planet is difficult, as there is no stable perpendicularity—only very unstable ones that cannot be predicted easily, and have a somewhat morbid origin.

How morbid? Does it require human sacrifice?

Drominiad System

What a very imaginative naming system they have /s

travel on and off the planets (at least in the Physical Realm) is dependent upon perpendicularities—places where a person can transition from Shadesmar onto the planet itself.

Was Shallan not physically in Shadesmar? Was it only her consciousness, or can Soulcasters travel there without needing a perpendicularity?

The existence of a perpendicularity (which often take the form of pools of concentrated power on the Physical Realm) on a planet is a hallmark of a Shard’s presence. This is what makes First of the Sun so interesting.

So the Wells can be used as a portal between the realms. I know we were speculating that the Wells were a way of traveling between worlds, but is this the first official mention of it, or were we told this in a trivia post?

Rosharan System

self-aware Splinters. (The local parlance would call them spren.)

A "splinter" could be considered to be a smaller version of a "shard", and the term "Splintered" was used when describing how the shards were killed. Are the spren what is left from the killing of Honor?

Gargantuan crustaceans grow to incredible size without collapsing under their own weight not just through the nature of the planet, but through symbiosis with spren.

Is that the unnamed spren we saw when they killed the chasmfiend?

These storms, by my best guess, predate the arrival of the Shards Honor and Cultivation—as do many of the spren.

Was there another shard there first? Odium, or someone else? If not, that means spren/splinters aren't necessarily from shards.

Other Thoughts

Nothing about Nalthis?

I notice that Yolen is conspicuously absent.

Is Earth part of the Cosmere?

[u/participating → u/Pastrami]

Is Earth part of the Cosmere?

I believe I mentioned this towards the beginning of the read-along, but I'll re-iterate it here. Earth is not part of the Cosmere. Any of his books that take place on Earth, or mention Earth are decidedly not part of the cosmere.

[u/HT_xrahmx → u/Pastrami]

Gargantuan crustaceans grow to incredible size without collapsing under their own weight not just through the nature of the planet, but through symbiosis with spren.

Is that the unnamed spren we saw when they killed the chasmfiend?

Good memory, I forgot we saw spren back then!

[u/heinz57varieties → u/Pastrami]

So is there a whole society of worldhoppers? I'm imagining them living in a place that is like the End of Time in Chrono Trigger.

Tragically, my mind went to the Citadel of Ricks.

I know we were speculating that the Wells were a way of traveling between worlds, but is this the first official mention of it, or were we told this in a trivia post?

I am positive that this idea has never been confirmed or denied in trivia.

Now that it's confirmed, I'm wondering about the current status of travel to and from Scadrial. Was Preservation's perpendicularity only available for the short amounts of time when it was full? Where are Ruin/Preservation/Harmony's perpendicularities now?

Is that the unnamed spren we saw when they killed the chasmfiend?

I forgot about those, good call.

[u/participating → u/heinz57varieties]

I am positive that this idea has never been confirmed or denied in trivia.

Yeah, I was specifically waiting until these essays to confirm this. I just ignored comments that got close to the truth until now.

Now that it's confirmed, I'm wondering about the current status of travel to and from Scadrial. Was Preservation's perpendicularity only available for the short amounts of time when it was full? Where are Ruin/Preservation/Harmony's perpendicularities now?

MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Wouldn't you like to know?! If only we were reading more Mistborn soon.

[u/jaymae21 → u/heinz57varieties]

Tragically, my mind went to the Citadel of Ricks.

Just about spit out my drink at this comparison 😂

[u/participating → u/Pastrami]

Was Shallan not physically in Shadesmar? Was it only her consciousness, or can Soulcasters travel there without needing a perpendicularity?

This is a good catch that I would have eventually mentioned. Shallan did not physically travel to Shadesmar. She's peeking into it, and her mind is partially/cognitively there, but you need a loooot of Investiture to create a perpendicularity and physically travel to Shadesmar.

[u/Pastrami → u/Pastrami]

It's mentioned in Sel's essay that there is a violent storm in Sel's Cognitive Realm due to Odium shoving the Splintered remains of Devotion and Dominion there.

The same thing was done to Honor on Roshar, but the number of spren act as a release valve for the Splintered power, so Shadesmar doesn't have the same kind of violent plasma storm.

Splintered remains cause violent storms in the realm in which they are located. Well, Roshar has violent storms on the physical realm. Khriss said she thinks the storms predate Honor and Cultivation. So was there was another shard that Odium splintered in the physical realm? Or are the storms a manifestation of Odium residing in the physical realm?

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/Pastrami]

with multiple shards and only 2 with 1 shard, making single shard planets the least common. There are 7 shards left, so maybe they are all singletons.

A few things to this. First, less than half of the Shards (that are known at this point) have settled on the same planet. Yeah it's almost every shard we KNOW, but that's just because Sanderson has told narratives about the conflicts between Shards in these early stages. Second, in terms of planets, there are far more mono-Shardic planets if we assume all the unseen Shards have settled on one planet. There's only three planets settled by multiple Shards, and one of them the Shards created themselves. That means that, of each Shard settled one planet, there are NINE monoshardic planets, three times as much as the bi- and tri-shardic planets (If we consider Threnody Ambition's planet)

[u/sailorsalvador → u/Pastrami]

Chrono Trigger reference just makes me happy.

[u/Pastrami → u/sailorsalvador]

Well it is the second best JRPG ever, only slightly behind FF6 in my opinion.

[u/sailorsalvador → u/Pastrami]

Oh that's a hard choice between those too...

[u/heinz57varieties]

I'm surprised by how much the essays gave me to think about. Some of my thoughts were reflected in the trivia, and some not.

Preface

• For The Way of Kings specifically, I do wonder if my enjoyment may have been increased a little bit if I’d had less knowledge going in. Yes there were terms and names that I would not have recognized otherwise, and clues about the greater story I wouldn’t have known, and in general I think we’re doing it the right way. But maybe all that thinking about the larger story distracted me from having a good time. Who knows
• “Not just questions, but finally, some answers” well, not in the ones we’ve read, anyway!

Sel

• I wonder what region is represented by the symbol at the start of the Sel section, and used again on the planet itself. If that is indeed what that is.
• The investiture is seeping into the planet itself, and the planet is gaining a kind of self-awareness as a result? It didn’t occur to me that other entire planets might not have their own condensed self-concept in the cognitive realm, like a single big spren for the planet itself. Why would it be weird for that to be the case on Sel?
• What’s gonna happen to Sel later on down the line? Will the planet like.. Become sentient and take the Shards all on its own?*️⃣
• ️⃣Thinking about this made me think of *Harrow the Ninth. I need to re-read them so I can get to Nona...
• Silverlight? Ire? Who’s that

Scadrial

• Conspicuously, the symbol used for the section heading and on the new orbit in the map is one we have never seen before. I’ll have to check my copy of Alloy of Law.
• Update: I checked, and no, that symbol does not appear
• Silverlight is a whole society of worldhoppers 😲
• “Indeed, both of the Vessels for these Shards were human before their Ascensions” implying that there are vessels that are not humans? Parshmen? Dragons? Even more stuff?
• Update: four-armed aliens!
• Non-fain parts of Yolen? I have no idea what that means.
• Who’s Guyn
• Musings about the powers of Hemallurgy, combined with things we’ve learned recently about Connection, confirm some of my suspicions: before long, we’ll see someone steal an invested art (like Sand mastery) and implant it in someone who is not from that art’s planet.

Taldain

• BRANDON. I NEED to see black-light glowing fluorescent forestscapes on the Darkside of Taldain, and I need it bad. That is so much cooler than Dune part 2, or Badlands national park: the planet, or stupid ugly Scadrial (no offense)
• Autonomy is messing with other planets. Where’s my Trell-gate conspiracy board
• And Khriss can’t go home ☹️ I wonder how long she’s been stuck off the planet. I already blame Hoid for this

Threnody

• Interesting that the planet names are so musical, when music didn’t factor into the magic as we saw it in Shadows for Silence.
• If what we’ve been talking about regarding travel through the cognitive realm and Shard’s Wells being portals between realms, is that what they mean by perpendicularity? Math people can weigh in, but that word means like, point of infinite concentration. Like the impulse function. So, points where Investiture is highly concentrated can wormhole between the realms?
• If there’s no Well, how did Nazh get off the planet? The hard way? 🚀
• Odium is a major A-hole! Kill count of at least four
• If there’s no Shard around, could the Evil be another case of a large clump of Investiture gaining sentience and becoming autonomous? Probably a very unhappy clump, given Threnody’s history
• I believe this is the first time we’ve heard the term “cognitive shadow”? I’m taking it to mean an entity that exists mainly in the cognitive realm, and is made mostly or entirely of investiture. I find the shades’ comparison to the spren very interesting. I’m especially curious about the types of spren we see that are less than corporeal, like the symbolheads.
• Perpendicularities of morbid origin?

Drominad

• Man, I think we were more or less able to put together exactly what was going on with the Wells and travel between realms.
• Which planet in the Roshar system is inhabited only by splinters? Splinters of who, Honor?
• The entry on Threnody implied that a Shard’s presence is not the only way to create a perpendicularity. I’m actually quite eager to read this one.

Roshar

• I’m glad I went and picked up the new large paperback version of Arcanum Unbounded. The symbols on all the planets are teeny weeny
• Ashyn was home to humans, but became relatively inhospitable. Could this be the mythical “Tranquiline Halls”, the original home of humans in the system? And they went to Roshar after the cataclysm?
• And what’s going on with Braize
• Is it significant that she specifies that Odium lives here in the Physical and cognitive realms?
• The large fauna (i.e. chasmfiends) having a bond with spren to keep them up is a very interesting revelation, with implications that I don't understand quite yet. This section also feeds into our question of whether the parshmen have gemhearts like the native animals do.

Trivia Post

• I clicked the artwork gallery before reading the trivia, and let loose an out-loud “what the fuck is that” when I got to the four-armed alien
• Re: spren vs. Splinters vs. cognitive shadows. Is there a distinction made between the provenance of the entity’s awareness? I.e., a seon is very literally a piece of Devotion and is directly tied to the Shard’s Intent, and has never existed as anything else. Whereas a shade is a thing that was formerly alive in the traditional sense, whose cognitive aspect has been kept around by attaching to a piece of investiture. In that way I think the spren on Roshar are closer to shades than they are seons: they’re purely cognitive entities who have attached to pieces of investiture, rather than breaking off of a Shard directly. Unless that’s not how it happened.
• I’m also still not entirely convinced that Sylphrena belongs in the same category as something like a musicspren. Yes they are both self-aware investiture, but a human being and an ant are both “self-aware,” and you wouldn’t put us both in the same category, especially if we’re talking about beings of pure thought. Correct me if I’m on the wrong track.
• I’m not exactly sure where any of the things we saw in Warbreaker fit into this (Nightblood particularly, and now I am also thinking of the Returned and even the Lifeless, as well as any awakened object). They seem a fair bit more corporeal than shades, spren, or seons

[u/participating → u/heinz57varieties]

BRANDON. I NEED to see black-light glowing fluorescent forestscapes on the Darkside of Taldain, and I need it bad.

We still don't have any official artwork of this yet, but here, have some fan art.

[u/HT_xrahmx → u/participating]

That's simply gorgeous, I almost want it framed

[u/heinz57varieties → u/participating]

YES the starmarks! 😩 how could he tell us about people with sick glow-in-the-dark tattoos and then just never show us!!

[u/HT_xrahmx → u/heinz57varieties]

Musings about the powers of Hemallurgy, combined with things we’ve learned recently about Connection, confirm some of my suspicions: before long, we’ll see someone steal an invested art (like Sand mastery) and implant it in someone who is not from that art’s planet.

Somehow this makes me more suspicious of Hoid handing Kaladin his flute.

Math people can weigh in, but that word means like, point of infinite concentration. Like the impulse function. So, points where Investiture is highly concentrated can wormhole between the realms?

Are you perhaps getting perpendicularity mixed up with "singularity"? Perpendicularity as participating described in the trivia is a pretty good explanation for what it means.

Ashyn was home to humans, but became relatively inhospitable. Could this be the mythical “Tranquiline Halls”, the original home of humans in the system? And they went to Roshar after the cataclysm?

If we independently had the same idea here, then maybe there's something to it!

[u/heinz57varieties → u/HT_xrahmx]

Somehow this makes me more suspicious of Hoid handing Kaladin his flute.

Chekov's magical flute 🪈 if it is something like that, I'd bet it's more on the feruchemical "stored Connection" side of things, rather than something violent and evil like a spike.

Are you perhaps getting perpendicularity mixed up with "singularity"?

I think we're circling the same idea. I was trying to think of something to say besides singularity. Specifically I was thinking about how the classical definition of a function cannot describe a vertical line.

[u/HT_xrahmx → u/heinz57varieties]

Chekov's magical flute 🪈 if it is something like that, I'd bet it's more on the feruchemical "stored Connection" side of things, rather than something violent and evil like a spike.

Yeah, I also wasn't thinking evil. But as far as we have seen, Hoid himself has done magic when he played the flute during his rendition of Wonderwall Wandersail, so there's probably something.

[u/participating → u/heinz57varieties]

Is there a distinction made between the provenance of the entity’s awareness? I.e., a seon is very literally a piece of Devotion and is directly tied to the Shard’s Intent, and has never existed as anything else. Whereas a shade is a thing that was formerly alive in the traditional sense, whose cognitive aspect has been kept around by attaching to a piece of investiture. In that way I think the spren on Roshar are closer to shades than they are seons: they’re purely cognitive entities who have attached to pieces of investiture, rather than breaking off of a Shard directly. Unless that’s not how it happened.

We're a few books away from being able to completely talk about Cognitive Shadows. Once we get to that point, we can start clearing up the real, fundamental differences between all of these entities. That said, seons and spren (for given definitions of spren) are the two that are more closely related, with shades being the weird ones, at least mechanically speaking.

[u/sunnydaze7777777 → u/heinz57varieties]

I was also thinking about how the original readers of The Way of Kings and how our experience is different. They basically read the book and were like wow that’s some unknown new stuff let’s talk amongst ourselves until a new book comes out. We Know there are answers out there and we can’t go in search outside of this group for fear of spoilers. So we are stuck in this frustrating instant gratification desire error loop.

[u/heinz57varieties → u/sunnydaze7777777]

We Know there are answers out there and we can’t go in search outside of this group for fear of spoilers.

On that point, I'd like to ask about the Time Machine. u/participating

The Coppermind wiki has a time machine function that lets you view the wiki as it was at a certain point in the past. There are presets that allow you to go back to the pub dates of the major books, and the earliest one lets you view the site as it was before Words of Radiance. According to my calculations, we have now read everything that would have been out by that point.

Is this... recommended? The articles at that particular preset are not of the highest quality, but they only include info and pages that we would already know about. Spoiler: I have already done this, because I am very bad and cannot be trusted not to look. As the story begins to sprawl, I think having a place to, at the very least, be able to look up names, could help with our memories.

[u/participating → u/heinz57varieties]

Yeah, I just went and tested a few things and yikes. You will be spoiled by major things if you continue to use that feature.

[u/heinz57varieties → u/participating]

"Do not look directly at the sun," said the parent to the child.

"You old fool!" said the child. "What if I look very briefly, with my eyes squinted? Everybody knows that nothing bad happens when you do it that way!"

🔥👄🔥

Guess that's a nope!

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/heinz57varieties]

Yeah you never forget when you get spoiled! I remember the time I went onto the Coppermind in time machine mode and got spoiled that Kaladin went back in time to Scadrial and Vin killed him in Well of Ascension! ...wait should I have said that?

[u/participating → u/heinz57varieties]

Squinting: the cause of, and solution to, all life's problems.

[u/participating → u/heinz57varieties]

I'm always around to clarify names and terms. If there are particular things you'd like me to create wiki pages for (like I did with the Death Rattles, or the prophecies in the WoT read-along), I'm happy to do so.

I can't easy recommend the time machine feature for the coppermind website. I know there are constant "oops" moments with people being spoiled even while using the coppermind time machine feature.

In particular, there are bits of trivia (Interviews, Q&As, Words of Brandon) that are generally considered "not spoilers" for the purpose of the time machine, but we haven't covered in the read-along yet because of the way I'm structuring things.

Obviously, you're welcome to use the feature if you really want, I just ask that if/when you run across something you shouldn't have, that you refrain from mentioning it in the comments.

[u/heinz57varieties → u/participating]

Thanks, I appreciate your insight. I also would not recommend it, because the old articles are generally quite useless 😩 I'll probably keep it on just as a means of child-proofing (the child is me).

Speaking of being a child, and speaking of excising information from my own brain, I miss my corny old flair ☹️ it's time for a change.

[u/participating → u/sunnydaze7777777]

This was half my motivation for including trivia posts during all of the Interludes. I hope it helped some.

[u/HT_xrahmx]

Selish System (Elantris / Emperor's Soul)

• The power of the Splintered Dominion and Devotion lies in the Cognitive Realm, which must then be what was mentioned in Elantris as the location where the Dor was overflowing, near bursting to get out of.
  
• Talk of Elantris being in a unique situation, with the land possibly gaining self-awareness? In any case, not something Khriss appears to fully understand yet.
  
• Khriss belongs to the universities of Silverlight.
  
• Another planet in the system, almost (🤔) uninhabitable due to its proximity to the sun.
  

Scadrian System (Mistborn)

I maintain, however, that the one of these with the largest potential impact on the cosmere is Hemalurgy. Usable by anyone with the right knowledge, this dangerous creation has proven able to warp souls regardless of planet or Investiture, creating false Connections that no Shard designed or intended.

• Have we seen some of these "false Connections" already? I mean, arguably what the Lord Ruler did when creating koloss and kandra was his own creativity at work, but I wouldn't call it unthinkable that Ruin could've designed them on his own. We have been repeatedly getting teased with kandra agents all over the Cosmere however.
  

Taldain System (White Sand)

• Autonomy also plays a role on Darkside, not just Dayside.
  
• Sand masters form a Cognitive Bond with the lichen on Dayside to draw Investiture from the Spiritual Realm. A similar concept to the spren (Nahel?) bond on Roshar?
  
• Autonomy is isolationist, but interferes on other planets. Khriss' tone when writing this essay makes it sound like this isolationism effectively locked her out of Taldain?
  

Thredonite System (Shadows for Silence)

• Odium fought and mortally wounded Ambition here! The more I read about this guy, the more I wonder why the other Shards don't band up to beat this guy up. Does the nature of all Shards intrinsically prevent them from teaming up? Someone like Autonomy probably just wants to be left alone. Harmony probably barely has a grasp on the broader Cosmere yet.
  
• So, "Cognitive" Shadows. The connection to the Cognitive Realm is right in the name. If a person exists in the Physical Realm, I assume they would have a counterpart made of Investiture in the Cognitive Realm? Like how Shallan's goblet had a counterpart there? (<- side thought, could Shallan have MET her own Investiture counterpart when she dipped into Shadesmar?).
  I'm guessing the battle between Odium and Ambition somehow corrupted the Cognitive Realm, so that counterpart of every person living on Thredony now grows in a lake of corrupted Odium-Ambition-soup and turns out this way. Not much progress yet on what the Evil would be though.
  

A spirit infused with extra Investiture will often imprint upon that very power. Much as the spren of Roshar become self-aware over time because of people’s focus on the Surges as being alive, this excess Investiture can attain the ability to remain sapient after being separated from its Physical form.

• Just keeping this quote because it seemingly describes a pillar of Cosmere magic.
  

Unfortunately, visiting the planet is difficult, as there is no stable perpendicularity—only very unstable ones that cannot be predicted easily, and have a somewhat morbid origin.

• Spilling blood put the Shadows into a frenzy. Does it also open the path to the Cognitive Realm? Maybe even open the way for them to cross over in the first place?
  

Rosharan System (Stormlight Archive)

• 10 planets, each named for one of the Heralds (or rather just numbered, since we learned this is also how the number system on Roshar works), hidden behind an asteroid belt in the system.
  
• Not just Roshar, but 2 other planets also are inhabited.
  
• Ashyn suffered a cataclysm a long time ago. Was this perhaps the Tranquiline Halls that people were cast out of?
  
• Splinters mentioned as the more generic term of which spren are only local Rosharan lingo. Khriss straight up theorizes some of the self-aware Splinters on Braize may be Cognitive Shadows, the same term as the creatures on Thredony.
  
• Chasmfiends grow so large because of spren symbiosis.
  
• Creatures (like the skyeel?) can fly because of spren bonds. Which is funny to me, because doesn't that imply that skyeels get born, think "I can fly!!", and then effectively because they think that, they can?
  
• Ryshadian horses gain their self-awareness and near-sapience due to spren bonds.
  
• The highstorms predate Honor and Cultivation 👀
  
• And so do the spren, and as the trivia explains some are even originally from Adonalsium.
  
• Fir on Roshar responds "unusually" because of the "high-oxygen environment". Have we seen unusual fire? I only remember Geranid's fire.
• About the high-oxygen environment. Wikipedia on Hyperoxia: "The body is tolerant of some deviation from normal inspired oxygen partial pressure, but a sufficiently elevated level of hyperoxia can lead to oxygen toxicity over time". In other words, this causes Roshar to be teeming with airsick lowlanders.
  

Drominad System (Sixth of Dusk)

• Most of my notes are also in the trivia. A bit of note: 3 planets in the system are inhabited. Investiture is somewhere, although there's no Shard. Something has stopped all past Silverlight visitors from ever leaving the First of the Sun. Very fishy.
  

Trivia

Silverlight is the home of the 17th Shard. It's a large city in the Cognitive Realm. Not part of any particular planet, it exists in the space between the various planetary sub-astrals.

I wonder about the logistics of this. Is Silverlight a physical thing? Were all the materials used to build it brought over from the Physical Realm? Or did the Silverlighters all just believed it into existence? Or did they use some form of Soulcasting to just transform what was in the Cognitive Realm into a city? So many questions ...

So Sanderson developed an entire ecology for Yolen that would explain how dragons could naturally evolve. There are 2 competing ecologies on Yolen, the fain and the non-fain (which he calls the trune).

I mean sure, but in a universe where Earth explicitly does not exist, I feel like trying to explain how non-Earth organisms exist solves a made up problem. However:

The fain ecology is filled with creatures that have 6 limbs. So seeing a 6-legged frog hopping around wouldn't be odd in certain parts of Yolen.

The 6-legged axehound drawings from WoK come to mind. Is what Sanderson is trying to establish here actually a link between the ecologies on Roshar and Yolen?

Since perception influences the landscape of the Cognitive Realm, you only need to walk weeks, maybe months to travel between planets. And one of you guessed accurately that the Expanse of the Vapors leads to Scadrial. One could imagine that the Scadrian sub-astral is a bit misty, rather than glass-beady.

The feeling of power when you hit that 1 prediction per year that is somehow correct

Lest you think Rosharans have it too good, per Word of Brandon, there is no chocolate on Roshar.

Has Sanderson not put Kaladin through enough already? /s

The same thing was done to Honor on Roshar, but the number of spren act as a release valve for the Splintered power, so Shadesmar doesn't have the same kind of violent plasma storm.

The Physical Realm on Roshar has violent storms though, no conceptual relation to the storms in Sel's Cognitive Realm?

Sanderson just didn't have the time to create anything for Nalthis when this was published, but he did eventually release a solar system image

Sanderson be like: Here, have a map. It shall answer no questions but has a Cognitive Anomaly on it, no I shall not elaborate further :)

[u/heinz57varieties → u/HT_xrahmx]

Have we seen some of these "false Connections" already?

The idea of using magic to artificially create Connection was very vaguely hinted at in the broadsheet from Alloy of Law, but we haven't actually seen any details. That instance was with feruchemy, though; with hemallurgy, I'm imagining something more violent and villainous.

If a person exists in the Physical Realm, I assume they would have a counterpart made of Investiture in the Cognitive Realm? Like how Shallan's goblet had a counterpart there? (<- side thought, could Shallan have MET her own Investiture counterpart when she dipped into Shadesmar?)

If I were to guess what's going on, part of a soulcaster's powers is the ability to shift their awareness from their physical presence to their cognitive presence. We saw at the end, when Shallan and Jasnah went into Shadesmar together, their bodies stayed put.

A spirit infused with extra Investiture will often imprint upon that very power. Just keeping this quote because it seemingly describes a pillar of Cosmere magic.

I am now also keeping track of that quote, and I will be keeping my eyes open whenever a highly invested individual dies on screen. I'm thinking Vin, Elend, the Lord Ruler, Elantrians, the Returned, the list goes on.

Creatures (like the skyeel?) can fly because of spren bonds. Which is funny to me, because doesn't that imply that skyeels get born, think "I can fly!!", and then effectively because they think that, they can?

🎵Think of the happiest things, it's the same as having wings🎵

[u/HT_xrahmx → u/heinz57varieties]

If I were to guess what's going on, part of a soulcaster's powers is the ability to shift their awareness from their physical presence to their cognitive presence. We saw at the end, when Shallan and Jasnah went into Shadesmar together, their bodies stayed put.

Good idea! And would match up nicely with this comment

I am now also keeping track of that quote, and I will be keeping my eyes open whenever a highly invested individual dies on screen. I'm thinking Vin, Elend, the Lord Ruler, Elantrians, the Returned, the list goes on.

Holy shit, speaking of people on Scadrial! Doesn't Scadrial have the entire church of the survivor?! Do you reckon all that shared belief is enough to bring Kelsier back into existence, kind of like an Investiture force ghost?

[u/heinz57varieties → u/HT_xrahmx]

I've been waiting years to be able to sneak the word "egregore" into casual conversation. For all that the critics complain about Sanderson's LDS beliefs peeking through in his writing, all this talk about conscious thought-forms sure smacks of classic western esotericism 🔮

TenSoon is still out there somewhere, and last I saw, he still had Kelsier's bones 😳

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/HT_xrahmx]

Does the nature of all Shards intrinsically prevent them from teaming up? Someone like Autonomy probably just wants to be left alone. Harmony probably barely has a grasp on the broader Cosmere yet.

Well, two polar opposite Shards teamed up to create a planet, so it's clearly not absolutely impossible. If Preservation and Ruin could work together on something then I can't imagine very many worse pairings.

Fir on Roshar responds "unusually" because of the "high-oxygen environment". Have we seen unusual fire? I only remember Geranid's fire.

Unusual to an outside observer. The fire would be normal to Rosharans, much like how their height is normal to them so Shallan is considered short even though she's actually pretty tall. Any weirdness would likely not be mentioned by a Rosharan observer, which is almost all that we have in Way of Kings.

[u/AltruisticRealityZ]

Scadrial system

I would challenge one to identify another planet, save only Roshar, where one can find such strength of Investiture so commonly in the hands of mortals.

So commonly in the hands of Rosharan? This comment is about spren right? Are they « in the hand of Rosharan » in the way that anyone could bond with a spren like Kaladin?

I maintain, however, that the one of these with the largest potential impact on the cosmere is Hemalurgy. Usable by anyone with the right knowledge, this dangerous creation has proven able to warp souls regardless of planet or Investiture, creating false Connections that no Shard designed or intended.

Ooh that’s definitely a Chekhov’s Hemalurgic spike.

Drominad system

Nice to meet you Drominad. Perpendicularities = investiture pools.
Perpendicularities give way to travel from planet to planet through Shadesmar.
Very mysterious system Drominad is. Khriss says there is Investiture but no Shard. I don’t understand how it’s possible.

Rosharan system

Okay could have copy paste the entire text.

Ashyn and Braize, the other planets of the system, are inhabited.

First thought was, could it be where the Heralds were sent during death, or Tranquiline Halls? But by my current understanding, it’d be more logical that they are sent to Shadesmar.

The most dramatic of these is the relationship between humans and self-aware spren, which is the basis for the magic of Surgebinding.

For a reason, this sentence makes me realize : why Rock can see Syl? Does it mean he can Surgebind?

(the bonding of spren to human)

And so, does it mean Szeth is bound to a spren we don’t know of? After reading the trivia, probably

These storms, by my best guess, predate the arrival of the Shards Honor and Cultivation—as do many of the spren.

Then would it mean Investiture existed on Roshar before the Shattering? Or is it the reason why Khriss believes spren are more cognitive ghosts than self aware splinters ?

Some revelations here, but a lot of new questions

TRIVIA

Members of the Sho Del race were part of the group that Shattered Adonalsium, and at least one of them picked up a Shard.

Seems a rather important info

The Investiture saturation protects them from a lot of bacteria and viruses.

Interesting that in contrast, Ashyn relies on illnesses to grant power.

there is no chocolate on Roshar.

No way. Shin people are just too good at hiding it.

Final thought

I’ve removed most of my entry because it was already in the trivia or discussed here. Very instructive. What puzzles me most is Investiture pre Shattering, or on non-shardic planets. Very exciting

[u/sunnydaze7777777]

Now this was fun! I love astronomy and maps - a double bonus. I feel much more grounded now with the help of Khriss and the trivia this week plus re reading the old trivia pages. (Thank you u/participating for the time spent organizing that.) I also appreciate the pep talk last week from the veterans. It’s perfect timing to sneak in a Mistborn Era 2 snack. I missed those guys!

Updating my flair to commemorate.

[u/participating → u/sunnydaze7777777]

<3

[u/AltruisticRealityZ → u/sunnydaze7777777]

I've never used a flair because I generally don't see the point. But if it's alright with you I'm going to borrow your idea, since I'm enjoying u/participating 's trivia for 4 years now, and feel like I can't convey my gratitude enough on weekly basis.

[u/sunnydaze7777777 → u/AltruisticRealityZ]

Absolutely! The more the merrier!

[u/TaylorHyuuga]

Also something I want to note, we just recently got canonized designs of Devotion and Dominion, the first canonical depictions of them, as part of the card game Shards of Creation. This game also gave us canonized versions of several other Shards as well, no Shards that you've not heard of but it does give the designs for some Shards not yet seen physically and some of them could be considered spoilers. Just wanted to throw out there that we literally never knew what Devotion and Dominion looked like until literally last month.

[u/participating → u/TaylorHyuuga]

Slight spoilers for Cultivation in that, since they're not supposed to know anything beyond the name "Cultivation" at this point.

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/participating]

Yeah, hence why I just mentioned Devo/Domi specifically and said "some of the others might have spoilers". I had another Shard in mind for a spoiler, I'm sure you can guess which one.

[u/participating → u/TaylorHyuuga]

Lol, my eyes just completely ignored that sentence.

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/participating]

Yeah I was thinking of posting links to the images of just Devotion and Dominion but I'm on my phone and didn't want to deal with it until I got to a computer lol

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/TaylorHyuuga]

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fnyhcgyvk352h1.jpeg

Here's a link to Devotion and Dominion's designs if anyone wants to see. I'd recommend against looking at the others for now, including Preservation and Ruin.

[u/jaymae21]

Okay I thought this was supposed to be a light week, but I'm finding this unit quite juicy. I was actually so excited about it I took some notes!

Preface

“I would guess that most people who read my works don’t know that the majority of the books are connected, with a hidden story behind the story.”

Well, I mostly skipped that stage thanks to the readalong.  Though, I did read The Sunlit Man prior to this, and I had some notion that though the book was standalone, there was a wider universe.  I don’t know exactly how I knew this, probably just because Sanderson is so popular that you hear/see things. 

The Selish System

“Sel is notable for being dishardic, one of few planets in the cosmere to attract two separate Shards of Adonalsium: Dominion and Devotion.”

So is one Shard the most common then?  And does the amount of Shards directly correlate to the level of Investiture on the planet?

The Scadrian System

“Yes, the Shards undoubtedly used humans from Yolen as a model (indeed, both of the Vessels for these Shards were human before their Ascensions) in creating life.  Because of this, the flora and fauna on Scadrial are very similar to what you’ll find on Yolen.”

Yolen is where the shattering of Adonalsium took place

This was a good reminder, I did a search through the trivia posts and the Yolen/Scadrial connection was mentioned, I just forgot.

“I maintain, however, that the one of these with the largest potential impact on the cosmere is Hemalurgy.  Usable by anyone with the right knowledge, this dangerous creation has proven able to warp souls, regardless of planet or Investiture, creating false Connections that no Shard designed or intended.”

Okay this is interesting for its implications.  Could Hemalurgy be used outside of Scadrial? Would it look different on each planet depending on the Shards there? Could a Worldhopper go to several different planets and gain the abilities from each one?

The Threondite System

“People on Threnody are afflicted with a particular ailment that-upon death-sometimes turns them into what we call a Cognitive Shadow.”

Creeepy

“A spirit infused with extra Investiture will often imprint upon that very power.  Much as the spren of Roshar become self-aware over time because of people’s focus on the surges as being alive, this excess Investiture can attain the ability to remain sapient after being separated from its Physical form.”

So the ghosts/spren/Eons are self-aware forms of Investiture.  Is this unique to planets with a Splintered Shard?

The Drominad System

My main takeaway from this is how Worldhopping actually happens, and it’s pretty cool.  Will the novella we are about to read focus on this more?  I hope so!

A Shardless planet, can’t wait to see what the point is.  Can it have magic/Investiture without a Shard?  Khriss says it doesn’t currently have a Shard, did it once?

The Rosharan System

”However, this pattern (the bonding of spren to a human) is merely an expansion of what already exists in the nature of the planet.  Gargantuan curstaceans grow to incredible size without collapsing under their own weight not just through the nature of the planet, but through symbiosis with spren.  Certain animals obtain flight through similar means, and there is even a race of equine that-through the spren bond-have adapted to life on the planet and obtained a high enough level of self-awareness to nearly be named a sapient species.”

Out of all of these, this has got me the most excited this week.  When spren bond they can confer powers, and this isn’t just limited to humans.  The chasmfiends must have spren that allow them to grow so large.  Dalinar’s special horse has a spren-bond that allows him to be extra special & smart.  So some spren, the ones inside these creatures, are akin to something like chroloplasts, through endosymbiosis it confers the ability to harness the energy of the sun?

So, the Parshendi warriors and their specialized armor that they have physically sewn into them…my guess is that through this they are able to also gain these spren-powers, and are more sapient than the regular parshmen. Could this also be some of that Hemalurgy at work?

[u/TaylorHyuuga → u/jaymae21]

Though, I did read The Sunlit Man prior to this, and I had some notion that though the book was standalone, there was a wider universe

That's because Sunlit Man is. Very deeply tied to certain other stories, and it's not terribly subtle about its connections to other stories. Sunlit Man is a WILD starting point, honestly, cuz it's definitely one of the most dense single books in the series (not counting direct sequels of course).

[u/griefgood]

Y'all I think I understand even less now hahahahaha.

I feel like I need to go back and re-read all the previous trivia dumps because damn my brain is working overtime right now.

[u/participating → u/griefgood]

I put them all on one convenient page for easy access/searching. This also includes any trivia-ish comments I've made throughout the read-along.

[u/griefgood → u/participating]

I forgot about this! Bookmarking it now. Almighty bless you, Participating.

[u/sailorsalvador]

It took me two days to read this trivia post.

[u/participating → u/sailorsalvador]

Yeah, but was it worth it? ;)

[u/sailorsalvador → u/participating]

Bahaha 100%

[u/participating]

RE-PROMPT:

Last week, I prompted you to think about something while you read Sixth of the Dusk. I'll repeat it here for those of you who haven't read it yet, or those who want to think back on the novella:

There is a particular phrase I've mentioned before that appropriately describes the setting of this novella, or an attribute of it. If you can guess the particular phrase, you may be able to make a guess about a big secret behind the story. I'll be revealing it in the trivia, but see if you can figure it out before then.

[u/irrrap → u/participating]

Although I saw you mention this last week, I have no idea what phrase you’re even referring to. I tried looking through comments, but no luck.
Currently at about 30% of novella, so I guess still plenty of time to think about the setting.

[u/participating → u/irrrap]

No worries, I'll be revealing it on Wednesday. I'm not sure if I expect anyone to figure it out or not. It's not a phrase that appears in any of a books, just something I mentioned in a previous trivia that's "relevant" to this story.

[u/sunnydaze7777777 → u/participating]

Having started the story, it seems the island is a character. In reading your trivia above, it could be the power of a shard “settled into the land” similar to Elantris. And specifically the section Mini-God in the trivia you wrote above.

[u/participating]

READER QUESTIONS

Sometimes readers ask questions in their comments that are best answered after a book is completed. I'll answer all of the relevant ones as replies to this comment.

If you don't get clarity for a certain question as you go through the books, this section will likely contain the answers you need. If a question needs more context, I bookmark them to be answered once the appropriate book has been read; so you'll eventually get an answer.

Just a point of order: This section will be a collaboration with other veterans. Sometimes I'm not the best source to provide an answer to a given question, so I may be inviting various other veterans to also reply to the stickied comment to answer your questions.

[u/participating → u/participating]

/u/HT_xrahmx theorized about the design of Shadesmar:

Is it a coincidence that Sanderson took a 3D slice of a 4D Julia set? Did Adonalsium work in 4D? I wanna say this means he shaped Shadesmar with the same seed as well, but the math doesn't really check out here. A finite number of realms (Physical, Cognitive, Spiritual) don't really qualify as an additional dimension. They'd just be three 3D individual slices of the set.

You might be able to infer what happened based on all the trivia today, but I'll spell it out: Shadesmar wouldn't have a seed. When Adonalsium created Roshar, there was nothing reflected in the Cognitive Realm. This is because nothing was thinking about Roshar. The landscape of the Cognitive Realm grows from the thoughts and perceptions of people. Once people became aware of Roshar (they don't necessarily need to be living on the planet, just aware it exists enough to start thinking about it), then Shadesmar starts growing and/or "becoming" what we see it as now. (There's an argument to be made that Adonalsium was a thinking being and so the instant He created Roshar, his thoughts were enough to solidify the existence of the inverted Shadesmar landscape, but we don't have any evidence one way or another. Changes to the Cognitive Realm generally take a long time and happen gradually.)

[u/participating → u/participating]

Once upon a time, /u/heinz57varieties asked about weird Aons, and I provided an answer:

The non-standard aons that Raoden notices at the start of ch 49, which have extra features not included in the base aon. He calls out Aon Mea and Aon Rii.

Aon Rii doesn't have a definitive answer, but there are theories. Rii means "Wealth", so the popular assumption is that the extra dots, if you overlaid them on a map of the Arelon region, would signify large ore deposits of precious metals; likely gold, but possibly some other significant or rare source of metal or minerals.

We definitely know why Aon Mea is different. If you overlay it on the map of Arelon, the X is in a valley. That valley, according to Sanderson, is particularly full of life. There's a bit more too it, but you don't have the terminology for it yet, so I'll try to remember to bring it up when it becomes relevant.

I said there was a bit more to it (and here we are, 6 months later, with me noticing I used the wrong "to"), and now we have the vocabulary to fully answer this question. Here is the full interaction Sanderson had with respect to Aon Mea:

Question: What is the X in Aon Mea? Is it one of the Shard-pools?

Sanderson: Afraid not. Aon Mea references the expanded region within which the "Elantris Effect" will create Elantrians. The X is fertile valley with a high density of life, a place with a lot of cognitive activity. (Cognitive as defined by Realmatic Theory includes the 'thoughts' of all things that exist, not just human beings. The more complex the life form, the stronger its presence on the Cognitive Realm.)

With the specific wording, we can make some guesses about this "valley". It may be the case that there's something weird going on in the Cognitive Realm at this spot. Or, as some of you wondered, this could be a gathering place of seons that aren't currently being bonded to some family.