What would you say is the best independent magic system to have Cosmere wide? I think it’s between Feruchemy and Aon Dor, with Feruchemy edging it out by not needing to be on Sel to be useful.

What are your thoughts?

Sure compounding means you can exist without eating anything, whatever

But have we considered a bendalloy twinborn story as the cosmere's premiere competitive eater. Metric tons of hot dogs and chouta disappearing in fractions of a second

The caloric output of nations gone in minutes

The mustard consumption, off the charts

I dont really understand why the other Shards seemed to view Honor and Cultivation as problems in the same breadth as Odium.

In WAT, Taravangian notes that the other Shards seem to consider all 3 of the Rosharan Shards to be problems. And thats maybe part of why they don't act.

I dont really get that. Like yes they violated the agreement the Shards made about staying out of each others way, but Honor and Cultivation havent killed 3 other Shards. And they arent even the only ones to violate that agreement, Autonomy, Ruin, Preservation, Dominion, Devotion, Ambition and Mercy have all apparently broken that agreement in some form.

And most importantly they don't embody the concept of Hatred removed of any context.

tl;dr Why do the other Shards consider all 3 of the Rosharan Shards problems?

From what I understand about Compounding, what you're doing is just making Preservation/Harmony fuel your feruchemy for you.

You store a unit of an attribute in your metalmind and then burn it, the metal being a key that let's Preservation/Harmony's power flow through the metal which carries your attribute and so the power takes on the properties of that attribute.

But that seems to create a problem for Nicrosil if you're storing alien investiture. You store a unit of stormlight in a Nicrosilmind. But that's another shard's power, so what's happening when you compound it?

Is Preservation/Harmony having some of it's power permanently transfered to Honor? Or do you now have one unit of Stormlight and 19+ units of "Preservation's power acting like stormlight."

Am I missing something obvious here?

Lets say a gold compounder gets Lerasium. If they're constantly burning it (like Miles) could they intentionally use it to suicide themselves, entering the cognitive realm, then drop a bendalloy speed bubble, communicating enemy plans, info, and troop movements? Or suicide himself alongside an enemy officer, then drop a speed bubble in the cognitive realm and interrogate that officer? Could a gold compounder weaponize death?

This came to me recently. There are stages of death in the cosmere, so why not make a gold compunder be able to weaponize death for military purposes? They'd be the best black ops team the Cosmere has ever seen.

Suicide for communication or Interrogation purposes via speed bubble inside the cognitive realm, then heal back to 100% seconds later in the physical realm. Assuming you're constantly burning gold metal minds. This just feels like something Sanderson would do, in my opinion.

new sanderson reader here, just finished up hero of ages. absolutely loved era 1, give it a 4/5 overall. getting into stormlight next, about 200 pages into WoK, and it’s awesome so far.

here’s the thing though. almost every single time i see someone discuss stormlight, they say that it heavily falls off in the later books. specifically wind and truth gets a lot of flak. i’m… worried about immersing myself into this MASSIVE series if it’s just gonna suddenly start to suck. i’m not a huge reader and the pure page count of stormlight has me worried about “return on investment” so to speak.

i just want to ask, without any major spoilers please, WHY do people think that way about wind and truth? is it just the sanderson style (which i actually like and appreciate) getting to be too much? or do the books genuinely start to get worse? i’m not going to stop my enjoyable read just out of fear of what’s to come in the series, but i’d be lying if i said the constant hate i see for WaT doesn’t have me worried.

i understand im going to get some selection bias by asking what is ostensibly a community of fans, but still, i felt like this was the best place to ask. i plan to read all of the cosmere eventually if that helps. elantris is next on my list for a break after WoK.

What a story!

There was so much I never suspected, such as Suesborn being good, Vivenna being kidnapped instead of helped, Vasher trying to stop the war., Llaimar being Lightsongs brother, Lightsong being a scribe. And then of course, you find all this out as you approach the final 100 pages and then we're in the sanderlanche and everything begins speeding up!

And at the end we find out Vasher is a returned whose name is Warbreaker the peaceful! And even more shocking he was Kalad the Usurper, Peacegiver the blessed and Talaxin!

There's so much more I could say but I don't want to make this too long...

Is there a reason harmonium isn't called sazium? Both atium and lerasium are named after their respective Vessels, rather than Shards. It's not all important, but the thought crossed my mind and now I'm curious.

I just started reading Rhythm of War. Is Thaidakar Kelsier? It sounds vaguely like The Survivor. If so, what is the reasoning behind the warping of the name? Does it have to do with the difference in the languages of Roshar vs Scadrial? But everything else (the names of Scadrial and Nalthis) are translated correctly. Just curious why they're calling him Thaidakar.

Finished listening to the Cosmere. Started in March. Took me 7 months with a break for all 8 Dungeon Crawler Carl books and maybe a few other random books.

I read (listened) them in a weird order. Can't wait for more.

I think I really liked Warbreaker, Rythym of War, and the Final Empire as my favorites.

Aodolin is hands down the best character IMO.

I wish I could buy all the books as a trophy.

That is all.

I thought it was pretty good, I'd say between 3.5-4/5. I really liked the Prologue, the villains, and the characters. I especially loved how Iron eyes(Marsh) and Harmony(Sazed) played a role in the story. I also love how there are different religions/movements based on our heroes from era 1. For instance I believe that if I lived on scadreil during era 2, I'd be a survivorist, and I'm not a typical religious person. I also enjoyed the lore and deposition of the city. Lastly, I enjoyed the new possibilities within the magic system, the progression from era 1 to 2 feels very real within the world.

A few things I didn't like, odd that I even have to say this, but I actually think Miles philosophy was correct when It came to his view of the government within Elendel and the aristocracy. While I agree with Wax that it's not as bad as the times before the origin, it's still not particularly great. Even though our primary POV was from the upper society, I still noticed the contempt that high society has for the rest of us, but this may very well be my own bias along with attitudes that reminded me too much of current times.

To get on with some of the aspects that didn't work for me, the love triangle, now this one was the least annoying one I read, but I felt a little creeped out of the middle aged man and early 20s romance, sorry if that offends anyone, I just found it uncomfortable. Lastly, and only because it felt rushed, was Marasi on the cusp of graduating when all this was going down? I believe it's stated she's a university student and in the Epilogue only a week has past, and Marasi is assisting the prosecution at an official capacity? Unless I misunderstood, it felt like a reach.

I'm pretty stoked to continue era 2 love the high pace, action, and the characters. I'm especially excited to see how the next two books begin to connect to the wider cosmere.

Okay, so a lot has happened before this post, a few months of backend, a dozen documents, and a game of Vampire the Masquerade among friends that is still developing. Basically, when we wanted to start a game, i said I'd be our storyteller for the VTM game, but I didn't want to play in a modern history, i wanted alt history or a separate setting. My friends pushed me for what setting i wanted, and we ended up with the subject of the post.

So, my game has been taking place in the Year 400 PC so far. I have tried to push the game past some of the events in the story, so there is some light history, but most of my work has centered around spaces Brandon Sanderson has barely even hinted at.

Altogether, i can justify the long kept secret of vampirism under the final empire by allying them with rashek directly and tying them into the imperial structure. I created a vamipirc purge history where rashek was attempting to kill them as the well came closer, and thus vin inadvertently saved vampires. Beyond that, vampirism is a ruinous invested art produced by ati in their fight against preservation, and the history of vampirism in the classical age was lost too rasheks rule.

With all that, i can introduce the setting defining part; why are they even here? Ati made them, if harmony obliterated them, they could risk returning that ruin to themselves and so the 'Masquerade' of Vampire the Masquerade is also Harmony's mask over them so he can fight off discord.

I have developed a genealogy and descent chart for over 3,500 relevant vampires, with a much richer history than here in my personal notes. Im kind of just putting this out to see if anyone else hears this and perks up because it has been crazy fun to develop, and it was years since i read these books.

Just started reading Rhythm of War and Mraize tells Shallan that people who are heavily invested can't go far outside their world when they are in Shadesmar because they are too strongly Connected to the world. We also see this in Secret History where Kelsier can't go too far outside where Scadrial is in the Cognitive Realm. How then, has Vasher/Zahel managed to arrive at Roshar? Is it because he's storing his Breath in objects while travelling? But then wouldn't the objects themselves perhaps not be able to go with him? And also his single Returned Breath can't really be put into an object I don't think, though he has managed to suppress it somehow. And Hoid of course has a ton of Investiture from a variety of worlds, which can't all be stored like Breath, so how is he worldhopping?

I had seen some of Brandon Sanderson's teaching lectures on YT but had never read any of his books. I'm normally more of a sci-fi person than fantasy but when one of my friends told me about the Cosmere I decided to give it a try. Earlier this year I managed to get the Mistborn original trilogy and the first three books of the Stormlight Archive on sale, and later got Warbreaker, Elantris and Arcanum Unbounded. I just recently finished the first Mistborn book and I really enjoyed it but haven't had a chance to start on Well of Ascension yet. I'm hoping to eventually get all the entries in the Cosmere universe, though I don't know why White Sand is so much more expensive for some reason. I was just wondering if there are any other newcomers to the Cosmere, and what do you think about it so far.

At the end of Mistborn the Final Empire I loved Kelsier, I knew he was flawed and he had some problems but he cared about his people and he lived by his code more or less. I mean he was human but he tried and I just loved him for his loyalty to his crew.

Then Secret history comes along and his very first thought was "WHERE IS MARE?" and I am totally here for it because that's his ultimate person, his wife, his everything. He has the chance to go to her but he sees he needs to stay to save their pseudo daughter and I get that, Mare has to wait so he can save Vin. Man to Man, I understand and I support it.

Then at the end you know what he doesn't do? Say, mission accomplished, time to go on to the next life with my daughter, son in law, and see my wife again. Instead he sticks around to dinkle around the Cosmere and it really just made me think a lot less of him. Where is the guy who's first question was where is my wife?

- This kind of grew beyond my ability to respond to all of the comments, but I would like to thank everyone for the discussion it has been highly enjoyable.