WMG / The Cosmere

This is a page for general theories about the nature of the Cosmere. For theories about the events in specific books, see these pages:

• Wax and Wayne
• The Stormlight Archive

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The Big Bad isn't Odium

In Mistborn: the Final Empire, Kelsier notes that the crew can't fight the Final Empire, but they can "shatter it, then make the pieces fight each other." That's the same logic someone else had about Adonalsium; they couldn't beat him, but they could shatter him into Shards that would destroy each other, like Odium has with Honor.

The reason travel between planets is possible via the cognitive realm is that nothing lives in space

This is based on the fact that on Roshar's Cognitive Realm the continents are covered with an ocean of glass beads representing objects while the oceans are not. I hypothesize that the geography of the Cognitive Realm is expanded by the number of living, thinking beings in the corresponding Physical Realm location, and that all physical locations are connected in the Cognitive Realm (via some Alien Geometries to stitch spherical worlds onto a flat plain of course). Since nothing lives in space, there's no distance to cross between planets.

• As of Mistborn: Secret History, Confirmed, although apparently there's a lower limit on how compressed lifeform-free space can get.

The mechanism that allows divine beings to communicate with mortals is the same across worlds

Specifically, they can only communicate with those with 'broken souls'. In Mistborn, Ruin was able to communicate with and control anyone with a hemalurgic spike, which explicitly damages the soul of the subject. But we never found out he was able to spike Zane, or control Vin's mother. Meanwhile, in the Stormlight Archives, Spren (a type of spiritual being) can only bond to those with 'broken souls' because otherwise there's nowhere for them to connect. Shardvessels like Ruin, Odium, Harmony, and others can only connect with and influence those whose souls have been damaged by either trauma or magic.Which, incidentally, means there's a reason so many prophets are madmen.

• Zane spiked himself before the events of "The Well of Ascension." Vin's mother, on the other hand, has no such excuse.
• Mistborn: Secret History confirms that Shardvessels can communicate to certain madmen, and even ordinary seeming people, so this is probably confirmed. Which explains how, exactly, Zane knew how to spike himself.

The total goal of at least one faction in the Cosmere is the restoration of Adonalsium

The idea Restoration appears to a greater or lesser degree in every major Cosmere story/series:

• Elantris: The curing of the Reod and the restoration of Elantris.
• Mistborn: The Original Trilogy: Ending the stagnation that plagues that world.
• Warbreaker: Giving power back to the God-King.
• The Way of Kings (2010): Commanding the use of the Codes, the return of the Radiants and restoring Shallan's household to its former wealth.
• The Alloy of Law: Restoring House Ladrian to its former wealth and (possibly) the return of the Mistborn.
• The Emperor's Soul: Fixing the eponymous soul.

What's more, we know that a person can hold more than one Shard. If two, why not 16?

The question is, is this a good thing? Odium, who is being set up as the Cosmere's Big Bad, is out there destroying the Shards, which suggests that fixing Adonalsium would be good. However, for whatever reason, he's not taking their power for himself. Perhaps he's Anti-Villain and is preventing the power from falling into the wrong hands.

• Word of God indicates that he doesn't take the power for himself because he doesn't want to dilute his own purity by adding elements of other Shards to it. That's a... less than admirable motivation, especially when the purity you don't want to dilute is Odium.

Adonalsium shattered itself intentionally

Most people are operating on idea that Word of Brandon's "anti-Adonalsium", the force opposing Adonalsium, won a blow against it and succeeded in shattering it into the 16 shards.

But what if it didn't? What if Adonalsium shattered itself in aid of its own ends?

Evidence:

• In Words of Radiance, in the second Interlude, Ym tells the following parable:
  Long ago, there was only One. One knew everything, but had experienced nothing. And so, One became many—us, people. The One, —>who is both male and female, did so to experience all things.
  ...
  As each experience is different, it brings completeness. Eventually, all will be gathered back in—when the Seventh Land is —>attained—and we will once again become One.
  • The second Letter in the same says:
  The worlds you now tread bear the touch and design of Adonalsium...However, it seems to me that all things have been set up —>for a purpose, and if we—as infants—stumble through the workshop, we risk exacerbating, not preventing, a problem.

It sounds like another one of the Cosmere's religion,but it seems a little out of place. Actually, its inclusion makes even less sense if you don't assume it's foreshadowing.

• We know Andonalsium, as it was, is gone and gone forever. Brandon has said that if Sazed was killed, he would drop the Shard Harmony, not the Shards Ruin and Preservation. If Andonalsium shattered itself, there would have to be a goal. It would want to come better, not the same.
• Who better to shatter with intent than Andonalsium itself. If it was the "Anti-Andonalsium", it would probably want to destroy Andonalsium so it could never come back in any sense.
• Jossed: Khriss seems to think that the 16 original Vessels shattered Adonalsium on purpose.

The Ars Arcanum is written by Hoid

It's written in a first-person point of view, not an omniscient narrator. On the other hand, the writer has knowledge of things from other worlds. He compares Allomancy to the form-based Investitures from Sel, presumably he's speaking of the Awakening found in Warbreaker. So far, only one character has appeared in all of Sanderson's main works, and that is Hoid. Therefore, the Ars Arcanum was written by Hoid.

• Actually FYI Sel is the world of Elantris. Also I think it was written by one of the members of The Seventeenth Shard, a group mentioned in The Way of Kings that seems to consist of worldhoppers.
• Investiture is a word used by The Seventeenth Shard to describe magic's effects and power across universes, so that points to them.
• We aren't actually sure of that. Although we have a vague idea what investiture is, we have no specifics, and Brandon has explicitly stated he won't answer any questions even vaguely related to it.
• Also, members of the Seventeenth shard appear in The Way of Kings, and Galladon (an Elantrian) and Demoux (from Scadrial) are two of them. It's quite possible they wrote the respective entries in the Ars Arcanum.
  • Jossed: Word of Brandon says a) there's a single author for all the Ars Arcanums, b) that author is not Hoid, c) that author is female, and d) Nazh, the guy who annotated the map in The Alloy of Law (among other things), works for her. It's now more or less confirmed that the Ars Arcanums are written by Khriss, from White Sand.

The Ars Arcanum is written by Odium from The Stormlight Archive

Similar reasoning above, but with the additional note that he takes a peculiar interest in Hemalurgy. Although he tries to defend it as not necessarily evil, it seems like the reasoning someone trying to sound less evil to observers would use.

• Notably, there is Word of God confirmation in one of the "Note from Brandon" sidebars in the RPG that Hemalurgy IS evil.
  • That sidebar is written to make it absolutely clear to GMs that players who practice Hemalurgy have no room to call themselves "Chaotic Neutral", not that Hemalurgy is in-and-of-itself evil (if the assault, soul-maiming, and parasitism of the practice didn't tip them off). Anyway, the Ars Arcanums have a human author - Khriss from White Sand, several years later. Her interest in Hemalurgy is probably due to its use in transporting powers across worlds, and/or its overarching use of rewriting the soul.

When the final smackdown against Odium comes, some unexpected people will join the fray

Specificaly heroes from other books, both alive and dead. Harmony said that Vin, Elend and Kelser were with him (or words to that effect). I can't see Harmony getting involved but, it Wax's conversation with Harmony is to be belived, he is willing to send people to help. When the final showdown occurs we may find outselves treated to an allstar team up, at least of Mistborn characters. We may even see a few less than heroic ones, TLR is probably the most powerful individual we have seen short of the Harmony and Odium and certainly has a lot to atone for.

• Also Vin and Eland's tomb was reminiscent of the tomb of King Arthur, and it is said he will come back at the hour of England's greatest need. So why not have Vin and Eland com back at the hour of the Cosmere's greatest need?
• Sadly Jossed by Mistborn: Secret History: Vin, Elend, and TLR have all passed to "The Beyond," which among other things means their minds are sailing along the myriad Connections of the Spiritual Realm perpetually, surrounded by the people, places, and things that they love. It would be highly difficult (bordering on impossible) for those minds to coalesce again in the Cognitive Realm, and finding another body (and Connecting to it properly) is something that, so far as we know, has only happened once.
• Actually, the Beyond is not part of the three realms - her mind and spirit are outside of the Cosmere now that she is dead.
• On the other hand, Kelsier HAS joined the fray - as an antagonist, although one who wants the protagonists to win. He still can’t get to Roshar personally, but that’s what the Ghostbloods are for...
  • It seems that Kelsier and the main body of the Ghostbloods are focused mainly on protecting Scadrial and that the Ghostbloods seeming so antagonistic in the Stormlight Archive is due to a combination of the aims of saving Roshar and saving Scadrial not fully lining up plus the Ghostbloods on Roshar being a little out of line.

Hoid's endgame is to reform Adonalsium... By becoming it.

What do we know of hoid's actions so far? He's hopping from world to world, visiting moments of crisis where the power of the shards is in play or changes hands. He is able to lightweave, he can use feruchemy, he has Breath, he ate a bead of lerasium. And his passage on the world of mistborn happened at a time atium was, if not common, at least not too hard to procure (especially as an informant for the nobility), so he can have some too. He's been munchkinning all the magic systems of the cosmere he's managed to put his hands onto, and already has powers that come from Honor, Ruin, Preservation, and Endowment (one fourth of the shards , and nearly all the shards that have come into play so far).

We also know, thanks to Sazed, that it is possible to merge shards by taking the power of two of them into one's body.

I think Hoid's plan is to fuse all the shards back together by collecting into himself investiture from each and every shard of Adonalsium (through the different magic systems) and fusing it into something similar to investiture from Adonalsium itself. The only problem then is to do the same thing with the whole of the power of each shard instead of just a part of it, but having a bit of pure, whole divine power should help a lot with this.

A lot of characters seem to have names that are meaningful to their character or plot - Hoid sounds kind of like both 'hold' (and means hold in Danish) and 'Void'. Either could imply he is either seeking to hold the shards, or perhaps that he, somehow, is a remnant of Adonalsium. In fact, under the self-shattering theory, this gives at least one possible motive: wanting to experience 'normal' life, or he self-shattered to avoid some unknown worse outcome against the 16.

The not seen but vaguely alluded to God Beyond isn't directly a part of the books. He IS the Cosmere.

• Basically, the God Beyond is Brandon Sanderson, much like Marvel's One Above All (God of the Marvel multiverse) is heavily implied to be Stan Lee/Jack Kirby.

The known Shard's colors.

It's established in The Hero of Ages that Preservation and Ruin have white and black colors, respectively to their shards. Here's a list of all the shards and their confirmed or speculated colors:

• Ambition: Unknown, possibly Red if it's the force that Sazed is holding back on Scadrial in The Bands of Mourning

• Autonomy: Unknown, also possibly Red if it's the force that Sazed is holding back on Scadrial in The Bands of Mourning

• Cultivation: Brown, described as having bark-like skin in Oathbringer

• Devotion: White and/or Silver, the colors of Elantrians' skin

• Dominion: Red (the color of the robes of the Shu-Dereth priests which seems to be based on him) or Black (the color of a Skaze, which "seems to suck in the light around it" according to the Elantris postscript)

• Endownment: Unknown, possibly Blue, if the flowers referred to as "Tears of Edgli" are related to its Shard essence. Possibly also White, given the affinity of Bio Chroma with colors, to represent all of the Colors combined.

• Honor: Gold/Blue, the colors of the Knights Radiant

• Odium: Purple/White, confirmed in Oathbringer

• Oubrodai Shard(s): Unknown, possibly Blue or Green since the Shard(s) letter to Hoid mentions the sea/ocean repeatedly and intent may have something to do with water

• Preservation: White, confirmed in The Hero of Ages

• Ruin: Black, confirmed in The Hero of Ages

• Survival Shard: Unknown

Remnant, the setting of RWBY is a world in The Cosmere.

• The Brothers are Yolenese Dragons who took the Shards of Creation and Destruction (Which are distinct from Cultivation or Endowment and Ruin, respectively). So that even if the Brothers took most of their Investiture with them, we still have Aura, Dust, Semblances, and especially the Creatures of Grimm themselves:
  • Aura and Semblances are of Creation, being generated by life themselves, and used primarily to protect oneself and/or others.
  • Dust is of both, being (seemingly) inorganic in composition, but sensitive to Aura, electricity, and explosive force, and (depending on its exact composition) usable for creative, protective, or destructive purposes.
  • The Grimm are of Destruction, being Cognitive Shadows created for the purpose of consuming organic life, taking forms that suggest a twisted parody of the concept of organic life. The Grimm bear some similarities to Re-Shephir's Midnight Essence on Roshar.

Oh, and while normally, certain planetary conditions along with the Intent of the Shard itself dictate the local rules of magic, there are still examples of Shardholders dictating elements of the magic rules themselves. (Tanavast setting up himself as the final arbiter of a Surgebinder's progression along his path of enlightenment, Sazed editing the tables of Allomancy and Feruchemy post-Catecindure, Edgli being the one to decide who is to be Returned.)

When Ozma was reincarnated with the Relics, it brought a sufficient amount of Investiture back to Remnant to generate a new Perpendicularity. (That seems to be the explanation for Threnody, Sel, and First of the Dawn.) As a result, the world began to see tourists from Silverlight and various other Shardworlds. Ozma's latent Investiture could also be which allows his Cognitive Shadow to repeatedly manifest in the Physical Realm, much like how the Heralds are anchored with Investiture to reincarnate on Braize.

The Four Relics may be the Four Dawnshards. Each carries a specific command, one of which, Choice, is similar to the Aimia Dawnshard of Change.

The Void Between The Worlds is The Cognitive Realm. When characters fall off the walkways there, they land in either The Spiritual Realm, or First of The Dawn.

It's entirely possible that Rayse murdered the Brothers sometime after the Elder Brother reincarnated Ozma...

• Alternatively, the Brothers were Leras and Ati, who left Remnant to try again with Scadrial. Salem's behavior permanently strained their relationship, leading to that planet and its human society to become even more dysfunctional. When Ozpin or Salem bring the Relics together, Sazed will appear, very confused at what's going on...

• Either way, Hoid is either The Shopkeeper (it explains why he can wear so many occupational hats, and how delicious his noodles are), the Faunus Blacksmith, or possibly both.

Hoid is a dragon

Based on a recent Youtube AMA by Brandon, dragons in the cosmere can shapeshift. Additionally, we know that Hoid has multiple ways of disguising himself, and that he is from a time where dragons were common, proven by him being friends with Frost. Thus, it's a feasible possibility that one of his ways of disguising himself is shapeshifting and that he is a dragon.

• Jossed, Hoid is confirmed to have been human at one point, though he is now 'not exactly that'.

Mistborn novels set farther into the future will involve The Magic Comes Back

Allomancy is rarer and weaker with every passing generation, which is why there are no more Mistborn born in Wax and Wayne, and why koloss and kandra were easier to control right after the Lord Ruler's ascension. It might not be an issue by the time of Era 3 (roughly equivalent to the 1980s), but Era 4 is to the point of FTL travel.

Stuff that might exist in later Mistborn books

• Similar to iron and zinc supplements, many metals will be available in pill form.
• Unsealed copperminds used as a proto-internet. There will be sweatshops full of copper Ferrings memorizing from someone else tapping a coppermind.
• Kandra making airplane skeletons, or other flight-capable things.
• Allomancers snorting metal-filled cocaine.
• Exams where students cheat with Allomancy or Feruchemy (bendalloy for extra time, zinc to increase mental speed, copper to memorize), proctors using bronze or making everyone wear aluminum hats, and enterprising students burning copper for a fee.
• Bendalloy Allomancy being used to make computers run faster, and a drive to make smaller computers to fit in the bubble.
• Bronze Ferrings pulling all-nighters.
• When Legend Fades to Myth, the stories of the religions are assumed to be fictional or religiously embellished. As a result:
  • Anthropologists or religious researchers pouring over the records from the First Era and trying to figure out what really happened, the same way the crew read Alendi's journal.
  • University lectures on the symbolism of Ironeyes's spikes, and how it reflected the cultural anxieties of the time.
  • Vin saving Goradel (the soldier she convinces to stand down following TLR's death instead of fighting) becomes a real morality fable told to children.
  • The same way the Deepness was forgotten, and its only depictions are in art, knowledge of what the Inquisitors are will be lost. Scholars might think they're actually ravens like the ones Vin fights in stained glass windows, and scorn the 'nails in eyes' as symbolism.
  • In a distant enough future, conflation between deities. There's already a duality motif between Preservation and Ruin, which might continue with Kelsier (change) and the Lord Ruler (stability), and the Survivor (life) and Ironeyes (death).
• Fantastic Legal Weirdness regarding Bendalloy and Cadmium Allomancers and legal drinking ages.
• Marsh lamenting that he can't see computer screens, film projections, or other light-based displays.
• If Chromium only steals the power of the metals instead of destroying the metals themselves, a Leecher slowly assassinates Allomancers by subtly rendering small amounts of metals unburnable, resulting in metal poisoning. This may or may not work better on Pewterarms; on one hand, lead is especially toxic. On the other, pewter works well on poisons.
• Cadmium Feruchemists (stores breath) in orchestras.
• Electrum Feruchemists (stores determination) for sports teams.
  • Sports in general. There might be cheating scandals with Allomancers playing conventional games like baseball, with Leechers on hand to stop potential Allomancers, and Coinshots or Lurchers to look for Feruchemists. Or Allomancy-only sports.
• In the space opera era, Survivorism might have issues with not having mists on other planets.
• The Satanic Panic, but with either Sliverism or Trellism.
• Classic monster movies, using Mistwraiths, Ironeyes, or imaginary monsters.
• Religious debates over the Words of Founding, except over something trivial like a section on pancake recipes.

Burning bronze has the fastest pulse of the metals

Sensing Investiture through bronze is like hearing/feeling pulses of varying lengths and intensity. In signal processing, sampling is recording an existing wave by using a high-frequency wave; the higher the frequency, the closer to the original. If bronze works by sampling, a high frequency wave can detect the minute changes in burning metals.

• Adding to this, a Seeker could give a Listener a major headache by burning bronze, as the equivalent of an annoying high-pitched noise.

The Ones Above from Sixth of the Dusk are from Era 4 Scadrial

Only because Era 4 Mistborn is the first confirmed space faring culture.

How the in-universe Wax and Wayne comics will be presented

Wax and Wayne was conceived as a comic book for Era 3. Getting ahold of their real adventures might be difficult, since it contains things that are either very personal, like Bloody Tan being Lessie, or secret, like the kandra being involved or the Survivor returning. At least the pre-Alloy adventures are public record, and so is the plot of Shadows of Self, but the other stuff might have some... embellishments. Possibilities include:

• The temple in Bands of Mourning is more of a straight Temple of Doom than it really was, and the Bands are actual bracers. The Bands might end up being destroyed, too.
• Marasi gets paired up with Wax or Wayne, out of convenience, or Steris gets Xenafied.
• Wax gets converted to Survivorism due to Moral Guardians.
• The comics might get banned in New Seran, depending on how Wax handles being framed for murder.
• Someone's going to get the Adaptational Comic Relief treatment, and it might not be Wayne.

Ten and nine are special numbers because they're the number of worlds with Shards on them

Sixteen is special because it's the total number of Shards, so ten and nine probably relate to the Shards as well. While there are sixteen Shards, there are at most thirteen planets/systems because six Shards paired off (Ruin and Preservation, Devotion and Dominion, Honor and Cultivation). My guess is that there were once ten systems with Shards, and Odium turned it into nine by abandoning Braize for Roshar. That's why nine is of Odium.

A spoiler character hides by using a Duralumin metalmind

Feruchemical Duralumin stores Connection, and storing it weakens bonds with others. While it doesn't stop people from noticing his existence, Kelsier can use it to stop people from recognizing him. As long as he takes basic steps to disguise himself like sleeves and sunglasses, he can go anywhere in Scadrial without being bothered.

There are five BioChromatic entities

On Scadrial, there are sixteen basic metals, and on Roshar, there are ten surges. Five is the Arc Number for Nalthis, and there are four types of entities in Warbreaker: Returned, Lifeless, Awakened Objects, and whatever Nightblood is. There might be another one that just hadn't been discovered; in Rhythm of War, Vasher says that the Returned are now classified as Type 2 rather than Type 1. It's possible that he discovered a new entity that better fit being called Type 1. Or he could have decided, say, to swap Returned with Lifeless.

The Sovereign anticipated losing his powers and memories, and so left behind ways to restore his powers

All throughout the Bands of Mourning, Wax thinks it's strange that if the Sovereign wanted to keep the Bands for himself, he left a story and an adventure behind for the South. I think that the Sovereign left clues in case he forgot where he left his artifacts, and let the story spread so he could easily access them later.

• As Wax realizes, the Bands of Mourning were stored in a giant temple instead of a hidden cave because it would be too easy for the Sovereign to forget which cave he left it. So in case there was a complete memory wipe, the Sovereign left clues so he could easily find them again, which works because you don't need to remember how to get past the traps or the door to claim the Bands.
• If the Survivor's Treasure was also left behind by the Sovereign, since the Survivor is the Sovereign, he left a vaguely-worded prophesy and enough clues for Jak to find them. The Treasure is actually Hemalurgic spikes, which can be used to grant anyone Allomancy or Feruchemy, and the fact that they were kept in an aluminum chest meant that he knew that the spikes lose their charge outside of blood or aluminum.

The Ghostbloods want portable Investiture to help Thaidakar

Going off the theory that Thaidakar is Kelsier. Here's what we know:

• Cognitive Shadows need Investiture, or else they pass into the Beyond.
• Kelsier was heavily Invested after his stint as Preservation, and he estimates he'll last for a while.
• Kelsier taught the Southern Scadrians how to make medallions that grant the user Metalborn powers.
• These medallions use nicrosil, which stores Investiture, as a battery to power the other half.
• The South doesn't have nearly as many Metalborn as the north.
• The South appears to have a surplus of nicrosil metalminds.

My conclusion is that since the South didn't have very many Nicrosil Ferrings, Kelsier had to power most of those medallions himself. He dumped a lot of Investiture into these metalminds, making so many that it saved the South, but what he thought was an infinite supply turned out to be not so infinite. So he sent the Ghostbloods to find other sources of Investiture to consume, to keep himself alive.

On Whimsy's Shardworld, the one where Investiture is in kites, the main character will be dour and serious

• Sanderson tries to avert Planet of Hats; he wrote Galladon to be dour and serious so that not everyone from Duladel fits the stereotype of being happy. Besides, it would be amusing to watch an uber-serious private detective fly kites.

Hoid is trying to restore/acquire whatever magic Adonalsium granted

• Every magic in the setting so far is associated with a Shard (or the synergy of multiple Shards, like Feruchemy). Hoid has Yolish Lightweaving, which works differently from Rosharian Lightweaving, so we know that Yolen once had Investiture before the Shattering, presumably granted by Adonalsium. What if Hoid is trying to gather the other forms of Investiture to recreate the Investiture granted by Adonalsium?

Mercy is the final Big Bad of the entire Cosmere.

Brandon loves Hidden Depths and having characters subvert expectations. Stormlight has shown that there are some bad parts to Honor and good parts to Odium so perhaps the twist is in the end the worst Shard isn't one of the Obviously Evil ones like Ruin but one of the Shards that seems like it should be a God of Good. As for Mercy's motivation, perhaps she(?) thinks existence is pain and wants to destroy the entire Cosmere in what she views as a Mercy Kill though that may be too cliche. Or maybe she regrets Asonalsium's death and plots to restore him by murdering every other Shard, Splinter and Investure user in existence to reclaim Adonalsium's lost power.

Shardic opposites.

It's been established that Allomancy and Feruchemy have four groupings of four metals, comprising sixteen in total (not counting god-metals). In Allomancy, pure-metal has the opposite effect to its alloy (e.g. iron and steel pull and push on metal, for instance). Expanding this, it's entirely possible that the sixteen shards also come in opposing/contrasting pairs.

• Preservation/Ruin and Harmony is obvious - all three Shards repeatedly refer to the opposing nature of the Shards.

• Devotion/Honour - yes, Honour was in a relationship with Cultivation, and we have no idea what the nature of his relationship with Devotion was. However, the concepts of Devotion and Honour are very tied together - by Honouring someone you love, you prove your Devotion to them. Additionally, Honour is very evident in the seons, who serve their masters out of Devotion.

• Odium/Mercy - Odium is 'divine passion/hatred untempered by Mercy' - a quote from This Very Wiki. We also know that Rayse himself perceived himself to be the Shard of Passion - a belief which may be more accurate than he realised, as Taravangian was able to take up the Shard when he was filled with Passion. We also know that Rayse was...an unpleasant guy, and that Shardic intent can be filtered through the personality of the Shardvessel - Ati, a kind and generous person, become filled with the desire to spread the 'gift' of destruction and death. So, perhaps Rayse being who he was, affected the Shard of Passion in a similar manner, twisting it to hatred. In any case, Passion, even hatred, can be tempered and countered through Mercy.

• Endowment/ Virtuosity - of course, we don't know much about either of these two Shards. However, they both relate to the same thing, just as Preservation and Ruin combined represent creation - Endowment and Virtuosity represent two sides of talent: being gifted with that talent, and the creative use of that talent. Indeed, both Hallandren and Kilahito place considerable value on artistic talent.

• Cultivation/Invention - Cultivation is the force of growth and life, heavily connected with nature. Invention, one would assume, revolves around human ingenuity and industry, which would likely mean a shift away from nature.

• Valor/Survival Shard - next to nothing is known about these two. However, it is evident that Valor is all about bravery, courage, standing up and doing the right thing. The Survival Shard, on the other hand, is in hiding - and we know that they are all about doing the pragmatic thing for your own survival. In this context, keeping their head down while Odium rampages. Not necessarily the valorous thing to do, but logical to ensure your survival.

• Dominion/Autonomy - Autonomy is the Shard of Independence, bordering on isolationism. Dominion is all about conquering others, ignoring their own right to Autonomy. Additionally, both Shards, secretly or not-so-secretly, seek to bring everything under their control - Autonomy's interfering in the affairs of a bunch of different Shardworlds, while Dominion is self-evident.

• Ambition/Whimsy - These shards, like Preservation and Ruin, are direct opposites in some senses. Ambition would likely be very serious and no-nonsense, striving for greater things. Whimsy, on the other hand, would probably have an Intent revolving around relaxing and having fun.

Whimsy will turn out to be the strongest and most capable in magic amongst the Shards, barring Harmony

In part just to screw with the readers, but it also makes some sense - they would be the most inclined to actually study their powers and nature and ways to use them.