One common theme in magic systems across fantasy is the use of artifacts to focus, increase or do something specific with the magic. Inclusion of artifacts is something you have avoided in your magic systems (although I will say I haven’t missed them). Is there a reason for this? How has your writing changed with the ‘forced’ introduction of artifacts (i.e. finishing the Wheel of Time)? Do you plan on using artifacts in your own works after you finish the Wheel of Time?
I’ve not done artifacts for the same reason I’ve not yet done a lot of things—not because I don’t want to, but because I like to keep the focus in a given book or books. There wasn’t room for yet another extrapolation in that direction when writing the Mistborn books, and the magic system didn’t really allow for it.
However, I think there is a lot of room to explore magic artifacts. I’ve long been wanting to do something that refines magic and uses technology based on it, in kind of a magic-punk sort of way. Kings , for instance, does use artifacts and magical items—very specific kinds, mind you, that are built into the framework of the magic system. But they’re there. One of the big elements of this world will be the existence of Shardplate (magically enhanced, powered plate armor) and Shardblades (large, summonable swords designed to cut through steel and stone.)
This isn’t really because of the WoT—I wrote the original draft of this book long before I was published, let alone working on the WoT—but I have always lilked the use of artifacts in the WoT world, and it has been fun to use some of them in that setting.
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