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Continuing a discussion from the comments of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw7qijXKnv8 In order to compensate for the erosion that would occur from the highstorms, Brandon designed a system where stone could be laid down by rain. (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/161/#e4422) According to the Coppermind entry on Roshar, this results in the entire continent gradually shifting to the east, because crem builds up on the eastern side of things as highstorms travel from east to west. However, wouldn't highstorms instead push crem deposits around to the west and erode the eastern edge, shifting the continent to the west?

Ok, so this really has no impact on the story whatsoever, but it’s been on my mind. In Oathbringer, Jasnah reveals that Roshar originally belonged to the listeners, and that humans eventually invaded. Someone (I think it was also Jasnah, though it might’ve been Odium) said that Shinovar was given to the humans as a place where they could live in a similar environment as their native one, where the humans plants could grow and they could thrive. Most obviously moved on from Shinovar, and settled elsewhere. However, if Shinovar was the equivalent of their Rosharan homeland, then why are the Shin short compared to everyone else? Seeing as the Shin would have no obvious catalyst for a significant change in stature (their environment was the same on Roshar as it was before Roshar), the other Rosharans would have had to have grown in order to adapt to their new environment, though the reason they would need to adapt why remains a mystery to me. A second theory is that before leaving their previous planet, the humans had different nationalities, and this carried over when they took over Roshar. This theory seems the most likely, and would explain why the people in the homeland are comparatively short, as they wouldn’t accurately represent the entire pre-Roshar population. Another possibility is that the different countries were founded by a few people, and the different genes carried through generations. This theory makes less sense, however, as the humans probably had to fight the listeners in order to take over Roshar, and that couldn’t be done by a few people, meaning that a few peoples’ similar genes couldn’t control the genes of the whole country.

do we know what would happen if Nightblood stabbed through a spren? I know the main part of the spren is housed in the cognitive realm but what would happen if nightblood cut through the physical manifestation of the spren, Like syl, would she die and that part of Kaladin's spirit web ripped out? or would she be cut off from the physical realm becoming, essentially, a cognitive spren shadow? Or would it do nothing as they don't have a strong enough prescenes in the physical realm (least likely in my opinion)

Spoilers ahead! The topics covered should all be in TWoK and WoR Hey all I've been trying to sleep but this is eating at me now so I guess I gotta post it. First things first let's cover some basic things: Theory: You could speak with a dead person in Shadesmar if you're a lightweaver. Some things we know (correct me if I'm wrong here): -Everything has a spren on roshar, even body parts. -These spren gain identity in Shadesmar based on how they're perceived by living beings. -Pattern can talk to these spren's beads and translate/interpret. -People have souls, but when they die the soul leaves behind the body. So! A person might lose its soul when it dies, but the body remains there. Everything has a spren so the body probably has a spren, especially since it sees itself as a whole. Therefore you could probably find a corpse's bead in Shadesmar. This corpse would have very strong ties to the person it used to be, having been there to experience everything the person had. Presumably this means that the body's spren would behave very similarly to the deceased person. I think that because of this, Shallan (or any radiant in Shadesmar, even) could go into Shadesmar and speak with carbon copies of dead people; this would likely be especially easy with soulcast lighteyes statues, because they're still the same person and are perceived that way. What do you think? What use could you see in this?

Hello All, I'm excited to join and be a part of the community! I am new-ish to Sanderson's writing, but have move through it pretty quickly. I've read through SA (including Edgedancer), Mistborn Era1, and Warbreaker. I have started Elantris and own Mistborn Era 2, but haven't read either. BUT, enough about me...to my question...Also, Oathbringer Spoilers, I guess... SO! As we know now after Oathbringer, the Alethi are actually from another world that was destroyed by their predecessors after some calamity using/involving Stormlight. My question pertains more so, however, to the planet of Roshar. The plants, animals, and landscape of Roshar bear an incredible resemblance to underwater life. From how the plants retract, to the description of massive crustacean like creatures, to even eels that fly! Is it possible, or has it been confirmed, that the arrival of what was left of the Alethi transformed/destroyed Roshar to the point of drying out oceans and such. Just a curious topic I have always wondered about and am interested to any possible answers.

Good day fellas. It's been a while since I've posted on here and since I've checked in, so if this theory is old hat, I apologize. Tear me to shreds. But if not, I humbly submit this to the 17th Shard. I reread OB recently and I've been thinking of Brandon's repeated mentions of how the entire structure of Stormlight is going to be ordered; specifically that each order of Knights Radiant will have a flashback book through a different character's perspective. What I've not been able to wrap my head around is with who he's chosen for his flashbacks for the subsequent books - it seems we have an extra Lightweaver in the bunch with Ash - the Herald and Patron of Lightweavers - being present in the back five. With her inclusion, we've got representatives from each order present in Brandon's planned 10 book sequence: Kaladin/Windrunner, Shallan/Lightweaver, Dalinar/Bondsmith, Eshonai/Willshaper (probably), Szeth/Skybreaker, Renarin/Truthwatcher, Lift/Edgedancer, Taln/Stoneward and Jasnah/Elsecaller. So that leaves our interesting friend Ash - who according to tradition is the leader of Lightweavers. And we're missing a Dustbringer (or Releaser if you're gonna be PC about it) book. I think Ash is going to become a Dustbringer. This way she will make the flashbacks of the books nice and ordered and sequenced and each order gets one book. But I also think it works with the text. We know the Heralds are essentially just immortal (unless you have a special knife!) humans and thus fallible to human emotions that might attract the right type of spren. It also seems like another prerequisite for being a KR is to be flawed or damaged in some way and the Nahel bond is an avenue for that KR to explore their flaws and come to terms with them (Kaladin's depression, Shallan's repressed memories, etc.) Look at Ash's character for a second: what do we know about her off the top of our heads? She destroys. Brandon has spent three books putting in overt references to Ash destroying her own visage in works of art depicting the Heralds. Sounds a little Dustbringery to you? Ash is also sane, as we saw in her handful of viewpoints in Oathbringer but is dealing with an incredible amount of guilt for the last four and a half thousand years by leaving Taln to be tortured on Braize. There we also have the unofficial KR flaw - her mountain of guilt that gives her a compulsion to destroy any art depicting her as a way of ... atonement, maybe? Either way, I think this is enough to probably attract an Ashspren. We know from Malata that Ashspren like to destroy and have a bit of a chip on their shoulders. I think they would love the fact that Ash has spent nearly five thousand years destroying. If you were an Ashspren looking for a Nahel bond, she would be a prize catch, right? I think there's a little aversion to her being a Dustbringer in my head because I'm thinking along the lines of "but she's the Herald of Lightweaving! She just CAN'T be anything else!" But I think I've argued my brain out of that position. First, we know that Heralds can form a Nahel bond - Nale mentions he became a Skybreaker and shows off his fancy non-Honourblade shardblade. Who is to say that a Herald who joins an order has to join THEIR order though? There doesn't seem to be a hard and fast rule about it. Especially when they've gone through such changes in the past five thousand years. Ash is not simply the herald of beauty and creativity anymore. While some of the other Heralds have gone insane, Ash seems to have just gotten flipped around. She represents destruction now. So there ya have it. Let me know what you think.

So roshar as we know it has existed for at least several millennia, so my question is this; if this continent has suffered high storms for this long, how come most of roshar is still stone? Why hasn't it broken down the soil? Are roshar rocks particularly resilient? We know that shinovar has soil, what about the rest of it? Do the high storms blow the sediment westward? Finally settling in shinovar? Ultimately, I don't understand how a planet with particularly aggressive weather patterns could retain a solid Rock surface for thousands of years. Somebody help me.

Already posted on the Reddit, but wanted to hear the ideas that people have on here too! In my Development Biology class, our final project is to make a presentation on our favorite humanoids, focusing specifically on 3 morphological differences between the humanoid and humans. I chose the Parshendi as the focus of my project - I want to talk about (1) their ability to grow carapace (when in Warform), (2) the red-black patterning that they have as skin, and (3) their gemhearts. I think I have a fair idea how and what I want to write about for the first 2 things (think of turtle/crab carapace development!), but I am a bit stumped on how to approach the third. Does anyone have any insight into how their gemhearts are formed? Also, anything about how they are born/develop that is in the books would also be appreciated!

I am in the middle of rereading Oathbringer and I noticed that in Nazh's notes, the Rosharian glyph pair Kalad means eternal. And given that at least some of the Five Scholars went to Roshar, I think it is likely that Vasher named Kalad's Phantoms after that. Eternal Phantoms, Eternal guardians of T'Telir. It is one page 519 of the hard back copy I have.

I have just gotten my first tattoo ever and what a better one than some Knights Radiant, Cosmere ones! It's in Kholin Blue! And part 1 of my Cosmere tattoo journey!! All of the Cosmere holds a special place for me! Most especially Stormlight! Life before Death Radiants!!

A couple of weeks ago I had a run-in with Brandon ans was able to ask him a question. I thought I would post it here so y'all can see it. Here is the paraphrased Arcanum style transcript: Here is what I got from this: There are (or could be) shardblades off of Roshar, but definitely not a large number of them. Most (if not all) of the "missing" shardblades are still on Roshar. Also we now have definite confirmation that it is hard to take a spen off world, but it is possible. I would love to hear what the rest of the shard thinks of this WoB.

Alright so I’m not sure if we have seen on screen a world hopper attracting spren. I’m also curious to the relationship between emotions and the cognitive realm. If you shipped some emotion spren to Scadrial would people start seeing them? If of course you transferred the connection they have to roshar there as well. I’m also curious to the nature of connection and the viewing of emotions. Like if you tapped a connectionmind could you feel someone’s emotions?

The other night I got into a philosophical debate with my fiancé regarding the definition of opposites. In summation we were debating the following topic: Ruin and preservation being opposites. I made up these terms so my fiancé could understand what I was talking about (she has only read Sixth of Dusk). Shard Description of Action Higher Level Description Ruin Entropy, intelligent decay, take away Change Preservation To preserve, keep things the same No Change Cultivation To grow, intelligent growth, to add Change If you focus on the “Description of Action”, then you can see that Ruin and Cultivation are opposites (from one perspective). Or you could call them compatible, but those could also mean the same thing; opposites attract y'know. If you focus on the “Higher Level Description”, you can see that Preservation is opposite of both Ruin & Cultivation. Regardless, that is not what this theory is about. The non-sober debate that I had sparked an idea regarding: the three shards, Harmony’s role in the Cosmere, and where this Mistborn/Stormlight Archive plotline is heading. I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty details of how this is all going to play out, I’m merely commenting on the larger moves. Here we go… Something is going to happen in the final installment of the Mistborn Era 2 or 3 events that causes Sazed/Harmony to head for Roshar. (Not sure how the timelines match up so not sure if it will be after Mistborn Era 2 or 3 or somewhere in between) · Maybe Sazed can’t beat whatever enemy is attacking Scadrial and so searches how to resolve his problem with acting (finding cultivation to balance him out) · Maybe he beat the enemy attacking Scadrial, learns some info from the enemy and its possible relations to Roshar/Odium, travels to Roshar and discovers the existence of Cultivation In any case, in this theory Harmony will end up on Roshar and play a role in the climax of the first half of the Stormlight Archive. I have a feeling that Harmony will interact with Cultivation, maybe fall in love with Cultivation, then Cultivation dies and Harmony picks up a third shard (Sad stuff often happens to Sazed). Or maybe Harmony shows up just when Odium kills Cultivation’s vessel, and conveniently picks it up (sound familiar?) Oh and probably some of the characters we like will die sadly but also badassly in this climaz. Anyways, Harmony will pick up Cultivation and become…Ouroboros? Balance? Nature…idk. So this new shard will trounce Odium, but Odium is actually a coward and leaves Roshar to go into hiding, greatly diminished (like Sauron or Voldemort). Boom, end of book 5. Then maybe the second half of the Cosmere will be Odium slowly regaining power, maybe he realized he needs to pick up some more shards to challenge the New Harmony Shard so he searches for some of the more sinister ones. Maybe the New Harmony shard will figure out how get the Dor on his side and it will be like Harmony + 6 shards vs Bodium (Badass Odium) + 7 shards…or something like that I have no evidence, didn’t do much research, I just thought it was a cool/possible idea. TLDR; Harmony goes to Roshar, picks up Cultivation, beats up Odium, Odium flees

I am in the process of making a cosmere cookbook for my self and the various cosmere fans I know. But I am running into a problem, outside of Roshar, little is know about the cuisine of the cosmere. I really need help on the food from Nalthis, Scadrial, and Threnody. I will post the PDF of the cookbook as soon as I have tried the various recipes suggested. Does anyone have any recipes they want to share any suggestions on cosmere cuisine?

The recent Culivationlight Shardcast got me thinking about what Cultivation is doing with her investiture. http://www.17thshard.com/news/shardcast/shardcast-cultivationlight-fanx-words-of-brandon-p1-r434/ I think she is providing the gemhearts which leak into the physical realm in a similar way to how (mistborn spoiler) To put it in terms of human anatomy Cultivation and Honor were lovers, their spren refer to them as Mother and (Storm)Father, Stormlight = Sperm Gemheart = Womb Spren = Child I realize Spren are tiny splinters and they aren't conceived via stormlight going into gemhearts, but I think the metaphor works for what powers 2/3rds of the magic on Roshar. I say they power the systems together because, with the exception of beings like Lift and Larkins (Chiri-Chiri ) , surgebinders can't just take in Stormlight directly from a source like the Highstorms. They need to capture stormlight in a gem first. Fabrials also need stormlight in a gem and often a spren. A main difference between Surgbinding and Fabrials is where the Spren is bound. In surgebinding it is bound to the users soul with fabrials it is bound in a gem. But all three components seem to be important.

We know that the continent of Roshar (Cosmic address: Roshar, Roshar, Greater Roshar, The Knight, The Cosmere) was originally created by Adonalsium, and that Shinovar, at least after the arrival of humanity from Ashyn, is the only place on the planet that has "normal" flora and fauna - no spren, plants growing in soil, similar plants and animals to what we see on Earth/other planets. Did Shinovar always exist as this bastion of normalcy, or was the entire continent of Roshar created with "typical" life forms on it, and then just got scraped clean by the highstorms, leaving it open for other life to evolve?

We have some new WoBs from the Legion release party. One concerns the pact the Vessels made to settle on the same world together and why Honor of all Shards would disobey it. Is it as simple as Honor technically "settled" on Roshar first and Cultivation came after (maybe RIGHT after), so Cultivation was the one technically breaking it? I think generally the WoBs have indicated that H&C settled on Roshar together, but one may have come just before the other. We don't know the exact phrasing of the pact in order to determine what violates it or why they could break this one when Oathbringer stresses how Shards can't break their word. Maybe they made it before they held the Shards.

Nananav was a character in Oathbringer who was robbed by Veil and her crew. Veil's crew posed as carpet workers, which allowed them to infiltrate the keep. The name Nananav reminds me of Nalthian naming schemes, with the repetition of consonants, such as Vivenna or Llarimar. I would assume she would be at third heightening or higher, which would allow perfect color recognition, as one line of dialogue from her is requiring the new carpet to be a perfect match of color. Am I reading too much into this?

I don't have a theory or anything, but I stumbled upon this miscellaneous entry in Arcanum while searching for other things and it tickled me so much I had to share it. I love how there is no question prefacing it. It's a comment on a 17th shard post, but I like to think it's the opening remarks from a meeting Peter called specifically to yell at people about this. It reminds me of the movie Adaptation where the experienced screenwriter is exasperated with his inexperienced brother's screenplay. I imagine someone responding to Peter with "Mom called it scientifically plausible" and Peter facepalming. It may be just me, but this brought me a lot of joy and I wanted to share it. P.S. Adaptation is a good movie and you should check it out sometime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWTErr-91BE