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Warning: This post contains a single Stormlight 5 prologue spoiler, masked, and potentially significant spoilers should these theories prove accurate. Reading the prologue for Stormlight 5 first is recommended. Just as the Stormfather provides Stormlight and surgebinding powers to all of Honor's children, Ba-Ado-Mishram (BAM) became the Voidmother proving Voidlight and voidbinding powers to all of Odium's children, all of her Singers, during the False Desolation. One BAM to Connect them all One BAM aligned them One BAM to draw them all And with her Voidlight bind them One gem severs the whole One gem divides them One gem rips away souls And then the darkness finds them In the Land of Roshar Where the Singers die And Listeners live We'll explore much relevant history leading up to and beyond BAM's imprisonment (see Coppermind's BAM and False Desolation articles for supporting canon references) and theories explaining the magical science behind what happened with BAM, her Singers, and related events. BAM-SINGER CONNECTION HISTORY The lead up to and fall out from BAM's gemstone capture includes: Long, long ago, Odium unmakes 9 spren who fight during many desolations in which BAM serves as highprincess and commander of Odium's forces, The last desolation comes where all but Taln survive, Taln holds Odium and his Fused on Braize all by himself (spanning a total of 4500 years), During the long imprisonment of Odium and the Fused, BAM somehow gains the ability to pull Voidlight into the Physical Realm and to Connect herself with all the Singers of Roshar, a feat previously only managed by Odium, making herself a little god (RoW 847-848), Even though Odium and the Fused are still trapped on Braize, BAM's newfound powers give her the ability to provide Singers with forms of power including all the Regal forms plus stormform, which allows BAM to wage war against the Knights Radiant during the False Desolation, with no end in sight, The Listeners, tired of endless war and manipulation from both Odium and Honor, "cast off everything - including our very forms - to find freedom," which severs their Connection to BAM (RoW 159), Honor's long, slow death begins around this time, The Knights Radiant form a special Strike Team to imprison BAM inside a gemstone in order to end the False Desolation, Because BAM is a little god and holds strong Connection to the spren and souls of every Singer in Roshar except the Listeners, these tethered souls and spren get sucked along their Connection to BAM, ripping out pieces of their souls, removing both their Identity and Connection, and possible damaging or destroying their gemhearts in the ripping process, Somehow even Honor and Cultivation's spren and the Sibling get damaged by BAM's imprisonment, though to a much smaller degree that perhaps signals a much smaller Connection between the Voidmother and "all who belong to Roshar," affecting the Sibling's abilities to make Towerlight and crippling Urithiru (RoW 621), Close to dying, Honor cannot help the Sibling, Urithiru, or the Knights Radiant, The Battle for Feverstone Keep begins before BAM's imprisonment since the enemy still pushes for that ground and parshmen are anything but pushy (OB 809), BAM's imprisonment, if during the Battle for Feverstone Keep, would have caused all fighting Singers to experience excruciating pain and then simultaneously transform into docile, mindless parshmen, All Singers Connected to BAM become parshmen through a break in Identity and Connection; only the Listeners escape because of their previously broken Connections to her, Hundreds of Windrunners and Stonewards at Feverstone Keep become the first to abandon their oaths en masse as Honor says, "they are the first" (OB 547), Two thousand years later, the Everstorm travels to Roshar through the Cognitive Realm and is brought through to the physical realm, and The Everstorm restores both Identity and Connection by repairing the Singers’ souls and possibly their gemhearts. SCIENCE-MAGIC THEORY BEHIND CONNECTION, CAPTURING SPREN, AND THE SINGERS' SOULS From Newton, we know: Force = mass * acceleration From Jasnah (OB 1179), we know that "concentrated Stormlight has a faint mass to it." So the more we accelerate the physical mass of the Stormlight, the stronger the physical force we have acting on the Stormlight and anything Connected to and by the Stormlight. How do we move or accelerate Stormlight? Navani's lecture on fabrial mechanics includes details on sucking Light into a gemstone in order to trap a spren inside a gemstone. We first lure a spren into close proximity to a gemstone with something it likes (e.g., flames for flamespren) and by using the type of gemstone it prefers (RoW epigraphs, Chapter 1). Interestingly, we already know the type of gemstones preferred by each Order of Knights Radiant (and each associated herald). Moash's knife had a large sapphire gemstone hilt that gave a subdued glow after capturing Jezrien's spren-soul (OB 1205), which makes me wonder if the gemstone in Leshwi's spear (RoW 80) that drained Kaladin's Stormlight and nearly sucked out his soul (RoW 101) was sapphire, as well. The first questions we must ask ourselves would be 1) what would BAM be attracted to and 2) what kind of gemstone would she prefer? To answer the second, maybe the Voidmother would prefer a heliodor, as the Stormfather would. As for the first question, she appears to like war and commanding, and she has shown particular interest in Feverstone Keep (OB 809). One might imagine Melishi, the False Desolation's Bondsmith, and her Strike Team showing up at the Battle for Feverston Keep with a large and perfect (or nearly perfect) heliodor gemstone, knowing that BAM would be nearby commanding her troops and in search of something in the area that interested her. Navani's next stages in capturing a spren (RoW epigraphs, Chapters 2-5) would be filling the gemstone to around 70% full of Stormlight (Voidlight in BAM's case) and then quickly sucking that Stormlight out to create a vacuum that will suck in a nearby spren. Suppose you take a brown paper lunch sack and suck the air out. It collapses, right? The same would be true of a Ziploc bag. By collapsing to reduce the volume, the bag equalizes the pressure. But what about something that has a rigid structure like a gemstone, especially a gemstone that doesn't leak? If you suck all the air out of a glass, for example, you'd suction that glass to your face since you've created a vacuum of extremely low pressure. Because air and Light will always seek the lowest pressure possible, they'll get sucked into a vacuum until the pressure outside of the gem roughly equals the pressure inside the gem. Since volume is inversely proportional to pressure, the larger the gemstone, the lower the pressure (where the lower pressure goes the stronger the vacuum becomes). And finally, the tighter the seal, the less a gemstone will leak and the stronger the vacuum will be. So large, perfect gemstones make the perfect traps for these gods. At this point, you might be asking yourself, how does the spren gets sucked in along with the Stormlight? That's where Connection comes in. When the Stormfather gives Stormlight to his children - his spren and his surgebinders - an invisible cord of Stormlight will Connect that spren or that Radiant to the Stormfather. The same can be said for the Voidmother's children - BAM's spren and her Singers: they're all Connected to their mother by a physical force from the Voidlight she provides. Let's say you have a massive gemstone and a larkin quickly sucking a ton of Light out of your stone. The gemstone will quest out seeking to replace all or almost all of the light it just lost with a powerful force. Once it captures a nearby Stormlight Connection cord, the spren will be drawn in along with the Stormlight the spren is tethered to. Yes, the Connection is mostly spiritual, but there is a small physical Connection, too (because the Stormlight Connecting them has a small mass, as Jasnah said, and mass * acceleration is force, as Newton said). If we yank hard enough on that tether, the spren cannot help but be pulled in. We see this with spren pulled into fabrials, yes, but also with human and Singer souls, tethered to their home planet by their Connection to the Investiture there. We saw Jezrien's spren-soul sucked into Moash's sapphire knife and Kaladin's soul nearly sucked into Leshwi's gemstone-capped spear, both of which had metal that specifically draws in Stormlight including the Stormlight cords of Connection. Let me digress for a smidge to explain that Identity and souls are nearly synonymous. For instance, the Fused (where each Fused is the soul of one ancient Singer fuzed together forever to a surgebinding spren, granting surgebinding powers and immortality) maintain their Identities - and most of their intellect, knowledge, and memories - even though they constantly lose the rest of their bodies because Identity is stored in the soul. Connection for the traditional Singer bond appears to be stored in their gemhearts since that is where their spren and probably their souls reside. Now I said all that to say this: this, this, this is how Singers' souls were ripped away, how their Identity and Connection were stolen, and how they became mindless parshman slaves, by having parts of their souls that were tethered to their Voidmother ripped free, likely destroying their gemstones in the process, as BAM and all her many Connections were sucked into her gemstone prison. With Singer souls damaged, they were not quite soulless and mindless nothings but nearly so. And with Singer gemhearts damaged or destroyed, the parshmen lost their abilities to bond any other spren or to hear the rhythms of Roshar inside their gemhearts. The Listeners were spared, maintaining their Identity and their abilities to Connect with other spren because they had previously severed their Connections to BAM before her imprisonment. TRAVEL & WORLDHOPPING We'd be remiss if, while we're here with Connection, we didn't speculate on travel and worldhopping. Connection tethers Invested individuals to their home planet, not letting them escape lest they rip out part of their souls, their Identity, and destroy their Connection. But of course there is a way around this problem, a way out, because this is Sanderson, after all. The remainder of the post includes a little speculation about how off-world travel may be possible based on what we know of Connection above and a single spoiler from the Knights of Wind and Truth prologue that gives a bit more detail regarding the quote above. Reading the prologue for Stormlight 5 first is recommended. I've kept all non-Stormlight cosmere spoilers out of this post.

A bit more scientific than previous questions: I love how Venli, when overcome with emotion such as anxiety or elation, mentions Timbre pulsing in her gemheart, similar to a human heart beating faster. This made me think: singers don’t have a muscular heart that can contract to pump blood. So, how does singer blood work? Either there is a separate heart pumping system that singers just don’t call a heart, or the blood acts like the lymphatic system, which relies on gradient flow rather than a pumping mechanism.

For instance, if someone used Hemalurgy to give themselves the ability to grow a Gemheart, could you grow multiple if you were a Singer and already had one, or if your just gave yourself multiple spikes providing that ability? Could someone who did this bond multiple Spren? Would a Fused with multiple Gemhearts be able to hold more Voidlight?

If a singer's gemheart breaks, do they automatically change to slave form? Can their gemheart heal with time, or is it a permanent injury?

Could you take the gemheart of one of those huge, island sized greatshells, and then capture the Stormfather in it? Could you use this gemstone to create a fabrial that would allow a virtually infinite amount of stormlight to be harnessed at will? Huh, I seem to have come up with a theory on how to destroy Roshar, I guess.

If a human were to hemalurgically gain a gemheart and take warform, would they grow carapace? If so, would it be less pronounced since they don't naturally have any? Would you be able to have two or more forms at once using hemalurgy? If you hemalurgically granted someone a Fused surge, would they gain physical traits reminiscent of that Fused Brand? Can you hemalurgically take a greatshell’s gemheart, and use it differently than a singer’s gemheart?

So, we learn from Leshwi that the ancient Singers apparently did something to anger the spren, current-day spren seem to be much more fine with the Singers, with such a long gap without Desolations and the memory of the Recreance, plus the fact that most of the older spren became Deadeyes during the Recreance. Moving over to the Sibling, they are not fine with fabrials, even though the modern-day spren are fine with it, as fabrials employ non-sapient spren. Fabrials employ gemstones to capture spren... which is also what the Singers do to change their Forms, they capture spren within their Gemhearts. We've seen other creatures with Gemhearts before in the series, notably we've seen the process of Gemheart extraction when Eshonai pulls the Gemheart out of a Chasmfiend. Chasmfiends use spren bonds with Mandra or Luckspren so that they are not crushed by their own weight. These spren are seen flitting around Chasmfiends as well as other Greatshells like the Tai-Na [minor Dawnshard spoilers] We also see them around Skyeels, iirc, who probably use their bond with them to fly. Similarly, Musicspren seem to flit around the Ryshadium who might be in a bond of some kind with them. Though Ryshadium don't have Gemhearts. Spren can be captured in gems the same as Lights because they are made of Investiture. Is the purpose of Gemhearts really to capture spren? Because it would seem you can bond spren without trapping them in Gemhearts. They are attracted to natural phenomena and emotions... and the Rhythms. We saw the Dawnsingers seemingly Stoneshaping by using the Rhythms. We saw Lifespren responding to the Rhythms. Spren, like the Investiture they are made of, respond to the Rhythms. We saw other creatures that have gemhearts and need spren bonds, and they didn't seem to trap spren within their gemhearts. The spren were flitting about freely with them. They extract gemhearts from the Chasmfiends but did they ever find a Luckspren trapped within their Gemheart? We saw Eshonai extract a Gemheart from a Chasmfiend but there was no spren within it. (Would the spren be free upon the creature being killed or only if the gem itself is cracked?) What if the Dawnsingers originally used their Gemhearts to store Light? What if the crime that the ancient Singers committed against the spren which angered them was this? Trapping spren within their gemhearts to change their Forms.

I remember someone saying that Roshar would be a convenient place for vegans with all their soulcast food. Of course that's not the case because, correct me if I'm wrong, soulcasters use gemhearts to soulcast the food and gemhearts come from animals. Their counter was that they could simply use spheres to soulcast the food. I don't recall it ever being mentioned that Rosharians would mine for gemstones or that mined gems on Roshar hold stormlight. So do all the gemstones in spheres come from gemhearts?

So a theory just popped into my head, I was re reading WoK and thinking about the parsh/parshendi desire to leave the bodies of their dead undisturbed. Brandon has confirmed that this tradition is formed by the cultural scarring that all parsh-people experienced when humans chopped up parsh corpses to get gemhearts in the early human-singer wars. I asked myself why the modern Alethi do not continue the same practice of harvesting parsh gemhearts either from their slaves or the Parshendi killed during the war of vengance. Given that Kaladin refers to teams of Alethi being sent to loot from the battlefields of the shattered plains taking equipment and even the gemstones from Parshendi beards, the only explanation I can think of why the Alethi do not steal Parshendi gemhearts is that they do not know that Parshendi have gemhearts. I find it inconceivable that humans across Roshar know that parsh grow gemhearts and no one bothered to collect them. I also find it inconcievable that the humans have been living among Parshmen for millennia and just haven't noticed that their slaves grow valuable gemhearts. My theory is that the parsh slaves that existed in between the False Desolation and the First Everstorm either had gemhearts that were changed to not be one of the 10 polestones or they simply didn't have them at all. This would explain why they were unable to change form and how the spiritual damage of the False Desolation was passed from generation to generation. Tib

I think there are two distinct forms of spren bonds on Roshar: - the KR/Herald human-to-Splinter bond; - the natural-magic bond, which requires a gem, uses the highstorms, and, at least in its basic form, involves a non-sapient spren. Everything else except the Old Magic (as always "its own weird thing") is derived from this - Voidbringer forms of power and fabrials being technologies based on, or "hacks" of, the natural system. The natural-magic spren bonds seem very common on Roshar, and the basic "gemheart process" seems quite ubiquitous - though smaller species may not produce anything significant enough to be seen as a gem/considered valuable by humans, "the same sort of chemistry" occurs... Honor's Innovation I think human Surgebinding, as used by the Heralds and KR*, is something distinctly different from everything else on Roshar. (*We're told in Oathbringer that ancient humans destroyed their land (Ashyn) with Surges. Yet we know the KR got Surgebinding when the spren imitated what Honor had done with the Honorblade-Herald bond... which post-dates the arrival of humans on Roshar. So whatever destroyed Ashyn can't have been quite the same Surgebinding as the modern KR are using. That weirdness aside...) The Honorblades don't involve any gems trapping spren (the Heralds started as regular humans, and we now know Surgebinders don't grow gemhearts) and - originally, when Honor was alive - didn't use regular Stormlight derived from the Highstorms; they were directly powered by Honor. When the spren imitated the system, they didn't have the direct Shardic "Investiture feed", so the KR started using Stormlight and trapping it in gems, moving things back toward the natural magic. But it's still something different in origin, and KR Surgebinding keeps the Honorblades' Surge pairings - 10 sets of 2 Surges each. Forms of Power The Forms of Power (stormform, envoyform, etc.) seem (to me anyway) to be Odium's "hack" of the Rosharan natural magic. The singers/listeners' normal forms (dullform, warform etc) use weak local spren that bind to the gemheart in a highstorm (providing Stormlight). Odium has added in voidspren to provide the Forms of Power. In this Desolation, the Everstorm replaces the highstorm's role in the natural bond, but apparently something else happened in ancient Desolations. Fused "Pseudo-Surgebinding" I really am unsure about this one. The Fused who use Surges apparently do not use the same Surge pairings as the Heralds/Honorblades and KR/Nahel-bonding spren. According to Moash, there are 9 "orders" of Fused, and it seems each can use just one Surge. The Stormfather refers to the Fused 'learning' how to use Surges, so their abilities might not have originated as a direct Shardic gift in the same way as Honor initiating Surgebinding by giving out the Honorblades. Are they similar to the Forms of Power, with the Fused itself (now having become a Cognitive Shadow) acting as the spren bound to the body's gemheart, and having enough Investiture to use Surges directly? Or (given the use of 9 in this system) is this actually a Braize magic system, with the Surges themselves being common to all three planets?

Roshar is “a created planet” in a system “manufactured for a specific purpose.” I hypothesize Roshar’s purpose requires its three Great spren to grow the planet faster than is normally possible. The Stormfather (nee Rider of Storms) energizes growth with Stormlight. The Nightwatcher manifests growth by using Stormlight to transform spren from their Cognitive to their Physical Realm aspect. The Sibling IMO supports and enhances animal growth through gemhearts. Singers need three things for their transformational life cycle: Stormlight, spren, and a gemheart. I hypothesize each Great spren personifies Singer pre-Shattering perception of these three necessities. The Stormfather and Nightwatcher are the source of Stormlight and spren (IMO). Stormlight enables a spren to enter a gemheart and manifest in the Physical Realm as a Singer form. The spren Connects to the Singer’s Spiritual aspect through the Singer’s gemheart. This Singer mechanic predates the Shattering. Almost all Roshar’s creatures have “some sort of gemheart.” Gemhearts are composed of Investiture leaked into the Physical Realm. Gemhearts allow spren to enhance Greatshells, skyeels, and Rhyshadium. Most Rosharan gemstones are made from gemhearts, but some gemstones occur naturally. I propose the Sibling is the source of gemhearts. IMO, the gemstone-encrusted pillar in Urithiru’s basement IS the Sibling, or at least its Physical Realm manifestation. Renarin tells Navani’s scribes, “They’re not fabrials. They’re a fabrial.” (OB, Chapter 44, Kindle p. 455.) I think Renarin makes two points: (1) the Sibling is non-binary (“they” is singular), and (2) the pillar is the Great spren inside the Urithiru fabrial. Kalami’s team fails “to infuse the gemstone pillar.” (OB, Chapter 44, Kindle p. 454.) The pillar remains inert – “slumbering.” I agree with those who believe the Sibling is the Spren of Stone. I think the Spren of Stone personifies the Rosharan continent after Adonalsium built it through fractal mathematics principles. Sixth of the Dusk Spoiler: I think fractals are Autonomy’s “primal force.” Gemstones are fractals. Brandon says Autonomy’s assigned Investiture sits on Roshar. I believe the Spren of Stone is a potential Autonomy Avatar. Many disagree. If I’m right, it would explain why the Stormfather calls the Sibling “they” and Brandon hints the Sibling is non-binary: Autonomy too is non-binary. It makes sense to me each Great spren personifies a different aspect of the Singer life cycle. Singers first personified the Great spren. It also makes sense that Great spren Investiture comes from three different Shards – and Odium is not one of them. @RShara and others feel Brandon wouldn’t introduce a fourth Shard into SLA, mostly for narrative reasons. Two answers: First, Autonomy may not have an active or on-screen role. That Shard may only become Roshar-relevant later in the cosmere story and maybe never. Second, I feel Brandon does foreshadow Autonomy on Roshar. He specifically mentions Autonomy’s Rosharan Investiture in a WoB about the Patji Avatar. Brandon inserts this tidbit without any context, as if he were glad to drop an obscure breadcrumb. Regardless of the Sibling’s composition, they do seem associated with gemhearts. The fabrial magic system needs both spren and gemstones, plus human design. Fabrials to me are an Autonomy-Cultivation combo system, fronted by the Sibling and Nightwatcher.

WARNING The following contains spoilers about Parshendi anatomy & Oathbringer. You have been warned Do Parshendi have gemhearts? If they did, it would explain a LOT of things. For one, at the beginning of "The way of Kings" Szeth says that "Voidbringers could hold [stormlight] perfectly". Now, if we assume that this refers to the Parshendi, this could be because of Parshendi anatomy. OR, it could be because they store it in a gemheart. Parshendi can also switch forms by bonding with spren. Most assume that this is because of a form of nahel bond. BUT, what if the spren ACTUALLY went into their gemheart, and turned them into some kind of "Living fabrial". This would also explain how the Fused posses the Singers in oathbringer.

I was just thinking about Queen Jasnah carrying out rescue operations through Alethkar to pull as many humans to the shattered plains or a powered Urithiru. Then I thought of Rlain and his Listeners group. How Jasnah could use the parshendi to assist in carrying out the rescues and finding new Listeners to fight against the Fused. With truths uncovered from the Listener songs Jasnah could help the Listeners fully understand their shared history. Keeping the children and non combatants/spies safe while finding a place in their society. However, idk where Radiant Venli fits in this but I do feel like Rlain is moving towards a squireship with Renrin and not Kaladin. Having a Warform Parshendi healing people and being so close to the Kholins could do a lot towards forcing a new place for Listeners in this global alliance. Then I started thinking of how to fight the Fused and it came to me. The gem hearts from parshmen can hold a Cognitive Shadow. Can't they be used the way that Dalinar did for the Unmade, drawing the Fused in to take over bodies and trapping them in dead Listener gem hearts to keep imprisoned. I'm thinking of the parshendi wearing the gem hearts the way they had the gems braided in their hair and beards. Just taking the CS of fused after they die and go back into the Cognitive Realm, or warding away the Fused from attempting takeovers during battles near an Everstorm. A true struggle where the Everstorm is starting to be negated leading up to the 5th book and the big break in the series. Where humans have a grasp on the struggle but then everything flips or a stay of the desolation is found. This was my thought process and I just wanted to ask you guys if any of this sounds plausible. 1. The Listeners hate the idea of touching their dead, but could they get over that if Jasnah pushes properly. They get to have a real weapon and chance to stop their Old Gods from taking over countless misled Listeners... 2. The Listeners gem hearts, could they be weaponized to stop recently dead Fused from getting back to the Everstorm and then reborn, or trap them entirely as they find hoasts in an Everstorm? 3. What implications would there be if Rlain becomes Renarins squire, and does become a bastion of healing for the humans? With and without finding his lost people. 4. Jasnah wouldn't marry Rlain would she? A pure marriage to be used to sway more newly awakened Listeners to the side opposing Odium.. would she? Could it work? 5. Jasnah using transportation surge to start reclaiming her people and just pulling out of Alethi lands. Is this more or less likely? A desolation just began and what is the most important for her? 6. Will Jasnah try to carve out a stronghold in the Cognitige Realm utilizing the walking door that is Dalinar Ascended? 7. Bridge 4 dynamics throughout this? Honorably finding ways to protect all life while coming to terms with humanities history and getting used by a masterful Jasnah. They could even start guarding Urithiru in Cognitive realm or legit forcing fused out of CR to build better relationships with the higher spren.

Apologies if this has already been discussed and I missed it, but do we know why the Listeners were hunting chasmfiends so vigorously on the Shattered Plains? We know they have been experimenting with capturing spren in gems, but that doesn't seem to account for why they would need greatshell gemhearts. And it can't be just about killing them, because then why bother fighting pitched battles with the Alethi? I have a vague sense it has something to do with thunderclasts, but I can't put my finger on it. Maybe I'm just missing something obvious. (I've only just crawled out of the woodwork because I'm re-listening to the series from the beginning.) Anyway, hi folks!

Has anybody thought about the ecology of Roshar? I notice we have a number of new species . From chasm fiends , axehounds, chull, great shells of the Reshin, and even the Rashadium. I notice the lack of avians, bears,great cats, etc of course but that’s not what interest me. In real life we have 5 creatures we can’t live without earthworms , ants , plankton, bats and lastly bees. All play a part In fertilizing the ground , to increasing the yeald of plantlife, to spreading air and spreading seeds. Without these creatures human beings would die off. The ecology of Roshar seems to revolve. Around Gemhearts. How I can’t seem to workout. Just think about it , what do the Parshendi need with gemhearts ? They don’t sell them, they don’t need them stormlight because they haven’t been Radiants . The only use I can see is a type of lantern. But they sure fought the Alethi for them . what creatures would cause life on Roshar to end if they were not present ? Therre is not much plant life described yet other than Rockbuds. The strange grass that can move and hide under the ground. Like what is the constant that life on Roshar ? Using our blueprint earth , water, plants, air , carbon monoxide . Do we have enough to posit what Roshar system is ? I’m interested to hear what @Calderis and @RShara and some of you other sages have to say ? I hope u find this as interesting as I do !

In the interlude with the smoke Soulcaster (Kaza), the approach to the ancient Amian island and its city -that was previously known to Radiants (Akinah)- was protected by a large storm. It was there more than once, as the Captain had told the crew about it, and that it would end. It had a definite end when they approached the barriers. My thoughts include these: 1. There is no way the Stormfather does not know about this storm protecting Akinah. He may be more than silent about it, he may be very complicit in the mission. I suspect he could give Dalinar in incredible amount of information if asked directly. Not that he would...How was the old history of the Knights and Amians interconnected, (as the visiones showed they fought together), and how is the danger to "Worlds" not just Roshar? 2. Why would the storm stop in stead of driving ships into the barrier? Was this too good a writing dramatic moment for the soulcaster, or are you supposed to be able to pass into it when you passed the storm. 3. Amains must be in many ports and places to catch all the ships headed that direction. Are the specialized cremlings from this one trapped on the island? How do they ever get off again? 4. What the heck are they hiding? Old soulcasters came from here, and they work differently than the new ones. Some only do one element instead of all of them. Huge gemhearts abound, but the real secrets seem to lie in the city (referenced in the Urithiru archives and containing partially explored caverns UNDERNEATH them. Is that under water and a hint about Windrunner pressure bubbles?

Greatshells - such as the Chasm Beasts - pupate as storms approach so that new Spren can enter their gemhearts.

We all know about the Nahel bond between a special type of spren and a Knight Radiant, giving the spren the ability to fully manifest in the physical realm while giving the Radiant two Surges and the ability to take in stormlight on a continual basis to power these surges. In this thread, I speculated about a Gemheart bond, where a spren is captured inside a gemheart and bonds with the host of the gemheart: Human (e.g., Aesudan and Amaram), Parshendi (different spren give different forms), Various gravitation-defying creatures bonded to mandras (chasmfiends, greatshells, skyeels, and most likely thunderclasts), and Fabrials including Soulcasters and Urithiru. Venli appears to have formed a Nahel and a Gemheart bond with Timbre, as well as retaining her Gemheart bond with the Envoy spren to retain her Parshendi form of power. I believe that we'll soon see another dual-bond among Navini, the Sibling, and Urithiru using both the Nahel and Gemheart bonds to tie all three together. There have been many speculating that the Sibling is Urithiru, including my own speculation in the Gemheart bond thread. I want to clarify that the Sibling is not Urithiru but rather the spren that bonds to and powers Urithiru as well as bonding to her bondsmith. If the Sibling's bondsmith abandoned his or her oaths during the Recreance, that may explain why the Sibling and Urithiru have slumbered ever since, awaiting a new bondsmith to return. One of the WoR epithets tells us that only one of the bondsmiths is always with Urithiru, probably because the Sibling bondsmith will need to stay with her spren that will be captured inside Urithiru's gemheart, powering Urithiru. So, what makes me think this bondsmith will be Navani? All primary point-of-view characters have chapter art to denote the chapters which are primarily their own. Even though she'd had minor points-of-view before, Navani got her first primary POV chapter with Oathbringer in only one chapter: Chapter 95, Pieces of a Fabrial. The chapter art representation of Navani appears to be a giant, luminescent gemheart encased in what might be a fabrial: Obviously, one can argue that the fabrial image is perfect for Navani simply because Navani is the goddess of fabrials. But I would argue that this is probably what makes her the perfect choice as the sole Radiant whose bond is both Nahel and Gemheart. Who better to operate the Urithiru fabrial than Navani? Who better to stay with Urithiru than the ostensible Queen of Urithiru? Who better to be another bondsmith than Dalinar's wife?

I've been thinking for awhile about how the Parshendi have a Gemheart Bond with spren (using gemhearts inside of them to capture the spren) that is similar to the Nahel Bond of the Knights Radiant. More background on that theory is here: I've just barely started my reread and am struck by an idea for how the ancient Alethi (or others) might have created their Parshmen. I believe parshmen to be Parshendi without gemhearts to capture the spren that gives the Parshendi their abilities to change forms. Recently, I've realized that spren are released from the Gemheart (Parshendi) Bond as soon as the host dies, which is why we always see Mandras around dead chasmfiends and potentially why we see Timbre flying around Eshonai's body. This idea is strongly supported by the rebirth of the Fused whenever their host body dies. What if we amputate the gemheart from a living Fused? That would transform the Parshendi into parshmen and give the Alethi all of these gemhearts with the spren of the Fused still captured inside - just like the captured ancient spren that Gavilar is talking about in this quote and IMO just like the one in the sphere he gives to Eshonai. Gavilar just doesn't understand that it wasn't the Alethi who actually captured the spren but the Parshendi, with the Alethi only recovering the gemstone-captured spren from the living bodies of the Parshendi.

After doing a search through Kings and Radiance for "Gemheart" and "Greatshell" and concluded the texts supports all Great shells having gem hearts but does not state a chull as a greatshell. Any WoB stating that chulls have gemhearts?

While Syl was in her childlike state and may have just been saying things, part of me wonders if this is a clue. The larger animals with exoskeletons have gemhearts, why not the small ones? It would make sense if insects had gemhearts - they would just be too small to be worth harvesting. Indeed, Jasnah seems to indicate in chapter 36 of The Way of Kings that there are other animals with gemhearts of less impressive size. The "yet powerful" part is rather curious. An insect-sized gemheart would hold practically no Stormlight at all. We already know that cutting can increase the Stormlight capacity of a gemstone: what if (and this is quite a stretch), somehow, beetle gemhearts are naturally cut? Though this is doubtful, it would be quite peculiar. And now we know how Rosharan fireflies work: they just have transparent bodies!

So on a recent reread of WoK's a small part stood out to me. So we know from the Eshonai interlude that the Parshendi are indeed using Gemhearts for food, as well as farming Rockbuds. So the Parshendi need the gemhearts to eat, this particularly strikes me as odd. The war on the Shattered plains has been going for six years at this point. In the book it states that the larger the gem the less likely it was to shatter when used for Soulcasting; the enormous gemhearts are described by Dalinar as offering near limitless potential. If the breaking of gems were the result of trying to Soulcast overly large items, and could be prevented by being reserved in what you attempt to Soulcast, then at this point the Parshendi would have six years of gemhearts and essentially unlimited stormlight. Therefore lets assume the breaking of a gem is a foregone conclusion, something that occurs randomly or as a result of cumulative damage from use. A single gemheart is still enough for a highprince to pay and feed his troops for months and since the primary value for gems (outside being an unforgeable currency) is Soulcasting it seems unlikely that a gemheart would sell for more than what the buyer could get back through Soulcasting. Sadeas and Dalinar each committed over 7000 troops to the battle at the Tower, since this was just what they could muster at short notice it stands to reason each has at least 10000 troops total. If we assume that Sadeas upper estimate of 30000 Parshendi troops is accurate and given that not many Parshendi are spared warform then that leaves us with about 40000 mouths to feed. This means the Parshendi would only need around two or three gemhearts each month in order to feed their entire population. Towards the end of the book (ch59) Teft makes the comment that "with Sadeas and Kholin working together, runs happen nearly every day." With 5 days to a Roshar week and 10 weeks to a month, thats 50 days overall, if a run happens only every second day that is still 25 gemhearts a month. In summary 1 Gemheart = At least 2 Months of food and wages for a single army 1 Army = 10000+Troops Parshendi = 4 Armies worth (30000 Troops plus unknown but small number of Civilians) Gemhearts/month the Parshendi need = 2 - 3 Total Gemhearts/month = >25 (Almost one a day * 50 Days to a Roshar Month From this the Parshendi would only need to win less than 1/8th of the possible gemhearts each month. Yet Eshonai's interlude makes it seem they need each gemheart to continue to eat. We know that Great Shells do indeed pupate past the Tower and that these all go the the Parshendi, as they can get them out before the Alethi arrive (ch65). Yet the Parshendi never seem to hold back, they arrive first to the majority of platforms and still assault the Alethi when they arrive second. While this makes sense in terms of denying the Alethi armies resources, you would expect an army in the Parshendi's situation to be more reserved in their use of troops and it still fails to explain Eshonai's comment on needing the gemhearts to eat. Possible Explanations: 1. Gemhearts sell for more than they Soulcast. If gemhearts are worth more when broken down into currency (unlikely) or when made into fabrials (possible) then the whole argument falls apart. 2. The Parshendi lose 90% of the battles they fight with the Alethi. Hmm yeah no, I think we can just keep moving. 3. The Parshendi number far greater than the Alethi's estimates. This seems a likely solution, we know they Alethi are surprised, when the Parshendi start to bring multiple forces to the field. By using smaller armies that are more closely matched to an individual highprince's army, the Parshendi have been trying to avoid pressuring the highprinces into working together. 4. The Parshendi are Soulcasting from Air. While checking to see if this had been mentioned before I came across a post claiming Air was harder to Soulcast than other substances. The Alethi can probably quarry nearby stone or even dirt to make their food; living in the middle of the Shattered Plains Soulcasting the dirt would reduce the Parshendi's living area. If Air is indeed harder to Soulcast, and the Parshendi are Soulcasting from it, this could be reducing their gems efficiency. 5. The Parshendi are selling their gemhearts. They don't actually have Soulcasters but are instead trading away the gemhearts to someone beyond the Shattered Plains. I don't think this is actually probable for a number of reasons but its still my favorite theory. 6. They need the gemhearts for something else as well as food.