Human Races on Roshar: A Brief Guide (Ver.1.0)

[Botanica]

INTRODUCTION

So, there’re basically thirteen races (or at least thirteen races so far, if you divide those cultures into more parts) on Roshar: the Alethi, the Vedens, the Unkalaki (aka the Horneaters), the Herdazians, the Thaylens, the Natan, the Makabaki, the Selay, the Iriali, the Shin, the Reshi, the Listeners and the Aimians.

Note: Here I used one of my old art created by the Chibi Maker to visualize the descriptions, though there’re still some minor inaccuracies. I really wanted to do a complete graphic chart, but it is still far off.

Brandon's comment on this:

Quote

Well, it's close in a lot of ways. The Makabaki should be darker, and the Pashendi even darker than that. The Shin are a little TOO white in that, as would be the average Veden. (Though there are some Veden as pale as in that shot.) The others are pretty colose. [source]

 

A LIST OF HUMAN RACES

 

Quote

One big reversal is when readers realize that most of the main characters probably don’t look like them. Most readers don’t make that connection for quite a while… I like the idea that as you read you assume that the offbeat Szeth is “the other” and Kaladin looks like you, when in reality Kaladin is an Asian-Middle Eastern mix, while Szeth is caucasian. Of course, if you read it in Taiwan, then the characters really look like you and Szeth is the oddball… [source]

 

1. The Alethi (People of Alethkar)
1) Common features: tall stature, tan skin, black hair, lighteyes and darkeyes
2) Inspiration from Earth: Asian-Hawaiian people (You can imagine them as east-Indian people.) [source], Asian-Arab people [source] Kaladin is an Asian-Middle Eastern mix. [source]
3) Brandon's choice: Dave Bautista for Dalinar [source], Alex Landi for Adolin [source]

Quote

Alethkar natives other than the Shin have the epicanthic fold, but the Alethi wouldn't look strictly Asian to you--they'd look like a race that you can't define, as we don't have them on earth. I use half-Asian/half-arab or half-asian/half-Polynesian models as my guide some of the time, but Alethi are going to have a tanner skin than some of those. [source]

How about the Iriali and Alethi mix we have going on with Adolin and Renarin:

Quote

They're gong to have lighter skin, but skin tone isn't something Alethi pay much attention to. Hair and eye color is what draws their attention. Dalinar and Kaladin will be darker than Adolin and Renarin, though none of them would look Caucasian to us. Of course, Caucasians have varied skin tone as well, so it's hard to say specifically what they'd look like. (As a note, Renarin/Adolin are a Riran/Alethi mix--not exactly Iriali/Alethi, as there's some slightly different genetics going on there.) [source]

 

2. The Vedens (People of Jah Keved)
1) Common features: fair skin, red hair, lighteyes and darkeyes
2) Inspiration from Earth: Asian-Caucasian people (supposedly more Asian-like) [source], red-haired Uyghur people [source], Shallan is a half-Irish, half-Japanese mix [source]

Quote

Vedens aren’t all redheads–that’s going to depend on region, and even have a lot of variance within regions. (Alethi skin tone will be similar in its variety, depending. Vedens in general tend to be lighter.) [source]

Here’s another image I noticed a while back that feels very like what I’d imagined.

Spoiler

[source: Photographer Explores The Beautiful Diversity Of Redheads Of Color]

 

3. The Unkalaki (People of the Horneater Peaks)
1) Common features: light tan skin (or just fair skin like the Vedens) (supposedly lighter than the Alethi), red hair, strong back molars to break shells and claws (result of Parshendi hybrids) [source]

Quote

Some Horneaters might look Caucasian to you--but then, most will not. They'll seem like something alien, and not all of them have light skin; they tend to walk a spectrum between pale and coppery. [source]

2) Inspiration from Earth: Asian-Caucasian people, [source] Mongolian people, Polynesian people, Russian people [source]

Quote

Rock and his culture started Mongolian long, long ago. (98-99 era, when I first wrote him.) As Roshar in general (and the Alethi in specific) became more Asian in look and less Semitic (though they are still a mash-up) I decided to push Rock’s people in the direction of a human/parsh hybrid strain. This also was part of moving Rock himself from Yolen to Roshar, following after Dalinar and some other characters, who came earlier during the original Dragonsteel/Stormlight split in the early 2000s. These changes drove the Horneaters away from Mongolian influences, though I can’t say specifically where the Polynesian/Russian mashup came from. I liked how it read, and felt the linguistics supported the accent. These changes, of course, had a domino effect that resulted in the Veden people gaining their occasional red hair and fair skin from Horneater relation, which means Shallan is part parshman–though the relation is distant at this point. [source]

 

4. The Herdazians (People of Herdaz)
1) Common features: deep tan skin (supposedly darker than the Alethi), dark crystalline fingernails (result of Parshendi hybrids)
2) Inspiration from Earth: Hispanic people [source], indigenous Bolivian [source]

 

5. The Thaylens (People of Thaylenah)
1) Common features: long white eyebrows
2) Inspiration from Earth: unknown

 

6. The Natan (People of the former Natanatan)
1) Common features: pale bluish skin, wide nose, wool-like white hair [WoK Ch.36] (result of Aimian hybrids) [source]
2) Inspiration from Earth: unknown

 

7. The Makabaki (People of all the Makabak)
1) Common features: dark brown skin (or just dark skin), black hair [WoK Ch.14]
2) Inspiration from Earth: unknown
Notable races: the Azish, the Tashikki, the Emuli and the Tukari (People of Azir, Tashikk, Emul and Tukar)

 

8. The Selay (People of the former Sela Tales)
1) Common features: skin ripples [WoK Ch.52]
2) Inspiration from Earth: unknown
Notable race: the Purelaker (People of the Purelake)
1) Common features: leathery skin, dark hair, long limbs [WoR I-3]
2) Inspiration from Earth: unknown
Notable race: the Babath (People of Babatharnam)
1) Common features: [women] patterns of veins beneath the skin [WoK Ch. 46] (result of Aimian hybrids) [source]
2) Inspiration from Earth: unknown

 

9. The Iriali (People of Iri and perhaps Rira)
1) Common features: yellow eyes, golden skin often painted various colors and patterns, golden hair with metallic sheen [WoK Ch.18, WoR I-2]
2) Inspiration from Earth: unknown

Note: There are small differences between the Iriali and the Riran. [source]

 

10. The Shin (People of Shinovar) - The only race without epicanthic folds
1) Common features: short stature, pale skin, large round eyes, men tending to be bald, no epicanthic folds (but still hardly resemble the Caucasians on Earth)
2) Inspiration from Earth: unknown

Quote

Normal eyes on Roshar are those with an epicanthic fold. The Shin do not have this. Note, however, that they wouldn't look "Western European." Roshar races are fairly far off from what we imagine as Earth ones. The people most likely to look Western European to you would be those from Mistborn. [source]

 

Quote

Shin would look the closest to Caucasian to you, but again, they're not an Earth ethnicity. So you might not be able to place them either. [source]

 

11. The Reshi (People of the Reshi Isles)
1) Common features: tan skin, straight black hair, rounded features [WoR I-9]
2) Inspiration from Earth: Hispanic people (or at least for Lift) [source], indigenous Bolivian [source]

Quote

Lift was partially developed out of me wanting to build a character who was awesome but was so different from what everyone would think of. ‘Cause you say knight and they think of white dude in armor and I wanted something very different from that. And that’s where she came from. It also came partially from my wife reading a lot of fantasy and complaining and she’s like “You know the asians show up in fantasy, asian culture inspires a lot. European culture of course does. You see a lot of these things but where are the hispanics?” Yeah there’s one. So she challenged me to put a hispanic culture in my books because I had never done it before and so Lift is an outgrowth of that, so are the Herdazians. They are meant to be sort of in the same way that the Alethi are inspired by Korean culture, mashed up with this sort of concept of medieval knights. Shallan is based a little off of Western American/Europe culture. The Herdazians are launching off some of the original hispanic concepts. So the thing is, you want every culture to be new and original but you are working from somewhere. And the problem is we all work from the same stories for so long that is part of the reason why fantasy is starting to feel so stale. [source]

 

About the Kharbranthians: The city-state is culturally diverse, so you can find different races there.

 

Last update: Jun 3rd, 2019 (by Botanica)
Original post: [x]

Edited June 4, 2019 by Botanica

[CalaCrisp88]

Wow. Holy crap. This is awesome!  Great job compiling all of that information!  Must've taken a ridiculous amount of work.

[RYANHOME]

I LOVE this thank you very much. 

[Jondesu]

That's awesome!  I will note that there's another brand? of Aimians we haven't seen, but since we don't know anything about them we don't know if they look different or if there's something else different about them.

jW

[sheep]

Does anyone know if the Fashion Folio pages from Words of Radiance are canon representations of Rosharan ethnicities?  Or does it have an "artistic license" factor, like how the Michael Whelan Way of Kings cover art isn't supposed to be an exact depiction of any scene.

Interestingly, the Alethi man looks Eurasian or Central Asian, and the Makabaki/Azish man looks Middle Eastern.  It makes a pretty useful reference if you are working on a more detailed "Peoples of Roshar" infographic. 

 

And I did a homemade "Thaylen Fashion Folio page".

With ships because Thaylens are the merchant people of Roshar. 

 

 

 

I would really really love it if SA#3 has more Fashion Folio pages.  It's awesome worldbuilding material.  It doesn't even matter that the tiny script-font text is impossible to read on an eReader.  I just like looking at the pretty pictures.

[+hwiles]

WOW!  I had never heard those bits about Human-Aimian-Parshendi hybrids before.  You've greatly illuminated Roshar and how its people have migrated and evolved in my mind; would that I could give you two upvotes, but I'll have to suffice with one and an expression of enjoyment reading your post!

[Darkness Ascendant]

What about that strange being Shallan saw on the Reshi isles?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishi, I also found this. Vedas sounds similar to Vedan, and Rishi, Reshi

[Tariniel]

This is so cool! Thanks for compiling all that info, must have taken several hours of hard work...

[Klar]

This is amazing! I've always wanted to find a compiled description of the Rosharan ethnicities and how they compare with those on Earth so that they're easier to imagine. Thank you for coming up with this!

[Weltall]

You do realize that you bumped a thread that was three years old, right? Quoting from the forum rules:

Quote

On that same note, don't bring back topics that have been dead forever. This is called thread necromancy (or simply "necroing"). If after a long time you post something new in a topic--one whose discussion has long since ended--that would be thread necroing. We're going to be more lenient about this on the Brandon Sanderson forums, because if you have something to add in the "Mistborn Movie Casting" topic and there hasn't been a post there in a great while, why shouldn't you? You're adding something to the discussion, that's fantastic! A lot of the Books forums will have theory threads, and if you have something to add to them which just perfectly fits the topic, better to revive a dead thread, right?

Thread necroing is only bad in a case like this: let's say Mi'chelle and Josh post in General Discussion saying "We're married!" in a few months. Members will congratulate them, but what you don't want to do is post three months later a congratulation. The sentiment's nice, but at the same time, the news is outdated. Your post is itself outdated, which means it didn't really need to be said. It was superfluous and there was no need for you to post it. Does that make sense? That's why most forums hate thread necromancy, because it's superfluous posting. Essentially, spamming.

 

[Klar]

Oh my! I'm sorry, I had no idea there were rules and such. Just got so excited when I discovered this site a couple of days ago. Will be more mindful of the rules next time. Thanks for calling my attention!