Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers.

Shallan’s Sketchbook Part VI
Highspren, art here.
This page has less content than the other spren pages, probably due to the “enigmatic” nature of highspren. I’m left with a few specific questions, though.

Perhaps most trivially: What is up with the branch in the bottom left corner? From the coloration I was going to guess that it was a growth in the cognitive realm, but that little ghostly spren floating above it looks like a physical manifestation of some lesser spren. Why is it on this page? Does it have anything to do with highspren?

More relevant to the spren at hand: I’m intrigued that the starscape doesn’t move with the individual. They function as apparent windows, not mobile constellations. The crucials question that was not addressed is whether this starscape is continuous/contiguous across individuals. If a second highspren comes to stand in the place another just vacated, will the stars viewed through them be the same? If they stand next to one another can you see a wider view of the same vista? I would guess the answer to these questions is yes, though that’s very much speculation. Assuming the answer is yes, what is this other realm?

On a related note, is the starscape seen from their physical realm manifestation also the same? It’s interesting to me that the physical realm form of the highspren is more or less two dimensional, being a directional window, a pane of reality-breaking weirdness with a distinct orientation–as opposed to a sphere or other general shape.