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So artist Steve Argyle released this fantastic artwork today with this caption: When asked on Twitter who the character on the right was, he simply said that she was a Bondsmith and gave a winky face, explaining that he couldn't elaborate. So what are our guesses? She's got a safehand sleeve but her skin looks significantly darker than Dalinar's Alethi tan. While it is more than likely some character we haven't met yet, I'm gonna go ahead and give a real left field prediction that it's going to be Khriss. She comes to Roshar, adopts the local customs, is chosen by the Nightwatcher due to her desire to bond the Cosmere together through her research: pow! Second Bondsmith. Who do you guys think?

locke the tormented waz on teh ground. he had ben pushed there by sum strange person. he watched every 1 else fighting. he had thot he had just as many persons who liked him, but there was only 1 fighting 4 him. they lost, and he died. teh end. thx 4 playing. Orlok Tsubodai has died! He was a Refugee. Vote Count: Orlok Tsubodai (3): Araris Valerian, Devotary of Spontaneity, Magestar Araris Valerian (1): Illwei, Lord_Silberfarben, Orlok Tsubodai GM Notes: -THE GAME IS OVER! Thanks for playing!!! -Congratulations to @Araris Valerian, @Frozen Mint, @Lord_Silberfarben, @Magestar, @StrikerEZ, @xinoehp512, and @Zillah!!! -GM thoughts up sometime. Documents and Spreadsheets: Master Spreadsheet Dead/Spectator Document Diagramist Document Player List:

(EDIT: Just noticed - to see the whole tables on the mobile page, you have to use the horizontal mode! Sorry for not seeing that earlier ) So, I finally pulled this through: This is a statistical analysis of word count of stories and POV (point of view) characters in the Cosmere, pre-Rhythm of War. It's based on those on the Coppermind both in concept and data, so it was not as much work for me as it looks like (still a bit ). So, I necessarily followed the analysis conventions of the Coppermind, which means that I didn't include the following sorts of text: Ars Arcanum entries essays epigraphs Graphic Novels (naturally) chapter titles, generally text outside of the actual POVs (like text on illustrations and, in one of the short stories, footnotes) These explain why these word counts are generally a bit shorter than information on other sources might imply. On top of that, every new chapter is automatically a new POV (even if the character remains the same), while it's still the same POV if it's a new scene within the same chapter with the same character. The analysis is also limited to the canonical Cosmere, so no Aether of the Night, White Sand Prose, etc. This means that White Sand/Taldain, despite being canonical, are not represented in this statistic at all. I plan on doing another analysis that is the same but with White Sand Prose included. Since White Sand Prose is only allowed to be discussed in its sub-forum, I will post it under my Statistical Analysis of White Sand Prose there, once I find the time to do it. So, there we go: 1. Series Story (8) POV Characters (98) % of POV Characters Word Count (2,818,129) % of Word Count The Stormlight Archive 44 44.9% 1,276,934 45.31% Mistborn Era 1 20 20.41% 731,642 25.96% Mistborn Era 2 14 14.29% 337,427 11.97% Elantris 10 10.2% 208,212 7.39% Warbreaker 6 6.12% 196,014 6.96% The Emperor’s Soul 3 3.06% 31,925 1.13% Sixth of the Dusk 1 1.02% 18,083 0.64% Shadows for Silence 2 2.04% 17,892 0.63% I counted the two Scadrial Eras separately, as well as Emperor’s Soul. This is mostly because it’s easier to just add the separate datas together. I counted Secret History as Era 1, and Allomancer Jak as Era 2. The character numbers don’t add up because two characters have POVs in several stories. They count in every story they're in, but only once in the total character number. --- 2. Single Works Book / novella / short story (19) # of individual POVs (all characters) (1,423) % of Total POVs Word Count (2,818,129) % of Word Count Oathbringer 273 19.18% 454,440 16.13% Words of Radiance 178 12.51% 398,238 14.13% The Way of Kings 123 8.64% 384,265 13.64% The Well of Ascension 147 10.33% 244,371 8.67% The Hero of Ages 131 9.21% 225,372 8% The Final Empire 74 5.2% 210,103 7.46% Elantris 122 8.57% 201,372 7.25% Warbreaker 110 7.73% 196,014 6.96% The Bands of Mourning 83 5.83% 127,456 4.52% Shadows of Self 70 4.92% 110,019 3.9% The Alloy of Law 36 2.53% 94,652 3.36% Mistborn: Secret History 26 1.83% 44,981 1.6% Edgedancer 20 1.41% 40,660 1.44% The Emperor’s Soul 21 1.48% 31,925 1.13% Sixth of the Dusk 1 0.07% 18,083 0.64% Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell 3 0.21% 17,892 0.63% The Hope of Elantris 3 0.21% 6,840 0.24% The Eleventh Metal 1 0.07% 6,815 0.24% Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Elantia 1 0.07% 5,300 0.19% The word count for The Hope of Elantris is not exact but based on word count per page of the other Arcanum Unbounded stories without chapter division. I think it might be a bit less than indicated here, but it's close anyway. --- 3. Shardworlds Shardworld (6) Works (19) % of Works Word Count (2,818,129) % of Word Count Roshar 4 21.05% 1,276,934 45.31% Scadrial 9 47.37% 1,069,069 37.94% Sel 3 15.79% 240,137 8.52% Nalthis 1 5.26% 196,014 6.96% First of the Sun 1 5.26% 18,083 0.64% Threnody 1 5.26% 17,892 0.63% --- 4. Complete Character POV Analysis (spoilered for length)

So, first of all, special thanks to all of the following (among others): All the active players, for helping this game keep going. The spectators and dead players who helped the spec/dead doc grow to 86 pages. It was quite a fun doc, and had a bunch of game design stuff, so read through it if you like that stuff. The eliminators, for successfully winning the game. The village Knights Radiant, for only squiring villagers. TJ Shade, for creating a very dramatic moment. He roleblocked Araris, who put in the elim kill, and was barely foiled by the only use of Gravitation this game. shanerockes, for being willing to sub in. Illwei, for having a solid performance as a completely new player. Wilson, for checking over the distribution and being the IM. Orlok, for giving us a lot of fun posts as locke the tormented. Elbereth, for making a very nice role chart. Also, for sharing her suspicions in a PM named "aaaaaaaaaa". Ventyl and Gears, for writing their own deaths. Aonar, for originally making the rules for this game. Now, on to the GM thoughts. Distribution The first big part of the distribution was the number of eliminators. I could have either gone with six elims or seven elims. With six elims, the elims would need seven lynches on villagers to win, and the village would need six lynches on elims to win. With seven elims, it would be reversed. I ended up going with seven elims, since I felt like a bigger team with fewer roles would be more interesting, LGs are usually pretty sided towards the village (38.6% elim wins), and the village had (in my opinion) a strong set of roles. The village’s roles all provided ways to gain an advantage. The Edgedancer, Truthwatcher, and Bondsmith all had access to some form of kill interference. Assuming they used their abilities to try to block kills, there would be an average of two protects flying around each night, for a 8% chance of blocking the night’s kill (this is the theoretical chance, and doesn’t take into account the fact that the elims probably aren’t going to kill people under suspicion). While some KRs would likely die, they would probably Squire, leaving the village with roughly two protects for quite a bit. The Skybreaker was expected to be killing players, which would probably help the village. I think that this distribution was balanced in favor of the elims, but I think the village would have had a decent shot if they were active. It probably would have been more fair if the elims didn't have a Windrunner. I think I underestimated how useful the Windrunner would be. Something kind of funny about this game was that neither faction really got to use their big advantage all that much. Yes, the village had some good stuff with Squiring, Illumination, TJ almost blocking the kill, and TJ changing the vote to get Striker lynched. Yes, the elims did have an earlier ending due to their larger numbers. However, the village never really got to use their roles that much, since Eternum was inactive and Ventyl was lynched early, leaving TJ and Illwei as the two village Knights. The elims didn’t get to swing around their numbers all that much. There were three active elims, two semi-active elims, and two inactive elims. They never really used their numbers to change a lynch or control the thread. Inactivity People got off to a very good start on cycle one and cycle two, but I guess people just got burned out. I'm glad I didn't have an activity filter this game, since I think that the deaths would have helped the elimsa lot. Breaking it down, there were seven people who would have qualified for a typical two cycle inactivity filter (minimum six days irl time in this game). Out of those people, there were two elims and five villagers. So, if you removed them, the game would have been 5 v 12. There were also two people who died one turn before they would have run into the inactivity filter. I doubt that they still would have been killed, since people could have just waited one more turn. I really was surprised by the amount of inactivity, given the length of the cycles. There were four people who were inactive for over two weeks. Overall, I'd just like to remind people to not sign up if they don't feel like they have the time to play. I'd much rather run a smaller game with everyone active and having fun than a larger game with a lot of inactive players. Striker's Lynch It was pretty funny how much this ended up hurting the village. I remember hearing about it on the Mafia Universe podcast once, and over hundreds of games on their site, games when an elim died D1 ended up being worse for the village. It's a pretty weird effect. Changes from LG13 Illusion: Changing Illusion to a general open/closed PMs effect was something I'm very glad I did, and I think it should be left that way in a rerun. Making all of those PMs myself would have been a pain. The way it is now is also more powerful than how it was in LG13, which is good. It might be better to just change it to make PMs open for the next cycle, instead of having it be until the end of the next night. Gravitation: I'm glad I nerfed this. Gravitation is a strong surge, and having Progression be able to block it is a useful check on it. Cohesion: Cohesion in LG13 was a lot more messy, so I'm happy that I changed it to a swap. It'd probably be fine either way though. The way it interacted with the lynch in LG13 was more debatable. Stormlight Saving: I removed the ability to save Stormlight made it so Knights and Squires couldn't hoard Stormlight. I liked how this played out, since I feel like there would have been fewer actions otherwise. Information: Generally, people got less information about the results of stuff than they did in LG13. I feel like this could go either way, since it doesn't make a huge difference. Personally, I liked limiting the information more. The one thing that gave people more info than it did in LG13 was Progression (if someone was attacked and survived, their name was revealed). This was mainly to give Progression a boost, and I think it was a good change. I'm not sure if I missed anything there. If you have a question or want me to comment on something, just @mention me. Now, go sign up for Elbereth's game if you have the time!!!

*Takes a big breath* Did I missed somebody? I would be very upset as I was writing this for like 10 minutes.

There is a forest near Kaltii, just within Arelon above the Duladel border. That much is known to any school-child. Some people, perhaps, have even heard rumors about the forest and what lies within, for it is deep and dark and not often entered. But none knew about the place at the heart of the forest. No one had set sight there for centuries on the beautiful structure at its center. None who lived to tell the tale, at least. Not until now. Today we have found it. The pyramid at the center of the forest, built by some ancient civilization a very long time ago. We don't know what it's for, or who built it, or even what they worshiped. (I hope that it is a temple to Domi, myself, even though it looks like no temple I have ever seen.) But we know that it is beautiful, and that we have much more yet to learn. Tomorrow we will enter the pyramid at first light, and endeavor to learn more of this ancient people and their ways. The younger ones are spinning tales of traps and curses, horror stories of old kings' graves, but I am not worried. Merciful Domi will guide our way. - from the diary of Father Dedan Quick Fix 46: Mysteries within Secrets is officially (finally) up for signups! Please sign up below with your name and character, or let me know if you'd prefer to spectate. @little wilson is the IM for this game, so please contact her if you have any issues. The game will start July 27th, specific time TBD but probably at least a few hours earlier than the time of this posting. The rules are here in pretty doc format, and listed below as well. Any clarifications (no matter where they're asked) will be added both here and to the doc (though I don't anticipate too many, given the simplicity of the rules). Note that this game will need a minimum of 20 players to run smoothly. I don't anticipate having fewer than that, but if it occurs I'll run something else. Please don't make me do that. (The flavor of the game will make a little more sense with the opening writeup of the game. If you want to RP pre-game, you can go in the ziggurat! You'll already be inside for the opening writeup.) Factions Korathi: You're certain in the faith of your fellow Korathi, but you suspect some Jeskeri hiding among you who may have weaker faith than you. Being Jeskeri isn't a problem, exactly, but lack of devotion most certainly is. Docs: None Win condition: You win when every Jeskeri Practitioner is dead. (This does not include Jeskeri Cultists.) Jeskeri Practitioner: You just want to survive and practice your religion, even if you have to hide it from the paranoid Korathi, but someone has been practicing the Mysteries again and desecrating this sacred place - not to mention terrifying the Korathi. You have to root them out, before it’s too late. You have access to the Jeskeri inquisition. Docs: Jeskeri doc Win condition: You win when every Jeskeri Cultist is dead. Jeskeri Cultist: You are tired of this hiding and tolerating and pretending to be other than who you are. The Mysteries are sacred and beautiful, and anyone who rejects them is unfaithful and must be sacrificed. You have a group kill each cycle. The last order sent in will be accepted. Docs: Jeskeri doc*, Cultist-only doc Win condition: You win when every non-Cultist is dead. *At least one Cultist will be hidden among the Korathi, and will not be known as Jeskeri nor have access to the Jeskeri doc. The Korathi Cultist(s) will make up less than half of the starting Cultist team. Jeskeri doc: Contains every Jeskeri Practitioner and Cultist (see exception just above). Non-anonymous; all names will be listed at the top and each player must choose a distinct color and keep to it. Editing others’ text is forbidden. Every player who has access to this doc also has access to the Jeskeri inquisition. They may submit a vote in their GM PM each cycle (votes declared in the doc but not PM will not count), and the highest-voted player will die at the end of the cycle just as in the standard inquisition. Votes will be revealed in the Jeskeri doc at the start of the next cycle. Housekeeping Rollover: 23 hour cycles with 1 hour for rollover, time TBD. Inquisitions: One vote minimum; tied inquisitions are decided randomly (in both cases). Inactivity filter: Two consecutive cycles of no posting in thread will result in death (unless forewarned). PMs: Open, one-on-one, must include the GM. Copy-pasting any PM or doc content into any other location is forbidden, including the Cultist doc. Writeup: Death types will be distinguished. If you take anything in the writeup to have any game-relevant information whatsoever, you are wrong. There are no secrets. All win conditions are game-ending. Player List Quicklinks

I think everyone's getting a little carried away with analyzing this artwork. This piece of art is not part of Stormlight Four. It's part of the WoK 10th anniversary Kickstarter; they're doing a poster, like this, for each Order. Aside from the Windrunners (which are shown on the Kickstarter campaign page itself), we've gotten peeks at Truthwatchers, Elsecallers, Skybreakers, and Dustbringers, aside from this most recent Bondsmiths preview. And while there are several recognizable characters featured on the posters, there are a lot of unknowns, as well; especially with Skybreakers (which doesn't feature Szeth) and Truthwatchers (which doesn't feature Renarin). But you'll notice that all of these pieces of artwork feature two Radiants, one male and one female. They're putting one of each on every poster (like they did way back in the old Immortal Words poster), which means there must be a female depiction of a Bondsmith for the sake of the poster. And she's an incredibly generic Bondsmith; her sigil is the Bondsmith sigil, her attire is the Bondsmith white-and-gold, her ornamentations are the Bondsmith's gemstone of heliodor. And she's got a Shardblade, which Bondsmiths didn't have. Heck, in the original Elsecaller post from above, Jasnah had the Edgedancer sigil instead of the Elsecaller. So it doesn't look like these posters are being put through the rigorous vetting that book artwork is. (Like, for example, several pieces he's doing to go in the leatherbound, featured on his social media and the Kickstarter campaign.) These posters aren't tied to a specific time in-story; it's not like they're "depictions of the Radiant Orders at the start of Rhythm of War," or something like that. They can contain specific characters, and they can contain archetypal examples of Radiants, and they're out-of-universe, so it's not like Dalinar gets a new Bondsmith friend and then tells her "Let's go pose for a band photo somewhere in Urithiru." Going back to Immortal Words poster I linked above, we're not going to theorize that there was an actual banner with those words hanging somewhere with a Stonward and a Windrunner guarding it. These are all artists' depictions; no more, no less. Whoever the next Bondsmiths will be, I don't think we'll learn anything about them from examining this poster. EDIT: And, of course, right after I post this we get a Kickstarter update from Isaac:

*large inhale* Soooo...I've been teaching Wado Ryu karate for about 11 years now, and practicing for about 17. I have opinions, but to boil it down: Tai-Jutsu: seems to be a general term for Japanese martial arts, so I'm not sure what discipline that is. If it's a good school, it could be very good, or it could be people who are undecided as to what they should practice. Taekwondo: Unless it's a very good instructor and you don't have other options, I personally wouldn't take this one. It's about 80% kicks, and a lot of the techniques are not practical (though people will probably shout at me about this). It's been watered down a lot to competition training over the years. Karate: Again, this is a very general term, which means it's probably Shotokan style. Other styles are Shito-Ryu, Wado Ryu (like mine), Goju-Ryu... It's generally balanced between hand and feet techniques, and if you have a good instructor, you can learn a lot of practical application. Aikido: This is my second choice for a discipline. Good Aikido is using your opponent's momentum against them. Has a lot of cool joint locks, but also easy to injure wrists. Has some mat work, and if you don't like rolling around on the floor with sweaty people, you might not like that part. It doesn't focus on punches or kicks. Judo and Jujitsu: These two are similar in many ways. Both have some really good holding and grappling techniques, but it's largely mat work. No punches or kicks, though Judo has more throws. Even more rolling around than Aikido. As to practicing in our new world here, most all places are shut down (I've been teaching on Zoom with my class) and that eliminates a lot of the good feedback you get from hitting bags or working hand to hand with others. Overall, though, talk with the instructor! If you get the feeling at all that they are in it to show off their techniques or intimidate students, stay far away. Ask questions about practical application, and if they can't answer, that means they're following the moves of the discipline, but don't understand why it's used. Especially for Karate, Tai-Jutsu, and Taikwando, make sure they practice forms or kata. If they don't, they're missing a huge part of the discipline. Anyway, that's my ten or twenty cents worth. I'm happy to answer other questions, especially if you want to run a particular instructor/school by me for whether you think if would be good.

The day is over! So is the game!

Sorry, I really shouldn't have done this, but then I got an idea, and well... Presenting.... Sixth of the Dusk

In OB Chapter 114 the Nightwatcher seems to have Nightblood as she offers Dalinar “A Blade that bleeds darkness and can never be defeated.” In WoR Nale gives it to Szeth. At first I thought there is no way Nale would subject himself to a Bane for a magic sword when has two already. But then I thought that’s not what he would ask for. My theory is either Nale or Kalak (seems more like a Kalak thing) went to the Valley and asked to be released from the Oathpact. They were given a sword that can permanently kill them because it would eat up their investiture which is what gives them persistent life. Boon: You’ll never have to go back to Braize again! Bane: Dead forever. Obviously they weren’t pleased with this solution so either Kalak got it and gave it to Nale or Nale got it and just hung on to it until he found a use for it.

Hello there, Im SheriffHeckTate. I read Way of Kings a couple years back have since gotten all of the Cosmere books available on Audible. I hadnt gotten around to listening to them all, but when I saw Rhythm of War was coming out this fall, I figured this was a good time. I just completed the first Mistborn trilogy (which was great) and just dived into Elantris. I'm definitely not going to make it all the way through the current stuff before Rhythm drops, but thats alright. I'm enjoying the journey. Borrowed White Sand 1 and 2 from my local library, then learned about the prose edition, which I just snagged, and Aether of Night, which I've requested. Should I just read the prose and skip the graphic novels (especially considering I cant get the third one)?

I'm in the Kickstarter?

Maybe I just need to follow more threads...

we probably wont get it until Stormlight 5 and The Lost Metal are released.i think brandon said he plans on a early 2022 release for The Lost Metal. It takes Brandon 3 years, minimum, to write a SA novel so, optimistically, it'll probably 2026-2027 at the earliest, that he starts writing it(assuming he doesnt do Elantris sequel or anything else first) Brandon Sanderson Updates on Secondary Projects Elantris, Warbreaker, Rithmatist No updates from last year, I'm afraid. There was no intention to make progress on these this year. Once Alcatraz is wrapped up, I'll turn my attention back to The Rithmatist as the last looming series that needs a wrap-up that hasn't gotten one. Elantris and Warbreaker sequels aren't to be expected until Stormlight Five and Wax and Wayne Four are done. Status: Keep waiting. (Sorry again.) State of the Sanderson 2018 (Dec. 19, 2018)

I’m curious, Chaos, considering contextual characteristics like cottony cumulus cloud accumulation, checking common climate coolness in Kelvin or Celsius, and comparing components of atmospheric circulation that could cause cyclones or cataclysmically consequential seasonal events, can you please articulate which Cosmere community’s customary climate conditions you’d prefer to call home?

Phew! Just got back from my first day at my first job. I'm tired, but pumped!

Assuming that you can see these pictures I believe that the blade shown by Lady X is either not an Honorblade or its Pailiah's blade. If, like me, you have no idea who Pailiah is she was the Truthwatcher patron and might be in the Palanaeum of Kharbranth. Her blade is the one in the back right. The blades look kind of similar around the hilt and I think that blades adjust slightly to suit their wielder. If Lady X is Navani it makes sense that she would gravitate to the Truthwatcher herald. Alternatively it's not an honorblade and something else is going on here.

Somewhere, Adolin just had a panic attack that someone forgot about non-functional fashion.

"Hey Enter, can you smoke us? I have a plan, and I don't want any holed to overhear."

Thanks . Although I think in a large part the ease of our victory was due to general village inactivity. Striker getting lynched turned out to be rather helpful, and then after a couple of mislynches I feel like the village lost its confidence, since my proposal for the lynch was accepted (by at least enough villagers) basically through the end of the game at that point. Thanks to @Straw for GMing! This game was very fun to play, and it was nice to be an elim again. I also greatly enjoyed playing with @Magestar, @Frozen Mint, @Lord_Silberfarben, @xinoehp512, and @Zillah, although we could have cleaned things up a little faster if the latter two had been more active. My general comments on the game: First and foremost I think the activity levels were pretty awful. I know several people had IRL stuff going on, but some people sort of just vanished, and didn’t even put anything in blue text (some of that may have been due to IRL stuff too, and that is totally cool as well). I just find it slightly unlikely that so many people had so much life stuff come out of nowhere right after D2. The more players that are posting in a game, in general, the more fun it is for everyone. My team ended up killing off a bunch of inactives just to keep the game from going dead before we won officially, but that doesn’t feel very good to do as an elim, because you aren’t playing optimally (kind of the exact opposite). So I guess, if you play again, please try and post at least once per cycle, even if it’s just to say that you are still catching up. I think the game probably would have been balanced at 6 elims, but it’s hard to tell with the activity. With 7 and a double vote manip, I think we may have had a little too much game ending potential. I’d be curious to hear thoughts from others about this. The village perception on the role distribution this game was also kind of weird, although I’m not sure it impacted the game. Several people assumed either all roles or all surges would be present, but that is the exact sort of role distribution that GMs try to avoid. My advice: if you can guess at a role distribution D1, it’s probably wrong. Thanks everyone for playing, and I look forward to killing you all later!

Skin color suggests Azish, but the safe hand is a point against that. I'm most confused about the blade though. Did someone get a hold of the honorblade?

This is essentially a continuation of my previous thread: tl;dr version of it: I believe that Near East mythology (Ugaritic Baal Cycle, specifically) predicts that Rayse and the Fused will be killed with Sja-anat's help by the end of Arc 1. Arc 2 will be about Odium reforming itself OK, we can start We know that the names of the Unmade come from Near East (mostly Canaanite) mythology (plus some Lovecraft). Imagine my surprise when I found out that the same applies to selected Heralds and the Sibling: Ishar – Ishara, originally a Canaanite love goddess, then turned into Hittite goddess of oaths, who punishes the oathbreakers. Quite a fitting connection, I would say Shalash – Shamash, Mesopotamian god of Sun and light. Once again quite a good match Jezrien – supreme god (depending on the culture: El, Anu, Amurru, Yahweh). His later name, Ahu, is (given the nature of the letter 'h') pretty much identical to Anu. I believe that the fact that his names typically start with Je-/Ya- is a link to Jehovah/Yahweh (plus he's also worshipped as the only god in Emul) The names of the other Heralds don't have mythological origin, as far as I can say, which makes sense in a way, as in the ancient Near East only royalty (Jezrien, Ash) and maybe high priests (Ishar) would use names associated with divinity. They all, however, share the suffix “'Elin” which seems to come from El, associated with Jezrien The Sibling – Ashur, who represents a deified form of the city of Assur – clearly the same concept as the Sibling and Urithiru Fun fact: staring from Ashur, we can find a nice chain of (probably Easter egg) connections scattered around the Stormlight books. Ashur appears in the name of one of the last Assyrian kins – Ashurbanipal (literally 'Ashur has given a son-heir') who happens to share some similarities with Dalinar: he was known as the king who could read and write (not a small feat, given the complexity of cuneiform and ancient Summerian and Akkadian) he lost his lands in the West, but gained new in the East his capital, Nineveh, had the largest library of ancient knowledge at the time (similar to Urithiru) and was prophesied in the Bible to be completely destroyed (similar to the fate of Kholinar in Almighty's visions) the prophecy from the previous point was made by the prophet Jonah, who was, according to Bible, swallowed by a giant fish at one point – something weirdly similar to what happens to Hoid and a greatshell, as described by Lift Given all that, I can see two interesting theories/implications: The Unmade are Odium's Heralds/Honorblades: I have assumed for a long time that the Unmade would be the Bondsmith godspren (or maybe Truthwatcher godspren) for Voidbinding, but in the light of the new evidence I believe they are the equivalent of the Heralds instead. It makes sense: they are superpowered beings using their Shard's power on a hostile Shard's territory, trying not to get captured. They are also not exactly efficient – Yelig-nar uses his hosts up rather quickly, as the Honorblades use Stormlight The new, evil Oathpact As I wrote above, I believe that Arc 2 will include reforming Odium. We know that: there is no Unmade corresponding to the Order of Bondsmiths Ishar is a crazy, egomaniac Bondsmith who possibly wants the death of all mankind Arc 2 will be about figuring out the Oathpact Based on that, a possible mechanism of Odium's return is a new, evil Oathpact on Roshar - one between Ishar and the Unmade. It could be enough for Ishar to Ascend and bring Voidbinding (10-based, Voidspren bond based magic system) to Roshar – essentially a twisted version of what Dalinar tries to achieve with Honor and the KR in Arc 1

Just wondering when the cover will be released! I know for other countries some have already been revealed! The anticipation is killing me!!

Sorry for the clickbait, but Hoid, wit, whatever you want to call him, is a loli. Not only that, he is best girl. He's a billion years old and looks no more than 50, so he's a loli. He is best girl, because HAVE you read the series? besto wifi. Thanks for coming to my ted talk

Just finished watching The Two Towers with my youngest brother, and man, Sam's speech at the end just hits different during these troubled times

Just...life. I don’t know how to put it any other way.

Okay, here's what you have to do. start a massive argument that forces the mods to lock the thread, then hope they don't explain why before locking it.

So got two comments 1. If you look real close, i dont think her left arm is covered by a safe hand sleeve. I think its just her cloak. That one arm is out and pushing the cloak back while the other is at rest, and thereby covered by the cloak 2. I dont think the scene is depicting a shardblade being revived. From what we saw of the other one (wind runner and i could have sworn we also saw skybreaker), it looks like a general pose. Not necessarily a scene out of the books. So although it does seem they are taking characters from it, i dont think this is a "snap shot" of a real scene taking place

Even though I got lynched D1 and had a lot of irl stuff preventing me from having the mental energy to keep up with this game super closely, this game was a blast to watch! It was really fun to see how my lynch caused so much chaos and confusion. As of now I have died in 75% of my elim games. In 67% of those games I was lynched D1 and my team won. Of the times I survived to the end, I lost once and won once. It appears that I have a higher chance of winning as an elim if I get lynched D1 than if I try to survive the whole time.

If you mean in general, then To Kill a Mockingbird. Probably. If you mean Sanderson/Cosmere, then probably Hero of Ages. Final Empire did some worldbuilding and Well of Ascension built on it a bit, but I think Hero of Ages really kicked that and the mythos into high gear. Plus I loved the ending.

Well, I played for a week solely on mobile and did fairly well. Then I finally returned from my vacation, ready to play SE on my new laptop and write the long analysis posts I like... and then I got hurled into an off-schedule highstorm. TJ, I want a word with the Stormfather Apparently the Elims were trying to incriminate Gears by killing me? Everyone seemed to just accept that I was dead when everyone had thought that Joe would be next. Although Gears did get lynched quick, so I guess it worked. I did have a lot of fun with this game. Watching the village work through the mess of Ventyl and Gears, waiting for Gears to die so I had someone to talk to, theorizing I think three different game ideas, and trying (and failing) to find the Elims. I had thought Pyro was the bad one, which means Pyro gets the distinguished award of being more suspicious as a Villager than as an Elim... Well, congrats to the Elims!

You know what, your argument seems very solid to me. I agree. Orlok.

Why Odium was surpriced and scared when Dalinar make his famous clap? For me it is relativly simple - Odium was scared because Dalinar did something what shouldnt be possible for mortal, Radiant or not. Open Perpendicularity isnt small thing, this is something what can be made only by entity with power on Shards level. Is also second thing - Dalinar did something what Odium wasnt able to predict - and he has really good futuresight. So what Dalinar did was like: "You think you know future? Nah" - and this is scary, because this mean every your plans can fall apart.

See, I'm kind of in an opposite position. I'm struggling to get through Shallan's chapters--I know that there's a lot of character growth going on for her but right now she just irritates me. I'm ready for her as she is in WoR. Dalinar's chapters are the ones that I'm getting involved in at the moment; I feel like I've missed a lot during my previous reads that I'm catching this time through, particularly during his visions and his interpretations of the Stormfather's messages. Kaladin's chapters have always been amazing.

I hate to do this, but as @Kings_way hasn’t responded in several days I’m going to have to disqualify them to keep it fair for everyone. In that case, here is the poll. I will post results tomorrow morning! (I’m still taking the top two)

When your grandpa says he is getting old so you say “Well, you are kind, but not getting kinder. You are wise, but not getting wiser. You aren’t getting cynical. That means you are strange and DEFINITELY getting stranger.”

LOL

Grief based on a true story As I rub the sleep from my eyes, I glance around the room. Curtains drawn, fan spinning, book sit- wait, curtains drawn? Frantically I push them open, and grief fills my heart. Tears fill my eyes as I stare at my dead friend. My plant. I forgot to water it.

perfect example. had me dying when i saw that XD now you have me imagining that the NW just has a huge cave full of junk that she gives to people when asked XD "come child, follow me to my cave of wonders and we shall see what awaits you"

So, I was thinking about making fancy role PMs with images and stuff, so I made something to create them with: Fancy Role PM Generator To use it, follow these instructions: Make a copy. Fill in all role and faction information. Make sure to clean up your image URLs and put in colors that work with the color BBCode (simple color names or hex codes). Name and color are the only required fields. Fill in your distribution. Make sure all the names of roles and factions are the same as the names that you entered in step #2. Go over to the generator tab and select all the filled in PMs. For example, in a five person game, you'd select B2 to B6. Then just copy it. Go to a HTML previewer site (like this one) and paste your copied text in. Then get the preview. Now that you have the preview, copy it and paste it into the Shard (probably in a PM to yourself). Do not remove formatting. Add one BBcode center tag to each end ([*center] at the start and [*/center] at the end, both without the *) Hit preview to make sure everything looks fine, and then post it. You now should have a bunch of role PMs that you can copy and paste. Just make sure to center each when you post it. For example: MR42 Generator Output from generator:

A couple more similarities between Ashurbanipal and Dalinar: - They were both younger sons who weren't meant to be king - The heir next in line was passed over in their favor and and given a lesser title - for Dalinar this is Elhokar and the Highking business, even if that did happen later - for Ashurbanipal this is Shamash-shum-ukin, his older brother, who was given Babylon instead There are other things too, but they're not particularly relevant to the point I want to make. Assyria fell from within after it got too big to control and Babylon, ruled by Ashurbanipal's brother, rose up and took control, which I feel supports your Ishar theory: someone from the royal family -- or, in SA, one of the Heralds -- eventually betrays the rest after allying with opposing forces (in SA, Odium and Unmade; in Assyria, recently conquered territories like Iran, Anatolia, etc.) Also, the main entrance to the city of Babylonia was the Ishtar Gate. Tell me that doesn't seem suspicious -- almost-Ishar was the entrance to the city we're using as a parallel for Odium's forces. Babylon soon fell to the Persian empire, which occupied basically the same territory as Assyria. My guess is that this is what will happen to Alethkar. It falls in SA4 (we know it's already at the end of its rope from the Lirin chapter in the newsletter), and it's reconquered by not quite the same people some time in the back 5. Possibly the kids of our main characters now, thus the time jump. During this time, many of the Jews were taken and held captive in Babylon. The Diaspora took place shortly after as the land changed hands a bunch of times in a couple decades. This, in the books, could be the equivalent of Vorin forces being captured (and possibly corrupted) by Odium, and Vorinism becoming a minority religion as its major tenets are proven wrong (not that I'm implying that Judaism's tenets are wrong, just theorizing that Vorinism will end up becoming a minority religion like Judaism).

Hey, ma bro! It's your burthdeigh? Well, habberdey, habberdey, habberdey!!! Wish you all da best!

Hey, Dean! Happy, happier, happiest birthday!!!

I learned how to format things! Yay!