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I interpret OB’s text and the SLA plot to mean Odium intends human genocide. Maybe human death is a necessary part of Honor and Cultivation’s destruction, but that doesn’t explain what binds Odium to Roshar. Other explanations for human genocide, like Rayse hates humans or Divine Hatred must destroy, don’t work for me narratively. Instead, I theorize humans carry Odium Investiture they brought with them from Ashyn. I speculate Honor bound that Investiture to them. I think human genocide returns Odium’s Investiture to its source. Does Odium Want Rosharan Humans Dead? Desolations alone show Odium wants to eradicate humans. IMO, his negotiation with Taravangian at the end of OB confirms his goal (Chapter 122, Kindle pp. 1216-1217, emphasis added): Odium insists on few human survivors. He threatens to walk when Taravangian rejects Odium’s counter-offer. He coerces Taravangian’s acceptance. I trust Taravangian’s compassion: If he feels humankind is doomed, he believes it. I think Odium’s deal may save only now-living Kharbranth humans: “any humans who have been born into it, along with their spouses.” Odium omits children. He might have added, “or those who will be born…” If that’s the “spirit” of Odium’s deal, Rosharan humanity may end in a generation. Those are my reasons to think Odium wants to eradicate Roshar’s humans. Why would he make that his goal? What Does Human Genocide Gain Odium? Rosharan humans come from Ashyn (mostly). That planet’s magic derives from magical microbes: “Viruses and bacteria, various strains of them, have evolved in-line with the investiture on the planet to grant you a magical ability when you catch the disease…” Ashyn’s Investiture is presumably Odium’s. @Vortaan theorizes Stormlight makes humans disease-resistant and deprives them of their Ashyn magic. Brandon says Ashyn magical abilities end when the human host is healthy again: "You can fly as long as you have the common cold, but when you get over it, you can't anymore.” But does Odium’s Investiture disappear when the host is healthy and the microbe dies? The microbe’s death may end the magical ability, but the Investiture may remain inside the human host. That would leave every Ashyn human who ever got sick holding Odium’s Investiture. If they can pass that Investiture to their progeny, every living Roshar human probably holds Odium inside them. I theorize Honor traps Odium by binding that Investiture to humans. Maybe Honor first restricts humans to Shinovar to ban them from Stormlight. All is well until humans proliferate Roshar. Now Odium the Broken One wants his Investiture back. That’s my explanation (for now). I welcome yours.

In Scadrial books Shadesmar is one of Mists and in Roshar it is full of Spren and countless connections to the physical world rolled up in little spheres. Are these difference defined by the collectivve minds of the people or is it more defined by the Investiture/Shard in charge (Roshar was originally Adonalsium's world so the spheres and most of the spren are probably his and not specifically Honor, Cultivation, or Odium's). Is the only constant to Shadesmar the beyond. Is the inverse landscape a constant? How much can a Shard change the landscape. Brandon has said that Sel is a dangerous place in the Cognitive realm because of the Shattered shards power residing mainly in the cognitive realm so how far can the cognitive realm be twisted by Investiture. Perhaps there is a splinter of Ambition causing the cognitive realm to be twisted on threnody.

So yeah. We've seen a bunch of Radiants use different weapons, from Shardforks to Shardblades to Shardspears. So why are all of the Shardweapons from the Recreance in blade form? It stands to reason they also would have had their weapons of choice. What is the reason that all of their Shards turned into blades, then? Is sword-form some kind of a basic spren form? Is it cultural (and why would there be such an overpowering cultural influence on swords opposed to other weapons, with no room for deviation?) Did the spren revert to sword-form when the bond was broken?

Does anyone else dream of Roshar (or other Cosmere worlds at night?!) It's been a week that i finished Oathbringer and still dream of Roshar at night (maybe 3 or 4 separate dreams each night!) Like last night I was once Kaladin, Then i was myself listening to Cephandrius talking about his memories and chronology of Cosmere from a billion years ago! And like every other fantasy book, I feel i miss it and a bit... um, sad maybe?! Am i going crazy or these are visions of the Almighty?! Like to know if anyone share the same feelings.

EDIT: There's been a lot of discussion and revision to my original ideas, and I would recommend basically skipping this first post for the most part. It is, however, important to read the first two sections ("Observations" & "Related Information") as they set up some of the information given in the books and by Peter which is used to support the rest of the findings. Here are links to my most recent analysis: The orbits of the moons precess as the planet orbits the sun: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6334-the-moons-of-roshar/?p=103069 (I've since dropped the notion that they share exactly the same orbit, better language would be to say the moons share the same period and have very similar orbits....more on this in the posts below.) The orbit of the moons is in the opposite direction compared to Roshar's rotation: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6334-the-moons-of-roshar/?p=103135 (more details in the next link...) More about the orbits being in the opposite direction & how the orbits must be inclined when compared to the plane of the Roshar's orbit around its sun: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6334-the-moons-of-roshar/?p=103175 Preliminary calculations for the orbits: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6334-the-moons-of-roshar/?p=103350 There is, of course, a lot of good discussion and contributions between all these posts that I would recommend! I'm in the processes of re-organizing all of the information that has been deduced into a single document, so it can be read without the need to jump between posts and it would skip past the incorrect hypotheses. ----Orignal Opening Post (read the first two sections, the rest is now discarded)---- All this talk about the moons of Roshar in the other two threads got me thinking… Based on the "observations" provided in the book and the comments from Peter, I’ve come up with some speculations about the moons of Roshar. First…the data! Observations: “The sun set in the west, but the wagons kept rolling. Violet Salas peeked over the horizon to the east, seeming hesitant at first, as if making sure the sun had vanished.” WoK Chpt 2 “Nomon—the middle moon—had begun to rise, bathing the city in pale blue light. Staying up this late had been a rare privilege for her in her father’s house…” WoK Chpt 8 “Szeth looked over his shoulder, wishing that the Second Sister—known as Nomon to these Easterners—had risen to give a little more light.” WoK I-3 “Salas’s violet light shone in the sky outside, but the small moon wasn’t bright enough to illuminate the barn’s interior, and the creature had moved into a shadowed recess.” WoK Chpt 19 “Nomon—the middle moon—shone with his pale, blue-white light.” WoK Chpt 23 “Nomon was setting in the west, and the small green disk of Mishim—the final moon—was rising in the east.” WoK Chpt 23 “Two hours later, at Salas’s first violet light, Rock and Kaladin walked back into the lumberyard. It was just past sunset, and many of the bridgemen would soon be going to sleep.” WoK Chpt 27 “Kaladin smiled, leaning back, looking upward toward the dark sky and the large sapphire moon.” WoK Chpt 73 Related Information: PeterAhlstrom, on 06 Feb 2014 - 2:06 PM, said: Each moon is in the sky only once per day and moves across the sky in a couple to a few hours. What does that tell us about their orbits? http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/5854-setting-limits-on-the-size-of-roshar-the-planet-and-roshar-the-continent/?p=94890 PeterAhlstrom, on 06 Feb 2014 - 5:15 PM, said: I expect the moons were put in their current orbits artificially, but by whom or what I do not know. On astronomical terms, these are not stable orbits, but astronomical terms means millions of years. A few thousand or even a few hundred thousand years are no problem. http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/5854-setting-limits-on-the-size-of-roshar-the-planet-and-roshar-the-continent/?p=94976 PeterAhlstrom, on 27 Feb 2014 - 11:37 PM, said: They are very small. Think Phobos and you'll be in the ballpark. http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6249-will-we-see-interplanetarlunar-travel-in-future-books/?p=102426 ------ Here are the “facts” based on the observations: Salas and Mishim are both described as “small” moons. (WoK Chpt 19 & 23) Nomon is described as a “large” moon. (WoK Chpt 73) Salas always rises first, Nomon always rises second, and Mishim always rises third. [szeth refers to Nomon as the Second Sister (WoK 1-3), Nomon is refered to as the “middle moon” (WoK Chpt 8 & 23), and Mishim is called the “final moon” (WoK Chpt 23), by process of elimination Salas is first.] Orbital Locations of the Moons: Since the moons always rise in the same order (Salas, Nomon, Mishim), all three moons have to be the same distance away from Roshar. They all have to be in the same orbit. Otherwise they would appear in a different order on various nights over time. And this means… the moons are at Lagrangian points! The Lagrangian points are stable locations where objects can share the same orbit. Jupiter, for example, shares its orbit with asteroids at Lagrangian points 4 and 5. Using the above image to describe the Sun-Jupiter system, the Sun is at the center, Jupiter is the purple body to the right (between L1 and L2) and the Jupiter Trojan asteroids are found around L4 and L5. Lagrangian points 4 and 5 are always about 60 degrees from the body on the right (Jupiter, in this example). In the case of these moons, Roshar would be the central body, while the most massive moon (based on the size, this would presumably be Nomon) would take the purple point near L1L2 (where Jupiter was), and the other two would have to sit at the other Lagrangian points. There is one final piece of information that helps us lock down the locations of the moons: from WoK Chpt 23 it’s clearly states that Nomon is setting just as Mishim is rising, i.e. they are 180 degrees apart…on opposite sides of their orbit. For the Roshar-Nomon system I propose that Salas is at Lagrangian point 4 and Mishim is at Lagrangian point 3. In regards to the orbits of the moons not being perfect circles… Jupiter has an orbital eccentricity of about 0.049. The Earth’s eccentricity is only 0.016. Even Mars, with an eccentricity of 0.093(!!), still has trojan asteroids at its Lagrangian points. I think it’s safe to say the Roshar-Nomon system has Lagrangian points. It is, however, notable that L3 is typically a very specific point and it can be unstable…I’m hoping the “artificial placement” of these moons helps to explain how Mishim ended up in such a perfect placement. Size Approximations: Since Peter suggested Phobos was a ballpark, I’m going to go ahead and copy it as a template for the moons of Roshar. First, Phobos orbits at approximately 9000 km from Mars, so I’m going to put the Three Sisters at that distance from Roshar. Because Nomon seems to reflect enough light to see by at night (WoK Chpt 8), which our Moon does as well, and I don’t have anything better to go on, I’m going to assume that Nomon looks to be visibly the same size as our Moon. Our Moon is about .5 degrees in diameter on the night sky. An object at 9000 km away would have to be 80 km in diameter to appear as .5 degrees in diameter on the night sky. As for the small moons, I’ll look to Phobos as an example again. Phobos is 22 km in diameter. From the surface of Mars, Phobos would appear to be about .14 degrees big on the night sky. In other words, a moon the size and distance of Phobos would appear to be a little under the diameter of the Moon as seen it from Earth. Assuming that the small moons, Salas and Mishim, have relatively the same diameter and mass, and that Nomon is significantly larger, these numbers seem decently reasonable to me. It would make the two “small” moons appear to be about 1/3 the size of the “large” moon, and the “large” moon would appear similar in size to our Moon. Closing Thoughts & Questions: It’s after midnight, so I don’t want to try and figure this out now, but I think we can get some more solid information on the orbital period of the moons based on what is presented in the Observations and Information sections. Peter said the moons were in the sky “only once per day,” which is interesting.... Especially considering that all observations of the moons only seem to take place at night (anyone have any daytime references?) There are two comparisons between sunset and Salas moonrise that I can recall; WoK Chpts 2 and 27. In both chapters, Kaladin observes Salas rising just after the sun had set. I don’t recall any mention of Salas and Nomon being in the sky together, but if my Lagrangian point theory holds I would keep an eye out for it in the upcoming books. It is, however, clear that Noman is setting when Mishim is rising (WoK Chpt 23). If the moons are only in the sky at night (as visible from Alethkar at least), does Salas always rise just after sunset? I’d love some lunar observations from Shinovar to see if the moons are visible during the day over on that side of the world! It is also possible that the two small moons are simply too small to reflect enough light, and the large moon, being blue, might just blend in with the sky. Still it seems really really weird to me that we only have nighttime lunar observations. Something to consider! I can’t wait to read of additional lunar observations in Words of Radiance!!!!!! ((edited for ugly formatting error I didn't notice in the previews))

I bought Arcanum Unbounded the other day and was rather baffled by this excerpt, in which Lift and Wyndle were talking. Wyndle: I had the most magnificent chairs. Lift: Shars? Wyndle: Yes, chairs. (More words) Lift: Yu* gardened shars? Wyndle: Of course I gardened chairs. *It was spelt like this in the text. Lift is speaking with her mouth full here, but that doesn’t really excuse this wayward pronunciation. Has anything been said about the accent of the Azish peasantry? Is there a real world accent which makes ‘chairs’ sound like ‘shars’? Any help would be appreciated.

I've been doing some random exploring lately. As we know Odium's whole thing is centered around passion and emotion, and that many cultures built religion around this, more specifically the Thaylen Passions. In my searching I found that, from the definition, Ardent (Which is a word) means enthusiastic or passionate Mind blown

What is honor's perpendicularity?? Does it makes odium vulnerable?

Roshar has months. And Adolin and Shallan's discussion about "girl stuff" implies that periods also happen on a monthly basis. Okay, but there are three moons in really fast orbits. How can they have "months" as we understand them? Let along months close enough to earth months that Rosharan ladies get visited by the red voidbringer once per?

Are we SURE it's Odium attacking Harmony at Scadrial? If Harmony had to divest himself of power to keep them away from Odium. He has admitted to being trapped and at odds with his dual natures in the final Letter in Oathbringer. I wonder what character he might choose as successor? Have you? Any thoughts?

I just wanted to ask whether the Stormlight archives books + edgedancer are the only books set in roshar, and if so, will there be other sérieuses set there?

So we got confirmation that humans came to Roshar because of a major disaster on their "original" world and that the big secret was that they had destroyed their own planet with surgebinding. This is interesting and has many implications, it will probably take a while to shift through all of them (the book has been out for like 2 days at the time of writing this post haha) but I would like to discuss two theories I had just considering the basics within the context of the Cosmere as we know it. 1. The "Tranquiline Halls" is Ashyn So with the confirmation in text that humans are not native to Roshar, something that has been more or less confirmed through various WoBs over the years so isn't groundbreaking news, we start to wonder where they came from. We know that they arrived as refugees fleeing the devastation of their original home, so the initial group must have come from the same world. I posit that that world is Ashyn, the planet right next to Roshar that we know is a blasted wasteland save a few pockets where humans survive. And that it got that way because as Khriss mentions in her essay on Greater Roshar in AU: it "suffered a cataclysm long ago". It makes logistical sense, a massive number of refuges that would be produced by a global disaster would most likely want to settle in the place that was both safe and as close as possible to limit how long they were displaced. Even with the distance warping of the Cognitive why trek halfway across the galaxy with probably nothing but the clothes on your back when you can find shelter the next planet over? Then there is this Death Rattle from WoK that most people have, again, guessed for years refers in someway to the humans initially displacing the native Parsh: The last sentence is of specific import in this case. The place that is "hollow and forlorn" might refer the Braize, where the cognitive shadows of the genocided Dawnsingers that would later become the Fused were locked up. But the part where the speaker (presumably a human "Voidbringer") claiming that they themselves once burned is probably a reference to the disaster that destroyed their homeworld. And guess what? Back in that essay in Arcanum Unbound Khriss names Ashlyn "the burning planet". Other possibilities for the identity of the Tranquiline Halls would be either 1) Yolen or 2) a yet unnamed planet. I find Yolen unlikely because the chronology seems to indicate a big time lapse before whatever happened to Yolen (assuming it happened in close proximity to the Shattering and the Birth of the 16) and the human refugees showing up with Odium as their god. For one we know he was off chasing Ambition in the space around Therody, and also took time to go murder the Selish shards. Assuming the conflict between Odium and Honor started soon after his arrival in Roshar and hasn't abated since he would have taken an unbelievably short time to accomplish his prior goals. Not to mention that whatever happened to Yolen had nothing to do with surgebinding, but that is not that big of a deal breaker as I will explain shortly. As for a yet unknown world? Well I can't find evidence for or against something we don't know exists now can I? So we should really have someone ask Brandon if the Tranquiline Halls are a world we already know about during the OB tour. 2. The Tranquilline Halls were destroyed, but probably not by surgebinding as we know it So this being the big secret behind the Recreance confused me. I understand how the characters in universe might come to this conclusion but it makes little sense for the Cosmerically aware. Obviously something big *did* happen to the homeland of the humans to make them refugees and this being the Cosmere that thing most likely related to usage of Investiture. But we know that, while a magic user can use their magic anywhere given the right resources, initiation into a magic system requires Connection to a certain Shard and/or a certain planet. As surgebinding as we understand it is a system created by bonding a spren of Honor/Cultivation that has learned to mimic the blades Honor forged from his own soul to give the heralds. And he gave those blades to the heralds to enforce the oathpact. So as we know that H+C came to Roshar before Odium and now know that Odium came with the human refugees. It seems incongruous to believe that surgebinders in the mold of the KR existed and destroyed the Tranquiline Halls BEFORE the humans came to Roshar with Odium, who started a fight with Honor, who then forged an Oathpact with 10 humans, which splinters of H+C's power then copied to create surgebinders. Furthermore in WoR Honor in the visions tells Dalinar he "didn't foresee the coming of the Knights" and confirms Syl's comments about the spren mimicking the Honorblades to produce the surges. But if surgebinders already existed and were the reason the Tranquiline Halls were destroyed, why would the coming of surgbinders surprise Honor? But what if surgebinding existed in a different form and Honor was just surprised to see the spren recreate it? Well then I maintain that you can't assume spren-based surgbinding will have the same result (planetary devastation) as whatever was used back home. Its like Hoid's Lightweaving vrs. Shallan's. Even if the effects are similar or even identical, the mechanics are markedly different. And we haven't considered the Dawnshards which in OB Honor claimed destroyed the Tranquilline Halls as he was in his death throes. So whatever wrecked the homeland of Roshar's humans was not surgbinding (again at least not as we know it) and so the truth behind the Recrence seems to be a tragic misunderstanding by the people involved possibly conflating two different magic systems from two different planets, probably.

Hi, I haven't followed the forum in a while. But i remember there beeing a worldhopper from Nhaltis somwhere in the cosmere. I think i maybe found her: I don't know if anyone has propoused this already. At least i didn't find anything. Let me hear your thoughts

Hey so as the title says I made a Roshar for civ 6. It's done I just need some feedback on it so I can make it better. I am also planning on doing a mod for the other civs but that will be later and try to do Highstorms some how. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1244721723 that should bring you to the page. I made the map on huge so it looks the best at that size. As far as I know 12 city states works just fine you could probably get a few more but 12 is good for the map.

Potential Oathbringer Spoilers So this is very much a guess, and I doubt it's true. But could there be another Shardholder on Roshar, influencing Dalinar? We know he's had visions that do not have to do with Honor's influence. We know that whatever Dalinar became, Odium was certainly surprised by it. And at the end of Oathbringer, he saw a light that Navani couldn't. If this is true, could there be a sort of Enigma or Mystery Shard attempting to work against Odium? One whose influence is far more sublte than Honor or Odium? Maybe a Shard that held such secrets and power that Odium teamed up with another Shard (hence "we killed you"), to attempt to Splinter. Maybe he was talking to this specific Shard when Dalinar declared "I am Unity". Once again I doubt this is true. My current belief is that some form of Adonalsium is influencing Dalinar, especially with the "Unite Them" repetition for him. But what do you guys think?

There is a WoB from November 13, at the Oathbringer signing party, in which Brandon confirms that Nightblood's sheath is made of Aluminum. Brandon has also previously noted that Vasher (and I assume at least also shashara if not all the scholars) where on Roshar to study investiture, leading them to attempt to duplicate shardblades on Nalthis (resulting in Nightblood). He also noted separately (sorry for not having this WoB's linked) that Nightblood's sheath was present upon Nightblood's creation to serve its obviously necessary purpose (though he does make it sound like they aren't sure what will happen). However we can pretty obviously infer there, that the five scholars are aware of at least some properties of Aluminum for them to have used it as the metal to be sure they could put Nightblood inside if they needed to. Compounding this knowledge with the presence of Iyatil (who is, I believe, a confirmed southern Scadrian) on Roshar to prove that worldhopping between the planets is fairly conceivable, it seems to me to be fairly certain that the scholars would have also visited Scadrial on their trip and brought the aluminum back with them. Do we have any other confirmation that they went to other planets? Or do we only know for sure that Vasher at least has been to Roshar and Nalthis?

Thanks to the graticule in the Oathbringer map of Roshar and Peter's hint that the Rosharan system uses 100 degrees of latitude and 200 degrees of longitude, I was able to update my orthographic map of the planet! (You can see the old thread here.) This version is much more accurate, though not completely perfect—for some reason I wasn't able to exactly replicate the graticule used in the map. You'll notice that the continent is a fair bit smaller than my original assessment. I also updated it to include land cover, better symbology, and some cities that didn't appear on previous maps. I assumed in labeling the latitude and longitude lines that the Prime Meridian that the Rosharans use is the one that goes through Kadrix and that they number their lines out from zero in all four directions. EDIT: I've been informed by Peter on Twitter that the equator is too high; it should go through Kadrix. Like I said, it's not entirely perfect yet.

Anyone have a WoB on whether someone can level up on their Heightenings with Stormlight? Or do they need (can only use) breaths to level up? Yes, Stormlight and Breaths can be used interchangeably. But is there anything on whether you can have a sufficient amount of Stormlight to create a heightening jump. If yes, did Peter work out the math for this? If you need 200 breaths to get the the second heightening, how much Stormlight would you need? thanks!

Is there a WoB or WoP anywhere saying what the people on Ashyn call Roshar (the planet) or Roshar (the system)? I searched Ashyn in Arcanum but couldn't find anything.

I was just reading about Aimians, and they sounds strangely familiar to Kandra. Could they somehow be related directly? Or is one just patterned after the other? Like one shard saw the others creation and made there own like it?

I was reading a thread the other day- Regarding the Secret That Broke The Knights Radiant and the topic of the various ethnic groups of Rosharans came up. @Heir of the Void wrote this interesting post to cap off the discussion, and it got me thinking. I agree with these ideas, broadly. The best way to explain the bizarre spread of human ethnic groups across Roshar in my mind is if they based their expansion on the Oathgates. That represents the ten silver kingdoms and the ten major ethnic-culture groups of Roshar. Expanding on this- we know Honor had a Perpendicularity, but it was lost when he died. What if Honor's Perpendicularity WAS based roughly at the site of Urithiru? Cultivation's Perpendicularity is in high mountains as well (the Horneater Peaks). The best way to get between worlds is through Shadesmar, so if a large population of humans transported into Shadesmar to escape the destruction of their planet, they could walk or sail to Honor's Perpendicularity and then use it to enter Roshar itself. There are several possibilities from here: 1) Urithiru and the Oathgates were already there, and it was inhabited by the Dawnsingers. The humans negotiated with them and were thus granted Shinovar. Over time they grew restless, and used the Shinovar gate to return and conquer Urithiru, and then each group claimed one Oathgate for themselves, conquering the land around it on the other side. 2) As above, but the Shin were the first group. They were satisfied with Shinovar. But, other human groups migrated as well, possibly from even more planets, and each group claimed an Oathgate and the land on the other side. 3) Urithiru and the Oathgates were NOT there, and the refugees were led by land to Shinovar. The Oathgate was built to allow quick transportation between Shinovar and the Perpendicularity, and the ten groups spread out over land to conquer a land each for themselves, constructing Oathgates in turn, and eventually they build Urithiru. My main contention is that I think Honor's Perpendicularity was originally based where Urithiru is now, and that is why the Oathgates and the tower were built there. This provides a way for all ten kingdoms and ethnic groups to spread out and settle in entirely different regions, while still being linked to a single location through which to plan and coordinate in response to later Desolations. What do you guys think?

It is a completely crazy and crackpot thought that just would not go out of my mind. It just "feels" to me that we will see Kelseir on Roshar in the near future and it would be in some relation to "ghostbloods". That organization has been hindering odium. Probably its all in my head and I just want it to be true but meh. I had to write it.

A little while ago I noticed that the map of the Rosharan supercontinent had latitude lines called out along the sides, so I decided to digitize it and make a "modern-style" map of Roshar. The map I ended up making is reprojected into an orthographic projection (meaning the map seems like we're looking at the planet from space). I really had a good time making it and wanted to share with the community. Enjoy! PS - I checked with the Inestimable Peter Ahlstrom and he said my placement of the landmass on the latitude/longitude lines was "very close to spot-on."