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So I was fooling around with the Third Ideal of the Windrunners, trying to see how I would have said it (I'm pretty sure there was a WoB somewhere that it isn't the wording that matters as much as the sentiment (which reminds me of the idea of personal recensions of the Wizard's Oath, from Diane Duane's Young Wizards series (awesome books, btw))) and I came up with this: I will grant protection to any who seek it. Comments on plausibility and more speculated Ideals (both serious and not) welcome.

I'm seeing a few connections between Warbeaker and SA. For one, Nightblood. Nightblood was a very main character in Warbreaker and just came in at the end of WoR. Also, they have the same names for at least one of their letters (Shash). I think that it's possible that Brandon did this on purpose. What if Nalthis is IN Greater Roshar? It would also explain why Hoid (in my opinion) was able to use Lightweaving while telling his story to Siri. Remember how he was able to throw some sort of sparks up into the material he had just thrown? Anyway, just an idea. Please post any other connections you find. And feedback.

Imagine that due to an unexplained and rare phenomenon you are transported to post-WoR Roshar: You have all your current knowledge; You can speak and understand all languages (doesn't apply to anything written, plus you keep your accent); You have no other skills that you don’t have now; You also have no immediate means to leave Roshar; You end up close to the location you want to be (e.g. if you want to join Dalinar, you appear somewhere in Urithiru). What will you do to survive? Seek out the Ghostbloods – hopefully you’re smart enough to survive until they ask you to join Join team Diagram – they do terrible things, but are so far the only ones with a solid plan, and Vargo already allowed one outsider to be part of it instead of killing her, so you’re probably fine until Szeth comes for retribution Join the Kholins – Dalinar will welcome your Cosmere knowledge, but they might lock you up in Urithiru for your own safety and where’s the fun in that? Join Amaram and the Sons of Honor – shame on you Join Nin and the Skybreakers – no surgebinding powers for you then Warn the Shin - they have 7 Honorblades after all Seek out the 17th Shard – looking for those Hoid avoids, are you sure it’s a good idea? Ask Hoid – he could certainly help you worldhop somewhere more pleasant, but would he? Go to Lift – because she’s awesome and has the best food, also she’s probably the least likely person to harm you in any way Join the Ardentia – this provides you with immediate shelter and food, you’ll have the chance to learn some basic fighting skills and steal a soulcaster, not to mention they’re plotting something… right? Enlist in an army – whichever you want Relax on the Reshi Islands – let others deal with the Desolation Ask the Nightwatcher to bring you back - you still get a curse and your visit on Roshar was a one-time opportunity Survive on your own – if you can Something else – do share your plan! Here's mine: Attracting a spren and becoming a surgebinder seems like my best hope for surviving, though it’s a slim chance considering how very few spren are bonding. I won’t join Mr T, but I also won’t actively try to stop him until I’m certain I either have a better plan or the Diagram won’t save Roshar. Seeking the 17th Shard sounds great on paper, but I don’t want to antagonize Hoid. I’ll also stay away from Nin and co. I won’t go to the Kholins, because they might prevent me from doing much; plus I wouldn't trust Shallan with my life and Jasnah might get rid of me when she decides I’m no longer of use to her. I also want to stay away from the Ghostbloods – it’s an interaction I don’t believe I’ll survive. But I might drop by to speak to Vasher. He’s looking for Nightblood, so he’ll probably appreciate my help on that. He’s a worldhopper, so he might agree to take me to a safer world, though I’ll prefer to stick around for awhile. I’ll go to Lift first. Wyndle is likely to listen to me and Lift will shelter me. They are the easiest to convince to prepare for the everstorm and the Voidbringers. Also, they aren't in the center of a conflict, so I’ll be relatively safe until I decide what to do next. I'll try to avoid all major players and stay off their radar at first, but have the Prime Aqasix write to Dalinar some major things I know as if they were his thoughts. What will you do? edit: minor wording changes and adding a bit more to my plan

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere and I've just missed it but I've been listening to a couple of Q&A's from last year and in one of them Brandon answers a question by saying tgat technically all of tge shards gave been on roshar. Do we think then that it is possible this could be the place that andolisium was shattered? Or failing that the planet andolisium resided on pre-shattering?

Hey guys, first post and first topic here. I was reading all of the awesome theories here, combined with a Stormlight Archive re-read, and had an interesting thought. Tell me what you guys think. Just a heads up, I didn't exactly do my due diligence with the WoB quotes. I'm quoting mostly from memory, but if you guys think there is potential to this theory then I'll come back and flesh this out with links quotes and such. Okay, so we have WoB that, on Roshar, Nightblood behaves very similarly to Shardblades. I think there is more to it than that. I think Nightblood behaves similarly to an Honorblade. (This may already be the prevailing theory, but I don't know if there is actual WoB to that effect.) For one, Honorblades have more in common with Nightblood than they do with Shardblades. Honorblades are actual physical objects that are heavily invested; same as Nightblood. Shardblades, however, are Spren, which are mostly cognitive entities, that are mimicing the effects of Honorblades. Between Honorblades, Shardblades, and Nightblood, Shardblades are the odd ones out. There is also the obvious similarity in their destructive potential. Honorblades and Nightblood are all very powerful tools. This is the superficial similarity that everyone makes and takes for granted. After that conclusion is reached, it's easy to stop thinking about it. But what if the Honorblades made the Heralds instead of the Heralds simply being matched with the Honorblade that best suited them? In The Way of Kings CHAPTER 18: HIGHPRINCE OF WAR, there is an interesting piece of information. That sword of retribution line really caught my eye. I guess it's a "what came first, the chicken or the egg" dilemma, but what if Nalan, who's Divine Attributes are Just / Confident which could easily lead to Retribution, became that way by holding the Sword of Retribution rather than the nameless Honorblade that Nalan wields having become known as the sword of retribution simply because it was Nalan wielding it? I propose that the Honorblades are so heavily invested that they have a sort of Intent of their own, much like Shards of Adonalsium, that shapes the personality of their bearers. For example, if Jezrien and Nalan had initially been given each other's Honorblades, then perhaps Jezrien would be Just / Confident and Nalan would be Protecting / Leading. This is where Nightblood comes in. Nightblood, like Honorblades, consumes Investiture in order to fuel the powers it uses to perform its Command. I'm proposing that, on Nalthis, Honorblades would have their own Commands. In this case, "Command" is what Nalthians call "Intent." In fact, I believe Vasher explicitly describes the process of giving a Command as visualizing the intent behind the Command. In other words, endowing something with an Intent. So if, on Roshar, Nightblood is using Investiture to perform its intent, that would mean that "Destroy Evil" would translate into an unknown Primary and Secondary Divine Attribute. This is a rough draft of a theory, but I hope with some input from the community it can be fleshed out and formalized into a working theory to describe the relationship between invested objects, Intent, and Commands.

Random thought that struck me as my brain is rebelling against being force-fed a steady diet of Anatomy and Physiology 325. Will update later on, but it's basically this: Reasons in favor: Voidbringers can hold Stormlight perfectly. Humans can't. Gemstones can't. Reasons against: I'm pretty sure greatshells evolved before humans arrived, so Stormlight might be of Adonalsium instead (as humans, Honor, and Cultivation arrived before Odium; side question, did humans arrive at the same time as Cultivation and Honor? Or was it staggered? Or do we know?). The Stormfather caused a Highstorm to happen early, suggesting that it's of Honor. Unless Honor was able to steal it when Odium was bound. I'll have more to add tomorrow, and make it prettier, but wanted to get initial thoughts down before I forget. And maybe get some more knowledgeable people to chime in with why I'm wrong

So I was thinking about Feather's WoR Splintercast the other day. Specifically about her musings on chapter 45 and this observation from Hoid: As Feather pointed out, it's strange to think that there's a word/morpheme in Veden and/or Alethi that Hoid knows the meaning of but the people of Roshar don't. What I'm wondering is if the Rosharan hound is a loanword from another Cosmere language. Plenty of other people have pointed out that shash is both a letter on Nalthis and a glyph on Roshar. We have a WoB that says there are "interesting connections" between languages/cultures, at least in part because all the Shards have a common origin. But what if it's more than that? What if an early worldhopper (Nalthian or otherwise) saw axehounds, then known by another name, and was the first one to call them hounds (in his/her native tongue.) The name stuck on Roshar, so now they have a word whose original definition they don't actually know. Thoughts?

Hey this may be too obvious to mention, or maybe it's been covered elsewhere and I can't seem to find it, but we have pages for Alethi writing and glyphs, so we should probably include a page on how numbers are written as well... It's trivial to deduce what the numbers are, if you look at the map on page 138 of WOR. Those symbols along the bottom are obviously numbers, similar to longitude on Earth, and the single dot near the right side is a 0. Going out from that, it has a 1 on either side, then a 2, then so on...numbers above 9 are marked with a vertical line and then the single digits again, and numbers above 19 are marked with two vertical lines. I can't seem to find them written anywhere else, so I can't figure out how numbers above 29 are written, but I feel like we should have a page about this. Can someone please let me know how to make that happen, or point me towards the page if one already exists?

...Vivenna? Are we assuming she made the crossover to Roshar as well? For some reason I can't explain, I kinda think she's Jenet, the stablemaster.

In searching for some other quotes, I came across something that might be an interesting tidbit. The wording is what sparked my mind. Hypothesis: The Desolation is a world-hopping event, and either creates a breach directly to Braize, or transfers things from Braize to Roshar. Evidence: • Odium is suspected to be located on Braize, also called Damnation by Vorinism • The Heralds are tortured in Damnation, or Braize • The return of the Heralds occurs at the same time as the Desolation • The Desolations are preceded by the arrival of a previously unknown on Roshar creature known as the Midnight Essence, seemingly unrelated to the Desolation • The True Desolation is related to a giant storm, the Everstorm, which could have investiture powers on the same scale as the Highstorms • The Spren are particularly wary of the Desolation, and sensitive to it's arrival. Spren live in the cognitive realm, the known method of worldhopping • The Voidbringers were said to be cast back to the 'Tranquiline Halls', a Vorinism belief that corresponds potentially to Yolen (the origin of humanity) • The Odium spren began to appear around the time of the Desolation, and Odium is believed to be on Braize Possible Conclusions: It seems likely that the Desolation itself, in whatever particular form it takes, is a worldhopping event. It is possible that the Desolation is simply the opening of a corridor between Braize and Roshar, causing a variety of creatures to appear in Roshar to wreak havoc. As we have very little specifics about what the Desolation itself is, a more complete conclusion cannot be drawn. Edit: Colloary It strikes me that I missed a vital implication. If the Parshendi are in fact Voidbringers, and the Voidbringers came/were driven to another world at the end of most desolations, it seems logical that the Parshendi were in fact the native race of Braize, not Roshar as some have theorized. They crossed during the world hopping event of the desolations. That would leave the Aimians (confirmed by WoB to be not-human) as the native people of Roshar.

I'm coming off a high of the Taravangian-esque diagramming happening in the "Hidden Things in the Map of Roshar" thread. So on that note, let's look at some cool things. I looked at one of the endsheets for Way of Kings, and I found this funny little glyph (rotated): I realize that there's speculation that this endsheet relates to Cultivation and has little to do with Honor and Surgebindings, but the two diagrams align so beautifully--lines and everything--that I figure that it has to be more than that. Also, the same lady hinted at being Cultivation is also found in the Shadesmar map, and as Shadesmar definitely has to do with more than Cultivation, I don't think I'm necessarily off the mark. If you overlay the colorful diagram with the Knights Radiant diagram--especially as highlighted and labeled by an earlier user--you'll notice that this corresponding Surge is that of Cohesion, which is shared by the Stonewards and Willshapers. You'll also notice, on the glyph that I highlighted, that it has a passing resemblance to Roshar's geographic makeup. I don't know exactly what the Stonewards and Willshapers did, but they were together capable of Cohesion, Tension, and Transportation. Dalinar's visions have ordered him to "unite them," and we ended Words of Radiance with the idea that he needed to unite the Knights Radiant--their different orders. I believe that the different orders, working together, were capable of doing much more than flying through the sky, healing mortal wounds, or just generally being "awesome." I believe that they might have had a role in the creation of Roshar itself--or that the powers they eventually wielded may have been utilized in its creation. Of course, someone might come along and say "that glyph doesn't mean anything like that." Still a cool thought.

I asked Brandon a question or two about Shadesmar and Elantris. Ben McSweeney and Isaac Stewart were also present. Me: So, I don't actually own a hardcover copy of The Way of Kings, but I did notice when looking at one that there's a map of Shadesmar... And that the map shows that Shadesmar geography is precisely aligned with Roshar's geography... So I'm just going to assume that other planets we've visited so far also have realms of Shadesmar that are aligned geographically. Brandon: That's very clever of you! (smiles) Very clever... Me: So I guess my follow-up question is: is Elantris a Dawncity? Brandon: Hmm. I could see where your reasoning could come to that conclusion, but no. No, that's not it. But your earlier extrapolations are in the right direction. Ben, Isaac: Yeah, you're in the right direction.

With WoR, we have more of an idea about the factions on Roshar. I was particularly intrigued by the following snippet from ch 54: I thought it would be interesting to have a compilation of the factions and what we know about each. I have started it and will compile contributions from this thread, if people want to contribute. So the parties that we are aware of: Diagramists Ghostbloods Radiants Shamanate Skybreakers Sons of Honor Wit/Hoid 17th Shard What we know about the parties Diagramists Led by Mr. T Goal: Some humans survive Desolation Method: Destabilize, take over and ? Members: Mrall, Abrotogar (sp), Graves Ghostbloods Led by Master Thaidakar Cosmere aware (local species of human) Members: Iyatil (babsk of Mraize?), Mraize, Jin Aware of Mr. T/Diagramists creating chaos former members: Kabsal, Lin Davar, Heleran Davar? Radiants Members: Dalinar (Bondsmith), Jasnah (Elsecaller) (assumes she will join w/others), Kaladin (Windrunner), Renarin (Truthwatcher), Shallan (Lightweaver) Goal: destroy Odium? Shamanate possess 7 Honorblades Skybreakers Led by Nin/Nalan members: Szeth Nightblood Sons of Honor members: AmaramWit/Hoid Stop Odium Honorblade, presumed allomancer 17th Shard Leader: Dragon Members: Gallodon,

... or something approaching a Parshendi. The Science Museum in South Kensington, UK, offers "Cockroach Tours:" http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/cockroachtour Wearing a wonderful artist-designed carapace, you follow the Head Cockroach through the museum, looking at things from a truly unique point of view. Too fun!

Inspiration for this idea goes to xbauks. So, everybody has been looking for the Shardpools of Roshar's splinters. But think about this. Within greatshells, gemhearts can be found. Gemhearts that grow very slowly and, though they renew, can be used up. These gemhearts can be used to do extremely powerful soulcasting. I think these gemhearts are a strange form of Shardpool. Perhaps they are Cultivations, since they seem to grow within creatures that have to age and live first. I don't know, all speculation. But I really like the idea that gemhearts are shardpools.

Good afternoon all. As I was tossing and turning last night chasing in vain after some sleep, I began to think of the way magic works. On Roshar, we have stormlight that seems to fuel, or power, the magic, Spren who are integral to using magic, and gems that store stormlight, trap spren and make fabrials work. On Scadrial, we had metals that fueled alomancy, mists of shards and pools of shards. We also found that Shards are blind to their 'focus' due to the power or investiture or something. What if the gems are the 'body' or physical realm representation of Honor and/or Cultivation, much as the Atium and Lerasium were physical aspects or 'bodies' of those shards? Now eating Lerasium brings you closer to Preservation, and thereby giving you stronger powers (or giving you powers to begin with if you previously were without). On Roshar, saying the Ideals bring you closer to Honor, giving you more power or starting your power, based on how far along you are. These I see as essentially the same thing. One is a physical act granting power, the other is a cognitive (or maybe spiritual) act granting power. Since on Scadrial you needed a physical act of consuming Investiture (in the form of the shard's physical form), and the metals merely provided the form for the power you channeled, could not the Cognitive (or spiritual) aspect on Roshar, mean that the physical form of the Shards act as the form granting which powers are expressed? This time the body of the shard forms the magic, instead of granting it as on Scadrial. I was very tired last night, and am typing this at work, so it may be full of holes I just haven't woken up enough to see. now, release your metaphoric moths to eat holes in my wonderful tapestry of conjecture! ~Logain

First off, seeing as this is my first post on here, I'm not really sure if someone else has already expounded this (frankly fairly weakly conjectured) theory, so if they have, sorry about that. Anyway, both Shardblades and Hemalurgy work with Spiritwebs, yes? And we know that Shardblades create a bond with the Spiritweb. So what I was thinking is that maybe instead of simply creating a bond, Shardblades (the present-day versions, not Radiantblades), they work more like Hemalurgy and tear off a part of the Spiritweb to create said 'bond', something that could have changed after the Day of Recreance. It would explain why spren, or at least Syl, dislike the blades, as rather than them being representative of Odium or something like that, they are simply fundamentally broken.

not going to lie, im a little disappointed that WoR is only 600 pages. look at WoK, take the first 600 pages in hand, and imagine that the remaining pages didnt happen. or the story was covered in 600 pages. sad faces. am i alone on this? if im being silly please convert me

This post is largely a collection of information about what the highstorms have been shown to do and my take on them. Firstly, highstorms can be predicted mathematically with some degree of accuracy ~80% by Lirin. Secondly, WoB is that they serve a similar function to the mists in some way. The Mists did several things: They were attracted to allomancers, they could be used to fuel allomancy by certain individuals, they countered the power of Ruin to some extent and allomancers burning tin became attuned to them. I believe a passing remark was made about desolations being predicted mathematically has also been made. Mists were also the body of Preservation. The likely explanation is that this last point is what Brandon meant about mists and highstorms being related, but I thought about taking the connections one step further. From these, we can draw parallels. The Highstorms certainly fuel surgebinding, although not as directly as the mists fueled Vin. Kaladin had a unique experience of seeing a face in the highstorm which can be connected to the attraction of mists to invested beings. (people with magic have some special resonance with the body of the shard powering them) My speculations are that the two other functions of the mists are also mirrored by highstorms. Both Desolations and Highstorms have the potential to be predicted with some accuracy. Thus, highstorms may be related to stopping desolations in some way. This covers both the countering of Odium's power and the mathematical predictions of each. If a highstorm occurs every time that a desolation has the potential to happen, they could block Odium's attacks. Does anyone have any other ideas on how these interactions might occurs or whether they happen at all?

I was reading the Derethil thread when I finally realized how much "Derethil" looks like "Dereth" and decided to connect some impossible dots. Urithiru is in the West some people think Urithiru is in Shadesmar Roshar suffers a lot of physical effects from shard interference. So what if there's a physical way to enter Shadesmar west of the Roshar supercontinent? What if this is where Derethil sailed, and somehow found himself on Sel, sitting right on the X in Aon Mea (thoughtfulness, no less). Two physical entry points to Shadesmar. Two planets with dead gods. Sel becomes all the more realmatically aware because of his talks with a little guy named Keshu. Naturally, Hoid would've been their milkman or something. Shoot, he could've been Korath. Regardless, he'd know the tale. Can anyone pick anything useful out of this wild conjecture?

Ok, on the reddit AMA just noticed something I'd not seen before, apologies if it has been mentioned already. Someone asked if Odium would become a metal if he went to Scadrial. The answer was that this was tied to Identity, and that Odium would need to tinker with things on Scadrial to make this work. Most interesting to me however, is that Odium has already done this on Roshar. Forgive my inability to link to a specific reddit post, but here's the quote:

I orginally posted this on my tumblr but I wanted to see you guys had any ideas about it. I hope this is the right spot for it rather than the stormlight archive forums. I also apologize for all the costumer jargon in this. I was also sort of hoping that this could be a spot for other artist to posit questions. So here goes nothing: Alethi noble women’s fashion confuses me. I’m really not sure what Sanderson is trying to describe with, “it buttoned up the sides of the torso from waist to neck where it was topped with a small, gold embroidered collar.” Doesn’t really mesh with it being a solid swath of silk in my head. I’d call a sari or a chiton a swath of silk because it is all one large piece. Where the kind of dress that he is describing definitely has seams. Speaking of seams, what does he mean by the side of the torso? Does he mean side seams? That’s what I see when I first imagined it, but then I get to the part about them going up to the neck I get confused again. I suppose that he could be talking about princess seams of some sort. Am I the only one that is confused by this? P.S. The piece I'm working on is of Syl.

I got an email the other day from Becky Wilson at Dragonsteel Entertainment that put my Mistborn Table on hiatus. I will finish it soon, but there is another project I have to get completely "mapped" out first. I am working on a woodcut map of Roshar. I'll pretty up this post with a screenshot. The plan is to cut and pocket the whole thing to a depth around 1/8" and then cut out the individual regions as inserts and stain those inserts in different shades to set them apart from each other. The email I got from Becky though was in answer to my request to send a couple of thin pieces of wood to Brandon to get them signed. I want to mount one of them in a pocket below the cutout of the map. The other is just in case I mess something up with the first. So that is what I am working on right now. Because of all of the tiny lines that go into making a map, there is quite a bit of work to be done before actual cutting, and even the cutting process will take a very long time (When I had it at 10.75" long, it was about 80,000 lines of gcode for each pass with the tool, and about 13 passes. It it now about 16" wide if that is any indication)