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I've been considering a Stormlight Archive tattoo (and a Mistborn one, but for now Stormlight Archive) and am running into a problem when I think of what I want. Dalinar's Oathbringer quotes really resonate with me - you know the ones (rise a better man, most important step, I will do better). My first thoughts were to get the Bondsmith Glyph and then to put a line of text above and/or below it. I would probably go with the "Always the next step" part of that quote or "I will do better" as they encompass the soul of the whole quote to me without being too wordy. The problem? I don't really identify as a Bondsmith. When I think about the orders and which one I would fit into there are many options but Bondsmith isn't really one of the ones that come to mind so I'm not sure I want a Bondsmith glyph. The only other thing I can really think of would be the Kholin glyph but I'm not sure what other ideas are out there. Thoughts?

The actual abilities of Division are never made clear. It is said to be some vague force of destruction and decay, and it's been shown both burning and turning things to dust. There's WoB saying that it breaks molecular bonds. The question is, how does it manifest as both fire and decay? Fire is more than just breaking bonds, so how does it do that? I'd suggest that it's using energy from the bonds to raise the heat to regularly start a flame, but that can't be it because the energy released from reactions where we think about bonds being broken is really from the second half where new bonds are formed. It's probably just that the perception of the Surge means that all vague destructive powers are lumped in there as one, but it feels odd for such a power to exist side-by-side with ones that are really just one ability, like Gravitation and Adhesion. I suppose there's already Illumination with its ability to generate sound, but at least that has a slightly more rational explanation in that light and sound are both waves (even if they are different kinds of waves and in different things).

Hello, I have decided to save up some money to commission a work of art to hang in my home. I would like it to be of Dalinar and incorporate the quote about the most important step a man can take being the next one, which is one of my favorites. I was wondering if anyone has any artist recommendations I should look at that might be a good fit. Thanks.

Nandok-child-Plana sat in their room in the tower. Urithiru. What a wonderful city. What they loved about it is that it wasn’t Alethi. It may have started out like that, many months before when people first arrived, but now no state truly could call this their home, except, of course, Urithiru itself. Yes, the king and queen were Alethi, yes, the king seemed crazy at times and had a disturbing past, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that this little plot of land, in the center of Roshar, was the most valuable area in all the planet, perhaps in all the cosmere. And it was Nandok’s home. Nandok only had one little worry about all of this. Actually, many little worries, but only one big worry. And that was further proven by what they saw in the corner of the room. Something black, slick, reflective and bubbly, like how the things with Re-Shephir were described. But those had been defeated…right? Nandok hoped so. How the Midnight Essence was in their room wasn’t what worried Nandok. What worried them was what it was shaping itself into. It became humanoid, with markings on its face and sporting an evil grin. Nandok cursed. If this was what they thought it was… “Breathing?” they called to their Mistspren. Yes? it responded. “I need you to do me a favor. I’m going to make these recruitment posters, could you put them up around Urithiru? I would, but I don’t have hands! Breathing-while-dead started laughing for some unknown reason. “Fine, fine. I’ll do it. But be ready, Breathing, for whatever comes.” —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Darkness of Urithiru hath begun! Character sheets: And lastly, the recruitment poster:

Welcome to the Museum of Cryptics Please follow our guide through Cultivation's perpendicularity. Once on the other side, kindly refrain from touching the petrified lifeforms, as the disease may spread. Follow the guide, and keep a quick pace, as you may have to run from angerspren at some point in the journey. If you are still alive once you have entered the building, present your passes to the Admittance Officer and enjoy your visit.

Here's a scene from my fic Of Me, 3000 words, rated Mature. It's written from Sja-anat's point of view as she follows Evi through her years in Kholinar. Here's an excerpt: Sja-anat watched her cry. She knew Evi’s passions. You are lonely, she said after a time. She had seen the way the Alethi treated her, and she felt a kinship in that. Sja-anat was too elevated above the common spren and Fused, yet too different from the other Unmade. She missed Ba-Ado-Mishram. There were none left like her, and Evi’s passionate loneliness touched her. “By the storms, I was already lonely before. Now what will I do?” Evi whispered. She stared into space for a while, then sniffed. “No. I must not despair,” she said, brushing away the gloomspren. “I have my son. He is of me.” He is of the Blackthorn. Evi scowled at her fiercely. “He is also of me. I am the only one who can show him a different path. I will not allow my son to grow into a monster. I will enlighten him about his heritage. He will be my home.” The words stunned Sja-anat into silence. Evi was often soft and accommodating, but her core was hard as obsidian. Evi stood, then paced a few moments in silence. Eventually, she sat again, looking up into the mirror with that boundless curiosity that pleased Sja-anat. “Do you have any children?” she asked. Sja-anat hummed uncertainly. I corrupt lesser spren with my essence. Is that like having children? Evi smiled, considering her answer. “My children are of me and of their father. Your spren are of Roshar, and of you. So, it is a little like having children. Do you love them?” I feel…passionate about them. Many die. I wish… She stopped, startled by a secret she didn’t even know she had. “What do you wish?” Evi’s eyebrows rose, and she leaned in closer. I wish…they could be free. I wonder if…they could be more. “I understand,” Evi said, glancing towards her son’s room, then back up at Sja-anat. “I want Adolin to be free, too. So he can truly be himself, not what the Alethi want him to be. Free.” Her voice broke as she said it. She stood and stepped close to the mirror, looking back and forth into Sja-anat’s white eyes. Slowly, she raised her hand and pressed it against the glass at shoulder height. “Free and at peace,” she whispered, so close as to fog the glass. Free and at peace, Sja-anat repeated, mirroring Evi’s hand. As she pressed, Evi gasped. Sja-anat felt something. A bond, forming between them. A…warmth. For the first time, she had a secret she wished to keep from Odium.

Hi all, I had a question about the what we currently know about each of the radiant Oaths. Is there a good resource on what oath we believe each known radiant is on (shallan is wonky but is there a consensus about what oath she's on? What about the non-kaladin windrunners?), what powers are associated with said oath (when does their order grant shardplate, etc), And a timeline of when we think they achieved each oath level? I know some (shallan) are inherently confusing. But I'm also curious about more straightforward oaths- like lopen and sigzil.

I've been fiddling around with an attempt to place Warbreaker in the larger Cosmere timeline recently, and that led to me trying to figure this question out. We know for a fact that the Five Scholars were Worldhoppers and fairly Cosmere-aware, both via WoB and because they hacked Awakening to create a Shardblade. So at this point we know that there were Nalthian Worldhoppers at least before the Manywar, who most likely passed through Endowment's perpendicularity in Hallendren since that's the easiest known method for most people to reach the CR. If I remember correctly, there was also mention of Nalthian traders in RoW, which we know takes place after Warbreaker (though due to Vasher's immortal nature and the possibility of Vivenna extending her life with Breaths, we don't know how far after). The trouble comes in that we don't know how open the 5 Scholars were with their knowledge, like how the Ghostbloods existing doesn't translate to the Elendel government being especially Cosmere-aware. We also know for a fact that at least some of their legacy has been forgotten; i.e. people forgetting that the D'denir statues were Kalad's phantoms. My best guess is that in establishing the Court of Gods, Vasher entrusted the highest rung of authority with the knowledge that there's a gateway to other worlds out in the jungle so that they wouldn't be completely caught off-guard if another shardworld launched an invasion, unless he decided to withhold that info to lower the risk of more Nightbloods getting created. But even if he did tell them, then there's still the question of whether or not that knowledge survived the deaths of Susebron's predecessors and then the deaths of his priests during the Pahn Kahl revolt. The other option I can imagine is that some of the court is Cosmere-aware, but it's treated like the lifeless command codes; the knowledge is restricted to a handful of returned, so that they can shape policy with the larger Cosmere in mind without turning Nalthis into an expansionist force.

On earth it would take 5,588,472 basic lashings of a windrunner to go the speed of light. On Roshar it would take 3,911,930 basic lashings of a windrunner to go the speed of light. Can anyone do some investigating on how much stormlight that would take up?

Could the Stormfather be an Awakened being? It could help explain why he does not recollect a Herald dying as mentioned in the SA5 Prologue: He does not remember, because his memories have been tampered with. in the same manner as Wit's as seen at the end of RoW. Other theories seen so far: Current Stormfather being a fake/SA5 Stormfather being a pretender-Ishar/Cultivation shenanigans.

To preface this, I'm tired, so I'll probably delete this topic later. Now for the "theory" (please point out all the things I get incorrect): Cultivation is going to die at the end of KoWT. but that's not the end of her story. Since the vessels of Honor and Cultivation were in a relation and Honor died, Cultivation went fully into her shardic intent, while still being able to join Tanavast in the beyond (or whatever it's called). At some point I think Wyndle said something (in Edgedancer?) along the lines of (about Cultivaiton and Honor) I feel like of the shards we know of, Cultivation has the best future sight. So, Cultivation has some plan that "maximizes" growth in the peoples of Roshar (and not necessarily in the good or bad way). The protagonists are going to spend the second half of the Stormlight Archives trying to figure out what Cultivation's plan is. And just to throw this in at the end with nothing to back this up, Adolin has a chance of becoming cultivation, due to his "cultivation"-like relationship with helping Maya "develop" consciousness.

Man this was a fun journey, but it's kind of sad that I caught up so quickly having started stormlight only a few months ago. That said I love it, it's my favorite sanderson series and I look forward to book 5 immensely. I read the audiobooks, listening to them at work. I think Michael Kramer is absolutely killing it, I understand some people love him and others don't like him but I really like him, although it always feels weird to hear him voicing characters Kate Reading normally voices, such as pattern. Kate's pattern voice is just perfect, sells the comedy of the character a lot. Here's some wild shot predictions: Prediction 1: Shallan I don't know how, I don't know what caused it, but somehow Shallan has been invested with breaths of life from warbreaker. There was a scene, I think it was in either RoW or Oathbringer, where Veil notes that Shallan sees colors with more detail than her, and the way it was phrased was exactly like the warbreaker breaths. There's also the way that Shallan's drawing powers only work for her and not her other personalities, as well as the similar ways that her drawing power works to things like perfect pitch or sight from warbreaker, makes me so confident this is the case. It also explains why a cryptic like pattern was willing to bond with her, even though she'd already killed her previous cryptic. It makes the fact that Wit reacted so strongly as soon as he saw her as a child make more sense as well. It makes me wonder if maybe Shallan's whole family isn't actually from Roshar, and maybe they were brought there from the Warbreaker world after some big conflict there. My gut feeling is that they may in fact be a royal family from there, just because Shallan's father reminds me of Siri's father for some reason. This would also explain why BS has said he can't write the Warbreaker sequel until after stormlight book 5. I think Shallan's Mother was almost certainly a member of the ghostbloods, and tried to kill Shallan, after which Shallan responded by summoning Testament to defend herself. There's still a lot about Shallan that doesn't add up and after the Testament reveal I want to re-read way of kings because there's a lot about what happens to her in that book that still doesn't make sense to me. In particular the line "what are you" that I believe one of the cryptic spren said to her back then feels off now. Prediction 2: Kaladin I think we'll definitely go to the horneater peaks in book 5 for sure. I don't know how book 5 is going to end, or how different "part 2" of stormlight archive is going to be from "part 1," but BS has been promising the horneater peaks since book 1, it's clear that whatever's going on with Rock is a BIG deal in the narrative and I am certain Kal hasn't seen the last of Rock yet, despite what was said in RoW. Kal has come a long way in swearing the 4th ideal, and while I once thought he would swear the 5th for sure in book 5 after finishing RoW I no longer think this. The 5th ideal definitely needs to span at least 2 books of buildup because otherwise it wouldn't feel like as big and important a deal as the 4th. As for bridge 4, I don't know where they stand to go as characters. It feels sad how lately a lot of them seemed to be killed off in order to help kal come to terms with the 4th ideal, maybe now we won't have to worry about so many of them dying off since he's come to terms with it, as unrealistic as that sounds. I really just want a scene of the remaining members of bridge 4 getting together and hanging out, having fun. They deserve it. Prediction 3: Dalinar I have a feeling, a sinking feeling, that Dalinar is going to lose the contest of champions. It just doesn't feel right, it wouldn't work for a big climax for this massive story with so many key characters to be a battle between only two, especially when one of the champions was only introduced at the end of book 4. I think he'll fully realize his powers as a bondsmith but lose the contest somehow. Anyways, those are my predictions! I don't know if the community as a whole has already predicted similar things, or if people feel I am wayyyy off base with these, just wanted to get my thoughts out since the story is fresh out of my mind. really glad I can finally discuss this series now that I've hit the current end.