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This is something I only recently noticed. I don't remember it being discussed before but maybe I forgot/missed it. Anyway: at the end of WoR when Dalinar goes to the top of Urithiru for the first time he looks down and sees the Oathgate being activated. However, the only known Radiants at Urithiru are one floor down. So, either Shallan or Kaladin would have had to lend their Shardblade to someone down below, since there's no other way known to activate it. With Kaladin leaving and Dalinar not getting a living Shardblade then Shallan's the only one left we know for sure has one - I guess we'll have to wait and see just how far Renarin has progressed. He seems fairly new to it all so I'm guessing he's a beginner. It would be interesting to know if Shallan can Lightweave etc with Pattern elsewhere. I would be surprised if it made no difference. I guess in an emergency she can summon him back though. All this and the logical need for having backup living Shardblades could end up putting Renarin under pressure to "level up" quickly. Another problem for those at Urithiru could be lack of Stormlight, if it's hard to re-charge spheres up there. Maybe there's some lower levels in Urithiru that are actually low enough to catch the Highstorms and so allow gems to be infused again. Would seem like a design flaw otherwise. If there's no levels low enough did the old inhabitants entirely rely on outsiders? I guess for now they could pack up all the gems together, go through the gate to the Shattered Plains and charge them there - but that has a lot of risks. If they get multiple gates open they could do some neat tricks though, when re-charging spheres: when a Highstorm is coming, go to most eastern gate with all your gems, get them charged, go back to Urithiru, quickly use the Stormlight in the gems, then open a gate more to the west and take the gems there, so that you can re-charge them again from the same storm. You could maybe get 3-4x the Stormlight per Highstorm that way - so long as you have something useful to use it on quickly. PS Who do you think will be put in charge of of all the bridgemen while Kaladin is away? I'd bet on Renarin.

This might be an extremely stupid question and the answer is possibly staring me right in the face but how on earth did Szeth get to Urithiru in the interludes? Did he come through oathgate in the shattered plains or maybe a locked on? If so do honor blades work the same as shardblades as a fabrial key? If he didn't get through the oathgates did he just stumble upon it one day or the Stone Shamans told him about it? So many unanswered questions!

Heyy all From reading the descriptions of Urithiru, I couldn't quite get my head around how it actually looks, so I tried to create it using a CAD program called SketchUp (formerly of Google). From this, I have created a few low quality pics of the layout of Urithiu, The tower is an odd shape (its actually modelled by using an exponential function). This is due to each level of the tower jutting further out than the one above. This is just my interpretation, Brandon almost certainly has it differently. And the Oathagtes are too small. Perhaps the whole tower is too small, I can't quite tell from the book descriptions. The tower is 500m and the bottom level has a radius of 500m. The total platform that Urithiru sits on is 1500m in radius, and the Oathagtes are 50m in radius (as I mentioned perhaps too small). If anyone is at all interested, the calculations for the level radii are here. Is this anything like how you imagined Urithiru looked? What do you think about the odd shape and proportions? PS I know these don't look great but when I am feeling more creative I want to do a few sketches of Urithiru in situ, which will hopefully make it look much better. I just thought people might like to see what I spend my spare time doing

Something that caught my attention in Jasnah’s prologue, that I haven’t seen discussed yet, is one of Jasnah’s comments about the Parshendi Jasnah believes there is something, some ruins of importance, that the Parshendi have access to. I think it is safe to assume these are the ruins we see in Eshonai’s interlude, at the center of the Shattered Plains. So, what are these ruins? The obvious answer is that these ruins are Urithiru. But that may not be the only answer. In tWoK Jasnah is quite adamant that Urithiru is not on the Shattered Plains. It is possible that she is incorrect, but I find it unlikely that she would be so certain without reason. Jasnah’s notes refer to Urithiru being “Westward,” and it is hard to get less westward than the Shattered Plains. There has been specualtion that Urithiru is located in Shadesmar. The first WoR chapter provides some support for this, So, for the moment let’s assume that Jasnah is correct in tWoK and the ruins on the Shattered Plains are not Urithiru. What else could they be? At the Seattle signing in October I asked Brandon to indicate on my map in tWoK something that might be of interest to characters in the book, something that had been searched for. Above the Shattered Plains he wrote “Great Magic unleashed here.” I would guess that this unleashed magic is what caused the plains to shatter. But what was this event? 1. Perhaps some kind of physical manifestation of Honor being splintered. This would release the splinters, and could be the unleashed magic. 2. Magic on Roshar is very spren-dependent. And as Jasnah discusses in the first WoR chapter: Perhaps the Shattered Plains is a location where this “leakage” occurs… or perhaps it was a dam that burst. 3. If Urithiru was in Shadesmar, it may have had some physical correlate. We don’t yet know how relative location and distance works in Shadesmar, or how cities created in Shadesmar might manifest in the physical realm. Maybe Urithiru, and its assumed destruction, created some echo of ruins in the physical realm. I’m just throwing out a couple ideas, but I’d love to hear more. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from lurking around these forums it’s that 17sharders are boundlessly clever.

Something I just noticed - don't remember discussion on it before and found nothing with search. Chapter 6, Jasnah: I-10, Szeth (in Urithiru): Two knowledgeable people think there's something inherently special about the land of Urithiru. I doubt this is a co-incidence. Also, consider this: the Everstorm is due to hit Shinovar before Szeth can get there... but "everyone" thinks Shinovar is only protected from highstorms due to its location and mountains to the east of it, which would not apply to the Everstorm. If it has no "other" protection then the place is going to get wiped out by the Everstorm before Szeth can even get there. That would make for a poor story. But what if Shinovar is protected from Voidbringers like Urithiru? Also consider that the original working title for book 3 was "Stones Unhallowed". There's something going on here that we know very little about, I suspect.

During the Ym interlude, Ym says "We are Irali, and part of the Long Trail, of which this is the Fourth Land." The Long Trail? The Long Trail to Urithiru? I don't know about you, but Ym somehow knows something about the trail to Urithiru, and perhaps even knows where it is. Do any of you know exactly where this interlude happens? And if so, can you find 4 adjacent cities, countries, etc that might be a sort of trail to Urithiru? It might give us a direction to look for the city.

Whilst rereading WoK I found this death quote at the beginning of chapter 53: "He must pick it up, the fallen title! The tower, the crown, and the spear!" I personally find it an interesting quote that most likely refers to Kaladin due to the spear. I think it may refer to Kaladin going to Urithiru (the tower), becoming head of the KR (the crown) and collecting a special spear, a shardspear perhaps? Just curious as to what your thoughts are?

Okay, here's my latest crack theory. I've always assumed that the Knight Radiant built Urithiru in a place that is inaccessible to normal people, like another dimension such as Shadesmar. I am still convinced that the first part is true, but not the second. In the past, Urithiru served two purposes that I know of. It was the home of the Knight Radiants and it was the capital of the Silver Kingdoms. If the latter was not true, then Shadesmar would be completely right, but why would the Knight Radiant choose to build what is essentially the capital of mankind in what is believed to be the domain of the sprens? The Knight Radiants were spiritually connected to the sprens, but people? Not so much. So instead, could it have been been build in Roshar and remained there to this day? After all, Urithiru is considered one of mankind's legendary city, on par with our Atlantis or Babylon. Maybe the reason why no one found Urithiru is because it is build somewhere in Roshar that no man can reach, a place where man has no domain... Yup, title-readers, the sky. Babylon was cast back down into ruins and Atlantis consumed by the waves, but perhaps Urithiru once lived in the clouds and still do. The Knight Radiants were a legendary order. Word of God says their powers can be replicated with the right sprens, which is how frabricals are created. With all Ten Orders of the Knight Radiants united, in one of the greatest age in Roshar's history, is it that hard to imagine that perhaps they had both the power and capability to build a city in the heavens itself? A city in the sky would be majestic and amazing even if it looks completely ordinary. And if their shards are any of an indication, the Knight Radiants were probably very fashionable. Now it could just be a city that floats, but let's take it one step further. I imagine Urithiru as a hybrid of a city and a space-station that can be controlled. Say when the Knight Radiants disappeared, they could kick everyone out and just moved it as high up as they safely could and just abandoned it there. This function would open up a lot of options for our heroes when it's found, perhaps escalate events quite nicely to suit the series. In the lastest chapters, Jasnah said that the Brightlords and the other leaders in the world needs to be convinced that the Last Desolation is coming, but that would only happen if they somehow found Urithiru and showed everyone proof. It's also their only hope to fully and truly restore the Knight Radiant, so it must happen one day. Wouldn't it blow everyone's mind if they found Urithiru, flew it right over the camps, and leave it hover there for a few weeks while they make their plans? Forget betrayals and back-stabbings, the Brightlords won't be able to piss without being reminded of the Knight Radiant and the coming of the True Desolation. And that's about it. There really isn't any basis for this theory, other than the fact that I feel Urithiru should be in Roshar and the idea sounds really awesome. Hence, the crack part. It could just as likely be a submerged city or one that is hidden deep in the Earth, but I doubt the last one since people those days apparently didn't believe in caves and caverns. Any thoughts?