Intentionally Blank Stormlight 5 Ending hint

[HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES]

We got a significant hint towards the ending of stormlight 5. Dan was about to reveal the end of one of their dnd campaigns when brandon told him to stop because that was his stormlight 5 ending. This was in the episode "thats not just a fail, its a critical fail. any theorizing ideas?

[Icy]

I don't know if there's a lot to comb through there, but Dan had mentioned he used a powerful spell and accidentally revived a sack of dead heads and it ruined everything. Possibly revived some dark lord even more dangerous than the final boss? I'd have to go back and check. I do know that Brandon said his players messed up his awesome ending somehow, but I dont know much about DnD so that part is really hard for me to speculate about.

I'm worried that freeing Ba Ado Mishram will have consequences that are bad for the humans, but good for other sides of the conflict. For example, Reatares is pro freeing BAM, but he also had Amaram slaughter Kaladin's team and keep the blade. He's also insane, like the other 9 heralds who just want out. I'm convinced that they will do anything to get out of the oathpact, to avoid being sent back to Braize, or to straight up end the war. Maybe they're willing to let the other side win, somehow, if it meant the end. Either way, it concerns me that Restares is leading Shallan and Adolin towards that route, merely because I don't really trust the heralds.

If not that, then I'd guess the protagonists do something else that everyone calculates as their best odds of winning and it blows up in their faces because of unintended consequences. 

Maybe we'll even see Vasher use his breaths to save someone and have that backfire.

Or maybe we'll accidentally kill the stormfather. (I personally 100% believe the storms will die in some capacity, and the Era of freely renewable stormlight ends)

So many juicy possibilities. Can't wait to see what Brandon actually does with book 5.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Icy

[teknopathetic]

22 minutes ago, Icy said:

 

Or maybe we'll accidentally kill the stormfather. (I personally 100% believe the storms will die in some capacity, and the Era of freely renewable stormlight ends)

So many juicy possibilities. Can't wait to see what Brandon actually does with book 5.

Killing the stormfather and having either Mishram or Sja-Anat filling that role would be amazing. Mishram makes sense because of connection, but Sja-Anat seems to care about helping and making new spren. 

[bmcclure7]

3 hours ago, Icy said:

I don't know if there's a lot to comb through there, but Dan had mentioned he used a powerful spell and accidentally revived a sack of dead heads and it ruined everything. Possibly revived some dark lord even more dangerous than the final boss? I'd have to go back and check. I do know that Brandon said his players messed up his awesome ending somehow, but I dont know much about DnD so that part is really hard for me to speculate about.

I'm worried that freeing Ba Ado Mishram will have consequences that are bad for the humans, but good for other sides of the conflict. For example, Reatares is pro freeing BAM, but he also had Amaram slaughter Kaladin's team and keep the blade. He's also insane, like the other 9 heralds who just want out. I'm convinced that they will do anything to get out of the oathpact, to avoid being sent back to Braize, or to straight up end the war. Maybe they're willing to let the other side win, somehow, if it meant the end. Either way, it concerns me that Restares is leading Shallan and Adolin towards that route, merely because I don't really trust the heralds.

If not that, then I'd guess the protagonists do something else that everyone calculates as their best odds of winning and it blows up in their faces because of unintended consequences. 

Maybe we'll even see Vasher use his breaths to save someone and have that backfire.

Or maybe we'll accidentally kill the stormfather. (I personally 100% believe the storms will die in some capacity, and the Era of freely renewable stormlight ends)

So many juicy possibilities. Can't wait to see what Brandon actually does with book 5.

Can you know if there is a transcript of this conversation? I do play dnd some maybe I'll be able to understand it better?

[Icy]

5 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

Can you know if there is a transcript of this conversation? I do play dnd some maybe I'll be able to understand it better?

I can't believe I've just done this, but I went ahead and transcribed it. I bolded the parts that I think are relevant and left out parts where they went off-topic or on tangents. If you want to watch yourself, I started from 14:05 when Brandon started talking about his DND campaigns and went until the discussion of the DND campaign ended at 21:35.

Marked for spoilers because of the size:

Spoiler

Brandon: If you want to know what it’s like to roleplay with Brandon, it’s detailed worldbuilding and enormous numbers of random tables that he has designed himself to encourage fun roleplaying scenarios. You’re gonna find so many decks of many things, or wands that you don’t know what they do, or, would you like to take this bargain from death, you don’t know what boon you’ll get, and, you know, you master a boon and you get a random side effect, that sort of thing happens all the time.

 

 

 

Dan: The first little minor villain, like the miniboss that you fight in the first episode… was some minor noble named Pardohl(?), who I still use in many of my campaigns, and maybe even in one of my novels… anyway, so we killed him, and because I was this feral orc raised in the wilderness, I kept his head in a sack.

 

Brandon: Yeah, as one does.
 

Dan: Yeah, why not? And eventually, formed that head into a helmet. But I decided that would be like one of the things that Little Grunt did is he just saved the heads of anything important that we killed. And so I eventually had a big sack full of heads. The second key moment in Little Grunt’s life came when you had a monster that cast some kind of insanity spell, and I was the one who failed a save. Everyone else got through it fine.

 

Brandon: Yup.

 

Dan: I failed my save on this very powerful insanity spell.

 

Brandon: You didn’t fail it, you rolled a 1.

 

Dan: Yeah, an absolutely critical fail.

 

Brandon: Critical fail.

 

Dan: It was the worst possible thing.

 

Brandon: Uh, yeah.

…

They go on to describe how Dan’s character goes insane based on a random table Brandon looked up, and rolled Power Association, giving Little Grunt an incredible power that he thinks comes from Pardohl’s head.

Dan: …Little Grunt’s Power Association was Pardohl’s head that he carried with him, so that he then thought that this was his God and that it would grant him the power to cast these spells

 

Brandon: Grant him the power to cast these spells. And that’s when you started picking up this wild magic thing, and it all kinda came together…

 

Dan: And then, a major fight, this was like the end of the second act campaign thing. We were fighting some horrible villain, and I can't remember the nature of it, but had to pull out every stop we possibly had. 

 

Brandon: Yup

 

Dan: And so I used all of the features of this random magic class and said, “What’s the absolutely most powerful thing I can do?” Without knowing anything of what it was. And we rolled - and Brandon’s tables were like nested, and we had to roll like seven times to finally get down, this table will send you to this table… and at the end… we had like a level 9 boosted revive dead or resurrection or something like that.

 

Brandon: Yup

 

Dan: And so we all thought, well what is that gonna do? And then we realized that I had a bag of heads, and was wearing a helmet, made out of the guy’s skull that I thought was the God granting me all of my powers. And that changed everything for the rest of the campaign.

 

Brandon: So instead of defeating the bad guy with your super powerful spell, it brought to life your heads.

 

Dan: All the heads came back to life. And they started talking. It was wonderful.

 

Brandon: All your heads came back to life. Yes. And, they were the Power Association, particularly Pardohl’s head, and so you had this villain, on your head, that did not want to be there, that I would run as an NPC, who had no volition because, you know, he was attached to your head.

 

Dan: Yeah. He wasn’t actually a god. 

 

Brandon: We didn’t give him back his body, he just remained as a skull. And, uh, that campaign was hilarious, because Dan is really good at running this sort of character. … 

 

 

They describe Little Grunt as a funny yet disturbing character, who would line up his skulls at the dinner table to show off, not understanding why people wouldn’t want that.

 

Dan: Because they (the skulls) were there with us, they helped defeat the enemy, they deserved to be part of the party. And, you know, as pleasant as he was, uh, that was *laughs* the big final showdown, Brandon had built this thing that was supposed to be

 

Brandon: Yea, don’t don’t don’t tell this one, because I’m actually gonna use this one. I’ve been waiting for years to do this in a book, so don’t say anything… You guys are gonna love this, it’s involved in the ending of Stormlight 5. Yea. 

 

Dan: Oh, I’m excited. Very excited.

 

Brandon: I’ll tell you off camera. Let’s just say I came up with one of the best endings for a story that I have ever come up with. And because it’s roleplaying, the PCs did not play along. 

 

Dan: Ruined it completely.

 

Brandon: Ruined it completely. And I’m like, I’m gonna use that someday! And I actually put it right in the outline for Stormlight like a week or two later, and it’s been waiting all of this time to be used.

 

 

Dan: Oh, wow. Week or two later. And that would have been like, 99, so it’s been waiting a long time in the wings.

 

Brandon: Yes, it’s been waiting a loooong time to come. So that’s why I’m hoping that it doesn’t get spoiled!

 

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Icy

[HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES]

This seems to indicate a duel of champions plot-twist(not suprising) I got the impression brandon was basing it mostly off of the players ruining it rather than his pre written game ending. I think interestingly this might be a mark against theories like child champion or adolin as a champion as this indicates odium might play it more straight but then the heroes mess it up. This is all of course pure speculation. 

[Icy]

12 minutes ago, HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES said:

This seems to indicate a duel of champions plot-twist(not suprising) I got the impression brandon was basing it mostly off of the players ruining it rather than his pre written game ending. I think interestingly this might be a mark against theories like child champion or adolin as a champion as this indicates odium might play it more straight but then the heroes mess it up. This is all of course pure speculation. 

It is speculation but I do agree that I think it could hint at the heroes messing it up. I wouldn't be surprised if Dalinar tried something risky with his bondsmith powers and screwed things up (kill the stormfather? ).

[bmcclure7]

16 hours ago, Icy said:

It is speculation but I do agree that I think it could hint at the heroes messing it up. I wouldn't be surprised if Dalinar tried something risky with his bondsmith powers and screwed things up (kill the stormfather? ).

Not necessarily,  Is phenomena Brandon Sanderson is talking about. Usually involves Players going the opposite way as what the DM expects or wants them to go.  For example The DM may want them To go to the capital city So they can Stop the big bad from summoning a demon or something. So he'll give them some big incentive Like Someone gives them a huge job offer,  or   Their brother who happens to live in the capital city Write to them to come immediately because it's urgent. 

Usually,  The players pick up on the hint. And they go along with dms plans,  Other times They meet a cute elf lady  That was only supposed to be a reference to some movie or something, They decide That presuming their own Romantic interest is Far more interesting than anything they could find in the capital.

 

I think this will relate  to Renarin  And the unpredictability ability he brings .  We have 3 gods each with there own plans, basically 3 dms running this game. I think someone close to Renarin will do something that seems small at first but will completely throw the plans of the Gods in to disarray. Change the entire nature of this game. 

Edited August 20, 2022 by bmcclure7

[Icy]

4 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

I think this will relate  to Renarin  And the unpredictability ability he brings .  We have 3 gods each with there own plans, basically 3 dms running this game. I think someone close to Renarin will do something that seems small at first but will completely throw the plans of the Gods in to disarray. Change the entire nature of this game. 

Very smart, I like that line of thinking. 

[teknopathetic]

15 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

 

I think this will relate  to Renarin  And the unpredictability ability he brings .  We have 3 gods each with there own plans, basically 3 dms running this game. I think someone close to Renarin will do something that seems small at first but will completely throw the plans of the Gods in to disarray. Change the entire nature of this game. 

So can we assume Rlain has this ability now too? Maybe the Sja'Anat gang will become too hard to predict. And that likely works just as much on Odium as it would on Cultivation, no? 

Edited August 20, 2022 by teknopathetic

[bmcclure7]

2 minutes ago, teknopathetic said:

So we assume Rlain has this ability now too? 

Maybe will see

 

 

[bmcclure7]

10 hours ago, Icy said:

Very smart, I like that line of thinking. 

I wonder if it will be something Dalinar will do.