What Is the Weird Spren Dalinar Sees in Oathbringer?

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

In Oathbringer, Dalinar goes out into the storm to find his dinner knife. When he comes back, he sees a strange Spren in the distance. He does a rude gesture at it, and then goes inside. What is it?

[alder24]

27 minutes ago, ThatOneWorldhopper said:

In Oathbringer, Dalinar goes out into the storm to find his dinner knife. When he comes back, he sees a strange Spren in the distance. He does a rude gesture at it, and then goes inside. What is it?

That's a weird coincidence (or Fortune) - someone else asked the same question few hours ago here, so I'll just copy what I've written there:

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

We don't know, fans call them Stormstriders, but there is no canon name for them. But this didn't happen on the night of Gavilar's death (there was no Highstorm), but on a much earlier occasion - in one of the flashback chapters in OB, when Dalinar met Evi for the first time, he saw those spren when he wander into a Highstorm in the search of his knife. OB ch 19:

Quote

An explosive burst of wind drove him against the wall, and he stumbled, then stepped backward, driven by instincts he couldn’t define. A large boulder slammed into the wall, then bounced away. Dalinar glanced and saw something luminous in the distance: a gargantuan figure that moved on spindly glowing legs.

Kaladin also saw them during his time with Shallan in chasms, when a Highstorm hit. WoR ch 74:

Quote

Light came from above, too steady to be lightning. Something was glowing on the plateau. Something that moved. It was hard to see, since water streamed off the side of the plateau above, falling in a sheet before their refuge. He swore he saw an enormous figure walking up there, a glowing inhuman form, followed by another, alien and sleek. Striding the storm. Leg after leg, until the glow passed.

We have also those two, short WoBs:

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GreenRover

During the storm that Kaladin was in with Shallan in book 2; those two massive walkers we saw--are those Parshendi, Unmade, or spren?

Brandon Sanderson

Spren, with the caveat that might not mean they aren't Unmade, because that's not an either-or.

Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)

 

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Questioner

...Can the Storm Striders move when a highstorm is not passing?

Brandon Sanderson

No... Can is a strong term. They do not, how's that?

Skyward Atlanta signing (Nov. 17, 2018)

That's all we know about them.