Radiant Order Issues

[Through the Living Potato He/Him]

Alright. My issue with the names for the Orders of Knight Radiants is that too many orders share surges in their names. No, you don’t have to agree with me.

Perfectly or Mostly Fine Orders:

WINDRUNNERS: Gravitation. No problems here.

EDGEDANCERS: Abrasion. Sure. Kinda hard to balance with low friction though.

LIGHTWEAVERS: Illumination. I mean, like 5 different Illusion type magics are called Lightweaving, so alright.

ELSECALLERS: Transportation. This is like the one thing they do.

STONEWARDS: Tension/Cohesion (I forget which) What do they do though? Shape stone, I guess. Willshapers do that too. I put it here because of the RoW Ars Arcanum.

BONDSMITHS: Adhesion. Their whole thing involves manipulating Connection. 
 

My Problem Orders:

SKYBREAKERS: Division. Sure, they’ve been described as setting the sky alight, but… 

DUSTBRINGERS: Division. These two are my least favorite. Dustbringers (as far as I’m aware) seem to turn things into “dust,” so, that makes sense, but what’s going on with the Skybreakers.

TRUTHWATCHERS: Illumination. I think they make a floating ball of light that “reveals” people and things. They mostly seem to just heal people. Renarin can see the future, but that seems to be due to his Enlightened bond. 

WILLSHAPERS: Tension/Cohesion. Venli talks to the Stones, makes them dance, move and sing. This one’s here because I don’t know what Stonewards do, and I decided to put this one here. It’s actually probably fine, but I don’t know.

 

I will acknowledge that most of this is backed by me not knowing what half these orders even do. Still angry about Skybreakers, though.
 

OK, bye.

 

Spoiler

Don’t hate me.

 

 

[Nitpicking]

I believe that non-Enlightened Truthwatchers can create illusions like a Lightweaver.

Edited May 18 by Nitpicking
typo

[earthexile]

I've written a bit about this before, but I think the Order names are built on more poetical and interpretive understandings of the words.

For example, Edgedancers. This seems like a straightforward reference to sliding with Abrasion, sure. It is. But I think it's also other things: They are the Order that goes among the forgotten and ignored, and brings them miracles. We could say they're at the *edges* of society, doing something beautiful and inspiring. Someone showing they're particularly skilled and agile at anything is often compared to a dance, even if it's something like cooking or computer programming. We speak of elegance, grace, confidence. They can reach across even the *edge* of death itself, and get you back on your feet.

And of course we should keep in mind the way these compound words probably work in Vorin writing and language. It's probably a glyphpair, and these glyphs are open to some amount of interpretation themselves. I think a very fun example is the Elsecallers, which as you pointed out seems like it specifically refers to Transportation. But if you think about it for a minute, you'll probably recall that our only Elsecaller is Jasnah, and she does a heck of a lot more Transformation than she does Transportation. In fact she seems way better at Transformation than any of the Lightweavers, when it comes to changing this stuff into that stuff with speed and precision.

So there's more to it. The glyph pair for Elsecaller would probably be one symbol for "else," and one symbol for "caller." But we know these symbols are all used with a little poetry and subtlety. "Else" could also be "difference," "change," or "other." "Caller" could be "announcer," or "demander," or "messenger."

Jasnah behaves the same way with humans as she does when she's commanding objects and substances to Transform: Sheer obdurate willpower, and the ruthless force that it takes to back up her demands. She doesn't try to inspire people to realize complicated moral truths on their own with clever stories and questions. She says "We're not doing slavery anymore, and that's what it is, and if you don't like it, get your sword and I'll kill you in front of everyone and do it anyway."

So I see Elsecaller as something like "One who demands for things to be different."

They're all like that, the ideas and powers all operate on the Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual levels. Windrunners and Skybreakers both fly, but they fly differently because of their other powers: Shaping the winds and air pressure with Adhesion, versus just slamming through the world full-force.

[Ninth of the Night]

7 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

I believe that non-Enlightened Truthwatchers can create illusions like a Lightweaver.

I'm not so sure this is the case, at least not entirely. We have very limited exposure to non-enlightened Truthwatchers, but the Honorbearer that Szeth briefly fought didn't use illusions in the same way as a Lightweaver.

Quote

The feeling of the battle had changed. Neturo’s head jerked, as if forced to move. He nodded to the Truthwatcher. That oddest of orders, the one Szeth had understood the least, even when using its Blade.

The Truthwatcher strode forward, a globe of light forming in her hands. Shadows came alive. Szeth stumbled back as they crawled from the darkness around him. Transparent figures. That one … that was the old Alethi king. That one a bandit from Bavland. There, a serving woman at the Veden feast …

Guards. Common darkeyes. Kings. Shardbearers. The people Szeth had killed. The whispers. The whispers were alive. Each one pointed at Szeth. Accusatory.

-WaT chpt 141

The ball of light is the biggest clue here (which Renarin also does), and the fact that the illusions in question are manifestations from Szeth's past, which is information that the Truthwatcher probably wouldn't have full knowledge of. So it seems to me that their version of Illumination involves less art and creativity, and looks more geared to bringing someone else's imagination to life instead of their own.

Basically every Order uses their shared Surges a little differently. As pointed out in the post above, Skybreakers don't have the same grace as a Windrunner when flying, because they don't have Adhesion to sculpt the air around them. They quite literally break through the sky. Additionally, the name makes even more sense if you really imagine someone crashing through the air with a blazing trail of flames behind them. To a regular person on the ground it would certainly appear like the sky is breaking.

7 hours ago, all_cats_are_windrunners said:

DUSTBRINGERS: Division. These two are my least favorite. Dustbringers (as far as I’m aware) seem to turn things into “dust,” so, that makes sense, but what’s going on with the Skybreakers.

Turning things to dust definitely sounds like a good reason to be called Dustbringer, yeah.

Back to Truthwatchers, they are generally obsessed with discovering the truth, they watch out for it everywhere they go. Which is why, if my assumptions are correct, their Lightweaving centers on revealing the deeper secrets of another person. Their name makes perfect sense in that regard.

Willshapers are all about liberation, freeing people from shackles, whether they be physical or cognitive. Shaping the will of those they save to fight for their own personal freedom (including themselves). Admittedly, I don't know enough about their specific Surge combination to bother with any speculation on how it applies to their title. I'm confident it'll make thematic sense once we learn more about the Order though.

Edited May 18 by Ninth of the Night

[Jult]

6 hours ago, all_cats_are_windrunners said:

DUSTBRINGERS: Division. These two are my least favorite. Dustbringers (as far as I’m aware) seem to turn things into “dust,” so, that makes sense, but what’s going on with the Skybreakers.

Not sure if this makes it better or worse for you, but Dustbringers don't even like the name "Dustbringer". They prefer to be called "Releasers".

[mordtirith]

On 5/18/2026 at 7:51 PM, Ninth of the Night said:

The ball of light is the biggest clue here (which Renarin also does), and the fact that the illusions in question are manifestations from Szeth's past, which is information that the Truthwatcher probably wouldn't have full knowledge of. So it seems to me that their version of Illumination involves less art and creativity, and looks more geared to bringing someone else's imagination to life instead of their own.

It is possible you are right, but I don't know if we should take a human fused created by the power of Odium using the Truthwatcher Honorblade as proof of how "normal" Truthwatchers work.

Renarin does question and seem genuinely puzzled at why his powers are much better aligned with the order's name than others, which to me implies he hasn't really seen unenlightened Truthwatchers doing the Spiritual Illumination he can do, otherwise there'd be no question, no puzzlement. However, it is also said that unenlightened Mistspren are very rare so who knows.

Maybe Spiritual Illumination is something that all Truthwatchers can do, but it is a much harder application of the surge for those who aren't enlightened, whereas it is just second nature for enlightened ones?

[Frustration]

55 minutes ago, mordtirith said:

It is possible you are right, but I don't know if we should take a human fused created by the power of Odium using the Truthwatcher Honorblade as proof of how "normal" Truthwatchers work.

None of the other Honorbearers do things that are unusual for their orders. And Szeth comments that their powers are odd, even for him before the honorbearers became human fused.

[mordtirith]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

None of the other Honorbearers do things that are unusual for their orders. And Szeth comments that their powers are odd, even for him before the honorbearers became human fused.

Fair, closest thing to that is the level of control the Stoneward has which shocks Szeth, but IDK if Szeth has seen many a Radiant Stoneward, maybe he just didn't expect it because Willshapers and Bondsmiths aren't that good at shaping stone.

I can see the ball of light being a particular resonance for Truthwatchers, the earliest hint we have of it is when Renarin heals Adolin in OB right, Adolin gets a brief glimpse of what his perfect version would be right before he is healed at the start of the book.

I can see that, Spiritual Illumination, being a result of combining Illumination with Regrowth, Regrowth lets you bring forth the internal ideal version of someone, so if you mix that with the concept of projecting images you get the "Spiritual Illumination."

I still think it's likely that it is not a common skill for normal Truthwatchers though. We are told many times that people expect Renarin to be able to lightweave like Shallan, which at least to me indicates that others like the Stump are capable of doing that. I think that, for some reason, Enlightened Truthwatchers skip normal Illumination altogether and go straight for Spiritual Illumination. Maybe it'll be as hard for Renarin and Rlain to figure out how to create illusions as it would be for non-enlightened Truthwatchers to figure out how to create Spiritual Illumination?