[OB] The Great Voidbringer Army

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

So, I wanted to make a topic for this. As noted in the discussion for chapters 4-6 of Oathbringer, the parshmen/voidbringers in Hearthstone are gone. We also have (Edgedancer spoilers):

Spoiler

A mysterious case of disappering Voidbringers in Edgedancer as well.

So, where are they going? To buy a chouta? Play hide and seek? Talk to Stick? My theory is that they are building an army.

Odiums first Voidbringer army, the one at Narak, got obliterated by the Alethi and the storms. I guess Rayse wants a new one, so he is probably gathering the Voidbringers into one massive unit. That way, they will become a bigger threat, and could also be used to assault Kholinar later on, something we know will happen. 

In addition, there is a possibility that this army is led by Unmade, or that the Unmade are guiding the Voidbringers toward the meeting-place. Maybe both. 

So, what do you think? Is Odium building his Great Voidbringer Army? 

[nervousnerd he/him]

I thiink he obviously is but I have to guess that some are still around causing destruction. It would be a huge missed opportunity for the sneak attack of the everstorm to go unused. Perhaps in areas that were prepared, the voidbringers were sent to regroup. It kind of seems like Hearthstone didn't even see them and to me that could mean they are still a threat.

[Michael Portz he/him]

I think there is much more going on than "Everstorm passes" => *BAMMM* => "1 million thunderclasts rise and march for Odium"

What if the Everstorm just makes parshmen to parshendi in dullform again. This might be a starting point for more dangerous forms of voidbringers, but it is JUST a starting point. It might be, that the now rather plain parshendi need the highstorms again to transform.

Perhaps they just all started moving eastward?

[typofixes]

Edited September 5, 2017 by Michael Portz

[Andy92]

I'd say this seems plausible enough because let's be honest, we know a showdown is coming in this book based on the cover art alone. I tend to think that scene is from later in the book (like the first two covers). So they're probably assembling as a large unit in a single place (or at least a small handful of places, not scattered) preparing for this massive assault.

[Guest Edonidd]

My thought was it just turned them into storm form.  "Just" lol.  Certainly a capable form, and it even seems a bit above war form physically.  But their big advantage was being able to summon the Everstorm.  Now if they could do that again anc have acouple everstorms circling the globe that would help them for sure.  Or if they could just resummon it, so every big battle was in the middle of the everstorms, that would make them hard to beat.  But I kinda think the Everstorm was like a one time thing.

 

There are other ancient forms from the epilogues, I have to assume their Gods, which I also assume are the unmade, will give them other forms.  Because right now their existing army fought in a dual highstorm-everstorm mix that they were controlling.  They fought against 3/10 armies and I think there were only like 5 shardbearers there.  One of which was Renarin who obviously didn't do anything.  And at best they came out even, although I need to read again as they might have gained a shardplate?

 

Next time, if they were looking for one big war i would have to guess even if they gain all the parshmen everywhere, they would still lose a straightforward battle if the Alethi just brought their own armies and their 30 or whatever shardbearers plus Kaladin and bridge four.

 

So that's not happening yet.  Instead we'll see voidbringers slowly gaining forms, and probably going for their own objectives.  Probably winning a lot at first too.  While Dalinar tries to reunite the world politically, the new Radiants pop up, learn their words and figure stuff out with or without the heralds.  Then things can get fun, in 15 or 20 years when the last books come around.

[nervousnerd he/him]

7 minutes ago, Edonidd said:

But I kinda think the Everstorm was like a one time thing.

Yeah. There were a lot of quotes about it being an old design that kind of make me think of Elantris.

Spoiler

A build up of investiture over the time since the last desolation that was released to become this new storm. Similar to when the dor came back or whatever.

 

[KidWayne he/him]

Well, I think it could be transforming the willing parshmen into Smokeform based on the songs from WoR.

Quote

Smokeform for hiding and slipping 'tween men.
A form of power—like Surges of spren
Do we dare to wear this form again? It spies.
Crafted of gods, this form we fear.
By Unmade touch its curse to bear,
Formed from shadow—and death is near. It lies.

     —51st stanza of the Song of Secrets

I say that since it allows them to hide from (and spy on) men; also, it is a lost "form of power" and Stormform is no longer needed since the Everstorm has been summoned. 

[KidWayne he/him]

@Edonidd You should read Chapter 4 of Oathbringer. You can find it here: https://www.tor.com/2017/09/05/oathbringer-by-brandon-sanderson-chapters-4-6/#comment-684025

It might clear some things up for you. Of course, you should read the prologue and first three chapters, too. Here is the index what has been released for Oathbringer so far: https://www.tor.com/series/oathbringer/

[Nathrangking he/him]

would make things fun though i doubt it at this stage of the game.

[Guest Edonidd]

3 hours ago, KidWayne said:

@Edonidd You should read Chapter 4 of Oathbringer. You can find it here: https://www.tor.com/2017/09/05/oathbringer-by-brandon-sanderson-chapters-4-6/#comment-684025

It might clear some things up for you. Of course, you should read the prologue and first three chapters, too. Here is the index what has been released for Oathbringer so far: https://www.tor.com/series/oathbringer/

Not sure what you mean.  My post was made after reading chapter 4,5, & 6.

[KidWayne he/him]

5 minutes ago, Edonidd said:

Not sure what you mean.  My post was made after reading chapter 4,5, & 6.

You said that you "think the Everstorm was like a one time thing." The first sentence of chapter 4 says that the Everstorm was making its second appearance.

Edited September 6, 2017 by KidWayne
Grammar.

[Guest Edonidd]

30 minutes ago, KidWayne said:

You said that you "think the Everstorm was like a one time thing." The first sentence of chapter 4 says that the Everstorm was making its second appearance.

My fault, maybe I wasn't clear enough.  I think SUMMONING the everstorm was a one time thing.  Obviously it's still there, it's the everstorm.  It's going to keep circling the globe. 

 

But like I was saying, I think Storm form has kind of outlived its usefulness.  I dont think they can summon a second everstorm and have them both keep circling.  And i dont think the everstorm can be going over shinover or someplace and they can just resummon it to jump and be over Alethi.  I think SUMMONING it was a one time thing, and there is no further use for  storm form 

[OathKeeper]

17 hours ago, nervousnerd said:

I thiink he obviously is but I have to guess that some are still around causing destruction. It would be a huge missed opportunity for the sneak attack of the everstorm to go unused. 

My friend who is not on this forum made a great point: we haven't seen any hint of voidbringers yet (since WoR). This is crafty of Odium. If United Roshar is his biggest threat, make them all disappear and let Roshar doubt Dalinar. Small raids would accomplish little and might work against Odium if it helped Dalinar consolidate power. But if everyone starts thinking Dalinar is crazy again, Odium can take his sweet time preparing an army. And yes, I think smoke form is one way he can accomplish this in the mean time.

Edited September 6, 2017 by OathKeeper
Clarification

[nervousnerd he/him]

1 hour ago, OathKeeper said:

My friend who is not on this forum made a great point: we haven't seen any hint of voidbringers yet (since WoR). This is crafty of Odium. If United Roshar is his biggest threat, make them all disappear and let Roshar doubt Dalinar. Small raids would accomplish little and might work against Odium if it helped Dalinar consolidate power. But if everyone starts thinking Dalinar is crazy again, Odium can take his sweet time preparing an army. And yes, I think smoke form is one way he can accomplish this in the mean time.

It is certainly possible; it would cause no end of problems and panic for people to lose the slaves that have been integrated so deeply into the economy and home life of many.  The only problem is that I think the disappearance of parshmen would be enough of a problem that people would begin to believe Dalinar. The places that sent then out before the storm might be angry and think that the threat wasn't real but otherwise there will be some evidence that the parshmen purposefully escaped and disappeared. And why would that happen if Dalinar was wrong?

If nothing amounted of their disappearance for a long time then that plan might work but I'm not sure I see Odium as someone who waits patiently (I'm not sure the wait until this current desolation was his plan) and giving too much time will help people recover from the changes it causes and allow them to prepare for an attack.

[king of nowhere]

Well, it makes more sense to group the voidbringers in units around 1000 strong. Consider it: earthstone was a medium sized town, and it had some parshendi among the castle servants. How many? A dozen, maybe two? If two dozen voidbringers attack every village, the villagers with torches and pitchfork can repel them easily enough. End of the voidbringers.

You could then try to mass up a huge amount of them, but that would be impractical: first thing, they would need to travel across all roshar to gather, and that would take a long time. Second, and most important, voidbringers still need to eat, so having too many in one place is not optimal, as they lack supply lines or an economy capable of sustaining them.

So the best use of this force is the middle way: gather all parshendi of an area into a mid-sized fighting unit that is capable of pillaging a town, but can still live off what it loots. Have  hundreds of those units around all of roshar. Assault the farming communities, they are poorly defended but they play a vital role in the economy. Yes, they can soulcast food, but they would not have farmers if it was practical to soulcast on such a large scale. Start chewing at the roots, undermine the economy and the army will fall.

[OathKeeper]

All good points, guys...but c'mon. Isn't there going to be a huge assault mounted in part IV of the book?

[+Spicker]

23 hours ago, KidWayne said:

Well, I think it could be transforming the willing parshmen into Smokeform based on the songs from WoR.

I say that since it allows them to hide from (and spy on) men; also, it is a lost "form of power" and Stormform is no longer needed since the Everstorm has been summoned. 

I don't know if the Everstorm turns them specifically into Smokeform, but it might open the way for it. We are told a lot about the Everstorm, but it still feels like there is so much that we don't know about it. Either way, that passage is ominous enough that we will probably definitely see Smokeform. We will just have to keep a careful eye on any random clouds of smoke described in the next book...

[FollowYourMuse she/her]

I agree they may be heading somewhere, or maybe just pulled along with the everstorm.

I think the Parshmen turned stormform will be much like Eshonai talks about, the Listeners who were basically fodder and were there just to sing. She mentions  how turning all the Listeners into stormform did not make them soldiers or teach them to fight.

 

 

 

 

[Unhinged he/him]

22 hours ago, Edonidd said:

But like I was saying, I think Storm form has kind of outlived its usefulness. 

I don't know shooting lightning seems like a pretty darn useful ability to me.

[Calderis he/him]

14 minutes ago, Unhinged said:

I don't know shooting lightning seems like a pretty darn useful ability to me.

The whole stronger then warform and just as well armored is a plus too. 

[Guest Edonidd]

11 minutes ago, Unhinged said:

I don't know shooting lightning seems like a pretty darn useful ability to me.

Can they shoot bolts of lightning out of s clear blue sky?  I can assume that they can do it during a high storm, since they have done it before.  But if the KR are going to start fighting them, I would think they don't want to fight in a high storm where KR have unlimited stormlight.  So that leaves only fighting during the everstorm. 

 

I just think the voidbringers/parshendi are going to be in different more powerful forms by the time the big battles come.  At least more varied forms, it won't be everyone in storm form.  Which means they have to gather and wait until another storm comes to change forms again.

[Michael Portz he/him]

4 hours ago, Unhinged said:

I don't know shooting lightning seems like a pretty darn useful ability to me.

Please ignore if that was meant ironically, but stormform does not bring the ability to shoot lightnings, but just the ability to call the everstorm ... and as others before me already hinted, "calling the everstorm" has only to be done once. I think I was wrong here, back to rereading ...

Anybody besides me thinks that it is damnation inconvenient for the Parshendi to be caught in the stormform now and not being able to transform until the next highstorm comes? Team KR being out of stormlight, too... seems the big war is stalled for the time being :-D

EDT: Typo and last sentence added

EDT2: Stroke out the first paragraph, I might have been wrong here ... (who needs READERS as long as one can talk to one self ..)

EDT3: You all are fidgets of my imagination anyway ...

Edited September 7, 2017 by Michael Portz

[Pattern he/him]

Certainly it makes sense to pull the parshmen together out of small villages where they were in the minority. I am looking forward to what happens in big cities where parshmen were quite abundant (think of Kharbranth and Kholinar). Pulling the parshmen out there steathily would have been a missed chance of wreaking havoc.

Another thing is that we still don't know how many parshmen were transformed at all. Those in close shelters might still be unaffected by the Everstorm.

Next questions: What is the size of the Everstorm? Does is cover all of Roshar in one passing or just a restricted area? The summoning of the Everstorm was disturbed after all and it could be possible that it is smaller and weaker than originally intended, so it takes multiple passes to transform most parshmen.

[Shuffel]

I believe the storm will change Parshendi into all different types of the old gold forms. Not just storm form.

[Fulminato he/him]

1 hour ago, Shuffel said:

I believe the storm will change Parshendi into all different types of the old gold forms. Not just storm form.

WoR Chapter 89, the four.

Stormfather: THE EVERSTORM. IT IS A NEW THING, BUT OLD OF DESIGN. IT ROUNDS THE WORLD NOW, AND CARRIES WITH IT HIS SPREN. ANY OF THE OLD PEOPLE IT TOUCHES WILL TAKE ON THEIR NEW FORMS.

forms, plural.