[OB] Dimensions of Urithiru

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

Also, i imagined the tiers to be fully circle, like the tower is a tiered cake, but with all of the tiers stacked to one side of the circle, hence giving the sheer flat look. Here's hoping Shallan can give us a good picture in this book!

[Jofwu he/him]

6 hours ago, ParadoxicalZen said:

Also, i imagined the tiers to be fully circle, like the tower is a tiered cake, but with all of the tiers stacked to one side of the circle, hence giving the sheer flat look. Here's hoping Shallan can give us a good picture in this book!

It's described as if it were cut with a shardblade, so I don't think that fits. And seems like "semi-circle" is explicitly mentioned. Need to look at the quotes again though.

Isn't the tower on the edge of a cliff? For some reason I thought the sheer side was on the edge of a cliff, so the oathgates wouldn't be able to ring it completely. Maybe I imagined that. Either way, @ccstat, I don't see a problem saying that they make a half-circle "ring" around the field, with the tower at the base of the semi-circle. The tiers are described as things and they don't go all the way around after all.

[BlackYeti he/him]

2 hours ago, jofwu said:

It's described as if it were cut with a shardblade, so I don't think that fits. And seems like "semi-circle" is explicitly mentioned. Need to look at the quotes again though.

Isn't the tower on the edge of a cliff? For some reason I thought the sheer side was on the edge of a cliff, so the oathgates wouldn't be able to ring it completely. Maybe I imagined that. Either way, @ccstat, I don't see a problem saying that they make a half-circle "ring" around the field, with the tower at the base of the semi-circle. The tiers are described as things and they don't go all the way around after all.

Here's the quote regarding the shape:

Quote

The tiers of the city, despite looking circular from the front, were actually more half-circles, with the flat sides facing east. The edges of the lower levels melded into the mountains to either side, but the very center was open to the east. The rooms up against that flat side had windows there, providing a view toward the Origin.

Oathbringer - Chapter 4, Oaths

And regarding it being on the edge of a cliff, there's a couple of things to support that:

Quote

He sat on that edge, right at the top, feet swinging over a drop of a hundred massive stories and a plummet down the mountainside below. Glass sparkled on the smooth surface of the flat side there.

Words of Radiance - I-10, Szeth

Quote

Dalinar walked through his chambers in Urithiru, pulled by the unnatural storm. Bare feet on cold rock. He passed Navani—who sat at the writing desk working on her memoirs again—and stepped onto his balcony, which hung straight out over the cliffs beneath Urithiru.

Oathbringer - Chapter 4, Oaths

 

[Ray7455]

15 hours ago, ccstat said:

Yeah. The more I think about it, the more I agree with you. I'll modify the picture tomorrow.

The part that throws me off is that the oathgates are ringing the field in front of the tower. It sounds more natural to say that if they are in a circle around something, but if there whole plateau is considered "in front" and is used as a forms, then your suggested arrangement makes more sense.

There is actually a quote from Shallan's PoV at the end of WoR that states the oathgates ring the field in front of the tower, so they are not actually around the base of the tower

Quote

The large stone field in front of the tower city bore very few rockbuds, and the ones that did grow were tiny, smaller than a fist. They would provide little wood for fires.

The field was ringed by ten columnar plateaus, with steps winding around their bases. The Oathgates. Beyond that extended the mountain range.

1

 

[ccstat he/him]

I think there is a case to be made for both arrangements (oathgates in circle or semicircle) so I've updated the OP with an image of each. 

Thank you @BlackYeti for including those quotes. I was missing the one you cite from the Szeth interlude, and I've added it to the OP.

Also, wow. There are a ridiculous number of typos/autocorrects showing up in my posts when I comment via the mobile site. Am I really that terrible at proofreading what I write? Apologies for the ones I fail to fix.

[Inkthinker]

This is super fun to watch.

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

Ahh, must of missed that bit in OB, thanks for clearing that up! As for the oathgates, i always imagined them in a ring front of the tower

[ccstat he/him]

Glad we can provide some entertainment, @Inkthinker. I'm really looking forward to seeing your rendition come release day. 

4 hours ago, ParadoxicalZen said:

As for the oathgates, i always imagined them in a ring front of the tower

To clarify, when you say that do you mean the circle version, rather than semicircle?

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

@ccstat woops, apologies! My brain has been a bit slow in transferring thought to words of late. Yeah, definitely in a circle rather than a semicircle, although visually the semicircle array sounds better. How i view the description makes it sound like platforms are ringing the field in front of the tower directly rather than the tower directly. However, using the given example measurements for Urithiru I would argue for the semicircle layout as it makes more sense.

[Calderis he/him]

4 minutes ago, ParadoxicalZen said:

@ccstat woops, apologies! My brain has been a bit slow in transferring thought to words of late. Yeah, definitely in a circle rather than a semicircle, although visually the semicircle array sounds better. How i view the description makes it sound like platforms are ringing the field in front of the tower directly rather than the tower directly. However, using the given example measurements for Urithiru I would argue for the semicircle layout as it makes more sense.

I agree. The wording seems to be that they "ring the field" which would place them on the edges of the field extending in all directions around Urithiru. 

A ring in the field should be described as such. 

[Jofwu he/him]

Yeah. Sure, a semi-circle isn't a full ring. But I think with the semi-circle you can properly say that they "ring the field". The full circle out in front of the tower doesn't "ring the field". It's a ring in the middle of the field.

Is there anything that would contradict a compromise? What if the platforms form MOST of a circle, with Urithiru taking bite out of one side? Allow me to display my incredible MS Paint skills. Something like this, though I think it feels best if all the platforms are all visible from one another (i.e. not obstructed by the tower).

 

[BlackYeti he/him]

29 minutes ago, jofwu said:

Yeah. Sure, a semi-circle isn't a full ring. But I think with the semi-circle you can properly say that they "ring the field". The full circle out in front of the tower doesn't "ring the field". It's a ring in the middle of the field.

Is there anything that would contradict a compromise? What if the platforms form MOST of a circle, with Urithiru taking bite out of one side? Allow me to display my incredible MS Paint skills. Something like this, though I think it feels best if all the platforms are all visible from one another (i.e. not obstructed by the tower).

I really like this. It's probably the best proposal for their positioning so far.

The problem I've had with the semicircle idea is that, in one of the descriptions of Urithiru that I quoted in my last post, it clearly states that "The edges of the lower levels melded into the mountains to either side", which would mean that the field with the Oathgates in cannot extend to the cliff behind Urithiru. Therefore, the Oathgates could not form a complete semicircle, at most, it could form a minor arc.

And as you point out, a circle in the middle of a field can't really be said to ring the field.

[Dahak he/him]

On 22/09/2017 at 2:08 AM, jofwu said:

Take the cavernous area Adolin was at in chapter 2. What's going on with the roof there? I don't see how a stone slab can span dozens of meters.

We manage with non continuous stone. C.f. any medieval cathedral. St Paul's has a 30m unsupported span on the stone dome, which is your dozens of meters.

The builders here had soulcasters (Elsecallers and Lightweavers even if they didn't have the devices) which makes for nice one piece continuous stone arches.

And they probably started with a mountain and carved away, by turning it into smoke or air, the bits they didn't want rather than building it.

[yulerule]

My idea for the Oathgates to be surrounding the tower is also political, I guess. Each Oathgate leads to it's pair in another land. The tower is the base/territory of the Radiants. I feel like the Radiants are there for all of Roshar, as a group, they cannot favor any nation. So all the Oathgates have to be equidistant from the tower. They don't want to imply that some nation is less favored, and people/representatives from there are further from the tower/ have to walk longer to get to the tower. Politics is all about symbols.

[Jofwu he/him]

17 hours ago, Dahak said:

dome

As I pointed out, the use of arches (and domes) would be vital. The Adolin example was a poor one, as it is probably an exception. I"m more concerned about simple large rooms that only take up one story.

22 hours ago, BlackYeti said:

The problem I've had with the semicircle idea is that, in one of the descriptions of Urithiru that I quoted in my last post, it clearly states that "The edges of the lower levels melded into the mountains to either side", which would mean that the field with the Oathgates in cannot extend to the cliff behind Urithiru.

This is a really good point. It sounds like the tower is nestled between two peaks.

Edit:

Just came across this in TWoK chapter 32 epigraph:

Quote

“They lived high atop a place no man could reach, but all could visit. The tower city itself, crafted by the hands of no man.”

—Though The Song of the Last Summer is a fanciful tale of romance from the third century after the Recreance, it is likely a valid reference in this case. See page 27 of Varala’s translation, and note the undertext.

You can never know how accurate it is of course, but "crafted by the hands of no man" seems notable.

And @ccstat, I think you'll want to add this quote to your list as it describes what you've got really well. It's from WoR chapter 86.

Quote

Beyond them spread the peaks of an unfamiliar mountain range. It was the same plateau, and here was in a ring with nine others. To Shallan’s left, an enormous ribbed tower—shaped like cups of increasingly smaller sizes stacked atop one another—broke the peaks. Urithiru.

I can't shake the feeling that Brandon imagines it being more slender than we've got it shown... But the evidence is definitely more supportive of what you have unless the story heights are greater than expected.

[Hischier]

My question is, given the size of this thing, how is it possible that no one knows about it? Even accounting for a remote mountain location, that's the sort of thing that would lead to at the very least, rumor and legends. Is it somehow invisible unless you're actually there? I think that has to be the case, otherwise how do none of the old kingdoms from the maps Shallan looked at know where it is either?  

The only thing that doesn't make sense is Szeth being able to travel their through flight.  

[Jofwu he/him]

4 minutes ago, Hischier said:

My question is, given the size of this thing, how is it possible that no one knows about it? Even accounting for a remote mountain location, that's the sort of thing that would lead to at the very least, rumor and legends. Is it somehow invisible unless you're actually there? I think that has to be the case, otherwise how do none of the old kingdoms from the maps Shallan looked at know where it is either?  

The only thing that doesn't make sense is Szeth being able to travel their through flight.  

There are rumors and legends.

If you're specifically referring to the location, that's pretty thoroughly explained in TWoK. Nobody traveled there by foot; the fragments of maps that remain all just point at oathgates. The place hasn't been visited in 1000+ years, and for the Vorin world it's a symbol of the reviled Knights Radiant. So it's not surprising that anything specific would be lost. Even if a specific reference does exist, it would probably be at odds with other mistaken or erroneous claims. And traveling through tall mountain ranges is not something easy to do. You'd have to know exactly where you're going if you don't want to spend a lifetime searching the mountains. Assuming it's actually possible to reach it by foot in the first place.

It's big, but it's not THAT big. You'd have to get reasonably close before you could see it.

[Calderis he/him]

17 minutes ago, jofwu said:

There are rumors and legends.

If you're specifically referring to the location, that's pretty thoroughly explained in TWoK. Nobody traveled there by foot; the fragments of maps that remain all just point at oathgates. The place hasn't been visited in 1000+ years, and for the Vorin world it's a symbol of the reviled Knights Radiant. So it's not surprising that anything specific would be lost. Even if a specific reference does exist, it would probably be at odds with other mistaken or erroneous claims. And traveling through tall mountain ranges is not something easy to do. You'd have to know exactly where you're going if you don't want to spend a lifetime searching the mountains. Assuming it's actually possible to reach it by foot in the first place.

It's big, but it's not THAT big. You'd have to get reasonably close before you could see it.

Yeah. Mountains in every direction around it make it invisible unless your in the mountains themselves. 

Exploration through mountainous terrain is probably a terrible place to be during a highstorm. 

Unless you can fly, finding the place would be amazingly difficult without a spot on a map, and even then without a marked pathway, getting lost in a mountain range isn't hard. 

Edited September 25, 2017 by Calderis

[Hischier]

6 minutes ago, jofwu said:

There are rumors and legends.

If you're specifically referring to the location, that's pretty thoroughly explained in TWoK. Nobody traveled there by foot; the fragments of maps that remain all just point at oathgates. The place hasn't been visited in 1000+ years, and for the Vorin world it's a symbol of the reviled Knights Radiant. So it's not surprising that anything specific would be lost. Even if a specific reference does exist, it would probably be at odds with other mistaken or erroneous claims. And traveling through tall mountain ranges is not something easy to do. You'd have to know exactly where you're going if you don't want to spend a lifetime searching the mountains. Assuming it's actually possible to reach it by foot in the first place.

It's big, but it's not THAT big. You'd have to get reasonably close before you could see it.

There are rumors and legends about Urithiru. But I don't recall them pointing to it being a giant tower.  Plus I'm not talking about rumors referring to Urithiru, I'm talking about people talking about a weird structure in the mountains.  They might not have any idea what it was.

And if you look at the scale comparing an estimated size to the tallest man-made structures on Earth, I think it is THAT big. Even if it's 70% of that size it's THAT big. 

I think there's a reason why no one saw or heard rumors about a giant mountain tower existing and it's probably a feature of Urithiru itself.  Maybe it's even somehow related to Shallan's inability to draw it. I don't think that's a size thing because she was able to draw the plateau map accurately by simply walking around the bottom of them. 

 

[Starla]

@Hischier I think the mountains surrounding it are at least as tall as the tower. So from a distance, people would only see a normal mountain range. Think of a single mountain in the center of the Himalayas being carved into a pyramid-like structure. No one would know it was there unless they flew over the mountain range or happened upon it by foot, which seems pretty difficult since it contains sheer cliffs and peaks above cloud level.

Edited September 25, 2017 by Starla

[Jofwu he/him]

I've been working on a computer model/analysis. Might take me a few days to get something useful though. It's a weird thing to model. Got to figure what will yield useful results, and from there how to interpret them properly.

[17th Splinter he/him]

@jofwu that looks great! But what do the different colors mean? 

[Dahak he/him]

6 hours ago, jofwu said:

Nobody traveled there by foot

Except apparently Nohandon. Who claimed to have walked there from Abamabar in the 8th parable from The Way of Kings.

[17th Splinter he/him]

Just now, Dahak said:

Except apparently Nohandon. Who claimed to have walked there from Abamabar in the 8th parable from The Way of Kings.

I think that it could be possible now that we know more about Urithiru. If Nohadon came from the side with the ring of oathgates it might have been possible. We don't know if the is a sheer cliff on every side

[ccstat he/him]

@jofwu Thank you for finding that quote. I knew I was missing one! I added it and an image with your proposed arrangement to the OP.

Also, I look forward to seeing what your stress modeling reveals.

Edited September 26, 2017 by ccstat