Sphinx

I have to really really really really really question the logic of announcing that you have a goal item to select an heir when, if you are killed, the ghostbloods can still get one of your items. Please don't run risky gambits without double and triple checking the rules. Unless you're just trying to make things completely crazy. New question: If someone's items are split up among the people who voted for him, do people know who gets what? At this point, everything's confusing enough that I'm going to retract my vote for Tors and vote for no one. Prove it Jim Bob Dirt: (2) Fnorf, Tors, Sprenil: (0) Tion, Tors Pailan: (0) Awes Tors: (2) Tion, Pailan, Joe Jain: (1) Wurum, Xanas Macen: (0) Xanas

While that is a valid question, garnet is the gemstone associated with the essence of blood, while ruby is, as mentioned, associated with fire, so it doesn't make a lot of sense for them to be switched. Also, the apothecary says "two sapphire marks" instead of "one emerald mark" so I don't think this disproves bloodmarks being garnets. Do we know for certain that those are the relative values of the gemstones? Edit: Oh hey, there's a whole other page here with people already making this point. Oops.

Where is this? I remember Breeze and Alrianne, but I don't remember allusions to Vin and Elend. I would find it odd that we suddenly start getting clearly post-sex scenes after they get married if those have been happening all along but just not shown. It's clear they sometimes sleep in the same room, but between Vin's paranoia, their incompatible sleep schedule, etc, I found it both believable and likely that they didn't have premarital sex. I do think it's quite likely that Navani and Dalinar are. There's both Pattern offering to replicate their noises, and that one scene you mentioned.

I forgot we can take multiple night actions. (Up to three, right?) So theoretically someone could name an heir and discover information, and it might not be a bad idea to do so. While there's still a 25% chance of naming a Ghostblood as heir, that's a 75% chance that any items other than the first will get sent to a non ghostblood, which is better than a 100 percent chance they all go to the ghostbloods. So I'm going to suggest that people with multiple items (assuming there are some) should seriously consider naming an heir tonight. Assuming said heir doesn't know they're the heir until after the death, right? Edit to add: Could we get the various clarifications on rules and items added to the first post of the main thread? Assuming our overworked GM gets the chance, of course. It would just be a little easier to reference back, especially as the game goes on.

I'm not sure why following your plan, or not following your plan, needs to be announced. There's some benefit to agreeing to behave cohesively, and then seeing where deviations pop up, but there's really no real way to tell if people are following the plan or not. Declaring an heir may be valuable, but if you only have one item, it'll go to the ghostbloods whether you declare an heir or no. I think this is a game where we need information quickly, particularly with the lack of the nobility to communicate privately, and if everyone spends their night declaring heirs, we won't get any.

Keep in mind that Shallan's views of "pittance" are influenced by her rank and family wealth. It's quite likely that that is a pittance for a servant of the Davar family, even if it would be quite respectable wages otherwise.

I'll try to be more active this game. Past couple days have been super busy. I didn't even realise the game had started until yesterday, and didn't have time to read through everything and post until now. I'm still undecided about what the best thing to do on the first day is. I'm also unconvinced that the Ghostbloods won't start a vote, because I think in pretty much every game, they have. "A Ryshadium handler?" Pailan drawled, taking a sip of her wine, suppressing the twinge of envy at the mention of the great creatures. "I'm sure that teaches you a great deal about how to care for real horses." She raised an eyebrow, and lifted her gloved safehand in salute. "Or, perhaps, you are simply too befuddled to recognise a woman when you see one." True, she was a bit flat and wasn't much for fashion and perfumes like so many other brightladies, and really, it had been partly for that that she'd been drawn to horses in the first place. If she couldn't ride one to battle, to victory, to the tranquiline halls, at least she didn't have to pursue war with a quill and paintbrush. She returned to frowning at Sprenil. She really had no idea what he was thinking, volunteering himself like this. Confessing? She would have preferred to be able to trust the one person she was at least a nodding acquaintance with, both being in Hatham's service. Her gaze flicked back to Tion, and her frown deepened. Who was he to take charge. And yet, yet, he did seem to be making sense. She set her cup down, and rubbed at her temples with her free hand. She hadn't had enough sleep the night before, what with one of her charges foaling. She should probably feel something about the King being dead, now that she thought about it, but, really, her loyalty had always been for Highprince Hatham. The King frankly had little to do with her, except an excuse for her Highlord to enter combat. What would become of the Vengeance Pact now? Well, if it was dissolving Highlord Hatham would need his people even more than ever. Even if they were a half-trained stormwarden with no sense at all. Of course, if she agreed, she'd be singled out as well. Dilemmas. Well, she couldn't just sit here. There were decisions to be made, actions to be taken, she would be remiss if she simply sat back and let matters take their course when she could be involved. "I agree. I think we should be wary of Tors." Jim Bob Dirt: 1 (Fnorf) Sprenil: (1) Tion, Tors Pailan: (1) Awes Tors: (2) Tion, Pailan Jain: (1) Wurum Depending on what happens in the next few hours, I may have time to switch, if people have persuasive arguments otherwise. I realise that the exact same logic used against Tors might be used against me. I also think that the Ghostbloods may not actually mind other people building up arsenals of items that they can raid.

9 votes against proposal 2, 1 vote for 6.2

I don't think Nohadon actually said that in his book. We've admittedly seen only a handful of excerpts, but none of them have referenced eye colour at all, even the ones that have an emphasis on kings being the servants of those they rule. The "lighteyes are beneath darkeyes" quote references Dalinar thinking about the phrase the Alethi lighteyes use to dismiss the book as sacrilegious. I can't look up the exact wording just now. Given the way the Alethi language has adapted so that class rank is synonymous with eye colour (see Rock's difficulties explaining his homeland's nobility), it seems highly probable to me that the "lighteyes are beneath darkeyes" comes from reading cultural norms into "rulers should serve their people" and possibly difficulties with translation (I know there's some discussion of books and translations and ancient copies of Way of Kings surviving, and I think it highly likely that the Way of Kings was not written in modern Alethi, so the "lighteyes" may have snuck into translations, when it wasn't in the original text.) I think this tells us that in Nohadon's time eyecolour was not synonymous with leadership, though as they were coming out of a Desolation without the Knight's Radiant, it is likely that many of the surviving surgebinders had risen to positions of leadership and authority, but that there were still non-surgebinders who held power. The events leading up to the Recreance, and the Recreance itself, may well have been a turning point in the stratification of lighteyes and darkeyes as distinct social classes.

That depends on your definition of "made up." I read it as a very The Junglesque set up. Ridiculously high prices for food, lodging, all sorts of hidden fines for every infraction, etc etc etc guarantees that the debt is never actually paid off in almost all cases. The slaves are mostly kept in the dark as to the sums of what's going on so they don't fuss, but if someone gets really insistent, or another light eyes investigates, there probably is paperwork "proving" that the slave debt hasn't been paid off. Kaladin never really puts a lot of effort into finding out how much his is (that we see), and when he wants to stop paying it back and get all his wages, he's allowed to. There's no massive conspiracy among the lighteyes to keep slaves in the dark about the fact that slave debt is a myth that no one actually keeps track of. There's just lots of mini conspiracies to keep the debts exorbitant and the wages low. This has a lot of parallels in real world indentured servitude/debt bondage/immigrant factory workers.

I think I'll go ahead and sign up for this, now that I have a slightly better understanding of how these things work. Pailan is a lighteyed stablemaster for Brightlord Hatham.

Yes, I am aware that other surges have spiritual components. I'm arguing, however, that with Lightweaving (as it appears on Roshar, at least. Obviously Yolish lightweaving doesn't use the surges), the transformation surge contributes to the spiritual component. I think I'm reading the ars arcanum fairly differently from you, so I'll try to highlight how I'm reading it to make it clear. The quote says that Lightweaving involves the manipulation of light and sound in illusory tactics. Illumination is "the surge of light, sound and various waveforms." Therefore I read this as Lightweaving involves Illumination, so Illumination is a component of Lightweaving. I did not interpret this to mean that Lightweaving is an application of only the Illumination surge. "The illusion is based not simply upon what the Lightweaver imagines, but upon what they desire to create." It's this desire to create that brings in the transformative aspects of Lightweaving. I also read "variations" as variations of illusory tactics, not as variations of "lightweaving." Transformation is described as the "surge of soulcasting" yes. We've primarily seen soulcasting in the form of turning things into one or another of the ten essences. However the name "soulcasting" invokes a very spiritual component, and, as I mentioned, Pattern specifically calls out Shallan's demonstration of the Transformation surge in what she is doing by inspiring others when in the Frost Lands. Although looking back, I do see him also referring to Lightweaving as the manipulation of light. But I still think there's some sort of distinction of the Lightweaving the Lightweavers do, and the illusions that Truthwatchers can create with the Illumination surge. And I think that difference ties into the Ars Arcanum's excitement about Lightweaving and its relationship to the Yolish equivalent. Anyway, this is thoroughly off topic for this thread. We could maybe continue the conversation somewhere else if you like? I can also edit my original post to make my point with less derailing word choice.

I think this is the WoB that people base that on. There may be a more explicit one somewhere. As to the Herald thing, I think it comes from here. It's worth noting that the other Herald is referred to as "he" (and has a good chance of being Nalan) and that since this WoB Navani will no longer be having a flashback book, Renarin and Lift will, and other things may have changed as well. source

The full quote from the Ars Arcanum author is this: Lightweaving is defined as "a second form of Surgebinding involves the manipulation of light and sound in illusory tactics common throughout the cosmere." Please note that it involves something common throughout the cosmere. It is not, in fact, Lightweaving that is common throughout the cosmere, but "the manipulation of light and sound in illusory tactics." Furthermore, the author goes on to talk about how, unlike the "variations" on illusory tactics present on Sel, "this method" (Lightweaving) has a powerful Spiritual element. It is this spiritual element that makes Lightweaving the most similar ability to the original Yolish variant. We don't actually know what these other illusory tactics are called. I have never seen any WoB calling them Lightweaving, except the original Yolish variant, which, like Lightweaving on Roshar, contains the spiritual component. So where does that spiritual component come from? I would argue Transformation. Truthwatchers have access to the Illumination surge. They do not Lightweave. I absolutely do not believe that Lightweavers are only named after one of their surges when every other order seems to be named after things that involve both their surges. I may be being more assertive in my opinion than this warrants, but I do believe that it is confusing and a disservice to the magic system to forget about the transformation aspect of lightweaving. This is something that Pattern even calls out when discussion how Shallan's use of illusions has transformed people demonstrating her affinity with "transformation". Transformation is not just about soulcasting. I think it's also worth noting that when Hoid is talking to Shallan about what she can do, he talks about how she does not yet understand the nature of truths and lies and their interactions. I think this signals that this aspect is fundamental to "Lightweaving" as a whole, and that this is somewhat separate from the Illumination surge. I believe the Ars Arcanum passage is intended to direct us to better understand the power of Lightweaving, that only the Order named after it can do, not to suggest that LIghtweaving is something all people who use illumination can do. It's mostly us readers who have conflated Lightweaving and Illumination, there is a distinction in the text.

I think Ym is a Truthwatcher, with about 90% certainty. For the sake of discussion, I'm going to argue the other 10%. It is debateable that this is what Ym's spren meant. He may have been suggesting lightweaving (assuming lightweaving is an application of illumination and not a mixture of illumination of transformation). Or just suggesting light and illusions in general. Or he might have been saying to use the stormlight to escape via friction, or to use the stormlight to survive being attacked by a shardblade. Now, I think you're right, that Ym's spren's movement is described as essentially the opposite of Wyndle's, which suggests that they are, in fact, different spren. And the vocabulary of Ym's spren emphasizes the light aspects of its appearance, whereas Wyndle's emphasizes the crystalline aspects, but, I think there's enough similarity here to justify wondering if they are actually the same type of spren, and that the differences lie more with Lift's oddities. They are certainly a lot more similar than any other two spren we've seen, even Pattern and Ivory who also share a surge. We know that Pattern manifests markedly differently in Shadesmar than he does in the physical realm, even though some characteristics remain the same. Therefore it's not entirely out of the question that Lift, being partly in the cognitive realm, sees Wyndle differently. She doesn't mention seeing other spren differently, but, honestly, there's a lot Lift doesn't mention, including whether or not she can "touch" other spren like she does Wyndle. If she can't, then maybe she sees Wyndle differently, while other spren haven't changed. If she can, maybe she sees all spren differently, but doesn't bother to think about it because food. Thing is, from what we know of Ym, he would also embody the Edgedancer fundamentals perfectly. He brings both love and healing to the urchins he cares for. He also seems well on his way to embodying the first ideal of the edgedancers "remembering those who have been forgotten." According to Nalan, the Edgedancers "would ignore things of great import in favor of smaller things, as some would see it" which seems as fitting for Ym as for Lift. The Truthwatchers were described as esoteric and secretive, and Ym, excepting his deception about the spheres, seems to not be. All in all, Ym's behaviour and experiences with his spren seem far more similar to Lift's than to the tiny bit we know about Renarin's. As I said, I do think Ym is a Truthwatcher, mostly due to the appearance and behaviour of his spren. I think people do have a decent case that Ym gives an impression of being an Edgedancer in his behavior. I think listing him as a suspected but uncomfirmed Truthwatcher is a reasonable approach at this point in time. Edited to rephrase in a way less likely to derail the thread.

Welcome to the forums! RAFO: Read And Find Out. When people ask Brandon Sanderson questions that he doesn't want to answer because they'll be answered one way or another in later books, he tells them this. WoB: Word of Brandon. He does answer some questions, however, and so people keep a record of what he has answered and use it as a basis for a lot of speculation and theories, as it sometimes gives additional information to what has been found in the books so far. So when someone asserts something is true because WoB, they're saying that it's something Brandon has actually said. Be a little skeptical if they don't give you an exact quote, sometimes people misremember, or conflate things he has said and it can be misleading. Most of the discussion on the Bondsmiths is happening in the Words of Radiance subforum, because there are spoilers for Words of Radiance in there. Here are some of the threads, if you're interested in checking them out, though like Jaaxster said, we don't really know much about the Bondsmiths. http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7145-my-theory-on-the-bondsmiths http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7392-theory-on-the-bondsmiths-spren http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6513-the-bondsmiths-3

I'm voting for Ver due to his complete lack of presence in the game., whereas I've found both Bart and Rick to be relatively convincing in their attempts to persuade others of their innocence. At least they participated, even at the risk of seeming more suspicious.

How does Renarin healing his eyesight (whether through stormlight or regrowth) and no longer needing glasses fit with your theory?

See, I kind of interpreted this interlude as being meant to show us that there are Nahel bonds forming all over Roshar, and that not all spren are the sole representatives of their kind. (Though we do know Syl's the only honour spren currently). That Ym's spren is a duplicate of either Glys or Wyndle is revealing, and tells us something different than if Ym's spren had not been a duplicate. We can therefore assume that Brandon wanted this revealed, and that Brandon is not a strong supporter of getting only one character per order for at least the first 5 books. If Ym had been, say, a Willshaper, we'd have all sorts of theories floating around about what it meant that "the" Willshaper had been killed, if that was going to be a problem, what that would mean for the other orders and Odium, if his spren was going to bond someone else, if he had somehow secretly survived, if he would be showing up again, etc, etc. We'd have even more people shutting down the idea that x can be a member of the same order as y using the anomalous Syl and an argument from silence as their basis. Having confirmation that there are spren groups with multiple representatives redirects our speculations, reveals the possibility of more duplicates showing up, leaves certain unknown orders still mysterious, and gives us more options to speculate as to which order x will become a part of. It would have been nice to get more information about an order we don't know very much about. Clearly that's not what Brandon wanted to do with Ym's interlude. The closest WoB we have for this is: Which confirms the first half of the sentence. The second half is entirely speculation, unless you have a WoB to back it up. We know each book has a main PoV character, each book focuses on an order, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that PoV character is from that Order. So far that has been the case, but we know that Eshonai and somewhere between 0 (if Taln =/= Taln) and 2 (if Taln is Taln + other main Herald) of the Heralds were at one point being considered for flashback characters. Under what definition of Skybreaker Szeth counts as a member of the Order is also still being debated.

The reason Wil'son and Rick are still suspicious to me after voting for Jeo is that the former did so after he'd gotten a few votes, which from mafia games I've played in person is when mafia try to sneak into the middle of a bandwagon on other mafia. Similar things can be said about Rick. Wil'son also seems to be around a lot more than posting, especially in comparison to previous games. Given that I'm a major lurker though, it'd be hypocritical to pursue that too far. I think I recall Dainard getting pushed by several Pahn Kahl at one point, which makes him less suspicious to me. I don't remember the details and should probably reverify that. Gammer and Ben have struck me as fairly consistent and pro villager. *goes to review lists*

I think that currently I'm most suspicious of Rick, Wil'son and Sart. Ver and Ben are borderline. Jeo's first vote was for Ver, which makes me less suspicious, although that could of course be all a PK ploy. I'll have to go back through and think about things.

I think it's less that Shallan "is suppressing unwanted truths" and more that Shallan has way too many other things to think about, and even if she did, she just does not have the information that would suggest that Jasnah is anything but dead. At the time of Jasnah's death, Shallan has pretty much no knowledge of stormlight healing powers. She first learns it in the middle of the Frostlands, while healing her feet. She doesn't seem to understand the full potential of it until she manages to survive the huge drop to the chasm floor during Ialai's assassination attempt. Prior to this point, there is no reason for it to even occur to her that stormlight healing might have saved Jasnah. She's even unsure of how it works then, particularly as she thinks she must somehow have saved Kaladin. At the end of the book, she comments about taking a spear to the stomach, but that is less immediately fatal than a dagger straight through the heart. Even if she reflected back on Jasnah's death, there would be nothing in her memory to suggest that Jasnah had suddenly received an influx of stormlight to heal her. Note that when the assassins drag Jasnah out, she's already staring sightlessly, with blood on her nightgown: they think they've already killed her. The stab Shallan witnesses is to "be sure." Why should she? The assassins likely did take the trunk above, as we find out that the Ghostbloods wanted the information and that was the one with all of Jasnah's books. Just because the trunk washed up and Jasnah didn't, doesn't mean Shallan should revise her assumption that Jasnah is dead.

I think we need to take the quotes from the Words of Radiance book with a rather large dose of salt. After all, the Edgedancers are described as Our example Edgedancer is Lift. Plus, the book even states that Invia's viewpoint may have been highly biased, and certainly her sister seems to feel that Eshonai has demonstrated capriciousness in the past, while Venli played the dutiful daughter. I'm not convinced that Eshonai will become a Knight Radiant, but I do agree that if she does the Willshapers would be likely.

I definitely agree with you on reading them as a progression of knowledge, rather than as written at the same time as a backward looking thing over the entire arc of the stormlight archives. But I'd argue even further that it doesn't make sense for them to be written at the end of each book. The present text in each describes things as they are in the middle of the book, not as they are at the end. I'd say that Kaladin's text in particular in the second one "The Windrunner, lost in a shattered land, balanced upon the boundary between vengeance and honor" doesn't match up with his firm step away from vengeance towards honor. Except that the death rattle for the prologue of the way of kings is "“The love of men is a frigid thing, a mountain stream only three steps from the ice. We are his. Oh Stormfather…we are his. It is but a thousand days, and the Everstorm comes.” for chapter 5: “I have seen the end, and have heard it named. The Night of Sorrows, the True Desolation. The Everstorm.” Dalinar's visions say: “Unite them. The sun approaches the horizon. The Everstorm comes. The True Desolation. The Night of Sorrows.” and later “I have said I that cannot be of much help to you. The Night of Sorrows will come, and the True Desolation. The Everstorm.” It's strongly suggested that at least Gavilar had these visions before Dalinar, and that he's discussed them with more than one of the secret societies operating in Roshar. So clearly there are multiple possible sources for prophetic visions of the Everstorm, and multiple ways for people to have knowledge of the Everstorm's approach years prior to the Everstorm's summoning. "The Everstorm looms" does not indicate much more understanding of the Everstorm than what is present in the above quotes, and if someone has knowledge of the last desolations, it seems reasonable that they have some knowledge of the Everstorm. As I mentioned, I'm not convinced the writer is a nonhuman. I just think it's an intriguing possibility, and as it hadn't been brought up yet, I thought I'd go ahead and throw it out there. The line breaks caused me to separate "men" from the "knights radiant," which may or may not be a valid way of reading it.

The following is theorizing on the faintest shreds of nothing, but wooo random semi-haphazard speculation! and Suggest to me that the speaker is not a spren, as to the best of our knowledge the spren still possess the magics of ancient days, it's just their capacity to give them that is curtailed, while in the second quote it seems odd for the voice of "us" and "we" and "ours" to suddenly change to "the spren." Why not "we return"? This quote, however, is interesting. "Men" is now identified as "them." While someone human might use "Men" to refer to their own struggles, "them" seems to disassociate the speaker from humankind. So if we pursue the theory that the speaker is neither human nor spren, while still being a group of people: A subgroup of Listeners: This, admittedly, requires some convoluted twisting and a revision of some of our understanding of Parshendi. If we stretch the meanings of "victory" and "ours" to the breaking point, we can maybe suggest that the first part refers to the group of listeners breaking away and escaping. "Surgebinding and Shardwielding can return; the magics of ancient days can become ours again" the magics of ancient days in this case is distinct form surgebinding and shardwielding, and perhaps represents forms from before the parshendi gods. "One of them may redeem us. And one of them will destroy us." Takes on an interesting meaning if taken to be the Listeners. The lyrical rhythm of the backflaps also fits the rhythms of the Parshendi. The Parshendi are also much more likely to be knowledgeable about Eshonai, who is a weak point in most of the human theories. The Parshendi would also have some ability to watch all of the mentioned people without being known to be doing it. Obviously, this theory has massive holes in it, but perhaps it is barely possible that someone like Eshonai's mother is having some sort of knowledge of what is going on that surpasses what we've seen so far. Whatever Iyatil is: This runs into similar problems as Tempus outlined for the Ghostbloods in general. It is possible that they were aware of Dalinar's latent abilities, in addition to having some understanding of Shallan's, but not realising Shallan was Veil immediately. The Ghostbloods seem to be the most up to date and informed so far, and we know that they have spies on almost all the viewpoint characters. Aimians: We really have no sign that the Aimians are around and watching beyond Axies studying spren. Axies seems fairly nonchalant about everything too. Horneaters: Have been mentioned as being not quite human, and have some understanding of things that are going on that we don't completely understand. Some of them show up in odd places. On the other hand, there's really nothing in Rock's mystical stories that this level of detailed awareness is going on, and the style is definitely not Horneater. Although perhaps it's just been translated, given the Horneaters' penchant for poetry. Soulcasters: Fitting in with the Vorin side of things, it's obvious that some of these might not consider themselves Human anymore. And they do have a great deal of unobtrusive presence around the main four, and even some ability to know things about Eshonai. Of course, it's quite possible (probable?) that the "them" is merely meant to indicate that those struggling with seeking what was lost risk destruction, and the group of people writing this do not, and so the authors are still human. Edited to add (as double posting is bad): Whether the writings were written before, during, or after the book would probably help us steer in the right direction. Personally, I find it more likely that they were written either just before, or partway through, rather than after. For one thing, all the writings describe the struggle the characters face in that particular book in the present tense, which seems odd if it's written when that character arc is over. There's also this: Which I interpreted as implying that the Everstorm had not yet been summoned, and that the four mentioned had not yet "awakened." I'd think that by the end the book, the Everstorm is not looming anymore.