hoser

Interesting thoughts. I just assumed that in the cognitive realm, everything had cognition. So the consciousness of the glass could speak to Shallan. Either that or there is a spren in everything and you can talk to the spren in Shadesmar. I struggle with the idea of shardbladed souls getting put in things because I lack the imagination to solve the issues of what happens before shardblades are created and why don't some objects get multiple souls crammed into them. If Jasnah is soulcasting things by talking to them and bribing them with stormlight, then she wouldn't be able to change objects that hadn't had souls crammed into them or she'd have to bribe multiple souls sometimes, if I understand the theory correctly. These issues are solvable, but I struggle with the implications. Great connection, and now I am wondering about what shardblades really do. I just assumed that the smoke and death of the body was a side effect of the blades severing the connection to the spiritual realm. An interesting implication is what happens in the cognitive realm at the moment of being shardbladed. Shallan doesn't seem aware of any voices from her body when in Shadesmar. Her body is an object, though. If she were shardbladed while talking to Jasnah in Shadesmar, would a different voice suddenly come from her body? What would it's cognitive story be? Creepy doesn't begin to describe it.

I like where this thread is going, and as long as Windrunner is participating, I guess it's OK w/him. There seem to be the following possibilities for spren bonding: 1. all radiants bond only w/honorspren, Syl and the symbolheads are all honorspren. 2. all radiants bond only w/10 distinct subclasses of honorspren, Syl and the symbolheads are different kinds of honorspren. 3. all radiants bond only w/honorspren and 9 different other classes of spren including Shallan's symbolhead/truthspren. Are these the only possibilities that people are attached to? A separate question has arisen about other spren. Apparently in Nohadon's time some non-honorspren could bond w/non-radiants who would then become non-radiant surgebinders. Is that still possible? Another point on which I got lost is how we know that Honor is responsible for surgebinding. It seems likely, but I am unclear where it became known. Cheers

That the black piper is an Unmade seems like a strong possibility. If these people are seeing the spiritual realm as they pass into it, I have trouble imagining them seeing Hoid. Hoid seems more like an incredibly capable catalyst who manipulates the cognitive realm than a power of the spiritual realm. But, of course, this wouldn't be the first time I've been led far astray. Odium seems like another possibility for the black piper, but I don't remember any other references to Odium as any sort of musician (makes one think, "Tonight at the Veden Club ... Odium and the Unmade"). When you put it together like this, I find it interesting that the other unmade all have a hyphenated name and a descriptive name. I doubt they are introducing themselves by name. Are the names given to them by the Heralds? made up by the people? provided by the radiants? And what's with the hyphens? Are the names indicating some sort of dual or combined essence? The hyphenation doesn't seem Vorin. What is their linguistic origin? Could that help us figure out where they are from? So many questions ... Onward through the fog!

Yes, excellent possibilities. The quotes about Urithiru do seem to indicate a human decision about the placement. Teft suggested (IIRC) that the radiants derived their ideals from the book, which contributes to my chicken-and-egg confusion. Teft's sources could easily be wrong though. Nohadon could have gotten the ideals from the radiants and had them written.

This seems like a strong possibility to me. Supposedly there were ten "Silver Kingdoms" and there was a place where there were thrones for all the kings. The kings might not have wanted to be in the sovereign territory of another or within reach of another's military. Another possibility is that the inaccessibility was the attraction. In this case the mountains in Alethkar were not inaccessible enough. They look impressive in the map of Roshar. In the map of Alethkar, not so much.

Hi Windrunner, I love this thread of yours and feel grateful for your letting me play here. I really like having my constructions challenged. Hopefully together we get further than we would have individually. As with anything, there are infinite possibilities. On your interpretation, the Terxim quote seems full of non-sequiturs. It seems to me that we have far too few clues to throw any away. If the only nonradiant access to teleportation is through Urithiru then the quote hangs together. I like to think that Brandon is leaving hints, and that quote seems gravid. Besides, if Terxim finds the tariffs through Urithiru unreasonable, but he could avoid them by teleporting directly from place to place, why would he bother complaining about them? Wouldn't he just avail himself of the cheap alternative transport and not even think of the expensive routes through Urithiru? I obviously don't know why the Radiants made all the Oathgates go to Urithiru. But think about what we know about the Radiants. They have technology and spirituality that is millenia ahead of what the rest of the world does. They use it to protect the world, but don't share it. Then they take off, apparently without a word of explanation. It seems completely consistent that they would set up oathgates that only they could control. You make another excellent point. We know that Nohadon is a king in what is now known as Kholinar. The point of his book is that the journey is more important than the destination. He could start his journey from some random place that he teleported to. To me that turns his journey from quixotic to farcical, but I am making leaps from the scantiest of clues. All I really know is that Abamabar does seem to be a Vorin name. Great questions. If I had limited personnel and wanted to control a network that was also a source of income, forcing all travel through a single nexus would be an efficient way to administer it. The radiants themselves could teleport wherever they want, as we saw in the Midnight Essence vision. But really, I'm just interpreting the few clues we have in what seems like the most meaningful way. If the oathgates don't all go to Urithiru, why did Brandon write the Terxim quote the way he did? Why would Nohadon make a pilgrimage from another country than his own? Actually, I just thought of something. The radiants were inspired by Nohadon's book. They didn't exist at the time of Dalinar's visit w/Nohadon. Urithiru is the birthplace of the Radiants. The book is about a journey to Urithiru. How does that work? The book must predate the radiants, and Urithiru apparently predates the book. Oh well. Sorry for the ramble. Please educate me. EDITED: grammar, punctuation, corrected Kholin city name to Kholinar

I love all these ideas. Since I make so many assumptions, I learn a lot from what you guys are thinking. I also have no direct line to the truth, so I don't want to seem argumentative. I proposed that the Oathgates all went to Urithiru to explain the Terxim quote. If there were direct Oathgates, why did Terxim go through Urithiru? If I had to further rationalize it, I would say that if all the Oathgates went to Urithiru, they could be easily monitored by a small number of radiants and it would be more difficult for Voidbringers to use them for travel around the continent. As far as Urithiru being in Shinovar goes, I really like the idea. The only problems I see with it is that it seems too far for Nohadon to walk from Alethela in a matter of weeks and I don't know that it is one of the Silver kingdoms or one of the Vorin nations (although I vaguely remember Shallan being surprised at how many Vorin nations existed). Would Urithiru have been built in a non-Vorin area? I wonder whether it could be in a mountain range between nations, sort of the way the District of Columbia is not in any state. Cheers all

Yes! I've been wondering the same thing. It's also great to have the quotes all together. I have a few thoughts that I hope will advance the discussion. I assume that all the quotes contain accurate information about Urithiru. As far as the location goes, we know it is to the west of Alethelakar. We also know that Nohadon walked there from Abamabar and that his associates had been there for weeks. Nohadon ruled in what is now Kholinar in Alethkarela. The simplest and reasonably logical assumption is that Abamabar is an old name for Kholinar. If Nohadon could walk to the city, it must have a continental location. If we assume that his associates left at the same time, traveled instantly and that he left from Alethcholera, then that limits us to how far a man can walk in weeks. But how many weeks? If I say weeks, I don't mean one week, nor do I mean ten weeks. We refer to a time frame as weeks when it is between two and four weeks. If we assume that a not-young man can travel 20 miles a day with some tolerance, then that gives us a range of distances westward of Alethark (200-600 miles?). A city that is high up, has a physical location that can be walked to and cannot be reached by foot. It seems that it is floating in the sky or atop an inaccessible mountain. My understanding about Brandon's intentions regarding physics is that he would not do a floating city, so I imagine an inaccessible mountain location less than 600 miles west of Alethkala. How did anybody get there? How did Nohadon's associates get there? I believe that there were two orders of Radiants who could teleport as an ability and fabrials may have been created that mimicked that ability. Those fabrials could have been constructed to link Urithiru to various locations in a spoke like design with Urithiru as a hub. Two other orders could play with gravity and could basically have flown there. Teleportation by radiant or fabrial would then be the direct method. The city was not crafted by the hands of man. It could have been crafted by Honor. It could also have been soulcast by the two orders of radiants with innate soulcasting and others using the soulcaster fabrials. It could have been built by parshmen. It could have been built by women's hand. I believe that it was soulcast by radiants. What about the whiny guy who complains about having to pay too much as he flits from country to country in less than a day? I believe that the established teleportation network always went through Urithiru. The radiants charged for the service. Teleportation would have to be expensive, to avoid having all merchant traffic pass through Urithiru. What do people think? Edited to clarify meaning of "accurate" in first paragraph.

Yes! Upvote to Gagylpus for giving data and synthesizing. Interpreting behavior to derive attributes was not convincing to me as I kept fitting the behaviors to my desired expected results. This seems solid (in a murky sort of way). A side note is that the freeing of T's (I'm not even gonna try) kid was part of an explicit qui pro quo for access to the library. Another interesting note is that it may not have been necessary as some of his team have access to soulcasting. Implying that T may be studying Jasnah and the whole thing may have been a setup. A very interesting (to me!) thing to note in Gagylpus' listing is the implied association of the Ghostbloods and Kabsal with Herald 10. Thanks! Good work! On with the puzzling out! More exclamation points!

I like where this thread is going. I just want to throw in a few thoughts. I wonder about the idea of a quid pro quo regarding access to Shadesmar. If one had to reveal a new deep secret truth about themselves every time, it would be challenging to go very often and likewise to soulcast/transform. My theory is that the truth is needed to strengthen the (Nahel) bond with this particular type of spren. This seems similar to Kaladin's slave days, when Syl was asking Kaladin about himself. If this theory is correct, once the bond develops to a certain point, the spren may not require a new truth for every soulcast/transformation. Eventually, to progress as a Radiant, appropriate ideals would need to be committed to. Another point is about the soulcasting/transformation that Jasnah does for Taravangian. I assumed that the king asked Jasnah to do the soulcasting because he didn't have access to a Soulcaster of his own. But his agent that talks to Szeth in Chapter 28 does: It's possible that the situation is as it seems, and there just weren't any Soulcasters available, but given what we know about Taravangian, there are other possibilities. Did the stone that blocked the room fall naturally? Was it a ploy to understand Jasnah's Soulcasting capabilities and maybe whether she is using the fabrial?

This is great! I had just been cluelessly wondering about it. I have two thoughts to offer. First, the Nightwatcher seems to only act on the person who sees her. So there may be something involving Renarin, and protecting Renarin may be part of Dalinar's motivation, but I don't see the Nightwatcher giving Renarin an illness when Dalinar is the one who went to see her. Second, Dalinar could be ashamed of any or all of visiting the Nightwatcher, the nature of the boon and the nature of the curse. Which might explain his concern about Renarin's thoughts (although, actually, I like the idea that it does involve Renarin and am eager to hear what y'all come up with).

This thread seems to harbor some great and up-to-date speculation. There is another long-dormant thread here that has the chapter heading quotes in the opening post. This post is just to make a reference to the quotes, but I wonder whether some administrator might want to combine threads just to make things easier to find.

I love the speculation in this thread. Brilliant! All I can think of is boring and follows CrazyRioter's thought. The most relevant quote for me is from Chapter 30 (paperback p 587): Gaz isn't just bribing Lamaril to stay out of the bridge crews, but repaying some earlier debt. We also know that he had been a soldier, so he's been demoted (I assume). The obvious explanations, gambling or binge drinking, seem too mundane. But he's got two problems now: this unspecified debt and having failed to kill Kaladin. My completely baseless speculation would be that Lamaril is a go-between to someone higher up. Once the go-between is executed, it's easier just to call in the debt and punish him than find another agent. As for why he owes, slaves are assigned a debt, so maybe he has been jumped up from being a slave using a loan. Alternatively, he could have earned a harsh penalty, and bribed (on credit!) his way out of part of the punishment. It doesn't seem like we have enough information.

What about the Soulcasters - precious ancient fabrials used by the ardents that mimic the transformation abilities of the Radiants?

Hi Kaurne, This is your thread, as I see it, so I want to follow your lead. If you want to suss out all the abilities, rather than just Regrowth, I'd love to follow along. I think it starts with the Nahel bond that certain spren can create with certain sentient beings. According to the Nohadon vision, Honorspren are discriminating about the actions of the people they are attracted to. Based on his work, the KR evolved (presumably within his lifetime, as he writes of traveling to Urithiru). The symbolhead spren (seen by Elhokar in the mirror, Shallan in her artwork and recognized by Jasnah) may also be able to create a Nahel bond. The spren may have a relation with stormlight (none in Shinovar). The Nahel bond may allow spren to take on human attributes and vice versa. Fabrials work by combining stormlight with a trapped spren. The Nahel bond may work by combining stormlight with a bound spren. According to this theory, surgebinding is creatures using spren abilities. The things spren and fabrials can do will help us understand what surgebinders can do. But Kaladin can also infuse stormlight and heal, even though his abilities are Pressure and Gravity. It seems to me that Infusing and Healing must be inherent in the bond or the stormlight itself. I think that Regrowth is a different ability, but ReaderAt2046's suggestion above, as I interpret it, seems possible, in which case it might not be a specific ability. It seems like there could be an order that has both gravity and travel, but with ten orders there are obviously not orders for every pair of abilities (45 possible pairs?). The flying could just be referring to the two orders that have gravity as an ability (including Windrunners). The travel could be referring to only two orders that have travel as an ability. Other surges may include detection (the Knights detect Midnight Essences in Natanatan from Alethela and presumably monitor the entire continent) and communication (they could travel to communicate, but that seems cumbersome). Look at the spanreeds, which seem to communicate instantaneously over great distances. Communication could be an ability that binds to two orders of KR. Of course the KR could just use fabrials for these abilities. In chapter 59, it is suggested that KR could: Hope this helps.

Magic abilities: Travel: the Heralds fight all over the continent and rendez-vous in the immediate aftermath of the Desolations, the Knights Radiant are said by Kaladin to go from place to place instantly, there is a chapter heading quote that talks about going from city to city to city in less than a day and complains about the tariffs the KR charge. The Stoneward woman just shows up in the Midnight Essence fight, where we see the man fly in with an earthshaking impact. Dalinar: Strength in the fight with the chasmfiend, though some argue that it could be the Shardplate combining with his developing Knight radiantness. Detection: Syl detects the other people at the Shattered plains, the fabrial that the Thaylen traders use in Shinovar detects others also, the KR detect Midnight Essences in Natanatan (and presumably everywhere) from cities within Alethela. Regrowth: Midnight essence vision All these things could be or are definitely powered by stormlight, as I see it. The Radiants could be using stormlight to glow, fly, travel, Regrow and detect (we know they have other abilities, including soulcasting (if we believe Jasnah). Would it make sense to add them as actors in your list?

Interesting focus for a thread. I've been speculating about it also. I think Regrowth is different from healing, soulcasting, stormlight effects and stormlight-accelerated healing. Why? We know that Kaladin is becoming a windrunner with the special abilities of pressure and gravity (I can support this if needed) like the blue knight in the midnight essence vision. He also infuses stormlight and it heals him. We see the Stonewards in two visions and they also seem to infuse stormlight. So, at least two orders (and maybe all orders) infuse stormlight and it heals an order for whom healing is definitely a special ability. Szeth also knows the stormlight will heal him. From the prelude: I claim that infusing inherently provides a limited healing ability. The Radiants are obviously familiar with this, but they call what they do for Dalinar and the woman in the vision Regrowth. That implies that they consider it something different and I think Brandon wants to draw our attention to that. The word regrowth has a somewhat different meaning than healing, and I think that Brandon is deliberately trying to hint at a distinction by using that word, the capitalization is also a difference in the usage. Now consider the other use of Regrowth: This seems different: a distinct act of short duration where the healing that Kaladin and Szeth do is a more gradual and partial process; no glowing is described whereas the infused healing is accompanied by glowing stormlight use; the idea of chunks of missing flesh seems to draw an emphasis that exceeds the healing descriptions elsewhere. Soulcasting converts one thing to another instantly and atomically. The missing flesh is seen to grow with incredible speed where there was nothing. There is no conversion of anything else and the woman is not touching each void and converting air to flesh. She is just touching Taffa in one place and all the voids are filled from the areas around the voids (my interpretation!). As others have pointed out, flesh is much more complex than the ten essences. It would take a distinct and instant soulcasting of interwoven fat, muscle, skin, blood vessels and other kinds of flesh that I don't understand to create a flawless repair. The Knights knew soulcasting as two orders could do it, why would they call it regrowth in one specialized application? Clearly some of the things that Jasnah and Shallan do would never be called Regrowth. If it was just a particular skilled application of soulcasting, I doubt it would be called Regrowth by the Knights. I can't see how this is Soulcasting. So what is it? I think it's something else entirely. It could be one of the two special abilities of the Stonewards powered by the fabrial which acts as a stormlight battery as Wispsy has suggested. It could be something done with the fabrial that the woman utilizes. It could be a Radiant ability of two non-Stoneward orders copied by the fabrial that the Stoneward Knight uses. I can't find anything suggestive in the text. I personally favor the last theory, but have no solid supporting evidence. The distinct name, the capitalization and Brandon wanting to introduce early hints about the Radiant abilities all point toward it for me. What am I missing? What have I got wrong? Please let us all know.

I like where this speculation is leading. I offer another thought that may help season this stew. We know of three "guilds" that train their members independantly, communicate, keep records and work across nations: the healers, the ardents and the stormwardens. It seems clear to me that the healers are being used for intelligence purposes and to support Taravangian's efforts. Could the stormwardens and/or ardents be used similarly? If so, could there be an association between the mysterious Restares and the stormwardens? The ardents and the Ghostbloods? The three guilds seem like they would be useful for anyone wanting to expand their influence. Shallan's family seems about as unholy as imaginable, but the ardents seem like they could have access to some of the missing Blades and Plate. Sir Read-a-Lot pointed out that Restares seems too important to be hanging out with Amaram, but the stormwarden with Amaram could easily be helping Amaram communicate via spanreed or some other mechanism with Restares.

Neat topic. Some overlap with this one. This partially replicates a post I made there. If someone has a better idea about how to handle this situation, please let me know. In this thread CabbageHead makes an interesting point about motivation to kill Amaram. Basically, it could destabilize Sadeas and the Alethi kingdom. I agree with Tangletalon that Kabsal may reveal the view point of the Ghostbloods. I am struck by the conversation he has with Shallan in Chapter 45. Talking to Shallan about Jasnah, he says: For someone trying to be trusted enough to poison Jasnah, this is not a clever thing to say. It could therefore be what he really believes. If he believes this and joined the Ghostbloods, they presumably believe in the Desolations and are trying to do something about them. It also opens up the possibility that the Ghostbloods are involved with Vorinism more deeply. They could also be another group trying to pull a Taravangian. I agree with Xavien that they are not the same as Taravangian's group because we know what the Taravangians do to those they have a problem with. They just seem to be studying Jasnah, presenting her with not-strong Taravangian and contriving situations to get her to Soulcast even though they have Soulcasters of their own. I don't see evidence that Taravangian's group wanted to kill Jasnah at the point that Kabsal was trying. The Ghostbloods seem to be concerned with upcoming Desolations, want to destabilize Alethkar (Amaram and Jasnah assassination attempts, suspected in Gavilar's) and want to plant their own highprince in Jah Keved. To answer the original question, they seem to be a competing group trying to destabilize Alethkar, similarly to Taravangian, possibly with some Vorin basis.

Interesting question. For me the precursor question is: what are the Ghostbloods trying to achieve? What do we know about the Ghostbloods? As discussed above, Amaram seems to know about them and thinks they are led by Thaidakar Gavilar thinks Thaidakar is the most likely person to try to have him assassinated Amaram seems to think that they are behind the attack on him, so I guess the dead Shardbearer has a Ghostblood tattoo They may be behind the campaign to make Shallan's father a Highprince. They may have provided Shallan's father with a Shardblade and a Soulcaster and they have presumably provided the Shardbearer Kaladin killed with his Shardblade and Shardplate. Through Kabsal, they have tried to kill Jasnah, which seems like it could have a hugely destabilizing effect In this thread CabbageHead makes an interesting point about motivation to kill Amaram. Basically, it could destabilize Sadeas and the Alethi kingdom. Interestingly, Kabsal may reveal the view point of the Ghostbloods. He portrays an ardent, which may or may not be part of his cover, but I think he may also represent part of the Ghostblood point of view. I am struck by the conversation he has with Shallan in Chapter 45. Talking to Shallan about Jasnah, he says: For someone trying to be trusted enough to poison Jasnah, this is not a clever thing to say. It could therefore be what he really believes. If he believes this and joined the Ghostbloods, they presumably believe in the Desolations and are trying to do something about them. It also opens up the possibility that the Ghostbloods are involved with Vorinism more deeply. They could also be another group trying to pull a Taravangian. I don't think that they are the same as Taravangian's group because we know what Taravangian does to those they have a problem with. They just seem to be studying Jasnah, presenting her with not-strong Taravangian and contriving situations to get her to Soulcast even though they have Soulcasters of their own. I don't see evidence that Taravangian's group wanted to kill Jasnah at the point that Kabsal was trying. The Ghostbloods seem to be concerned with upcoming Desolations, want to destabilize Alethkar (Amaram and Jasnah assassination attempts, suspected in Gavilar's) and want to plant their own highprince in Jah Keved. To answer the original question, they seem to be a competing group trying to destabilize Alethkar, similarly to Taravangian, possibly with some Vorin basis. The Shardbearer enters a fight between Hallaw and Amaram. Hallaw is Alethi, likely from Vamah, possibly Aladar. Does the highprince of wherever Hallaw is from have Ghostblood support or is he likely to be succeeded by Hallaw (and might Hallaw have Ghostblood support)?

This seems to me like a reasonable interpretation from the text. It also seems possible that the Radiants quit sometime after the Heralds quit. As for the reference to "devils", I imagine that there could have been Desolations after the Heralds quit or the person making the reference could be demonizing the current non-Desolation opponents. It is possible to imagine honorable reasons for the Recreance that would still have the KR abandoning their oaths. Their purpose is to fight Desolations and protect the Silver Kingdoms. If there are no more Desolations, what are they supposed to do? It seems that this is Book 1 of 10. People universally admire the Heralds, who did abandon humanity. It seems appropriately Brandonish that the generally reviled Radiants will turn out to have had good reason for their actions. But I am afraid that I may be going off-track for this thread. As for the Blades and Plate, they seem evil now, but they could function (as others have suggested) differently in the hands of Radiants, or Odium could have corrupted them somehow. I don't see that this civilization ever had the capability to modify them, but as-is they might have really cool interactions that we can barely imagine in the hands of 5-oath Stormlight-infusing Radiants.

Good points, Satsuoni. I enjoy encountering varying points of view because, I assume so much that I am not aware of assuming (if that makes any sense). I will try to offer a clearer exposition. One minor point that I would like to offer is that Brandon seems to refer to the abilities with certain names that I have also seen used elsewhere on this site. For communication, I have found that it can be more useful to use a less descriptive term that more common. Specifically, with reference to the abilities, this quote from the Brandonthology (originally, presumably from an interview) gives us some names which I will use hereafter. You can obviously do whatever you want, but I will use (and recommend) Brandon's terms: Transformation, Travel, Regrowth, Pressure and Gravity. What are the list of abilities of surgebinders and Radiants? The following have strong evidence: Transformation, Pressure and Gravity. Some abilities seem to be general in that we know Kaladin to be a Windrunner with Pressure and Gravity as his two surgebinding abilities, but he still has other things that he can do with stormlight. The way his wounds heal seems to have nothing to do with either pressure or gravity. His enhanced speed under the influence of stormlight could be through the unconscious use of Pressure and Gravity, so I can't tell yet whether it is general or specific. Presumably all surgebinders benefit from general abilities, which I see as Healing, maybe speed and others that we don't know yet. Abilities can be accessed through one or more of general surgebinding (Healing), exclusive surgebinding (Gravity, Pressure, Transformation/Soulcasting), fabrials (Transformation/Soulcasting, Heating, Proximity of living creatures, pain reduction, fast communication across distances(spanreeds, using a form of telekineses)) and spren (Syl tells Kaladin that there are many more humans nearby as they approach the Shattered plains). Regrowth is clearly an ability, but it is not clear to me whether it can be done by exclusive surgebinding, fabrials or both. The argument for Travel: The Stoneward who appears in the Midnight Essence vision that we've discussed. The Radiants in cities around Alethela responding to incidents in Natanatan (and presumably the entire continent) as we've discussed. Chapter 59 Teft and Kaladin Dalinar's story from the Way of Kings had Nohadon's relatives traveling quickly. One of the chapter heading quotes has someone traveling from kingdom to kingdom in a single day and complaining about the tariffs the Radiants charged. I don't know whether Travel (teleportation?) is via exclusive surgebinding, fabrial or both, but I guess it is at least an exclusive surgebinding ability. Other possible abilities: Detect voidish (needed for Radiants to be able to protect the whole continent from locations in Alethela) Stonetravel (specific to Stonewards, your proposal) Burning (dustbringers?) Molecular separation explosions (dustbringers?) Strength (as Dalinar exhibited versus the Chasmfiend) It seems that there are ten exclusive surgebinding abilities, each shared by two Radiant orders. You and discipleofhoid in the other thread seem to both be working on figuring them out in different ways. Regrowth is definitely performed by the Stoneward, and I agree it "should" be an exclusive surgebinding ability, but it intuitively seems like it should belong to the 4 Vev Diamond Loving/Healing order and one adjacent. Thus I think the Stoneward is using the described fabrial to do it. I hope that this too-long post helps and will be corrected and enhanced. Ciao

Nice work Ookla! I've been wondering about some of the same things and would like to contribute some observations. There is another thread that is covering some overlapping territory here. I think that fabrials can replicate surgebinding abilities because there are soulcasters that do what Jasnah and Shallan can do. Jasnah says (chapter 72): I agree with your assessment that the woman in the Midnight Essence vision is a Stoneward and the man is a Windrunner based on the armor glow power and the means of the man's arrival. What powers are manifest here? The radiants can tell from far away that the Midnight Essences are attacking (call it a detect voidish ability until we know more) They communicate quickly across great distances (a number of them are arriving to fight the Midnight Essences, from (Chapter 19) , but of course they could use instantaneous travel to communicate) the Windrunner man flies to where Dalinar is (presumably using pressure and gravity as we've seen with Szeth) Instantaneous travel (He is seen flying, lands and shakes the earth, she just shows up.) Regrowth (with a fabrial) The Windrunner uses flies to help others (the Stoneward does not fly away, she runs, presumably she can't fly like the Windrunner, which would be faster) We know that the regrowth is done with the fabrial and the flying is an inherent power of the Windrunners. Why wouldn't the Stoneward arrive before the Windrunner? Maybe she uses the Windrunner as an anchor. I don't know if Regrowth is a surgebinding ability because it is done with a fabrial, but it seems possible. Likewise, I don't know if the "detect voidish" and the "travel" ability are surgebinding abilities or only done with fabrials. I think we don't know whether the healing is an inherent ability of Stonewards.

Yes, I agree that you make a very good point. In the thread about the Shardbearer Kaladin killed, name_here makes the point that there are ~200-1400 Shardblades and Shardplate unaccounted for. So we have three possible non-exclusive interpretations: Adonalsium Shards, Radiant-like use of Shardblades and Shardplate, and sheer volume of Shardblades and Shardplate. I wonder how effective Shardplate and Shardblades will be against Odium. It seems like taking a sword to a godfight (sorry). I can imagine Odium killing Tanavast and whoever holds Cultivation, but not wanting to take up their Shards (so as not to corrupt his own intent) or even splinter them (because he doesn't want to deal with the splinters). So he would try to hide or obscure them somehow (or, as the letter writer (Hoid?) thinks Rayse is devious, maybe they are booby-trapped). It seems to me that there won't be a satisfactory resolution without the non-Odium Shards of Adonalsium involved somehow. In addition, this series is partly about the return of magic and the Shards are what powers magic in this cosmere.

Great work! I have a few thoughts to offer. I agree with the regrowth ability being with 9 and 10, because the topaz and heliodor are in the fabrial that the woman in the Midnight Essence vision uses. It does seem odd that it doesn't go with 4 Vedeledev whose secondary attribute is "Healing". It also seems odd that Taln, who would presumably have the Regrowth ability, keeps dying all the time. Presumably the increase in speed and minor healing that Kaladin demonstrates are common to all orders, but Dalinar seems to also exhibit a super-strength in fighting the chasmfiend. I wonder whether that strength might be another surge power. People have suggested Dalinar as Kalak-resolute/builder and nails and bone both seem strong, so I wonder whether the strength would go with 8 Kalak and 9 Talenel. The knights Radiant are supposed to do near instantaneous travel. Clearly Windrunners don't. So maybe only two orders can do it. You do list the ability, but it seems difficult to assign. Maybe the female Radiant in the Midnight Essence vision is using it. The male Radiant is apparently a Windrunner, can be seen flying and shakes the earth when he lands. She just shows up and has glowing light tan eyes and her armor glows with an even amber light. We know that the amber knights are Stonewards from the Recreance vision. Hence travel might go with 8 and 9 Stonewards also. So maybe super-strength goes with 7 and 8? I am not convinced that Dustbringers are Radiants, but I have no evidence as to why they are not. The following quote from the prelude suggests to me that Dustbringers burn things. If setting things on fire is a radiant ability, it could well go with 2 and 3 based on the colors and gemstone. That leaves one ability for 3 and 4 to share. I have no clue, but instantaneous communication across great distances would sure be useful. Actually, there is evidence for remote communication in the Midnight Essence vision (Chapter 19): and The second quote, in particular, seems to be describing a remote communication in real-time. Does the remote communication ability come from the armor, is it an ability of all radiants or is specific to certain orders? I don't know, but the Stoneward woman doesn't seem to be using a fabrial. What do people think?