Ciridae

Wow yeah I could totally see Cohesion, maybe with the help of Illumination, having a hand in the creation of the Dawncities. I have a couple of questions/ideas about how Cohesion could be used. We speculate that some surges go in two directions, like if Lift can decrease friction could she increase it as well? If cohesion makes solids act like liquids temporarily, how does it affect other states of matter? Would it work the other way too? Can it make air act as a solid for example? I'm thinking forcefields, or trapping people in solid blocks of air here. On transportation, I'd love to know if it is telekinesis along with teleportation, but that might make it too powerful.

My understanding was that there were more than ten perfect gems, that some were smaller like Gavilar's void spheres and others larger, like the King's Drop. I thought that the spren in Celebrant transferred Stormlight from the imperfect gems into small perfect gems, about the size of regular spheres.

Lucid Taln was heart wrenchingly awesome. I think one of the coolest parts was when the Fused inhabited Venli's group's bodies. The realisation what Fused are, what needs to happen for them to return, and what they are like was terrifying and amazing. When the crazy predator Fused went "High skies. Dead winds. Blood rain" I got the shivers. There are so many other amazing scenes, Sah's, Noro's and Beard's deaths hit me harder than they should have, and, surprisingly, so did Elhokar's. He really grew on me. I think Rock's and Teft's chapters were really strong, so was Rlain's. I loved every second of Renarin and when Jasnah's love didn't fail I shamelessly cried.

I'm surprised to see that so many people disliked Eshonai. She was always one of my favorite characters. Maybe it's for the best that she died, whatever Brandon's plans are, I don't think he would write a whole book about a character whose story ended after a couple of interludes at the bottom of a chasm. Dying opens up a lot of interesting things that could happen. Even if it is only flashbacks, I'm certain Brandon still has plenty in store for her character. I love Venli as a villain and source of information, and I'm glad we finally got her pov. But compared to Eshonai's potential Willshaper story, her ambition to become a queen is much less engaging to me. It's early enough that her motivations could change, we'll see. I do expect to see a lot more of some of Odium's forces that are closer to the ones in control, which will be very exciting. There's a lot of potential for Venli's story. I will dearly miss Eshonai though.

Maybe some of the ancient listener leaders pulled a Tanavast and merged with some of the Unmade, pooling their knowledge and capabilities. It has precedent on Roshar, but I dont know if it's likely in this case.

I want to say that the spren sticking around Eshonai's corpse means she's not really dead, but I don't know if that's just my personal love of Eshonai speaking. Maybe the eyes seemed dead to Venli because they were no longer glowing red? I don't want to get my hopes up, but that spren isn't sticking around her for nothing. And what do you mean listener ancestors are in charge?? Did they become Cognitive Shadows?

Yeah, it's a larkin. It's the same animal depicted in the background of the surgebinding chart. I also think that Peter mentioned that it's the larvae of the lanceryn, which are thought to be extinct.

He did? I must have missed that. So those are illustrations we'll get for sure?

@Edonidd On gemhearts, in the prologue Eshonia thinks to herself that humans, through fabrials, have imitated the way listeners naturally bond with spren. About the voidblades, if something similar to shardblades for nahel spren exists for voidspren, I'd say its very unlikely that many dead voidblades exist. There would have to be an equivalent to the Recreance, provided that voidbinding is even an oath based system like surgebinding, which we cant be sure of. But I am sure that the Fused will have access to something that can stand up to a shardblade.

Listeners. Please finally some listeners. Especially now that there are voidforms around. I'd love to see some spren depictions as well, maybe we'll get to see Spark, Ivory or Glys. Maybe in bladeform as well. I'm sure we'll get some of the murals in Urithiru, and probably a map of one of the levels. Maybe Shallan's surrealistic version? I hope we get new flora and fauna from around Urithiru as well. should be very different from what we've seen so far. Edit, Oh I'm sorry I misread, I thought this was about in-book illustrations. I agree, the Re-Shephir battle would be great. I'm sure there will be other amazing and visual scenes later on as well. I'm really looking forward to what all the talented people around can come up with.

Odium's champion was being represented wearing dark plate in Dalinar's vision. It might not be literal, just symbolic of a great warrior, but I'd say voidplate and blade are a possibility. The main issue for listeners is that their bonded spren resides in their gemheart and isn't free to move around or form a blade, as far as we know. A separate free spren, like all of those yellow spren guiding the listeners to the cities could be something like a third party to the Fused, being their eyes and ears and maybe blade, where their main spren is trapped in the listener's gemheart. Historically I think this might have been the reason listeners couldn't become radiants. The nahel spren didn't want to live trapped in a gemheart. I think if we ever see a Listener become a radiant (I have high hopes for you Eshonai), they will be a radiant without a blade or free spren, only hearing their spren in their mind. I hope I'm wrong though, poor spren. We don't know enough about regular plate to say for sure, but if it's formed from stormlight then it stands to reason that it can be formed from voidlight. If it is composed of the lesser cousin spren, there are probably enough smaller odiumspren around to make that happen too.

I don't think there's anything suspicious going on like with the cremlings. But it's interesting that minks are the only larger mammals or generally non natively rosharan animals living in the wild, at least that we've seen. (I'm not counting rats). I don't think there's a consensus on where horses, pigs, minks and maybe birds come from, but I'm one of the people who think that they were brought by worldhoppers in one of the suspected immigration events in Roshar's past. To me it feels similar to the results of when europeans brought foreign species like foxes and rabbits to Australia. I'd love to know if what rosharans call minks caused any of the native species to go extinct as well. To me it's a cool bit of worldbuilding in the background showing a phenomenon that's not unheard of on our planet while being a living reminder of rosharan history.

While natural wood is rarer than it is on earth, it can still be soulcast. I'd expect wooden instruments to be more expensive, but I'm sure some exist.

Is there a difference between passive stormlight healing and being healed by Regrowth? Both restore the body to the way the healed person views themself. The only difference is that one is automatic while the other has to be granted, but the effects should be the same, no? If Renarin healed Kaladin his brands still wouldn't go away.

Great chapters, I've read a bit of what everybody had to say, but not all of it, here's what really stood out to me: Re-Shepir instinctively tried to bond with Shallan, that's really cool and potentially really scary. Even before the battle, which must have taken place in the spiritual realm, what with all the opened up souls, Shallan felt like she understood the Unmade. I agree that there is probably one unmade tangentially based on or in some way related to an order of the radiants, with the probable exception of the Bondsmiths. I'd hazard a guess that Yellig-nar, the Blightwind corresponds to the Windrunners, Moelach maybe to the Truthwatchers, as he seems to peek into past and future? Sja-anat corrupting spren, so Transformation? Elsecallers? Dai-gonarthis, the Black Fisher I have no idea, and Nergaoul, causing the Thrill could fit with Dustbringers or maybe Stonewardens. Perhaps Skybreakers, but I'd think one of the battle-orders. I don't think that an Unmade was created with the advent of each new Desolation. We hear mention of Re-Shepir, Yellig-Nar, and Sja-Anat in Dalinar's visions. I think they've been around since the first desolation, meant to directly oppose the Heralds, before the whole conflict turned to a prolonged battle with lots of smaller soldiers after spren copied the Honorblades. I also don't quite understand why the connection between Heralds breaking and creation of Unmade is being made. What do we have to show that the two are related? I see no correlation so far, but I guess it's still a posibility. I loved every second of the Dalinar - Taravangian conversation, and that we got to hear another anecdote from the Way of Kings. More Adhesion from Dalinar, when are we going to see some of Tension? I'm excited about the library and murals, especially the depictions of the spren. I have high hopes that we either get to see Honor and Cultivation or some of the spren. That would be amazing. And I'm sure there's something salvageable in the library. Also, I like that Lyn is being so prominently featured, there's something going on there. Pattern made me laugh again, what a great character. Next week a big Listener reveal from a Kaladin chapter I hope. My bet is that the Listeners are gathering around another Unmade, or that we at least get to see some real voidforms at the big gathering. Edit: About the depictions of Honor and Cultivation, perhaps it's neither, and the cloud represents the Stormfather, the tree-lady the Nightwatcher and the man with the blue disc is the third Bondsmith spren.

@StormingTexan I'd love to know what rockbud racing looks like

If she's a Worldhopper she might have other means of prolonging her life that we are nit aware of. Whatever Khriss or Hoid do could work for Viv just as well if she figured it out or was taught.

I'm as excited to meet Spark and see what Dustbringers are capable of as the next guy, but when I read that line my first thoughts were of I think the Dustbringers will be one of the coolest orders, but the spren does scare me a bit. Maybe they are the Keenspren Wyndle mentioned?

I like where the copycat plot is going. And now I really want to see some Spark. (S)he wants to know what's inside things? Like, the spren of the object? Yeah creepy.

Oops wrong thread. I don't know if the unmade is fueling or in any way causing them, but I assume it's gaining from it somehow. Maybe its just there to cause fear or panic, but I have a feeling that it's been in Uruthiru for longer than the Alethi.

I was thinking that maybe it was a corrupted Honorspren, the look is similar enough. Seeing that spren are not invincible (apart from oathbreaking) would raise the stakes for the spren. I don't think the spren is any mix of only Cultivation, Honor and Adonalsium. I can get behind a mix that includes Odium, in fact it seems very Odium-esque to corrupt instead of expending investiture to make his own army of powerful splinters. (I agree with the unmade-are-corrupted-dawnsingers-theory). I don't see many alternatives to be honest. If she were a nahel spren, where is the bond, why is she sapient, what is she doing guiding listeners? Any other variety of nahel-spren-level splinter not containing bits of Odium would be some news.

The Shin appearance along with the notable interaction with stone (the pillars spiking to meet her feet) of the yellow spren in the latest Kaladin chapter made me think about a possible connection to the spirits of the stones mentioned by Szeth. On Roshar I think it's somewhat safe to assume that spirit=spren. Szeth thinks to himself that the spirits of the stones themselves promised he was truthless, so we know that whatever they are, they are sapient, and they have authority. Outsiders like Rysn think that there are no spren in Shinovar, because when they visit, the smaller, regular spren are missing from the landscape. But a sapient spren, like the yellow lady, is on another level and may have the ability to appear where smaller spren may not. From Edgedancer we know that So the idea is basically this: A group of larger voidspren hides in Shinovar after the last desolation, the last place you'd expect to find spren. They advise and guide the Shin, and the result is stone shamanism. The Everstorm is summoned and Odium needs helpers to guide his would be army and handle logistics. The yellow spren we see is one of these spren. I'd hazard a guess that once the desolation is up and running these guys can get all kinds of nasty, maybe by animating stone or by bonding with a listener. For now they're playing the waiting game. We'll see. What this could explain: The Shin look: She and the other 'spirits' would have been influenced by the perceptions of the Shin for the past couple millennia. Why she is sapient without a bond: She's been around Roshar, probably in the PR, since the last desolation. Hence her smug remark that she's a tad older than a month. We don't know what that amount of time in the PR coupled with probable periodic human interaction does to a spren, but I think this could be the reason for her sapience without an apparent bond. Her odd interactions with stone: We think there is a connection between odium and stone, what with all the thunderclasts, and I think that this spren plays into the same aesthetic. That they are, as a result, called spirits of the stones is not surprising. Problems with the theory: Why can the spren speak perfect Alethi? Yeah, she's old, but languages change all the time, and pretty quickly too. Maybe it's a Connection thing that spren have when in a certain region in the PR, but that feels iffy to me and it bothers me. How many spirits of the stones are there? On a continent as big as Roshar, there would have to be a lot of these spren, or they'd be spread pretty thin. We hear of other spren, presumably smaller, who bring more listeners to the central group, that could be unimportant enough to not qualify as a proper spirits of the stones, but overall I think there should only be a relatively limited number left from the last desolation, instead of thousands of hard to hide, odd spren buzzing around in Shinovar. Overall though, I think there's a pretty decent chance that the odd yellow spren is a voidspren from way back when, that has been hiding out in Shinovar and pulling on some strings attached to shamans.

The difficult thing with Nightblood is that he's a spren that was forced into a form in the physical realm. But it's not his own PR form, it's more like a body he inhabits. The investiture was crammed into a sword, and is contained in it. I see Nightblood as something similar to a spren trapped in a gemstone, investiture inhabiting an object in the PR. I'd really like to know if you can separate the investiture from the sword and 'free' him.

The difference between men's and women's food could be interesting, curry is well known, but warm, sweet foods as dinner or lunch could be interesting. My first thoughts were of the lucky fish soup too, I would love to see that featured, even if we don't have a detailed description. Chouta as a classic, of course. Chicken, but since chickens are anything that has feathers and a beak on Roshar, maybe something more exotic. I don't know if you would like to include any Warbreaker recipes, there's a lot of seafood, which would be great too. I think this is a great idea, I would love to see something along the lines of a recipe book. I hope we get to see the end result, +1

I think the scariest would probably be a Skybreaker + Elsecaller combo. If Transformation ends up enabling ranged surgebinding, imagine what you could do with Division and Gravitation from a distance. Lash people into the sky or annihilate them with a thought. Plus flying, and getting to the CR, maybe teleporting.