Vortaan

Ishar, who is also a cornerstone of their religion? Nale might be giving the Skybreakers a false view of what a crazy Herald looks like. He should have taken them to see Jezerin. Also, Szeth seems to travel quickly, infiltrate fast, and get out of town. I'm not sure the Skybreakers are good enough detectives to figure things out, particularly if they didn't know about his list of targets.

Ok so: I am not in a frame of mind right now where I can get into too much stuff, so @hoiditthroughthegrapevine I will address your post soon when I have more time to digest it, but for the other stuff: I would buy it being tied more to Cultivation than Honor. I'm not sure about it attracting a specific spren so much as... I don't know. Spren that embody change? That's a concept, it has to to have a spren, although I'm not sure what kind of spren it would be. I certainly don't think they are bound either to the person or to the fabrial, just that maybe when they Soulcast it sends out a "please help me, gotta make the donuts" beacon? There's a couple things happening in that scene. One, Jasnah is limited by needing to not reveal her secret that she's able to Soulcast without a fabrial, so she needs the garnet to justify Soulcasting Shallan's blood. Two, Blood is one of the essences, so actually doing it shouldn't fall into Jasnah's "really bad at organics" thing. The ten Essences are the easiest things to Soulcast, further you get from them, more problems you have. Three... I have no idea what the idea is with gems beyond some kind of mass Cognitive effect similar to what causes the Returned to look like they do. Everyone assumes a god should look godly, so they do. Everyone assumes garnets are a focus for Blood, so they are.

The question is if that's how you are supposed to power it, why isn't it being powered by that now.

The threads from that gemstone pillar seem to go all throughout Urithuru. If there are any exposed on the mountainside itself, but somehow protected, that could be a way to infuse the whole tower in one highstorm.

What I recommend is doing a little more research before you post theories. For example, your mistwraith/Midnight essence one has the easily researched problem that Midnight Essence predates the concept of mistwraiths by several thousand years. Most of your theories seem to be freeform theorizing with some quotes to fill them out. That's great, but what I'd really suggest is giving your theories like a day to percolate and see if you still like them. I think that extra time would be something you'd benefit from.

Paalm was with Wax at this time. Could be some other Kandra though.

I thought about this and the closest to an answer I came up with is that Jasnah was playing the part of a person with a Soulcaster. There are probably two different ways Radiants can Soulcast. The first way is to draw the Stormlight into themselves and then Soulcast, which removes the Essence limitations. The second way is to directly offer the Stormlight from the gemstones, in which case the gemstones act as a filter and limit their options. I suspect Jasnah was extremely careful to only use this second form of Soulcasting when anyone was around.

In addition while Sja-Anat may have defected it's not clear if all the spren she corrupts have done so as well.

Hello everyone. In this topic, I'd like to talk about the engineering principles behind Soulcasters, and to a lesser extent Regrowth fabrials and Honorblades. With Oathbringer, we finally have a PoV of someone using an actual Soulcaster, plus some interesting information in the Ars Arcanum and some further knowledge on the Honorblades. So with all that in mind, let's get to it. First, I'd like to talk about the actual composition of the Soulcasters. From Way of Kings, here is our first actual description of a Soulcaster. Soulcasting fabrials have some limitations that actual Knights Radiants Soulcasting don't seem to have. Not all Soulcasters are able to Soulcast every essence, as stated by Shallan here. In addition, Soulcasters are only able to Soulcast things into an essence that has a corresponding gemstone on the fabrial. Emeralds for food, smokestones for smoke, garnets for blood, etc. This is directly different from how Radiant Soulcasting seems to function, as Jasnah uses multiple essences in the battle for Thaylen city without any particular types of gemstones being noted as being drained. So what are Soulcasting fabrials doing? It appears they are giving limited access to the Transformation surge. It appears that, unlike Shardblades, they have no inherent primary user. It also appears that the process to Soulcast is something people get better with as time passes, but it has devastating side effects on those who use them. We have seen Soulcasters with granite casts to their skin, with vines growing from their eyes, and even those who are turning into smoke. All of these incidences have led me to the follow conclusion Conclusion: Soulcasting Fabrials create a weak approximation of a Nahel bond The only ways we have seen on Roshar to access the Surges are various bonds with the sentient Investiture that Rosharans call spren, by being directly Invested by a Shard (Fused), or by holding an Honorblade. We can cross being directly Invested off the list of potential ways Soulcasting fabrials allow access, as the people using them still require contact with the Soulcaster to use it. Likewise I believe we can cross off a bond with a spren, as while the Soulcasting savant feels a presence when she Soulcasts, she does not see anything, and she is far enough into Shadesmar that in my opinion spren should not be able to hide from her. That leaves the Honorblades. The Honorblades grant a link to two Surges to whomever touches them. We see this with Bridge 4 using Jezrien's Honorblade. In addition we see another similarity between the Honorblades and the Soulcasters: the color of the metal. I will concede that this is a tenuous connection, however: Honorblades appear to be physical manifestations of Honor's power, much like lerasium, atium, or ettmetal. The color of the metal could be an indication of a shared origin. Both seem to require large amounts of Stormlight to function. Both create a weak bond on touch, and require some time to learn how to use. Honorblades can be dismissed, while Soulcasters cannot, but that could be a property of Soulcasters not being intended as weapons. The link between the two is reinforced in the Ars Arcanum, where Khriss seems to think that Soulcasting fabrials, medallions on Scadrial, and Honorblades all work by similar principles. What I believe occurs in each case is that the possession of a medallion, Soulcaster, or Honorblade temporarily overwrites the person who is using it's Spiritweb to make them a temporary Metalborn or Surgebinder. In the case of medallions, we are shown that knowledge of what the medallion can do is necessary to unlock it's power. We see this with the weight medallions used in the airships and by the coin Wax acquired from Hoid. Soulcasters do not have this problem as most of Roshar knows what they are on sight, and Honorblades have been sequestered in Shinovar and seem to have been used for training Surgebinders for unknown purpose. Clearly the Shin know what the Honorblades do, and so the Intent is not a problem there either. This temporary overwrite causes problems for the recipients down the road, however, I think. In the case of Soulcasters and Honorblades, they are required to draw dangerous amounts of Investiture into their Spiritwebs, probably exacerbating any cracks already there and probably giving them an increased likelihood of savantism. Medallions likely don't have this problem as much because of the relatively limited amounts of Investiture in their use. Anyway, that's my current theory. What do you guys think?

It's Dalinar, who was going to be Odium's chosen champion.

As human shaped people, that are not monsters we see explicitly coming from the Midnight Mother, and who predate Kandra by many thousands of years. This is not even remotely possible.

To be fair we haven't seen most of the Orders in Dalinar's visions, and he seems to have gotten really lucky in the Orders that have sprung up around him and his family. If Elkohar had lived, Dalinar would still only have doubled up on Windrunners and Lightweavers.

I think you're reading that quote differently than it's intended. I take it as: either Venli has the proper Intent to bond with the spren and achieve the form that it would give, or she doesn't and bonds with it and gets dullform. And Parshmen have gemhearts. Implying that somehow humanity ripped out a vital part of their biology and it was returned by a storm is just too large a logical leap.

Seeing someone go Beyond is as close as we are going to get to Brandon saying someone is deader than dead.

Vin went Beyond. She's dead and not coming back ever.

The highprinces will not follow Kaladin. The kings and queens will not follow Kaladin. So in point of fact, Kaladin is actually in a terrible position right now to take control of Urithuru. It would be a political blunder on par with the assassination of Julius Caesar.

Almost definitely T. Besides the strict deadline, he has a Herald to talk to. There's very little doubt in my mind he knew the Recreance secret a long time ago.

I know you want to steal my skills, but you can't.

Lopen, the One Armed Bridgeman Told a lot of awful jokes And if you ever heard them You would really hope he chokes All of the other bridgemen Used to say he was insane They'd never let poor Lopen Get away with any of his claims Then one Weeping Lopen found He began to glow Grabbed the spheres from all his friends Now he can clap hands again! Now that Lopen has two arms All the friendly bridgemen hope Lopen the One Armed Bridgeman Has no two-armed Herdazin jokes! (No idea why the formatting here is weird, it will not let me fix it)

Flying through the skyWith a sword that learned to talkOver heads we runTo catch a shiny rock!Evil all aroundMaking Nightblood sayHey Szeth if you could draw me thenWe could destroy evil today, OhChorus: Swing the sword, swing the sword There's evil all around O let Nightblood do his thing And Lift can then chow down!

Hark! The Almighty's Heralds say, "The Voidbringers have gone away" Peace on Roshar, no more men fall, We shall leave, reclaim the Halls Joyful, all ye nations, rise, Join our battles in the skies; With the King of Heralds proclaim, "We shall claim our home again." Hark! The Almighty's Heralds say, "The Voidbringers have gone away"

A little something I threw together. Sung to the tune of "You're Welcome" from Moana by the very talented Dwayne Johnson and Lin Manuel Miranda. I see what's happening here You're face-to-face with godhood and it's strange You don't even know who I am It's sobering! It's sad to see how much you humans changed Well pull up a stone, let's begin Yes, I'm your enemy Odium Breathe it in I know it's a lot: The storms, your plans So let your first god give you a hand What can I say except "Let go now" Of your pain, regret, your fear Hey, it's OK, it's OK. Let go now Your old friend Odium is here! Hey, what has two thumbs and and kept you alive When you were living up in the sky? This guy! When you are beat, who takes the Passion from your foe? You're looking at him, yo! Oh, also I brought you the Thrill —Let go now— So you could have fun when you kill Also, I Invested disease —Let go now— To give everyone Surges for free So what can I say except let go now Of that wife that you burned to the bone There's no need to pray, it's OK, Let go now I guess that I could make your pain my own Let go now, let go now Well, honestly Dalinar Son, seriously I can go on and on All of the reasons I want you as my champion Your strength, your pain, your skills That was how I made you a tool that could kill I killed your god, split him apart You're better off, he had no storming heart What's the lesson? What is the take-away? Don't mess with Rayse when he's on the breakaway And every place that I've been I left a corpse with a victory I win Devotion, Dominion, Honor, Ambition Ask the Stormfather what shape they are all in! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, hey! Well, anyway, let me let go now! For this wonderful war you're in Hey, it's OK, it's OK. Let go now! Well come to think of it, one more thing! Hey, it's your day to let me go now 'Cause I just want to be free I've got some Shards to kill, let go now 'Cause Rayse can do anything but leave! Let go now, let go now Give me your pain!

I think putting Nightblood in the middle of a perpendicularity like Dalinar summons where all three realms are one would be monumentally bad idea.

Cultivation is the source of the crem in highstorms, which causes the plants to grow... and hardens into stone.

They aren't because they weren't. The Unmade were active on Roshar in modern times before the Everstorm was. I'm not a huge fan either but I'm not going to argue canon.