Ironeyes

7 hours ago, VersatileThrenodite said:

Actually I kind of disagree based on WaT the mind animating a shard doesn't always seem to have full awareness of all their investiture. Also this brings up a thought I was having during my reading: Has Brandon changed his mind on the source of investiture involved here? We have old knowledge indicating Patji is an avatar of Autonomy, but with the focus on Ambitions rogue investiture I was starting to wonder if maybe the intelligence of Patji is invested by Ambition's splinters. The green color of the pool could also indicate this is where cultivation noped off to following WaT.

Patji's attitude toward his worshippers matches too closely to Autonomy's characterization in Lost Metal to be a coincidence though. Moreover, the dream flashback shows that the shardpool predates the imprisonment of the Ambition splinter that became the Dakwara. 

30 minutes ago, Ninth of the Night said:

I'm willing to believe there's more to this that we just haven't seen yet, but the way Sigzil broke his bond with Vienta made perfect sense. And he absolutely had a valid reason and can easily justify it. He was trying to save his friend, that isn't difficult to explain at all, which means Aux is right to call Sigzil a liar.

It's hard for me to believe that Brandon just made a mistake here, and possibly didn't yet know how Sigzil left the Windrunners while writing Sunlit Man. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but as of now it seems rather clunky.

I think that quote is in reference to Sigzil's Skybreaker oaths, not his Windrunner ones. He swore those long after breaking the bond with Vienta, then renounced them some time after that. 

After finishing Wind and Truth, I reread The Sunlit Man and some details jumped out at me. These two descriptions of Zellion/Sigzil's Plate take place just after Zellion flies through the sunlight to catch up to Unity: 

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He glanced at her, and the slit at the front glowed a deep red-orange, the color of coals—or sunhearts. p. 407

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His armor was glowing too, though not in either of its customary shades of blue. Instead it glowed with the light of embers—the sunlight might have damaged it, because little flecks of red-orange light continued to burn all across it—and when he moved, he trailed smoke. p. 400

When I first read TSM, I assumed that the armor is glowing orange due to the heat of Canticle's sun. However, the glow isn't coming from the superheated metal. It's coming from the eye slit. I'm sure everyone sees where I'm going with this. Consider these two descriptions of Adolin's plate after he reclaims it from Abidi: 

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There, in the dark throne room, a flickering orange-red light like a fire's flame started to glow from the joints of his armor and from the front of his helm. There were no symbols on the breastplate, because he was not Radiant. p. 1222

Adolin Kholin--in Shardplate painted blue, shining between the joints with a flaming orange glow--strode out of the throne room. p. 1227

And it isn't just Adolin whose armor glows orange. So does Yanagawn's: 

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The same flickering glow of firelight emanated from the helmet and joints, and again there was no symbol. Yanagawn seized the Blade from the ground and pulled it free, turning to meet the tide of enemies. p. 1235

Obviously, I think Zellion has converted his original living Plate into Unoathed Plate. The conditions are similar enough to the original to work. Auxiliary isn't exactly a deadeye, but he certainly is dead. Zellion no longer has his oaths but retains his Connection to the armor. He pulled it into the Physical realm from the Cognitive with a dead spren's help, just as Adolin and Maya did. 

Ok, there are two big flaws in this theory that I can think of. 

First counterargument: Zellion acts like he doesn't know why his armor is glowing orange, betraying an unfamiliarity with Unoathed Plate. It's probably a stretch to say that in the long time span since Adolin first gaining Unoathed Plate Zellion has never seen a set. However, he doesn't necessarily connect the change in color with potential sun damage. In the sentence structure, that worry is linguistically connected to the flecks of light burning across the surface and to the trailing smoke. He glosses over the color, and this could very easily be an author's trick to avoid spoiling an as-yet unpublished book. Or Zellion could just not know much about Unoathed Plate because he has been avoiding Roshar since the Night Brigade began chasing him. We don't know how long ago that was. 

Second counterargument: Not all of the Unoathed bear orange armor. Notum's glows blue: 

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The Fused dropped, eyes burning, and Adolin saw a Shardbearer in blue-glowing Plate behind her. "Brightlord Adolin?" a familiar masculine voice said. "Are you well?"

"Notum?" Adolin said, shaking himself. "Indeed," the Shardbearer said from within his helm. "I do not have much substance in this realm, but...well, not much seems to be enough to control this Plate. The windspren have accepted me as their bearer." p. 1241

It's easy to chalk this up to Notum being an honorspren, bearing armor that once belonged to a Windrunner. It seems entirely natural that it would glow the same color for him as it did for the original Knight. 

Now let's say, arguendo, that we accept the conclusion that Zellion now has Unoathed armor. What are the implications? 

Well first, we know that the Unoathed can summon their Plate and repair it without the usual need for infused gems like dead Plate. 

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[Yanagawn] could summon his Plate and Blade like a Radiant at any moment. Somehow, their armor and swords worked without Stormlight. In contras to those of ordinary Shardbearers--whose Blades could not be bonded and Plate could not be repaired--the armaments of the Unoathed still functioned. Maya said something had been done at the end by the Heralds to shield and protect the spren--and this was a side effect. p. 1314

Zellion doesn't confirm whether he can resummon his armor after Auxiliary's final burst of Oath-fueled strength. 

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Zellion slumped forward, and she could hear him breathing deeply from within his helmet. Then his armor began to disintegrate, vaporizing to smoke, leaving him—in seconds—exposed. He struggled to his feet and picked up a fallen machete.

“Can you bring it back?” Elegy asked, approaching him on a deck slick with blood.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Not soon, I suspect. I’m . . . not sure how the relationship stands between me and my armor. But it felt good to bear it again.”

If Zellion does have Unoathed Plate now, he should be able to resummon it later. Combined with his newfound method of siphoning off the Torment, this man is a much more dangerous person than he was at the beginning of TSM. 

Another implication: Because the Unoathed existing is a side effect of the second Oathpact, this may mean that the new Oathpact is still in force at the time of TSM. Does that mean Retribution is still a threat to the spren? Possibly. Or does it just mean the Heralds decided to maintain the shield over the spren for other reasons? They could distrust the current incarnations of Honor and Cultivation, or they could be protecting spren from influence by forces from outside the Rosharan system. Maybe they just don't see a reason to break it, if they're even capable of doing so (they didn't do so hot at breaking the original Oathpact) or don't want to die permanently. 

Finally, there are some delicious possibilities for Unoathed in the Cosmere-wide conflict, if they can still exist by this late in the timeline. They boast nearly as much martial power as a Radiant, but don't have to abide by the oaths and don't have to use Investiture. They could be foot soldiers for Roshar, mercenaries, or spies who can infiltrate where Radiants can't by posing as civilians. They might have even grown into a full-fledged organization in parallel to the Knights Radiant, founded on Adolin's core principles instead of Tanavast's. Who knows? 

That's very in character for Kelsier. He's all but promised to kill Sazed if he feels it necessary, and having this contingency would make the tradeoff more acceptable to him. 

33 minutes ago, BinarySecond said:

Yeah that was wack "Don't have emotions because you're back home you big idiot! Be demure!" 

Screw Highspren, all my homies hate Highspren

I originally thought the Skybreakers were messed up because Nale's insanity infected their culture. Now I'm beginning to think the spren themselves are the cause. Which sucks because that's the order whose ideals best fit me, but their incarnation in the books is repugnant. 

I just read Chapter 4, and it's really starting to sound like Sunlit Man. An ancient, famous navigator led a group of people through Shadesmar to a new planet with a unique form of Investiture. Brandon's on a Moses story kick recently, it seems.

My money is on Dusk spending the book finding a new planet for his people to settle, then leading an exodus and leaving the huge empires to fight over their planet. 

This book has me reevaluating everything I thought about the Order of Skybreakers. I am now desperate to read some of Sigzil's story between when he bonded Auxiliary and when he broke his oaths. The way he acts in his moment of temporary return leads me to believe it's possible to be a Skybreaker without falling into the frankly repugnant culture the current order has under Nale. 

I think the book is lying. The implications for the economy if people could go to other dimensions, strip mine for rare materials, and then bring them back are catastrophic. The government probably started a massive propaganda push when dimensional travel became available to the public. They want dimensions to be seen as tourist destinations only, never as potential real estate. As evidence, Logna and her siblings were able to travel "upstream" until they reached a branch point where the next reality up doesn't contain their form of magic/probability/plot_device.exe and had to stop there.

I'm in the middle of my second reading of Tress, and a mildly insane theory occurred to me that explains multiple things at once. It goes like this: 

1. Lumar is hollow, or at least has a massive cave structure through its mantle/core. Think Naboo. 
2. Some or all of the spore oceans have drainage holes at their bottoms, through which spores sink into the hollow space. 
3. One of the spores creates water when activated. The water drains into the hollow space as well. 
4. Inside the core, the mixture of this water with Zephyr spores creates immense gaseous pressure, which is then forced back up through the seabed and causes the Seethe. 
5. The water also activates Sunlight spores, which create the heat that is absent because of Lumar's non-molten core. 
6. Spores that create solid objects do so, but the solid vines and Roseite and such eventually decay in the absence of continuing investiture influx. If that decay doesn't happen, the continuing emptiness of the core could also be explained by the Rose, Crimson, and Emerald seas having fewer and smaller holes for spores to drain into, thanks to having plugged them up over the centuries. The outflow of air would prevent further spores from entering in large numbers. 

This is all wild speculation, but it explains a few things at the same time. The biggest one is the Seethe. We already have a magical way to generate air, so it isn't a huge stretch to say that it's causing the as-yet-unexplained source of gas from the ocean bed.

Second, a massive underground aquifer explains how islands like the Rock have groundwater despite rain being presumably unable to reach the seabed. Groundwater normally relies on rain soaking into the ground (I live in Arizona and we're veeeery concerned with recharging our aquifer this way). With the Verdant sea soaking up all rain, the Rock normally shouldn't have any groundwater to dig a well to. On a related note, having one of the spores create water also explains why the planet hasn't become uninhabitable through dehydration, with the moons sucking water away as fast as they can. 

Third, if there is a traditional liquid ocean, this explains why people thought it was feasible to settle on this world. There are some hints that they may not be native. 

Fourth and least important, if the Sapphire sea is draining at the quickest rate, that could be why it's so heavily populated. More land would stick out above the spores. This would probably have to be the case for the Seethe to be so ubiquitous. Granted, Sunlight spores adding heat would also increase the pressure and help drive the phenomenon. 

Not sure if this is intentional or a typo. Page 451 of the PDF version: "the Sorceress asked me if I’d like a large yonic symbol splitting my forehead." 

My assumption is this is meant to be spelled "aonic," but it could be intentional if the spelling has changed over the centuries? 

Brandon opened the last episode of Intentionally blank with a Bad Story Idea (tm) about a planet that gets rolled around by a giant on an even bigger planet. The thing that interested him was people having to dash in, harvest something left behind by contact with the larger body, and dash out before getting squished. But that's just what he's done with this new world! The heat of the sun is just as deadly as getting squished, but you have to get in close to it to farm, then dash out before getting scorched. And I'm a cremling if he doesn't have someone miraculously survive the full rotation of the planet in one spot by the end of the book. 

In short, Brandon is a sneaky, sneaky man and spoiled SP4 days ago without any of us realizing it. 

5 minutes ago, Frustration said:

They mine it.

I mean geologically. How did salt deposits get there without large bodies of water? Salt mines on Earth usually mine halite, which is formed by sedimentary deposits of ancient oceans.

In the text version of the sample chapters sent to the email list, the quote is, "'He sailed the Midnight Sea, Miss Tress,' he said. 'Beneath Thanasmia's own moon.'" So that's how it's spelled, and it is capitalized. Thanasmia might be the name of the sorceress.

On the subject of weird water cycles, where does the salt come from? 

On 9/8/2021 at 9:59 PM, Okdes said:

I'm pretty sure I misread the squire thing, then. Which happens. That aside, the rest looks more or less fine. Soulcasting is a bit.... odd, but it seems fine.

It's decidedly odd. I'm afraid if an Elsecaller's DM isn't careful it could break things like dungeon crawls. But I'm proud of the gem shattering part, cause it's both true to flavor and a way the DM can limit the ability. Gems start becoming pretty important loot, especially if players aren't able to buy them.

On 9/9/2021 at 0:35 AM, The Ward's Guard said:

I'll have to read through it tomorrow, but color me impressed by what I've seen through my quick glance at it.

On 9/13/2021 at 6:17 PM, The Ward's Guard said:

I hate to double post, but I might be intending to use this in one of my campaigns with proper credit given just because it's so well done. But it won't be a while, so don't expect play testing stuff quite yet.

That's high praise! I'd love to hear how it goes when you get around to that campaign.

33 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Personally I don't think so, because their power isn't just "fire", it's Division (and Abrasion), and fire is an effect it can cause, so I don't think its effect would quite line up with that. I don't think any of the orders will have something that directly lines up with Soothing or Rioting, but I could see certain Surges allowing manipulation of certain emotions that align with their category. 

That isn't really what I meant. What I was trying to say is that if Inquisitor #5 is right, the powers of each unmade could hint at what its associated KR order would do if Sja-Anat touched their spren. An enlightened Dustbringer would therefore get something similar to Nergaoul--ie cause an emotional reaction like the Thrill. Perhaps I should have used a different word than "enflame" there. 

On 9/7/2021 at 8:54 AM, Weltall said:

One parallel that's interesting on a quick skim but I haven't had time to really dive into the theology to confirm it: Apparently the Mormon conception of Lucifer is somewhat similar to this, where he came up with a plan that would have resulted in the salvation of all humans but without moral agency (and in return he'd get all the glory as well). When God rejected it, Lucifer rebelled. That sounds on first glance very similar to Odium in general being very selfish, Taravangian's desire to save everyone and Rayse!Odium trying to get people to surrender their moral agency to him, like we saw when he tried tempting Dalinar at the end of Oathbringer.

That's pretty much exactly how the doctrine goes. Lucifer misunderstood the purpose of mortal life, thinking it was just about how people acted. He didn't realize we needed the ability to screw up and learn from our mistakes in order to change into more godly people. 

On 9/6/2021 at 2:12 PM, Inquisitor #5 said:

Truthwatcher/Surge of Progression

Unmade: Moelach

Moelach's power to grant access to glimpses of the future might be a manifestation of the Surge of Progression, a Cognitive/Spiritual application of Growth, granting further access to the Spiritual at the Realmatic transition of death. Thematically Moelach grants access to looking at what can or will be, instead of the present truth of what is.

That matches the power set of corrupted Truthwatchers too. Makes me wonder, if Sja-Anat enlightened an ashspren, would its Dustbringer be able to enflame emotions? Etcetera for the rest of the orders. 

Also it seems you're somehow my biggest fan despite my inactivity on the forums for the last few years?  

3 hours ago, Okdes said:

The hit die thing is fine then. I retract that one. 

I think it should function as any chosen heavy armor +1 until level 17. The resistance is pretty strong imo.

Edit:

Working at the subclasses- windrunner squires seem a bit situational. 

Skybreaker attack of opportunity thing seems a bit weird for a level 10 feature? It doesn't seem to gel with the rest of the kit in my opinion 

Funny, those are two abilities I borrowed wholesale from other classes. Strength of Squires is Bardic Inspiration, and Ideal of Crusade comes from the Vengeance Paladin. I wanted Skybreakers to control battlefields, which is why they have Compelled Duel and Hold Person, and other similar spells. It seemed thematically appropriate for them to lock down parties they think deserve some melee-flavored justice. 

3 hours ago, Channelknight Fadran said:

By golly did you make all this???

I'll consider that a compliment  I either wrote or tweaked all the abilities, then borrowed official art from Brandon's website and the Kickstarter art package. Let's just say my cell bio lecture is really boring. 

1 minute ago, Okdes said:

I haven't seen the subclasses yet. 

However. 

IMO the hit die should be a d10

The heavy armor shardplate feature of "5 + level" shouldn't kick in until level 17

It's not very strong at level 11. It'll be outclassed by any heavy armor you have at that time. At level 17 it's much better 

 

The rest seems pretty cool!

The hit die was originally a d10, but with cheap self healing, that felt like it would instantly outclass every other tank in the game. I gave Stonewards an extra HP boost that's equivalent to making their hit die a d10, and powered up Truthwatchers' healing factor. They should be the tankiest subclasses. 

I definitely struggled with the scaling on heavy armor. Should it just be a static boost until Lv17 then? 

Calling all D&D fans, especially experienced players and DMs! I've written a Knight Radiant class, inspired by a similar attempt by some 17th Sharders in the past. Theirs wasn't a caster class, though, and I wanted mine to be a half-caster class. So I borrowed a few ideas and then started from scratch. Now I just need you folks to tear it apart for me. Some friends and I are starting a campaign in a few weeks and I'll take that opportunity to do some playtesting. Any edits and power balances you can suggest before then will make the experience that much more valuable. If you can construct a broken multiclass with one of the orders, do it! That way I can take away your fun by fixing the exploit. Suggestions to bring the abilities more in line with standard 5th Edition language are helpful too. 

Spoilers for all four books, obviously. I completed a full reread as part of the process of writing this, since some of the orders still aren't super deeply explored.         

Knight Radiant Class Manual.pdf

10 hours ago, Gderu said:

Aneazer, the lord of Riemar, reminded me of Cett. I'm only up to part two so far, but their mannerisms seem very alike.

Now that you mention it, I can totally see that. They have the same pragmatic outlook and intentionally shocking honesty. 

I am so. Incredibly. Sick. of the word "tenset!" 

That is all. 

Spoilers for everything, or at least every Cosmere book that comes to mind as I write this. 

As far as I know, The Way of Kings Prime predates every Cosmere book except Elantris. As I've been reading it, lots of character arcs and occasional plot points have struck me as being the inspiration for similar bits in books outside of Roshar, especially Warbreaker and Mistborn. 

Starting from the most obvious, the name of Awakening and its association with sound (the Tones) were moved over to Warbreaker, while the rest of it was developed into soulcasting. 

Meren's sudden propulsion to the high nobility obviously bears some similarity to Kaladin during Words of Radiance, but his arc in Part 1 is much more like Vin's training to be a noblewoman in the first part of The Final Empire. 

Speaking of Vin, the politics from Shinri's and Jasnah's chapters are quite a lot like the ball politics in The Final Empire, which makes a lot of sense since that was the next thing Brandon wrote after The Way of Kings Prime. 

Shinri reminds me strongly of Siri in the first half of Warbreaker, especially with the unexpected marriage to the king at the start of Part 2. Granted, Ahven is opposite from Susebron in nearly every way, right down to being deaf instead of mute. Her shenanigans in Part 1, trying to figure out how her first betrothed died, are similar to Sarene in Elantris, although that one obviously came first. All three of these women have similar names, and I'm becoming convinced that the entirety of the Cosmere is an elaborate plan to make people like me look insane in front of our friends for perpetually mixing up characters with too-similar names. 

Taln seems to be a proto-Kelsier. His speech patterns, fighting style, and method of conniving read very much like Kelsier, and his co-opting of Meridas's troops in Part 2 is reminiscent of Kell's famous double motives with the rebellion in The Final Empire.  I found this very off-putting at the start, since I was expecting someone a lot more stoic. But, to be fair, a noticeable majority of Brandon's early characters are on the "witty rogue" side of things.

Ahven's conniving in the face of a siege is similar to the political A-plot of The Well of Ascension. 

Lhan, the monk, is almost an amalgamation of Lightsong and Llarimar. He is ostensibly and vocally lazy, but surprisingly effective and completely unwilling to see himself for who he is. Intara also falls into Lightsong's archetype, in a different way. He's a man who feels he doesn't deserve his station, but ends up doing many good things for other people by accident.