earthexile

That's a very tree-looking tree there, Shinovar maybe, at sunset?

I think it would be much easier, and probably a better fit for Stormlight, to use the FATE system. It's very suited to the big displays of arcane weirdness that make the Stormlight books so cool, and less concerned with a lot of specific little numbers and rules for spells. It's all about using your imagination in the moment and invoking the traits of your character, enemies, and surroundings to set up rolls. I should try to find a FATE character sheet and make some example Stormlight people.

A Radiant Blade + Lashings would be the scariest thing, because the Windrunner can just instantly resummon their weapon at will. You could make a big wide blade and then send it hurtling at the opponent at six times the speed of gravity, watch it scythe through a pile of guys, then do it over again. edit: Something just occurred to me- it's very hard to infuse Shards with power, because they're already made of your Investiture, but does that apply when it's your own Radiant Blade and your own power? I can't decide.

Shallan has the ability to Soulcast, do we know whether the matter of Shadesmar can be transformed? It would be much easier to stay supplied if you can conjure water, grain, and meat out of stone.

I don't think there's a way for a caste of illiterate Forever Warriors to effectively run a government. I think if we learn more about the ins and outs of Alethi politics, we'll find that a lot of it is done quietly behind the scenes by the women who actually transmit all the messages and relay all the information. What do these bozo Highprinces know about anything? Note that the only one we've seen trying to administer and grow his peoples' holdings is Sebarial, who is the most dismissive of Alethi cultural norms and the least interested in war.

It looks really cool, but I'm talking myself out of buying it because it really seems too complex for my typical gaming group. If there's a solitaire way to play it though...

Another factor I don't think has been mentioned- the Parshendi stand to gain two full sets of Shards if they bring down Dalinar and Adolin, tripling their tiny armory. Not only would that make the Parshendi less likely to back off, but even if they did accept a surrender, they'd still take the Shards. Dalinar wouldn't allow that without a fight. Those damnation weapons and armor inherently escalate the tension of any conflict.

A just universe where there aren't gods of hate and annihilation wrecking everything

We know that an Unmade can fit in a very small sphere, Aesudan and Amaram could swallow theirs. I think the King's Drop was just big because it was a spectacular display piece, not because perfect gems have to be large.

Maybe it's a "spell" like a lightweaver illusion, where you can tie an effect to someone that allows you to remain aware of them at a distance.

That depends on your perspective. If you were to check out white supremacist forums, one of their primary beliefs is that they are a people under seige, they feel aggrieved and threatened by the larger culture. They see themselves as the ordinary, downtrodden people of the world. A lot of them even believe that there is a deliberate white genocide happening in the world right now. Yes, they're wrong. Yes, they're even crazy. But they are a whole community with a shared perspective. I can easily see some struggling young racist taking those oaths because he believes he's standing up for a people on the brink of destruction.

You're right. But that's a path that people can take, it's still a form of an honor system. There's a really excellent martial arts film from China called "Hero." It stars Jet Li, Donnie Yen, whole bunch of the great modern martial arts stars. Everything I'm going to say about it is a spoiler. It's about a tyrannical king who is trying to take over all of the lands that will eventually become China, and a supremely gifted assassin who has devoted himself to a years-long charade in order to get himself close enough to take out the king. As a teenage boy, I was thrilled by the unfolding story of this hero and his allies putting their lives on the line to defeat the tyrant. And then the ending comes. The assassin gets close enough to make his move, he's even holding the king's own sword and there's nobody around who could stop him. That's when he reveals that he's become convinced that what the king is doing, although brutal and violent and ruinous, is ultimately for the greater good in the long run. He returns the sword and submits to execution, and is then honored with a state burial. It kind of blew my mind. I was raised on Luke Skywalker and Batman and Jesus. My concept of a "hero" is someone who stands up against corrupt systems, who steps outside the law when he feels the law is unjust or insufficient. I felt like the writers had made a mistake, or something had been lost in translation, and maybe I had to see it in Chinese with subtitles. I was missing something. What I didn't understand was that different cultures have entirely different ideas of what makes you an honorable or heroic character. "Hero" was a product of the Chinese Communist Party, and the thousands of extras were Chinese military. The movie was literal state propaganda, teaching that submission to a powerful authority, even if it seems awful, is the wise and moral choice for a person to make. The Radiant Oaths don't seem to have much to say on the subject of morality, and they don't seem to take a side. There's a lot of room for interpretation and personal perspective. All that really seems to matter is a consistent internal narrative. I think you're right about Skybreakers being susceptible to brainwashing and misuse, and I also think we're going to see Radiants of all orders taking positions that will disturb us. To use a modern American example, one could easily say and believe "I will remember those who have been forgotten" and "I will listen to those who have been ignored"... about the Confederacy and white supremacists. They're a "lost cause" and a "tiny, hated minority" and so on. We could easily wind up with a Nazi Edgedancer.

I mean, it's the apocalypse. Everywhere in the world is going to be unpleasant for an increasing number of reasons. Mourn's Vault could just as easily be ravaged by a foreign disease or rampaging greatshells, as occupied by an Unmade. "Unpleasant" doesn't give us anything.

This seems to be the experience of a lot of the Radiants so far, at least the first generation of them. They don't understand or expect the process at all, they just start receiving supernatural attention and weird things start happening around them and to them. Then they realize it's been going on for longer than they realized. The understanding comes later, as their spren coheres into a more intelligent and useful guide.

That joke makes me want to burn cities to the ground, so I suppose it's a good pun.

What I found really fun about the Elsecaller ethic is that it aligns so closely with the nominal tenets of Vorinism. Vorins are supposed to pick a thing and strive to be the best at it, so they can be their best selves when it's time to do their part in a supernatural war against evil. It's kind of funny, and typical of Sanderson, that the great Atheist would find herself living out the mythology her people keep trying to get her to accept.

This might be reaching a little, but I think it works with the system as we understand it- what if Kaladin's Spiritual self-image of the brands involves them being painful? He's supercharged with an unusual level of Stormlight during this fight- what if enough Stormlight healing, because it aligns you to your Spritual truth and Cognitive perception of yourself, makes his brand hurt? I don't know. It seems most likely to me that it's an emotional thing entirely.

Healing fatal injuries and seeing the future seems like the most generally useful set of powers, to me. Hell, I'd be thrilled with just the healing. A Truthwatcher would be pricelessly useful to almost any society in any situation.

Maybe two entities, going through five Oaths together, equals ten something?

Rather than trying to position the poster in time, we could work from the point of "What reason could Brandon have for not wanting Rlain to be pictured here?" Because if it was a deliberate, future-story-based choice to not have him there, which we now know it was, then it doesn't really matter what time period is depicted. Even if he was supposed to be there, he's not, because of this other thing. So what reasons can we come up with that it would be meaningful to include or exclude Rlain? - Brandon doesn't want to depict a listener glowing with stormlight? Maybe to make Venli seem more special? - We're not going to like Rlain for much longer and it would piss us off having him on our nice posters? - He becomes a Radiant of some variety besides Windrunner? - Brandon doesn't have any listener art that he's satisfied with yet? Any other ideas?

I think it would cause Dalinar a more or less constant sequence of fight, arguments, distrust, etc if he kept the Assassin In White around and demanded that everyone just get over it. Szeth killed important people in a lot of nations. People already think Dalinar is trying to take over the world, if they find out he commands the guy who killed all their kings, they'll assume it was on Dalinar's orders. I think Szeth is likely to be kept as far away from Urithiru as possible, doing high risk black ops type stuff. And Dalinar is no longer Kholin Highprince, which means the ardents will probably be around even less than they already were. All in all, it seems very possible to me that Szeth and Zahel never run into each other.

I've been working on a theory that the Dawnshards are actually epic terraforming fabrials, and Shinovar's lack of spren is part of it. I believe that the immigrating humans used some kind of gigantic Soulcasting to transform a chunk of Roshar into a human world instead- which would mean that the whole region's Spiritual Identity is now different. That's why there are no spren, and why the highstorms are so weak, and how there are human plants, animals, and the soil to support them. That place isn't Rosharan anymore, despite being right in the middle of it.

The power that a Shard is made of can't really be destroyed, even if it's splattered all over the place. It all still exists and will be expressed somehow, somewhere. The Splintering just makes it so that the power isn't concentrated in a single incredible being anymore.

These are all good points. I think the only way around these problems is a pretty serious cultural revolution, part of which involves moving away from gemstone currency. For thousands of years, Stormlight has been used as a light source, a battery for fabrials and Shardplate which only the wealthy really possess, and a decoration. This made it semi-precious. But now, Stormlight can be used to heal deadly wounds, to repair destroyed structures, to teleport armies and trade goods, to radically accelerate the growth of crops, to make soldiers fly, and so on. It's absolutely the most essential resource in the world, and the world is having an emergency. We're also seeing Elsecallers and Lightweavers appear, which means that the inefficient and debilitating Soulcasting fabrials might not be nearly as needed in the future. I think, taken all together, it makes sense for Roshar to begin transitioning to a symbolic currency, like our essentially worthless coins and cloth paper. They still need to manage their economy, but civilization is collapsing and Stormlight is the difference between cities standing and falling. Every gemstone is a weapon, a first aid kit, an escape plan. The wise thing to do is stop using them to buy chouta.

That sounds likely to me. Every fantasy author uses real-world influences, and it's very much like Brandon to use our ancient religious scriptures as inspiration for his worlds' religious scriptures.