Observer

Eh, should have known the WoB-master would come in with Dawshards and steal all my thunder. I'm going to stubbornly pretend he exclusively means the rattles and the diagram now...

We're probably going to have to stick to the topic of repercussions and Ialai here, since the other threads have already endlessly gone over the other details. As a quick summary, we decided that Sadeas had painted himself into a corner, going all in with his own life and leaving no heirs or anything, explaining his increasingly "evil" behavior as every single plan fails and nothing works for him at all. After a million failures he's grasping at straws, and Adolin realizes that the man who tried to kill him and his father several times over is all alone and asking to die. It felt rushed only from Adolin's POV to me, he was making a decision I always wanted him to make, and finally nobody was around to stop him and he was doing it while he still had the chance. Ahem, anyways, I agree that this is going to cause a lot of problems, though I'm sticking to my theory that it'll be Dalinar's issue, not Adolin. The fact that Sadeas is now dead will seriously undermine a lot of Dalinar's work given proper cultivation, which any number of people could provide. Adolin isn't going to admit that he did it, so all the blame is going to hit his father, and it won't be pretty,

I have no idea if it works once posts are made, but other than flagging a mod, there should be a hide button on the OP.

Kaladin would be pre-lashings, so he wouldn't be OP. His final smash is like a mix of DDD and Pit, where he summons a mess of Bridge Four soldiers to wreck the battlefield. Also, you can only have Kredik Shaw as a map if it goes through all the stages it does in the books, ending with its total destruction, and flattening, requiring all players to dodge debris during transition.

When your main complaint with life is "It's not Brandon Sanderson..."

No, somebody just to weaponize Nightblood bombs. Throw them out, they autoattatch and begin sucking breath from the area to fuel the command "Make goldfish".

You didn't, The Lord Ruler owns all of them you sad joker. If I were an allomancer, I'd be either a Soother or a Rioter. Nobody in real life would ever Zinc their emotions were being manipulated, or that I'd have the Brass to do it! WOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!

I don't know about that. What I'm saying is about Hoid, so it's anything if not subjective, but he sounded more to me like they knew Rayse was a crafty and loathsome person all along. Here, let me get the quote... Ati was once a kind and generous man, and you saw what became of him. Rayse, on the other hand, was among the most loathsome, crafty, and dangerous individuals I had ever met. He holds the most frightening and terrible of all of the Shards. I don't know, but to me it sounds like Rayse, referenced in pre-shard tense, would need to have been going for a while to earn the descriptions of loathsome, crafty, and dangerous all in one go, since Hoid has met quite a few people that fit those description is excess.

The only "gods" we know of that fit that quote are the Heralds. They said that humanity won the war of the Desolations, but they lied, and now the Everstorm has come. I agree that the victory on the mount sounds like a Parshendi perspective though, or possibly something else as well. Brandon has mentioned that the endings to the two parts of the SA are in the Rattles, so I'm guessing that one is the end of section one.

I agree with you that Nalan is a terrible example of a Skybreaker. He seems to use the law as almost nothing more than a justification for his killings, almost as if holding on to it as the last remnant of who he used to be, but ignoring all else. It's mentioned in the Words of Radiance chapters in the epigraphs that the Skybreakers backed a rebellion in a nation, which is pretty much 100% against that place's laws by definition. This supports your theory, though it could mean other things. I also feel like pointing out that Szeth wasn't really following Skybreaker ideals when killing the Alethi, he was sticking to his own laws. Doing so may have earned Nalan's admiration, but it doesn't mean he was upholding any Skybreaker ideals. Still, nice work. Nice work indeed.

I'm pretty sure this will hit Dalinar harder. It's obvious that Sadeas turned on him, and so when Sadeas turns up dead, Dalinar will be the first person to start taking fire for it. Ialai might figure it out, depending on how much she actually cared about Sadeas and what his death does to her status. Also, I'm getting kind of annoyed that this is becoming my role on the forums, though I'll take it easy on you since you're new. Even though this is a protected subforum, all newly created threads have their titles visible from the front page, which is how I got spoiled on Stormfather things way back when. Not everybody's read WoR, so I'd appreciate if you clicked the edit button on your post, hit "full edit options", and changed the title. There should be/probably is a sticky about this somewhere... /thatguy

Shards hold massive amount of Investure, allowing them to do practically anything in the Physical Realm. When things move over into the Cognitive and Spiritual though, things get trickier. Harmony can't bring back the dead, despite being both Ruin and Preservation combined. However, Endowment can easily stick splinters into people and bring them back. Intent seems to have a lot to do with it, but experience is also a major factor. Honor appears to have heavily Invested the Heralds, to the point that they regenerate upon death, almost as if they were simply Splinters themselves. Basically, I'm saying no. Not every Shard has a policy like Endowment does, either from lack of experience, lack of Intent-allowance, or both. It's likely similar to what the Heralds are doing, but that's as far as I can take it. Vin and Ati are both as dead as they come, and Harmony isn't quite sure how to revive them, or if it's even possible anymore.

Moogle has basically said what I was leading at but didn't quite know to say. The Radiant Orders are based on a very simple idea: there is no perfect morality system. There is no single sentence, or even a group of them, that can fit itself in as the morality for every situation. Instead, there were ten Orders, all with different moral viewpoints to cover as much of the spectrum as possible. Yes, things look bad when you stare straight at the Windrunners or the Skybreakers or the Edgedancers, but that's not how you're meant to do it. There were Ten Orders, all together not because they had to work in perfect unison towards a goal, but because more than one belief system was needed. Windrunners to be morality. Skybreakers to be legality. Edgedancers to see the small picture, and maybe the Truthwatchers to see the big one. I'll agree that there are flaws, but personally I find it to be unavoidable. Instead, the Orders balance one another, and together they can work just fine.

Worth noting is the fact that the only real view of the Skybreakers we have is Nalan, who we've established is off his rocker and perverting his old ideals. I highly doubt that's how Skybreakers really worked. @Sasuk Keyword here is protect. Kaladin can't go and Windrun Amaram to death, because his job isn't to go and kill people in the name of right and wrong. He's defending somebody, keeping them alive to fight another day, and that will always be the centerpiece of his duty. He isn't a Skybreaker, going off and legislacerating the evil ones. There couldn't be much of a conflict among the Windrunners because at the end of the day things would just end with them all protecting and preserving their respected parties, keeping everybody alive.

It could just be me, but I've always seen the morality as such: Windrunners: Keep *everyone* alive. They aren't meant to judge, they're meant to protect everybody that they can, not to be judge and jury. I guess what I'm saying is that I've always seen the Windrunners as the people who don't care who you are or what you've done, because there be Voidbringers and it's not worth it to decide who deserves to live or die. Skybreakers: They're here to defend the law, which, to borrow from Cry, the Beloved Country, does not matter if it is flawed. Their job is to make sure people stick to the rules established. This sounds idiotic, and maybe it is by our standards, but I see one set of laws that would be quite useful for them to uphold: Their Oaths. The Skybreakers probably wouldn't be well liked, but they would also be the ones keeping other KR on their paths, a very useful calling calling back to watching the watchmen. On the side, they are the lawmen, who actually decide what to do with the troublemakers. Unlike the Windrunners, their job is to actually decide if keeping somebody around is worth the trouble. Ghostbloods/Edgedancers I won't speak for, I don't know enough about them to make anything resembling accurate. Sons of Honor are disgusting, but I can understand them. They think a Desolation is needed to whip mankind back into shape and purge corruption from the church. I don't like it, but I can understand. Vargo is something right out of Scardial. He wants to survive, he wants others to survive, and he honestly doesn't care what has to happen for his goals to work out. On Scadrial, he'd be best buddies with Preservation and would be a good guy. Here though, Honor is morality and his methods are wrong. Killing hundreds of innocents a day just for the chance that one of them will Rattle, useful or not, dooms him to a hollow victory later.

I'm going to have to go for Mistborn, though only because it was my completely unexpected introduction to the wonderfulness that is Brandon Sanderson. It'll always hold a special place in my heart, so I'm 100% biased. If I weren't, I'd probably say one of the Stormlight Archive books or Hero of Ages, since I loved those books a lot. [thatguy] As a side note, why the heck is this in the WoR subforum and not Brandon Discussion? [/thatguy]

I still think the Shardtank is the best option of them all, especially if we're doing Highstorm zombies. (Somebody should REALLY make a highscore survival game out of this using the MAG and some expanding)

Honestly I can't help but wonder if the point of the Windrunners is to keep everybody alive so they can all live to fight another day. The point of the codes, you can't duel somebody if it'll leave a useful man hospitalized when you might need him later. Windrunners keep everybody alive and breathing, no matter who they are or what they've done, because they need every man they can get for the Desolations. Their job is to keep people alive, and later the other Orders can deal with them. Trolly results below, not really On Topic. Aaaaand line break again.

Welcome to the 17th Shard! It's always really nice when a longtime fan and/or lurker decides to join in! Since you appear to have read Mistborn (I think), this following should be pretty much old new to you, but I'll copy-paste it all anyways: If you're not already Cosmere-aware, take a look at the Cosmere 101 thread, found here: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/491-cosmere-101/ This contains minor to moderate spoilers for Mistborn, so I guess in the name of long story short, this is what you'll get out of it: (Warning, this already copy-pasted warning will now warn you that the Cosmere101 thread explains this much better than I do) Have fun, and don't let the admins cookie-spike you.

Welcome to the 17th Shard! We hope you'll enjoy your time here on the forums, theorizing, making jokes, doing stupid stuff and generally doing what people on forums do. The rest of this post contains major-to-minor spoilers for Mistborn, which you may or may not have read already. If you have, this following should be pretty much old new to you, but I'll copy-paste it all anyways: If you're not already Cosmere-aware, take a look at the Cosmere 101 thread, found here: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/491-cosmere-101/ As I said before, this contains minor to moderate spoilers for Mistborn, so I guess in the name of long story short, this is what you'll get out of it: (Warning, poorly-explained paragraph of stuff you may already know and that could be explained way better in the link if you don't mind spoilers) I hope you'll stick around here with us, it's always great when we get new regulars. EDIT: Hi, I'm Observer, the person who's computer refuses to let line-breaks work unless specifically formatted to do so, a fact that I just cannot make myself remember.

Yes, Half-breed is a term used only in Mistborn, to describe a half-skaa half-noble. They're not supposed to exist and get hunted down to extinction regularly, so I'm not sure it's that much of an upgrade from being a bridgeman.

Roshar seems to have gotten the word 'hound' from someplace, one where the language either matched up or was close enough to stick around. This says to me that they either still remember the days of Yolen, which I find unlikely, or they got moved over from another planet more recently than that. I could have my timetables completely wrong on this, but I can't help but feel they originated from another one of the main Shardworlds, of which Nalthis may be included. Anybody care to shoot this full of timeline-considerate holes?

Now, I'm looking through the ones that Vargo found worth noting, and we see these. THE SHATTERED PLAINS I’m dying aren’t I? Healer, why do you take my blood? Who is that beside you, with his head of lines? I can see a distant sun, dark and cold, shining in a black sky. -Collected on the 3rd day of Jesnan, 1172, 11 seconds pre-death. Subject was a Reshi chull trainer. Sample is of particular note. --This shows us that Vargo knows about Shadesmar, otherwise this one wouldn't really stand out to him much. Maybe they Cryptic was hanging around as a result of Shallan being nearby, maybe it's just hanging out, who knows? Still, useful info on him, and it lets us further understand how the Diagram can be so complex. WANDERSAIL I hold the suckling child in my hands, a knife at his throat, and know that all who live wish me to let the blade slip. Spill its blood upon the ground, over my hands, and with it give us further breath to draw -Dated Shashanan, 1173, 23 seconds pre-death. Subject: A darkeyes youth of sixteen years. Sample is of particular note. --I almost want to say that this is the "secret that broke the Knights Radiant". He seems to see this one as notable above a whole lot of others, and it likely has a lot to do with the survival nature of the quote. It sounds a lot like Nalan's stuff, but unlike all the other rattles it doesn't really 'click'. I'm guessing Vargo is looking for a way to survive in this one. ESHONAI They named it the Final Desolation, but they lied. Our gods lied. Oh, how they lied. The Everstorm comes. I hear its whispers, see its stormwall, know its heart. -Tanatenes 1173, 8 seconds pre-death. An Azish itinerant worker. Sample of particular note. --This seems to tie into Vargo knowing that Vorinism is a 'sham'. Gavilar would have told him that Honor was dead, but his opinion seemed to be more all-encompassing. I mark this as the main reason for its notability, because the only other thing it says is about the Everstorm, of which there are many other quotes.

Probably for only as long as you were tapping, but yes, I think so. Might help you wait for a cure. Now I'm imagining mashing Cadmium from high up and just watching zombies rapidly decay.

Limping in the wake of AS, I'm finally a Shade! Yay! Also, I still chuckle a little when I see the Waffle Cook rank on Kurk. It's just so out of place among all these sombre ranks