Zenith

...and you were sitting up in the study. You had been on a long holiday to a major castle, around the area the real Dracula had lived. You were majoring in history at Harvard University, and been sent here as a special research project. The castle you were in had an ancient, bloody history, and many claimed it to be haunted. You, however, weren't fooled; you knew there was no such thing as ghosts. A sudden lightning bolt struck the ground near the castle, and the thunder came fast and was extraordinarily loud. You jumped out of your seat, looking out the tower window. You looked back at the paper you were writing. "In his early days, Dracula..." you were so tired. What could just one little nap hurt? BOOM!. The thunder came again, shaking you out of sleep. Blearily, you looked outside. It was nearly morning, and you figured it must have been at least midnight when you fell asleep. You looked back at your paper, and there, on it, scrawled in blood was a message "Prepare yourself." You stare down at it for a minute before looking up. A large cudgel hung on the wall, and you figured it's been there since this castle was made, at least four or five hundred years ago. BOOM! The lightning came again. You heard an ominous crack and looked on in horror as a web of cracks spread through the wall behind the cudgel. Too horrified to move, you stood there as the cudgel fell on your head, along with many of the ancient bricks. You were falling. Why were you falling? Everything was black, and cold. So cold...but it was projected to be almost ninety today. Why was it so cold? Everything was already numb... "The first death has come..." What was that voice? You hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of you by the impact. You stood up, dusting yourself off. Oddly enough, your head feels fine, even though the cudgel had hit you right on your head, probably giving you a concussion. You look around. You're in a rickety, broken down shack. Many of the planks are falling off, or already gone, and it's quite drafty. There is one door, and no windows, unless you count the planks that had broken off. The floor is stone, and intricately carved. You notice a mist coming in through the broken planks and the crack underneath the one door, curling around you feet and slightly obscuring the floor from view. Through the cracks, you can see the mist is very, very heavy outside, probably up to your stomach. The cloud cover is dark and ominous, extending much beyond your view range. Very little sunlight filters through the clouds, giving the whole area a dark and shadowy feel. In the distance, probably about five or six miles away, you can see the ocean and a small wharf. Through the other side of the building, you can see a huge, enormous castle (probably three miles away), easily more than a mile square for just the building. The grounds outside of the castle were likely ten times that size or more, and you can make out a large forest. You decide to go outside of the shack, and see a few people milling about a central plaza. There is a shop and very few other buildings in this area, with a lot of farmland just outside of the village. What do you do? Alright, enough description. Let me explain what this is. This, in the spirit of Halloween, is a little game/RP I cooked up for you. Your very soul has been trapped to this place you're in. If you die somehow, you just come right back. Your goal is to escape. If you die, you come back to life in the beginning shack, with a random one of your items left on your corpse (not anything important, don't worry). Pretty simple, aside from the fact that I'm being pretty mean and won't hold back on killing you. The other catch? You're on your own. No one else is helping you, and I'm designing encounter orders, weaknesses, etc. on a per person basis. that's right, your world is personalized. If you are seriously stuck, you can ask me for a hint. I'm not THAT evil, although this could be seriously evil without some direction. Now, please let me lay down some ground rules, and give some hints, then feel free to post your first move and a bit more about your character. Rules: You don't need to ask to describe an area in a post, I've found in testing this that it just takes too much time, so I'll do that for you. You can use your character's knowledge of history if you want. Say something along the lines of "I thin about what this sort of an object would be used for..." or what this area is, etc. Please try to keep this somewhat child-friendly. No swearing, sexual content, or the like, but violence is somewhat allowed and expected. You can say something like "I stab the ____ in (area)", but you can't describe gore or anything, please adhere to this. If you break those rules three times, then I'll just have to stop with the playing, sorry. If you do happen to forget, and remember later, you can edit your post before I see it. I'll understand . Hints: Most beings in this world respond (or are weak to) to certain stimuli. Most make sense, but some are just plain silly. If you're really stuck, I'll help you. Just ask if you really need it. I'm not *all* evil. The stone floor in the first building is unimportant. Just saying. It might be a good idea to visit shops, even if you don't have money. I may put more in this section if it becomes necessary. Character sheet: Name(Optional): Your name. Yes, it's optional, it's not really that important. Gender(Required): Seriously. Male or female. Age(Required): Older than 22 (23+), younger than 40 (39-) Appearance(Optional): You can pick the color of the clothes you're wearing. You have a t-shirt on (With Harvard University printed on it), and some khaki pants. Your facial features and whatnot are up to you as well. So, just put that stuff on a character sheet (You really only need gender and age, other stuff isn't as important), slap it on your first post, along with your first action, and we'll get started. Good luck, have fun!

That's good. I guess I'm ready to post then. It's not as much a true RP as it is a game/RP combo. It's kinda weird.

It's really important, yes. We just don't discuss it as often as other stuff, probably because all we really know is that they left for some reason.

Yeah. Even though I still don't like Shallan chapters (*may* change in next book. May.), hopefully they'll shed more light on Roshar.

I think the one that you think is Kaladin may be already coming to pass... He stands with Dalinar, even though he hates lighteyes. He stands against Amaram who, I guess saved his life. In a way. He's also learning to control his surgebinding.

I guess sort of a small topic change (Don't really want to make a new topic when I have such a similar one here), but I was thinking of starting a pseudo-RP on this site (It's...different), but I've noticed that all the current RPs have their own subforums: are there any specific unspoken rules or things like that I need to know about before I attempt to start one? Oh, and welcome BTW.

I guess I have a few: In-school hyperness: At school I get really hyper, but during my extracurriculars and other activities after school I'm fine. Pretty self-explanatory. Annoyance: I have the ability to be really, really annoying (and I mean really annoying) to my friends, but still keep them as friends. Some don't quite know why. One even took my advice to stop listening to me. This is probably a function of the above. Music..Visualization?: No. Not Synesthesia. It's a bit different. When listening to music (and only things that have a beat, so I guess instrumental is fine), I sometimes (not often lately, unless I put my mind to it) get this little barometer (that's what the pulse graphs you see at the stereotyped hospitals on TV are, right? If it's not the correct word, tell me.) thing in my mind, which I generally seem to 'follow with my eyes', without actually using my eyes. It generally is just spikes in two opposite directions, unless I put my mind to it (which is actually really hard, especially when doing something else). in which case I get a more varied pattern. It's hard to describe, and may be more of a habit than anything. Can't think of anything else ATM.

Let's talk metaphors Perhaps hooks of regret and fire of guilt?

Yeah, I see where people are coming from with liking the Shallan chapters, I just find them dull, don't know why. Well, probably because it took time away from Kaladin .

The only real issue with that is that not many know what he is really doing. Other than that, it's pretty good. There's so much we don't know. It's awesome .

I wouldn't put it out of the question. We don't know how much Odium has control of in Roshar, and that's sort of the beauty of TWoK. I love how the history has been fragmented, warped, shattered, and all sorts of other odd things have been happened to it; it not only gives us less of an idea of what might happen/what did happen (giving more of those shocked moments we all love), but is an impressive worldbuilding skill. Making such a complex world, Brandon probably had the itching to put in all sorts of awesome lore, but he made even more awesome fragments of stuff. /Appreciation for TWoK history rant

My odds are on Szeth for sure in that kind of combat! (JK) I think that's unrealistic; Szeth is more of an in-and-out kind of guy; sure, the camp will be on high alert once he's spotted, but I don't think that the armies would get there in time or be of much use in the closed spaces. The shardbearers, perhaps would get there. Anyway, do you think Brandon wants to kill Dalinar off (as a question)? I'm starting to think he won't: -Dalinar hasn't gotten a book in which he stars in yet (this was going to be the one, which, IMO, would have been way better than Shallan, I don't really like her chapters, just like some don't really like Dalinar's.) -Dalinar has so much more in the way of storyline that could be explored (Not the least of which is the fact that he might be able to do a lot with Kaladin and his hatred of lighteyes, dealing with Amaram, etc.) -Dalinar is just cool like that. (JK he may or may not have bribed me with cookies intimidated me to his point of view)

It could be that Teft betrayed them to the Ghostbloods, as a completely random theory. It is shown they have members everywhere, so they could be the ones looking to eliminate old knowledge, like Jasnah's digging up, for instance.

So....what are the odds on Dalinar dying to Szeth? If only he had his plate and blade...

That is really good; I never thought of it that way, I thought it was more literal. Good job! Anyway, do you think there will be more death cry chapter headings in book 2?

I'll agree with that; it was my first thought, but I thought it was a little far-fetched. I guess you never know with Brandon, especially considering that there's something odd/shocking coming up in WoK 2 ( Likely not dealing with this issue in particular). I also think him teaching the others to worldhop may not be too far off from the truth.

Surgebinding, just because controlling gravity and the sticky-ness of things (with regards to other specific things) is just that awesome. "You're really bouncing off the walls today...literally! No more stormlight breakfast cereal for you!"

I was thinking about Hoid, and I wondered: why do the 17th shard want Hoid anyway? So, a random idea popped into my head, and it goes like this: The 17th shard can hop worlds, we all know that; however, they don't want anyone else to be able to or know about the multiple worlds. Hoid was a member of the 17th shard, maybe a pretty high-up one. Hoid took some "sensitive" information or something (broke a rule?) and decided he needed to flee. Hoid escapes and starts doing whatever Hoid does, and the 17th shard starts hunting him. Feel completely free to demolish the theory; as the topic description states, I don't have much base for this. (We don't have much information regarding Hoid and the 17th shard, anyway.)

I guess, but I don't know if that really counts, unless it's that other unnamed shard that ruled on Roshar. Along that line of thinking, what do we really know about Cultivation, facts-wise. Do we know if she's splintered or not?

Yeah, I always found the stone to just be a rock that is (for some reason) important to Szeth. Unless evidence in Book 2 or another book says otherwise, I don't think I have enough of a reason to think otherwise.

Poor Szeth...Two soulcasters, a surgebinder, a full shardbearer (if Adolin happens to be there), and whatever of bridge four happens to be there...thinking on it, his odds aren't that great.

The stormfather is the leader of the heralds, I believe that was mentioned in a bridge 4 chapter. If quotes are needed, I'll find them.

I would seriously do this. I would.

Yeah. Roshar history is much too fragmented for any serious guessing with it. Jasnah herself also said that they started to speak of them in metaphor, which means that some things may be completely different then how they were interpreted by us. Our only evidence points to the Parshmen/pashendi, but we really only have evidence from what Jasnah has shown us and the chapter heading things. Hopefully book 2 will shed more light on this subject.

It could. I'll have to find the description of Shadesmar in my copy tonight....