KandraAllomancer

Exactly. It was also only a surprise to the Fused, as the ability of humans to bond the Voidspren is implied by the Voidbinding chart The Everstorm and killing Jezrien are new, but I don't think it's because Odium learnt something novel - he's quite clever, has futuresight and a lot of free time on Braize. If that was about knowledge, he would have figured it out may Desolations ago. I think the weakening of the Oathpact is to be blamed here. Corrupting the True Spren by Sja-anat might have some historical precedent - there was something weird with Truthwatchers during the False Desolation. This is genuinely new, I agree, but it seems to be because of (A) specific circumstances (Dalinar is the first Bondsmith since Honor's death) and (B) something or someone is talking to Dalinar and guiding him. And more importantly - what Dalinar is extremely powerful (borderline Ascension, per Odium's word) and still he can affect one battlefield only. Connecting to all Singers on the whole continent is, on the other hand, Oathpact-level magic. Personally, I find it difficult to believe that something lower than a Dawnshard or a Shard could facilitate this

We know that a Dawshards was hidden in Aimia for some time and that there's one Dawnshard different from the others - which I think makes it hard for it to be a Dawnsinger. Also, leaving Roshar with a bonded spren is rather hard to pull off. I agree however, that the Singers' ability to link their power to a devastating effect (the Everstorm) seems very similar to what a Dawnshard could do. I wonder if Singers could technically count as the "different" Dawnshard

A. I don't think Yelig-nar needs a host per se; he's still quite deadly on his own B. We don't know if the danger of bonding an Unmade is correlated in any way with their powers. Let's look at Surgebinding/fabrials, for example: the Stormfather is extremely powerful and dangerous on his own, but bonding him doesn't pose a danger; on the other hand you can be horribly changed and finally die from Soulcasting Savantism C. People used to bond Yelig-nar in the past - otherwise there would be no lore about granting all ten Surges. Also, Odium clearly counted on Amaram bonding him. Why waste a perfectly good servant if he didn't? Maybe Amaram not being able to handle his guilt was a factor here - I wonder how Moash would work instead Note necessarily. I mean, there are no Truthwatcher Fused - only Illumination Fused (confirmed) and (potentially, assuming they are not the missing "Order") Progression Fused. The former use regular Illumination, not futuresight

We have a confirmation that the Unmade could be theoretically bonded:

Bondsmiths are special, we all know that. To quote the Stormfather: They get the most unique spren, which, apart from granting Tension and Adhesion, have some unique abilities or phenomena associated with them. Based on that, I always assumed that the Unmade would be the spren for the Voidbinding equivalent of the Bondsmith Order. What if that is not the case? I'd like to present some arguments why I believe the “privileged” Order of Voidbinding could be the Truthwatchers: Truthwatchers are opposite to Bondsmiths on the Surgebinding chart, symbolizing Odium and Honor as opposing forces Odium doesn't really care about uniting anyone. Spiritual Adhesion is a special, cherished power in Surgebinding. Amongst the Voidbringers, the Envoyform is granted by a lesser Voidspren and relatively low on the hierarchy Odium's signature moves are futuresight (Voidish Illumination) and corrupting Investiture/spren/people (spiritweb modification = Progression). These are also the most Spiritually oriented Voidish powers we know, just as Bondsmiths get the most Spiritually oriented Surges amongst the KR (WoB) Voidbinder's futuresight interferes with Odium's own and it would make sense for it to be available only to his very selected servants Odium's Champion, likely the most powerful Voidbinder possible, is described as surrounded by multiple shadows, a possible nod to (Mistborn spoilers) Futuresight, unlike other Voidish powers, is granted (directly or indirectly) by at least two Unmade: Sja-anat and Moelach. I would also add Ba-Ado-Mishram as a likely candidate for granting the Nightform somehow (we know from Pashendi Songs that the Unmade might provide them). Why? The Nightforms existed for the last time during the False Desolation and they apparently predicted the Everstorm (“A new storm will come, someday to break” line from Song of Secrets). That's seeing hundreds (thousands?) years into the future – a feat I can only ascribe to the influence of an extremely powerful Unmade Sja-anat seems to be the Unmade whose additional powers correspond to the Truthwatcher Order and she was the most feared amongst them. We've seen her corrupt two kinds of sentient spren: Truthwatcher and Oathgate spren. Of these, only the former get a new, distinctive Surge variant, which I think might be caused by their direct Connection to Sja-anat herself (she definitely has a Connection to her lesser spren “children” as she can communicate with people through them) Voidbinding is very mysterious, but (based on chart similarity with Surgebinding) I would assume that it requires a permanent bond with sapient Voidspren. We also know that Voidbinding typically originates with the Unmade and is somehow similar to the Old Magic. How could all of this fit together? Unmade being Truthwatcher spren offers a solution, I think: once you bond an Unmade permanently, your spiritweb and body gets seriously and visibly corrupted (think of Amaram and Aesudan) and you get a Spritual Progression ability to corrupt others in a similar way, allowing them to bond Voidspren permanently

Yeah, definitely. Nice catch!

Yes, but we know from Syl's Interlude (RoW spoilers) that That, I believe, could be the explanation behind BAM's sudden overpowered Bondsmith abilities. As for the classification - I think that, in a way, several different Unmade/Order matches could be correct, as Odium might have given a corrupted spren of one type a power associated with another Order or even give a power of one Order to several Unmade. We don't really know, I was focusing on an attempt to discover the original corrupted spren here. I would still argue that Sja-anat corresponds to Truthwatchers though Her power is about spiritweb modification (Progression) and she calls it Enlightening (which invokes Illumination)

The lifespren are often seen around plants and I wonder if they might have something to do with it (assuming that they spend most of their time in the Physical Realm, like the windspren do)

Yeah, he abilities are surprisingly similar to Dalinar's even though there is supposed to be no Bondsmith Unmade. Given recent information from Syl's Interlude, I think there's another explanation for this (discussed here, RoW spoilers). This is actually the reason why I decided to look past the Unmade abilities and concentrate on their behavior

To put it shortly: this is yet another attempt at matching the Unmade with corresponding KR Orders based on the cousin spren of these Orders (an idea very similar to the one originally presented in this thread). I based my analysis on two assumptions, which I believe lead to some interesting results: The powers that the Unmade grant when bonding with humans/Singers might match the original KR Order, but it's not 100% reliable, as Odium might have tweaked these powers for his own purpose We should rather look at the characteristics of cousin spren (how they behave, what are they attracted to, how they look and sound) and search for similar patterns amongst the Unmade Here is what I was able to find. Please note that the list will become more and more speculative as we go, and (because we know only a few cousin spren) I tried to search for similarities between lesser spren as well: Re-Shephir – Lightweavers, obviously. Shallan states that explicitly and there are clear similarities between how Re-Shehir and the creationspren act Yelig-Nar – Windrunners, once again quite obvious. The windspren are rather mischievous and often play pranks on people (e.g. sticking shoes to stone) and they can mimic people's voices. Once you look past things like growing crystals from the host's body and granting all ten Surges, you can see that Yelig-Nar is essentially an extremely malicious and powerful version of a windspren – for example, he broke into Nohadon's chancery and killed all the scribes (probably burning books as well) and he is apparently “accompanied by the wails of those he consumed” (vocal mimicry) As for the Edgedancers, it seems that their cousin spren are the lifespren. Is there an Unmade that would match them? The only candidate I can think of is Chemoarish. She is actually often conflated with the Nightwatcher (a connection with Cultivation and cultivationspren) and is called Dustmother – and the lifespren look like motes of glowing green dust or swarms of tiny, translucent insects. This is very speculative, obviously, but I think that (instead of typical Dustbringer associations) Chemoarish might represent something like a swarm of locusts. Devouring plants (which attract the lifespren) and causing famine (not all lands have access to Soulcasters, after all) seems like a fitting ability for an Edgedancer Unmade (and the biblical plague connotations fit the overall mythology of Roshar as well) We know only one more type if cousin spren (glorypspren) and it's useless because it is the one for Bondsmiths. However, the official Herald portraits show them with the cousin spren and we now have a portrait for Taln. He is surrounded by yellow-orange spren, which are unfortunately pictured as rather formless. Could these be flamespren or painspren? The latter would really work well thematically for Taln and Stonewards in general. If that is the case, the best fitting Unmade would probably be Nergaoul I'm really waiting for the three remaining Herald portraits from RoW, but in the meantime I can think of some lesser spren that could potentially be cousin spren and match some of the Unmade: Moelach, for example, seems to work in a way that reminds me of the deathspren. Both are attracted to death, obviously, and the voices of the deathspren are “whispers, scratchy sounds like paper being torn” which shows some similarity to the quote from Jezrien: “Moelach is close. I can hear his wheezing, his scratching, his scraping at time like a rat breaking through walls.”. If deathspren are indeed cousin spren, my best guess for the Order would be the Dustbringers. It would provide a nice contrast to the Edgedancers and their lifespren, plus deathspren work well linguistically with the whole Dustbringer/Ashspren terminology (“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”). Not to mention that the Dustbringers might be, on average, the deadliest Order of the KR I've seen theories on the forum suggesting that the rainspren might be the cousin spren for Skybreakers (based on the contrast with Windrunners). They are associated with the Weeping and w know from Puuli's interlude that the fishermen work especially hard during that time. That might be scraping the bottom of the barrel, but if the line “Let me no longer hurt! Let me no longer weep! Dai-gonarthis! The Black Fisher holds my sorrow and consumes it!” offers some hidden clue, that might be it The Inkspren value logic greatly, and I would assume that the cousin spren of Elsecallers might be related to that (logicspren maybe?). Ba-Ado-Mishram was “said to have been keen of mind, a highprincess among the enemy forces, their commander during some of the Desolations” and I believe she would fit here quite well Sja-anat seems to have so many clues linking her to Truthwatchers that I would be surprised if she matched any other Order, which leaves us with Ashertmarn corresponding to the Order of Willshapers

I think Kalak might've simply been out of Stormlight, particularly given how inefficient Honorblades are in that regard

Yeah, breaking a bond would probably induce a slaveform, but weakening a bond could simply free a Singer's mind from Voidspren's influence so he can try to change form during the Highstorm. Bondsmiths definitely have the most Spiritual oriented Surges, Truthwatchers only get that because of spren corruption. As for Willshapers, the Reachers can, at the very least, imprison a Voidpsren in a gemheart, weakening a bond so that the Singer can hear old Rhythms and regain original personality while retaining the Form of Power. Whether this is specific to Willshapers (which I think would make much sense) or can extend to others, remains to be seen

We now know that Bondsmiths existed on Ashyn before the Nahel Bond was discovered and they were able to bind Surges somehow (Surge fabrials, probably) and use Connection to achieve spectacular results. Comparing this description with what the Dawnshards were supposed to do, it seems quite likely that they were simply using them. If so, is it possible that Ba-Ado-Mishram was able to get one somehow and use it to cause the False Desolation? Each Unmade can be mapped (with some fuzziness, of course) to a KR order, with the exception of Bondsmiths. BAM's abilities during the False Desolation, however, seem like a supercharged, Roshar-wide, version of what Bondsmiths can do (providing Connection and Investiture). It was also the first time she showed these powers: the KR weren't sure how she did it ("Ba-Ado-Mishram has somehow Connected with the parsh people") and we know that historically they feared Sja-Anat more. I think it is in the realm of possibility that her original powers were completely unrelated to this, but, against all odds, she was able to obtain a Dawnshard. Maybe it was stolen from Aimia? In such case, the Scouring might have been an attempt to repeat the False Desolation by Dai-Gonarthis

We've learnt from Syl's Interlude that Bondsmiths can strengthen bonds between humans and spren, which Dalinar doesn't seem to know how to do yet. Could it be the Spiritual version of the Surge of Tension? We've mostly seen Dalinar using pure Adhesion or the mix of Bondsmith Surges (e.g. repairing objects) so far and strengthening a bond seems to kind of fit the description of "making things more rigid, less flexible" (a definition of Tension from this WoB). Assuming that this is the case, what about the Surge of Cohesion, which is pretty much the opposite of Tension (at least in the physical sense): We know that Willshapers are all about seeking freedom, so it seems entirely possible that they can use Spiritual Cohesion to weaken bonds. That leads to two interesting implications: A. Syl is bound to remain within some distance of Kaladin, but what about the Reachers? Is it possible for Willshapers to weaken their bond somehow so that their spren can explore their surroundings more (which we know they love to do). The fact that Willshapers also have the Surge of Transportation (which seems to allow Soulcasting at a distance) might also be a factor in maintaining a bond despite physical isolation B. The first Willshapers on modern Roshar are Singers, which offers some very interesting options. Can they use bond weakening to "exorcise" Voidspren from Singers (and replace them with other spren)? Can they go even further and expel the Fused from Singer bodies?

We know that there were fabrials (the Oathgates) on Ashyn. The Surge fabrials on Roshar were created in Aimia, which also happened to have had a Dawnshard and that doesn't sound like a coincidence. I agree that the original meaning of the word Bondsmith was likely to be a person wielding a Dawnshard - and they probably created Surge fabrials ("binding" Surges long before the Nahel bond was discovered), including the ones used to escape Ashyn

To each other, yes - in order to multiply the power of a given Surge It's been a while since I read WoR, do you remember in which chapter (or at least which part) was that described? Dalinar got the Investiture from the Stormfather, he explicitly mentions the Connection between them when he explains what he did to him. I think (although that's a hypothesis) that Singer-multiplied Adhesion was enough to transfer massive amounts of Investiture from Braize and that's what jump-started the Everstorm

Thanks, I haven't tried that

That was "I am Unity" if I remember correctly. I'm not sure if that necessarily implies Adonalsium's plan or involvement, although I agree that's a valid option I definitely agree that Odium used Adonalsium's design here, but I believe it could be way simpler than that. Singers might have the ability of linking their power (nice nod to Wheel of Time), to the point of being as powerful as a Dawnshard. That would explain why Honor was so reluctant about them using the Surges. Linking the power provided by thousands of Voidspren could allow them to accumulate enough Connection (I assume that the Stormform provides some kind of access to Adhesion) to bring Investiture from Braize to Roshar, a trick somehow similar to how Dalinar summons Honor's Perpendicularity

I bought the hardcover + ebook bundle from Vault Comics, as @Snorkel said, it seems to be the only way for now. A few remarks on the quality of the ebook though: The epub file seems kind of half-cooked: the title is "DARK ONE Epub Build", there is no author etc. I was able to correct this in Calibre The epub file is rather big (~500 MB) and it might be the reason why I couldn't upload it to Google and use it in Google Play Books ("file rejected by server" error). It applies to both the original and corrected epub I ended up reading Dark One in PDF format on Chrome (once again, the big size made other programs very slow and unresponsive). Not super convenient, but you can get used to it

Providence would be really cool

To be fair, the gemstone was there only to facilitate the bond with Yelig-nar, not to contain him for a longer period of time

I assume that it refers to their Surges: Gravitation ("sky") and Division ("breaker") Bondsmiths are an exception, kind of. Or at least their Adhesion is: That would be Abrasion, I think

As a rare book collector myself I share your pain, but I don't think we're the true audience here. Dragonsteel's policy is much closer to Folio Society than SubPress or Grim Oak, in my opinion. These books will be printed as long as there's demand; they are rather unlikely to appreciate in value (other than sentimental value :)) Yes, first printings are technically numbered, but for the previous books the printing runs were big (my Warbreaker number is over 1700) and there's no way to match the numbers. The rationale behind the steep incline in price is the campaign's focus on swag and (possibly) decreasing people's interest in future numbered leatherbonds (since they require more work). Personally, I'll probably go with Tier 3, plus some add-ons

The basic premise is also quite similar to the Sundering duology by Jacqueline Carey (and the word "sundering" is used several times in relation to the Narrative). Additionally, the Blackened Lands and its inhabitants reminded me of the Misery from Ed McDonald's Raven's Mark series.

Horneater Peaks, as confirmed by Azure in Oathbringer (chapters 93 and 102)