I’m currently obsessed with The Stormlight Archive right now in preparation for book 5 so I just have Roshar in mind but I’d love to hear opinions about tattoos in the rest of the cosmere.
On Roshar, we know that tattooists exist. (Also, how are tattoos done? Is there a tattoo fabrial?) So far, we’ve mostly seen people on Roshar get tattooed for more practical purposes: declarations of freedom from former slavery, affiliation with organizations, etc. But Nazh’s embarassing glyph tattoo had me thinking about what people on Roshar would get tattooed for artistic purposes. Tattoos don’t seem that popular, but considering how military history has affected tattoos on Earth, what would you think tattoos would look like for the militaristic Alethi? Or Thaylen sailors? I assume things like anchors still get tattooed. But if the American traditional movement resulted in common motifs such as roses, panthers, and eagles, what would the Rosharan equivalent of that be?
Would people still get chickens tattooed? People also got lucky symbols tattooed so santhids? Or would people get tattoos of spren that represent ideas aligning with their values? Luckspren, or maybe gloryspren or passionspren? Huge back pieces of chasmfiends?
Sorry for any poor grammar but I need the questions out of my head because it’s almost 5 AM.