Windrunner

Not quite sure what you mean by that? I figured that all of them are ultimately deriving their powers due to their relationship to Kaladin, no matter who might be commanding them at the moment.

At this point, I'd like to put some increased evidence forward for the idea that the Parshendi are the true inhabitents of Roshar, who initally went to war against humanity for reasons that were somewhat understandable. Perhaps they were even created by Adonalsium when it was on Roshar, but that is irreleveant. Firstly, I'd like to point out that the Parshendi are unable to bond with the Nahel spren. I interpret this to mean that the Parshendi were unable to bond with the Nahel spren because they were closer to the Cognitive Realm than other peoples. This allowed them their forms, but they were not well-rooted enough in the Physical realm to form Nahel bonds with the most intelligent spren. However, then for whatever reason, human refugees arrived, I believe fleeing an attack by Odium onto their home planet of Braize, in the company of Honor and Cultivation. And they could bond with the Nahel spren just fine. However, they also were doing what humans do and conquering the Parshendi land with the help of these powers, and powerful spren such as the Stormfather, who they called traitor. They beat the Parshendi and drove them back into Braize, which was now a hellish nightmare, thanks to Odium. They called this place Damnation. I believe some memory of this conquest can be seen in this Death Rattle. The Parshendi, who had been around for much longer, felt betrayed by the spren, who gave humans some fantasitc abilities. How could the Parshendi hope to match them? This is echoed here, with disturbing implications. At this point, I believe Odium saw what had happened happening, and realized that he had had a stroke of good fortune. His army was here. They were angry, they wanted their homes back. So, he and the Unmade made an accord with them. They would give them new forms, forms of power, in exchange for destroying humanity. The Parshendi agreed, without realizing the trick. Once they took on these forms and bonded with Odium's voidspren, they were his Voidbringers, scourge of Roshar. This is shown here. The Parshendi songs even claim that the gods gave them powers similar to the human Surges. Another quote again mentions that it was crafted by the Unmade. This also explains something else. The Last Legion may not have been able to remember a time when they were free to chose their own form, but it used to be so, before humanity arrived. So although time has dulled the specifics, the ideas of the forms themselves remain. There is one quote that seems important that I cannot make sense of, though. Ideas on what this means are welcome. All in all, I think this is a pretty solid interpretation of early Rosharan history and the conflict between the humans and the Voidbringers. Obviously some of the details may be wrong, but I think the outlines are on the right track.

I have always pondered at the Kingdom of Jah Keved. The rest of the Silver Kingdoms have obvious remnants. Alethkar was Alethela, Shinovar was Shin Kak Nish, Makabakam and Sela Tales shattered into smaller kingdoms. All of the kingdoms of modern times however are still populated by the same race of people that once lived there when it as a Silver Kingdom. There are still Natans in the Unclaimed Hills, still Selay men in Marabethia. There has been some overlapping, such as the Purelakers, who are of Reshi and Selay descent, but as a whole, people have stayed put. But Jah Keved seems to deviate. Although they control roughly the area of the kingdom of Valhav, they are very much like the Alethi. They have much the same appearance, tall, tan and dark haired. Their culture is similarly focused on war. They share the same religion, have a similar system of government, and even speak languages that are very similar. In fact, they don't seem to have any truly distinguishing characteristics like the other races do. Only one little tiny bit, the red hair (athough an argument can be made for violet eyes). So the Vedens themselves did not initially have the red hair. It is from the Unkalaki. Then, Rock tells of how his people came to the Horneater Peaks. This is fascinating (including an obvious Hoid cameo), but a small line at the beginning caught my attention. So, with those two pieces of evidence, I'd like to submit a theory. The Vedens are not one of the races of the Silver Kingdoms. They are a mixture, the quote says as much, of the Alethi and the Unkalaki, who were once the true rulers of the Kingdom of Valhav. After the Silver Kingdoms fell, the Alethi went to Valhav and conquered it, driving its true people up into the mountains, where they took refuge. The Alethi who conquered Valhav eventually set up their own kingdom and named Jah Keved. They eventually interbred with the Unkalaki, creating a kingdom very similar to Alethkar, but with a few oddities. If you need any more evidence, look at the name. Perhaps it is circumstantial, but the very name Unkalaki contains the name of a Herald within it. Seems like a good sign to me.

One of the epigraphs in Words of Radiance gave me pause when I read it. What are these squires that are mentioned? Traditionally, squires were the assistents of knights, helping them put on their armor and the like. Radiants of course, who seem to have once had a mechanism for making their armor appear and disappear, seem unlikely to need this service. But squires also were knights-in-training, awaiting an opportunity to become knights themselves. A potential hypothesis that can be drawn here is that once Radiants were accompanied by men and women who were attempting or in the process of becoming members of the Knights Radiant. I believe that there is a small glimpse of this in one of Dalinar's visions. Initially, I thought that perhaps this woman's abilities as a Surgebinder allowed her to grant her followers the ability to use a bit of Stormlight. Now, I am not so certain. She almost certainly a Releaser or Dustbringer, her Surges are Division and Abrasion. Neither of these would seem to account for such a power. These men would seem to be her squires, or at least people who could be her squires. I also believe that this is what was offered to Dalinar by Harkaylain. He couldn't promise that Dalinar would become a Radiant, but he could give him a shot by making him a squire. Now, with Lopen's abilities, and mentions of other members of Bridge Four glowing, I believe that the men of Bridge Four are now Kaladin's squires.

This theory is a simple one. Unlike the other orders of Knights Radiant, the Skybreakers never abandoned their oaths and disbanded. They have remained active, albeit covertly, under the control of Nalan. Firstly, I want to present evidence that one of the orders of Radiants never disbanded, at least entirely. This epigraph makes it quite apparent to me that one of the orders of Radiants stuck around for quite some time. Nalan offers Szeth a place in their ranks, and Helaran was apparently attempting to join them. It seems evident to me that for whatever reason, the Skybreakers refused to abandon their Blades and their oaths to stick around. As one final piece of evidence, I'd like to look at the spren. First, I'll establish the type of spren the Skybreakers were bonded to. Given Nalan's penchant for laws and one of the divine attributes of the Skybreakers being "just" this makes me fairly certain that the highspren belong to the Skybreakers. Now, lets look at who Jasnah goes to see for information while she is in Shadesmar. Why would she go to see the highspren? While I'm sure that they are knowledgeable, would not the spren of other orders be better? Why not see the spren of the Willshapers or the Elsecallers, her own spren? They are associated with knowledge and wisdom, surely they would be better equipped? But here, Pattern provides a clue. The answer is clear. She went to the highspren because they are the only spren who survived the Recreance because the Skybreakers did not abandon their oaths. They are the only ones who were alive during the Desolations.

So, I've been working to get the Ultimate List updated, but it isn't done yet. If you want to take a look at most all of the questions compiled, here it is: https://docs.google.com/document/m/?id=1IA4BqbHKJtgckPjKMJKbiBEVgZ-YROwyvmgvaaP7VD0&login=1&pli=1

We should get a plan together on those. I don't want this to fizzle out. Also, because I bought a headset for it and only used it once. xD

Really? Because every impression that I get from it leads me to believe that Kote will die in the end of the cycle, his story finally told. And I would be sad, but I wouldn't be surprised. The series has never seemed like it's anything other than a tragedy to me.

It does. I worked on it a while ago, but while I love the new forum upgrades, it makes it really inconvenient for my formatting on that page. I'll see what I can do.

I always kind of figured that it was Marewill because it was her will that Scadrial return to the way it was before the Ascension. I never considered that Mare was just part of her name.

There's honestly not a lot of information on it, other than the fact that there will be a gap and the time passing between the two five book arcs will be less than the time between the Mistborn trilogy and Alloy of Law. So <341 years, I suppose.

It's only been confirmed that the first five book cycle will have prologues set during the night of Gavilar's assassination. You've got some cool ideas though, I like them.

A bunch of the early TWoK chapters had two of the same icon, if I remember correctly.

Not necessarily. This could really be the way to go in a siege scenario. You'd require a Shardbearer without a Blade, or walls that are thick enough to make cutting through with a Blade difficult, but dumping boiling pitch on a Shardbearer from a great height seems to be an excellent tactic to me.

Well, honestly most of the calendars we have going on in the wiki right now are arbitrary to being with.

Weiry, Joe and I are of the opinion that we stick with the EoS convention for now, until we hear the actual name of the calendar. Because it's not *technically* wrong, because this year is happening in the Era of Solitude.

In my head I always refer to the one associated with trade as the Highprince of Commerce, and the one associated with judges and courts as the Highprince of Justice.

Windrunner tried to calm the sound of his breathing, eyes darting from face to face. He could look anywhere, anywhere but at the grisly sight that had greeted him this morning. Unfortunately the smell of blood and viscera was not so easy to ignore. I knew that this life would be dangerous, but this...? Windrunner thought to himself. Try not to look guilty or scared. These men and women have been through hell together and will turn on a newcomer like me first. Perhaps raising the alarm wasn't the brightest idea I've ever had. If I'd been thinking straight, I'd have slipped out quietly and let someone else discover the corpse. Being the new guy was suspicious enough on its own, let alone being the man to "find" the corpse. This was supposed to be a fresh start, a new life away from the mines and the darkness that had claimed the lives of his father and grandfather before him. On that dreadful day that his father had not returned home, Windrunner had sworn to himself that he would not share his father's fate. Sure, being the fall guy was not the best job in the crew, but a man had to start somewhere. A month among the crew, taking the fall for small jobs, little thefts, distracting the men of the garrison while pockets were picked and the like. He'd never been punished worse than a smack with a cudgel or a night in prison. That wouldn't last forever though. A man only served as the fall guy for so long. Either he climbed higher in the ranks or eventually took the fall for a crime that ended up with an Inquisitor's axe buried in his skull. Windrunner hadn't made friends among the crew, he didn't make friends in general. He'd focused on proving himself to Modeft, showing all the ways he could be useful to the crew, and now that man was dead Well, it was too late to do anything about that now. Best start making friends quick. Windrunner edged his way around what was left of the crewleader, eyes still averted. His glance fell on a man inspecting the body and speaking that horrible Eastern slang. Windrunner hadn't seen him before. Windrunner cleared his throat and spoke for the first time since he'd told Shimble what he'd found. "Let's not be hasty here, folks. I've been watching y'all file in here and everyone seems to be surprised by Modeft's murder. I realize I haven't been among you fine people long, but it seems to me that we can't start snappin' at each other's throats the second Modeft's gone. He had a plan, and I don't know about y'all, but I intend to see it through for him, Survivor willing. We can't get it done if we immediately start slaughterin' on one another. I think we should just sit tight and see if this Inquisitor strikes again. I vote for no one." Best not make any enemies until I know who I can trust to not stab me in the back the second I'm not paying attention. Again, his glance fell on the foreigner with the strange accent. At least there's one person newer than me here. Perhaps there's an opportunity to pin their mistrust on him... Wow, I totally spaced. Sorry to forget about the character concept, I hadn't realized how RPG-heavy this game was. I play Mafia with my friends all the time, but we don't go quite this in-depth. I'm not much of a writer or a role-player, so forgive me for the awful writing and any of the mistakes I'm going to make right of the bat. Any feedback or ways I could have done better?

Okay guys, I realize that most of you have come to this conclusion on your own, but a few people apparently need an official notice. This topic is for posts that directly relate to new readings from Words of Radiance. It is not the place to discuss the contents of those readings. If you have something to say about something you discovered in one of these, feel free to post about it in another topic or one that you made. I really don't want to lock this topic because it makes it easier to inform me of new readings, but if people continue theory posting in here, I'm just going to start hiding them. Thanks for your understanding, guys.

Hrm... You don't like to make it easy for us.

I thought I'd just mention why I went back to my old symbol. I loved your work, so it wasn't due to me not liking it. I just absolutely could not get used to having a new avatar. I've had this one for over two years at this point, and I'm fairly set in my ways. xD

What other name would we call it by then if not the Era of Solitude? It's the time period they're in, the calandra just doesn't start on the first day of the Era of Solitude. And I personally prefer the way EoS.

We don't really do "assigning" articles. I mean, we don't really want to force articles onto people. Ideally what we're doing here is staking a claim on a concept that we've worked on before, are knowledgeable about, and interested in. If you don't really know what you want to work on, it's easier just to wait until the book comes out so you can see what needs doing. That being said, if you *really* want us to tell you a few articles we need done, we can do that.

It seems kind of odd to me. Also, I've spoken to Brandon about Endowment's Shardpool. It is leaking, which allows the Tears of Edgli to grow in Hallendran and Hallendran alone, so I doubt that it's the Bright Sea.