Jult

While I agree that the theory "Taln once used a Dawnshard and his Torment prevented his breaking" has a lot going for it, and even seems pretty likely... I still kinda hope it's wrong. The only evidence that I could offer to the contrary is that Taln believed that he failed when he returned to Roshar. So, if it was impossible for him to break.. He, at least, doesn't seem to know that it was impossible. Which would be odd. We don't have a lot of examples of former Dawnshard holders experiencing Torments. But the 2 that we have seen seem pretty aware of what their Torment is. I, for one, hope that Taln authentically never broke - just sheer willpower without any Torments propping him up. I think it would be a very interesting case for Kaladin to deal with. Because Taln does need help. But how do you fix the man who never broke? How do you tell someone "it's not the end of the world if you break", when they spent thousands of years in a situation where breaking literally would have been the end of the world? Taln was put into such a unique and unfair position. And I think exploring the mind of a Taln who wouldn't break in that position will be more interesting than exploring the mind of a Taln who couldn't break.

Shallan was born in Vev (4) of 1156. Shallan bonded Testament somewhere around Tanat (9) of 1165 (which would make her around 9 and a half years old). The date of Gavilar's assassination was in Ishi (10) of 1167 (which would make Shallan 11.5 when it happened). Shallan killed her father in Ishi (10) of 1172 (16.5 years old) Shallan reached Kharbranth in WoK on exactly 1173.6.10.3 (17.2 years old) Note: these are Rosharan years so Shallan would be older in standard years. So, it's more like 6 years between Gavilar's death and the main events of WoK. If you haven't checked out the Roshar Map and Timeline as well as the spreadsheet that it's based on, I highly recommend it. It's super useful.

I've been sifting through the limited information that we have on the nature of modern fabrials because I have a Scholar player in my Cosmere RPG campaign and he plans to dump a lot of points in the Artifabrian branch when the full rules release. Mainly I'm trying to brainstorm some ideas for cool (but not game breaking) fabrials that he can invent. Anyway, it led me to this fun train of thought: Like most things in the Cosmere, there's an insane number of possibilities even for a simple fabrial. There are more than 50 varieties of lesser spren and 10 polestones. But the thing I'm most interested in discussing today are the cages. Fabrial cages are the metal components of the fabrial. Certain metals interact with fabrials in predictable ways. The metals that Rosharans use in cages today are: Zinc - Causes the spren within the fabrial to more strongly manifest in the Physical Realm Brass - Causes the spren within the fabrial to withdraw to the Cognitive realm Bronze - Can be used to create detector or warning fabrials Pewter - Causes a characteristic of the spren to be amplified. Tin - Causes a characteristic of the spren to be diminished. Iron - Attracts nearby substances (the nature of the substance depends on the spren used) They also know that Steel and Aluminum interact with Fabrials but these are both recent-ish discoveries. Steel repels things and Aluminum does odd things where it alters, interrupts, or blocks certain aspects of the fabrial. Anyone who has read Mistborn should see the connection here. And it seems a pretty safe bet that the remaining 8 Allomantic metals (copper, duralumin, nicrosil, chromium, gold, electrum, cadmium, and bendalloy) will come into play at some point. Roshar just doesn't have advanced enough metallurgy yet. There's a WoB from Brandon that says Worldhoppers are working on experiments with this in mind. And, obviously, Scadrians will have the edge in this area. So, what do we even think the remaining 8 metals will do? And what kind of crazy fabrials do you think we'll see in the future (with or without these 8 new metals)? And will Rosharans figure it them out on their own? Or will some Rosharan-Scadrian joint research team collaborate to bring them about? Also, shout out to the discussion we had on suppressor fabrials earlier this week on the Stormlight-only board where we did a little speculating on copper already.

You can. Whenever your character levels up, you receive 1 'Talent Point'. You can spend this point to advance in a Path that you've already taken or branch out into a new Path. As far as I know, there is no limit to this. I just messed around in Demiplane's character creator to see if they had any restrictions in the beta, and I was able to create a level 6 Horneater with 2 points in the Warrior path, 1 in Agent, 1 in Scholar, 1 in Windrunner, and 1 in Lightweaver. And it doesn't seem to have broken anything. Side note, (and again this is more from me playing with the character creator than anything I see in the rulebook), there does appear to be a level cap of 50.

Wit refers to Wind as an 'ancient spren' in chapter 4 of WaT. And Wind refers to herself as a spren in chapter 56: So, I'd tentatively say yes. But the word 'spren' is used pretty inconsistently. Cosmere-aware characters typically speak of spren as strictly Rosharan Splinters that have gained sentience. Whereas most Rosharans call any Splinter they see a spren (Shallan calls Seons spren, for example). So, it IS possible that Wit and Wind are both just speaking to Kaladin in terms that a barely-cosmere-aware Rosharan would understand.. The main reason why I'm tentative to say Wind counts is because "normal" spren seem to have gained sentience through the Cognitive influence of the sapient races on Roshar. Whereas it sounds to me like Wind, Stone, and Night were intentionally created with sentience. They're definitely a special case.

I created a similar topic recently where I proposed the 4th Moon implies a 4th primeval Spren similar to Wind, Stone, and Night (A Fourth... Everything? - Cosmere Discussion). I suggested 'Day' as a sort of opposite to Night since Brandon loves his push and pull elements. But several people in that topic also suggested some kind of Sea or Ocean spren. Cusicesh came up as a suspect there too, but we didn't get too far with him. Relevant side note: during the Shardcast interview with Brandon 2 weeks ago, Brandon specifically says [spoilers in case you plan on watching]:

An excellent point! Interestingly, as far as I know, we haven't seen anyone mention how Copper interacts with a fabrial. Navani mentions several other metals in the RoW Epigraphs which are [Mistborn Spoilers] RoW Epigraphs 7-11: I just assumed Copper would prevent a warning fabrial from detecting things; as [Mistborn Spoilers]: With that in mind, I'd be surprised if Copper wasn't used in the construction of a suppression fabrial.

It seems right to me that the main thing being impacted by the Suppression Fabrial is the Nahel Bond. If we take a step back and question what the Suppression Fabrial could be targeting, I can think of 4 options: Stormlight? - Nope. We see Stormlight behaving normally in the presence of the SF (in Navani's lab and in other fabrials). It just can't be used by Radiants. Spren? - The SF doesn't appear to harm spren. It did affect Phendorana's ability to manifest in the Physical Realm, but I'd say that's more evidence that it is targeting the Nahel bond and not the Spren themselves. In fact, unbonded Spren can materialize Physically as Shardblades without any issue. Surges? - Nope. Thanks to everyone's favorite guy with crystals for eyes, we've seen that the Windrunner Honorblade had no issue granting access to either Gravitation or Adhesion in the presence of an SF. And, of course, the Fused are accessing Surges as well. Spiritweb? - This seems to be the main contender. It seems like the SF somehow targets the Connection between a Radiant and their Spren. Unfortunately, we aren't given a lot of details on the composition of a SF. We know: It has 4 garnets embedded in a diamond-shaped pattern and one larger unidentified gem on the base It's got a cylindrical body with two angular pieces that extend from the top (kind of like a tuning fork according to Navini) The body is made of metal. No detail on what kind, but we could speculate a little based on what we know about fabrials and metal. Most likely Tin since it seems to diminish rather than completely deplete. It uses an Enhanced Spren from Sja-anat. Moash says these Spren are "rare", but I'd argue any Enhanced Spren is rare. It's type pre-Enhancement might actually be pretty common. So, while we can guess at what the SF is doing, it's pretty tough to guess how the SF is doing it.

Couldn't agree more. I feel like Ruin gets underestimated as a threat because Ati and Sazed (for now) have done such a good job of keeping Ruin's influence in check. But Discord is coming.. I don't think it's a 100% coincidence that the Aon Ati means 'Hope'.

Most likely, yes. Or they'll maybe just add more groupings of Paths. So, you'd still have your base Heroic Path and then, in addition to a Radiant Path, you would also have options of Allomantic Paths, Feruchemical Paths, Hemalurgical Paths, Selish Paths, Nalthian Paths, etc. Man... that's a lot of potential combinations.

I have now. I think all he really confirmed is that these two WoBs are referring to the same person (Medelantorius). Spoilered for length: What Brandon said on the Shardcast might be confirmation that Medelantorius is still Valor. But I'm not so sure. For the record, I'm not married to the idea of Valor having a new Vessel. My only reason for thinking Medelantorius is no longer a Vessel is one small WoB: ^In my mind, that 1 dragon would have to be Koravellium. Which would mean Medelantorius must have either died or willingly passed on Valor. That WoB is 4 years old now though. So, it's possible Brandon just didn't know he'd include a second dragon amongst the Vessels back when he said it.

Sorry is it stated somewhere that Vasher is converting Stormlight into Breaths? I always imagined he was transforming Stormlight into some kind of unkeyed Investiture that his Divine Breath could consume. Not transforming it specifically into Breaths.

I'd say only partially disproven. I think you've gotten us onto a pretty interesting discussion of who did prioritize control over alignment when choosing their Shard. Plus, I have lots of new questions about the original Vessels. One thing that stood out to me while digging into this is the group of Vessels that Tanavast chose to reach out to for help. I already partially posted this passage, but the whole thing reads: A couple paragraphs later, Tanavast also reaches out to "Valor, the great dragon god Medelantorius - as she was a warrior who would surely join me". It's not completely clear to me if Tanavast is referring to all 6 of the vessels in the first passage as "heroes". Or if he's saying "some are strong, others are smart, and others are heroes". I read it as all 6 of them being heroes, which is a word I never would have associated with Bavadin before this book. What we've seen of these Vessels in recent history seems very different from how Tanavast remembers them. Leras was not strong anymore, Ati was no longer kind, and Edgli doesn't seem compassionate. Valor, from what we know, has also not been acting like a warrior. Although I have a personal theory that the current Vessel of Valor is not Medelantorius. I think that Shard changed hands already. It also may be worth noting that Tanavast seemingly did not try reaching out to Whimsy or Mercy (or at least didn't mention them).

Agreed. I would not call Ruin (or any Shard) inherently evil. All of the Shards are neutral constants and any kind of morality that we see them exhibit is more closely related to the Vessel than the Shard (Honor is maybe becoming an exception to this rule, but that's a whole other topic).. I would say Ruin feels inherently more dangerous than Odium. And that the Cosmere was very lucky Ati is the one who picked Ruin up. But that's a matter of opinion. ____________________________________________________________________________ As for the OP's original post, according to Brandon, some Vessels intentionally chose Shards that they felt they would have more control over: I'd wager that choosing a Shard that does not particularly align with your personal interests is probably a good strategy for keeping your own thoughts and feelings distinct from the Shard's influence. Although you can't pick up one that you are 100% out of sync with because the Shard would reject you.

Heh... It's very possible I mistook the blue markings on his body as the 'skin ripples' and he's just a regular Iriali. I was under the impression that Selay were related to the Iriali since the Selay language belongs to the Iri language family. So, I've always imagined them with similar golden skin. But I can't find any confirmation of their skin color now, so I may have confused some of my head canon for truth.

I had the same impression. I don't think that it's specifically stated in any one location, but it seems like a reasonable conclusion from the following: WaT Chapter 115: I interpreted this as confirmation that Ati took on the burden of Ruin for the sake of everyone else.. It also feels, to me, that it was Ati's decision - not one made by committee. Tanavast also describes Ati (amongst several other Vessels) as a hero in the same passage. Ati's influence is the reason why Ruin primarily acted as 'entropic decay'. If Ruin had been given to a less kind Vessel, Ruin could have been 'pure chaotic obliteration'. Ati restrained Ruin to a more palatable interpretation of the Intent. WoB:

This isn't in any way shape or form concrete evidence. But I did notice today in this Stormlight RPG artwork that a Selay individual is used as the poster child for Edgedancers (i.e. Cultivation Spren bonders). Probably means nothing, but I thought it was interesting since we were discussing Cultivation's connection to the Babath people (who are ethnically Selay). Using a Listener as the Willshaper poster child seems less-than-random so maybe that race/order pairing was purposely chosen as well?

Maybe he's just being tricky with the terminology? There is a difference between a 'Radiant' and a 'Surgebinder'. What bothers me more is that getting access to Stormlight on Scadrial would be difficult. I know the Ghostbloods were actively working on that. And even captured Kalak to force him to help with it. But I assumed that plan got ruined when Kalak joined the new Oathpact. Unless Scadrial is where Cultivation went and she's creating more Surgebinders like Lift (which I highly doubt); I don't know how these alleged Skybreakers could be functioning. I guess the Ghostbloods could be providing them with alternate forms of Investiture like Breaths or the Dor essence stuff that Wan Shailu used in TLM? I think there are some WoBs that say this is possible even if it has never been done before.

This is the 'Stormlight Only' board, but I'm hoping you don't mind full Cosmere spoilers since you've mentioned Autonomy. Major non-Stormlight Mistborn Era 1 spoiler:

Seeing as this is the Iriali caravan heading out on their Fifth Journey. Isn't it likely that Scadrial is where Aux is headed; assuming the "golden haired fairy people" that Maraga Dulcet mentions in TLM are the Iriali? I can't see Sigzil/Aux specifically joining the Ghostbloods unless it was some kind of undercover work for Hoid. But I see no reason why Aux has to be the only Highspren that followed the Iriali to Scadrial.

I like this. Anyone else see a potential correlation here between the 4 purposes of these primeval spren and the 4 Intents of the Dawnshards? Wind's protecting would correspond to Exist If Night's purpose did relate to fostering growth as Ashkaloda suggested, that would correspond well with Change One of the remaining Dawnshards is often theorized to be related to thinking or feeling; which would pair well with Stone remembering I don't want to guess on what the final Dawnshard is.. I've seen everything from 'Unite' to 'Destroy' or simply 'Act'. But, if there is a 4th primeval spren, I wonder if its purpose would help us deduce the final Dawnshard's Intent? Obviously, a ton of conjecture and speculation going on here, but that's what I like to do.

There's so much good stuff to unpack here. I love it. I had not looked at the Essences as pairs before. I like this connection. Did you make these pairings yourself, or are they mentioned somewhere in the books? Obviously, I'm a bit biased towards the idea that 'Day' maps to Spark and Lucentia. But I do think making Night the liquid spren has merit. On this note, it may also be worth mentioning that Koravellium (who felt an affinity for Night's song) placed her perpendicularity in the Horneater Oceans. Interesting theory. That could explain this Spren's absence.

That sounds dated. I just checked and apparently Demiplane closed beta access on March 31st to prep for the full release.

Yes, the beta rules are freely available on a few sites (the official rules will obviously cost money though). I got my copy through Demiplane. They also have a character builder tool and a few other helpful features that include way more info than I can see in the rules PDF. I suspect they have access to a more complete set of the rules to help with development. Most of the info that I referenced above came from the character builder tool (also free!) and not the PDF. There's only one health pool in the CRPG, but you do have different defenses against physical, cognitive, or spiritual damage. I'm not sure how Rioting and Soothing will work, but I'd bet that it isn't a single pass/fail roll. Even normal persuasion checks aren't a simple pass/fail; all PCs and NPCs have a resource called Focus that can be used to resist or increase influence in a conversational setting.

I haven't heard this take before either and I really really like it. Dalinar's words do sound reminiscent of a Command that an Awakener would use. I originally read it as Honor thinking for itself when it split off; especially because it surprised Dalinar. But I think your interpretation is much better. Honor wasn't thinking for itself. It was obeying the Command given by Dalinar. Dalinar just hadn't realized it. Some follow-up thoughts: Would these pieces of Honor be independent from one another? Or would they have some kind of collected consciousness between them like a hivemind of sorts? If they are of one mind, does that include the chunk of Honor held by Taravangian? Will that chunk become progressively dissatisfied with him as a host as it learns about "true" honor? Will Honor's changed perception of (lowercase) honor change the nature of the Shard itself? In the way that Rayse claimed 'Passion' was a more fitting name than 'Odium', will Honor eventually want to change its own name to something with a similar but more nuanced meaning like Integrity or Decency? Or perhaps these pieces of Honor will each claim their own identity as one 'facet' of Honor (e.g. Integrity, Decency, Honesty, Virtue, Morality)?