Jult

Taravangian and Sazed have been on my mind a lot lately as well. I'm very eager to see more of Tetribution just so we can compare him to Harmony to get a better understanding of what comes naturally as part of being a dishardic entity and what is unique to Sazed's situation. Most notable to me: will Taravangian get a 'shadow self' like Sazed? Or is Sazed's shadow a consequence of how he manages his Shards? I agree that Sazed is a very autonomous person. I can't think of a stronger showing of autonomy (lowercase A) than taking on 2 Shards and not being immediately dominated by their Intents. The idea of being aligned to Autonomy is a weird catch-22 situation to me. If you're perfectly in sync with Autonomy, then are you even acting autonomously anymore? It feels to me like it would be an impossible Intent to please while you are holding it. And a very easy Intent to please when it is observing you. A part of me wonders if that's related to why Bavadin has isolated herself so much. Maybe Autonomy is very easily attracted to new hosts, so she tries not to expose it to too many new options? But you can't hide something as big as Harmony.

If they're new to TTRPGs, then it might be a good idea to have them play the First Step or even the Bridge Nine adventure to get a feel for things. I did have my group play Bridge Nine before Stonewalkers. There is a sort of awkward time gap between Bridge Nine and Stonewalkers because they aren't designed to go together. Bridge Nine obviously takes place before the battle of The Tower in TWoK which happens on 1173.9.6.4. And then Stonewalkers seems to start somewhere around 1173.10.4.1 (7+ weeks later). But if your players haven't even read the books, I doubt they'd notice. 2 of my 3 players are walking Cosmere encyclopedias, so I try to pay attention to that stuff. I haven't really looked into figuring out the dates for The First Step, but I imagine it's late TWoK since Resi's motivation in that story is him being mad at Adolin for their arena fight in TWoK Chapter 58. I'd give it to them, just so they have some background. You may also want to give them a peak at the Stormlight Starter Rules. It's a shorter introduction to the rules of the game. It doesn't go into as much depth as the Stormlight Handbook (kind of like the Player's Handbook vs the Dungeon Master's guide if you're familiar with DnD). I only have 3 players, and they do feel a bit outnumbered sometimes during premade combat encounters. They sort of took care of this themselves by adopting a few stray bridgemen NPCs who fight alongside them (they're planning to have them as Squires later). The downside to this approach is that you might actually wind up with too many participants in a fight and it slows things down. What I do to get around this is I separate the NPCs from the PCs in combat. For example, if an encounter is supposed to be 6 Parshendi attacking your party. I might just say "the bridgemen are going to hold off the 2 Parshendi on the right". That way I can shrink the number of enemies that my players actually need to fight, but I keep some of the drama of there narratively being a lot of enemies. And I DO do some rolls behind the screen to see if any bridgemen fall, but not anywhere near as many as I'd need for full combat. Maybe check out the "Mass Warfare" section of Chapter 13 in the Stormlight Handbook? They have some tips on making a battle feel largescale without keeping track of dozens of initiatives.

So, The First Step is a bit unique because it is extra "hand-holdy". It's actually even suggested that you could play it solo if you wanted, which is pretty uncommon for a TTRPG book. Hence, the choose-your-own-adventure type writing. I didn't actually run through it with any of my players, but I did use it solo as sort of a tutorial for running a session. I think you have the general flow of how to run it correct. In "normal" books like Stonewalkers, you'll see much less instructions in that style of "if you pick option A, then turn to scenario 1". Instead, you'll be provided with major plot points and will need to more or less improv how you move from point to point (with a bit of helpful guidance/tips from the book here and there). I feel like Stonewalkers flows much more naturally (especially in larger groups). As far as general tips go: Be ready to improv. You might have a roadmap of the story, but your players don't. It's normal for them to venture "off-script" since they haven't read the script. Subtly shepherding them back to the main story while saying yes-and to their random ideas is a delicate balance. Have a few random NPC character names/descriptions in your back pocket so you don't need to make them up on the spot. If they suddenly decide to go see a doctor/innkeeper/librarian/etc, this is a handy way to make sure they don't all wind up being named "Doug". Have the players roll for stuff often. And let them do some narrating while they do it. It makes them feel more involved and buys you a few seconds to think. ex: They want to know what a Fabrial they found does and you haven't decided yet. Have them do a Deduction Test, but also ask them how familiar their character is with Fabrials and how they are interacting with it. Are they pressing buttons, shaking it, smacking it, just evaluating the materials it is constructed from? By the time they explain all that, you'll hopefully have decided what you want it to do. Basically, just keep them busy instead of taking an awkward pause to think. Keep an NPC around nearly all the time. This should be really easy if you have a Radiant, because their Spren will be around. But if your players get stuck on a puzzle or can't figure out where to go, it's so much less immersion breaking to speak through an NPC to give them hints in-game instead of the DM giving them advice above the table. Review your party's character sheets. You can't trust them 100% to do their own homework. Try to have a general idea of their skills and abilities. And make sure they've actually "equipped" their gear. I've had players go through entire fights without realizing that they weren't factoring in their armor to their defenses.

The moment we learned about her in WaT, I suspected that Medelantorius somehow gave up Valor. Mainly because there's a WoB stating that only one "current" Shard is a dragon and Koravellium already filled that slot. Maybe Kory has followed Medelantorius' example?

I've has similar-ish thoughts about Moash and Marsh. Blood-brother to Kaladin vs actual brother to Kelsier Conspired to kill a King for his abuse of darkeyes vs conspired to kill the Lord Ruler for his abuse of Skaa Killed King Elhokar vs Killed King Elend Crytal Spike Eyes vs Iron Spike Eyes Emotionally manipulated by Odium vs controlled by Ruin I wonder if Marsh's worshippers will hear stories of 'He Who Quiets' and begin mixing them into their mythos as well.

Could be. Just going off of his appearance and the fact that he seeks a "painful" truth, I'd also suggest that he may also be some kind of super painspren. Images for comparison: Of course, that's just what painspren look like in the Physical Realm.. They have full bodies in the Cognitive Realm and it seems like the Gray Remnant would not. I'm also curious about the fact that he's under Rathalas. Like he must have been present for the fire. And perhaps encountered Nergaoul during that same event.

Ooh I'm glad you brought that up. Because he also has the Moon Scepter. We aren't certain what the scepter does, but Brandon said it's some kind of Rosetta Stone for Sel's magic systems (WoB). I wonder if it could serve as some kind of shortcut to get around learning the nuances of Soulstamping? Maybe allow him to achieve a similar effect to Soulstamping but with Aons? Sort of like coding in a high-level language instead of a low-level one.

I think Shai (or any other Forger) bonding a spren would be a more straightforward option than Hoid learning how to forge a soulstamp and force a Connection to MaiPon. This feels like one of those things where Brandon would say it's technically possible, but it would be very difficult to pull off.

The "cage" would be important too. For example, the cages of heating fabrials are constructed from Pewter because applying Pewter to a gemstone containing a spren amplifies certain aspects of that spren's nature. My guess is an anti-gravity fabrial would use a gravitationspren and a Tin cage (Tin has the opposite effect of Pewter - it diminishes attributes associated with the spren). Painrials are made from Tin and Painspren, for example. You might not be as wrong as you think. The gems found in the Urithiru gem archive were cut specially so that they vibrated in specific patterns when infused with Stormlight. In this instance, they were used for encoded messages. But I wouldn't be surprised if this could have some kind of fabrial-adjacent usage. You could create a CD-player of sorts where specially cut gems are the 'CDs' (or CG's I suppose). Being able to encode data like this could also be important to very high-tech fabrials in the far future of the Cosmere.

We know from Chapter 26 that spores actually have very specific interactions with metals: And these specific interactions will probably look familiar to readers of other Cosmere novels. I wonder what increased levels of harvesting would do to the seas? Currently, all 12 are said to be around equal size. But some are obviously more useful than others. If Zephyr is heavily harvested in comparison to the other 11, would the Zephyr sea start to shrink? Would that cause a planetwide decrease in ocean depth?

This topic comes up quite often and it's almost always killed by a 10-year-old, paraphrased WoB: But I'd like to counter with a slightly more recent, verbatim WoB: Plus, to me, it just makes sense that if some Shards have a number, then they all should. And several have been explicitly confirmed. My personal guesses so far are: Shard Number Devotion 1? Dominion 2? Cultivation 3? Ruin 4? Endowment 5 Ambition 6? Autonomy 7 Odium 9 Honor 10 Virtuosity 13 Preservation 16 Invention TBD Mercy TBD Valor TBD Whimsy TBD Reason TBD

The Surge of Gravitation can sort of be used on water (WoB). If someone managed to get very skilled at that, it could be close to water bending. Or maybe some combination of attractor and repeller fabrials? We've seen one that collects water from the air already in WoR. I imagine you could build a similar one with Steel instead of Iron that repels water too. What I'm picturing would be closer to a self-refilling water gun than water bending.. But that would still be a pretty handy tool for a Sprouter.

This is probably our most recent discussion of the same subject (careful though - it's in the full Cosmere spoilers board): It hasn't been made clear what Rayse was referring to here. It does feel clear to me from WaT Ch 124 that Rayse knew he only killed Tanavast and not Honor. So, I really doubt he was referring to Honor.

Probably Szeth. There are some other options that come to mind though. Taravangian could have destroyed Gavinor when he was done with him. Yanagawn dying would have had interesting personal impacts on Adolin/Lift and interesting political impacts as well. Lopen and several other members of Bridge 4 had a chance to try chasing after Moash when they rescued Sigzil and Moash fled.

"Surgebinding" might be the wrong choice of words since these effects would be outside the Surges. But this scene is very exciting to me. Kaladin describes it as an "organic machine" that operates similarly to a fabrial. I agree with you that a similar effect should be achievable with all spren. However, the spren need Stormlight to make it happen. So, I think your hypothesized Singer would need to carry some infused gems around with him. Which isn't a major issue since Singer fashion tends to already include carrying gems on your person. I also wonder if the type of gems being used in the process matter as well. The lifespren the ardents were using to grow food were being fed Stormlight specifically from Emeralds, which are associated with the Pulp Essence and are used to transform plant matter when using Soulcasters. So, maybe to properly 'level up' your Stormform capabilities, you need to feed Stormlight to your stormspren exclusively from Rubies (Spark Essence)? This dependency on specific gem types and essences may explain why no one has discovered this yet.

This feels possible. Two more tiny things to consider: First, Koravellium Avast is allegedly very good at predicting the future. Mother Frond told the story of Cakoban around Dusk many, many times AND she told him to look for his "Shooting Star"(ling) right before his adventure really kicked off. These both could just be things a friendly storyteller would do. Or they could be normal foreshadowing from Brandon. But I wouldn't rule out Mother Frond as a possible Fortune user considering how relevant these turned out to be. Second, there's another time that Mother Frond's name comes up towards the end of the book: Brandon may not have stuck the word "cultivate" directly in this passage, but "change", "adapt", and "grow" all feel pretty Cultivation-adjacent.

IotE gives us a somewhat unique opportunity because we get to see our second 'Autonomy-coded' MoI. Looking at both of these MoIs, they both seem to rely on a symbiotic relationship (Sand Mastery has its lichen-type organism and Aviar users have well... Aviars). To me, that feels weird. Because I would view symbiosis as almost the opposite of Autonomy. But then I looked at some of the other MoIs we know. And well: Burning metals does not seem to Preserve much of anything. Hoarding Breaths seems to be the best way to get ahead in Endowment's system. Hemalurgy is becoming less inherently violent as we learn more about it, and it is used to create Kandra and Koloss. As well as enhance its users. The other known MoI-Shard combinations are a bit harder to do this for. But I think the above gets my point across for now. I've been having a rough time trying to articulate this idea, so I want to start with the easier examples. The idea is: we know that a Shard's presence on a planet impacts local MoIs. But could it be that this impact is a polarization of the MoI against the Intent of the Shard? e.g. Autonomy shows up to a system with such a strong Intent of "survival of the fittest" that the native Investiture tries to create a balance with the opposite Intent of "working together". It would fit somewhat well with Brandon's recurring themes of pushes and pulls. I'm not 100% sold on the idea myself, but I thought it might lead to some interesting discussion.

True. I did know it's pronounced that way. I just don't know what the word would be for "spelled it out phonetically (in an unspoken, internal thought in a book) because they aren't familiar with the language".

No. A two-handed weapon must be wielded with both hands. This is usually a trait given to large/heavy weapons that are impossible to effectively use one-handedly like a Warhammer. These weapons typically hit harder to make up for the fact that they cannot be used at the same time as an offhand weapon. Off-handed Strike is mainly intended for people who are dual wielding lighter weapons. But the rules do say "You can use the Strike action more than once per turn, but each attack must use a different hand". Personally, I would allow using the Interact Action to switch hands so you could use offhand Strike Action at my table. But I would point out it's less costly to just carry a side sword or something in your offhand. The extra Action spent on switching hands would probably be better spent elsewhere.

Brandon has been asked a similar question before: Based on this, I'd guess a Duralumin spike is the way to go. But it sounds like it's very difficult to warp your Identity so much that even your Spiritual aspect is affected.

Well, True Bodies apparently can be used as gemhearts. WoB: So, yeah. Maybe. Assuming the Kandra truly perceives the True Body as a part of them. I don't see why they couldn't open their gemheart to a Fused. HOWEVER, if that doesn't work there is maybe another option (and I'm sure you had the same thought as a fellow Stonewalkers player). We have seen [Cosmere RPG - Stonewalkers Spoilers]:

You may already be aware of this, but Navani's notes support your pressure differentials hypothesis. She notes that the vacuum effect used to draw in Spren while applying the Arnist method is similar (though not identical) to the kind created by pressure differentials: Intent may also play a role here. We know the Lights and Tones existed prior to the Shards arrival on Roshar and that Tanavast, Koravellium, and Rayse just sort of co-opted parts of that existing system. We also know that the Lights being stored in gems pre-dates the Shards' changes to the system. WoB: Adonalsium (or some other pre-shattering force) may have Intended for the Lights to be highly compatible with gems. And the Shards of Roshar just never altered that. This Intent was most likely absent from the creation of Taldain's sun or the Mists of Scadrial. As for the Dor, well, the Dor is always weird. I'd guess that it is so "Intent-less" it will work with almost anything.

Fun fact: in RoW 87 we see a jar just like this in Lasting Integrity that already works with Stormlight. The honorspren said they bought it from a group called the "eyree". Mistborn: Secret History spoilers: A fourth source that occurred to me after posting yesterday: Radiants themselves. When they speak an Ideal, they create a temporary Connection directly to the SR and become heavily Invested. There are hundreds of Radiants now and the Orders will probably continue to grow. And we know any Radiant can transfer Stormlight from their body back into gems. It may become a common practice to keep a supply of empty gems or Stormlight jars around any Radiants who are close to swearing an Ideal, so the Radiant can be used as a "tap" for re-filling them. Kind of undercuts the inherent drama of swearing Ideals.. But I don't see a reason why it wouldn't work.

This seems plausible, but may not be the most efficient approach in the world. Brandon stated once that it is theoretically possible to take Stormlight out of dead Shardplate. So, I wouldn't be too surprised to find that you could take it from a living plate. This I'm less sure about. I can't think of any evidence that lesser spren are making any kind of Connection to the SR when the manifest in the Physical Realm. And, in fabrials at least, they seem to consume Stormlight rather than generate it. A third option would be to find a way to split Towerlight back into its base components. Navani would be the best person to do this, but she's a bit removed from play right now. However, her notes and the in-universe Rhythm of War are both in Urithiru. Along with the Alethi's best artifabrians and Zahel (who seemingly single-handedly figured out how to create anti-voidlight).

Oh sweet. I had no idea it got confirmed. I'm really bad about following the con stuff cause I doubt I'll ever be able to attend one.