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Sounds good. Does this replace your previous version? Should Everstorm tracking still go in that thread?

Looks great, jofwu. I like the new format. How much detail are you looking to add? For example, in the most recent chapter we got time indications for the two murders (occuring one and two days prior to Shallan's visit). Are those things that should be included yet, or are we waiting to see how significant the event is?

Does Shire Mint keep or remake stock from previous projects? Meaning, if I don't get one now through the kickstarter, am I likely to be able to order it through their website a year from now? (Or alternatively through Brandon's store?)

No, I'm quite sure that was Radiant speaking. And I've seen at least 12 other people commenting to say the same thing: Radiant refers to Shallan in the 3rd person.

I agree with a lot of this, but I noticed that, especially towards the end of character 15, she was transitioning fairly smoothly on a gradient between Shallan and Radiant. That tells me that she hasn't completely compartmentalized the personalities. As I read it, the personas/archetypes are held separate but remain connected enough for her to eventually synthesize them cathartically. I'm expecting that process to take a long time and be a big part of her arc. I also think it is important that she recognizes in the chapter that there are things Shallan can do that Radiant can't. So each alternate self gives her certain strengths explicitly at the cost of losing others.

Peter has confirmed that interludes are not part of the planned preview chapters on Tor. We will be getting up through Ch 32, which is the end of Part I. Interludes should fall between Ch 32 and 33.

This new quote from ch 15 helps a bit with the floor height question. Shallan is shorter than our Alethi mains, but with Roshar's 0.7g everyone is going to be tall. Let's pretend she's 5'5" (165 cm), which is just above average for women in the USA. Pattern is "a long, thin weapon nearly as tall as she was." This means that at full extension, arms above her head, the sword would not reach higher than 3.7m, which makes that the upper limit if she's managed to scratch the ceiling a few times. It won't be much less than that if she and Adolin are both able to swing swords around mostly unimpeded. Her room sounds typical of Urithiru, so I think we could peg the interior height as ~3.5m. Add 1m(?) for the ceiling. It sounds to me like the original guess of 4.5 is probably close. The OP was edited previously too adjust that up to 5.5. I'll probably revert that change if there are no objections/alternative arguments.

@jofwu Thank you for finding that quote. I knew I was missing one! I added it and an image with your proposed arrangement to the OP. Also, I look forward to seeing what your stress modeling reveals.

I've quoted the post for you @Hafrigado. It came from this thread.

I wasn't the one proposing it on discord, i just saw the conversation after it happened and was intrigued. My reasoning on the still-alive scenario is that if the blade cuts on all three realms, then the am becomes a distinct cognitive/spiritual entity. That makes it a valid, unique target for Awakening, such that (I think) the breath would only affect the arm and would remain partitioned from the rest of the body. But physically everything is in place and functional. Blood is still circulating and it's not decaying or becoming necrotic. It ought to be fully functional if it could be awakened. One additional difficulty, though, is that the shard-severed limb drains of color, so it may not have any left to fuel the Awakening.

Inspired by @Yata in a discord conversation: A person has their arm cut by a shardblade, making it a dead limb. Eventually they die and an awakener tries to make a Lifeless from their body. Will the Lifeless have a functional arm, or will it remain cognitively/spiritually separate? If the awakener met the person while they were still alive, would they be able to awaken the limb, making a partial Lifeless? Would the arm be able to obey instructions (from someone with the command phrase) like a regular lifeless would?

Glad we can provide some entertainment, @Inkthinker. I'm really looking forward to seeing your rendition come release day. To clarify, when you say that do you mean the circle version, rather than semicircle?

@Ammanas I'm not at the con, but per this blog post Patrick Rothfuss cancelled his attendance due to a family emergency.

I think there is a case to be made for both arrangements (oathgates in circle or semicircle) so I've updated the OP with an image of each. Thank you @BlackYeti for including those quotes. I was missing the one you cite from the Szeth interlude, and I've added it to the OP. Also, wow. There are a ridiculous number of typos/autocorrects showing up in my posts when I comment via the mobile site. Am I really that terrible at proofreading what I write? Apologies for the ones I fail to fix.

Yeah. The more I think about it, the more I agree with you. I'll modify the picture tomorrow. The part that throws me off is that the oathgates are ringing the field in front of the tower. It sounds more natural to say that if they are in a circle around something, but if the whole plateau is considered "in front" and is used as a field, then your suggested arrangement makes more sense.

That's a possibility. There can't be any on the flat side, since that is apparently flush with a cliff, but they could be in a half-ring around the base. The only description we have of the arrangement says "The field was ringed by ten columnar plateaus." I can't say for sure if "ringed" suggests a circle or semicircle.

Thanks, @jofwu. Those numbers are really helpful for thinking through this, even if I don't know what to do with them yet. Just for fun, I threw together a mockup using this site. This helps me see the perspective a bit better, but I still think the other images do a better job of conveying scale.

So, with the quote @Ray7455 provided establishing that the oathgates are ~300m across, I generated a top-down view, including the tower of Urithiru and the oathgate complex. Given the numbers we've generated so far, the ring of oathgates has almost the same footprint on the mountain as the tower city does. That's not what I was picturing, but it's possible from the descriptions. (I've added this image to the OP.) Thanks! The main question that needs answering is the assumed height of each level. I know that in modern skyscrapers we fill the ceilings with air handling ducts, water pipes, other support machinery, etc. But with what amounts to a cavern with solid floors/ceilings, none of that will matter. So if we assume Rosharans are a bit taller than Earth humans due to living in 0.7g, how high would you guess each level has to be? I ran some simple calculations assuming it was comparable strength/weight to granite, since that appeared to be the strongest rock type. But I was mostly using google and simple math, so I'd appreciate the input of someone who knows the appropriate factors to consider. I was sort-of assuming that Adolin's large cavern would have an arched or vaulted ceiling, with the appropriate angles/shape to not act as a simple slab. That's totally a guess, though. And yes, that full-length elevator window is unlikely, to say the least. Either the lightweavers/soulcasters worked together to simply make the rock transparent there, or I need to hire some Rosharan glaziers to do put some magical glass in my windows.

Interesting. I'm encouraged that the land times make more sense when you adjust the path. Variable land-speed vs ocean-speed is a good explanation and pretty simple to imagine. Here are some slightly crazier ideas. (Slightly rambling intro) So, we know that a strict great circle route could never work for a regular storm. Winds just don't work that way. But it has been well established in other discussions that neither the Everstorm nor regular highstorms behave like storms we have seen, on Earth or on other planets. They aren't cyclonic, they circle the globe, they cross the continent in a matter of hours. It is an open question in-world whether there is a single storm that keeps coming back, or if there are more than one. Their recurrence is complex enough that stormwardens have difficulty predicting them (though Mr. T accurately predicted some years in advance, through what he believes was reason alone). On top of this, the Everstorm is blowing the wrong way, so it is actively competing against whatever forces make the highstorms do what they do. So these storms break the rules we understand, and adhere to ones we don't. (TL;DR) Basically these things are magically driven, and we can assume that the storms can follow whatever path they want. Option 1: It makes sense to me that some of the complexity of highstorm behavior comes from following a complex path around the globe, such that sometimes they circle the Northern hemisphere, while other times they strike the continent. If the Everstorm did that, say in a simple figure 8 pattern, it would effectively double the amount of time it takes to strike Shinovar again. How does that square with the timeline? Option 2: The storms are largely cognitive realm phenomena, with a dramatic physical manifestation. Brandon has alluded to the difficulty of mapping a physical circumnavigation of the (spherical) planet onto (planar) Shadesmar. What if the storm can rage straight across Roshar, following a direct path in the cognitive realm, but must then circle awkwardly the long way around to get to where it started? This would make for some odd effects, with the way Shadesmar expands in regions with a lot of thought. Maybe the storm would linger a bit over cities and zip faster through uninhabited wastes?

Thank you for that quote! I knew there was a description somewhere. If we assume 300 meters across, and 10 Oathgate platforms spaced evenly in a circle, the enclosed space is a minimum of 700 meters in diameter (measuring between the closest sides of opposing Oathgates), and the whole complex a minimum of 1300 meters in diameter. That requires the platforms to be barely separated from the ones adjacent to them. It scales up as you space them further apart. :-) Half the point of these speculations is to map that rabbit hole! Good points. I was thinking about the ceilings functioning as horizontal beams to transfer force between the pillars, but that is only necessary if a LOT of the structure is hollow, and is probably a poor design decision using rock. I agree that it is safe to assume that there is sufficient rock in place to support itself pyramidally. In light of this I think we could safely revise our ceiling height back down a bit. I'll wait to do that until we have another description, though.

Several people have mentioned the important reveal that many (most?) of the parshmen have taken on non-voidish forms. I'll quote the two that phrased it best. From a storytelling point-of-view, Brandon hinted that this was coming. In a reddit comment a while back, he said: The conflict with the listeners could never have been as simple as our heroes assumed: "Suddenly our slaves have all been suborned by Odium! We humans have to kill or save them!" I for one am glad to see the complications appearing early. I was surprised when all of the parshmen, even the ones indoors, transformed with the coming of the Everstorm, and I worried that this wholesale conversion to voidforms would short-circuit the in-world ethical discussion. It appears, though, that the Everstorm didn't force a particular form on any of the listeners, it just unlocked whatever was done to them that prevented them from bonding new spren. (Does this give us any hint as to what it was? I still presume it was Melishi, as most have guessed.) This was a surprise to me. I also wonder if it's true of all spren.

I remember seeing a WoB (from the past year, I'm pretty confident), in which he talked about the dangers of stereotypes. He discussed the line between a respectful reference and a tired cliche, using the example of Herdazians having large families and a culture of hospitality like Hispanic families are known for. In the same section he talked about the issues of slavery with parshmen and listeners, and the danger of addressing the topic of slavery in a useful way. I thought it was on Reddit, but couldn't find it in Pagerunner's compilation. I also looked through the Writing Excuses transcripts, thinking it might have been there, but didn't find it. Does anyone else remember this WoB? Edit: Found it! (link) @Pagerunner, is there a preferred method for submitting missed reddit comments to your compilation?

Great thoughts for most of the chapter. This part, though, doesn't seem likely at all too me. As I read it, the blush was for being startled, not for anything about Renarin. Shallan still thinks he's weird and creepy.

We don't know this, and I think it's unlikely to be true. Khriss mentions the "famous floating cities" in her essay in AU. For the cities to be famous, worldhoppers most visit regularly, and for that there must be a stable perpendicularity.

Great work! I'm super impressed on how thorough this is. For the Everstorm timing, it seems to me that things would be easier if you abandoned the assumption that the storm is a straight line north-south, traveling across the continent. Portions of Roshar are far enough south that it doesn't make sense to assume a constant angular progress by longitude. What if, for example, the storm is traveling on a great circle that would take it through the northern hemisphere on the opposite side of the planet? Honestly I'm having trouble visualizing it, myself. I had some quibbles about the local time assignments, but I need to go back and re-read those sections before I am confident enough to comment on those. I'm pretty sure we have confirmation from Brandon that the regular highstorm pattern is much more complex than simple periodicity. I'll try to find that quote.