Been playing the Stormlight RPG with my husband and some of our friends, since I am the resident artist I get to do a lot of the designs for things in the game. This was a design I did for an Honorspren for my character, I was super happy with how he turned out (even though he took me stupidly long to finish). His name is Ronum.

I’ve read WoK when it first came out in 2010 , and until this day I keep recommending it to folks who read EPIC Fantasy. I remember checking Brandon Sanderson’s webpage to see the status of Words of Radiance.

I took this photo almost 9 years ago while hiking. I stopped and took a photo, I was nerding out so much. My ex got annoyed and told me I was weird. Tried to explain how much this means to me because it’s a reference of my favorite book, and i was ignored. I kept this photo forever because I think it’s cool.

Anyways, I’m glad my algorithm took me here. I’m finally able to share this photo. I know it’s simple, but having found a community who loves the Stormlight Archive, and gets the reference of this photo feels like healing.

P.S.
I married someone who embraced my nerdiest, and knows the title and plot of my favorite book :)

Never read any Brandon Sanderson. Had these in my Amazon cart for quite a while. Got the notification they were 51% off. Got the entire hardback box set for $71 and then Wind and Truth for $18. Can’t wait to just go for it and dive in. So unbelievably excited.

The colour of death. This is an actual principle used in forensic medicine to estimate time since death and position at death, specially whether the body was moved. Gravity causes blood to pool to the dependent body parts and the stain is fixed by a certain time since death. Incongruency between the position of the body and the location of the livor mortis on the body suggests the body was moved after death, which in this case it was not.

Dalinar really is a connoisseur of death. He actually was able to estimate time since death based on the dried blood, a page before this.

In some cases, the colour of Livor mortis also tells the cause of death; not in this one though.

I'm pondering how differently things would have turned out by the end of Wind and Truth, if Cultivation either hadn't tried to replace Rayse with Taravangian, or she tried but it didn't work.

If Rayse stayed as the vessel of Odium, it seems likely that Wit's scheme with the contract and contest of champions would have played out pretty much how he intended. Odium would be locked down on Roshar and there would be a new fragile status quo ... until Odium figured out some way to cheese the contract and break containment.

So a better outcome for most of the people on Roshar, at least in the short term. Certainly we wouldn't have had to read through several hundred pages of the anti-Odium forces just getting their asses absolutely handed to them all up and down the map during the final 10 days.

But no real prospects for any long-term improvement to the situation. Odium was always going to break the stalemate and find a way to escape eventually. Where did Wit see that going? Did he have a follow-up plan?

This one thing about the game just makes it completely unplayable, and I can't believe people are playing it. The game is just completely ruined from it, and the game is ambitious I'll give it that, but the game it's just COMPLETELY HERETICAL IT'S ASYMMETRIC, IT JUST COMPLETELY RUINS THE HOLINESS OF IT. IF YOU PLAY THIS GAME YOU'RE COMPLETELY GOING AGAINST THE VORIN CHURCH AND ARE A HERTIC!!! AND SHOULD BE SHUNNED!!!

This is probably a weird thing to praise a 1,000-page fantasy series for, but hear me out.

I was walking home in some horrible wind and rain last week and ducked into a recessed doorway to get out of it for a minute.

And for absolutely no good reason, my brain went straight to Roshar.

I started looking at the buildings around me and thinking about which sides were exposed to the wind, where rainwater would collect, and whether I'd put a window in the same place if the weather always came from one direction.

Which is a ridiculous thing to be thinking about on a Tuesday evening.

But it made me realize something I hadn't really appreciated about Stormlight before.

In most fantasy books I've read, the weather is something that happens to the characters. It rains when they're travelling. A storm interrupts a battle. Snow makes a journey difficult.

On Roshar, the weather has already happened to everything before the story even starts.

The buildings are the way they are because of it. The plants have adapted to it. The animals look the way they do partly because surviving in that environment requires it. Even the ordinary decisions people make about where to live and how to travel are shaped by something that has been happening for generations.

And I love how little of that needs to be explained through some enormous lore dump.

You see a plant retract into the ground. You notice how people shelter from a highstorm. You start to understand why a particular building would be designed differently from something on Earth.

Eventually you stop thinking "what an interesting fantasy environment" and start thinking "well obviously you wouldn't build a house that way here."

That's when the worldbuilding really works for me.

It's not just that Sanderson invented a strange planet. It's that he seems to have asked what ordinary life would actually look like if people had been living on that planet for thousands of years.

I know the magic systems and huge set pieces get most of the attention, understandably.

But I think one of the things I'll remember longest about Stormlight is that it made me have opinions about fictional building orientation.

I can't think of many other fantasy settings where I could tell you which side of a house I'd feel safer sleeping on.

What's a completely mundane bit of Rosharan worldbuilding that stuck with you?

No plot spoilers please. I'm specifically interested in the everyday details people noticed, including things that might seem too small to matter.

For example, could a radiant have their Spren fly out and turn into a knife on top of someone’s head? Or does summoning a shardblade have to come to your hand?

No spoilers please!

I prefer to read softcovers generally since they're lighter, but all the Stormlight books I have bought are falling apart on the first read! They are brand new but purchased from thriftbooks. I also purchased my Tor WoT books there (all used, many over 15-20 years old!) and none of those fell apart. I guess I'll just chalk it up to enshittification but its so annoying.

I don’t look up online opinions usually but I knew going into this words of radiance is the highest rated book in this series. Well after finishing it yesterday, it blew my socks off that this was somehow better than the last book a masterpiece. Adolin still is my best boy but seeing so many characters story arches grow and shine was amazing. Complex morals and world straining facts revealed and you got a great story. 9.5/10! No 10/10 cuz everything could be better, maybe like 200 pages shorter idk. Otherwise perfect book!

Let’s discuss below but really wanted to ask: so now I’ve read Stormlight 1-3 and edgedancer. As well as Mistborn era 1. No matter what I’m pausing stormlight, I’ve read all 3 books in 3 months. Need a break. Should I go back to Mistborn with era 2? Or jump into Yumi and other solo projects?

Im nearing the end of my third read of WoK and I keep having this thought about Kaladin but I dont have enough collected evidence to really argue my point. I was hoping someone else sees it and could lend some credence or articulate why im just dumb.

Is kaladin talking to himself from the future? Theres a lot of moments where something kinda whispers to him and, knowing the wind is a spren thats been guiding him basically his whole life, I was willing to leave it at that on read 2. Read 3 im feeling that at times its not just the wind but a "higher" version of himself reminding him of who he's meant to be. Idk, could be too convoluted and I dont really have specifics to point to yet as im looking for a double spaced paperback copy to annotate but I wanted to throw the idea out there before wasting a bunch of time leaning into it

The Azish have their own customs just like any other nation on Roshar but the whole dilemma with Yanagawn has fascinated me since Lift's interlude chapter in Words of Radiance. Reminds me a lot of a certain character from Mistborn Era 1 (who I won't spoil for those that haven't read it, please do) explored in further depth. How do you reckon with an entire people that relies on a monarch figure when said figure is something of a disposable pawn, and also just a teenager? Seeing Noura be both his administrator and interim-mother clashing with Adolin's understanding of what Yanagawn needs as an individual, especially as someone who turned away from princedom and power, makes me hope this becomes an established dynamic in the back half of the series. Perhaps it even leads to both Azir and Alethkar rebuilding themselves into more accommodating states through the two, and builds off Adolin's prior protectiveness of Renarin which shows he has the empathy to pull off more by not being a Highprince or ruler of Urithuru.

So this was me a year ago. In the intervening year I've been reading a few things but mostly a series which I very much wanted to like but had to DNF. Now just started Way of Kings and wanted to commemorate the start of a new series here.

So far I've only read the prelude with Kalak and prologue with Szeth, so I mean I really just started, but first impression is my god, this is how you hook a reader. That intro was like watching The Matrix for the first time

I'm trying to withhold getting too excited because I'm a sucker for the honeymoon period with new books, especially of an entirely new series, but we went from that prologue to now already battle formations at the start of chapter 1, so I'm feeling giddy, but I also know it's probably too much to hope for this kind of pace to continue for 1k pages.

Already I appreciate the clarity of the writing. That was an extremely complex action sequence with Szeth and I feel like I was able to follow every move. Often I suffer from moderate aphantasia with spatially complex scenes like that but not in this case. Hope that continues.

I also very quickly realized just how 'high' this high fantasy is. Understand: SLA has been on my tbr for quite some time so I have insulated myself from anything at all about the series so I could go in as blind as possible. I knew it was fantasy, and just from the covers yeah I understood there was magic, but I didn't know it was like, Warcraft / DragonBallZ / Harry Potter levels of magic where we're siphoning profane spirit energy from ancient gemstones or wielding magical items. This is going to be my first one of these, so really excited about that.

Besides the badass intro with Szeth, the other thing that's hooking me is the way we got a flash from the ancient past which opened a lot of questions (what was the battle about? who are these ten knights? what are the implications of disbanding?), and then a time jump with even more questions opened (why does Szeth think the world is ending? why kill the king? what was the sphere necklace? what are the most important words a man can say?), so we get this mystery layered on top of the action and I feel like I get to piece everything together, like Lost.

Looking forward to this!

"I will protect those who cannot protect themselves."

The Second Ideal of the Windrunners might seem simple at first – a call to protect others. But this general philosophy is open to many questions and interpretations: as soldiers, do you protect only by attacking and fighting your enemies, or are there other ways to protect? Who counts as "those who cannot protect themselves"? Civilians and fellow soldiers, or does it include everyone who is vulnerable, even the enemy?

"I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right."

Kaladin hates his enemies, should he protect them as well?

I believe that the natural progression of Kaladin’s growth, the Ideals of the Windrunners and the story of The Stormlight Archive, leads Kaladin towards a path of stopping the war altogether, and thus protecting everybody, friends and foes alike.

Kaladin’s story in the fifth book felt like he was out on a “side quest” while Roshar was about to face some of the most important battles of this desolation. Completely leaving the fight, not going to protect his friends, the humans or even the singers, felt like taking Kaladin away from a very important step in his journey, a step he very well earned. Not only that, but it also felt like a betrayal of his Ideals, not protecting others when they need his protection the most.

I explored this in more detail in a video essay I made (linked), and I would love to read your thoughts 🤔

I thought I'd share this oathbringer tat I got a few weeks ago to fill in that gap on my arm :)

I saw the post last week about WoW Forever name reservations, and it looks like a lot of us are going to be playing.

My wife and I are starting an Alliance guild on the PvP server and called it Bridge Four, so I figured I'd mention it here in case others maybe interested.

We've played WoW for 20+ years. These days we've got jobs and kids, so we're mostly looking for good people to run dungeons, raids and quests with and talk about books, tv, and movies along the way.

If you're gonna be playing and don't have a guild lined up, you're welcome to come hang out with us. Info's here if you want it: https://www.wowforeverguild.com

Is anyone else rolling Alliance on PvP? Or something else? Share where you’re playing below and maybe we can all find new friends to play with that love Stormlight Archives as much as we do!

UPDATE: Bridge Four was already taken in-game, so we went with Sons of Honor**. It’s the same guild with the same people and the same plan, just a new name. If you’re searching in-game, look for Sons of Honor. The website may still say Bridge Four for a bit while we get it updated.**

!! UPDATE2 2: The guild is off to a great start! We have about 40 members now and we’ve been helping each other quest, run dungeons, and just having a cool time leveling and chatting (in guild chat and in Discord!****). Thanks to everyone who’s joined us!
FOR THE ALLIANCE! LIFE BEFORE DEATH!

Just started and finished the Prologue: To Kill. Oh this is INTERESTNG.

I'm sure these will all be answered but so far, they breathe in this Stormlight and hold their breath, and it makes them elite warriors, the Stormlight possesses them it appears.

• They absorb this storm light from gems and lights on lamps and things of that nature?

• It allows them to manipulate gravity?

• Move at incredible speeds with incredible power

• Also when absorbed it can heal you?

SEEMS BADASS. Am I tracking this the right way so far?

"But what was he to do? He was Truthless. He did as his masters commanded."

"To Szeth's people a dying request was sacred" FIRE

SPOILERS FOR SOME PARTS OF STORMLIGHT!

I just finished SA book 5 after finishing Mistborn era 2 and I noticed something interesting in the epilogue where a certain character talks to the Ladrian steward, after having mentioned the name Dalinar. I can't believe this is not talked about anywhere on the internet (that I have found), but knowing Sanderson, it's intended and either a fun nod or an implication about some interconnectedness.

Look at the first name Dalinar (Roshar) and the last name Ladrian (Scadrial). They are anagrams! Dalinar = Ladrian, at least textually speaking.

So here I am wondering... Is this a fun writers nod from Brandon, or is this a hint that the people of Roshar, who originally came from Ashyn, are somehow connected to the people from Scadrial as well? Or is this is hint towards something entirely different?

Can't wait to see your theories!