Roshar Reader

Prologue · reading

Roshar 101

World

Society, stormlight, creatures, and gear. Leftover notes from Words of Radiance stay listed; this book’s new terms wait until you reach them.

A lumbering chull with a stony barnacled shell

Chull

Common draft and pack beast

The giant crabs that pull everything on Roshar.

A chasmfiend rearing over a plateau

Chasmfiend

Hunted by when a chrysalis is spotted

The monster Dalinar and Adolin brought down on the hunt.

A greatshell, vast and plated

Greatshell

Largest native animals; some hunted for

The giant-crab family — are the local kind.

A massive Ryshadium in war gear

Ryshadium

Chosen mount of a few · Alethi

Dalinar's huge — the one that chose him.

A fallen thunderclast of stone

Thunderclast

war-beast; enemy of

The stone giants lying dead after the .

Infused spheres glowing in a pouch

Spheres

Currency, lighting, and a store of

Glowing glass coins that are also the lights in the room.

A massive chasmfiend gemheart

Gemheart

The prize of every

The huge gem they cut out of the .

A Shardblade of pale misted metal

Shardblade

The most coveted weapon in the world

Syl, in Kaladin's hand, as a Blade.

A warrior in glowing Shardplate

Shardplate

The other half of being a

The glowing armor kings wear into rooms they should not need armor for.

A Soulcaster of rings and gemstones

Soulcaster

A cover, at least in Jasnah's case

The fake that hid a woman who did not need one.

A gemstone fabrial of brass and light

Fabrial

Practical magic of the modern kingdoms

Navani's glowing machines — put to work.

A pair of spanreeds on a leveled desk

Spanreed

Long-distance writing; the closest thing Roshar has to a letter that talks back

Two pens that are the same pen.

A small dull oathstone

Oathstone

The leash of a Truthless · Shin

The rock that makes the say yes.

A sphere that holds darkness instead of light

Black sphere

Gavilar's last secret

The that leaks night instead of light.

Bridgemen carrying a siege bridge into fire

Siege bridge

The reason exists

The thing carries so soldiers do not have to.

A darkeyed soldier's spear

Spear

Kaladin's true weapon

The thing Kaladin is when he is not allowed to be a surgeon.

Dried blackbane leaves

Blackbane

Kaladin's hidden exit

The poison Kaladin carried when he had given up.

A worn copy of The Way of Kings

The Way of Kings

Dalinar's conscience, in bound form

The storming book Dalinar will not put down.

Shallan's sketchfolio, crowded with faces

Shallan's sketchbook

Shallan's memory, tools, and cover

The red-haired girl's book of everyone she has looked at.

Forehead slave brands, a glyphpair seared in

Slave brands

The legal and social mark of a slave

The scars that made a squadleader into property.

The shash glyph brand, meaning dangerous

Shash brand

Warning-mark on a slave too likely to fight

The brand that says this slave will try something.

Honorblades standing in a ring of stone

Honorblade

Herald's personal weapon; a pillar of

The swords stuck in the stone and walked away from.

Bridge Four in leather vests at the lumberyard

Bridge Four

Freed guard in the · Alethi

The who came back for a .

The red banners of House Sadeas

Sadeas princedom

The army that cut off · Alethi

The red camp that owns .

Kholin blue banners

Kholin princedom

One highprincedom among ten — that also happens to hold the throne · Alethi

Blue banners, old Codes, Dalinar's camp.

Ten warcamps on the edge of the Plains

Alethi highprinces

The ten rulers who actually command Alethi armies · Alethi

Ten , ten , one war nobody is winning together.

The Cobalt Guard in Kholin blue

Cobalt Guard

guard · Alethi

The blue-coated elite around the Blackthorn.

Grey-robed ardents in a Vorin library

Ardentia

clerical order; keepers of and doctrine · Alethi

The grey-robed scholars who own the and the libraries.

Knights Radiant in glowing Plate from a vision

Knights Radiant

A standard someone has picked up again, whether or not they meant to

The words Kaladin spoke while saving a .

The three-diamond symbol of the Ghostbloods

Ghostbloods

Hidden order with a taste for assassination and scholarship

The three-diamond society that sent an assassin in a robe.

A hidden Vorin heresy around a sphere

Envisagers

Disbanded (or destroyed) cult; Teft's childhood

The cult that taught Teft might come back.

Parshendi warriors in warform carapace

Parshendi

The other army in the War of Reckoning · Parshendi

The singing army on the other side of the chasm.

Spearmen under Amaram's green-and-gold banners

Amaram's army

The force that buried Kaladin's squad · Alethi

The army whose commander stole a darkeyes' Shards.

Veristitalian scholars among stacked notes

Veristitalians

Scholarly order; Jasnah's method given a proper noun

The historians Jasnah belongs to — truth before tradition.

Alethi lighteyes and darkeyes caste contrast

Lighteyes and darkeyes

The caste line that structures Alethi armies, towns, and law.

Light eyes = lighteyes. Dark eyes = darkeyes.

Dahn and nahn as two ranked ladders of Alethi society

Dahn and nahn

The numbered ranks inside the eye-color caste.

Dahn = . Nahn = darkeyes. First beats tenth.

Alethi highprinces in their warcamps

Highprince

De facto kings of their princedoms; the king's authority over them is thin.

Ten highprinces. Ten . One weak king.

Darkeyed soldier addressing a lighteyed brightlord

Brightlord

The everyday title that marks who gives orders.

Brightlord = man. Brightness = lighteyed woman.

Vorin ardents in plain robes

Ardents and the Ardentia

Priests, scholars, and scribes of kingdoms.

Ardents: priests who may read, copy, and argue doctrine.

Vorin woman with left hand covered by a havah sleeve

Safehand

Modesty mark of womanhood.

Left hand covered. Right hand free.

Woman writing in Vorin women's script

Women's script

The script of wards, scholars, and wives who handle a house's reading.

Women write. Men, except and , do not.

Alethi glyphs carved in stone

Glyphs

The accepted writing of men: shapes to recognize, not literature.

Glyphs for men. for books.

Branded darkeyed slaves in a caravan

Slavery

How Sadeas staffs the most lethal job on the Plains.

are slaves put in front of arrows.

Sadeas bridgemen carrying a bridge toward the chasms

Bridge crews

Human shields and mobile crossings. Not soldiers. Not expected to live.

first. Bodies fill the gaps.

Alethi warcamp layout: palisades, lumberyard, barracks

Warcamps

Permanent siege towns. The war has lasted years and grown roots.

Ten camps, ten , one war nobody is winning.

Vorin temple, glyph, and custom

Vorinism

The religion that sets caste, literacy, and the afterlife for Alethkar, Jah Keved, and Kharbranth.

Vorin: Almighty, Heralds, covered , women write, men fight.

Vorin vision of the Almighty in the storm

The Almighty

A dying god, by its own account, warning Dalinar to unite the people.

The Almighty in the visions says he is already dead. Odium comes.

The ten Heralds as legendary champions

The Heralds

saints and patrons of the divine attributes.

: ten Heralds in heaven. Prelude: nine deserters and one left behind.

A battlefield at the end of a Desolation

Desolations

The past the Almighty's visions keep forcing on Dalinar.

The visions say another Desolation is coming.

Vorin image of Voidbringers as destroyers

Voidbringers

Jasnah's working identification for the coming Desolation's army.

Jasnah: Voidbringers = the parsh. A thesis, not yet public proof.

The Oathpact: ten ancient figures bound in a circle

The Oathpact

The Heralds' ancient oath. Abandoned in all but Taln.

Oathpact: nine walk away. One remains bound.

The Nightwatcher's valley, Old Magic

Old Magic and the Nightwatcher

The source of Dalinar's missing memories of his wife.

Dalinar went. His wife's name comes out as Shshshsh.

Stormlight glowing in gems and spheres

Stormlight

Something Kaladin can take into his body.

Kaladin inhales . The light goes into him.

Spren gathering in wind and stormlight

Spren

Possible source of power, if were not entirely wrong.

Bind a spren, Teft says, and you get a . Maybe.

Windspren as ribbons of light in the air

Windspren

A cover. Syl's kind is something else.

Syl: not a windspren.

Honorspren as a figure of blue-white light

Honorspren

The that makes Kaladin's oaths into power.

Honorspren: spirit of oaths. Syl names herself at the Tower.

A highstorm's stormwall crossing the Plains

Highstorm

Clock, executioner, and battery for the world.

Highstorm: hide or die. left out come back glowing.

Weeks of rain during the Weeping

The Weeping

The off-season in a climate built around storms.

Weeping: rain for weeks, no , no fresh .

A figure glowing with Stormlight mid-Lashing

Surgebinding

The thing Teft is trying to put a name and a discipline on.

Surgebinding: the Radiants' name for what Kaladin is starting to do.

A Lashing pulling a body along a new down

Lashings

The practical kit of Szeth's -work.

Basic: you fall another way. Reverse: things fall toward you. Full: things stick.

A Knight Radiant in glowing Shardplate, full figure

Knights Radiant

Not extinct.

The Words are spoken. A Radiant stands up in a bridgeman's vest.

A Soulcaster turning an object to another material

Soulcasting

An innate talent, at least for some, not only a machine.

Shallan does it from inside . The goblet becomes blood.

Fabrial settings and infused gemstones

Fabrials

The respectable, engineered cousin of old magic.

: trap a , get a machine.

A Shardblade forming from mist after ten heartbeats

Ten heartbeats

The difference between a Blade in hand and a dead man still reaching.

If it comes at once, it may be a living Blade.

Dalinar's camp run to the Codes

The Codes

Dalinar's public eccentricity. The other treat them as a museum piece.

: Dalinar's rulebook. Everyone else drinks.

The Thrill as a red battle-haze

The Thrill

The feeling Alethi war is built on. Dalinar's loss of it is one reason they call him old.

The Thrill: joy of the fight. Dalinar's is going quiet.

The king and a highprince arguing over command of the war

Highprince of War

The lever he uses once Sadeas is exposed.

Granted, in the wreckage of the Tower.

Cutting a gemheart from a chasmfiend

Gemhearts

The prize. Armies die for the time it takes to cut one out.

: the chasmfiend's fortune, sitting in its chest.

A chasmfiend hunt on the Shattered Plains

Chasmfiend hunts

The daily shape of the war on the Plains.

Hunt the chrysalis, not the capital. That is the war.

The Shin assassin in white clothing

Assassin in white

The blade hanging over Dalinar.

The same man comes for Dalinar.

Abandoned Shardplate and Blades after the Recreance

The Recreance

The historical wound calls betrayal. The vision is the thing itself, without a sermon.

Recreance: they set their Shards down and walked away.

Legendary city of Urithiru in the mountains

Urithiru

The place in the vision want Dalinar to come to. He never gets there.

: the Radiants' city. Lost, or never real.

A man in the highstorm named Child of Tanavast

Child of Tanavast

A name for that does not use. A claim that Kaladin belongs to that being.

Child of Tanavast = child of . Syl's words, not a title Kaladin asked for.

A Lightweaving illusion

Lightweaving

Surge of illusion

The art of making people see a person who isn't quite there.

Cryptic spren

Cryptics

order bound to

The head-shaped patterns that like being lied to.

A listener in stormform

Stormform

form of power

The form that puts red lightning in a listener's veins.

The Everstorm

The Everstorm

A new, wrong storm

that came from the wrong direction.

An Oathgate platform

Oathgate

portal

The circle that opened a door to a city in the mountains.

The Diagram

The Diagram

Taravangian's master plan

The brilliant, cruel plan written on Taravangian's best day.

A santhid in the southern seas

Santhid

Ocean

The huge, gentle-looking sea creature Shallan would not leave unsketched.

Listeners of Narak

Listeners

People of Narak

, as they name themselves.

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