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TheFoxQR

Can you shed some light on how you went about designing Roshar's symbol?

Isaac Stewart

We knew that we wanted the Double-eye to be part of the symbol. So it was a matter of finding the right shape for the eye. We went through dozens of ideas of how thick the lines could be, what parts to emphasize, etc. We also knew we wanted swords to be a part of it, so we tried several ways of incorporating those until we wound up with what we currently have. Someday, I'll share the different iterations we went through to land on the current symbol.

Blightsong (paraphrased)

Is Roshar, or has Roshar always been the only large landmass on the planet?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Roshar is.... *Brandon then paused and looked up, thinking very hard* Roshar has always been the largest landmass--as long as there has been land.

Questioner

In the Frostlands, is there snow or frost on the ground only because it's cold? 

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, there's nothing magical or special there. 

Questioner

How much is a stone-weight on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh... that is actually a question for Peter. I actually, often, will just write in brackets "this much," and he comes up with the weights and measures, because I can never be consistent in my first drafts. So, yeah, you ask Peter, he can get that for you. I do the same thing with spheres, right? I'm like, "This costs roughly 100 bucks in our world," and he'll go "All right, fine" and go look up all the things. I used to keep it all in the first book, but since then I just let him do it.

TheRealKuni

Throughout TWoK, Kaladin complains that he is cursed. When others call him lucky, he thinks about all the times he has failed to protect people and considers himself unlucky. Everyone around him dies.

His Journey in that book takes him to Bridge 4, the bridge team that has the most losses, that everyone knows is a death sentence. Death being the end of every journey, this is appropriate.

But what I've never really noticed before is the importance of the bridge number. 4 is, in East Asian cultures, considered unlucky or cursed. In Chinese 4 is nearly a homophone to the word death. Buildings will skip the 4th floor, companies will skip from version 3 to version 5 of their products (Palm, OnePlus, I'm sure there are other examples but I can't think of them right now).

We already know that The Stormlight Archive finds some of its inspiration in anime/manga. We know that the Alethi are what we would consider ethnically East Asian. Dark hair, tan skin, and they don't have the large, round eyes of the Shin. It seems very fitting that the least lucky bridge, the one responsible for the most death, is Bridge 4.

Of course, Kaladin comes to believe he isn't cursed as he uses his powers to defend his bridgemen. 4 becomes the most envied bridge as they suffer the fewest deaths, have camaraderie, and eventually become squires to a radiant.

They are numbered unlucky and cursed, but turn out to be the most "lucky" of the bridge crews.

This all struck me today because at the end of Oathbringer, Dalinar casually mentions that his personal guard from Bridge 13 isn't there because that bridge crew became Teft's squires. 13 is the number in Western culture that we consider "unlucky" or "cursed," so fitting that it would be the second bridge crew to become squires of a Radiant! With that realization, everything about Bridge 4 clicked in my head.

Did anyone else catch this, or notice anything else cool with these numbers?

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of things fans find are coincidence...but neither of these are, actually. Those are both intentional, as are a few other little numbers things.

Numerology has not become a big thing in Stormlight during the development of it, but original (2002 version) The Way of Kings leaned a lot more heavily on numerology (gematria style word/number interactions) and that's still around in the world.

Peter Ahlstrom

The Rosharan year is 1.10 Earth years. The Rosharan hour is a little bit shorter.

name_here

Let me guess: it's 50 minutes.

E: no, just checked on calculator, apparently it's 57.816 minutes.

Peter Ahlstrom

But it's 50 Rosharan minutes. 

Questioner

How tall is Kaladin?

Brandon Sanderson

Kaladin I think is 6' 4"? But I'm not 100% sure how the equivalent-- Like he is 6' 4" to Rosharans, which may actually put him several inches taller to the 6' 4", like the feet on Roshar are not exactly the same as feet here.

Neil Cadsawan

I thought Kaladin was dark skinned.

Brandon Sanderson (Part 1/Part 2)

Most of the Alethi are darker skinned, and would not look Caucasian to us. But most cover artists (and readers) miss this fact.

It's not something I've been clear enough about to publishers when they commission art. My bad, not theirs.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Why can only women read in [The] Stormlight Archive?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Immediately after the Recreance an old book was used to argue for the idea that only men should be picking up the blades and plate, fighting was a masculine art. Over a period of 20 or so years this became established and some women used the same argument to take back some power by taking literacy for themselves as a feminine art.

Questioner

The lighteyes-- Do their eyes actually glow or is it just blue or green?

Brandon Sanderson

No. It's a very pale blue or green though. You can tell pretty easily looking at them who's lighteyed and who's dark. They don't glow. So--

Questioner

It's otherworldly?

Brandon Sanderson

Some of them would look-- You would say otherworldly, but not impossibly. You can find people on Earth who have eyes the shade that they are. Not all of them, right? Because some of them are yellows and things like that that we don't have. But if you looked at them and they were here, you might wonder if they were wearing contacts but it wouldn't be unusual to find out they weren't.

CarolaDavar's brother

[My cousin] thinks the Parshendi were made by someone so that spren could have a physical form. And he would like some critique on that.

Brandon Sanderson

Parshmen were created to be an essential part of the Rosharan ecosystem.

Questioner

In one of the Stormlight books, or Way of Kings, it says "3 of 16 ruled but now the Broken One reigns", so did they-- did the three of them have a pact?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO.

Questioner

"--and then the Broken One reigns"?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO.

muh_vehicles

Did Lightday exist before humans arrived at Roshar exactly as it is now, a day without rain in the middle of every other Weeping?

Brandon Sanderson

Hm. I'll RAFO this, as I might flashback to this time in the second half of The Stormlight Archive.

unknown

As silly as this may sound, one of my favorite things about The Stormlight Archive thus far has been the flora you describe in the world.

What inspired you to spend time developing unique and world-appropriate plants? I feel like plants are so often an overlooked detail, even in books with heavy world-building.

Brandon Sanderson

I knew that I wanted some worlds in the cosmere to be truly strange. Fantasy tends to shy away from very odd ecosystems, but I think it shouldn't. (Even in Mistborn, we started with strange flora.)

For Roshar, I started with the storms, then worked toward what I think would have evolved there (erring on the side of the fantastical.) The primary inspirations were tidal pools and coral reefs.

Overlord Jebus

Was just the continent of Roshar created by Adonalsium or was the whole system created?

Brandon Sanderson

Whole system was created.

Peter Ahlstrom (paraphrased)

*offhandedly* The Sunmaker was about 500 years ago, pretty much right after the Hierocracy. The Recreance was about 2,000 years ago.

Discar

How big is the Roshar supercontinent?

Brandon Sanderson

[Peter Ahlstrom] or [Isaac Stewart], can give you a specific on that, if you need one. I don't have the scale map handy.

Isaac Stewart

Roughly 4000 miles East to West.

Peter Ahlstrom

I can't remember if that is right, per my globe.

Isaac Stewart

True. Things might've changed since the globe experiment.

EHyde

Is Honor the only one who created people on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Kyrah Dicroce

Which of your worlds, if any at all, have ice cream, or at least, the ability to make ice cream?

Brandon Sanderson

Scadrial probably has it already. Roshar is farthest, not having as much in the way of milk products.

Questioner

Where are the rest of Roshar's named gems? Like, we have the Hope diamond, we've got dozens of--

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of them are in the [Thaylen Gemstone Reserve] ...There's a lot of them around and there are places like that. One of the tricks, and I actually kind of was aware of this, particularly in book three, I was like "Yeah, I maybe should have named some of these things earlier." One of the tricks with a book like Way of Kings, there are already so many new names and terms that oftentimes I find myself finding ways to not include a new name or term because the overwhelming nature of the learning curve is so big. And I will admit, writing book three I'm like, "Ah, I should have named some of these earlier," this is what they would do.

But it's kind of this Occam's razor, well, that's the wrong term. It's this idea of "Let's try to keep it as simple as possible for that fact that it's really complex." and that's why I naturally just didn't do it. 

I would say in-world a lot of them are named. But you've also got to remember that gems are not as eternal on Roshar as they are. They are a little more ephemeral, you will often end up using them for something and they are wearing out, so to speak. So the idea that a diamond is forever is more of an Earth concept than a Roshar concept.

Questioner (paraphrased)

*inaudible question*

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

So Roshar's also high-oxygen, which does some weird things. That's how we justify the crustaceans. Which does weird things to people as well, so.

Questioner

I've been trying to brainstorm what Stormlight characters would have jumped into the other books so far. You told me they had at one point.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, they have but you've got to remember that The Stormlight Archive you are seeing right now, what's happening in it is like late cosmere era, does that make sense? So there are lots of people from the world that have been to other worlds but the people you know--this is happening just before Alloy of Law era-- So does that make sense? That's the first time you'd be able to see anyone here and by that era the bleed over is a lot less because we have the whole Odium trapped and things like that. There's a lot less-- There are a lot fewer people traveling in and out of Roshar than there once were.

Questioner

In Stormlight, how the hell does society work with one object standing for both the currency, the magic system, and light and power--

Brandon Sanderson

How does it work in Roshar with one thing spanning-- for the economy, the magic system, and... lighting up everything. They would ask, "How  you could possibly have three different things?" because it makes no sense to them. It totally functions, I think. The big distinction is you can't use Stormlight for lighting if-- Like that's something for rich people. You'll see poor people using candles and whatnot, because hanging out your spheres is not a smart idea in some other places. There are spheres that are a low light level that are worth about a candle or so, so if you put a candle out someone could just swipe that, it's worth the same amount. There's really no difference between putting out a candle and that. If you're going to put out a lantern you can put spheres in it and lock it up.

Jofwu

Is year one on the [Rosharan] calendar related to Vorinism in some way?

Brandon Sanderson

I would have to go look. I can't remember. I know it's in there.

Questioner

..One of things I had difficulty with was coming up with names for the characters and seeing how your names are more than just random collections of letters, a lot of them actually have meanings behind them. I was wondering how you were able to do that.

Brandon Sanderson

That's actually a very good question and number one you should keep writing, even if you feel like what you are writing is a rip-off, it is better to finish that first book and be acknowledging your influences because you want to be practicing. And sometimes it is very useful to lean on something else while you do it. In fact this is how Great Masters did artwork, you can find-- I don't know if you guys know this-- various different versions of the Mona Lisa, we saw one in Spain, my wife and I, that was done by DaVinci's student while DaVinci was painting the Mona Lisa. "Here's what I painted now you do it too"  That was the means by which the Great Masters would train their students, so leaning on someone is just fine. You just can't publish it like that, but it can teach you a whole lot. Don't feel bad about that.

Names, I use two general methods, and this is not going to give it the justice it deserves, I'm giving you the five minute version. One version is I look for the linguistic attribute that is interesting to me that will visually distinguish these people on the page. So when you are coming across them and you see that name, I want you to say "I bet that they're from this country". That is really tough because that means they all have to feel similar but you can't let everyone get confused over who's who and that's the real challenge, it's the getting confused. For instance in Warbreaker I tried using some different things like we don't in our world. In Warbreaker I used repeated consonant sounds, so you get someone like Vivenna, when you see that double v, you are like she must be-- Llarimar, there's a double L, you pronounce them both out. T'telir. And when you get double repeated consonants you are like "Oh they are from this region, that makes sense to me even though they start with different letter there is something to them" The same sort of thing is supposed to happen in The Way of Kings, you see names that are mostly symmetrical. When you see something like Shallan and her name is a derivation of Shalash, who was one of the Heralds and its a symmetrical name. When you see something that reads almost, or does read, forward and backward the same way you are like "They must be either Alethi or they must be-- They've got to be Vorin because that is the Vorin religion influencing this". And hopefully it will give you some subconscious cue when you run across those names and you'll get it.

Now a way to do this that is easier is than doing all of that is going to take a lot of work linguistically is to go get yourself a nice atlas and say everyone from this country is going to have names that are analogous to this region in our world and I am then going to take this atlas and look for these names and use baby names from that culture... I did this in Emperor's Soul, I just picked ancient Persia, I picked people who lived there in this era and what they named their cities there and I'm going to take those words and I'm going to screw with them until it is not actually a word but it feels like it might be one. That way everyone from this region is going to feel like they've got a similar name. Or I can just-- For that book it was much easier because the linguistics were not as big a deal.  I could basically just crib off the bat. And that works very well also.

Sometimes I do it intentionally, Mistborn was supposed to evoke a sense of 1820's Paris, or London, that was what I was shooting for with the grime and the dirt, the ash falling. So I used French names and Germanic names and Spanish names and things like this, so when you run into Vin, Vin is just wine in French and Kelsier [Kelsi-ay] is how they would say-- you can say Kelsier [Kelsi-er] if you want-- and they have Kelsier and Demoux so you can go "Oh this is a French sounding region" so when you get some like Elend and Straff you are like "They are from a different region. They sound like the eat meat and potatoes and they try to conquer Europe periodically, those guys" *laughter* That helps you distinguish the regions very easily.

Volratho

Was Roshar equally Invested by Cultivation and Honor originally?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Volratho

How 'bout now, since he's been--

Brandon Sanderson

So the Investiture is all still there... It is not all accessible. So, at this point, you might say-- I'd say it's a point of disputation. It would be worth arguing either way. I will say at this point, no, it's not equal anymore. But definitions of where the power is and what it counts as is ambiguous.

Volratho

So Cultivation has more active Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, I would say yes... Well, but she's been very coy. I'm gonna leave it at that.

coltonx9

Do larkins have gemhearts?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. You can assume that Rosharan creatures have some sort of gemheart, generally. That is not 100% but you can assume it's a thing they'll have. But I will RAFO specifics.

Questioner

Now that jet lag is a thing in Roshar, what is the time difference between Shinovar and the Shattered Plains.

Brandon Sanderson

I'm gonna do what I call a PAFO, which is: my assistant Peter is the one who tracks all of that. I have offloaded that to him. I used to keep all that stuff in my brain, but I just don't have space. Ask Peter.

Erik02847

If a listener were to Awaken something, would they imitate the listener or a human?

Brandon Sanderson

They would imitate the listener.

Erik02847

And would that change based off of their form?

Brandon Sanderson

It could slightly change based off their form. More likely it's just gonna about their culture and the way the person sees the world, but the way that the listener sees the world is changed based on their form, so yeah, it'll have an effect.

zotsandscrambles

Here is an example of a Mongolian girl with red hair. Would she make a good example of a Vedan darkeyes, [Brandon]?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's a good example. Though do remember, Vedens aren't all redheads--that's going to depend on region, and even have a lot of variance within regions. (Alethi skin tone will be similar in its variety, depending. Vedens in general tend to be lighter.)

Here's another image I noticed a while back that feels very like what I'd imagined.

https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/55dba2321400002e002e3dd1.jpeg?ops=scalefit_970_noupscale

Shawn

Would children on Roshar be taught the names of the different spren in school, like kids with animals in our world?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, yeah, definitely. Good idea. I bet that they would. Definitely, spren would probably be like learning to say "kitty" around here.

Argent

How many waves of human populations have migrated to Roshar? So I'm thinking the Ashynites coming from Ashyn, right? Was that just the only humans that ever came as a population?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on if you count the Iriali?

Argent

That's specifically the one I'm thinking of.

Brandon Sanderson

They came in a separate migration.

Argent

Not from Ashyn?

Brandon Sanderson

Not from Ashyn.

Argent

From whatever the Third Land was.

Questioner

Speaking of Rosharan calendar-- So seventeen year old Kaladin, is he the equivalent of a seventeen year old Earthling?

Brandon Sanderson

It's 1.1, I think is what is it. Right, they're 10% older than their accounting system. So no.

Questioner

So Adolin is 27, true?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Questioner

So then a year is obviously a lot more than 1.1 but--

Brandon Sanderson

Well no. The years are 500 days, but they're 20 hour days. Keep that in mind. So when you run the calculations kinda together, you end up with around 1.1.

StarburstWrapperTie

What is it like at the poles of Roshar, where the highstorms are circling around?

Brandon Sanderson

We've thought about this a lot, and I'm going to RAFO this for now. Because I need some meteorological help on some of these things. And so I'm not gonna speak until I'm sure that I know... Like, the meteorology of Roshar is bizarre anyway, the storms are magical, they're dropping crem. So it doesn't mean we have to keep to it exactly. But this is one that I don't quite want to answer yet.

Overlord Jebus

Why does Vorinism use imperial instead of metric base ten?

Peter Ahlstrom

They don't really use imperial. The words don't mean quite the same thing. A foot or mile won't correspond to the exact same measurement.

Oversleep

But still, why don't they use a metric system? They're all about number 10.

Peter Ahlstrom

Who said they don't? The foot has ten inches.

[joke about Birds=Chickens on Roshar]

Brandon Sanderson

See also: Eastern Rosharans using the word "Wine" for a variety of types of alcohol, when only rare imports from Shinovar actually come from a grape, and naming animals things like "hound" when they only vaguely resemble a creature from Shinovar. (Or the term silk, which is harvested from plants that float in the ocean. Or using the word 'cremling' for any kind of small crustacean or insect, which is a linguistic expansion of the word over the centuries, when there used to be two distinct terms for them.)

Vorin languages, in particular, lend themselves to this kind of simplification of terms.

Questioner

This whole talk of both Roshar and the highstorms, I'm glad that you said they predate the Shattering. There are some people on 17th Shard, myself included, that firmly believe the entire continent is crem that's accumulated, one highstorm at a time.

Brandon Sanderson

Good. Let me actually squish that one a little bit because there are mineral deposits that have been mentioned that you have to mine. And crem-- There isactual ferrous iron that you can smelt on Roshar, you have to know how to get to it and things like that, and there are actual gemstone mines and things like that. Much harder to get to and Soulcasting is a stopgap that has helped with this a lot, but there are actual deposits and things like that.