The Path to Shadowspire

Game Description

You stand atop the parapets of the Kings Keep, looking out on the edge of Roshar’s Shattered Plains. The last light of day fighting past the inky black encroachment of the next Great Storm. White and crimson lightning stabs through the approaching clouds, striking rapidly and erratically through the roiling black clouds. The wall of dust and debris careening forward toward the soldier's encampments. Soldiers and merchants scrambled to secure all they held dear from the approaching storm. They had been increasing in their erratic patterns of late.

The Ardents (The Academics), have been less accurate in their predictions of the storms, which greatly hindered the progress of their war campaign against the Parshendi; the race of stout tribal warriors who called the Shattered Plains home. They could not risk being caught without shelter on the exposed plateaus of the plains. The winds alone would send them and all they had into the depths of the gorges, sometimes hundreds of feet below.

Progress was slow attempting to take the fight to the Parshendi deep into the unknown and unmapped center of the plains. The campaign had been raging for more than five years. Five years the King and most of the nobility who sought the power of military might, the accolades it brought their Alethi reputations, and the staggering wealth of the rare and hard won gem hearts from the wrested from the guts of the occasional Chasm Fiend hunt. What passed for Royal sport here so far from the Alethi homelands, which languished in the political quagmire in the wake of the power shake up since the Death of the prior King Gavilar. His assassination, on the evening after the signing of a peace and trade treaty with the Parshendi, was the cause of the war. The treaty celebration, it was determined, was the distraction they planned to give the assassin access to the King, or so it was thought.

However, the assassin was said to have worn white robes, bald and had possessed the features of a Shin man from the East. Why would the Parshendi have hired an assassin from outside their own ranks?

No… There had been other reports that spoke of other political deaths across Roshar in the last year. Someone was removing obstacles…

The dreams had been more frequent of late too, as the time between Great Storms had begun to lessen.

You dream of the mythical city of Shadowspire, and a hidden path to its divine and secreted location, hidden after millennia of being lost to legend, and only hinted at, in the dusty old books of a few notable libraries.

All you have been able to learn of the fabled city, has pointed you to a solemn truth. The answers, to finding the path to Shadowspire, and revealing what remains of the Heralds, and the Knights Radiant, who were charged with the protection of humanity in the face of the Voidbringer Desolations; the great Voidbringer uprisings of the past.

Your friend, widow of the late king Gavilar, and sister to the new king Dalinar, a great mind, a naturalist and academic, Lady Jaden, has been assisting you these many months in trying to unlock the secrets of an ancient codex, written from the first age, some millennia ago, that has hinted at the of the gate that leads to Shadowspire, is hidden somewhere in the Shattered Plains… The time of the return of the Everstorm grows closer. The Voidbringers once more are showing signs of building toward what looks like the next Desolation, and reports of night raids across the lands have become more frequent.

How will you push into the Shattered Plains, to look for the gate that will lead you to Shadowspire, and hope for humanity? What has become of the remaining Heralds, The Knights Radiant? Do they yet live, and will they join your efforts? Will you be in time to save them and Roshar from the darkness that threatens?

These questions plague you night and day, but for now, it was time to take shelter from the fury of the Storm Lord…