Brandon Sanderson’s epic fantasy series The Stormlight Archive® is renowned for its intricate and imaginative world-building. This guide to the history, cultures, and key figures of Roshar is also the first official art book for the series! Whether you’re new to the setting or a longtime reader eager for new details, the Stormlight™ World Guide is a beautifully illustrated tome that’s packed with canonical lore.
This book is also an essential resource for the Cosmere® Roleplaying Game. Together with the Stormlight™ Handbook, it contains everything you need to begin your journey in a world of adventure and Investiture!
I’d been waiting on this one for a while, ever since the Stormlight RPG kickstarter. It’s essentially an encyclopedia (or, more to the point, a roleplaying game world guide) for Roshar, the setting for Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive. There’s not a ton of new information in here for people who have read the books (though there is a little bit) – rather, its strength is that it lays everything out in an easily understandable and organized fashion, as opposed to the scattered lore drops throughout the series. Also, the illustrations are beautiful and really bring Roshar to life. While the last chapter of the book contains stat blocks for various characters, animals, and entities of Roshar, most of the book doesn’t contain much gaming talk at all and can be used as an encyclopedia of Roshar, which I think is pretty darn great. I wish more of my favourite fiction books had world guides.
I really enjoyed looking through the Stormlight World Guide. It’s a great encyclopedia of information for fans of the Stormlight Archives and the Cosmere as a whole. The artwork was beautiful and brought the world of Roshar to life. I particularly liked the chapter on the nations and cultures of Roshar. It is amazing to see how much thought and work the author has put into this world and given me a better understanding of the people and places I’ve read about.
This is a great encyclopedic book that, while repetitive at times, set up the world of Roshar incredibly well and answered some questions I had. It also made me realize JUST HOW MUCH a GM has to think about--and this isn't even the guide!
Even if you are not planning to play the Cosmere TTRPG, this is a must-have for any true Cosmere fan. It's mostly (80%ish) written as an encyclopedia about Roshar by our favorite worldhopper, Khriss. Lots of great art and great information on all the nations and cities we've seen (or just heard of) in the Stormlight archive. There's a "history" section that's a nice, condensed summary of the 5 books out so far. (A least in terms of the events of the books, not anything related to the main characters and their journeys)
If there's one complaint when recommending it for non-players, it's that SOME of the information (like deep dives into the Radiant Orders) is actually in the Stormlight Handbook - which is 80%-ish about playing the game. (The inverse of this book, essentially)
If you are using it to play, it's a great resource to understand the world you'll be setting up for your players. The book MOSTLY is written as if taking place during Oathbringer (the 3rd book). That's interesting since the one published campaign - Stonewalkers - takes place during Words of Radiance. Still, between the history section and the GM (at least) understanding the book series, it shouldn't be too hard to figure things out.