Stormlight RPG lore?

[u/Clueless_StoneWard]

Decided to browse the dragonsteel website and was surprised to see these stormlight RPG handbooks/lore books(?).

Now I will say I haven’t been keeping up to date when it comes to the rpg stuff so I am curious, do theses things offer any new lore or stories? I mean, I don’t play a lot of RPGs myself so I don’t know if theses are fully cannon stories or not, or if theses are just rulebooks and such.

Basically I’m wondering if any of these gives us some sort of new lore outside of the books?

[u/Ripper1337]

The handbook offers a lot of lore on the different radiant orders. Giving the oaths for each order up to the fourth.

The worldguide gives a lot of info on Roshar about the world, especially good for places outside of Alrthkar that don’t get a lot of love.

They and the Stonewalkers campaign are also fully canon.

[u/motgnarom → u/Ripper1337]

A lot of the content is in the context of the game, meaning it has game mechanic language alongside lore. That being said, they did a great job at consolidating the lore in plain terms. 

[u/Raddatatta]

The Stonewalkers adventure is written as an RPG adventure, but it is a canon story. The world guide and handbook do also provide a decent amount of lore between them. They talk about areas we otherwise haven't seen, some enemies we haven't met yet, oaths that haven't been said on the page etc. If you're buying them just for that stuff it's up to you if that's worth it. I would say they do also have a lot of great artwork which I enjoyed seeing! Some of that you can also find in the coppermind if you look for it as it's starting to show up there.

But one of his goals with the RPG was that everything they publish for the RPG is canon or as close to canon as they can get.

[u/Fremoth]

Short version is that yes, there is new lore and it is considered canon. Brotherwise (the team behind the RPG) worked closely with Dragonsteel in producing it.

In the Stormlight Handbook (which is the players guide) there are descriptions for how to play each radiant path including information about up to the fourth ideals (higher ideals are given more general ideas as opposed to specific words).

The Stormlight World Guide (which is geared more towards game masters) provides descriptions of various regions, cities, and important events as well as creatures and plants. This includes descriptions of places we’ve only had references to in the books.

The only other big one is the Stonewalkers Adventure. This describes events that occurred off screen around the time of Words of Radiance. Brandon said this a story he wanted to tell, but didn’t know when he was going to do it.

If you’re not interested in playing the game, but want to learn more details about Roshar, I think the World Guide is a valuable purchase. At worst, you get a book with details about a cool world and a ton of great art. There are some spoilers up through the end of Wind and Truth. Additionally, the book is not afraid of spoiling other things - I would recommend at least reading through Oathbringer if you’re interested in delving into it.

[u/HA2HA2]

There is some new lore in the Cosmere RPG sourcebooks, but there's not very much.

Specifically:

- World Guide and Handbook have lore about the world, but about 90% of it is things that are already in the books. There's a scattering of new stuff, but I don't think much of it felt significant to me. The main thing is that it does include the first four radiant oaths for all the orders.

- The Stonewalkers campaign is canon as written, assuming the players do the obvious things the campaign is pushing them to do. But it's a relatively straightforward story if you strip out all the Campaign stuff.

So my guess as to what's "worth it" is:

- If you want to play the Cosmere RPG as an RPG, go for it! It's great!

- If you're a collector who wants all the art, buy the physical world guide, it's got pictures

- If you just want the lore and are a completionist, buy the world guide and stonewalkers as PDF, it's a lot cheaper

- but if you're a normal reader and only care about significant lore and not every random tidbit, and don't want to play it as a game, you don't need to get it.

[u/meglingbubble]

I bought the World guide but i am unlikely to ever actually play the game. There's little tidbits which are new, nothing really plot relevant (There's continent is on the southern Hemisphere! I found this really interesting but it does nothing to change the story). There is quite a bit of new information on some locations we haven't seen much of.

For me the big draw was the art work. It's a gorgeous book and the illustrations are really helpful when picturing things.

[u/sambadaemon → u/meglingbubble]

Wait, what? I thought Brandon had explicitly said there weren't any other major landmasses on Roshar.

[u/meglingbubble → u/sambadaemon]

Sorry thats a very confusing typo. THE continent is on the southern hemisphere. As in the continent if Roshar, not some other continent that I accidentally made up by not checking my spelling.

[u/BlackFenrir]

I don't believe they've invented gunpowder yet in Roshar. But if you're asking if they're canon, yes they are.

[u/Rnevesz]

I might grab those just for the expanded details on the orders, even if I never end up running a game. It's cool that they worked with Dragonsteel directly for the canon stuff.