#dahkor

[journaldetruthwatcher]

Intelligence Intercept Title: 'Series Choir' Source Location: Unknown, Neutral Space

[The recording starts.]

[The rhythm of curiosity can be heard in the background as someone else speaks. The consistent rustling of papers can be heard.]

First of all, I have to admit that Lurin has been extremely useful. I thank the council for their aide. [The last words are spoken in a rough imitation of the rhythm of Praise. The rhythm in the background changes to Appreciation momentarily, the rhythm in the background stops as another speaker speaks.]

The changes to the brains and vocal cords makes Choristers as alien to Singers as Singers are alien to Humans. [Spoken to Confidence.]

Maybe to you.

It is fascinating honestly- [Spoken to Reprimand.]

I've listened to several audio recordings Isso left in this facility. The mixing of rhythms was a unique experience to hear, they do sound like four harmonious voices speaking at once, each voice just happens to be attuned to a different rhythm. T- [Spoken to Excitement which changes to Irritation as the other speaker speaks.]

It sounds like a quartet that sing the same lyrics but can't agree on the song to me. It makes me very uncomfortable to listen to.

As I was saying, you did agree to let me speak in the reports. [Spoken to Annoyance.]

Sorry.

He seems to have changed to audio recordings sporadically throughout this process. [Spoken to Curiosity.]

It is obvious that he is significantly damaged and that his spren have been twisted through those recordings. [Spoken to the Terrors.]

It is through miscellaneous comments he makes throughout those recordings that we know more specific numbers for those that perished during his experiments. [Spoken to the Lost.]

In particular, he's been responsible for hundreds, even thousands of Parshendi disappearances across the Cosmere over the decades this 'project' was actively being worked on. Unfortunately, he never detailed how exactly he was able to accomplish this while avoiding detection. [Spoken to the Terrors.]

[Humming to Peace can be heard along with the rustling of clothes.]

We learned that many of the individualistic changes he induced seems to have been primarily aesthetic rather than purely functional. Which follows along well with his prior Hemalurgic constructs. [Spoken to Resolve.]

A storming deranged mind. He doesn't do any of this with a goal in mind beyond 'I can'. [Humming to Resignation can be heard along with the background comment.]

I have to agree, it has been hypothesized that he has an initial idea but no goal for the idea when he begins to work on them… [Spoken to Tension.]

I recommend a small group try to figure out what he may become fascinated with. If we can catch him before he does something else, its a win for us. If he stays in his hole for the rest of time because nothing else catches his attention, that's also a win I argue.

[Humming to Consideration can be heard in the background.]

The next few reports will be what we've compiled on particular 'True Surge Choristers'. We have some specifics on personality, appearance, and 'basal surge adaptations'.

[Humming to Excitement can be heard in the background. It suddenly changes to Consolation abruptly. By the end of the dialogue it changes to Anticipation.]

[The recording ends.]

[thequeenofvalkyries]

"You served well, and were left behind. now I offer you a second chance at service. And a third. And a fourth. Until my own light is extinguished, my broken toys will march"

-Dahkor, Founder of the Dahkor Dynasty

---------- i did it, i painted a necron army and all it took was a year of languishing on the idea of 'i should paint minis again' and several months of drilling 'morning is craft time' into my head as I did with the octopath traveler cross-stitch. now i need to paint more minis.

[artethdilaf]

I never got the implication. obviously the fjordells were posing as merchants ect but dahkor are pretty distinct. were they in the fucking boxes.

[that-catholic-shinobi]

Looking for a way to create fantasy names

Take a few random consonants and add vowels.

dhkr becomes Dah'kr or Dihkar or Dahkor

fcwl become Focwel, Fecwile or Fac'wole (apostrohes are your friends when creating fantasy names)

sdt becomes Sadot, Sedite or Sudatu

djnz becomes Dojunz, Dej'noz or Dajnez

Possibilities are endless

[botanicaxu]

Elantris/The Emperor’s Soul crossover: Everybody’s performing ChayShan

Let’s show some love to those precious Selish magic systems! It’s my first time depicting ChayShan moves and it is loosely based on Tai Chi, according to what Brandon said in Elantris annotations:

The ChayShan is a martial art I devised to feel just a bit like Tai Chi—though ChayShan focuses on speeding up the motions and gaining power from them. I've always kind of thought that Tai Chi would look more interesting if it slowly sped up. [Source]

Characters above are (From left to right): Captain Zu, Shuden, Bloodsealer, Shai.

EDIT: Saw this awesome comment on 17th Shard:

EVERYONE WAS CHAYSHAN FIGHTIN'!!!!

THOSE MOVES WERE FAST AS LIGHTNIN'

THE DAHKOR THOUGHT IT FRIGHT'NING

SHUDEN FOUGHT WITH EXPERT TIMING!

[Credit to Hemalurgic_Headshot]

EDIT: The coloring didn’t work so well. So I decided to give up on that...

[thenerdhathwrote]

Elantris Reactions Part 4 - The Conclusion!

I have finished reading Elantris!  And I now understand why people talk about wanting a sequel... :-)  So, here are my reactions to chapter 40 to the end of the book.  Please to enjoy!

What even happened with Dilaf!?! 

I mean, I knew he was gonna be a massive problem, but I was not expecting him to be from Dahkor

Especially not the leader of the monastery

I don’t really understand what Dilaf was doing?  Why was he there?  What was happening?

I guess it does kinda make sense that Hrathen wouldn’t have figured it out, given the kind of man that he is?

But at the same time, he’s a smart man, I am a little surprised he wouldn’t have picked up on Dilaf being maybe something other than he seemed

Hrathen figured out Sarene was smart after she spoke like five words

Sanderson had to nerf Hrathen, lol

Can I refuse to accept Hrathen is dead?

Honestly, I even predicted he’d end up dying protecting Sarene, and I’m still not okay

I predicted a lot of the end-game plot twists, but was also surprised by a good number of them too

Clearly the Dilaf twist was one of them

Good job, Sanderson, you got me

Honestly I have a hard time buying the whole Aiden was an Elantrian the whole time! twist

Certain aspects did feel like they were sort of forced a bit much, so that the plot would work

I don’t remember feeling like that with Mistborn or Stormlight, and the forced- ness, and it did sometimes take me out of the story at times

I didn’t expect Roial to die the way he did, either

Frankly I want to just pretend none of them died

I have too many feels

I figured Hrathen had poisoned Sarene to make her appear to be an Elantrian, but I didn’t expect him to use it as a way of getting her father, and by extension her kingdom, to convert

Smart move Hrathen, good on you

The Sanderson Avalanche was strong!

It was really cool watching Raoden figure out what was going on

He fixed Elantris!   Good job Raoden

I refuse to accept that Karata is dead

I’m doing a lot of refusing to accept that people are dead, I’m not okay you guys

There were a lot of questions that got brought up in the last few chapters that were just sort of...blatantly never resolved

How are other people accessing the Dor?

What is happening?  Nobody knows

It definitely feels like it’s supposed to have a sequel

Possibly many sequels

It’s a good thing Brandon Sanderson writes fast, he has like 50,000 more books to write

Overall opinion- yay Elantris!  I’m a fan!  I’m really glad I’ve now read it, I majorly enjoyed it :-) 

[journaldetruthwatcher]

Intelligence Intercept Title: 'Series Choir' Source Location: Unknown, Neutral Space

[The recording starts.]

These profane creatures that are the warped forms of Singers, even of the Fused, the Choristers- his term, not mine -are supposedly an 'improved form of Fused'. Created by the sick bastard of a Truthwatcher.

[There is a long pause in the recording, broken up by the sounds of papers being riffled with.]

If I'm reading these notes correctly- whhich for the record are an absolute mess, his mind is utterly inhuman -he made these things after his "Amalgams" were deemed a failure. I've never encountered those constructs before, which makes sense…somewhere in this mess he pretty explicitly states that they were a failure.

[A pause in dialogue, though papers are being moved and a metallic sound can be heard.]

Figuring out what those were was difficult…I think that they were an attempt to make 'human fused'…they were deemed a failure because…of…some...reason…I honestly haven't figured that out…but based on what I understand a Chorister to be like, it was probably some sort of 'efficiency' issue. Resources, time, investiture, something. Anyways-

[A pause in dialogue. A creaking of wood accompanied with a sigh can be heard in the middle. The pause ends as the creaking is heard again.]

His raids on Rosharan aligned systems were concentrated on those with relatively high Singer populations…he was looking for a self-sustaining population he could deposit in his void. He seems to have gotten it…then he replicated the Fused in a round about way…I'm not smart enough for this bullshit!

[A sigh can be heard.]

He stripped the souls of connection and cognition is what I think these can be summarized with. Uh…he begins to deviate from simply using Hemalurgy like he historically has, though that is implied to have happened several years after starting this project. Probably in the void then… Why do I have to do this? He hasn't detailed what he used, but he made note of Sel, Threnody, and if I had to guess, an undiscovered planet named 'Canticle'. I think he learned Dahkor, used the weird shade stuff, and…whatever a sunheart is. He's vague, but that's my only guess. After a period of time, he was able to continue on…over some period of 'generations' he was able to make these souls what effectively amounts to spren, and over several more 'generations' he was able to make them produce forms in the Singers he had entrapped. Storms, this is sick. Um, next he fine tuned the 'blueprint' forms…skipping ahead in the timeline for the end results for common changes; They have dense musculature, hardened carapaces, 'perfect gemhearts', they generate small quantities of various light by what I'll summarize as 'being alive', they gain multiple sets of vocal cords, and their brains seem to become rather extensively added to. Everything except for the gemhearts were done early on. He uh, he tried a lot of surgeries and methods to make the 'sunhearts' work. They appear to have killed the 'spren' each time he tried to get them to change forms…I'm not sure why or how, but the apparent solution was to make the 'sunheart the core for the gemheart'…again, I'm not sure how exactly that solves his issues, but that makes the gemhearts 'perfect'.

[A button being pressed can be heard.]

Add 'Canticle' and 'Sunheart' to the Lightweaver network's keywords.

[A button being pressed can be heard.]

Lets see, where was I? Right, the changes…apparently they are to 'improve on the design of the Fused'. The powers and immortality of the Fused, but none of the insanity. Same basic principle, a spren grants the surge and heavily changes the Singer- it should be noted that unbonding that spren kills the Singer -but the spren doesn't possess the Singer. Stormfather, how does someone get this twisted? The physical changes are to 'elevate the singer appropriately'. Stronger, tougher, smarter, faster…though it doesn't seem particularly extreme compared to some forms, it is more just…compact I guess? Hidden may be a way to work that. So, the vocal cords…I was concerned what that could be for, but I think it was just a mad science thing…what I can gather is that they speak with four voices simultaneously, but they can each somehow speak in different rhythms? It doesn't seem to have any further purpose, atleast none that I've found. Their brains…they were modified rather extensively. Like their physicality, it seems to have had a focus on 'compacting', more power in the same sized skull cavity. They think slightly faster, a portion was added to attune to and process multiple rhythms at once, an unused portion which was either intended for something that was forgotten or was placed there for the Singer to use themselves- both seem equally likely given the slightly odd structure -, and a large portion of it- what amounts to a third hemisphere -is dedicated to an 'instinctual understanding' of their surge. That got 'programmed' during the 'specialization' stage…several decades later it appears. The 'perfect gemheart' grows overtime, on average sixteen years, that much is very clear atleast. He writes extensively how frustrated he is that the investiture gained to actually induce that change 'fully' takes so long. Several of his deranged Mistspren even wrote encouraging notes near those lines. We already knew he wasn't keeping them captive...but, damnation.. Anyways, so, light. They aren't limited to the…light specific variations of surges…something to do with the 'perfect gemheart'…again, I don't really know what that is… they generate small quantities of lifelight when they eat and drink food, they generate a small quantity of voidlight when they sleep, and a small quantity of stormlight when they breath. All three of those processes are similar to storing into the appropriate metalminds, just a different variety of investiture that those qualities are being 'stored' as.

[The sounds of a large number of papers being moved can be heard.]

It should be noted that…somewhere in this mess is mention of the planned prison systems for these creatures. If we ever crack into the void, we should be wary of powerful and consistent 'magnetic solar dust storms' which will be heavily invested.

[The sound of creaking wood can be heard.]

If the stars are invested like he plans, those storms will act similar to highstorms, just on a more cosmic scale, which will give the Singers in those systems stormlight and crem analogues…besides each variety possessing access to a surge, that is more or less all of their shared traits I found. If I find more pressing information, I will submit further reports, but they seem to be mentally stable Fused with less facial expressions…not really as warped as I was expecting when I was assigned to this place…

[The recording ends.]

(Inspired by this depiction of Singers, which I love.)

[journaldetruthwatcher]

Intelligence Intercept Title: 'Series Choir' Source Location: Unknown, Neutral Space

[The recording starts.]

[Humming of Peace can be heard in the background.]

True Surge Chorister; Gravitation, report. Coloration: no noteworthy differences. Bodily Changes: Well…very aesthetically different, little added functionality. They grow cloth-like membranes from a carapaced…shoulder girdle? Guess that's a way to describe it.

Shoulder gorget. [Spoken to Confidence.]

Yes, shoulder gorget, thank you.

[Humming of Appreciation can be heard in the background. The humming changes to Peace as the dialogue continues.]

A carapaced shoulder gorget structure, under it they grow…

[The sounds of papers can be heard.]

…roughly a hundred or two ribbon-like cloth-like membrane tassels? It is extremely similar to the appearance of ancient scadrian mistcloaks apparently. They also serve similar functions, the ability to be pulled free. He spent a long time making that work apparently. Atleast he's a considerate sick monster. These will regrow in time, similar to hair.

It should be noted that, unlike those cloaks that had on average a layer and a half of ribbons, these membranous ribbons have an average of six layers with a standard deviation of half a layer. [Spoken to Curiosity.]

Yes, thank you.

[Humming of Appreciation can be heard in the background. The humming changes to Peace as the dialogue continues.]

The coloration of the gorget is that of their base skin tone, but tinged with some orange-red or red coloration. The ribbons themselves seem to vary between the full breadth of 'chorister colors'. Tans to browns and oranges to reds, though they are all the same color, no real patterning beyond fading from red where they are attached to the gorget to the 'appropriate color'. Their arms are slightly longer…something like a foot and a half with a standard deviation of three inches? Makes them proportionally strange to look at.

Now, psychological changes. They created an preference to manage their ribbons, as they were primarily aesthetic in nature. Some wove them together into structures similar to clothing such as sleeve or robes, others 'styled' it like a human does hair. They seem to enjoy remaining in weightlessness much like the Shanay-im, which often affects their ribbons. letting them float in the wind. Though, 'young' Choristers can only maintain this for a short period. Its honestly fascinating how the 'third hemisphere' as my colleague put it, changes how the Choristers think of the world. The gravitation Choristers unique perception- [Spoken to Excitement.]

[Humming of Annoyance can be heard in the background. It changes shortly into Peace.]

Thank you Lurin. Their invested adaptations…we've found extensive records of one, the basic gravitation adaptation. We've also found mentions of the 'Windrunner' adaptations as well.

[Humming of Anxiety can be heard in the background.]

It's implied that he 'caught' one. He's rather vague on how, where, or who. But he used them to test the adaptation theory. Any of the order who was classified as missing from the raids may have been one of them. He has three pages here written entirely of hysterical apologies.

[For roughly a minute, only the humming of the Lost can be heard in the background.]

The 'basic' adaptation lets them effectively ignore inertial forces. They can stop from full speed on a dime, they can make directional changes of over ninety degrees, they even go slightly faster than the average Skybreaker and Windrunner. They do all this without having to regenerate issues that would normally accompany such maneuvers. Did this monster really need vivisections to prove it worked? How did these things not revolt against him? This adaptation also prevents them from being harmed by falling from heights or from being lashed into the ground, but it does nothing against blunt force trauma.

[Humming of Peace can be heard in the background. Momentarily the rhythm changes to the Terrors before returning back to Peace.]

Curiously, he didn't try to solve the issue of blunt force still affecting them. His profile does suggest such focused hyperfixations to not be out of character. They are not designed for efficiency, but for the breadth of a surge. [Spoken to Curiosity.]

[Humming of Peace can be heard in the background. There is silence otherwise for several seconds.]

Right, that is…I guess is true…anyways…their adaptations to reverse lashings seems to repel small objects and ranged weaponry from themselves. It again has an obvious weakness to melee weapons…attacks from melee weapons…physically holding an object and trying to stab them.

I think melee weapons was a good enough descriptor. [Spoken to Amusement.]

Thanks.

[The recording ends.]

[journaldetruthwatcher]

Intelligence Intercept Title: 'Series Choir' Source Location: Unknown, Neutral Space

[The recording starts.]

Well, I found more common traits- they were added during the 'specialization stage', so I thought that they were not shared between all of them when I had skimmed the papers.

[Ruffling of clothing can be heard.]

The spren was given particular authority to change its own connection and a small portions of the 'surge-brain'. These changes are explicitly intended for adding any novel variations of the surge encountered…for example, if the Chorister can sufficiently understand how the Voidish manifestation of the surge works or even the Radiant variations of combined surges, the spren 'memorizes' it. That is then available to any future Singers the 'Choristerspren' bonds. This could actually be dangerous and I recommend the orders to be wary of this functionality, should a Chorister be encountered.

[The moving of papers can be heard.]

Another possible concern on this 'surge memorization' is that- he implies anyways -in theory, the bodies of the Chorister can be adapted to safely handle the new manifestation of the surge. This actually seems to be where Dahkor came into play, its ability to change the body and cause novel tailormade invested effects…some sort of leveraging the spren medium?…I think this and whatever shade research he did is how he made a 'form spren'…

[The faint sound of a yawn can be heard along with the creaking of wood. There is a long pause of dialogue after the yawn, the ruffling of clothing can be heard intermittently during the pause. The speaker begins again along the sound of creaking wood and rustling papers.]

The least the storming bastard could've done is make digital reports for me. He spent a significant number of 'generations' getting the true surges to work. These Choristers- assuming that these diagrams are of them -appear very similar to what few envoyforms I've seen. They appear to all be Malen or Femalen, the Choristerforms I mean. Similar to normal forms in that it isn't related to the spren, but the Singer themselves. Since we are on the subject of appearance, they have a sort of skullplate looking face? There's some cresting at the top of that plate thing, and they can grow hair behind it...after that they become slightly different in appearance...and when they aren't actively using their surges, their eyes are solid black, though when they are using them, they glow a bright red...he he wrote some ideas on how to fix that, but I don't believe he acted on those ideas...next they…I'll be honest- I don't know how he did this since I would assume that he is corrupting a massive amount of investiture -but he removed the normal Singer colors from them…same patterns, but different colors; tans, oranges, and browns. Reds seem to change to become more orange, while whites become tans, and the blacks become browns. The two colored pieces I found along with the 'samples' brings to mind sandy deserty rocks. Possibly should be concerned about the security of arid locales. He does note that reds will sometimes stay while the whites and blacks change, which makes sense to me given how little I understand whatever this-

[The sound of rustling clothing can be heard in the breif pause of dialogue.]

-thing he is doing is. Damnation, I don't get paid enough for this headache. This changes significantly for the 'false surge Choristers'; Their marbling, regardless of initial coloration, mostly changes to the colors of the shard the surge is associated with. So, for example, the Adhesion Choristers have blue-white marbling, since it's Honor's false surge. If it doesn't wholly change, then there can be patches or streaks of red left behind…speaking of the false surge Choristers, he notes that they have an easier time hearing the rhythms of the associated shard, they are connected more to that shard by design to enable the use of the surge. This could be used strategically to atleast hinder them in conflicts. The true surge Choristers begin to hear those rhythms if they have access to their variation of the surge…so the rhythms of odium if exposed to the voidish variation of the surge.

[The sound of rustling clothing and a sigh can be heard.]

Due to this "discovery", I recommend being allowed either time or more personnel to comb through the specialization stage papers. Unless he pokes his head out of the void for another series of monstrosities, we theoretically have time- so I could do this alone -but with more storming personnel, we could get more accurate information! This is way outside of my expertise here!

[The sound of a sigh can be heard.]

I will await instruction before my next report.

[The recording ends.]

[artethdilaf]

I love elantris because I love zombies and civil unrest but also because I love when your antagonist just doesn’t make any fucking sense.

You’re a prestigious alumni of bone school, and your boss is like I need you to sit around out west for me for a bit so he sardine cans your body into a different race (even though you could just go as is and it would have been just as inconspicuous. What the fuck. What was the purpose? Who cares we aren’t going to talk about it.) You go to immerse yourself in another culture and end up in a situationship. She loves you even though you are deformed (blonde, short) and then gets sick. You assume that the guy who fucked up her healing knew that you were a dahkor spy. How would he know that? Shut the fuck up. Death to all.