Difference between revisions of "Thunderclast"
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/* History / Cognitive Shadow's but they are not confirmed to be Singer souls.
(/* History / Cognitive Shadow's but they are not confirmed to be Singer souls.) |
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{{lifeform
|image=Thunderclast Matthew Johnson Inktober2018.jpg
|type=Animated stone
|sapient=Yes
|world=Roshar
|universe=[[Cosmere]]
|books=[[The Stormlight Archive]]
}}
{{update|sa4}}
'''Thunderclasts''' are beasts on [[Roshar]] from the times of the [[Desolation]]s.{{book ref|sa|part=prelude}}▼
{{quote
|Those aren’t stones. They’re creatures.
|[[Dalinar]]{{book ref|sa1|60}}
}}
▲'''Thunderclasts''' are
== Appearance and Nature ==
{{image|Thunderclast Bota.jpg|side=left|width=250px|[[Renarin]] confronting a thunderclast at the [[Battle of Thaylen Field]].}}
{{for|/Gallery|more images}}
{{quote
|Even after all these centuries, seeing a thunderclast up close made Kalak shiver.
|[[Kalak]]{{book ref|sa1|part=prelude}}
}}
Thunderclasts are enormous stone beasts, easily five or six times larger than a person, with their hands alone being six feet long.{{book ref|sa1|60}}{{book ref|sa1|part=prelude}} They take a skeletal, humanoid form, with long limbs that end with spiky, clawed fingers. On their chests, they have rib-like protrusions, and there are ridges running along their backs.{{book ref|sa2|4}} Their heads are narrow and arrow-like, with glowing red eyes.{{book ref|sa2|4}}{{book ref|sa3|84}}
The thunderclast proper, however, is a [[Cognitive Realm|Cognitive]] entity of some kind, significantly larger and more twisted than a [[Fused]] soul. When seeing one in a vision, Dalinar assumes that it is a spren{{book ref|sa2|4}}, but during the Battle of Thaylen Field [[Venli]] assumes it to be a [[singer]] soul. She was not entirely correct, as thunderclasts are different from Fused.{{wob ref|15730}} When they desire to take on a physical form, they sink into the stone and animate it, ripping themselves out in the humanoid form.{{book ref|sa3|115}} As such, they retain some qualities of the material they take on, like the color or a covering of moss or fungus.{{book ref|sa2|4}}
== Abilities and Attributes ==
{{quote
|Thunderclast! Hammers! Ready hammers!
|Soldiers hunting thunderclasts on the [[Purelake]]{{book ref|sa2|4}}
}}
Despite their enormous size, thunderclasts have no problems staying upright, and can swing their body around with incredible force, easily toppling regular fortifications.{{book ref|sa3|116}} Though brute force is their greatest strength, they're also capable of precise actions such as throwing boulders,{{book ref|sa3|83}} or carrying regular [[Fused]] in their hands without crushing them.{{book ref|sa3|116}}
Although warped and twisted, thunderclasts seem to retain some level of personality, enough so to answer to names and have a concrete sense of their gender. While they can obey commands, however, they do not seem capable of communicating themselves.{{book ref|sa3|117}} They are capable of making earth-shaking roars and trumpeting sounds to express their emotions, though.{{book ref|sa3|120}}
Despite being made of the same material as their targets, they do not crack, and it seems they cannot be destroyed by ordinary means, although hammers are given as a viable option for combating them.{{book ref|sa3|116}}{{book ref|sa2|4}} Another viable way to deal with them is to cut them up with [[Shardblade]]s to the point where they're no longer mobile, although this carries significant risk to both people and their surroundings. Indeed, [[Adolin]] theorizes that killing thunderclasts was in fact the original purpose of Shardblades, an idea mirrored by Szeth's thoughts on them.{{book ref|sa1|prologue}}{{book ref|sa3|120}} [[Nightblood]] can kill them for good.{{book ref|sa3|117}}
== History ==
{{image|Killing Thunder.jpeg|side=right|width=350px|[[Szeth]] attacking a [[Thunderclast]]}}
While it's unknown for how long they've been in [[Odium]]'s service, thunderclasts date back to the [[Desolation]]s of old, even back to [[Nohadon]]'s times.{{book ref|sa1|60}} People back then knew to look out for them, and sent out hunting parties, although only [[Knights Radiant]] were capable of fighting them.{{book ref|sa2|4}} They were powerful enough to pose dangers even to the [[Herald]]s, with [[Kelek]] in particular dying to them several times.{{book ref|sa1|part=prelude}} After the [[Aharietiam]], however, thunderclasts passed on into myths. By the [[Era of Solitude]], there were numerous stories about [[Voidbringer]]s with bodies of stone, likely as a cultural memory of the thunderclasts.{{book ref|sa1|3}}{{book ref|sa2|51}}
Thunderclasts appeared a few times in [[Dalinar's visions]]. When he met [[Nohadon]], he saw numerous corpses of them littering the battlefield and, in a separate vision in which he participated in a hunt for a corrupted spren on the [[Purelake]], he witnessed one rip itself out of the ground.{{book ref|sa1|60}}{{book ref|sa2|4}} However, they didn't make their proper debut in the modern era until the [[Siege of Kholinar]], when at least one thunderclast participated in the main attack, easily breaking down the city wall and decimating numerous buildings in its wake.{{book ref|sa3|83}}{{book ref|sa3|epilogue}}
In the [[Battle of Thaylen Field]], Odium called two [[Cognitive Shadow | Cognitive Shadows]] -- [[Kai-garnis]] and [[Yushah]] -- to create thunderclasts. After Yushah broke through the wall, he sent her after the [[Thaylen Gemstone Reserve]] while Kai-garnis went to assist the [[Fused]] in taking the [[Thaylen City]] [[Oathgate]]. Both were eventually defeated; Yushah was destroyed permanently by [[Szeth]] with [[Nightblood]],{{wob ref|10440}} while Kai-garnis was immobilized by [[Renarin]] and fled her stone body.{{book ref|sa3|117}}{{book ref|sa3|120}}
== Known thunderclasts ==
* [[Kai-garnis]]
* [[Yushah]]
== Notes ==
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