The Shattered Plains

The Shattered Plains are a vast, broken expanse of stone plateaus in eastern Roshar, riven by countless deep chasms and serving as the central battlefield of the War of Reckoning during the early events of The Stormlight Archive. The Plains lie at the easternmost edge of the Alethi sphere of influence, close enough to the Origin that the highstorms strike with full, undiminished fury.

The landscape is a maze of flat-topped plateaus separated by chasms hundreds of feet deep. Highstorm runoff floods these chasms, and the spren-rich environment teems with the chrysalises of chasmfiends, the giant crustaceans whose gemhearts the Alethi prize.

Geography

The plateaus grow larger and more closely spaced toward the center of the Plains, where the abandoned city of Stormseat -- now called Narak -- stands. The chasms below are choked with the debris and bones washed down by storms, and navigating between plateaus requires either long marches around or the use of mobile bridges hauled by bridge crews.

History

The Shattered Plains were once the site of Stormseat, an ancient city destroyed and broken during a past Desolation. In the present day they became the seat of the Parshendi (listeners) and the focus of the Alethi war of vengeance following the assassination of King Gavilar. The grueling plateau assaults to claim gemhearts defined the early war, and it was here that Bridge Four rose under Kaladin.

Significance

Beneath the Shattered Plains, hidden in the Cognitive Realm connection at their heart, lay the path to the lost tower-city of Urithiru. The Plains thus proved to be far more than a battlefield -- they were the doorway to the ancient seat of the Knights Radiant.