Nightmare fuel for The Way of Kings (2010). Nightmare fuel for the entire Stormlight Archive is here.
- The death messages. Utterly terrifying things that people utter in their dying moments. They speak of the complete annihilation of Roshar at the hands of unstoppable forces. It gets even worse when you realize that someone is collecting these things. And then part 5 of The Way of Kings reveals that sweet, generous Taravangian is actually an evil bastard who drains the blood of patients at his hospital to get them. For adding "pleasant" dreams, have a sampling of one of these quotes."And all the world was shattered! The rocks trembled with their steps, and the stones reached toward the heavens. We die! We die!"
- Voidbringers. Flaming masses of hatred whose only desire is to make mankind burn as they did. And they apparently suck away light wherever they go, so you can only see their red eyes and flaming skin as you listen to their horrible chanting.
- Yelig-nar, one of the Unmade. He was a personification of destruction, and he traveled around Roshar consuming people. Apparently you could hear their screams as he spoke.
- The first one of Dalinar's visions we get to see. He finds himself hiding in a dark barn with his (persona's) wife and child, without armor or weapons save a poker, hunted by things that seem to be made of solid darkness.
- Dalinar's final vision in Part 5 of The Way of Kings. All he knows and loves falls to dust as a giant cloud of doom sweeps the land. Then he sees the Almighty's projection. It turns out that the Almighty was killed by Odium some time before, and there is nothing he can do to stop what is to come.
- Dalinar's vision of Feverstone Keep. After the Radiants leave their Shards and walk away, most of the keep rushes out to claim them, and quickly start killing one another.
- The twisted symbol-headed things that appear in Shallan's pictures. Especially near the end of Part 3, when she reaches out and feels one beside her. Later it's revealed that they chase those who tell lies because they want to find their truths. Pleasant dreams.
- And Shallan gets her Radiant powers by having to spend every moment with one of these things.
- Although this becomes Nightmare Retardant in Words of Radiance where we get to know it.
- And Shallan gets her Radiant powers by having to spend every moment with one of these things.
- Jasnah's use of her Soulcaster against the group of thugs. She transforms them into various different substances, killing them instantly. Two into smoke, one into fire. Those were the kind ones, because she transformed the third into diamond, capturing his terror forever.
- Made even worse by the fact that she went looking for the thugs, just so she could teach Shallan about morality.
- The Thrill. It's a feeling of euphoria causing you to become a killing machine fueled by your hatred for all things around you. Dalinar sometimes breaks the Thrill, only to realizes that he was brutally slaughtering innocents with a smile on his face. On this world, Odium has made war literally addictive.
- The two words Kaladin hears in his dream: "Odium Reigns."
- When Kaladin asks Syl about Odium, his normally good-natured, playful, and slightly snarky companion has an out-of-nowhere moment of pure screaming madness. When asked about it, not even she can explain it. Try suppressing those shivers. I dare you.
- From the few words Kalak has to give about Damnation, we can get a feel for it. Every day, for thousands of years, hooks dig through the Heralds as their flesh is seared off. And they have to do this for all eternity, only getting a break to fight and possibly get murdered by the Voidbringers in the worst possible, civilization-shattering of wars.
- Odium. As Part 5 of The Way of Kings reveals, he's essentially a living mass of hate who will kill your gods. And he's coming for you next.
- Not just that, he's one of those gods himself.
- If Jasnah and Shallan's hypothesis is correct, the Parshendi/parshmen are all Voidbringers. Which means at any moment, they could become mythical killing machines, with little to no warning. Not a pleasant thought.
- Made even more horrifying by Jasnah pointing out that the parshmen are so ingrained into their culture they are often in charge of caring for children. While Shallan is thinking about parshmen starting the war by killing children en masse, Jasnah points out that they're so important they wouldn't even have to do anything to destroy the humans' infrastructure. If the parshmen simply stop working, the entire economy of Roshar is at risk of collapsing.
- In later books, we get to see what happens when the parshmen wake up. They pretty much just grab food and run into the wilderness. After that, having absorbed their "owners'" culture, they then treat them in kind. Bargaining with merchants and bureaucrats, for example. A surprisingly benign rebellion. Except when they're infected with Voidspren.
- Dalinar realizes that ordinary soldiers view Shardbearers this way when an injured Parshendi warrior looks up at him in stark, unadulterated terror. He backs off, intending to let them live...and then one of his guards casually shoves a sword into their neck while passing by.
- Taravangian's hospital. Where any seriously injured patients are kidnapped and slowly euthanized - while still conscious, no less - in order for scribes to record their dying words, which happen to be prophecies about the next Desolation.
- The straightforward, brutal horror of being forced into acting as a bridgeman. You're forced to carry heavy bridges across miles and miles of rough terrain. Then when you get to the end, you're forced to rush toward the waiting Parshendi with no armor and no way to evade their arrows, with your only hope being that you can get your bridge down and deployed before an arrow kills you. If you're badly wounded, you're left to die on the field. Worse still, Sadeas and his fellow highprinces intentionally leave you with no armor, solely so you're a more tempting target for the Parshendi archers. To quote the officer in charge of the bridge crews when Kaladin tries to protect his men: "Bridgemen aren't supposed to survive."
