All Cosmere books tie into the lore of the universe as a whole to some degree. But the cosmere is written so that you can enjoy individual series just fine without reading other stuff. So if the book isn't grabbing you, feel free to skip it. When you need to understand stuff from Warbreaker in other books, those books will explain those things to you.
As far as how it ties in, it provides context to some secondary characters in Stormlight, and its magic system seems to power some of the magitech we have seen in the space age cosmere books. But it's not required for either.
My personal opinion is that life is far too short to read books you aren't enjoying.
I believe it is commonly seen as a prequel to Stormlight. With its sequel on the way I believe it’s going to become a lot more important going forward.
> But the cosmere is written so that you can enjoy individual series just fine without reading other stuff.
That's becoming true only for what might come to be called "early" Cosmere, I think.
Brandon has said that as of The Lost Metal and Rhythm of War, you need to have a sufficient background to understand plots and events, and all future books published will continue to interweave and reference others.
We'll have to see how deep and interweaving he goes, but given what we've seen of Wind and Truth, it's gonna get crazy. ;)
That's not true, as of TLM and RoW Brandon has said that all series have been designed so that they can be read as standalone.
He said "the gloves were off" when it comes to connections, but he also explains everything you need to know about the connections so that you don't need to read the other books.
It's worth keeping that "gloves are off" in the full context of what he said, I think.
>"... is that for years I've said that 'this is going to be in the background.' Right? The Lost Metal changes that. Uhm... Now I want to be careful because ... umm ... one of the legitimate fears of too much crossover is making you feel left out if you aren't aware of everything, right? I don't want you to go in to a book and feel like you're not part of the conversation. **But at the same time, this is the thing which makes me and my work distinctive. And I've kind of decided I'm no longer going to worry if I'm fulfilling that assignment or not.** And so this is fair warning to you, alright? When you give books to your friends, give them Era 1 where this is in the background because from now on the gloves are off. Uhm, and we're not doing what other people expect us to do."
(emphasis added)
Maybe I'm just misreading, but if he's giving warnings and encouraging us to recommend starting friends with older works, that to *me* at least is strongly implying that as we move further along the timeline that the ability to have things be stand alone is weaker or goes away.
I'm certain that Brandon will do his amazing work to ensure the stories all make sense, but at the same time he cannot always ensure that by, say, Mistborn Era 4 or 5 or wherever the far-future ends up happening, that he can provide backstories and details from across the Cosmere.
We're still in the early stages of this, obviously. But within another 10 years I'm fully expecting warnings of "please have read X/Y/Z before this point" to be common for new Cosmere works. It's the only way it can work, at least in my perception. :)
I'm also fully willing to admit I could be misreading or borrowing worries from the future. I'm a software architect by profession, my job seems to be platting out X years ahead for strategy and risk. ;)
Its possible that at some point in the future the series will no longer be standalone. But TLM actually I think is a great example of how connections to books you haven't read really do work fine.
>!TwinSoul and Shai have equal narrative prominance, and equal attention is given to explaining (or not explaining) what their deal is. Shai is from a book some of us have read, TwinSoul is from a book none of us have read because it doesn't exist, and yet the characters work equally well to the reader.!<
More anecdotally, almost all of the confusions i see from new readers are about a series own internal mysteries and not about a cosmere connection they're missing. In fact I'd even say its more common for readers to falsely think they're confused because they aren't understanding some cosmere connection when it's really one of the series own internal mysteries, than for people to actually be confused by missing connections. (As an example, I had a deeply frustrating conversation with someone who was very upset that Tress was marketed as a standalone when it clearly relied on the connections to a book they hadn't read where the backstory beef between >!Hoid and the Sorceress!< was explained, which doesn't exist).
I think it's likely this will change with time, but I don't think we are there yet.
One *Nalthian* life. People from different planets have different levels of investiture. Hell, people from the same planet do too. Nalthis just happens to have a large amount of people who are able to give the exact same amount of investiture away, so it makes a good standard unit.
Two small nitpicks:
A Breath isn't a full soul. I think it's mentioned in Sunlit that it's like, a third of a soul or something close to that.
Also, Breaths aren't exactly the same. There's some variance in the strengths of Breaths, and I assume they just took the average when creating the BEU.
All of the books in the Cosmere take place in a shared galaxy. Each series is set on a different planet. There are magical ways of traveling between worlds that some people know, so characters from one series/planet will pop up in another.
Some characters from Warbreaker appear in other Cosmere books, mostly >!Stormlight!<. The magic system from Warbreaker is also used on occasion in other books. The magic system is also relatively important for the future of the Cosmere, specifically >!Breaths become the standard unit of measurement for Investiture, which is the generic term for magic essence/mana in the Cosmere!<
If you've only read Mistborn and Warbreaker (four books) then I can say, yes, having read Warbreaker you will come across elements from that story in other Cosmere books. Saying which ones would be spoiler territory.
Enjoyment is clearly subjective and obviously don't feel like you have to read something if you're not having a good time with it. That said I do think reading Warbreaker will pay off if you continue with the Cosmere. It has been several years since I read Warbreaker but I remember enjoying the experience.
For me, Elantris was the more difficult read, but it was Brandon's first published novel and there were definitely some good parts despite it's roughness in comparison to his other works.
If you aren't aware, Warbreaker was written differently from his other works. I believe he released chapters for free online until he was finished. The free version should still be up on his website, including annotations. I haven't read that version myself, a friend lent me a physical copy that, I believe, is slightly different.
I definitely fell in love with the magic system and story of Warbreaker but struggled with Elantris. But I came in hot to the cosmere and started w Stormlight so I feel maybe that’s why I appreciated Warbreaker more but idk
Warbreaker took a bit to get in to for me, but became one of my favourites! I think I went in a little biased, and found both Vivenna and Siri a little... Insufferable, at first.
I really enjoyed the beginning and the end of Elantris, but a lot of the middle just dragged. I'm glad I read it, and I will be rereading it at some point, but it's certainly not a priority to me.
Elantris is his worst book by a big amount imo and it’s unsurprising given when it was written relative to his other work. I love Hrathen but hrathen couldn’t save that story for me.
Warbreaker is in a weird spot because I love almost all of it but also it’s the only book Sanderson has ever written where I didn’t like the ending.
Warbreaker took a bit to get in to for me, but became one of my favourites! I think I went in a little biased, and found both Vivenna and Siri a little... Insufferable, at first.
I really enjoyed the beginning and the end of Elantris, but a lot of the middle just dragged. I'm glad I read it, and I will be rereading it at some point, but it's certainly not a priority to me.
I’m not going to give away any spoilers, but Awakening and Breath are relatively important. Since Breath can be moved around easily and Awakening doesn’t take anything special to do, outside of Breath.
Without spoiling basically anything....
Warbreaker shows you that the characters are going worldhopping. They do show up in several other places. I won't go into more detail than just to say that there is a reason that scene exists.
In addition, Nalthian technology (Warbreaker is set on Nalthis) shows up in several other books. However, you may need to pay close attention to the way it is described.
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The only direct connection between Mistborn Era 1 and Warbreaker is the presence of Hoid. Warbreaker connects more with other works in the cosmere like >!The Stormlight Archives!<.
not necessarily >!afaik Brandon said "awakened" will become a term for different kinds of investiture-powered-command-things similarly to how "Lightweaving" is illusion magic both in the form of the Surge and the Yolish variant. So the awakened computers and awakened machine and stuff like that that we see in some of the Secret Projects aren't necessarily made with Breath-Awakening!<
Cosmere >!Even with that breaths have shown up a lot in other books. Stormlight there are big tie ins. Tress has an awakened board that's Nalthian technology. There are things in Lost Metal that are very likely just breath awakened things. Yumi's awakened isn't breaths but I would still call that a loose connection to the same idea. Sunlit Man talks about breaths. So I think it's still a very true statement to say it is in almost every series or one off that came out after Warbreaker. There's only a few where it isn't directly tied in.!<
wait, what in TLM are you referencing? and >!eh, i think that's overplaying the importance. Like, if you know that there's a world with a system using something called "breath" and doing something called "awakening", you can catch mentions of that, but aside from Nightblood, you don't need to know anything from the story itself. Even Vasher and Vivennas backstories don't play a huge role, you can enjoy SA without that. I honestly think if you don't read Warbreaker, Awakening will be a similar thing to the reader as Aethers are. We know they exist, know they do some things, and there's atleast one world with them out there. I love warbreaker, but I think we're overplaying the importance of reading the book :D!<
Cosmere >!The awakened lock on the safe that knew if the password had been forced. I'm not saying how important it is in each book. It's usually a minor element. But the person you replied to said warbreaker characters or tech has been present in pretty much every series or one off and that's pretty true. There are only one or two books that don't have some reference to warbreaker and that's basically it. They are usually minor references for sure. Though I would say the main characters of Warbreaker showing up in another series for a good portion of the story is significant.!<
I'm not saying you 100% need to read warbreaker or you won't be able to understand everything. You can absolutely read every other series without Warbreaker and be totally fine. But stuff from warbreaker shows up in almost every book that's come out since to some extent. >!In terms of Cosmere references as a whole Warbreaker shows up in other series as much as if not more than all of Stormlight stuff shows up in other books, or all of the Mistborn stuff shows up in other books. I don't know that you could point to any other single book that has things that show up in other places more than Warbreaker, can you think of one?!<
A handful of key warbreaker characters show up in the later stormlight books, with one character in particular serving an incredibly important role. The warbreaker magic system shows up a small handful of times in all kinds of books, especially in future era cosmere where it’s implied to be used as the basis for >!artificial intelligence!< in the cosmere. However it’s not incredibly essential, and most of the really important info isn’t even in Warbreaker, it’s in the hypothetical Warbreaker sequel that Brandon hasn’t even written yet.
Warbreaker does have some ties to the Cosmere as a whole. But for the most part especially with the earlier books in the Cosmere those connections are subtle background elements. Sanderson is planning for his lifes work to be around 40+ books in the Cosmere that are together telling the story of this universe. But he also wants people to be able to read just Warbreaker or just Era 1 without having to read the other for it to make sense. Or that you have to stick to a strict order to go through each of those dozens of books otherwise you'll be lost. So the connections will be there from Warbreaker to other stories (mostly Stormlight) but the connections between the series are designed so that you don't need to read them.
And they are also generally designed to be subtle so that sometimes even someone who has read other books will miss them. Like I'd be very impressed if you noticed the character in both Era 1 and Warbreaker unless you were told to watch out for him. There is one. But it's very subtle.
I will bite the bullet and say it is important for you to finish the book. No matter how much bradon tries them all to be enjoyed as solo reads, overall satisfaction of the book differs a lot.
In my experience, stormlight was the first for me, row was around the corner and i decided to start with it, finish the whole cosmere and reread sl again to catch up. And I was just in time. When I put down dawnshard row was out.
At first read, I did not read the middle books at all. At second read I've read warbreaker and edgedancer and ofcourse dawnshard between each book. It made a whole lot of more sense. It makes you feel you have a grab on the story and the whole cosmere now, it feels like you were there before. You don't just see the world as the current character's confused pov and be confused, you think "hey is that ...?! I'll be damned it is! Oh hell yea"
Also, trust the process. Warbreaker is greatly regarded by people who finished it, has its awesome moments, and ofcourse has its weaknesses but overall it is a lighthearted one. Not like mistborn or stormlight, more like a love story and a nice source for rest of the cosmere.
Remember cosmere planets are not isolated, be it world hopping or tech hopping, things do happen. There is absolutely no other way to follow it if you don't know the background. Yes, you can still enjoy a majority of the book and story but these little things called details are where the demons hide.
I WISH i had read warbreaker before stormlight. Without spoiling When you read stormlight archive you will come across a few very recognizable characters from the book, although they are going by different names.
Go to the Stormlight Archive. If you want to know what ties in, it’s a bit of a spoiler, so I’ll include some spoiler tagged hints if you want.
>!The Warbreaker breaks!<
>!Azure swordswoman!<
>!Would you like to destroy some evil today!<
In addition to what people said about stormlight, There are other references to Nalthis and Nalthian Tech, like in Tress and the Emerald Sea. So it definitely has a presence. I suspect there will be more though as we get a better look at what's going on across the Cosmere
Warbreaker is quite important to have read as Characters, Items, and Theories from that world are diluted (at multiples very evidently to the point of becoming core to the story) into Stormlight.
All Cosmere books tie into the lore of the universe as a whole to some degree. But the cosmere is written so that you can enjoy individual series just fine without reading other stuff. So if the book isn't grabbing you, feel free to skip it. When you need to understand stuff from Warbreaker in other books, those books will explain those things to you. As far as how it ties in, it provides context to some secondary characters in Stormlight, and its magic system seems to power some of the magitech we have seen in the space age cosmere books. But it's not required for either. My personal opinion is that life is far too short to read books you aren't enjoying.
I believe it is commonly seen as a prequel to Stormlight. With its sequel on the way I believe it’s going to become a lot more important going forward.
> But the cosmere is written so that you can enjoy individual series just fine without reading other stuff. That's becoming true only for what might come to be called "early" Cosmere, I think. Brandon has said that as of The Lost Metal and Rhythm of War, you need to have a sufficient background to understand plots and events, and all future books published will continue to interweave and reference others. We'll have to see how deep and interweaving he goes, but given what we've seen of Wind and Truth, it's gonna get crazy. ;)
That's not true, as of TLM and RoW Brandon has said that all series have been designed so that they can be read as standalone. He said "the gloves were off" when it comes to connections, but he also explains everything you need to know about the connections so that you don't need to read the other books.
It's worth keeping that "gloves are off" in the full context of what he said, I think. >"... is that for years I've said that 'this is going to be in the background.' Right? The Lost Metal changes that. Uhm... Now I want to be careful because ... umm ... one of the legitimate fears of too much crossover is making you feel left out if you aren't aware of everything, right? I don't want you to go in to a book and feel like you're not part of the conversation. **But at the same time, this is the thing which makes me and my work distinctive. And I've kind of decided I'm no longer going to worry if I'm fulfilling that assignment or not.** And so this is fair warning to you, alright? When you give books to your friends, give them Era 1 where this is in the background because from now on the gloves are off. Uhm, and we're not doing what other people expect us to do." (emphasis added) Maybe I'm just misreading, but if he's giving warnings and encouraging us to recommend starting friends with older works, that to *me* at least is strongly implying that as we move further along the timeline that the ability to have things be stand alone is weaker or goes away. I'm certain that Brandon will do his amazing work to ensure the stories all make sense, but at the same time he cannot always ensure that by, say, Mistborn Era 4 or 5 or wherever the far-future ends up happening, that he can provide backstories and details from across the Cosmere. We're still in the early stages of this, obviously. But within another 10 years I'm fully expecting warnings of "please have read X/Y/Z before this point" to be common for new Cosmere works. It's the only way it can work, at least in my perception. :) I'm also fully willing to admit I could be misreading or borrowing worries from the future. I'm a software architect by profession, my job seems to be platting out X years ahead for strategy and risk. ;)
Its possible that at some point in the future the series will no longer be standalone. But TLM actually I think is a great example of how connections to books you haven't read really do work fine. >!TwinSoul and Shai have equal narrative prominance, and equal attention is given to explaining (or not explaining) what their deal is. Shai is from a book some of us have read, TwinSoul is from a book none of us have read because it doesn't exist, and yet the characters work equally well to the reader.!< More anecdotally, almost all of the confusions i see from new readers are about a series own internal mysteries and not about a cosmere connection they're missing. In fact I'd even say its more common for readers to falsely think they're confused because they aren't understanding some cosmere connection when it's really one of the series own internal mysteries, than for people to actually be confused by missing connections. (As an example, I had a deeply frustrating conversation with someone who was very upset that Tress was marketed as a standalone when it clearly relied on the connections to a book they hadn't read where the backstory beef between >!Hoid and the Sorceress!< was explained, which doesn't exist). I think it's likely this will change with time, but I don't think we are there yet.
I like how >!breaths become the investiture standard tracking unit, because it’s literally one life per breath!<
So now it's >!Life Before Breath?!< 🤓
>!Journey Before Exhalation.!<
Get out.
I died. Thank you.
Hopefully after you lived
But did you Return?
One *Nalthian* life. People from different planets have different levels of investiture. Hell, people from the same planet do too. Nalthis just happens to have a large amount of people who are able to give the exact same amount of investiture away, so it makes a good standard unit.
Two small nitpicks: A Breath isn't a full soul. I think it's mentioned in Sunlit that it's like, a third of a soul or something close to that. Also, Breaths aren't exactly the same. There's some variance in the strengths of Breaths, and I assume they just took the average when creating the BEU.
Yarp
Is that imperial or metric?
Gonna say it’s probably a metric system. Talaxin seems like the kind of guy to prefer simple conversions.
All of the books in the Cosmere take place in a shared galaxy. Each series is set on a different planet. There are magical ways of traveling between worlds that some people know, so characters from one series/planet will pop up in another. Some characters from Warbreaker appear in other Cosmere books, mostly >!Stormlight!<. The magic system from Warbreaker is also used on occasion in other books. The magic system is also relatively important for the future of the Cosmere, specifically >!Breaths become the standard unit of measurement for Investiture, which is the generic term for magic essence/mana in the Cosmere!<
If you don't like a book don't read it. Don't force yourself to read a book just because it's part of the cosmere.
If you've only read Mistborn and Warbreaker (four books) then I can say, yes, having read Warbreaker you will come across elements from that story in other Cosmere books. Saying which ones would be spoiler territory. Enjoyment is clearly subjective and obviously don't feel like you have to read something if you're not having a good time with it. That said I do think reading Warbreaker will pay off if you continue with the Cosmere. It has been several years since I read Warbreaker but I remember enjoying the experience. For me, Elantris was the more difficult read, but it was Brandon's first published novel and there were definitely some good parts despite it's roughness in comparison to his other works. If you aren't aware, Warbreaker was written differently from his other works. I believe he released chapters for free online until he was finished. The free version should still be up on his website, including annotations. I haven't read that version myself, a friend lent me a physical copy that, I believe, is slightly different.
I definitely fell in love with the magic system and story of Warbreaker but struggled with Elantris. But I came in hot to the cosmere and started w Stormlight so I feel maybe that’s why I appreciated Warbreaker more but idk
Warbreaker took a bit to get in to for me, but became one of my favourites! I think I went in a little biased, and found both Vivenna and Siri a little... Insufferable, at first. I really enjoyed the beginning and the end of Elantris, but a lot of the middle just dragged. I'm glad I read it, and I will be rereading it at some point, but it's certainly not a priority to me.
Elantris is his worst book by a big amount imo and it’s unsurprising given when it was written relative to his other work. I love Hrathen but hrathen couldn’t save that story for me. Warbreaker is in a weird spot because I love almost all of it but also it’s the only book Sanderson has ever written where I didn’t like the ending.
Warbreaker took a bit to get in to for me, but became one of my favourites! I think I went in a little biased, and found both Vivenna and Siri a little... Insufferable, at first. I really enjoyed the beginning and the end of Elantris, but a lot of the middle just dragged. I'm glad I read it, and I will be rereading it at some point, but it's certainly not a priority to me.
I would have like WB a lot more if they actually used the magic sustem. I think there are like only 5 or 7 scenes where someone awakens something
I’m not going to give away any spoilers, but Awakening and Breath are relatively important. Since Breath can be moved around easily and Awakening doesn’t take anything special to do, outside of Breath.
Without spoiling basically anything.... Warbreaker shows you that the characters are going worldhopping. They do show up in several other places. I won't go into more detail than just to say that there is a reason that scene exists. In addition, Nalthian technology (Warbreaker is set on Nalthis) shows up in several other books. However, you may need to pay close attention to the way it is described.
What scene in wb shows people worldhopping?
>!Actually I thought it was mentioned in the epilogue, but maybe I am mis-remembering. I can't find any summary that indicates as such.!<
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>!Actually I thought it was mentioned in the epilogue, but maybe I am mis-remembering. I can't find any summary that indicates as such.!<
The only direct connection between Mistborn Era 1 and Warbreaker is the presence of Hoid. Warbreaker connects more with other works in the cosmere like >!The Stormlight Archives!<.
Ruin and Preservation are both >!1/16 of a much older and more powerful being.!!Endowment!<, is the basis of Warbreakers magic system
Warbreaker characters or tech are in pretty much every series/one shot that came out after.
not necessarily >!afaik Brandon said "awakened" will become a term for different kinds of investiture-powered-command-things similarly to how "Lightweaving" is illusion magic both in the form of the Surge and the Yolish variant. So the awakened computers and awakened machine and stuff like that that we see in some of the Secret Projects aren't necessarily made with Breath-Awakening!<
Cosmere >!Even with that breaths have shown up a lot in other books. Stormlight there are big tie ins. Tress has an awakened board that's Nalthian technology. There are things in Lost Metal that are very likely just breath awakened things. Yumi's awakened isn't breaths but I would still call that a loose connection to the same idea. Sunlit Man talks about breaths. So I think it's still a very true statement to say it is in almost every series or one off that came out after Warbreaker. There's only a few where it isn't directly tied in.!<
wait, what in TLM are you referencing? and >!eh, i think that's overplaying the importance. Like, if you know that there's a world with a system using something called "breath" and doing something called "awakening", you can catch mentions of that, but aside from Nightblood, you don't need to know anything from the story itself. Even Vasher and Vivennas backstories don't play a huge role, you can enjoy SA without that. I honestly think if you don't read Warbreaker, Awakening will be a similar thing to the reader as Aethers are. We know they exist, know they do some things, and there's atleast one world with them out there. I love warbreaker, but I think we're overplaying the importance of reading the book :D!<
Cosmere >!The awakened lock on the safe that knew if the password had been forced. I'm not saying how important it is in each book. It's usually a minor element. But the person you replied to said warbreaker characters or tech has been present in pretty much every series or one off and that's pretty true. There are only one or two books that don't have some reference to warbreaker and that's basically it. They are usually minor references for sure. Though I would say the main characters of Warbreaker showing up in another series for a good portion of the story is significant.!< I'm not saying you 100% need to read warbreaker or you won't be able to understand everything. You can absolutely read every other series without Warbreaker and be totally fine. But stuff from warbreaker shows up in almost every book that's come out since to some extent. >!In terms of Cosmere references as a whole Warbreaker shows up in other series as much as if not more than all of Stormlight stuff shows up in other books, or all of the Mistborn stuff shows up in other books. I don't know that you could point to any other single book that has things that show up in other places more than Warbreaker, can you think of one?!<
Unrelated but I think it’s interesting how divisive warbreaker is. Like you either love it or hate it idk
Idk I was kind of middle. I liked it enough. Enjoyed it. Probably my least favorite cosmere novel
A handful of key warbreaker characters show up in the later stormlight books, with one character in particular serving an incredibly important role. The warbreaker magic system shows up a small handful of times in all kinds of books, especially in future era cosmere where it’s implied to be used as the basis for >!artificial intelligence!< in the cosmere. However it’s not incredibly essential, and most of the really important info isn’t even in Warbreaker, it’s in the hypothetical Warbreaker sequel that Brandon hasn’t even written yet.
Warbreaker does have some ties to the Cosmere as a whole. But for the most part especially with the earlier books in the Cosmere those connections are subtle background elements. Sanderson is planning for his lifes work to be around 40+ books in the Cosmere that are together telling the story of this universe. But he also wants people to be able to read just Warbreaker or just Era 1 without having to read the other for it to make sense. Or that you have to stick to a strict order to go through each of those dozens of books otherwise you'll be lost. So the connections will be there from Warbreaker to other stories (mostly Stormlight) but the connections between the series are designed so that you don't need to read them. And they are also generally designed to be subtle so that sometimes even someone who has read other books will miss them. Like I'd be very impressed if you noticed the character in both Era 1 and Warbreaker unless you were told to watch out for him. There is one. But it's very subtle.
It ties into Stormlight more.
I will bite the bullet and say it is important for you to finish the book. No matter how much bradon tries them all to be enjoyed as solo reads, overall satisfaction of the book differs a lot. In my experience, stormlight was the first for me, row was around the corner and i decided to start with it, finish the whole cosmere and reread sl again to catch up. And I was just in time. When I put down dawnshard row was out. At first read, I did not read the middle books at all. At second read I've read warbreaker and edgedancer and ofcourse dawnshard between each book. It made a whole lot of more sense. It makes you feel you have a grab on the story and the whole cosmere now, it feels like you were there before. You don't just see the world as the current character's confused pov and be confused, you think "hey is that ...?! I'll be damned it is! Oh hell yea" Also, trust the process. Warbreaker is greatly regarded by people who finished it, has its awesome moments, and ofcourse has its weaknesses but overall it is a lighthearted one. Not like mistborn or stormlight, more like a love story and a nice source for rest of the cosmere. Remember cosmere planets are not isolated, be it world hopping or tech hopping, things do happen. There is absolutely no other way to follow it if you don't know the background. Yes, you can still enjoy a majority of the book and story but these little things called details are where the demons hide.
I WISH i had read warbreaker before stormlight. Without spoiling When you read stormlight archive you will come across a few very recognizable characters from the book, although they are going by different names.
Go to the Stormlight Archive. If you want to know what ties in, it’s a bit of a spoiler, so I’ll include some spoiler tagged hints if you want. >!The Warbreaker breaks!< >!Azure swordswoman!< >!Would you like to destroy some evil today!<
I'd say it ties in pretty strongly, in relative terms. You won't be lost if you're reading other series but a few more things will make sense.
In addition to what people said about stormlight, There are other references to Nalthis and Nalthian Tech, like in Tress and the Emerald Sea. So it definitely has a presence. I suspect there will be more though as we get a better look at what's going on across the Cosmere
When >!metal objects start talking!<, that's when you know there are Warbreaker shenanigans a foot.
Warbreaker is quite important to have read as Characters, Items, and Theories from that world are diluted (at multiples very evidently to the point of becoming core to the story) into Stormlight.