What is Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere is a vast, shared universe in which many of his most popular fantasy novels take place—think of it as the Marvel Universe, but for books. Every series, from Mistborn to The Stormlight Archive, tells its own story while secretly weaving into a larger, interconnected epic. Wondering how it all fits together and where to start? Here’s everything a newcomer needs to know about the Cosmere and Sanderson’s incredible worlds.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this article:

• The basic structure of the Cosmere
• How the Shards shape different worlds
• The magic systems across multiple planets
• Why worldhopping connects the stories
• Where to start reading the series
• What’s coming next in the universe

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What is the Cosmere?

A Shared Universe of Interconnected Stories

The Cosmere is a dwarf galaxy where most of Brandon Sanderson’s fantasy books happen. Each novel or series takes place on a different planet within this galaxy, and while each story stands alone, they all share the same underlying rules of magic and reality.

You don’t need to read every Cosmere book to understand any single series. The Stormlight Archive makes complete sense without reading Mistborn, and vice versa. But readers who explore multiple series discover hidden connections—recurring characters who travel between worlds, references to shared cosmic events, and clues about a much larger story playing out across the galaxy.

The Cosmere has 50 to 100 star systems, but Sanderson’s books have only visited a handful of them. Most stories focus on planets where divine beings called Shards have influenced the development of civilization and magic. These interconnected novels form what Sanderson calls the “core sequence”—including Mistborn, The Stormlight Archive, Elantris, and the future Dragonsteel series.

The Core Creation Myth: Adonalsium

At the beginning of the Cosmere’s history stood Adonalsium, a godlike entity that may have created the entire universe. It’s unclear if Adonalsium was a thinking god or just a force of nature, but its power was total.

Then came the Shattering. Seventeen people conspired to kill Adonalsium, and they did it. The god’s power fractured into sixteen pieces called Shards, each embodying a core concept like Preservation, Ruin, Honor, or Cultivation.

Sixteen of the conspirators took up these Shards, becoming godlike beings themselves. This event happened on the planet Yolen, though the exact reasons for the Shattering remain mysterious. The conspirators knew each other—some were romantically involved, others were related. Their motivations and the aftermath of their actions drive much of the Cosmere’s overarching plot, even thousands of years later.

Realmatic Theory: The Three Realms of Existence

The Physical Realm: Stars and Planets

The Physical world is what we’d call normal reality. It contains the planets, stars, and physical matter that follow ordinary laws of physics. This is where characters live their daily lives and where most of the action in Cosmere novels takes place.

When someone dies in the Physical world, their body stays behind while their consciousness moves to the Cognitive Realm. The amount of magical power (Investiture) a person held during life determines how long they can linger before passing to the Beyond—a mysterious afterlife that exists outside the three Realms.

The Physical world follows standard physics except when the other two Realms intersect with it. Magic happens when energy from the Spiritual Realm manifests in the Physical world, often filtered through the Cognitive Realm’s influence.

The Cognitive Realm: The World of Thought

The Cognitive Realm (often called Shadesmar on Roshar) exists as a parallel dimension where thoughts and perceptions take physical form. Land and water switch places here—oceans in the Physical world become solid ground in the Cognitive, while continents turn into unstable regions that can drown travelers.

This dimension compresses the space between planets, making interstellar travel possible for those who know how to navigate it. What might take years to traverse in the Physical world requires only weeks or months in the Cognitive. This compression happens because people don’t spend much time thinking about empty space, so it barely exists in the realm of thought.

Entities like spren on Roshar exist primarily in the Cognitive Realm. These beings embody concepts, emotions, and natural forces that have gained enough collective thought and attention to become conscious. Some Cognitive entities can cross into the Physical world under certain conditions, while others remain trapped in their native dimension.

The Spiritual Realm: Identity, Connection, and Fortune

The Spiritual Realm exists outside normal space and time. It’s not really a place you can visit—instead, it’s the realm of pure concepts and ideal forms. Everything that exists in the Physical or Cognitive Realms also exists here in its perfect, idealized state.

The Spiritual Realm is the source of four key concepts that govern magic:

• Intent: You must mean to do something for magic to work. Accidental magic is rare because clear Intent is required. Many magic systems demand users act with clear Intent to make their abilities work. The Shards themselves have core Intents that define their nature and limit their actions.
• Identity: This is your spiritual DNA. It defines what makes each person or object unique. Identity acts like a lock and key for certain magic systems. On Scadrial, Feruchemists can only access attributes they personally stored in metalminds because Identity marks those stores as theirs.
• Connection: This concept links people to places, cultures, other individuals, and magic systems. When worldhoppers spend time on a new planet, they can form Connection to that world, which allows them to speak local languages and sometimes access regional magic. Breaking or forming Connections can have profound effects on a person’s abilities and sense of self.
• Fortune: This relates to seeing the future and probabilities. Because the Spiritual Realm exists outside time, it contains information about potential future events. Some magic users and all Shards can glimpse these possibilities, though the further ahead they look, the more the future fragments into countless branching paths.

The Story of the Cosmere: A Cosmic History

Before the Shattering: The Reign of Adonalsium

Before the Shattering, Adonalsium controlled the core rules of the Cosmere. The way magic worked—what was possible and what wasn’t—depended on Adonalsium’s will. For example, spren on Roshar couldn’t power fabrials before the Shattering because Adonalsium didn’t allow it.

During this time, the planet Yolen was home to the first humans and may have been where Adonalsium originated. While most details about this era remain hidden, we know that at least seventeen people lived on Yolen who became significant enough to the Cosmere’s history to conspire against a god.

Some scholars within the Cosmere suspect that Adonalsium may have wanted the Shattering to happen. Given the entity’s control over reality itself, the argument goes, the Shattering couldn’t have occurred unless Adonalsium allowed it on some level.

The Shattering of Adonalsium

The Shattering is the pivotal event in Cosmere history. Seventeen conspirators on Yolen managed to kill Adonalsium, splitting its infinite power into sixteen fragments. Each fragment embodied a core concept or Intent—Preservation, Ruin, Devotion, Dominion, Honor, Cultivation, Endowment, Autonomy, Ambition, Invention, Mercy, Valor, Whimsy, Virtuosity, Reason, and Odium.

Sixteen of the conspirators then picked up these Shards, becoming the first Vessels. Each Vessel’s personality was initially distinct from their Shard’s Intent, but over time, the Shard’s nature began to override the Vessel’s original character.

Leras, who took up Preservation, lost the ability to cause harm even when necessary. Ati, originally described as kind and generous, was corrupted by Ruin’s Intent until he sought the destruction of everything. The Shards then scattered across the Cosmere, settling on different planets and shaping their development. Some Shards worked together initially, while others went their separate ways. These early decisions about where to Invest their power determined which planets developed complex magic systems and which remained relatively mundane.

Odium’s War Against the Shards

Odium, held by a Vessel named Rayse, began a campaign to destroy other Shards. His Intent drove him to be the only god remaining, free from the influence or competition of other divine powers. This wasn’t simple megalomania—Odium’s very nature as the embodiment of hatred and divine wrath compelled him toward this goal.

He Splintered several Shards. On Sel, he destroyed both Dominion (held by Skai) and Devotion (held by Aona), though the unusual way he killed them trapped their power in that planet’s Cognitive Realm. He also killed Ambition (held by Uli Da), though that confrontation scattered Ambition’s power across multiple star systems.

Later, he killed Tanavast, the Vessel of Honor on Roshar. Odium became trapped on the Rosharan system as a result of a bargain he made. Despite holding infinite power, he remains bound by the oaths he swears, creating a tension between his desire for freedom and his inability to break formal agreements. This imprisonment has lasted for thousands of years and shapes much of The Stormlight Archive’s conflict.

The Ascension of Harmony on Scadrial

On Scadrial, Preservation and Ruin worked together to create humanity and establish the world’s initial ecosystem. Their opposing Intents—one to preserve things as they are, one to break things down—created a dynamic balance. But Ruin’s nature drove conflict between the two Shards.

Preservation gave up most of his consciousness to trap Ruin, preventing the destruction of Scadrial. This left Preservation barely able to act, though he managed to create the mists as a final defense and preserve a small piece of himself in every Scadrian. Ruin, while trapped, still exerted influence through subtle manipulation and corruption.

The events of the original Mistborn trilogy led to Vin destroying both Shards’ Vessels. Sazed, a Terris Keeper, then took up both Ruin and Preservation simultaneously, combining them into a new Shard called Harmony. This made him one of the strongest beings in the Cosmere, as he holds the power of two Shards. However, their opposing Intents create an internal conflict that often paralyzes him.

Death of Tanavast and the Final Desolation

On Roshar, Honor (held by Tanavast) and Cultivation (held by Koravellium Avast) shaped the planet’s development together. They created or altered the spren, established the oaths that would bind Knights Radiant to their powers, and set up systems to defend against Odium’s influence.

Odium arrived on Roshar seeking to destroy Honor, bringing with him the singers (later called Parshendi) whom he’d taken from their original homeworld. The resulting conflict spawned the cycle of Desolations—devastating wars between humans and singers that ravaged the planet repeatedly over thousands of years.

Tanavast died, Splintered by Odium, but his power created the Stormfather and other divine spren who carry fragments of Honor’s Intent. Before his death, Tanavast established systems and prophecies designed to protect Roshar even without his direct intervention. The Final Desolation, which the Knights Radiant thought they had prevented, turned out to be a misunderstanding—the true final conflict with Odium still lies ahead.

Trell and Scadrial

In the centuries following the original Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial advanced technologically under Harmony’s guidance. But a new threat emerged—a force called Trell began attacking the planet, manifesting as a red haze that corrupts and destroys.

Clues suggest Trell is another Shard or Shards seeking to influence or conquer Scadrial. The red coloring indicates one form of Investiture attempting to corrupt another—a signature seen across the Cosmere when Shards interfere with each other’s domains. Harmony, despite his immense power, struggles to respond effectively due to the paralysis created by his dual, opposing Intents.

This conflict will escalate in future Mistborn books, particularly the upcoming Era 3 trilogy, which Sanderson has described as having an urban fantasy/spy thriller aesthetic set against this cosmic threat.

The Space Age

The Cosmere’s timeline extends far into the future. Sanderson has outlined plans for Mistborn books set in progressively more advanced technological eras—the current published books cover a world roughly at Renaissance levels, but future series will reach modern, near-future, and space-age technology.

In this far future, space travel becomes routine, and different planets’ civilizations make direct contact. The magic systems that seem supernatural in earlier eras become understood as technologies that can be studied, refined, and combined.

The conflicts between Shards that played out across millennia through proxies and subtle influence will become more direct. The story Sixth of the Dusk provides a glimpse of this future, showing advanced technology from other worlds arriving on a relatively primitive planet. The implications are concerning—interplanetary contact could uplift civilizations but might also spread conflicts across the entire Cosmere.

Investiture: The Foundation of All Magic

What is Investiture?

Investiture is the core magical energy that powers all supernatural phenomena in the Cosmere. It exists across all three Realms but can condense into physical, liquid, or gaseous forms in the Physical world. Examples include the metals that fuel Allomancy, the mists on Scadrial, Stormlight on Roshar, and Breath on Nalthis.

Like matter and energy in physics, Investiture follows conservation laws. You can’t create or destroy it—only transform it from one state to another. This creates natural limits on magic systems and explains why most magical abilities require fuel, whether that’s swallowing metals, absorbing Stormlight, or collecting Breath from other people.

Every piece of magic is tied to one of the sixteen Shards, even if the link isn’t obvious. The Shattering divided all Investiture this way, which determines how different magic systems interact.

The Invested Arts

Cosmere scholars use the term “Invested Arts” to describe the various methods of using Investiture. These fall into three main categories based on when they originated and how they’re powered.

The most common Invested Arts are powered directly by Shards and arise from their interaction with planets. Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy on Scadrial all draw from Preservation and Ruin’s power. Surgebinding on Roshar comes from Honor and Cultivation. These Shard-powered systems can produce spectacular results because they tap into divine-level sources of Investiture.

The second category includes magic systems on planets without resident Shards. These worlds can still access Investiture through natural Realmatic principles, but without a Shard amplifying the effects, the results are much more limited. The magic exists but operates at a reduced scale.

The third category contains pre-Shattering Invested Arts that date back to when Adonalsium still existed. Yolish Lightweaving is the only confirmed example. These ancient arts work differently from Shard-based magic and may follow rules that no longer apply elsewhere in the Cosmere.

Anti-Investiture and Its Destructive Power

Anti-Investiture is exactly what it sounds like—the opposite of Investiture. When anti-Investiture contacts regular Investiture of the same type, they annihilate each other in a violent explosion. If that Investiture happens to be someone’s soul, the result is permanent death with no possibility of resurrection.

Creating anti-Investiture requires Intent and deliberate techniques. On Roshar, anti-Stormlight is produced by partially isolating Stormlight from Honor’s pure tone, then exposing it to Odium’s opposite tone. The process requires precise understanding of how Investiture responds to musical tones and deliberate effort—you can’t create anti-Investiture by accident.

Anti-Investiture appears to warp the air around it, creating a visual distortion. It looks similar to regular Investiture but with this unsettling effect. The explosion when it contacts normal Investiture produces wounds in the Spiritual Realm itself, damage that persists long after the immediate destruction.

The Shards of Adonalsium

The Sixteen Divine Intents

Each Shard embodies a core concept that shapes how its power manifests and influences everything the Shard does. The sixteen known Shards and their Intents are:

• Devotion (originally held by Aona)
• Dominion (originally held by Skai)
• Preservation (originally held by Leras)
• Ruin (originally held by Ati)
• Odium (originally held by Rayse)
• Cultivation (held by Koravellium Avast)
• Honor (originally held by Tanavast)
• Endowment (held by Edgli)
• Autonomy (held by Bavadin)
• Ambition (originally held by Uli Da)
• Invention (originally held by Chan Ko Sar)
• Mercy (Vessel unknown)
• Valor (held by Medelantorius)
• Whimsy (Vessel unknown)
• Virtuosity (Vessel unknown)
• Reason (held by Euridrius)

These Intents aren’t arbitrary—some property of the Cosmere itself determined how Adonalsium would split. The exact mechanism remains unknown, but the division wasn’t random. Each Intent embodies a core aspect of existence or consciousness.

The Vessels: Mortal Minds Holding Infinite Power

A Vessel is the human (or formerly human) consciousness that controls a Shard’s power. When someone becomes a Vessel, they Ascend—their mind expands far beyond normal human consciousness, and they gain access to nearly infinite power and knowledge.

But Vessels face severe limitations. Their Shard’s Intent slowly overrides their original personality. Preservation couldn’t allow harm even when necessary. Ruin became obsessed with destruction despite originally being a kind person.

The longer a Vessel holds their Shard, the more they become a simple embodiment of that Intent rather than a complex individual. Vessels can die. When killed, the Shard’s power seeks a new Vessel—someone with sufficient Connection to that Shard to take it up. If no suitable Vessel exists nearby, the power becomes “Splintered”—broken into countless smaller pieces that scatter across the Cognitive and Physical worlds. These Splinters can develop limited consciousness but lack the unified will of a full Shard.

Shards must fulfill formal oaths and agreements. Breaking these commitments creates openings for other Shards to act against them and can even lead to the Vessel’s death. This restriction creates a strange dynamic where beings of infinite power can be trapped by their own promises.

Avatars, Splinters, and Perpendicularities

Three key concepts describe how Shards interact with the Cosmere:

• Avatars: Semi-independent pieces of a Shard that can act autonomously while remaining part of the original. Autonomy uses avatars extensively, creating beings like Patji on First of the Sun that can influence planets where Autonomy itself isn’t directly Invested. These avatars have access to a portion of their Shard’s power and can make decisions, but they can’t act against their Shard’s will or Intent.
• Splinters: Fragments of a Shard’s power that have gained or could gain independent consciousness and free will. Unlike avatars, Splinters aren’t under the Shard’s direct control. Spren on Roshar are Splinters of Honor, Cultivation, and (for some) Odium. Seons on Sel are Splinters of Devotion. These beings can act against their parent Shard’s wishes if they choose.
• Perpendicularities: Junction points between all three Realms that form when enormous amounts of Investiture concentrate in one location. Most stable perpendicularities appear where Shards have Invested heavily in a planet. They allow physical beings to cross between the Physical and Cognitive Realms, which makes them vital for worldhopping. The Well of Ascension on Scadrial and Honor’s Perpendicularity on Roshar are examples.

Major Planetary Systems and Their Magic

Scadrial: The Metallic Arts of Mistborn

Scadrial hosts three distinct magic systems collectively called the Metallic Arts. All three use metals as focuses, but they draw power from different sources and work through different mechanisms.

Allomancy allows users to burn metals internally to gain abilities. Each of sixteen metals grants a different power—steel lets you push on nearby metal objects, tin enhances your senses, pewter increases physical strength.

Despite consuming the metal, Allomancers don’t draw power from it. The metal acts as a key that unlocks access to Preservation’s Investiture in the Spiritual Realm. Most Allomancers can burn only one metal (they’re called Mistings). A person who can burn all sixteen is called a Mistborn—the title of the series. The ability to use Allomancy usually requires Snapping, a traumatic event that activates the latent power. This genetic trait descends from Preservation’s direct intervention in human bloodlines.

Feruchemy works differently. Users store personal attributes in metal objects called metalminds, then withdraw them later. A Feruchemist might store strength in a pewter metalmind for a week, making themselves weaker during that time, then tap all that stored strength at once to gain temporary superhuman power.

This system is perfectly balanced—you can’t get more out than you put in, though you can vary the rate of withdrawal.

Hemalurgy is the darkest of the three arts. It uses metal spikes to steal attributes, powers, or pieces of someone’s soul by killing or seriously wounding them. The spike, driven through precise body points, captures some of the victim’s Investiture and can be implanted in another person to grant them stolen abilities. This system leaks power—you always lose some in the transfer—and it opens users to Ruin’s influence.

Roshar: Surgebinding and the Knights Radiant

Roshar’s magic centers on Surgebinding, which allows users to manipulate core forces called Surges. These include gravity, friction, cohesion between molecules, transformation of materials, and others. Access to Surgebinding requires forming a bond with a spren—a being from the Cognitive Realm who gains limited presence in the Physical world through the partnership.

The Knights Radiant organized into ten orders, each bonding different types of spren and gaining access to two of the ten Surges. Windrunners bond honorspren and manipulate gravity and atmospheric pressure, allowing them to fly.

Lightweavers bond Cryptics and can create illusions while transforming materials into other substances. Each order swears different oaths that reflect their spren’s nature and the ideals they embody.

Surgebinding uses Stormlight as fuel—Investiture that accumulates in highstorms and can be stored in gemstones. Radiants absorb this light into their bodies, where it enhances their physical abilities and powers their Surges. The bond with a spren also provides a healing factor that can repair nearly any injury if the Radiant holds enough Stormlight.

The system nearly died out centuries before the main series when most Knights Radiant abandoned their oaths in an event called the Recreance. Their spren died or became “deadeyes”—mindless husks trapped between dimensions. The recent return of the highstorms has started to revive the Knights Radiant, but much of the ancient knowledge about their orders was lost.

Sel: The Location-Based Magic of Elantris

Sel’s magic systems work differently from other worlds because of how Devotion and Dominion were killed. Odium murdered both Shards but trapped their power in Sel’s Cognitive Realm rather than letting it disperse naturally. This created magic that’s strongly tied to physical geography and symbolic representation.

AonDor, practiced by Elantrians, involves drawing symbols called Aons that mirror the land’s geography. When an Aon matches the terrain, it channels Investiture from the Cognitive Realm to produce magical effects.

A shift in the landscape caused by an earthquake broke this connection for years, making AonDor fail unpredictably until the protagonist discovered he could modify the Aons to account for the geographical change.

The Shaod, which transforms people into Elantrians, depends on Connection to the region around the city of Elantris. Those transformed gain silver skin and glowing hair, don’t need to eat or sleep, and can use AonDor. However, injuries don’t heal, and pain never fades—a serious wound can leave an Elantrian in agony forever unless the damage is healed magically.

Dakhor and ChayShan on Sel’s other continent work similarly, using different symbolic systems tied to their local geography. All of Sel’s magic requires precise knowledge of geography and careful symbolic representation, making it more academic and technical than the instinctive magic systems on other worlds.

Nalthis: Awakening and BioChromatic Breath

Nalthis features a magic system called Awakening that transfers life force between living and nonliving things. Every person on Nalthis is born with one Breath—a unit of Investiture that embodies their spiritual identity and vitality. People can give away or collect Breaths, though the transaction requires both parties to consent.

Awakeners use collected Breaths to animate objects, giving them instructions through Commands. The more Breaths invested, the more sophisticated the animation.

A crude awakening might make a rope move like a snake, while master Awakeners can create near-sentient servants from cloth and other materials. The process also requires color as fuel—Awakening drains color from fabrics or other sources, turning them gray.

Collecting Breaths enhances the holder physically and mentally. At certain thresholds (the “Heightenings”), Breaths grant additional abilities. The First Heightening gives perfect color recognition. Higher Heightenings provide increasingly useful abilities like perfect pitch, instinctive understanding of others’ emotions, and near-immortality.

The God King of Hallandren holds tens of thousands of Breaths, making him immune to disease, aging, and most forms of injury. Uniquely among Cosmere magic systems, Awakening works equally well on other planets. The magic isn’t strongly Connected to Nalthis itself, making it portable for worldhoppers. This has made Awakeners valuable members of interplanetary organizations seeking magical versatility.

Taldain: The Power of Sand Mastery

Taldain is tidally locked—one side always faces its sun (Dayside) while the other remains in darkness (Nightside). The magic of sand mastery works only on Dayside, where practitioners manipulate white sand that contains Investiture-sensitive microorganisms.

Sand masters control ribbons of white sand through mental commands and physical gestures. The sand turns black after use as the microorganisms die, requiring the sand to be recharged by exposure to sunlight and water.

The practice demands physical exertion—manipulating sand draws water from the user’s body, creating natural limits on how much magic someone can use before becoming dangerously dehydrated.

The white sand itself is valuable throughout the Cosmere because it reacts to nearby Investiture, making it useful for detecting magic use. Worldhoppers sometimes carry small pouches of Taldain sand as magical sensors, though the sand’s effectiveness decreases over time when removed from its home planet.

Taldain’s unusual day/night structure creates two completely different civilizations on the same planet. Dayside developed around sand mastery and the scarcity of water in the desert environment. Nightside remains largely unexplored in published works, though Sanderson has confirmed it has its own magic system that works in darkness.

Worldhopping: Connecting the Universe

Traveling Through the Cognitive Realm

Physical space travel between Cosmere planets would take lifetimes using conventional technology. The Cognitive Realm provides a shortcut because space compresses there based on how much conscious thought focuses on it. People think constantly about their home planet but rarely about the void between stars, so interplanetary distances shrink to manageable journeys.

Traveling through the Cognitive Realm requires entering it first, which usually means using a perpendicularity—a place where all three Realms intersect strongly enough for physical beings to cross. Most stable perpendicularities form where Shards have Invested heavily in a planet.

Once in the Cognitive Realm, travelers must navigate to another world’s location, then find a way back into the Physical world.

The journey isn’t simple. The Cognitive Realm around each planet has unique characteristics. Around Scadrial, it manifests as mist. Around Roshar, it appears as a sea of beads. Land and water reverse—physical oceans become solid ground while continents turn into dangerous expanses that can drown travelers in whatever substance fills that region’s Cognitive space.

Maintaining your Connection to your home planet becomes vital for long-term worldhoppers. Extended time away can weaken this Connection, making it harder to use magic systems tied to your birthworld. Some worldhoppers deliberately manipulate their Connection, forming new ties to other planets to access local magic or blend in with native populations.

Hoid: The Mysterious Traveler

Hoid appears in every major Cosmere series, often in disguise or using different names. He was present at the Shattering of Adonalsium but declined to take up a Shard himself. His exact age is unknown, but he’s lived for thousands of years through methods that don’t require holding a Shard’s power.

He collects magical abilities and Invested items from across the Cosmere. He’s an Allomancer who can burn metals, holds enough Breaths to reach at least the First Heightening, and has bonded a Cryptic spren that grants him Lightweaving abilities.

This combination makes him uniquely versatile, able to adapt to situations on any planet using the most appropriate magic system.

Hoid’s motivations remain mysterious. He opposes Odium and possibly other Shards, but his goals extend beyond simple conflict between gods. He appears to manipulate events subtly, positioning himself at key moments in history without directly controlling outcomes. His ability to be where he needs to be suggests some form of Fortune manipulation, though he’s admitted he doesn’t always understand why he’s compelled to be in certain places.

Despite his power and knowledge, Hoid has limitations. He’s unable to directly harm people due to some oath or bargain he made. He works through others, providing information, items, or guidance rather than fighting directly. This restriction shapes his methods and explains why he hasn’t simply solved the Cosmere’s problems himself.

Key Worldhopping Factions

The Seventeenth Shard is an organization that opposes worldhopping and believes Shards shouldn’t interfere with planets beyond the ones they originally chose. Members monitor various worlds, trying to prevent cross-contamination between cultures and magic systems. They view people like Hoid as dangerous because his interference could escalate conflicts between Shards into galaxy-spanning wars.

Silverlight is a city built in the Cognitive Realm, serving as a hub for worldhopping civilization. Multiple universities there study Cosmere metaphysics and send expeditions to investigate unusual magical phenomena on various planets. The population includes people from multiple worlds, including significant numbers of Southern Scadrians who’ve settled there permanently.

The Ire is a group of Elantrians who learned to worldhop and have been active across the Cosmere for centuries. They attempted to steal a Shard’s power on Scadrial during the events of Mistborn: Secret History, though they failed. Their long-term goals remain unclear, but they’re clearly willing to take aggressive action to achieve them.

The Ghostbloods operate as an intelligence organization with agents on multiple worlds. They seek knowledge and power, particularly related to Investiture and how to transport it between planets. Their activities on Roshar drive parts of The Stormlight Archive’s plot, and they appear to have connections to other worlds including Scadrial.

Reading the Cosmere: Where to Start

Standalone Novels vs. The Overarching Narrative

Every Cosmere series works as a standalone story. You can read Mistborn without touching The Stormlight Archive, or vice versa. The books are written to make sense independently, with their own complete plots, character arcs, and resolutions.

Sanderson designed the Cosmere this way deliberately—he wants readers to enjoy individual series without requiring extensive background knowledge.

The connections between series start subtle and become more obvious in recent books. Early works like Elantris (2005) and the original Mistborn trilogy (2006-2008) barely reference the broader Cosmere. Later books, particularly recent Stormlight Archive novels and the secret projects from 2023, include more direct crossovers and assume readers might recognize worldhoppers and cross-series references.

Reading multiple series rewards you with deeper understanding. You’ll recognize worldhoppers appearing in different books, understand references to shared cosmic history, and pick up on magical connections that single-series readers might miss. But these rewards are bonuses, not requirements for enjoying the stories.

Recommended Reading Orders

Publication order follows how the books were released. Start with Elantris, move to Mistborn Era One, then Warbreaker, Mistborn Era 2, The Stormlight Archive, and fill in novellas as you go. This approach lets you experience Sanderson’s writing evolution and see how Cosmere connections gradually become more explicit.

Series-focused order involves completing one full series before starting another. Read all published Stormlight books, then all Mistborn books, then the standalones. This keeps you immersed in each world’s unique voice and magic system but might make you miss some crossover references until much later.

Mixed chronological order alternates between series based on when events happen in-universe. This requires some research but can create satisfying connections. For example, reading Warbreaker before Words of Radiance enhances certain character appearances in the latter.

For newcomers, start with either:

• Mistborn: The Final Empire—fast-paced, complete trilogy, showcases Sanderson’s magic system design
• The Way of Kings—epic scope, currently ongoing, shows Sanderson at his most ambitious
• Warbreaker—standalone novel, good introduction to Sanderson’s style without committing to a long series

The Role of Novellas and Arcanum Unbounded

Arcanum Unbounded collects nine short works set across different Cosmere planets, plus in-universe essays by the scholar Khriss explaining each world’s magic system. These stories aren’t essential to understanding the main series, but they expand the universe’s scope and introduce worlds that might feature in future novels.

The Emperor’s Soul won the Hugo Award and showcases Sel’s magic through a story about an artist who can rewrite objects’ histories. Sixth of the Dusk provides a glimpse of the Cosmere’s future space age. Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell explores Threnody, a planet with unique death-related magic.

The Khriss essays in Arcanum Unbounded provide scholarly explanations of Investiture, the Shards, and how each planet’s magic works from a scientific perspective. These essays reward readers who’ve already explored multiple series and want to understand the underlying mechanics connecting everything.

Recent secret projects like Tress of the Emerald Sea, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and The Sunlit Man take a new approach—Cosmere novels that expect readers to understand worldhopping and cross-series connections. These books work as stories but include more explicit references to the broader universe than earlier standalone works.

The Future of the Cosmere

The Coming Space Age

Sanderson has outlined Mistborn series extending centuries into Scadrial’s future. Era Three (planned for after The Stormlight Archive‘s first sequence) will feature 1980s-level technology with computers and modern firearms alongside Allomancy and Feruchemy. Era Four will reach a futuristic space age where Scadrial has developed faster-than-light travel using magic-technology hybrids.

This progression will transform the Cosmere from a collection of isolated worlds to an interconnected civilization. The conflicts between Shards that currently play out through proxies and manipulation will become more direct when civilizations can travel freely between star systems.

Magic will become understood as technology during this transition. The mystical abilities shown in current books will be studied scientifically, refined through research, and combined in new ways. Allomancers might work alongside Awakeners on spacecraft that use Invested technology to travel faster than light.

Dragonsteel: The Origin Story

The Dragonsteel series will explore Hoid’s origins and the events leading to the Shattering of Adonalsium. Set on Yolen before the Cosmere’s current era, these books will answer key questions about why seventeen people decided to kill a god and what happened as a result.

Sanderson has been developing Dragonsteel for decades—it was his first major fantasy project before he published Elantris. The series will require careful handling because revealing too much too early could undermine mysteries driving current stories, but waiting too long might frustrate readers seeking answers.

Current plans place Dragonsteel after The Stormlight Archive’s first five-book sequence. This timing lets Sanderson resolve some current plot threads while using Dragonsteel to set up the Cosmere’s endgame—whatever final conflict will resolve the tensions between Shards that have been building for thousands of years.

Planned Sequels and New Series

The Stormlight Archive will consist of two five-book sequences with a time gap between them. The first sequence concludes with Book 5 (Wind and Truth), while the second sequence will jump forward in time and focus on different characters while continuing the overarching Odium conflict.

Mistborn Era Three will follow the Ghostbloods organization during an urban fantasy/spy thriller story set on Scadrial as it deals with Trell’s invasion. Era Four will jump to space age technology and deal with cosmere-wide threats. Between eras, Sanderson plans standalone novels filling gaps in the timeline.

The Night Brigade will explore Threnody more thoroughly, showing a world where the rules of death work differently and the dead can return as dangerous shades. Standalone novels on various planets will continue expanding the universe while building toward whatever climactic confrontation will resolve the Cosmere’s main conflict.

Sanderson has also hinted at books by other authors set in the Cosmere. Isaac Stewart (Sanderson’s art director and a worldbuilding collaborator) has written Book of Nails featuring the worldhopper Nicki Savage. This expansion beyond a single author could accelerate the Cosmere’s growth while maintaining consistency through careful collaboration.

Conclusion

The Cosmere is a universe of standalone stories with a secret, epic history unfolding across thousands of years. Start anywhere you like—Mistborn’s heist-driven adventure, Stormlight’s sweeping epic, or Warbreaker’s standalone tale.

Soon you’ll start seeing the threads that connect them all. The beggar in one book might be a god in another. The magic systems share hidden rules. And somewhere, a war between divine powers is shaping the fate of entire worlds.