Scadrial in the Cosmere: A Complete Guide

Why do worldhoppers keep showing up on Scadrial? Because this world, built by the opposing Shards Ruin and Preservation, is now at the center of the Cosmere’s most dangerous conflicts.

Scadrial’s magic can literally steal souls and transport them across worlds. Its people are developing space-age technology centuries ahead of anywhere else. And its reformed villain, Kelsier, now manipulates events across the Cosmere.

Here’s everything you need to know about Scadrial’s role in the bigger universe.

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

• How Ruin and Preservation created Scadrial
• The three distinct Metallic Arts systems
• Major historical events that shaped the planet
• Geographic changes across different eras
• Scadrial’s influence on other Cosmere worlds
• The Ghostbloods and interplanetary conflict

What Is Scadrial?

A Planet of Shards

Scadrial is the only planet in the Cosmere deliberately created by Shards. Preservation and Ruin chose a star with no significant planets and built Scadrial from scratch.

This makes it fundamentally different from older worlds like Roshar or Nalthis.

The two Shards had opposing Intents. Preservation wanted to create and protect. Ruin wanted to destroy and end.

They couldn’t build anything alone because they would cancel each other out.

They made a deal: Preservation could create sentient life if Ruin eventually got to destroy everything. Preservation invested a fraction more of himself into humanity’s creation than Ruin did.

This imbalance guaranteed Ruin would one day have the power to win.

But Preservation broke the deal. He trapped Ruin’s mind in a prison at the Well of Ascension, sacrificing his own consciousness to forge the lock.

This imprisonment lasted roughly a thousand years before Vin accidentally released Ruin.

Today, both Shards are held by Sazed, who merged them into a new Shard called Harmony. This makes Scadrial unique—it’s the only planet governed by a double-Shard.

The People of Scadrial

Scadrial’s humans were created without parents, modeled after the humans Preservation and Ruin had known on Yolen. This makes them different from naturally evolved populations on other planets.

During the Final Empire, the Lord Ruler divided humanity into distinct groups:

Noblemen were made taller, stronger, more intelligent, and less fertile. They carried Allomantic abilities in their bloodlines.

Skaa were shorter, hardier, and more numerous. The Lord Ruler designed them to survive in harsh conditions and reproduce quickly.

Terrismen were left mostly unchanged but subjected to brutal, systematic breeding programs. The Lord Ruler wanted to prevent Feruchemists from being born.

Southern Scadrians remained completely unaltered. The Lord Ruler moved them to the south pole as a backup population in case his changes killed everyone else.

When Sazed restored Scadrial’s climate, the south pole became freezing—the “Ice Death” to Southern Scadrians.

After the Catacendre, these divisions have blurred. People from different groups have intermarried for over 300 years, though some communities remain distinct.

The Three Metallic Arts

Scadrial has three metal-based magic systems:

Allomancy comes from Preservation. You ingest and burn metals to fuel temporary powers.

• Push or Pull on metals
• Enhance physical abilities
• Influence emotions
• See through deception

Different metals grant different abilities. Most Allomancers can burn only one metal. Mistborn can burn all of them.

Feruchemy balances both Shards. You store personal attributes in metal for later use.

• Store strength in pewter, then tap it when needed
• Store memories in copper
• Store health in gold

You can only withdraw what you put in, making it less flashy than Allomancy but more reliable.

Hemalurgy comes from Ruin. You pierce someone with a metal spike, stealing part of their soul and their powers.

The spike can then grant those powers to someone else. This creates koloss, kandra, and Steel Inquisitors.

It also opens users to Ruin’s influence—or any Shard’s influence.

The History of Scadrial

Creation by Ruin and Preservation

Scadrial didn’t exist before Preservation and Ruin arrived. They found a star with no planets worth mentioning and built one themselves.

The creation process required compromise. Every plant, animal, and geographic feature needed agreement between opposing powers.

Preservation wanted permanence. Ruin wanted eventual decay. They settled on life that could reproduce and die naturally.

The first humans were the hardest part. To create true sentience, Preservation had to invest more of himself than Ruin did.

This created an imbalance that would eventually let Ruin overpower Preservation and destroy everything.

Preservation knew this. He accepted it as the price for creating thinking, feeling people.

But he also left humanity a way to fight back. He gave them the Terris Prophecies, predicting heroes who would take his power at the Well of Ascension every thousand years.

The final hero—the Hero of Ages—would save the world.

Ruin later corrupted these prophecies, changing them inside Feruchemical metalminds to serve his purposes instead.

Classical Scadrial and the Deepness

Before the Lord Ruler, Scadrial had normal blue skies, yellow sun, and green plants. Multiple nations existed with different cultures and religions.

Khlennium was the dominant empire, positioned between southern islands and northern Terris hills. It became a hub of trade and culture, with architecture that the Final Empire later copied.

Then the Deepness came. The mists grew stronger and began lasting into daylight.

Plants died. People starved.

Ruin was strengthening the mists from inside his prison, creating a crisis that Preservation had to answer.

A man named Alendi rose to power. Kwaan, a Terris Worldbringer, identified him as the Hero of Ages.

Alendi conquered most of the world, trying to fulfill the prophecies and reach the Well of Ascension.

But Kwaan discovered Ruin had altered the prophecies. They now said the Hero should release the power at the Well—which would free Ruin—instead of taking it up.

Kwaan couldn’t convince the other Worldbringers. He ordered his nephew Rashek to kill Alendi before he reached the Well.

Rashek’s Ascension and the Final Empire

Rashek murdered Alendi at the Well of Ascension and took the power himself. He refused to release it, denying Ruin his freedom.

With Preservation’s power burning through him, Rashek tried to stop the Deepness by moving Scadrial closer to its sun. This nearly destroyed the planet.

He moved it too close—the world became too hot. He moved it back—too cold.

He tried again—still too hot. With limited time and no reference point, he left it closer than ideal.

To fix his mistakes, Rashek created the Ashmounts. These volcanoes pumped ash and gas into the atmosphere, cooling the area near the north pole.

But the thicker atmosphere made the rest of the planet even hotter, turning most of Scadrial into uninhabitable desert.

He altered plants to survive the ash. He changed humans to breathe it without dying.

He moved some humans to the south pole as a control group.

He also flattened and moved mountains to hide the Well’s location.

Before the power faded, Ruin whispered secrets to Rashek: how to make koloss and Steel Inquisitors using Hemalurgy. Ruin planned to control these servants later.

Rashek transformed all living Feruchemists into mistwraiths, then used Hemalurgy to restore his friends as kandra. He made himself a Mistborn who could Compound atium for immortality.

He became the Lord Ruler and spent the next two centuries conquering what remained of the world.

Kelsier’s Rebellion and the Fall of the Lord Ruler

A thousand years later, Kelsier—half-skaa, half-noble—decided to kill the Lord Ruler.

His wife Mare had died in the Pits of Hathsin. Her death triggered his Snapping, making him a Mistborn.

He escaped and gathered a crew: Ham, Dockson, Breeze, Clubs, and a young Mistborn named Vin.

Kelsier’s plan had three parts:

1. Raise a skaa army to take Luthadel while the garrison was away
2. Start a house war among nobles to create chaos
3. Steal the Lord Ruler’s atium cache to bribe the garrison

He also searched for the “eleventh metal” that could somehow kill an immortal emperor. Ruin had planted this idea in Kelsier’s mind.

The plan went wrong. Most of the army died in a premature attack.

The Lord Ruler discovered Kelsier’s allies. Kelsier fought an Inquisitor in the streets of Luthadel and won—then the Lord Ruler arrived and killed him instantly.

But Kelsier had planned to die. He became a martyr, giving the skaa their own god.

OreSeur wore Kelsier’s bones and impersonated him to fuel the rebellion.

Vin attacked the Lord Ruler using malatium, the eleventh metal. It showed her his past as Rashek the packman.

She realized he was using Feruchemy to stay young and ripped away his metalminds. The Lord Ruler aged to death, warning Vin that she’d doomed everyone.

The Release of Ruin

After the Lord Ruler died, armies besieged Luthadel. Elend Venture became king but struggled with leadership.

The city faced three threats: Straff Venture’s army, Ashweather Cett’s army, and a koloss horde.

Vin sensed pulses from the Well of Ascension refilling. She believed taking the power would save the city.

Sazed found evidence that Vin matched the prophecies—but these were the corrupted prophecies Ruin had altered. He tried to stop her but arrived too late.

At the Well, the mist spirit attacked Elend, cutting him open to compel Vin to act. Vin took up the power to save him.

A voice whispered to release the power and save the world.

She believed it was Preservation. She released the power.

It was Ruin. She’d freed him from his prison.

The mist spirit—the last fragment of Preservation’s mind—showed Vin a bead of lerasium in the chamber. She fed it to Elend, making him a Mistborn and letting him burn pewter to survive his wound.

Ruin was now free but weakened. The Lord Ruler had hidden most of the atium in the world, stealing Ruin’s physical body and power.

Ruin needed to find it but couldn’t see metal directly.

He manipulated Vin and Elend to search for it, planning to use them until they served their purpose.

The Hero of Ages and the Catacendre

Ruin eventually gave up on Vin finding the atium. He sent his Inquisitors to kill her.

Marsh—now Ruin’s primary Inquisitor but still fighting for control—tore Vin’s earring out. The earring was a Hemalurgic spike that had been blocking her from Preservation’s power.

Vin drew in the mists and Ascended, becoming Preservation.

But she couldn’t fight Ruin directly. They would cancel each other out, just like the original Shards had.

Meanwhile, Elend and Sazed discovered the Lord Ruler’s atium cache at the Pits of Hathsin. They also found people who’d been sick from the mists the longest—these were atium Mistings, Seers who could burn atium.

Ruin sent all his power to destroy them and reclaim his body.

In the chaos, Marsh killed Elend.

Vin realized Preservation’s plan. Preservation couldn’t destroy Ruin—his Intent prevented it.

He needed someone who could both preserve and destroy. Someone with nothing left to lose.

With Elend dead, Vin had nothing to protect anymore. She threw herself at Ruin with all of Preservation’s power, directly attacking his essence.

She killed Ruin and herself in the process.

Sazed saw both Shards’ power leaking from Vin and Ati’s corpses. He took up both Shards together, merging them into Harmony.

The conflicting Intents balanced under one mind, letting him both preserve and destroy—or more accurately, create.

Using knowledge from his copperminds, Sazed remade the world. He moved Scadrial back to its original orbit, removed the Ashmounts, restored extinct animals, and returned the geography to its pre-Ascension state.

This event became known as the Catacendre—”the end of the ash.”

The Post-Catacendric Era

The Catacendre didn’t help everyone. Southern Scadrians called it the “Ice Death” because the climate change nearly froze them.

A man calling himself the Sovereign appeared and saved them. He gave them Excisors—Hemalurgic spikes—and taught them to create unsealed metalminds that anyone could use.

These heat-storing devices saved them from the cold.

The Sovereign was Kelsier. He’d become a Cognitive Shadow after death and couldn’t leave Scadrial, but he could still influence it.

In the north, Spook ruled as the Lord Mistborn. He built housing for the poor, passed laws protecting citizens’ rights, and became beloved.

The settlement that would become Elendel grew around the Well of Ascension.

About a hundred years after the Catacendre, Spook stepped down and disappeared. He became a near-mythological figure known for his power and just rule.

Elendel grew into a major power, controlling trade through heavy taxes on rivers and railroads. Outer Cities resented this financial control, with some suggesting civil war.

Over the next 300 years, Scadrial underwent rapid technological advancement. By 342 PC (Post-Catacendre), they had cars, electric lights, and early aircraft.

Southern Scadrians had even more advanced technology, including extensive mining operations and widespread use of airships.

The Threat of Trell

Around 348 PC, a new threat emerged: Trell, later revealed to be the Shard Autonomy attempting to take control of Scadrial from Harmony.

Autonomy had laid the groundwork for this invasion centuries earlier. During Classical Scadrial, she’d inspired the creation of Trelagism—a religion worshipping Trell and the stars.

After the Catacendre, this evolved into a fringe faith practiced mainly by a group called the Set.

Autonomy began turning Telsin Ladrian into her Avatar. Through the Set, she planned to detonate a harmonium bomb in Elendel, destroying the city and destabilizing Harmony’s power.

Waxillium Ladrian—Harmony’s chosen “sword”—stopped the bomb with Wayne’s help. Autonomy’s nascent perpendicularity collapsed, and she retreated from Scadrial.

But she promised to return.

Following this crisis, tensions between Elendel and the Outer Cities reached a breaking point. The passing of the Elendel Supremacy Bill pushed many areas toward demanding sovereignty.

The Beginning of Interplanetary Conflict

Within a century of the Cinder King’s overthrow on Canticle, Scadrial developed faster-than-light travel. Ships could now cross between planets through the Physical Realm, not just the Cognitive Realm.

Scadrial became one of the biggest trading hubs in the Cosmere.

But interplanetary conflict began growing. An arms race started, with military aggression increasing between worlds.

During this arms race, some Scadrians called TimeTellers traveled to Canticle. They studied the planet and taught the Cinder King how to make Charred—Hemalurgic constructs that helped him conquer the planet faster.

This demonstrates Scadrial’s role as both innovator and destabilizer in Cosmere politics. Their advanced technology and understanding of Investiture makes them powerful—and dangerous.

Geography and Eras of Scadrial

Astronomy and Orbit

Scadrial has standard Cosmere radius and gravity. It orbits a yellow sun similar to Earth’s, though its orbital distance has changed multiple times.

The planet has no major moon. This contributes to how bright the stars appear—though during the Final Empire, ash blocked most starlight anyway.

Four other planets orbit Scadrial’s sun: two gas giants and two dwarf planets, separated by a comet belt. None are inhabited.

Scadrial sits in The Giver constellation within the Cosmere. It’s part of a larger network of trading routes connecting multiple inhabited worlds.

The magnetic and geographic poles were originally in the same location. When Rashek moved the Well of Ascension south from the pole, the magnetic pole followed it.

This created navigation problems during the Final Empire until people adjusted.

Classical Scadrial

Before Rashek’s Ascension, Scadrial looked like a normal planet. Blue sky. Yellow sun. Green plants. Flowers and horses.

Multiple nations existed:

Khlennium dominated the central region between southern islands and northern Terris hills. Its architecture and culture influenced the Final Empire’s design.

Ancient Terris in the northern hills had the Worldbringers—Feruchemist scholars who kept knowledge in copperminds.

Other nations included the Astalsi, Canzi, Khlenni, Urtan, Hallant, Bennet, Cazzi, Larsta, and Darrelnai. Little is known about most of them except what survived in Sazed’s religious studies.

Technology was early industrial—roughly equivalent to Earth’s 1700s or early 1800s.

The Deepness disrupted everything. Mists that normally appeared only at night began lasting into the day.

Plants died. Crops failed. People starved across the planet.

The World of Ash (The Final Empire)

Rashek’s changes created a dying world.

The planet sat too close to the sun. Ashmounts pumped ferromagnetic ash into the sky constantly, blocking heat near the north pole but making the rest of the planet unbearably hot.

Most of Scadrial became desert called the Burnlands.

The Final Empire existed in a relatively cool zone near the north pole (which was actually where the Well had been moved to, south of its original location—confusing everyone about true cardinal directions).

Brown plants replaced green ones. Rashek had altered their biology to absorb more wavelengths of light, compensating for the ash blocking sunlight.

They weren’t efficient enough to appear black, so they looked brown instead.

Microbes and plants broke down falling ash constantly. Without them, the ashfalls would have buried the world in years.

New creatures appeared:

• Mistwraiths: Feruchemists transformed by Rashek, using bones from dead animals to build bodies
• Kandra: Sentient mistwraiths given intelligence through Hemalurgic spikes
• Koloss: Humans twisted by Hemalurgy into massive, brutish blue warriors
• Steel Inquisitors: Powerful beings impaled with multiple spikes, granting them a combination of Allomantic and Feruchemical powers

Most old animals went extinct. Horses and some dogs survived because Rashek specifically preserved them.

Post-Catacendre Scadrial

Sazed restored the planet to its original state—mostly.

The orbit returned to pre-Ascension distance. The Ashmounts disappeared. Green plants and extinct animals came back.

The geography matched what Sazed’s copperminds said it should look like.

But he made one major change: the Elendel Basin.

He created a ring of fertile land in the northern hemisphere, surrounded by the Seran, Faleast, and Channerel mountain ranges. This land could never be over-farmed.

Rivers connected to the Sea of Yomend in the center.

The city of Elendel was built on the sea’s coast, becoming the new capital. Most of the northern population lives in or around the Basin.

Beyond the Basin are the Roughs—regular lands where fewer people settled because the Basin provided everything they needed.

The equator runs close to Elendel. The Prime Meridian runs through it.

Southern Scadrial became frozen after the climate change. The people there had evolved poor thermoregulation during their millennium in extreme heat.

The sudden cold nearly killed them until Kelsier intervened.

The Inhabitants of Scadrial

Humans of the Northern Continent

Most northern Scadrians descend from the Final Empire’s population. This includes both noble and skaa bloodlines, now thoroughly mixed after 300 years.

Central Dominance people tend toward lighter skin. Southern Dominance people trend darker.

But there’s significant variation everywhere because the Lord Ruler’s breeding programs and post-Catacendre mixing created genetic diversity.

Many northern Scadrians have some Allomantic or Feruchemical abilities in their bloodlines, though most don’t manifest powers. The abilities are recessive and require the right combination of genes.

After the Catacendre, most survivors were light-skinned people from the Central Dominance. This created some initial lack of diversity that has since improved through population growth and immigration.

Northern culture focuses on progress and innovation. Elendel particularly pushes industrial advancement, sometimes at the expense of traditional ways of life.

This has created tension with more conservative communities.

The Terrispeople

Terrismen are defined by shared culture more than genetics. They have diverse skin tones, from very light to very dark, but share cultural practices and identity.

The Final Empire oppressed them for centuries. Rashek imposed brutal breeding programs on them, trying to eliminate Feruchemy from their population.

Stewards—castrated Terrismen serving noble houses—became a common sight.

Terrismen hid Feruchemists among their breeders anyway, maintaining the bloodline despite Rashek’s efforts.

After the Catacendre, surviving Terrismen became very endogamous. They married within their community to preserve their culture and identity.

This practice continued for generations.

Terris culture values knowledge and scholarship. Their Worldbringers stored information in copperminds, making them living libraries.

Sazed used these copperminds to remake the world correctly.

Modern Terrismen often work as stewards by choice now, not coercion. The role carries respect rather than shame.

The Southern Scadrians

Southern Scadrians are true descendants of pre-Ascension humanity. The Lord Ruler moved them to the south pole and left them genetically unchanged.

Over a thousand years, they adapted to extreme heat. Their thermoregulation became very poor by normal standards—perfect for the environment they lived in.

The Catacendre devastated them. The “Ice Death” brought freezing temperatures they couldn’t survive.

Kelsier appeared as the Sovereign and gave them unsealed metalminds that stored heat, saving them from extinction.

They reverse-engineered this technology and became more advanced than northerners. Their developments included:

• Airships powered by Allomancy
• Mining operations reaching deep into the planet’s mantle
• Widespread use of ettmetal (harmonium)
• An advanced understanding of unsealed metalminds

Five or six distinct nations exist in the south, including the Malwish, the Hunters, the Fallen, and the Maskless. They wear masks in different styles, each nation having its own traditions.

They also know more about the broader Cosmere than most northerners. Kelsier taught them about Shards, Ruin, Preservation, and possibly even Adonalsium.

Hemalurgic Constructs

Kandra are the most stable Hemalurgic creations. They start as mistwraiths—shapeless muscle creatures that collect bones from dead animals.

Two Hemalurgic spikes grant them sentience and intelligence. They can shape their bodies using any skeleton they ingest, making them perfect spies and impersonators.

Kandra serve Harmony directly. They act as his hands in the world, observing and occasionally interfering.

They have their own society and culture, separate from humans.

Koloss are humans transformed by a single Hemalurgic spike. The spike steals strength and size while reducing intelligence.

They grow continuously, becoming larger and more violent with age.

During the Final Empire, they served as shock troops. After the Catacendre, some koloss interbred with humans, creating koloss-blooded people who have some enhanced strength without the full transformation.

Steel Inquisitors are the most powerful constructs. Multiple spikes grant them combined Allomantic and Feruchemical abilities.

Spikes through their eyes let them see through metals and pierce coppercloud.

Only Marsh survived the Catacendre. He serves Harmony but struggles with his nature.

The spikes make him vulnerable to any Shard’s influence, not just Ruin’s.

Scadrial’s Place in the Cosmere

The Shards of Scadrial

Scadrial is unique in having two Shards merged into one.

Preservation wanted to protect and maintain. His power manifested as the white mists that appeared each night.

His metal was lerasium—small beads that could turn anyone into a Mistborn.

His perpendicularity was the Well of Ascension, originally at the north pole but moved under Kredik Shaw in Luthadel. Every thousand years, the Well collected enough power for someone to Ascend temporarily.

Ruin wanted to destroy and end. His power manifested as black mists that few people saw.

His metal was atium—silvery beads that grew in geodes at the Pits of Hathsin.

His perpendicularity was a black lake beneath the Pits. Kelsier destroyed it while dead, possibly rendering it permanently unusable.

Harmony is both Shards held by one mind. Sazed merged Ruin and Preservation after Vin killed both herself and Ati.

The opposing Intents balance under his control.

This makes Harmony incredibly powerful but also limited. He struggles to act decisively because his Intents contradict each other.

Preservation wants to protect. Ruin wants to change. Finding balance between them is constant work.

Harmony’s perpendicularity exists somewhere in southern Scadrial, likely another lake. It produces harmonium—a dangerous metal that explodes on contact with water.

Perpendicularities

Scadrial has had four perpendicularities at different times:

The Well of Ascension served as Preservation’s perpendicularity during the Final Empire. It moved from the north pole to underneath Kredik Shaw when Rashek relocated it.

After Vin released Ruin, the Well lost its function. It no longer collects power every thousand years.

Ruin’s Perpendicularity was the black lake beneath the Pits of Hathsin. Atium geodes formed around it, creating the crystals the Lord Ruler mined for a thousand years.

Kelsier destroyed it while operating as a Cognitive Shadow. It’s unclear if perpendicularity can be permanently destroyed, but it hasn’t reappeared.

Harmony’s Perpendicularity replaced both previous ones. It exists somewhere in southern Scadrial—probably a lake that produces harmonium.

This perpendicularity allows travel between the Physical and Cognitive Realms. Before the Pits were destroyed, they served as a major gate for interplanetary trade.

People would enter the Cognitive Realm there and travel to other planets.

Autonomy’s Perpendicularity briefly manifested in Elendel during the attempted invasion. Wax and Wayne collapsed it before it fully formed, pushing Autonomy to retreat.

Interaction with Other Planets

Scadrial has become a major player in Cosmere politics.

Before the Pits of Hathsin were destroyed, they served as a trading hub. Worldhoppers entered the Cognitive Realm there and traveled to other planets.

This brought outside influence to Scadrial long before most people knew other worlds existed.

Creatures from other planets entered Skaa folklore. Spren from Roshar. Shades from Threnody.

These became part of the myths that skaa told each other during the Final Empire.

After developing faster-than-light travel, Scadrial became one of the biggest trading centers in the Cosmere. Their technology jumped ahead of most other planets.

But this advancement created problems. An interplanetary arms race began, with Scadrial participating.

Some Scadrians—the TimeTellers—traveled to Canticle and taught the Cinder King how to make Charred, accelerating his conquest.

Scadrial also faces outside threats. Autonomy attempted invasion through Trell.

Odium has some influence on the planet, though the details remain unclear.

Several Shards have visited Scadrial at various points, beyond just Autonomy’s recent attempt. The reasons for these visits aren’t fully known.

The Ghostbloods

Scadrial is a major center for the Ghostbloods—a Cosmere-spanning organization led by Kelsier.

As a Cognitive Shadow, Kelsier can’t leave Scadrial easily. But he can send agents to other planets.

The Ghostbloods operate on Roshar, Nalthis, and probably other worlds.

On Roshar, they’re trying to:

• Find a way to transport Investiture off-planet (because Investiture is easier to access on Roshar than most places)
• Learn from the Heralds about breaking Connection to planets
• Help Kelsier escape his bonds to Scadrial

The organization’s core goal is protecting Scadrial at all costs. Everything else serves this purpose.

They use Hemalurgy extensively. Scadrian agents often have spikes granting them abilities from other planets.

This makes them dangerous—but also vulnerable to Shard influence.

The Ghostbloods embody Scadrial’s reach beyond its own planet. They’re gathering knowledge, resources, and power from across the Cosmere, preparing for conflicts most people don’t know are coming.

Where to Start with Mistborn?

New to Scadrial and want to explore the world yourself? Here’s the reading order:

Mistborn Era 1 (Original Trilogy):

1. The Final Empire
2. The Well of Ascension
3. The Hero of Ages

This trilogy covers the Lord Ruler’s fall and the Catacendre. Start here.

Mistborn Era 2 (Wax and Wayne):

1. The Alloy of Law
2. Shadows of Self
3. The Bands of Mourning
4. The Lost Metal

Set 300 years after Era 1, this series follows Wax during the industrial revolution and Autonomy’s invasion.

Mistborn: Secret History:

Read this novella after finishing The Bands of Mourning. It reveals what happened to Kelsier after his death and provides crucial context for the Ghostbloods.

Don’t read it earlier—it contains major spoilers for both eras.