Irish Truthwatcher Posted January 1, 2025 Posted January 1, 2025 As we've reached what seems to be the halfway mark of the cosmere with the release of wind and truth, is there any chance we'll be introduced to any more shardworlds at this stage? There are a couple shards left to work with, namely valor, invention, mercy, reason and whimsy, and of those five, I believe one to be hidden on roshar (valor), another to be roaming the cosmere (Invention) and another seems to be hidden from everyone else (reason), so I guess what I'm trying to ask is do we know if theres any new novels planned that could take place on mercy or whimsy's shardworlds. Personally, my own crackpot theory is that mercy is invested on threnody. I think Whimsy's intent could lead to some cool magic systems though! Maybe the Kite Planet?
Treamayne Posted January 1, 2025 Posted January 1, 2025 Welcome to the Shard. Please consider an Intro Post to let us know what you have or have-not read (whichever list is shorter). Also please consider checking out the Sharder FAQ for some (hopefully) useful forum tips and information. 1 hour ago, Irish Truthwatcher said: As we've reached what seems to be the halfway mark of the cosmere with the release of wind and truth, is there any chance we'll be introduced to any more shardworlds at this stage? There are a couple shards left to work with, <Spoilers Redacted>, I believe one to be hidden on roshar (valor), another to be roaming the cosmere (Invention) and another seems to be hidden from everyone else (reason), so I guess what I'm trying to ask is do we know if theres any new novels planned that could take place on mercy or whimsy's shardworlds. Personally, my own crackpot theory is that mercy is invested on threnody. I think Whimsy's intent could lead to some cool magic systems though! Maybe the Kite Planet? Also, please remember that Spoiler Policy requires you to remove or spoiler tag your WaT spoilers in this section until after the Spoiler Period is concludes (excerpt below and more info also in the Sharder FAQ and Policy Link): Spoiler Spoiler and Unpublished Works Policy Unpublished work that has not been publicly released by Brandon and his team (including the original manuscript of Dragonsteel), may not be discussed on any 17th Shard platform. Publicly available chapters or samples of unpublished work may be only discussed in the appropriate forum or Discord channel. If in a book specific forum or channel, you wish to refer to another series please use spoiler markup or, if appropriate, move to a full spoiler channel. A reference to what the spoiler is related to, should also be included. (eg. OB (SPOILER)) Forum: The ‘eye’ button will create a spoiler box in which text and images can be added. Forum: Stick to the appropriate forum. Check forum board description if you are unsure. Spoiler topics posted in non-spoiler forums must contain ‘Spoiler’ in the topic title. New books can be discussed without spoiler tags in the dedicated new book subforum/area only. Topic titles should not contain spoilers You are strongly encouraged to post topics on new works in the new book subforum/area only. If you must reference something in a spoiler period outside those forums, you must spoiler tag it. Spoiler Period and Spoiler Period Lengths for Forums and Discord: Cosmere novels - six months Cosmere everything else - three months Non-cosmere novels - three months Non-cosmere everything else - one month To answer your question, Major Shardworlds are defined by having at least one Shard in residence. Based on the 2024 SotS and other WoBs, we know we can expect the re-done and re-named Aether of Night (Aether Homeworld), but we do not know if it will be a Major or Minor Shardworld. We know we will eventually get Dragonsteel - but that is the origin story. We may get the "Kite-Magic" story, but that is likely to be a minor Shardworld. We'll get the Canon Prose version of White Sand which is definitely a Major Shardworld - but it may not be "new" for you if you have read one of the current versions. We have the Grand Apparatus which may be set on Invention's Major Shardworld (at least it sounds like the implication). I would not be surprised if at least one other Major Shardworld makes an appearance, even if it is a Novella instead of a full novel or series. Hope that helps. 2
Raven Wilder Posted January 2, 2025 Posted January 2, 2025 Though I wonder if there are any Shards who regularly commute between two more worlds (not counting Odium getting trapped on kicked back to Braize over and over). Would make the whole Major/Minor distinction rather murky.
TheoreticalMagic Posted January 2, 2025 Posted January 2, 2025 (edited) I am expecting Whimsy to have a Shardworld that gets some focus time, but likely as more of a side project than a future major series. I personally believe that Reason is both the Shard Brandon mentioned as (formerly) just wanting to hide and survive AND is hidden on Roshar, which frees up Valor, so if I had to pick one Shard still likely to have an as yet revealed Major Shardworld that gets significant development, it'd be either Valor or Mercy. My follow-up guess is Invention - the only reason I don't rate it higher in terms of likeliness-to-be-Invested in a setting of major future significance is because I have a gut perception of Invention as having invested a lot of time and energy in a bunch of Shardworlds that are all PART of its Grand Apparatus, rather than the Grand Apparatus being hosted on a single world. Although I could see Invention being present on a Major Shardworld that it uses as a central hub for the entire Apparatus, but for some reason I just have this image in my head of Invention as the kind of Shard who always stays on the move (in as much as Shards are capable of that, given the logistics involved for them). Kinda the whole idea of Invention never sleeps, its progress constantly in motion....idk. Like I said, more of a hunch than anything. And if I were to bet on any of the remaining Shards being paired up, I could see it being interesting if Mercy and Valor end up on the same Shardworld and are opposing forces there (given that their Intents aren't necessarily at odds, but I don't see Mercy and Valor being likely to be friendly, based on what little HAS been said about them thus far). We know Valor is currently seen as the only other Shard aside from Endowment who still abides by the isolation stricture, but that doesn't mean that can't still change in the future or that Endowment isn't necessarily correct about that, or telling the truth. Plus, singling out Valor as the only other Shard abiding by the isolation agreement does imply that Mercy is near or around another Shard.....well, no, actually, that's not true. Never mind. Mercy could currently be off by herself, and Endowment just didn't rate Mercy as adhering to the isolation agreement due to Mercy's alleged involvement in the Odium and Ambition conflict. Alternatively, I could see Whimsy and Invention ending up focused on the same Shardworld at some point, but again, more of just a gut feeling. Edited January 2, 2025 by TheoreticalMagic
RedBlue Posted January 2, 2025 Posted January 2, 2025 The list of Shards whose current whereabouts and status are unknown is: Invention, Mercy, Whimsy, Valor and Reason. Valor and Reason are apparently ‘hidden,’ which I’m guessing means they are not associated with a major Shardworld (because that would make them rather obvious and easy to find). Invention is, according to Tanavast’s description, ‘travelling the cosmere.’ That doesn’t sound compatible with settling on a major Shardworld (unless you count one of Invention’s creations as a major Shardworld, which is stretching the definition). Granted, that was 7000 years ago, but given Harmony’s difficulty in locating them it seems probable that the situation has not changed and Invention is still nomadic. That leaves Mercy and Whimsy as the last two Shards who may have major Shardworlds that we don’t know about.
Irish Truthwatcher Posted January 6, 2025 Author Posted January 6, 2025 On 1/2/2025 at 7:31 AM, Raven Wilder said: Though I wonder if there are any Shards who regularly commute between two more worlds (not counting Odium getting trapped on kicked back to Braize over and over). Would make the whole Major/Minor distinction rather murky. Love this idea! Of the shards we are still yet to formally meet, I would say Whimsy is the most likely to fit this description, though Invention could also have a travel pattern like this while dealing with the grand apparatus
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