Beyond the Burnlands

[_Longname_ he/him]

Hello Everyone!

! Spoilers for Hero of Ages and Mistborn Era 2 !

Have you ever wondered why humans on Scadrial only lived in two places? The Final Empire (later Elendel basin + Roughs) and the Southern Continent (Malwish).

We know that in Era 1, the Lord Ruler suppressed technological advance and exploration of Scadrial.

Because of the Lord Ruler’s stupid mistakes, Scadrial was too close to the sun, and humans needed to live close to Ashmounts (/volcanoes) so they could grow crops and not burn in agony every day. We know this, because beyond the Ashy bubble that protects the Northern Continent (the Dominances in Era 1) are the Burnlands (/deserts). Only Koloss and the ‘Wasted Men’, people that didn’t want to obey the Lord Ruler, would live there. As those weren’t completely suppressed by the Lord Ruler they could have had more advanced technology (similar to the Malwish).

But the Wasted Men were only able to survive there because they regularly raided the Outer Dominances. But this changed when

Spoiler

Sazed became Harmony and put Scadrial back into proper orbit.

What if, the Burnlands became a bit more habitable when this happened? The Wasted Men developed technology similar to the Malwish Civilization. Because the Elendel and Roughs people, obviously aren’t big explorers, this ‘Wasted men civilization’ could have gone undiscovered for a while. Maybe they even started reproducing with Kigs (Koloss Blooded) and made a new land, where everyone has Koloss blood!

 

If you look at the Maps of Era 2 Scadrial you will see that both Continents are largely surrounded by water. This apparently wasn’t known or wasn’t true in Era 1. But… Oceans / Water = Life! Water is great at making places habitable, so it isn’t unlikely that a small-ish coastal tribe is somewhere out there, because pre-Catacendre the ocean would have cooled it down and let crops grow, and after the Catacendre the ocean made it warm enough to keep living.

We already know, that there is more in the Scadrial World but the Elendel Basin, the Roughs and the Malwish Continent. For example, there is a part of the Southern Continent, where (according to the Coppermind and the Maps) the ‘Deniers of Masks’ or ‘The Maskless’ live. We don’t know anything about them.

 

What do you think? Is there more out there, beyond the oceans and Burnlands? What kind of civilization is it and how did they survive the death of The Lord Ruler and the Catacendre? Did they exist in Era 1 or Era 2 (or both)? Did the ‘Sovereign’ come visit them, or did they find another way to survive?

 

Hope you like my idea!

[Treamayne]

5 hours ago, _Longname_ said:

What if, the Burnlands became a bit more habitable when this happened? The Wasted Men developed technology similar to the Malwish Civilization. Because the Elendel and Roughs people, obviously aren’t big explorers, this ‘Wasted men civilization’ could have gone undiscovered for a while. Maybe they even started reproducing with Kigs (Koloss Blooded) and made a new land, where everyone has Koloss blood!

The problem is that none of them are known to have survived (except for Human) - there were no Caches out in the burnlands to survive what Ruin did to the continent, followed by Vin's mistakes, followed by Sazed's remaking of Scadrial.

5 hours ago, _Longname_ said:

If you look at the Maps of Era 2 Scadrial you will see that both Continents are largely surrounded by water.

But they are not - the water you see Era 1 was an Inland Sea (see WoB below) - that was changed when Harmony restored the original coastlines (as mapped by the Bennet). During Rashek's reign, the oceans had boiled off. 

5 hours ago, _Longname_ said:

What do you think? Is there more out there, beyond the oceans and Burnlands? What kind of civilization is it and how did they survive the death of The Lord Ruler and the Catacendre? Did they exist in Era 1 or Era 2 (or both)? Did the ‘Sovereign’ come visit them, or did they find another way to survive?

Book of Nails (tentative title) should provide some insight to things that lie off the coast in the Scadrian ocean arcehpelagos. 

WoBs:

Spoiler

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wackyHair

What's the population of the shardworld's we've seen so far (even in very general terms, like one's much bigger than the others or something)?

Brandon Sanderson

Scadrial is certainly the least populated of the major shard worlds. Then Nalthis, I'd guess, followed by Roshar, and finally Sel--which likely has the largest population. I would have to look closely to see which is bigger between those last two.

Phantine

Does a population of about 100 million during The Final Empire (with 1-2 million in Luthadel), and around 15 million during Alloy of Law (with about 5 million in Elendel) seem right?

Brandon Sanderson

Have to RAFO this for now, for reasons I can't explain without giving spoilers.

Phantine

How about as far as Elend/Wax knows, at the beginning of their respective series?

Brandon Sanderson

Then those numbers, if they're off, are at least close.

faragorn

Interesting that Sel has such a large population, given that the actual numbers of soldiers shown seem to be quite small.

Brandon Sanderson

Let's just say that Opelon has an inflated opinion of its own size in relation to the rest of the world.

Footnote: The RAFO about the Scadrian population may be due to the existence of the Southerners, which had not been revealed as of this time.
/r/books AMA 2015 (June 8, 2015)

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Brandon Sanderson

Oh, and as bonus aside, let me point something out to you. Human and his group of koloss were inside the Homeland when the sun came out, destroying everything on the surface. They were still there when Sazed rearranged the world and fixed things. TenSoon and the kandra were also inside, though they had been turned into mistwraiths. Hum . . . Wonder what happened to them. . . .

The Hero of Ages Annotations (June 3, 2010)

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Brandon Sanderson

Human's Origin

Human is a very special koloss. He's quite a bit older than most, his creation running all the way back to before the Lord Ruler's death. He was originally the leader of a rebellion out in the southeast—the same area where Clubs spent his youth fighting. Human, then known as Vershad, was one of the more successful leaders of the wasted men—those who live out in the desert outside the borders of the Final Empire, but come in to raid and steal supplies from outlying villages.

Charismatic and intelligent, he managed to keep his band alive even once the Lord Ruler turned his attention on them. Rather than ravaging villages, Vershad would convert them—quietly, carefully—to his side and get them to give him supplies. In turn, he would "raid" them and destroy the lords' mansions, causing chaos and letting the people get a sideways revenge against their masters. In the chaos, it would be assumed that the raiders got away with the skaa food, and it would be replenished.

The Lord Ruler tired of such games and eventually sent his koloss against Vershad and his men. As clever as they were, they weren't able to stand against a well-laid betrayal and ambush set by an Inquisitor—one who controlled a troop of koloss. The raiders were slaughtered, and Vershad himself was turned into a koloss for his crimes.

He retained enough of his determination and his intelligence, however, to make a remarkably clever koloss. (There is some variety to koloss, based on who they were before the transformation.)

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Nov. 10, 2009)

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KChan

Just a random piece of worldbuilding, could be big or small, from the Final Empire, that we did not get to see in the books.

Brandon Sanderson

There's a whole bunch of stuff. Let's see what's good. Have I told people this one yet? There used to be very little water on [Scadrial]. In fact, it was mostly a dry planet; if you saw it from space, it looked like Mars, with little patches...

KChan

Did Preservation change that?

Brandon Sanderson

No, that was just the heat, and the things that were going on with moving the planet boiled off a lot of water.

KChan

I mean, putting the water back?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, with Sazed? Yes, Sazed did. So, like, with the bodies of water you see in the map, are actually not really oceans... I mean-- like, that is the extent of it. Like, it's not actually-- I know people think that's a sea, but it's not. Well, it's an inland sea.

Questioner

It's just not that it's very habitable beyond that point?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Firefight Miami signing (Jan. 8, 2015)

 

Hope that helps

Edited March 13 by Treamayne
SPAG

[_Longname_ he/him]

12 hours ago, Treamayne said:

18 hours ago, _Longname_ said:

What if, the Burnlands became a bit more habitable when this happened? The Wasted Men developed technology similar to the Malwish Civilization. Because the Elendel and Roughs people, obviously aren’t big explorers, this ‘Wasted men civilization’ could have gone undiscovered for a while. Maybe they even started reproducing with Kigs (Koloss Blooded) and made a new land, where everyone has Koloss blood!

The problem is that none of them are known to have survived (except for Human) - there were no Caches out in the burnlands to survive what Ruin did to the continent, followed by Vin's mistakes, followed by Sazed's remaking of Scadrial.

Oh yeah, but the Malwish did survive that, before they had Feruchemy, right? There could have been other civilizations that managed similar things.

 

On 3/13/2026 at 2:57 AM, Treamayne said:

On 3/12/2026 at 9:16 PM, _Longname_ said:

If you look at the Maps of Era 2 Scadrial you will see that both Continents are largely surrounded by water.

But they are not - the water you see Era 1 was an Inland Sea (see WoB below) - that was changed when Harmony restored the original coastlines (as mapped by the Bennet). During Rashek's reign, the oceans had boiled off. 

Ah, ok. I didn't know that. Does that mean most of Scadrial is water? Even if Harmony restored the original Coastlines, there might have been a different continent or island somewhere out there. 

 

On 3/13/2026 at 2:57 AM, Treamayne said:

Book of Nails (tentative title) should provide some insight to things that lie off the coast in the Scadrian ocean arcehpelagos. 

Is that out yet?

[Treamayne]

59 minutes ago, _Longname_ said:

Oh yeah, but the Malwish did survive that, before they had Feruchemy, right? There could have been other civilizations that managed similar things.

The Malwish never had the Ash as their sole protection from the sun (it still has not been revealed what Rashek did for the Southerners so he would not have to change their biology like he did with the Northerners) and they were the opposite side of the planet (the side Vin did not point in full sunlight that destroyed everything). 

59 minutes ago, _Longname_ said:

Ah, ok. I didn't know that. Does that mean most of Scadrial is water? Even if Harmony restored the original Coastlines, there might have been a different continent or island somewhere out there. 

Brandon refuses to answer that before Era 3. 

59 minutes ago, _Longname_ said:

Is that out yet?

Nope - last update (State of the Sanderson) and WoI:

Spoiler

 

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Book of Nails

One of the questions I often get asked is how my Cosmere book is progressing. For those who haven’t heard of it, Book of Nails is set on Scadrial and follows the adventures of Nicelle Sauvage, aka Nicki Savage from the Era 2 broadsheets--though the novel presents events as they actually happened rather than in a sensational serialized story written by Nicki.

With the addition of a few art directors to the creative team, I’m starting to reclaim a little time to work on the story. This year I received amazing feedback from a beta read we held for the first part of the book. Additionally, I’ve been running chapters through members of the department and Brandon’s writing group. There’s a list of changes to make, but I’m confident in the story’s direction and can’t wait for you to see it.

 

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Cheyenne Sedai

I'm really curious about Boatload of Mummies because Brandon did mention on his updates that you'd worked on it for NaNoWriMo for the past couple of years which is really cool. And the title is incredible. I don't know if that's gonna be the final title, but that's what it's always been referred to. How have you been doing with that?

Isaac Stewart

Thanks for asking us. It's a project that I love. So I finished it. Finished a draft in September of last year. It's rough. It's a really rough draft. There's a lot of things that I'm still working through. I'm trying to narrow down the shape of the plot in a way because there's a little bit of--it wasn't inspired necessarily by these things, but it was after the fact that I realized, "Oh, it's part this, part that." It's sort of begins King Kong, if you imagined getting people on a boat. And then it continues as Death on the Nile. Then you get to a portion on an island. And then it ends The Mummy. And throw in a healthy dose of Venom. So it's like, "Okay, am I doing too much here?" And that's kind of where I'm at. You know, is this even a thing? Have I thrown too much in? Is this too much of a storyline? And i don't think it is. It really is in the end kind of a Raiders of the Lost Arc sort of story. You could pull out those some of those same elements and say, "Raiders of the Lost Arc starts out King Kong." But the basic plot line is there. There's going to be scenes in the current draft that are basically finished. I don't think they're going to change too much from the version that it is right now to the end.

Will it be called Boatload of Mummies? Probably not. I can't see that as a title of a Cosmere book, right? But we can affectionately call it Boatload of Mummies as long as we want. The working title is Book of Nails. And whether there's a series title or not, we'll have to figure that out if it's a story that people want to continue learning about.

But let me tell you Nicki Savage is so much fun to write. Don't expect exactly what you get from the broadsheets because she is writing to a particular audience, and has learned some skills from Allomancer Jak--though I do think Allomancer Jak's stories might be closer to the truth than Nicki's are.

You will see parallels between this story and some of the elements that are in the broadsheets. But she's basically: if you can imagine a Mary Poppins. who is incredibly interested in the supernatural, and is not afraid to beat up people. That's basically your character right there. And she's just, she's a load of fun. A boatload of fun.

Cheyenne Sedai

I imagine from what you've said that you still wouldn't be ready to give us what could eventually function as a back of the book blurb?

Isaac Stewart

During the first NaNoWriMo that I worked on it we had to come up with our elevator pitch on that, and I wrote the Readers Digest, TV Guide version of it, and it was "A woman with a strange, magical power journeys to an island to find a mythical book that might raise the dead." Something like that.

This particular book is interesting because... How do I pitch this when it's a spin off of a different series. It's a spin-off from Mistborn, technically. But it's not a Mistborn book. You can't pitch that to somebody who doesn't know Mistborn. And that's been some of the fun in trying to figure this out is "How do I tell a different story here, but then have to reintroduce how Allomancy works? But now in this era, we know about Allomancy, we know about Feruchemy, we know about Hemalurgy. We have crossovers from other worlds. How do you write this book without confusing somebody entirely without... "There's like 50 magic systems in here, and I don't understand." And that then goes into the pitch. How do you pitch this book? People who know the Cosmere, you just say it's set on Scadrial, but it's not really a Misborn book. It's just hard to encapsulate and someday I'll figure it out.

Miscellaneous 2023 (May 28, 2023)

 

Hope that helps

Edited March 14 by Treamayne
SPAG