The Cosmerillion/The World of the Cosmere

[Slater he/him]

As the Cosmere is a universe that will eventually spread over ten planets and forty books I think it's safe to say that we would all like a Companion Encyclopedia at some point that fleshes out more of the history and universe not told in the books.

 

Now, in a lot of ways, Drgonsteel will probably be are Silmarillion, as it will explain the key origins of almost every foundation in the Cosmere. Such as Hoid, the Shards, there Holders and Adonalsium. So in a way that's covered.

 

But what about something like "The World of Ice and Fire" but for the Cosmere? Maybe written in universe by Khriss, the 17th Shard or even Harmony or one of the other Shards.

 

If something like that where to come around what would you like it to include?

 

For me it would be..

 

- Official character portraits for all of the main characters and shards.By the artists who did "The World of Ice and Fire", it would be amazing to have real good looking official art of all of them finally. (And also help the Coppermind actually look professional.)

- Detailed descriptions and maps of all the Major Shard Worlds.

- Expansion on each one's history if we don't get that in the books themselves. ( For example:TLR's early days when uniting the world, the first Fjordell Empire, Sunmaker uniting Alethkar, etc.)

- Expansion on lore characters who aren't Hoid or the Shards (Like again, Sunmaker, Alendi, the First Returned, etc.)

- Comparing the different Shards, there magic and how much the Holders were each changed by there intent. (Also maybe musing about which Shards got along, either from there past as humans or how there intents interact) Ars Arcanum style.

- Authors musings on what is happening in the Cosmere, like there reactions to the end of Mistborn or the Stormlight Archive and what they thought about it.

- More official info on the three realms and how they work.

- A detailed list of Hoid's  alias in alphabetical order, done by Nazh who complains about having to do it that way.

 

What else would you guys like to see if we got something like this?

Edited February 9, 2015 by Slater

[Blaze1616 he/him]

Isn't it a little early to be considering this? I've seen this type of discussion crop up a few times over the last few months, and I'm not sure why people are already discussing it. Of approximately 45 Cosmere novels, we've only got 8. That's just shy of 20%. To compare, GRRM has released 5 of the planned 7 novels, or 71.5%. That is a huge difference. I would not want anything like what you're suggesting to be made until we actually start receiving all the stories from specific planets (Nalthis still has another book, Sel has two more, Scadrial has ? more, Roshar has 8 more, etc.) and even then I would only want details from those planets, and not the unfinished ones.

 

Now, I understand why we want this type of thing. We here at 17th Shard are hardcore fans, or at least hardcore enough to join and contribute to an official fan site. We want more information. We want to further immerse ourselves in the wonderful universe that a brilliant author devised and created. Don't think the above paragraph means I don't desire such a thing as you're suggesting. I just feel we should wait to start asking, planning, etc. until more information is naturally granted to us. Brandon has been keeping a wonderful pace. As we all know, other authors leave fans waiting for more than half a decade. Brandon barely makes us wait more than half a year for a new book (albeit some of them are non-Cosmere). Asking for more information from him will eventually tire him out, possibly even annoy him. As I've already seen him respond on a multitude of occaisions, he "needs something to put in the sequel." I am really beginning to feel that, as a fandom, we need to slow ourselves down. Brandon has a great relationship with us right now. Let us not ruin it.

 

That all being said, I feel I am beginning to digress. So to stay on topic, if I had to pick content for such an omnibus right now, I would agree with almost everything you've listed except the musings from other authors, and the list of Hoid's aliases as listed by Nazh. A list of Hoid aliases would be nice, but unless Nazh gets the ability to travel back in time, I don't think he can write the list, unless Khriss knows about and has a vested interest in Hoid's doings (which I am confident she doesn't). And I wouldn't want other author's musings because...who cares? This book would be huge as is given what we already have. I don't think it needs to be bogged down by pointless musings that belong in blogs.

[Marns she/her]

[vineyarddawg]

I would like to reiterate what Marns said.  

[Slater he/him]

Isn't it a little early to be considering this? I've seen this type of discussion crop up a few times over the last few months, and I'm not sure why people are already discussing it. Of approximately 45 Cosmere novels, we've only got 8. That's just shy of 20%. To compare, GRRM has released 5 of the planned 7 novels, or 71.5%. That is a huge difference. I would not want anything like what you're suggesting to be made until we actually start receiving all the stories from specific planets (Nalthis still has another book, Sel has two more, Scadrial has ? more, Roshar has 8 more, etc.) and even then I would only want details from those planets, and not the unfinished ones.

 

Now, I understand why we want this type of thing. We here at 17th Shard are hardcore fans, or at least hardcore enough to join and contribute to an official fan site. We want more information. We want to further immerse ourselves in the wonderful universe that a brilliant author devised and created. Don't think the above paragraph means I don't desire such a thing as you're suggesting. I just feel we should wait to start asking, planning, etc. until more information is naturally granted to us. Brandon has been keeping a wonderful pace. As we all know, other authors leave fans waiting for more than half a decade. Brandon barely makes us wait more than half a year for a new book (albeit some of them are non-Cosmere). Asking for more information from him will eventually tire him out, possibly even annoy him. As I've already seen him respond on a multitude of occaisions, he "needs something to put in the sequel." I am really beginning to feel that, as a fandom, we need to slow ourselves down. Brandon has a great relationship with us right now. Let us not ruin it.

 

That all being said, I feel I am beginning to digress. So to stay on topic, if I had to pick content for such an omnibus right now, I would agree with almost everything you've listed except the musings from other authors, and the list of Hoid's aliases as listed by Nazh. A list of Hoid aliases would be nice, but unless Nazh gets the ability to travel back in time, I don't think he can write the list, unless Khriss knows about and has a vested interest in Hoid's doings (which I am confident she doesn't). And I wouldn't want other author's musings because...who cares? This book would be huge as is given what we already have. I don't think it needs to be bogged down by pointless musings that belong in blogs.

 

Ah, I understand what you mean, but I never meant right now or even in the near future, I meant after or around when Dragonsteel is released which is basically his version of the Simarillion. Not to mention, by then will have gotten all the Mistborn books, Nightblood, the Elantris sequels etc so it won't be spoiling anything.

 

Also by authors, I meant in universe, like the musings of the 17th shard characters and Khriss if they were the ones writing it.

 

Finally we know for a fact Brandon keeps a massive personal wiki that he is gonna add to, so ten, fifteen, twenty years from now he will have more then enough info to make a massive encyclopedia. He probably does already, but a lot needs to be refined first.

Edited February 9, 2015 by Slater

[Blaze1616 he/him]

Also by authors, I meant in universe, like the musings of the 17th shard characters and Khriss if they were the ones writing it.

 

Ah, that makes a big difference. The only "author" I can think of right now is the author of the Ars Arcani, and we kind of are getting their musings (particularly with the newer novels). It would be cool to have all the Ars Arcani collected together.

[Dunkum he/him]

It would be cool to have all the Ars Arcani collected together.

To me this seems like a reasonable starting point.  Collect up the ars arcana (or however that should be pluralized) and then throw in some elaborations on things like history and culture &c.  I also really like the idea of adding in some professional artwork.  I am loving the shallan's notebook drawings from Stormlight so far

[weebojello]

Hmm, I thought the plan was for 31 to 36 or so? It changed? Either way, still in the 20th percentile someplace.

 

I think the excellent coppermind wiki takes the place of something like this, no? Not as .... cohesively narratively written perhaps, but certainly factual, no?

 

The reason I mention the wiki, is that the Silmarillion to me basically is a wiki, before anyone knew what they were. At least I read it like a wiki, which is perhaps why I like it so much.

[Blaze1616 he/him]

Hmm, I thought the plan was for 31 to 36 or so? It changed? Either way, still in the 20th percentile someplace.

 

The number increases as Brandon comes up with new ideas. The original 36 number occured before this whole Era 2 Mistborn business. That adds three right there (Alloy was included in that number if I am not mistaken). Then Brandon has mentioned how he might do Mistborn in the current age (Era 3 is 80s, current Era 4 is sci-fi, this would be Era 3.5, or 4, making current Era 4 Era 5 instead...) That would add more books. The 36 number also assumes the Stormlight Archive will be confined to 10 books. Due to Brandon being a heavy outliner, it is unlikely the series will expand beyond that, but it might. Same can be said for the Dragonsteel series of 7 books that is coming a long time from now. My point is his number is constantly changing. By the time the Cosmere is done with, I wouldn't be surprised to have bought 50 different titles. I went with 45 to be a little more conservative.

[Moogle]

I think the excellent coppermind wiki takes the place of something like this, no? Not as .... cohesively narratively written perhaps, but certainly factual, no?

 

The Coppermind is a useful resource, but it is often wrong or has out-dated information. It's also based on WoBs in a lot of places, and Brandon has said that he sometimes changes his mind after giving out an obscure WoB. It'd definitely be very nice to have an actually-canon encyclopedia thing.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

The number increases as Brandon comes up with new ideas. The original 36 number occured before this whole Era 2 Mistborn business. That adds three right there (Alloy was included in that number if I am not mistaken). Then Brandon has mentioned how he might do Mistborn in the current age (Era 3 is 80s, current Era 4 is sci-fi, this would be Era 3.5, or 4, making current Era 4 Era 5 instead...) That would add more books. The 36 number also assumes the Stormlight Archive will be confined to 10 books. Due to Brandon being a heavy outliner, it is unlikely the series will expand beyond that, but it might. Same can be said for the Dragonsteel series of 7 books that is coming a long time from now. My point is his number is constantly changing. By the time the Cosmere is done with, I wouldn't be surprised to have bought 50 different titles. I went with 45 to be a little more conservative.

 

Alloy was not included in the original 36 books actually.  It started out as an idea for a short story between WoT revisions (which then turned into a novel and then a four book series...)

 

The "original plan" as I understand it was:

 

10 - Stormlight Archive

9 - Mistborn (trilogy of trilogies)

7 - Dragonsteel (It has never been explained fully to me whether the Liar of Partinel/Lightweaver of Rens prequel duology was included in this seven...)

3 - Elantris

2 - Warbreaker

3 - White Sand

1 - The Silence Divine

 

which is only 35...

 

The current plan, as I understand it is:

 

10 - Stormlight Archive

13+ - Mistborn (trilogy of trilogies, Mistborn Adventures, plus whatever he decides to write)

3 or 5 - Dragonsteel (Peter mentioned this on Reddit a while back)

3 - Elantris

2 - Warbreaker

1+ - White Sand (the first novel is being split into three graphic novel volumes, don't know if there will be more--here I am counting those three volumes as "one")

1+ - Dark One

1+ - Unknown cosmere series 1

1+ - Unknown cosmere series 2

 

.5 - The Silence Divine (now downgraded to a novella)

.5 - Sixth of the Dusk

.25 - Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell

 

Before adding in novellas and shorts, and underestimating everything that's again 35.  If I bump Dark One and the unknowns up to 3, making them trilogies, then the number is 41.  So 45 doesn't seem an unreasonable estimate.

 

The Coppermind is a useful resource, but it is often wrong or has out-dated information. It's also based on WoBs in a lot of places, and Brandon has said that he sometimes changes his mind after giving out an obscure WoB. It'd definitely be very nice to have an actually-canon encyclopedia thing.

 

I would call the Coppermind more "incomplete" than "often wrong or... outdated".  Then again I /am/ biased.  To be clear I am in favor of a supplement book.  I know Ben has said that he wants to do one for at least Stormlight at some point multiple times on Reddit.  Mostly because it would be a fantastic resource to improve the Coppermind.

 

You also come across as awfully critical of WoBs, which I confess I am confused by.  Yes we cite using WoBs, and yes Brandon has said he has sometimes changed his mind.  But as far as I am concerned the current situation is better than nothing, until we have confirmation that he /has/ changed his mind on something specific I'm going to treat the existing WoB as canon?  I don't think that is unreasonable.

 

Part of the problem is there are very few people who actually contribute to the Coppermind.  Even those of us who do so consistently can't do as much as we want (I have a list of things I want to get done that is a mile long) so things pile up.  My best advice if someone notices something they /know/ is wrong is for them to fix it themselves.  Or if you are passionate about a character or bit of lore, write/update the article about it.  This is why it is a wiki, so the community can work on it together.

[Blaze1616 he/him]

 

The number increases as Brandon comes up with new ideas. The original 36 number occured before this whole Era 2 Mistborn business. That adds three right there (Alloy was included in that number if I am not mistaken). Then Brandon has mentioned how he might do Mistborn in the current age (Era 3 is 80s, current Era 4 is sci-fi, this would be Era 3.5, or 4, making current Era 4 Era 5 instead...) That would add more books. The 36 number also assumes the Stormlight Archive will be confined to 10 books. Due to Brandon being a heavy outliner, it is unlikely the series will expand beyond that, but it might. Same can be said for the Dragonsteel series of 7 books that is coming a long time from now. My point is his number is constantly changing. By the time the Cosmere is done with, I wouldn't be surprised to have bought 50 different titles. I went with 45 to be a little more conservative.

 

Alloy was not included in the original 36 books actually.  It started out as an idea for a short story between WoT revisions (which then turned into a novel and then a four book series...)

 

The "original plan" as I understand it was:

 

10 - Stormlight Archive

9 - Mistborn (trilogy of trilogies)

7 - Dragonsteel (It has never been explained fully to me whether the Liar of Partinel/Lightweaver of Rens prequel duology was included in this seven...)

3 - Elantris

2 - Warbreaker

3 - White Sand

1 - The Silence Divine

 

which is only 35...

 

The current plan, as I understand it is:

 

10 - Stormlight Archive

13+ - Mistborn (trilogy of trilogies, Mistborn Adventures, plus whatever he decides to write)

3 or 5 - Dragonsteel (Peter mentioned this on Reddit a while back)

3 - Elantris

2 - Warbreaker

1+ - White Sand (the first novel is being split into three graphic novel volumes, don't know if there will be more--here I am counting those three volumes as "one")

1+ - Dark One

1+ - Unknown cosmere series 1

1+ - Unknown cosmere series 2

 

.5 - The Silence Divine (now downgraded to a novella)

.5 - Sixth of the Dusk

.25 - Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell

 

Before adding in novellas and shorts, and underestimating everything that's again 35.  If I bump Dark One and the unknowns up to 3, making them trilogies, then the number is 41.  So 45 doesn't seem an unreasonable estimate.

 

I knew Alloy was not originally planned and that it resulted from a writing excercise during WoT. My 36 number came shortly after Alloy was published, if I recall correctly.

 

Regardless though, if White Sand was originally a trilogy, that most likely means 6 to 9 graphic novels, assuming they print them in normal graphic novel size, and not Watchmen size, and all three novels of the trilogy are printed in graphic novel form (it would be a little odd for only the first novel to do so, and the other two are in prose form).

 

So perhaps 45 was a tad high, and the final count will be closer to 40. Who knows though, Brandon's flights tend to be major brainstorming times, apparently.

[Moogle]

I would call the Coppermind more "incomplete" than "often wrong or... outdated". Then again I /am/ biased. To be clear I am in favor of a supplement book. I know Ben has said that he wants to do one for at least Stormlight at some point multiple times on Reddit. Mostly because it would be a fantastic resource to improve the Coppermind.

You also come across as awfully critical of WoBs, which I confess I am confused by. Yes we cite using WoBs, and yes Brandon has said he has sometimes changed his mind. But as far as I am concerned the current situation is better than nothing, until we have confirmation that he /has/ changed his mind on something specific I'm going to treat the existing WoB as canon? I don't think that is unreasonable.

Part of the problem is there are very few people who actually contribute to the Coppermind. Even those of us who do so consistently can't do as much as we want (I have a list of things I want to get done that is a mile long) so things pile up. My best advice if someone notices something they /know/ is wrong is for them to fix it themselves. Or if you are passionate about a character or bit of lore, write/update the article about it. This is why it is a wiki, so the community can work on it together.

Sorry, I came across more strongly than I wanted to.

As to the Coppermind: every time I've gone there searching for information, I tend to find more than a few things unsourced, and very often there's conflicting WoBs on the things that are sourced. This is likely selection bias on my part - I only head to the Coppermind on things I am uncertain on, and the things I am uncertain on tend to also be obscure/not well known so the Coppermind won't have them.

But for example, on the Hemalurgy page (I visited this earlier trying to find a WoB on Ruin controlling the guy who spiked Spook), it says that an Allomancer burning a spike will have their sDNA welded to the sDNA in the spike. But Brandon's also said you can't burn a Hemalurgic spike unless the sDNA in it came from you (meaning you'd have to be lucky enough to not die...), which conflicts, or is at least misleading and should be mentioned. It mentions that Ruin constructed Hemalurgy with a flaw, when Hemalurgy was not constructed by Ruin. The Coppermind has tons of small things like that, not to mention the big one likes unsourced information on the Adonalsium page talking about how Preservation/Ruin are totally Physical because metal is their focus, which I reported a while back. (The page has since been fixed, which is great, though.)

I itch to start fixing up things like that, but I haven't the slightest clue on what the community standards are for the Coppermind and I know if I start I won't stop because I'll spend hours on it. I'll spend some time on it eventually.

I'm not trying to blame or disparage the Coppermind - it's a great piece of work, and people have put tons of effort into it. I get the difficulties involved with so few people contributing. I still can't 100% trust the information I read on it unless I actually follow the sources there, which I find frustrating. I'd like something I can trust utterly, that I don't have to be critical on when evaluating. The Coppermind is very often good, there's just almost always a few small things that are wrong. I'm being nitpicky, I know. A supplemental encyclopedia or whatever would basically be the Coppermind but better for me. I'd like one for purely psychological reasons.

As to WoBs: I'm not that critical. Again, overstatement on my part. It's definitely fine to take WoBs as mostly canon unless contradicted.

Edited February 10, 2015 by Moogle

[KamorianKandra he/him]

Once the Cosmere is finished, I think it would be cool if they had a section where they talked about all the Cosmere 'easter eggs' hidden in the books. 

[laxrulz777 he/him]

Personally, I'd love to see an annotated notes on the Epigraphs from Stormlight. I think these are a huge untapped resource of secret bits of lore that we'll be making connections on for years (I strongly suspect the fabled "ending of the 10th book" is somewhere in one of the Epigraphs).

[Paragrin she/her]

Given that you can see the ending of HoA in the first epigraph of TFE? I think there's a good chance that there are hints that will seem incredibly obvious in hindsight - probably the Death Rattles, as the other stuff seems either pertinent to the current situation or more cosmere-relevant. Not that there aren't/won't be SA hints in those, too...

[laxrulz777 he/him]

Given that you can see the ending of HoA in the first epigraph of TFE? I think there's a good chance that there are hints that will seem incredibly obvious in hindsight - probably the Death Rattles, as the other stuff seems either pertinent to the current situation or more cosmere-relevant. Not that there aren't/won't be SA hints in those, too...

The only thing that we can predict with confidence is that 99.9% of us will be completely surprised while 50% of us will claim we saw it coming a mile away

[Blaze1616 he/him]

Personally, I'd love to see an annotated notes on the Epigraphs from Stormlight. I think these are a huge untapped resource of secret bits of lore that we'll be making connections on for years (I strongly suspect the fabled "ending of the 10th book" is somewhere in one of the Epigraphs).

 

Given Brandon has said the ending of book 10 is hidden in there, I'd say you're right

[laxrulz777 he/him]

Given Brandon has said the ending of book 10 is hidden in there, I'd say you're right

Q:  The ending of Mistborn was hidden in the first chapter epigraphs. Is there something similar to that in The Way of Kings

A:  There is, but they are hidden in different places. The last chapter of the Stormlight Archive is somewhere in these two books.

 

It sounded like he was specifically hedging that they might not be in the epigraphs... I think Dalinar's visions are the other possibility....

 

I meant to say, however, that I think they're in the Moelachian prophecies specifically... I did have a narrower guess then just "the epigraphs"