This is a blanket Character Sheet for forces throughout The Cosmere, including the Shards of Adonalsium and Hoid. WARNING: As with the Franchise page, this page will not have spoiler tags, and will assume that the reader is familiar with the books in question.

For information on other characters around the Cosmere, see these pages:

Sel
- Elantris
- The Emperor's Soul
Scadrial
- Mistborn: The Original Trilogy
- Wax and Wayne
Nalthis
- Warbreaker
Roshar
- The Stormlight Archive
Threnody
- Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell
Taldain
- White Sand
Lumar
- Tress of the Emerald Sea
Komashi
- Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
Canticle
- The Sunlit Man

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Adonalsium

Holder: Unknown
World: Yolen
Magic: Some form of Lightweaving; unknown others

The original god of the Cosmere, the entity from whom all magic ultimately springs. They were killed long ago on the planet Yolen, but the exact circumstances of their life and death remain unknown.

Divided Deity: Adonalsium ended up being shattered into sixteen Shards, each bearing an aspect of its power and will. The overarching plot of Mistborn: The Original Trilogy, for example, concerns the struggle between the Shard of Preservation and that of Ruin over the world of Scadrial, which ends with both Shards being reunited within a single deity, Harmony, ending the conflict and rebuilding Scadrial.
God Is Dead: They died on Yolen, looong before the start of the story, but there are still a bunch of dysfunctional pieces of it running around.
In Mysterious Ways: Most of the Shardworlds were shaped by them before their death, but when the Shardvessels visited them, they didn't know what Adonalsium had intended them for. In his letter to Hoid in Words of Radiance, Frost claims that Hoid is ruining whatever divine plan they had by stumbling around like a fool.
Kill the God: According to Khriss in Mistborn: Secret History, they were murdered by the sixteen people who became the original Shardvessels. Their killers' motives varied from naked lust for power to a belief that it was the only option left. Dawnshard reveals that this was done by using the titular Dawnshards, which were deific "Commands" that were powerful enough to break apart Adonalsium.
Our Gods Are Different: Someone holding one of their Shards is nigh-omnipotent and practically omniscient, being capable of moving and completely rebuilding planets at a whim, reviving entire species, and remaining aware of nearly everything on their planet. And that's with one-sixteenth of their power. We have no idea what the upper limits of their powers were.
Thanatos Gambit: Given their omniscience and omnipotence, as well as the shaping of the Shardworlds, Frost believes that the Shattering was part of their greater plan for the Cosmere.

Shards of Adonalsium

Note: For ease of reference, we’ll restrict these folders to the original sixteen Shardvessels. Subsequent Shardvessels can be found in the last folder.

Shards in General

The Shards of Adonalsium are both the names for the Pieces of God, and a name for the Shardvessels who now wield their power.

Abstract Apotheosis: Over time, the Shardvessels become one with their Shard's Intent, to the point that they can't act in a way that doesn't fit their nature — for example, Leras, as Preservation, couldn’t kill. This takes time to happen, and a new bearer of a Shard is capable of acting against it, for a time.
Achilles' Heel: All Shards have a built-in weakness. For example, Preservation and Ruin can't properly see metal.
Alien Non-Interference Clause: Apparently the Shards had agreed to all go to different worlds and not interfere with each other. At least three worlds (Scadrial, Roshar, and Sel) attracted two Shards, mainly because of their opposing natures, so we know that didn't work out, even without Odium going on his Cosmere murder trip.
Anthropomorphic Personification: Over time, Shardvessels become this for their Shards. This is also the reason why Rayse refuses to assimilate Shards, as they will change his personality.
Arc Number: Many Shards have a commonly associated number, which is often seeded into the cultures, worlds and even magic systems they control. For instance, Honor (and Roshar in general) is associated with 10, while Odium is associated with 9. Sometimes the connection is deliberate; in the case of Preservation, who purposefully engineered an association with the number 16 as part of his long-running plan to foil Ruin (turning exactly 1/16th of the Snapped Allomancers into an army of atium Mistings).
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Relatively common with Shardvessels, as a result of their Intent eventually ruling everything about their decisions:
- Autonomy values just that, but specifically her autonomy, with little regard for anyone else's.
- Preservation is repeatedly stated to run the risk of being just as dangerous as Ruin if possible, as Preservation's vision of perfection is something static and unchanging. Innocent life, growth, and death do not necessarily factor into this.
- Ruin, as a result of his shard's Intent being transposed onto a kind and generous man, sees the destruction he wreaks as a gift.
- Harmony, who holds both, has great trouble acting at all.
Brainwashed: It's not hostile, but holding a Shard is a constant contest of the Shardvessel's will and Shard's Intent, one that Shard sooner or later will win.
Bystander Syndrome: According to Harmony, the other Shards are well aware of the threat Odium poses to them but as long as he's bound to Roshar, they're content to ignore the possibility that one day he'll escape and come knocking on their doors.
Color Motif: In addition to numbers as above, many Shards also have an associated color, or sometimes several - Honor being blue, Cultivation green, and Preservation and Ruin being a diametrically-opposed white and black respectively, for example.
Deity of Human Origin: What happens when a human/Sho Del/dragon takes up the power of one-sixteenth of God.
Eldritch Abomination/Humanoid Abomination: Upon taking up a Shard, a Shardvessel ceases to exist in the Physical Realm, instead moving onto the Cognitive. While they still have a human body, peeking into the eyes of one means looking into the clearly mind-screwy Spiritual Realm, and their real "bodies" are much greater and more incomprehensible.
God Is Dead: The result when a Shardvessel is killed and the Shard Splintered.
God of Evil: Sort of in the case of villainous Shards. However, it's more whatever the name is than straight up "Evil", including Odium, Ruin, and Dominion.
God of Good: The names of some shards imply this, like Cultivation and Devotion. Proven to be true with Honor, Preservation and, to an extent, Endowment.
God's Hands Are Tied: Every Shard has an Intent, which is right in its name: Preservation will preserve, Honor will be honorable, Ruin will destroy, etc. Acting against this Intent gets harder the longer you hold the Shard, to the point that the original Shardvessels are unable to do anything that doesn't align with their Intent - Ruin can't create, Honor can't backstab, and Preservation is unable to destroy.
Literal Split Personality: Each of the Shards is a fragment of the original Adonalsium, giving the impression that they were each a piece of their personality originally. Moreover, shattering a Shard can result in this, as seen with Seons and spren.
Magically-Binding Contract: If a Shard gives an oath, they cannot break it. Loophole Abuse is totally possible though.
Our Gods Are Different: Each Shard is one-sixteenth of the ultimate deity, capable of making and remaking worlds, but often limited in their control over sapient beings.
Personality Powers: Played With: The way the Intent of the Shard manifests (or is "filtered") in each Shardvessel is related to their personality beforehand. For example, the kind and generous Ati came to view the destruction of the world as a mercy. In addition, some of their pre-Shardvessel personalities, like Odium's, who manifests the worst possible version of his Shard's Intent, and was apparently a Jerkass even before bonding with The Power of Hate, match up well with their Shards. This is also why Odium doesn't assimilate the Shards he defeats; he likes his personality the way it is and doesn't want it to change. In addition, it's been hinted that which Vessel ended up with which Shard wasn't a coincidence.
Pieces of God: The Shattering split Adonalsium into sixteen Shards, each with part of its power and an aspect of its personality. This causes a lot of problems in the Cosmere, since each Shard embodies one personality trait without the others to balance it out. For example, everyone has destructive desires—but when Ati took up the Shard of Ruin, he became nothing but that desire for destruction.
Power Source: Each Shard powers a magic system or occasionally more than one. Specific ones are listed below.
Seers: All Shards have ability to see possible futures to some extent; how well they can do so depends on their Intent. Preservation and Cultivation seem to be the best at it that we have seen.
Was Once a Man: Each Shardvessel's personality is eventually subsumed by their Shard's intent, reducing the original person to little more than their memories.

Ambition (Uli Da)

Shardvessel: Uli Da (formerly), currently none
Shardworld: Unknown
Magic: Unknown

A previously-unknown Shard mentioned by Khriss in Arcanum Unbounded, who was defeated on Threnody by Odium, and then Splintered elsewhere in the Cosmere.

Ambiguously Evil: Endowment remarks in Oathbringer that everyone is probably better off with her dead.
Dead to Begin With: Ambition died long before the start of the main Cosmere story, shortly after the Shattering of Adonalsium itself. While Odium defeated her in the Threnodite system, it is unclear who dealt the final blow.
Sacrificial Lion: Odium's first victim, it would seem; and being a Shard, she’s unlikely to be a weakling. Word of God threw some wrinkles into this when questioned: Ambition was first on Odium's hit list, but was not found until after Devotion and Dominion were Splintered.
Token Nonhuman: While not the only non-human Vessel, she is so far the only Vessel confirmed to be a Sho Del (by Word of God).
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The battle between Ambition, Mercy, and Odium is why Threnody is so screwed up.

Autonomy (Bavadin)

Autonomy

Shardvessel: Bavadin, numerous others
Shardworld: Taldain, with confirmed avatars on First of the Sun, Obrodai, and Scadrial
Magic: Sand Mastery, Starmarks, the Aviar, possibly others

A Shard mentioned for the first time in the First Letter in The Way of Kings, Autonomy is rather isolationist, and has sealed off her world to prevent interactions with the rest of the Cosmere. Despite this, she has set up numerous avatars of herself on other Shardworlds, and is now making a play for Scadrial in particular.

Affably Evil: What we see of her in The Lost Metal is a quite polite being, who has a sense of honor and respect for people who can successfully oppose her. She's also an aggressively expansionist tyrant who has no respect for those that don't live up to her standards.
Ambiguous Gender Identity: While the base Shardholder, Bavadin, is explicitly a woman, due to the Shard's propensity for making new avatars, Autonomy can be either male, female, or neither depending on the current avatar one is interacting with.
Ambiguously Human: As she can make avatars out of both any sentient follower of hers as well as Splinters of her own Investiture, Autonomy may not necessarily be human depending on the avatar faced, as shown by the island of Patji. For that matter, Bavadin herself has not yet had her original species revealed.
Badass Army: Commands an army of gold-skinned humanoids with glowing red eyes, wielding advanced weaponry - the "Men of Red and Gold". It hasn't been seen in action, but no one with any information about it questions that they would be able to easily conquer Scadrial.
Complexity Addiction: In line with her Intent, she is fond of followers who can prove themselves to her, in particular those who make big, complex plans to achieve even bigger ambitions. It is through this that Telsin Ladrian convinces her to spare Scadrial instead of outright destroying it, by proposing a grand plan to completely dominate its people instead.
Divine Conflict: She is currently in conflict with the composite Shard Harmony for the planet Scadrial, where she is the aggressor, seeing Scadrial as a threat to her, thanks to it's technological advancement. Her intent - to either destroy Scadrial entirely with an off-world army, or to dominate its people with her minions, the Set, led by her prospective avatar, Telsin Ladrian.
Early-Bird Cameo: Mentioned in the First Letter as a Shardvessel that Hoid (the author of said letter) has a grudge against, and mentioned in the same sentence as Rayse, which makes it quite some cameo.
Emissary from the Divine: The first of two ways she creates her Avatars - by granting chosen followers of hers a portion of her power. Case in point, Telsin Ladrian.
Genius Loci: As the island of Patji on First of the Sun.
Greater-Scope Villain: She takes the stage as the divine mastermind behind the Set in the second era of Mistborn, engaged in a secret proxy war with Harmony for the planet Scadrial, although she remains in the background and her followers serve as the more active threats in the series.
Hidden Elf Village: Patji is considered well hidden and insignificant even among her many other avatars. They are genuinely surprised that Hoid is able to find them on First of the Sun at all.
Hypocrite:
- Khriss mentions that while Autonomy sealed off Taldain to prevent travel to or from the world, she still interferes on other Shardworlds.
- She preaches the value of self-reliance and individuality… as long as you follow her plan. Everything must serve her, you just have a lot of freedom in how.
  Moonlight: You see these buildings? These houses? All pieces of a larger art installation. The grand creation is impressive, but it's not yours. This kind of pattern, and those straight lines, those reflective panels … that’s from a Taldain movement known as brutalism. That's part of what I hate about Autonomy. She claims she wants everyone to be individual. Gives them each a little house that is distinctive from the others, but only in a way that fits her plan, her desires. It's fake individualism. A corporate uniqueness. Like an advertisement telling people to go their own way, be their own person—by buying this product like everyone else.
- She is a patron of science and technology, pushing her worlds forward and sharing what she knows of technology with her people. Yet the second she feels like Scadrial is advancing too quickly she declares that the entire planet needs to be destroyed.
Ineffectual Loner: Autonomy's teachings can produce this effect in her followers, especially when the need for individuality leads to conflict within her organizations.
I Have Many Names: Autonomy or Shards thereof is known on other Shardsworlds as Patji on First of the Sun, Trell on Scadrial, and has a budding female avatar on Obrodai.
Individuality Is Illegal: Played with. On paper, individuality is mandatory. Any person or organization that attracts attention to itself and has become too generic will be challenged until it either changes or is destroyed. However, in practice, individuality is only allowed as long as it is to her personal liking.
Kill the God: She’s confirmed by Word of God to have had some hand in Odium's splintering of Devotion and Dominion.
Leave Me Alone!: Her core Shardic Intent is ultimately to remain individual; to divide herself from the other Shards. All of her actions, including the making of Avatars, are driven by this motivation. Her god metal Bavadinium, also known as Trellium, notably repels other forms of Investiture, particularly other god metals, much like a magnet.
- Her Obrodai avatar in particular is instilled with an intense dislike of Hoid to keep him from traveling there, and she makes it clear that, unless he travels to First of the Sun and passes her tests there, he shouldn't expect any further communications from her.
Manipulative Bastard: Despite (or rather, because of) her individualistic drive, she's prone to interfering with other worlds, and she's behind entire pantheons on Taldain. She even supposedly had a hand in the plot to destroy the Sand Masters as the Sand Lord, using the traitorous Elorin as a pawn. She is enacting grand plans on Scadrial , to result in either the planet's destruction or total domination by her chosen follower Telsin Ladrian.
Only the Worthy May Pass:
- She chooses her followers and prospective avatars from those who can prove themselves to her, and is partial to those who are bold, and can make great accomplishments.
- Tells Hoid through Patji that if he wants her knowledge, he will have to pass the trials that her avatar has devised on First of the Sun.
Path of Inspiration: Her modus operandi for infiltrating other worlds - she seeds other planets with false religions and pantheons, such as Trelagism/Trellism on Scadrial. These seeds are left dormant until she decides to act on them, establishing new Avatars through their "gods" and initiating a forceful takeover with the religions' gathered followers. It is no accident that this inclination of hers now calls into question nearly every seemingly mundane religion in the cosmere. Fans have noticed the uncanny similarities between the hierarchy of Shu-Dereth and the hierarchy of the Trellism-based Set. In response, Word of God indeed heavily implies that Jaddeth, the Derethi god of the Fjordell Empire, whose followers seem unusually certain about his impending return, is another such plant.
Pieces of God: 1/16th of Adonalsium like the rest of the Shards, but Autonomy's also created numerous Splinters. While other Shards share that ability, Autonomy's nature makes these Splinters much more capable, becoming full on self-aware Avatars of her being. Case in point, the island of Patji.
Planetary Parasite: A divine, much more far reaching version of this that doesn't harm the planet itself, but rather its divinities. Unlike Rayse, her idea of gaining power greater than other Shards is to forge avatars across the Cosmere, thereby taking control of various Shards' worlds. It is explained in The Lost Metal.
Moonlight: Autonomy is trying to outcompete the others by filling the cosmere with versions of herself. Crowd out the competition, so to speak. Like an extremely invasive plant moving into another ecosystem and strangling the local varieties.
Promotion, Not Punishment: She believes in this strongly if the defiant action they took succeeded. If not, well…
The Power of the Sun: Her magic is Invested into sand by sunlight, turning it white. When the sand's power is used up, it turns black and takes four hours of sunlight to recharge.
Red Baron: Known as the Sand Lord on Taldain.
Samus Is a Girl: The first time Bavadin has been mentioned, it was in the same sentence as Rayse, giving her instant rep. This being said, until Arcanum Unbounded confirmed her gender, she’d been assumed to be a man.
Send in the Clones: This is her strategy on a cosmic front. She intends to dominate the Cosmere by usurping other planet's Investiture through Splinters, including taking the place of the original Shard if there was one.
She Is the King: The Sand Masters worship her as the "Sand Lord"; then again, given her propensity for assuming different genders, she might very well be male for them.
Sky Face: Heavily implied to manifest as a female face subtly hidden in the clouds overseeing the events of White Sand.
The Social Darwinist: Bavadin believes heavily in competition for power, often imposes her will on places she believe she needs to, need defined exclusively by her, and has no respect for those who fail her standards of "deserving" their own Autonomy. It should be noted that this is not just empty rhetoric, if someone actually does live up to her standards, she can display genuine respect for them, and will even leave them alone. For a time.
Special Snowflake Syndrome: This can come to afflict regions under her influence, though she herself claims this is a misunderstanding of her Intent. This can be particularly seen on Scadriel, where the city of Bilming demonstrates mass produced individuality in architecture... all in the same Brutalist style.
Two Aliases, One Character: Exaggerated — there are entire pantheons where every single deity is actually Bavadin.
Villain Respect: For how much her social darwinist tendencies are a justification for her own imperialistic expansion, she does have respect for the people who live up to her standards. In The Lost Metal when Wax asks what will get her to leave Scadrial alone, her response is a simple "Prove you deserve it". When they do, Bavadin releases the power she had building up around the planet, with it respect notably eminating from it, albeit a begrudging respect.
Villain Team-Up: Word of Brandon indicates that she has some form of alliance with the Big Bad of Greater Roshar, Odium, and she herself, from what little we see/hear of her and her avatars, is very much not a nice person. It is confirmed she had some hand in assisting Odium's murders of Devotion and Dominion (Of course, had Odium not been trapped on Braize, he would've immediately attempted to betray her).
You Have Failed Me: She greatly rewards success. She also severely punishes failure.
Young and in Charge: Her female avatar on Obrodai is apparently youthful, at least by divine standards.

Cultivation (Koravellium Avast)

Cultivation

Shardvessel: Koravellium Avast
Shardworld: Roshar
Magic: Surgebinding, Old Magic

"I control all things that can be grown, nurtured. That includes the thorns."

A female Shardvessel whose powers include divine foresight. She's worshipped by people of western Roshar, but by the time of The Way of Kings, she has all but withdrawn from mankind at least overtly. Word of God is that she’s a dragon.

Achilles in His Tent: Apparently Tanavast's death has shaken her to the core, to the point that she has withdrawn and lost all interest in humanity. Or at least that's what people think. Oathbringer and particularly Rhythm of War demonstrate that her grief is real, but that she is simply playing the long game for revenge.
A Form You Are Comfortable With: She seems to prefer to project a human image rather than take on her natural draconic shape. The fact that Roshar has no native dragons might be part of the reason for that.
All There in the Manual: We only learn her name in an art page for Rhythm of War.
Best Served Cold: It took her centuries to arrange the death of Rayse for murdering her husband. But she did, it was brutal, and he never saw it coming. At the very least, she may have manipulating events for 400 plus years just to ensure the right weapon was available at the right time for the right person.
Chekhov's Gun: Creates them as part of far-seeing Xanatos Speed Chess. She has directly touched three mortals we know of: Dalinar, Taravangian, and Lift. Two of those guns have gone off dramatically.
The Chessmaster: As befits one of the best seers among the Shards. She's been plotting Rayse's downfall and the apotheosis of a new Odium for many years now, and gave Taravangian, Dalinar, and Lift specific gifts long ago to achieve it.
The Dreaded: She is the main reason Odium still holds back from making bigger, more daring plays, despite clearly being able to do so with relative ease. For one, Odium could've easily Splintered the Stormfather after infiltrating Dalinar's visions, but chose not to out of fear of retaliation by Cultivation.
God Couple: She and Tanavast, Honor's holder, were apparently romantically involved.
In Mysterious Ways: Befitting her name, her contributions to the grander Roshar plot involve casting out many seemingly inconsequential seeds that bear fruit exactly when they are needed, to grand and world-changing consequences.
- In Oathbringer, she foresaw that if she left Dalinar alone, he would go insane from grief, kill Elhokar, and lead the Alethi to conquer the continent. She pruned his memories to give him the opportunity to become a better man, knowing that Odium could give those memories back to him at the worst time to break him. Instead, she gave Dalinar back his memories shortly before Odium would have done so, giving him time to overcome them and thus reject Odium's control, leading to the hateful Shard's first decisive defeat in the main series.
- The second of her chosen seeds, Taravangian, was personally blessed to randomly vary his intelligence and emotion (in an inverse relationship) each day. At first, this blessing seems oddly detrimental to the side of good, as it results in him engineering a secret conspiracy actively at odds with the Knights Radiant, not to mention him being intimidated into siding with Odium on an emotional day. Only in Rhythm of War is his divine purpose revealed - Odium is lured into an elaborate trap by getting close to Taravangian on his most emotional day with Nightblood nearby. This allows him to kill his Vessel Rayse with the sword and become the next Odium, and Cultivation personally reveals to him that she had been grooming him for this exact purpose.
Interspecies Romance: She was married to Tanavast, who was originally a human.
The Mentor: Takes up teaching Taravangian on how to use his new powers as the next Odium.
Mother Nature: Cultivation-connected spren are by and large nature spren, and "her" side of the Radiant wheel includes the ability to grow plants and Healing Hands. Wyndle also refers to her (or the Nightwatcher, it's not totally clear which) as Mother. Interestingly, so does Dalinar, at least when he's actually talking to her. Some Rosharan cultures, particularly eastern ones, refer to her as such as well. For example, Shallan refers to her period as an annoying signal from Mother Cultivation.
Mother of a Thousand Young: Not evil as much as somewhat neglectful, but nature spren call her Mother - for a reason, as they're her Splinters.
Mysterious Backer: She touched Dalinar, Taravangian, and Lift as part of her plans. More worryingly, at the end of Rhythm of War she has offered to become Taravangian's mentor as the new Odium.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Her plan to kill Rayse is successful, but now someone possibly even more dangerous, Taravangian, holds the Shard of Odium.
Our Dragons Are Different: Hoid heavily implies, and Word of God later confirms, that she is a dragon.
The Lost Lenore: Appears to have one in Tanavast.
Pieces of God: The nature-based spren come from her.
Seers: And, according to Tanavast, she’s better at it than he is, presumably because her Intent of Cultivation revolves around nurturing things to grow into more in the future. One of the best Shards at seeing the future. We never get to compare her directly with Preservation, but their Intents have the same forward-looking focus.
Token Non-Human: She’s the only Shardvessel confirmed to be a dragon.
Tough Love: Implied to feel this way. She lets the Nightwatcher deal with humans on her own so that she can better understand humanity and, instead of magically changing Dalinar into a better person, took away Dalinar's memories until he became strong enough on his own to confront his sins.
Cultivation: This will be your boon. I will not make of you the man you can become. I will not give you the aptitude, or the strength, nor will I take from you your compulsions. But I will give you... a pruning. A careful excision to let you grow. The cost will be high.
Troll: While she does supervise the Nightwatcher, for the most part she lets her do as she pleases, handing out the strangest curses to those seeking her counsel.
Xanatos Speed Chess: Her ability to see the future lets her play this out over centuries. Instead of trying to ensure a single path to victory she throws out many seeds, knowing that some will come to fruition.

Devotion (Aona)

Devotion

Shardvessel: Aona (formerly); currently none
Shardworld: Sel
Magic: AonDor, ChayShan, Hrovell potioncraft, Forgery, unknown others

The female Shardvessel of Devotion, Aona was killed and Devotion Splintered prior to the beginning of Elantris by Rayse/Odium. She's mainly revered in the Arelon/Teod region of Sel, and her Splinters are known as Seons.

Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": In-universe. Selish people call her Domi, which while looking like a derivative of Dominion actually comes from the Aon Omi, which means Love.
God Couple: Zig-zagged - she and Skai went to Sel together, but Word of God suggests that their partnership could be more business-like in nature.
God Is Dead: She's been Splintered by Rayse as part of his agenda to leave himself the sole Shard of the Cosmere.
Literal Split Personality: The Seons are tiny Splinters, and all that remains of her.
Love Goddess: Devotion implies this heavily, although interpretations such as patriotism are also given. It's implied that those chosen to become Elantrians are particularly caring about something.
Not Quite Dead: Something of her still lingers, as evidenced by the voice telling Raoden to give in at the end of Elantris.
Posthumous Character: She and Skai were killed by Rayse before the events of Elantris.

Dominion (Skai)

Dominion

Shardvessel: Skai (formerly); currently none
Shardworld: Sel
Magic: Dakhor, Bloodsealing, unknown others

The female Shardvessel of Dominion, Skai was killed and Dominion Splintered prior to the beginning of Elantris by Rayse/Odium. Her religious power base is mostly focused in Fjordell's sphere of influence, and her counterpart to Seons are Skaze.

Balance Between Good and Evil: It would appear that the reason she didn't go off the rails like Ruin or Odium did is because she and Devotion complemented each other better than Preservation did with Ruin and Honor did with Odium.
Evil Counterpart: Dominion's actual personality and alignment are unknown, but the magics stemming from this Shard (namely Dakhor and to some extent the Skaze) seem to be dark versions of AonDor.
Fisher Kingdom: Since Dominion relates to control of a land or country, it's implied to be related to why magic systems on Sel are related to various nationalities and lands, like how only people from MaiPon can use Forgery and why maps of MaiPon are on the backs of soulstamps, and why the Aons draw from geography.
God Couple: Implied to be more of a co-worker with Aona, but all bets are off.
God Is Dead: Splintered along with Aona.
Literal Split Personality: The only remains of her are the Skaze.
Obviously Evil: Called Dominion, presides over Blood Magic, her Splinters are pitch black and want to destroy Arelon. Her saving grace is the fact that she's dead, and that Odium is (presumably) more evil than she is.
Posthumous Character: She and Aona were killed by Rayse before the events of Elantris.

Endowment (Edgli)

Endowment

Shardvessel: Edgli
Shardworld: Nalthis
Magic: BioChroma/Awakening

The only Shard on Nalthis, the source of the Returned and the magic of Awakening. She doesn't interfere directly, but tries to have some influence on Nalthis by choosing people to Return with missions to steer the world clear of apocalyptic dangers, or just nudge it in the right direction.

All There in the Manual: Her name and gender come from Word of God.
Back from the Dead: She can bring people back to life.
Cozy Voice for Catastrophes: Apparently Endowment's voice is "calm and comforting" after someone dies, soothingly offering some a chance to Return.
The Ghost: Referred to under many names by Nalthis' people, and heard only in a flashback. Her only appearance in other books is in the epigraphs of Oathbringer. While she does physically appear (confirmed by Word of God) as one of four Shard mist spirits in the released alternate ending of Well of Ascension, saving Sazed from Marsh, this is no longer canon, and she has not physically appeared in any canon Cosmere works as of yet.
God of Good: She Returns people to save the world from catastrophes, and is genuinely reassuring and comforting when speaking to the dead.
No Sympathy: In her letter to Hoid in Oathbringer, she expresses none for Skai, Aona, or Uli Da (explicitly stating that the latter's death was "good riddance") for breaking their pact not to settle close to one another.
Pieces of God: The "Divine Breath" that powers the Returned is a Splinter, but Endowment herself is not known to be fully Splintered.
Seers: She appears to possess fairly solid ability to see the future, as that's the basis on which she offers recently deceased people a chance to Return.
The Voice: Never seen in Warbreaker, only heard by those who Return.

Honor (Tanavast)

Honor

Shardvessel: Tanavast (formerly); currently none
Shardworld: Roshar
Magic: Surgebinding

"You must unite them. Unite them. The sun approaches the horizon. The Everstorm comes. The True Desolation. The Night of Sorrows. I cannot fight him any longer."

Worshipped as a god by the people of eastern Roshar, Honor is the source of ten Surges and used to be Cultivation's partner. He managed to bind Odium to Greater Roshar to stop him from murdering Shards, and was eventually killed in Odium's attempt to break free. Fortunately, whatever he did, it's holding even after his death.

Arc Number: Ten. Ten Heralds, ten Surges, ten times ten Desolations he trapped Odium in, and his symbol is often constructed by ten points.
Arc Symbol: Double Eye, an eye with two connected pupils.
Big Good: Or at least he was, until Odium killed him. He's trying to shape Dalinar Kholin into fulfilling this role for him in his absence.
Catchphrase: "Unite them," a more serious example than most.
The Chosen Many: Has them in ten Heralds.
Enigmatic Empowering Entity: He's the one who created the Heralds and the Honorblades, and he apparently powers Surgebinding.
Fling a Light into the Future: His visions to Dalinar are meant to be this, warning of Odium.
God Couple: Apparently, he and Cultivation were an item.
God of Order: One of the two Shards that represent order, specifically making and upholding oaths and agreements.
Handicapped Badass: Metaphorical. He started off with just as much power as other Shards, but because of his Investment into Roshar, he's less powerful than uninvested Odium. He still manages to hold it back, even posthumously.
Heroic Sacrifice: The Oathpact, which bound Odium in Greater Roshar and stopped him from taking a Cosmere Murder Road Trip, is his doing, and ultimately led to his demise.
Honor Before Reason: His magic system grants the powers of Surgebinding to those who swear oaths and keep them, despite any issues they may have with them.
I Have Many Names: Almighty, Honor, Tanavast, and according to the ardents, Elithanathile (He Who Transforms).
Like a God to Me: The people of Alethkar, Roshar, worship him as "the Almighty."
The Lost Lenore: Appears to be one to Cultivation. Rare Male Example.
Nice Guy: Seems to be one. Honorable, worried about the state of affairs, willingly sacrifices himself to stop Odium form wrecking the Cosmere, bought Hoid a drink once. He's also one of the few people Hoid speaks about with only friendliness, which is saying something, given the man's typical Deadpan Snarker tendencies.
Pieces of God: The emotion-based spren are what remains of him.
Posthumous Character: The entire mess that befalls Roshar largely started because he died thousands of years ago. His biggest direct impact on the story so far are his visions to Dalinar.
Sanity Slippage: The Heralds breaking the Oathpact appears to have hit him pretty hard. By the time of the Recreance, he was apparently raving and babbling.
Seers: He can see the future, but he isn't very good at it.
The Voice: For most of his appearances, he's the voice in Dalinar's visions.

Invention

Shardvessel: Unknown
Shardworld: Unknown
Magic: Unknown

A Shard first mentioned by Harmony in the epigraphs of Rhythm of War. Apparently elusive, Harmony was unable to track them down after their first contact.

Ambiguous Gender Identity: Their gender has not been revealed yet.
The Ghost: To date, they’ve only been mentioned in Rhythm of War, in a letter from Harmony to Hoid.

Mercy

Shardvessel: Unknown
Shardworld: Unknown
Magic: Unknown

A Shard first mentioned by Harmony in the epigraphs of Rhythm of War, revealed to have taken part in the battle between Odium and Ambition.

Ambiguous Gender Identity: Their gender has not been revealed yet.
Ambiguously Evil: Mercy is mentioned as having fought in the battle between Ambition and Odium, but it’s left unclear which side they were on. In his letter, Harmony also mentions that they worry him, but that’s all we have to go on.
The Ghost: To date, they’ve only been mentioned in Rhythm of War, in a letter from Harmony to Hoid.
Noodle Incident: Was a participant in the battle between Ambition and Odium on Threnody.

Odium (Rayse)

Odium

Shardvessels: Rayse (formerly), Taravangian
Shardworld: Braize
Magic: Voidbinding

"I am emotion incarnate. I am the soul of the spren and of men. I am lust, joy, hatred, anger, and exultation. I am glory and I am vice. I am the very thing that makes men men."

The holder of the Shard of Odium (hatred). As a man, Rayse was cruel, and taking the Shard of Odium has only made him worse. He is the most dangerous of the 16 Shardvessels, and has been set up as the Big Bad of The Stormlight Archive, along with being the Greater-Scope Villain of the larger Cosmere. The following mostly refers to Odium when it is under Rayse's control.

Anger Is Not Enough: He is in possession of Adonalsium's divine hatred, but lacks the other components that have its perspective, resulting in his behavior.
Arc Number: Seems to be associated with nine, his Unmade numbering nine, his champion will have nine shadows, his Everstorm passing every nine days...
Bad Powers, Bad People: According to Hoid, he was already a Jerkass before bonding to the Cosmic Principle Of Hatred.
Big Bad: Of The Stormlight Archive, or at least appears to be, as well as the Greater-Scope Villain of the Cosmere as a whole. In Rhythm of War, the Shard remains the Big Bad, but Rayse is killed and Taravangian has taken his place as Shardvessel.
Book Burning: Several of his Unmade focus on destroying books and records, to the point that the Radiants had to invent an entirely new information-storage method to make sure something would survive. He also burns Dalinar's copy of The Way of Kings when he sees that Dalinar is finding strength in it.
Cold-Blooded Torture: When the Heralds tried to seal him away on Braize, he promptly subjected all of them to torture until they broke and released him back onto Roshar. Every time they tried to re-seal him he did it again. Eventually only Taln died, and the others did not go to Braize. Odium attempted to torture Taln into breaking, but was unable to, but still tortured him until he was nothing but a hollowed out shell. Odium will also subject his Fused to eternal torture should they defy him.
Color Motif: Red, especially when it comes to eyes, and white/gold.
The Corrupter: His modus operandi. Rather than outright destroy everything like Ruin, he prefers to twist and subvert things into serving him. He does this by forcibly bonding people with his Voidspren, or having his Unmade magnify negative traits like bloodlust and greed to pathological levels.
Dirty Coward:
- Why he'll agree to Combat by Champion; if there's a real chance he can be hurt, he'll throw out a champion to buy time and wait a bit before trying again. He refuses to meet with anyone when they might have any advantage over him, which is why he only causes trouble for Dalinar in his visions. Once Dalinar turns the tables on him in Oathbringer, Odium loses his smug attitude and runs for the hills.
- Earlier in Oathbringer, the Stormfather explains that if Odium put forth his full power, he could easily destroy the Stormfather beyond all hope of recovery. But doing so would leave him open to a strike from Cultivation, and he doesn't dare risk even a momentary vulnerability.
Disc-One Final Boss: Rayse is hyped up as the main villain for Cosmere as a whole, having killed several Shardvessels and Splintered their Shards across the entire Cosmere, but doesn't achieve much in the present day before he's killed off in book four of the ten books of The Stormlight Archive to make way for the much smarter Taravangian as the next holder of Odium.
Divine Conflict: With every other Shard, but most notably Tanavast.
The Dreaded: Everyone who knows about him is terrified of him, and even those unconcerned only are that way out of the consolation that he is trapped in Greater Roshar. He, in turn, finds Harmony to be this.
Emotion Eater: He can feed off of someone's emotions, so long as those emotions feed their pain and anguish. This is part of how he controls his servants, as he first puts them in a position where they feel intense emotional turmoil and pain, and then takes that pain away, and in the process binds that person to him. He "returns" the pain when it is most likely to break them or otherwise make them more useful to him.
Establishing Character Moment: His first appearance in Oathbringer has him intrude into one of Dalinar's visions, then sit down and politely talk with Dalinar about himself and his intentions, all while hundreds of men are slaughtering each other only a few yards away with abandoned Shardblades.
Eternal Recurrence: Was deliberately trapped in a cycle of this on Roshar, where he repeatedly destroys civilization but is unable to move on to threaten the Cosmere as a whole.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He is blindsided when Dalinar accepts all the horrible things he did instead of putting the blame on Odium, which allows the latter to swear his next Ideal and change the momentum of the battle.
- Frost posits in the Second Letter in Words of Radiance that the main problem with Rayse is that he holds Adonalsium's divine hatred, but lacks everything that gave that hatred perspective back when it was just one of Adonalsium's sixteen facets.
Evil Is Petty: His Everstorm seems to go out of its way to cause damage and hurt people, even seeming to specifically target Talenel's temple as revenge for delaying the Desolations so much, and his whole motivation for siding with the listeners/singers against humanity seems to be revenge for the humans abandoning him to follow Honor and Cultivation.
Eviler than Thou: Killed Skai and Splintered Dominion as part of his attempt to keep others from rising against him.
Evil Former Friend: Word of God is that he and Hoid used to be friends.
Evil Is Sterile: Implied. His servants are generally just beings he corrupted, and most of his creations are imitations of other things, like Voidbinding just seeming to be a modified version of Surgebinding that's powered by Voidlight and has slightly different uses for the Surges.
Evil Old Folks: Tends to take the shape of an elderly man when appearing to his followers.
Evil Only Has to Win Once: Due to the nature of the Oathpact, he only has to win once via a champion in order to escape imprisonment and resume his Shard murder spree. In Oathbringer, he seems to be actively trying to circumvent the Oathpact in order to make sure it cannot be continued.
Exact Words: Defied. He explictly states that agreements with him will embody the spirit of the word, and that he won't try to subvert them. This is purely pragmatic however, as he needs to make an agreement with his enemies to leave Roshar, and him breaking his word would result in him being rendered vulnerable enough for Cultivation to kill him.
Odium: I am no fool, and you are a man of honor. We will both approach this contest in good faith, Dalinar. This isn't some deal with a Voidbringer from your myths, where one tricks the other with some silly twist of language.
Faux Affably Evil: Rayse takes on the appearance of a kindly old man, and puts on a fatherly demeanor, but he truly only cares about ruling over everyone, with no regard for how many have to die to make that happpen. If he begins to see setbacks, he drops the facade and reveals himself to be not much more than a hateful bully.
Gambit Pileup: He has engineered a very thematic one. Millenia of effort have gone into ensuring that everyone involved in the conflict on Roshar has genuinely good reasons to hate each other and real grievances besides. It makes cooperation and honorable action very difficult, and peace nearly impossible.
God of Evil: Downplayed. Odium claims he's the god of all emotions, not just hatred. Taravangian's view of the Shard's true nature proves that this is correct, but that while all emotions are part of his Intent he's linked more to hatred than any other. While one could make an argument that hatred is not evil in itself, Rayse himself definitely fits the evil part, as he murders other Shards, causes countless wars, and plans to enslave all life on Roshar to use to wage war on the rest of the Cosmere.
Good Needs Evil: Inverted as "Evil needs Good." Frost posits that the main problem with Rayse is that he holds Adonalsium's divine Hatred, but lacks everything that gave that Hatred perspective back when it was just one of Adonalsium's sixteen facets.
The Ghost: While his actions are felt throughout The Way Of Kings and Words of Radiance, he doesn't appear in person until Oathbringer when he intrudes on one of Dalinar's visions.
Greater-Scope Villain: He is set up as the most significant evil presence in the Cosmere, and his actions have caused a lot of the problems seen on the other Shardworlds, even if he wasn't directly influencing their events. To be more specific, he is all but outright said to be responsible for the damage inflicted to Sel, and he’s Splintered at least four other Shards (Aona, Skai, Tanavast and Uli Da).
Hate Plague: Some of his Unmade cause this on the scale of cities, or even countries. The Thrill, for example, was caused by Nergaol and made violence literally addictive throughout all of Alethkar.
Hypocrite: At the end of Oathbringer, he brags about being more trustworthy than the supposedly Lawful Stupid Honor, since he supposedly obeys both the word and the spirit of bargains struck. The perceptive reader may note that it wasn't that many chapters ago that he pulled an Exact Words on Dalinar...
- Earlier, he claims the other Shards aren't doing a good job managing their worlds. Considering the problems he's caused on his Cosmere murder spree, like the damage to Threnody and the state of the Cognitive Realm on Sel, as well as the humans that followed him apparently devastating Ashyn before they came to Roshar, it's clear that he doesn't have a base to stand on here.
- He also claims to be on the side of the Listeners in reclaiming Roshar, but not only was he humanity's original god, he is perfectly willing to use humans to achieve his goals, and doesn't seem to care about the lives of the non-Fused.
- Odium also claims that he is truthful and honest, but only shows up and makes arguments in settings where he is able to use his immense powers to manipulate the environment to suit his arguments.
I Gave My Word: He says he will fulfill not just the letter but also the spirit of his promises. It's almost certainly a lie, considering he only negotiates when he has the upper hand, and admits it openly.
Immortals Fear Death: The only being he's scared of is Harmony, as it's the only Shard powerful enough to be capable of Splintering him.
- This is why the Oathpact even works. He had been wounded before, presumably during his Shard-killing efforts, so when provoked the right way, he'll appoint a champion rather than fight himself to avoid drawing out any forces that could seriously injure or even Splinter him, so he can try again later.
- He also rightfully fears Nightblood and makes sure to try and secure it during the climax of Oathbringer, since it is one of the few ways to kill a Shardvessel.
Insistent Terminology: He is not merely hate, he is Passion, thank you very much.
It's All About Me: Oh yes. In his view, there's no room for anyone other than him. He even takes credit for all of Dalinar's horrible crimes, when all Odium did was drive him into a state where he'd be more likely to commit them. It's actually what clues in Dalinar that Odium is not infallible; Odium's bragging and showing off meant that he not only had an ego, but he could be manipulated.
Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: After being initally built up as a force of destruction, when he first appears in Oathbringer he establishes himself to Dalinar as an intelligent being, and says that he's benevolent, and is the only diety that truly cares and understands. However it becomes clear that this is an act and that Odium only cares about dominating, with his "understanding" of Dalinar is just that Dalinar only committed his atrocities because of Odium, which places Dalinar as a slave of Odium who has no agency nor opportunity to atone.
Killed Off for Real: Rayse, though not the shard of Odium, is killed by Taravangian in Rhythm of War, using Nightblood, which is known to kill Spiritual concepts.
Kill the God: His entire schtick is murdering Shards. Then turned back on Rayse when Taravangian uses Nightblood to kill him.
Light Is Not Good: Three of the forms he takes are an old man dressed in gold and white finery, a singer with white and gold marbled skin, and a bright, burning light, heavy emphasis on the burning part. Many of his Voidspren also take on the appearance of golden figures.
Made of Evil: He's a giant mass of hate. He argues that it is more than just hate though. The Stormfather tells Dalinar that despite what he claims, he doesn't have a Shardic monopoly on passion.
- In Rhythm of War, there appears to be some form of internal conflict within Odium. Specifically, the intelligent, scheming Rayse is in conflict with the brutal and intense Shard of Odium. Both want to do different evil things, and this pushes him to act in different ways.
Mind Rape: When Rayse wants to make someone his, he will play on every psychological weakness he can. This is first seen with him dredging up all of Dalinar's painful memories to try and get Dalinar to submit, and later when he forces Kaladin into visions that invoke his feeling about him failing to protect his friends.
More than Mind Control: He can control Voidbringers via his spren, but in contrast to Ruin he doesn't give direct commands. Instead their personalities are warped, such that their emotions and inclinations support the kinds of action he wants. It fits with his overall theme of corruption: he isn't Dominion after all.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Aside from "Odium", we have Rayse, which sounds similar to "Raze".
- Odium himself expresses mixed feelings towards his Shard's name, believing hatred to be too narrow of a focus for his Realmatic Intent.
Never My Fault: He actively cultivates this attitude in people, since if they blame him (as the cosmic embodiment of uncontrollable emotion) for their bad decisions, it means that they've implicitly given over their agency to him.
No Honor Among Thieves: Word of Brandon confirms that had Odium not been trapped in Greater Roshar, he would've double-crossed and tried to kill Bavadin/Autonomy next (which in itself indirectly confirms they have some form of alliance).
Not So Above It All: As Taravangian realizes in Rhythm of War, he not only is able to be tricked even by a dumber Taravangian, but he is also lonely due to having so few people with whom he can both relate and converse, as well as rather prideful in his habit of showing off his plans. Furthermore, having seen Nightblood in action at Theylan Field left him utterly terrified of the sword, as it can irrevocably kill spren (and by extension Shardvessels).
Physical Hell: He runs one on Braize, a marginally habitable planet farther out in Greater Roshar. As described by one of the Fused it is cold, dark, and inhabited by a lot of souls who are not particularly sane.
Pieces of God: The voidspren and the Unmade are bits of him.
Punny Name: In a meta sense. He has spent seven thousand years perpetuating an existential conflict between the Parsh and Humans of Roshar. A Rayse War, if you will.
Purple Is Powerful: His Voidlight is sometimes depicted as violet, and one of his Unmade can bond with people in a way that causes them to grow Amethyst out of their body.
The Power of Hate: Quite literally, considering how he's made of the divine wrath. Lampshaded by Adolin Kholin in Rhythm of War.
Adolin: He hates Honor. Well, I guess he hates everything. It's kind of in the name...
Satanic Archetype: Rayse is a prideful and deceitful being who is the resident evil deity of Roshar, contrasted against the more benevolent Honor. He's confined to the Rosharan version of Hell, a barren waste where he conducts torture and commands an army of what are envisioned as demons. He also has a penchant for corrupting people, and while you can negiotiate with him, he will always try to make the deals benefit him the most.
Sealed Evil in a Can: The whole Eternal Recurrence on Roshar was deliberately engineered to trap him there and prevent him from continuing on his cosmic rampage. Additionally, even after he escapes his seal on Braize and returns to Roshar, Rayse is still sealed in the Rosharan system, his main goal in the series being to break that seal and escape to the greater Cosmere.
Seers: His servants are associated so heavily with foresight that it's become a taboo to try and predict the future, even via mundane means. That said, his own ability is said to only let him view things cloudily by the Stormfather.
Serial Killer: Has shades of this, having killed at least four Shardvessels.
There Can Be Only One: His endgame is becoming the only Shard in the Cosmere.
Too Clever by Half: Despite his divinity and far-reaching plans, Rayse can be tricked, as Taravangian learns on one of his dumb days in Rhythm of War, through appealing to his sense of pride.
Dumb Taravangian: (thinking) You could have simply come and given me the order today, then left. You talk instead. You’re lonely. You want to show off. You’re... human.
Unreliable Exposition: While he's one of the few people around who remember the distant past in any detail, his recollections are heavily biased. For instance, he claims that Honor never cared about people, just about oaths, while the Stormfather remembers that while Honor did get more influenced by his Shard over time to the point of Sanity Slippage, he never stopped caring about people and in fact laid down his life to save humanity in the end.
Villainous Breakdown:
- Freaks and quickly flees when Dalinar opens Honor's Perpendicularity in Oathbringer. Rhythm of War elaborates on this. Rayse staked a large amount of his power on Dalinar falling to him; fleeing when it failed was likely his only option that didn't damage him further.
- Has another breakdown in Rhythm of War. After multiple setbacks he's forced to negiotiate unfavorable terms with Dalinar. This results in him going completely off the handle when he suspects Taravangian and Sja-anat are plotting against him, resulting in him not noticing Nightblood, which results in his own death at the hands of Taravangian.
Villain Team-Up: Word of Brandon indicates he has some form of alliance with Autonomy, who is far from nice herself from the little we see and hear of her/her avatars, and it is confirmed she had some hand in assisting Odium's murders of Devotion and Dominion. Of course, had he not been trapped on Braize, he would've immediately attempted to betray her.
Visionary Villain: He paints himself as one when first meets Dalinar, saying that he's the only one who cares, that the other Shards have done a terrible job building their worlds, and once they're out of the way he'll make everything so much better. However, Rayse in truth is does not have much higher ambitions than conquering the entire Cosmere.
You Are Not Alone: Pulls an extremely twisted version of this on Dalinar, telling him how he has always been by his side, pushing him to do terrible things through influences like the Thrill.
You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Presents himself as a kindly looking old man in Oathbringer. Dalinar sees a fragment of his true essence, which he perceives as an infinite expanse of baleful purple-white fire that would drive him insane to comprehend.

Preservation (Leras)

Preservation

Shardvessels: Leras, Kelsier (postmortem), Vin (temporarily), Sazed.
Shardworld: Scadrial
Magic: Allomancy, Feruchemy

Initially known to the people of Scadrial as the "Mist Spirit", Preservation presents himself as a mysterious creature made out of mist, mentioned in the logbook Kelsier and Vin find. The source of Allomancy, he locked Ruin away, at the cost of his own mind, in an attempt to save the world they've created together from destruction. The following mostly refers to Preservation when it's held by Leras.

All-Powerful Bystander: Justified because initially all his power is tied up in keeping Ruin imprisoned and after Ruin gets out, one of his first acts is to kill the weakened Preservation's mind.
Arc Number: Sixteen, which was built into everything surrounding his powers and actions as his "signature".
Big Good: For Mistborn: The Original Trilogy.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: In his own way, he's got just as alien a mindset as Ruin. While Ruin wants everything to end, Preservation wants everything to remain exactly as it is, static and unchanging for all eternity. Naturally, nothing changing ever (which means that, say, food wouldn't be digested, cells wouldn't divide, and even the chemical processes for thoughts wouldn't happen) would be just as bad as Ruin destroying everything. This also means that if something bad is happening, Preservation would want to stop it, which is distinct from fixing it.
- This shows in how the Lord Ruler (who Preservation liked as a ruler because his Compounding allowed him to be a stable, immortal ruler, free from the bloodshed crises of succession cause, despite not agreeing with his more immoral actions, comparing it to empathizing with the lamb while admiring the lion) used his power, every time he made something worse, instead of undoing it, he made another change to try and stabilize things.
Body Horror: In Mistborn: Secret History, when he starts to fall apart because of Ruin's influence, it starts to show on his appearances in the Cognitive Realm to the point that half of his face is graphically missing and he doesn't notice.
Cast from Hit Points: According to Word of God, he created the prison for Ruin by using the energies of his own mind. Unsurprisingly, this had very deleterious effects on his mind... which is why it worked, since Ruin didn't expect Preservation to be willing to do something like that to himself.
The Chessmaster: Preservation is the best Chessmaster in the whole Gambit Pileup in the Mistborn series. Culminates with Vin absorbing his power and using that to destroy Ruin, because while the original Vessel of Preservation is unable to destroy due to having held the Shard long enough that he is unable to go against its Intent, a person who is new to holding the power can. Note that he managed to arrange that despite having been effectively dead for at least a thousand years and probably considerably longer than that though the power of superior foresight.
Chessmaster Sidekick: Despite being The Chessmaster, he lets Kelsier call the shots throughout Mistborn: Secret History, as by then he's fading fast and unable to even remember what his endgame was.
Cloudcuckoolander: Comes across like this to Kelsier, with remembering and forgetting things, second-guessing his own thoughts and general disposition. Played completely serious, though - it's all signs that he's fading. Kelsier's narration even references mental illness.
Dead Man Walking: As a result of what he did to seal Ruin, even saying that he's already dead. Ruin escaping just sped things up.
Don't Fear the Reaper: Comforts the souls of those who die on Scadrial before they go Beyond. Harmony inherits this duty after his own death.
Divine Conflict: With Ruin, stemming from the fact that while he wants to keep people of Scadrial alive, Ati wants them dead.
Fire-Forged Friends: Oddly enough, with Kelsier's Cognitive Shadow. Their relationship in Mistborn: Secret History starts off with Kelsier decking Preservation across the face. As the story of the original trilogy goes on, due to both of them quite literally having no one better to talk to, they come to respect each other as fellow crewmembers as they unite to stop Ruin's machinations from behind the scenes. The dying Preservation even begs Kelsier to not leave him alone as he sets out to rob the Ire. This culminates in Preservation's final moments, where the ordinarily noble-hating Kelsier drops his funny facade, stops calling Preservation nicknames, and properly addresses him as "My Lord" without pretense.
God of Order: The other of the two Shards that represent order, specifically in providing stability for the world.
Hero with Bad Publicity: For all of The Well of Ascension and most of The Hero of Ages, everyone assumes that the mists are of Ruin and a deadly danger to the land, thanks to Ruin's manipulation.
In-Universe Nickname: Kelsier nicknames him Fuzz because of his fuzzy appearance in the Cognitive Realm.
The Man Behind the Man: A rare heroic example.
Mass Super-Empowering Event: The mists that "attack" people in the second and third books are actually Preservation's power identifying those with innate Allomancy and forcing them to Snap.
My Death Is Just the Beginning: Sacrificed most of himself to set off the dominoes that would ultimately lead to the death of his opposite number, Ruin. Technically he didn't actually die until much later, but since his sacrifice left him almost totally unable to interact with the world, and his eventual true death was also part of his plan it counts.
Order Versus Chaos: The Order side of his conflict with Ruin.
Red Herring: Presented as a possible Big Bad in The Well of Ascension. In reality, he's the Big Good, but circumstances made him look like a villain.
Seers: Possibly the most capable one in the Cosmere, able to see forward thousands of years.
Split-Personality Merge: Merges with Ruin within Sazed to become "Harmony".
Telepathy: Can hear the thoughts of people, especially with certain aspects to their spiritwebs, but has little ability to speak to them because of its Intent being protective to a fault, and thus can't really insert thoughts. The only reason Kelsier was able to contact Spook in "Mistborn: Secret History" while holding the power was because Spook's soul, in addition to being damaged from his near-death and removed Hemalurgic spike, had a strong Connection to Kelsier's, the Tineye having believed in him like no one else.
Thanatos Gambit: He knows that he's going to die, so he sets up Vin as the heir to his power.
The Maker: Downplayed. He’s only this for Scadrial, and he and Ruin had to work together to create it, but the fact of the matter remains that unlike all the other Shards, who colonized preexisting worlds, the two of them built their own from scratch and populated it with their own creations. He did have the greater part in creating sapient life, and was the impetus behind the project, however.

Ruin (Ati)

Ruin

Shardvessel: Ati (formerly), Sazed.
Shardworld: Scadrial
Magic: Hemalurgy, Feruchemy

"You realize the forces I can bring to bear against you, child? You realize the power I have, the destruction I represent? I am mountains that crush. I am waves that crash. I am storms that scatter. I am the end. ...I am Ruin."

One of the two male forces of creation that created Scadrial long ago. Ruin agreed to help Preservation create the human race, under the condition that he would eventually be granted the right to destroy all things. To prevent Ruin from accomplishing his goal, Preservation sealed him in the Well of Ascension, but he was released by Vin. He can manifest in the minds of people with Hemalurgic spikes. He is Zane's "God" and the voice of Reen in Vin's head.

Above Good and Evil: Ruin denies being malevolent; to him, the destruction of the world is both inevitable and natural. Even beautiful. That said, even if this is true, his appreciation for destroying things and people leads him to do things like gloating to rub salt in the wound. It reaches the point that it's indistinguishable from petty malice.
Affably Evil: When Ati personally interacts with Kelsier in Mistborn: Secret History, he talks genuinely about the necessity for endings and change. But he's still ready to end the world now, saying its time is up.
Alas, Poor Villain: Ati was once a kind and generous man, according to Hoid.
Animal Motifs: Not in the original trilogy, but in Mistborn: Secret History, he is frequently compared to a spider.
Badass Boast: "I am mountains that crush. I am waves that crash. I am storms that scatter. I am the end. ... I am Ruin."
Big Bad: The true villain behind all the events of the original Mistborn trilogy.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: The little we see from his perspective (through Marsh) indicates that his claims that things are only beautiful when they end is completely genuine as far as he is concerned. To him, life and the story of peoples' lives are insignificant compared to the ending that they reach. Ironically, the fact that he was kind and generous when mortal may contribute to his omnicidal mania, since he thinks he's doing everyone a favor by destroying them.
Break Them by Talking: He shows up several times for the express purpose of doing this to Vin. The fact that he feels the need to do this is her first clue that on some level he's human, and therefore fallible.
The Chessmaster: Hoo, boy. For most of the original Mistborn trilogy, everybody is dancing on his strings.
The Corrupter: To people who have hemalurgic spikes or otherwise have their souls damaged, with subtlety ranging from making them hold onto an item to convincing them to do morally dubious experimentation to simply urging them to kill everyone they meet. He's so good at this last one that he sometimes has to force his victims to not kill everyone they meet, as it is slowing them down.
Dead Person Impersonation: Pulls one of several people, notably Kelsier (to Spook and Quellion), the Lord Ruler (to Penrod), and Reen. Vin sees through the last pretty quickly, at least when it's more than just the voice.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: As Vin points out to him during her scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech. He just doesn't get people's non-destructive impulses.
Evil Gloating: "How do you like that? I killed him! I Ruined everything you love. I took it from you!"
Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Kelsier isn't impressed with his attempts to make a joke.
Evil Is Burning Hot: At one point in Secret History, he presents himself in the Cognitive Realm as sitting on a burning throne.
Evil Is Petty: A downplayed example, as he normally tends to be deliberate and even kindly as he enacts his plans to destroy everything on Scadrial, but some of his sabotages in the final book border on childish, such as changing Preservation's ash message to Elend to say "I will kill you. Death, death, death."
Evil Redhead: As a human, he had red hair. This is played with, because he was only evil as a Shardvessel, and he didn't have a body then. Before obtaining Ruin, the man he once was, Ati, was actually kind and generous.
Face–Heel Turn: He was once a kind and generous man (and by his lights probably still is), but due to his Shard's Intent he was corrupted and became an instrument of ultimate destruction.
Fake Memories: He is able to edit the contents of Copperminds, allowing him to create them.
False Flag Operation: One of his favorite tricks is to pretend to be Preservation, then do something destructive, so that people then distrust Preservation. He impersonated the mist spirit several times, and "the Deepness" was actually Ruin adding his own power to Preservation's mists, in order to make them so strong that they blocked out light and killed all plant life.
Faux Affably Evil: Willing to act friendly towards Vin and others, but evil to a fault.
For the Evulz: A lot of his conversations with Vin seem to have no purpose other than to taunt her, especially when he gloats that his servant killed Elend.
Hannibal Lecture: Tries to do this with Vin once she is captured by Lord Aradan Yomen.
Hero Killer: By far the most powerful and terrifying villain in Mistborn. He'd have killed the whole world if Vin hadn't managed to stop him, and even then it was a close call.
Hoist by His Own Petard: When Ruin and Preservation worked together to create the world, they both put part of themselves into humanity, thus allowing humans to both preserve and destroy. Thus, when Vin absorbed Preservation's power (just as planned) she could use that same power to attack and destroy Ruin, unlike Preservation.
Just Between You and Me: Shares part of his plan with Vin.
Made of Evil: Or at least, made of destruction.
The Man Behind the Man: To just about everyone.
Manipulative Bastard: Even though he suffers from Evil Cannot Comprehend Good, that doesn't mean he's not good a playing on peoples' darker emotions. Especially obvious with Spook.
The Maker: Heavily downplayed. Besides the fact that he’s a Destroyer Deity, he’s only this for Scadrial, and he couldn’t have done the job without teaming up with Preservation, but he was one of the few Shard that constructed a planet from pure Investiture.
Meaningful Name: His original human name, Ati, is a variation of Atë, the Greek personification of ruin. Ironically, in the Aon language of Sel, his name means 'hope'.
Mercy Kill: Views destroying the world as a mercy.
Motive Rant: Rants about how it wants to destroy everything.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Ruin" pretty much says it all, really.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: He could have prevented his eventual defeat simply by not forcing Marsh to read the message he intercepted from Spook.
Omnicidal Maniac: His very nature is the end of all things, and part of the bargain that allowed the two gods to create life at all stipulated that Ruin would eventually get to destroy it all.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Two cans. His power is sealed in the Well of Ascension, and his body is atium... also known as the single most valuable substance in the Empire.
Sealed Evil in a Duel: This is roughly how Preservation was able to "imprison" Ruin. Ruin is technically free to go anywhere, but any time he tries to use his powers in any but the most subtle ways, Preservation's power acts to block him.
Spikes of Villainy: By its nature as an intangible being it can't have them, but its power fuels the evil spike-based magic Hemalurgy.
Split-Personality Merge: As a Shard, he is a split personality of Adonalsium. He merges with Preservation within Sazed to become "Harmony".
Telepathy: Can project his thoughts and/or an image of himself or another into those who have a Hemalurgic spike and/or have a cracked spiritweb, and can control people with enough spikes outright, but cannot hear the thoughts of others, so he can be caught unaware if one fights back suddenly. This is because of his Intent being invasive, more "Yell" than "Listen".
Unspoken Plan Guarantee: This and being a Consummate Liar are the only way to get around his omnipresence. He can hear any words spoken aloud and read anything written, unless it's scribed in metal. He can also alter written documents to screw with histories and communications. So, really, you either trick a god or just stay silent.
Weaksauce Weakness: He can't see or directly affect words written in metal- a rather potent weakness, as his greatest success came from altering written records, especially prophecies (this is due to the fact that the magic systems on Scadrial are fueled by metal, and thus glow with power to his senses. Trying to read words on a metal tablet would be like us trying to read scratches on a really powerful lightbulb). He also can't read minds, though he can influence them if the person has a Hemalurgic spike.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: According to the First Letter, Ati was a good-natured and generous man. Ruin... isn't. Or rather, he is kindly and generously sharing the GIFT of ultimate destruction.

Valor

Shardvessel: Unknown
Shardworld: Unknown
Magic: Unknown

A female Shard first mentioned by Harmony in the epigraphs of Rhythm of War. Out of the many Shards Harmony mentioned having contacted, she was described as the most reasonable.

The Ghost: She makes her only appearance so far in Rhythm of War, in a letter to Hoid from Harmony.

Virtuosity

Shardvessel: Unknown
Shardworld: Komashi
Magic: Hijo, Hion

A female Shard first mentioned by Hoid in Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, already Splintered by the time of the story's events.

Driven to Suicide: The only detail known about Virtuosity besides her Vessel's gender is that she Splintered herself prior to the events of Yumi.
The Ghost: She is only mentioned once in passing in the first chapter of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, narrated by Hoid.
Pieces of God: It is heavily implied that the Shroud and Nightmares infesting Painter's world are the remains of Virtuosity's Splintering, by stories recounting their birth from "the blood of a dying god" that rained from the sky. As it turns out, the truth is somewhat different: the Shroud and Nightmares are not directly the result of Virtuosity's Splintering, and thus do not qualify for this trope. What does qualify, however, are Virtuosity's actual Splinters, revealed to be the (real) Hijo spirits, kept imprisoned by the human-made Awakened Machine, the true cause of the Shroud, as well as the Hion lines created by those spirits that escaped.
Posthumous Character: By the events of Yumi, she is long since Splintered.

Whimsy

Shardvessel: Unknown
Shardworld: Unknown
Magic: Unknown

A Shard first mentioned by Harmony in the epigraphs of Rhythm of War - though apparently, not the most useful one.

Ambiguous Gender Identity: Their gender has not been revealed yet.
The Ghost: They make their only appearance so far in Rhythm of War, in a letter to Hoid from Harmony.

Harmony (Sazed)

Ruin and Preservation/Harmony

Shardvessel: Sazed
Shardworld: Scadrial
Magic: Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy

The combined Shards of Ruin and Preservation, fused together to form an entirely new one. Sazed accidentally created this Shard when he took up the opposing powers in order to save his world. Due to being comprised of diametric opposites, the Shardvessel finds it very difficult to summon the impetus to act.

The Baby of the Bunch: At "merely" three hundred years old, he's by far the youngest Shard and Shardvessel, with others being thousands, if not tens of thousands years old. Because of that, he's horridly lacking in terms of Cosmeric knowledge, which accounts for his problems in Wax and Wayne stories. He's the second youngest as of Rayse's death and Taravangian taking up Odium in Rhythm of War.
Balance Between Good and Evil: Since Harmony's Intent is for, well, harmony, Sazed finds it extremely difficult to act in any way that would destabilize the Balance. This is one of the main reasons for his relatively hands-off style of management. Indeed, over the course of Era 2, it is slowly revealed that he is losing this balance due to Ruin being ever-so-slightly stronger, tipping him further from Harmony and into Discord.
Barrier Warrior: Is currently spending a significant fraction of his power keeping another Shard away from Scadrial.
Blood Magic:
- Downplayed: The only remnant of Hemalurgy he personally uses is the earrings given to people who actively worship him. These allow him to talk to and direct people meditating (or performing "actions of import") in accordance with the precepts of his Path. It's possible he will use it to sustain the Kandra race as well at some point, but no promises.
- In addition, he has done the best he can to wipe the knowledge of it off the face of Scadrial. Without breaking his other rules, of course. Despite this, Spook wrote down what he knew of it. His reasoning being that that knowledge shouldn’t be entirely lost, and it’s probably not quite so evil now because it’s in Sazed’s hands.
- Come Era 2, with the revelation that the Set is making new spikes to enhance their powers. Also, Kelsier’s Cognitive Shadow is using a spike to pin himself to the physical realm. Plus, the Koloss still need spikes to sustain the full transformation.
Big Good: On Scadrial.
The Big Guy: The titan of the Shards, the most powerful one of them. Unfortunately, his conflicting Intents don't let him act all that often.
Catchphrase: Tends to end his sentences with "I think", just as he did when mortal.
The Chessmaster: He inherited this talent from both his halves, although he notes that the person he was before the Ascension would be indignant at what the talent requires.
Divine Conflict: He's locked in a proxy war from Shadows of Self onwards against Trell, better known as fellow Shard of Adonalsium, Autonomy, who seeks to annihilate Scadrial entirely.
The Dreaded: Odium is terrified of him, as being a holder of two Shards means he is quite possibly the most powerful entity in the Cosmere, and could allow Harmony to Splinter him.
Evil Doppelgänger: The Lost Metal reveals that Harmony has gained a dark double who sometimes appears near his avatar, heavily implied by Telsin and Kelsier to be a representation of Discord - the result should Sazed fail to maintain the balance between his two Intents, foreshadowed since the Terris Prophecies of Era 1.
Figure It Out Yourself: He realized too late that he gave the people of Elendel too many advantages. While they're progressing technologically, it's far slower than they should, because they just don't need anything. They're a hundred years behind on radio, who knows how far behind on aeronautics, and part of the reason the Roughs are so desolate is that the Elendel basin is so fertile that no one bothered to learn any basic farming or irrigation techniques. The Southerners, who lived in a much harsher environment, progressed far faster with their Magitek, having developed airships using Feruchemy and Allomancy.
Gentle Giant: Probably the most powerful entity of the modern Cosmere, but refuses to engage in Evil Overlord behavior and his Intent makes acting difficult.
God's Hands Are Tied: Due to the way his powers work, he can't really do much without a great deal of effort. The fact that he also wants to preserve free will and knows what happens when Shardvessels use their powers indiscriminately is probably also a large part of it. He also doesn't want people to become too dependent on him, as if he acts too overtly, people are going to be wanting him to help them all the time.
Wax: Who tied God's hands?
Harmony: I tied them myself.
Greater-Scope Paragon: Shaping up to be this for the Cosmere, as he is the only one Odium fears, and could potentially destroy him.
Insistent Terminology: His godmetal, the distilled physical essense of his power, is called Ettmetal or Harmonium, defying the usual naming conventions. This is entirely because he thinks Sazedium sounds silly.
Not So Omniscient After All: In the second book he cannot predict Bleeder's actions or identify her location. It's a sign that another Shard is interfering on Scadriel. By the time of The Lost Metal, Trell has succeeded in blinding him entirely.
Omniscient Morality License: He's a god now. They can do that. Of course, not everyone agrees and he has admitted to being wrong before. One of the reasons the kandra Paalm rebelled was because she disliked having a god who was fallible but who everyone treated as infallible. The other reason was that a fallible god was meddling in the life of the man she loved.
Only Sane Man: Rhythm of War reveals him to be the only Shard who takes the threat of Odium seriously.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Sazed and Kelsier reunite in Secret History, Sazed attempts to lie to Kelsier that he cannot return to the Physical Realm, which Kelsier easily spots and internally calls him a terrible liar. By the epilogue of The Lost Metal, Sazed blatantly lies to Kelsier again, withholding the recreation of lerasium from him. Except now, Kelsier is left none the wiser in his P.O.V, with Sazed even daring to quip if he would ever lie to him. After the same book revealed the existence of Harmony's dark double and slow descent into Discord, Sazed's sudden proficiency in lying to one of his best friends is meant to be highly concerning to the audience.
Path of Inspiration: Played with. The "nefarious purpose" the trope requires is not so much present, as he genuinely is doing his best for the people of Scadrial. But his best does involve judicious use of shapeshifting body snatchers, blood magic, mind control, and manipulation.
Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Downplayed. While Harmony fully remains on the side of good for all of Era 2, it is steadily revealed that his struggle for internal balance, exacerbated by the cold war with Autonomy, is slowly but surely starting to take a tangible toll on him - in the form of his Evil Doppelgänger (implied to be a representation of his dark counterpart, Discord). Indeed, the most alarming indicator of his growing inner darkness is in the epilogue of The Lost Metal - where Sazed openly lies to Kelsier about the recreation of lerasium.
Something Only They Would Say: A meta example. While he doesn't sign his letter to Hoid, the narration pointedly ending on his signature "I think" reveals his identity to anyone who's read Mistborn.
Strong as They Need to Be: In universe, to an extent. Harmony has immense power, but has difficulty using it when things are in equilibrium. The farther out of balance the situation is, the easier it is for him to intervene.
Telepathy: Inherited Preservation's ability to hear and Ruin's ability to speak. So long as someone has a hemalurgic spike in them (like the earrings given to those who follow the Path), Harmony can directly communicate with them.
Unskilled, but Strong: He is probably the most powerful being in the Cosmere at this point, holding two shards. But he has only held the power for 300 years, and is dangerously lacking in knowlege of both history and the Cosmere in general. Receiving a letter from Hoid reveals to him that he’s a lot less well-informed than he thought a god would be.
Yin-Yang Bomb: He holds the fundamentally clashing powers of Preservation and Ruin, giving him immense power to both create and destroy. It also severely limits the ways that power can be used.

Subsequent Shardvessels

A few characters have already gained prominence in specific works before becoming Shardvessels was revealed. As such, they are listed on the appropriate pages.

Preservation:
- Kelsier.
- Vin.
Odium:
- Taravangian.

Dawnshards

Dawnshards in General

Holders: Rysn, formerly Hoid and (The Sunlit Man spoilers) Sigzil
Shardworld: Roshar, unknown others
Magic: All Invested Arts in general, including Surgebinding
Appearances: The Stormlight Archive, The Sunlit Man (mentioned only)

The four primal Commands used by Adonalsium to supposedly create all things. Divine Commands of immense power somehow distilled into "physical" form, they can supercharge the Invested Arts of their holders to perform incredible feats. Their nature is highly mysterious even within the Cosmere, with several parties having vested interests in keeping their power from the public eye.

Amplifier Artifact: Their primary ability is to empower Invested Arts to perform feats on the levels of gods. As such, they're almost entirely useless if their holder cannot use an Invested Art, so their guardians can keep them safe by either restricting their holder's access to Investiture or just storing them in inanimate objects.
Artifact of Power: Among the most powerful divine objects in the Cosmere, supposedly used to create the Cosmere itself.
Immortal Breaker: The Dawnshards were the original weapon used to Shatter Adonalsium itself, creating the sixteen Shards.
Immortality Inducer: Holding a Dawnshard for long enough permanently alters its holder down to their very soul. In the case of former Dawnshard Hoid, and by the time of The Sunlit Man, his apprentice Sigzil, their Dawnshard transformed them to become completely immortal.
MacGuffin Guardian: Holders of Dawnshards essentially become their guardians (as well as synonymous with the Dawnshard itself).
Planet Destroyer: Among the feats the Dawnshards can accomplish include the destruction of planets. Case in point: The planet Ashyn was rendered almost entirely uninhabitable by ancient empowered Surgebinders, forcing its people to flee to Roshar - setting the stage for the entire story.
Semantic Superpower: At their core, they are Commands of incredible power. Ultimately, using them still requires a proper Command and Intent.
Superweapon: The closest equivalent to true divine superweapons in the Cosmere (besides perhaps incredibly powerful Invested creations such as Nightblood). Their power is of enough danger that entire planets (let alone God itself) have paid the price for their use, and great efforts have been made to keep them under guard.

Change

Holder: Rysn
Shardworld: Roshar
Magic: All Invested Arts in general, including Surgebinding
Appearances: The Stormlight Archive

One of the four Dawnshards representing the Command of Change - the divine will to remake, to demand things to become better. Hidden on Roshar under the desolate city of Aimia, guarded by the Sleepless and ancient larkins.

For tropes regarding the current holder of the Change Dawnshard, see Rysn's entry on The Stormlight Archive Other.

Aethers

Aethers and Aetherbound in General

Shardworld: Unknown Aether homeworld, Lumar
Aethers: Roseite, Verdant, Zephyr, Sunlight, Crimson, Midnight, at least six others
Appearances: The Stormlight Archive, Wax and Wayne, Tress of the Emerald Sea

An ancient variety of sentient Invested elemental entities not linked to any Shard, who claim to even predate Adonalsium itself. Each representing one of at least twelve primal elements, Aethers exert their influence and magic in the Cosmere through their Aetherbound, bonding mortal beings with buds of their core selves. These Aetherbound act as agents and eyes for their core Aether, and can manipulate their Aether bud as their "magic system", growing their Aether's "element" from it to create physical constructs.

Multiple "strains" of Aether exist throughout the Cosmere, but of particular importance are a group of twelve "core" Aethers that exist around their as-yet unnamed homeworld, dubbing themselves the "Primal" Aethers. Others may also exist, which may or may not include the mentioned "Dark Aether".

Bizarro Elements: As described in Elemental Embodiment, the Aether varieties each embody a single important Essence or primal element within the Cosmere. While these include standard fare like crystal, air or heat, things get rather non-standard when elements such as flesh/coral are counted among them, and that's not even getting into the strangeness that is the Midnight Aether.
Cosmic Entity: The Aethers' nature is rather difficult to describe, other than that they are ancient, sentient entities of Investiture that embody the elements and claim to predate God itself, Adonalsium.
Elemental Embodiment: Each variety of Aether embodies a certain primal element within the Cosmere, which forms both the Aether's substance and the core of their Aetherbounds' powers. Indeed, many have noticed the very-telling similarities between their "elements" and the Ten Essences seen on Roshar.
- The Roseite Aether embodies silicate, manifesting as quartz-like pink crystal.
- The Verdant Aether embodies vegetation, manifesting in the form of green vines.
- The Zephyr Aether embodies atmosphere, manifesting in bursts of clear air.
- The Sunlight Aether embodies light and heat.
- The Crimson Aether, though hard to tell at first glance, is confirmed to be the Aether that embodies organic flesh. When activated on Lumar, its spores manifest deadly impaling spikes made of coral-like carapace.
- The Midnight Aether embodies Midnight Essence, an amorphous black mud-like substance with the strange quality of imitating nearby living beings.
Equivalent Exchange: The powers of an Aether are directly fueled/catalysed by water, with Aetherbound using their own internal water supply to fuel their powers and manipulate their bonded Aether, much like Sand Mastery. This material-based relationship is formally known in-universe as the Luhel Bond, as opposed to the Nahel Bond, which trades in cognitive feelings.
Genius Loci: In Tress of the Emerald Sea, Lumar's twelve moons are associated with the twelve Aether varieties, endlessly raining Aether spores on the planet, which results in 12 separate seas of Aether spores. Considering the Aethers' nature, this effectively translates to the spore seas themselves (though not the moons, as their prime Aethers merely live on the moons and are not the moons themselves) being vaguely sentient extensions of their core Aether. Of course, due to the feral nature of the Lumar strains of Aether, this hardly matters other than the spores being able to subtly react and respond to the Intents of those "using" them.
Hive Mind: Unlike other bonds in the Cosmere, Aether pieces are not individual, but are literal extensions of their single core Aether, who can see, sense and even communicate through them no matter how far away they are. All pieces of an Aether are basically considered synonymous with their core Aether. This allows all Aetherbound to remain in constant communication with their core Aether even from planets away, using their buds.
Kryptonite Factor: Silver can kill aether spores and destroy manifested aether material.
Symbiotic Possession: Aetherbound are made by bonding with a bud of a core Aether, thus becoming an agent of their Aether. The core Aether can both "see" and communicate with their Aetherbound through their bud, and in exchange, the Aetherbound can grow and manipulate their Aether bud at will. In the case of Silajana and his Aetherbound Prasanva at least, the working relationship is very much healthy, consensual and even friendly. On Lumar, the relationship is far more aggressively parasitic, with "Spore Eaters" being people infested by the feral Aether strains to become a constant water source for their voracious parent Aether, in exchange for automatic protection by the spores within them lashing out.
Time Abyss: The Primal Aethers predate the Shattering of Adonalsium, and even claim to predate Adonalsium itself. The veracity of the latter claim is yet to be determined.
Willing Channeler: Aetherbound are the willing servants of their core Aether, being granted a bud of their Aether to do their bidding in the Cosmere.

Silajana

Shardworld: Unknown Aether homeworld
Aether: Roseite
Appearances: The Stormlight Archive, Wax and Wayne

The Primal Aether of Roseite, composed of a highly durable pink-red crystal-like substance, which his Aetherbound are able to create at will from their Aether bud. His Aetherbound include the Ghostblood, Sanvith Prasanva Maahik va Sila, or "TwinSoul", among others.

Crystalline Creature: Assuming Silajana is composed of Roseite himself as implied by his buds.
Crystal Weapon: Roseite Aetherbound can manifest Roseite in any shape they want, only limited by their visual creativity and water/Investiture supply. This, of course, includes basic weapons.
Early-Bird Cameo: The very first "appearance" of Silajana, let alone Aethers in general, in the canon Cosmere (not counting the unpublished Aether of Night) is a Roseite crystal (and clothing stain) in Mraize's collection. It would take many years until The Lost Metal's release for an actual Roseite Aetherbound to appear onscreen in a prominent role.
Equivalent Exchange: Roseite Aetherbound can create Roseite from their bud using water from their bodies, requiring them to have a regular source of it on hand. Pure Investiture can also suffice as fuel for even greater constructs.
Gem Tissue: His buds appear on his Aetherbound as a small section of their hand replaced entirely by Roseite.
Imagination-Based Superpower: Silajana's Aetherbound can create Roseite constructs in any form they can imagine, like a more physical Green Lantern Ring.
Mundane Utility: Roseite constructs can be created in any shape the user can visualise in detail - which includes mundane items for convenience, like a pen nib, or spectacles, or even a chair or a cup.
Powered Armor: When fuelled by pure Investiture, Roseite Aetherbound can create a "juggernaut" - what is basically an enormous crystal mecha exoskeleton, with the channelling Aetherbound safely enclosed within its torso.
Reduced to Dust: Though they are strong enough to even repel bullets, Roseite constructs are ultimately temporary - without constant contact with its Aetherbound creator or an external field of Investiture backing it up, they will eventually crumble to dust and fade to nothing.

The Dark Aether

Shardworld: Unknown Aether homeworld
Aether: Unknown
Appearances: Wax and Wayne (mentioned only)

A variety of malevolent Aether that threatens the Aether homeworld, rendering it nigh-inhospitable to its people. Forced offworld in exile, Aetherbound are gathering allies at the behest of their bonded Aethers for an eventual final clash against it.

The Ghost: Has made no on-page appearance as of yet, only mentioned by Prasanva.

Known Worldhoppers

Hoid

Hoid/Midius/Cephandrius/Topaz/Wit/Roamer/Lunu'anaki/Dust/The Imperial Fool/Others. Oh, so many others.

Shardworld: Yolen
Magic: Many, including but not limited to Lightweaving, some form of time dilation, Allomancy, BioChroma, Surgebinding, AonDor and World Hopping
Appearances: White Sand, Elantris, The Emperor's Soul (mentioned only), Mistborn: The Original Trilogy, Mistborn: Secret History, Warbreaker, The Stormlight Archive, Wax and Wayne, Tress of the Emerald Sea, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter,The Sunlit Man.

"I learned it many, many years ago from a man who didn't know who he was, Your Majesty. It was a distant place where two lands meet and gods have died."

A mysterious figure who appears throughout the Cosmere, Hoid's purposes for interfering in the workings of the Shards are unknown.

Actual Pacifist: Rock in The Stormlight Archive claims he's not allowed to hurt humans, and in Mistborn: Secret History, he is apparently only able to hurt Kelsier because he is already dead. The Sunlit Man reveals that his soul was warped by a Dawnshard he used to hold, which was "diametrically opposed to the concept of violence and harm".
Hoid: You needn't fear me. I'm terribly ineffective at hurting people. I blame my upbringing.
A God I Am Not: Denies being a god when asked, though apparently a god once ended up worshipping him somehow.
- It's been confirmed in several places (including Word of Brandon), that he was part of the Shattering conspiracy, only to end up changing his mind and refusing a Shard at the last moment.
All-Powerful Bystander: His exact powers are unknown, but they are at a bare minimum Vast. He's very prolific in worldhopping, and has picked up the magics from several worlds.
Almighty Janitor: He often takes the position of a beggar or other low-profile role, though his job as the King's Wit in Roshar is a partial exception due to his proximity to an important ruler. Although his power level isn't known much, he is implied to be planning something that spans the entire Cosmere, likely related to Odium.
And I Must Scream: He spends most of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter frozen solid in time, still fully conscious of what's going on around him but currently being used as a coat rack in a local noodle shop.
Angel Unaware: We still don't know precisely what he is, but he's very old and much stronger than he pretends. In Words of Radiance, Dalinar finally cottons on that there's something more to him than meets the eye.
Dalinar: Are you a Herald, Wit?
Hoid: Ha. No. Thank you, but no.
The Archmage: He’s one of the most knowledgeable people in the Cosmere, and he can use several different types of Investiture.
Ascended Extra: While he wasn't really an "extra" per se, he didn't have an extremely large amount of involvement in events in books before The Stormlight Archive. In that series, he is becoming an increasingly major character, with his knowledge of the Cosmere taking the forefront, and people actively seeking him out. He’s also the First-Person Peripheral Narrator of Tress of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter.
Beneath the Mask: As shown first in "the first Letter" in The Way Of Kings and in his characterization up front in Words of Radiance, he is actually extremely serious, and the threat of Rayse/Odium has become serious enough that he has far more breaks in his Obfuscating Stupidity, and more swearing and shouts as well.
The Cameo: His appearances so far, including at the Shattering of Adonalsium.
Combo Platter Powers: The extent is a matter of speculation; at minimum, he has Lightweaving, some means of Worldhopping, and a way to dilate time. In The Well of Ascension he gets a lerasium bead, which would make him a full Mistborn; in Words of Radiance, he is implied to be using Allomancy and to have enough Breath to have reached at least the Second Heightening Until some of it was stolen. Finally, he seems to think he wouldn't suffer any lasting damage from a shardblade. Oathbringer confirms that he can Awaken, something Word of Sanderson says is not easy for a non-Nalthian to do, and he bonds with the Cryptic that was going to bond with Elhokar in the last scene, becoming a Lightweaver Radiant. As of Tress of the Emerald Sea, he's also now an Elantrian.
Complete Immortality: During Tress of the Emerald Sea, Ulaam offhandedly mentions that Hoid is now fully immortal and could easily survive the Crow's Song being sunk.
Cool Old Guy: Ancient and awesome.
Court Jester: His job as "the King's Wit" in Alethkar, Roshar is to be this, being allowed (and required) to insult members of the court. However, the narration makes clear that this is not the same thing. His role as the Imperial Fool of the Rose Empire is implied to be another example. He plays a short, similar role in the Court of the Gods in Nalthis as a storyteller who explains some history of Hallandren to Siri.
Cryptic Conversation: He often uses this when he has to pass some important information, but doesn't want to do so plainly. This ranges from easter eggs for Cosmere-aware readers to something that puzzles everyone.
Two blind men waited at the end of an era, contemplating beauty.
Deadpan Snarker: Especially in his role as the King's Wit, where he is a legal, institutionalized Troll.
Second Letter: I am told that in your current incarnation you’ve taken a name that references what you presume to be one of your virtues. This is, I suspect, a little like a skunk naming itself for its stench.
Dead Person Impersonation: If early looks at The Liar of Partinel are accurate, he took the name of his own Lightweaving master following the latter's assassination, and keeps it for hundreds of years after, even using it on worlds that have no idea who the original Hoid is.
Deal with the Devil: This turns out to be the cause of the curse he's under during Tress of the Emerald Sea. He agreed to be turned into a Tongue-Tied idiot in exchange for becoming an Elantrian if he ever made it back to the Sorceress' island. Once Tress gets him to the Sorceress' tower his curse is lifted and he gains full use of Aon Dor.
Dimensional Traveler: Traverses between Shardworlds by way of the Cognitive Realm/Shadesmar, even from Sel, and, presumably, from Roshar as well^note.
Drama-Preserving Handicap: Considering that Hoid has countless of varieties of magic, including Allomancy and Feruchemy (both of which have a large amount of combat applications), it's probably for the best that he has little ability to hurt others.
Fairy Companion: He picks up a Cryptic as a companion at the end of Oathbringer and, by the time of Secret Project #3, she's still hanging around. Outside of Greater Roshar at that, which has fascinating implications.
First-Person Peripheral Narrator: Of Tress of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter.
The Fog of Ages: Defied. Hoid does have limited memories, but he can place them in Breaths to get around this. Unfortunately, those Breaths can be tampered with. Hoid being off key in the epilogue of Rhythm of War indicates he lost enough Breaths to go down a heightening
Fourth-Wall Observer: As noted by him in The Way of Kings, "I began life as a thought, a concept, words on a page." Plus, his character has appeared in every Sanderson "world" of the Cosmere. He even mentions Adonalsium to Dalinar once.
Healing Factor: Can heal so quickly that he sometimes needs to actually repress it to not stand out, and is even capable of healing from damage like what Shardblades cause. Word of Brandon even said once that in a battle royale of his protagonists, Hoid would do fairly well because he is really really hard to kill.
Hero of Another Story: Most of the time, we only catch glimpses of his greater plan, and it's hard to piece his "plotline" together, but he seems to be engaged in some sort of ages- and worlds-spanning scheme.
Hidden Agenda Hero: In a universe full of secrets, Hoid is perhaps the greatest enigma of all, and while he often provides useful information and important lessons to the heroes wherever he shows up (and he always shows up somewhere he's needed), his true goals and motivation are still maddeningly unclear.
Hypocrite: He doesn't want Thaidakar/Kelsier to interfere on planets that he’s not native to... despite Hoid himself being from Yolen and visiting at least eight other planets (Roshar, Taldain, Sel, Scadrial, Nalthis, Obrodai, Lumar, and Komashi) he himself isn't native to.
I Have Many Names: Let's see - Hoid, Midius, Wit, Cephandrius, Topaz, Dust, Roamer, Lunu'ananki, the Imperial Fool...
Impossibly Tacky Clothes: He spends the climax of Tress of the Emerald Sea wearing a flower-patterned shirt, mismatched socks with sandals, and shorts covered in red sequins. Most of the outfit can be attributed to his curse-addled mind, but his narration reveals he bought the shorts before being cursed and that he doesn't regret the purchase at all.
Inexplicably Awesome: We understand some of his magic and how he moves between Shardworlds, along with his world of origin and his real name. However, we don't really know anything else about him, up to and including his motives, most of his history, and his actual appearance.
In the Hood: In Elantris, where he is also The Faceless due to the hood shrouding his face completely.
The Informant: To Kelsier in Mistborn: The Final Empire.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: Is subjected to this in the epilogue for Rhythm of War when Odium/Taravangian destroys some of his externally stored memories after Hoid gets suspicious about how "Rayse" is acting. He's aware that something is wrong by the end of the scene and is very disturbed by the implications.
Living MacGuffin: Is a former Dawnshard, and has the side effects that entails.
Master of Disguise: He looks different - but always fittingly to circumstances - in almost every of his appearances, and his disguises are so good, that he can fool Wax into thinking he's two different people even though both times he mentions having the same name.
Master of Illusion: He is capable with Yolish Lightweaving and, later on, Rosharan Lightweaving. This makes it very hard to tell what he actually looks like.
Meaningful Background Event: He practically is one due to his many behind the scenes acts. By the time of The Way of Kings, some of the people he crossed paths with are starting to put ends together to find out what is going on.
The Mentor: He takes up this role for Shallan, and surprisingly not an Eccentric Mentor. He gives her genuine, honest advice, with very little metaphor and symbolism. It's implied that while his own Lightweaving is different than Shallan's, he went through similar trials as she did and is willing to help her through them.
My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Uses an unknown application of feruchemy - speculated to be Luck or Fortune - to sense where important events are going on.
Mysterious Past: And pretty much every other thing about him, actually.
Mysterious Stranger: Likes to pretend to be one when he wants to give some important piece of information without too many too difficult question. The best example would probably be his meetings with Kaladin in The Stormlight Archive.
Neutral No Longer: Normally he interacts with the heroes on and off, helping behind the scenes or on the sides, while having little direct involvement in the conflict, persuing his own goals. The end of Oathbringer implies that he's going to actively get involved this time around, as he's bonded with a Cryptic.
Not So Above It All: In Rhythm of War he has apparently started a relationship with Jasnah. Neither of them trust each other very much yet, but they find each other's company stimulating. He certainly wasn't looking for romance but stumbled into it anyway.
Noodle Incident: Hoid’s past is riddled with mysteries.
- He was a Dawnshard at some point in the past, probably around the same time as the Shattering.
- Before the True Desolation, he spent some time at the planet Obrodai.
- He cheerily mentions a time he spent the better part of a year inside a large stomach, being digested. Of course, he doesn't bother explaining this any further. In Edgedancer, Lift mentions a white-haired fellow giving her some good advice when she was younger and then letting himself get eaten by a greatshell, so that was likely the beginning of that year of digestion. Still no word on why.
- Apparently, a god ended up worshipping him by accident on one of the last seven times he got mixed up with religion.
- He once visited a society where, if you lost a battle, your mother has to bake the winner something tasty. Unfortunately, the society was full of cannibals.
Not So Omniscient After All: While he's certainly very skilled, and has access to a lot of magic, he definitely makes mistakes. For example, per Word of God he spent most of the events of the first Mistborn era running around fruitlessly in the Terris Dominance looking for Preservation's Perpendicularity. Made even more hilarious because, per Mistborn: Secret History, the Perpendicularity was actually where he arrived on Scadrial in the first place.
- He explains in Oathbringer that he has access to a power (stated by Word of God to be an application of Feruchemy unknown to Scadrian science that lets him know where he needs to be to accomplish his goals, but doesn't tell him what he needs to do when he gets there.
- The most dramatic instance of this from him so far is at the end of Rhythm of War when Taravangian realizes that he messed up his Dead Person Impersonation of Rayse during his meeting with Hoid, and is able to sucessfully wipe Hoid's memories of the whole meeting, before redoing it. This is notably done from Hoid's perspective, with the chapter even repeating text on the second meeting, while Hoid is none the wiser, to gain maximum Dramatic Irony from the incident.
Obfuscating Disability: In Mistborn: The Final Empire, he pretends to be blind so that Kelsier will let his guard down. Unfortunately, Kelsier sees right through it, being familiar with the skaa underworld, but it doesn't end up mattering much. Considering Hoid's other characteristics, odds are he was intentionally letting Kelsier know that he was faking blindness so as to have Kelsier assume he was just another Skaa urchin/informant.
- Or perhaps he was intentionally giving Kelsier the idea of pretending to be blind to help him through his upcoming encounter with Straff Venture. It's hard to tell with Hoid.
- He pulls the same trick with Wax in Bands of Mourning, and subtly blows the disguise to pass on a very odd coin.
Obfuscating Stupidity: With varying success depending on who he's talking to. As shown in The Stormlight Archive in progressively increasing amounts, he is actually extremely astute and troubled by the goings on of several of the Shards, especially Odium.
Oh, Crap!: He has a brief moment of horror when he realizes that Odium is no longer held by Rayse, that he has revealed himself to him, and that Odium can alter his external memories (stored as Breaths) without technically harming him and breaking their agreements. The moment is brief because Odium then does just that, leaving him with no clue that anything is wrong and warping any number of his other memories to boot.
Only Known by Their Nickname: According to he himself, he "abandoned his real name long ago", meaning that Hoid isn't actually his name. According to early looks at The Liar of Partinel, the earliest novel in The 'Verse chronologically so far, his real name is Midius, and he took the name of senior jesk and master Lightweaver Hoid on Yolen following the latter's death.
Ornamental Weapon: The sword he carries with him on Roshar, as he can't kill anything anyway. It is finally used in Rhythm of War to stab Highprince Ruthar in the throat by Jasnah Kholin in a duel (though he is saved by Renarin Kholin before he bleeds out). Hoid even mentions it is the blade's first "kill," and Dalinar Kholin thinks it is the first time he ever saw it unsheathed in the first place.
Pals with Jesus: He personally knew the Shardvessels before they became gods. In Words of Radiance, he mentions flippantly that he had drinks with the Almighty, and never thought of him as particularly divine. A letter in Oathbringer implies, and Tress of the Emerald Sea confirms, that he didn't just know the Shards. He was part of the plot to kill Adonalsium, only to end up rejecting Shardhood.
Sarcasm Failure:
- He's actually stunned into silence when Shallan hugs him in Words of Radiance. Sanderson considers it one of the few moments that makes him drop his guard.
- And spending enough time around Wayne is enough to cause this, too. Given what Wayne's like, that's understandable.
  Wayne: And that's all I know about picklin' vegetables.
  Hoid: Thank you?
Seers: Apparently has some ability to sense where he needs to go, but not why or what he needs to do there. Word of Sanderson implies that it has something to do with Feruchemy.
Ship Tease: In Rhythm of War, with Jasnah Kholin. To quote Jasnah, "aspects of their relationship were more complicated."
Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: Attempted, but ultimately failed. He spends a good amount of his time on Roshar trying to get Sadeas to kill him. There's a law that anyone can kill the King's Wit, but they give up all their titles and lands upon doing so. Sadeas killing him, therefore, would solve about half of the problems in the first two books in one fell swoop. He'd almost certainly find a way to survive, of course; he’s Hoid.
Thanatos Gambit: Discussed. As the King's Wit on Roshar, he tries unsuccessfully to goad Brighlord Sadeas into killing him, because Alethi law would then strip Sadeas of his titles. Of course, given Hoid's nigh-immortality, it would have been faked for show anyway.
Time Abyss: Thousands of years old, looks as old as he wants to. Shallan assumes he's as old as the Heralds, but he laughs. Evidence points to him being as old as the Shardholders themselves, which would put him at six thousand years old at absolute minimum.
Shallan: You're... old, aren't you? Not a Herald, but as old as they are?
Hoid: Child, when they were but babes, I had already lived dozens of lifetimes. 'Old' is a word you use for worn shoes. I'm something else entirely.
Time Master: He ages very slowly, and has been in all of the Cosmere works in chronological order. However, he has not seen all of the years he has gone through, meaning he has some form of time travel.
Trademark Favorite Food: Per Word of God, he is very fond of instant noodles, and is thus very interested in Scadrial since they are the Shardworld closest to developing them. In Secret Project #3, he and Design have even opened a noodle shop.
Question: Is he doing anything to push that along?
Brandon Sanderson: He is not as involved in that as certain other forces are.
Question: There are forces involved in the developing instant noodles?
Brandon Sanderson: Yes, oh yes.
Troll: His entire job as the Alethi King's Wit in Roshar is to be this. He spends a feast thrown by the King just sitting by the entrance, insulting everyone who walks in (except Dalinar) with an easy, practiced air. He also mocks Sadeas, one of the most powerful highprinces, several times.
Wit: Sadeas, I don't believe you've ever paid me a sphere. Though, no, please, don't offer. I can't take your money, as I know how many others you must pay to get what you wish of them.
Sadeas: A whore joke, Wit? Is that the best you can manage?
Wit: Each man has his place. Mine is to make insults. Yours is to be in-sluts.
The Unfettered: In Words of Radiance, he admits to Dalinar that he would let all of Roshar die if it helped him in his goals, even if he had to do it with a tearful gaze.
Wizard Beard: Part of his disguise in Warbreaker.
Wrong Context Magic: He's been seen utilizing Allomancy and Awakening on Roshar, a world to which both are notably not native.

Khriss

Shardworld: Taldain
Magic: Worldhopping, Starcarved
Appearances: White Sand, Mistborn: Secret History, The Bands of Mourning, the Ars Arcana of all the novels, the ''Arcanum Unbounded'' essays.

"Now if only I could figure out why there's no redshift in speed bubbles..."

A researcher with connections to the Seventeenth Shard, advancing the understanding of Investiture throughout the Cosmere.

The Archmage: She's the foremost expert on magic in the Cosmere (at least among the known characters), although the only magic system that she herself is known to have access to are her Starmarks, of which little is currently known (but since it's the darkside equivalent to the Sand Mastery of Taldain's dayside, and is apparently recharged by a weekly pulse from the secondary star facing darkside, it's unlikely that it can be easily used outside of Taldain).
Absent-Minded Professor: Sees absolutely nothing wrong with quizzing Wax relentlessly about the physics of being a Crasher and frequently asks Nazh to do things that are detrimental to his well-being.
Audience Surrogate: Any member of the real-life 17th Shard would instantly recognize (and sympathize with) her MO.
Bad Boss: Not deliberately, and she's not evil, but considering what she puts Nazh through for the sake of her research, she doesn't seem to care much about his comfort... or safety, for that matter.
Black and Nerdy: She's an enthusiastic Investiture scientist, and a Darksider of Taldain.
Dimensional Traveler: Uses the Cognitive Realm to travel the worlds of the Cosmere, mostly for research.
The Exile: An offhand comment during her conversation with Kelsier suggests she's been exiled from Taldain, or at least cannot return to it.
Knowledge Broker: By Word of God, she's not affiliated too closely with the 17th Shard and simply gives information to those who ask for it.
Lampshade Hanging: Her complaint above. Fun Fact: the reason there's no colorshift in speed bubbles is that it's a Required Secondary Power so that Wayne doesn't microwave himself.
Meaningful Background Event: She's the author of the "Ars Arcanum" treatises that explain the magic systems.
Mr. Exposition: Gives Kelsier a crash course on the basic setup of the Shards when he presses her.
Noodle Incident: Word of Brandon is that she involved in the founding of the University at Silverlight.
Those Two Guys: Forms a duo with Nazh.

Nazh

Shardworld: Threnody
Magic: Worldhopping
Appearances (in-person): Mistborn: Secret History, Words of Radiance, Wax and Wayne, the maps and drawings in all the novels.

"My friend, annotated as per your instructions."

— notes on a map of Elendel

Khriss's archivist and errand boy, working to document the various Shardworlds.

Beleaguered Assistant: He is often sent on tasks that are harrowing/dangerous/both by his boss.
Nazh: [on a Fjordell-published map of Sycla] This map has severe deficiencies, especially in the Northwest, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances, considering where you abandoned me.
Butt-Monkey: Was tasked with retrieving a trunk full of notes from the bottom of the sea. He was apparently left behind in Fjor dell of all places. Was tasked with drawing the plateau pattern of the entire Shattered Plains.
Catchphrase: "Shades!" Sometimes "shadows!" as well.
Deadpan Snarker: His annoyed sass comes out rather quickly in writing.
Nazh: [on a map of the Elendel Basin] Had to add the tributary and reservoir myself since the Canton of Cartography doesn't seem to care about accuracy outside of Elendel.
Embarrassing Tattoo: According to an annotated chart of Rosharan alcohols he got one of these while drunk on Horneater lager. Word of Brandon is that it's a glyph of something embarrassing.
Haunted Technology: A broadsheet story in Bands of Mourning shows an encounter with him, where he uses some kind of magical gun that shoots shades. The author even calls him 'The Haunted Man'.
Muggle with a Degree in Magic: Implied. Despite a few Inexplicably Awesome moments, he's never been shown to use any Investiture system himself, yet is knowledgeable enough about them to have researched multiple worlds and annotated Khriss' Ars Arcanum.
Teleporters and Transporters: He is adept enough at Worldhopping to rescue a trunk full of notes from the bottom of the sea, quick enough that said notes were only partially damaged.
Those Two Guys: The other half of the Background Worldhopper Duo with Khriss.
Oh, My Gods!: "Shadows!" An early clue as to his homeworld.

Riino

Shardworld: Sel (most lately seen on Roshar)
Magic: Worldhopping, AonDor
Appearances: Elantris, Oathbringer

An Elantrian. When we first meet him, he’s a Hoed who leads Raoden to Devotion’s Perpendicularity, which he then jumps into, seemingly dying. In actuality, he was transported to the Cognitive Realm. Several centuries later, he’s regained his sanity and has become a lighthouse keeper in Roshar’s Shadesmar, where he encounters Kaladin, Shallan, Adolin, and Azure.

The Bus Came Back: After twelve years absent, he finally returned in Oathbringer.
Covert Group: According to Word of God, he’s a member of the Ire.
Not Quite Dead: Somehow survived being dumped into the Cognitive Realm on Sel, while in a near-mindless Heod state, and later made it to Roshar.

Felt

Shardworld: Scadrial (most lately seen on Roshar)
Magic: Worldhopping, longevity
Appearances: Mistborn: The Original Trilogy, Words of Radiance, Oathbringer, Rhythm of War

A low-key worldhopper from Scadrial, originally a spy hired by Elend's father and sent on various errands throughout the events of Mistborn. He resurfaces over three hundred years later on Roshar, where he works as a scout for the Kholin family.

Army Scout: On Roshar, his job is scouting the Shattered Planes in search of Parshendi activity.
Awesomeness by Analysis: Appears to be his MO, especially in first two Mistborn books, where he figures out things hidden by solid detective work.
Badass Normal: A non-metalborn spymaster in the legendarily murderous court of Luthadel, and later a soldier whose job includes pole-jumping over chasms dozens of metres deep to scout movements of creatures capable of jumping the same chasms In a Single Bound and throwing lightning.
Beneath Notice: On Roshar, he clearly learned from his earlier spymaster gig, as he masquerades as a simple scout. It's so effective, even fans who routinely scour the books for clues and cameos didn't notice him in Words of Radiance for two years.
The Cameo: His brief appearance in Words of Radiance is little more than a name drop.
Cryptic Background Reference:
- He is one by the time of The Stormlight Archive. How long has he been a worldhopper? Why is he a Kholin scout? How much does he know? Why is he even on Roshar? Well, all you know is a name drop.
- He drops a few hints in Oathbringer that Dalinar doesn't notice, when talking about the Nightwatcher.
  Dalinar: Any idea why she didn't visit you?
  Felt: Well, best I could figure, she doesn't like foreigners.
  Dalinar: I might have trouble too.
  Felt: You're a little less foreign, sir.
Married to the Job: Overjoyed at the prospect of being "in the field" again.
Not in This for Your Revolution: He works for the most recent Venture, be it Straff or Elend, who have very opposite philosophies.
Really 700 Years Old: There's a three hundred year gap between Well of Ascension and Words of Radiance, yet he doesn't look noticeably old.
The Spymaster: When working for the Ventures.

Joshin Yomen

Shardworld: Scadrial

Magic: Worldhopping, possibly Allomancy

Appearances: Wax and Wayne

A lord of Elendel by the time of The Alloy of Law, he is seen getting congratulated by Hoid on his marriage to Mi'chelle.

Love Transcends Spacetime: His lovely bride is from Nalthis.
Real-Person Cameo: He's an administrator on the 17th Shard fan site in real life, as is his wife's counterpart.

Mi'chelle Ostlin

Shardworld: Nalthis

Magic: Worldhopping, possibly Awakening

Appearances: Wax and Wayne

A noble lady of Elendel, she is seen getting congratulated by Hoid on her marriage to Joshin.

I Choose to Stay: Moved to Scadrial to be with Joshin.
Real-Person Cameo: She's an administrator on the 17th Shard fan site in real life, as is her husband's counterpart.

Other Worldhoppers Reference List

Other Worldhoppers and Where To Find Them

Quite a few interplanetary travelers in one work were intially introduced in other works, generally before they became worldhoppers. As such, they are listed on multiple pages.

Galladon/Grump - Elantris, The Stormlight Archive Other
Demoux/Thinker - Mistborn: The Original Trilogy, The Stormlight Archive Other
Baon/Blunt - The Stormlight Archive Other, White Sand
Vasher/Zahel - Warbreaker, The Stormlight Archive Other
Nightblood - Warbreaker
Azure/Vivenna - Warbreaker, The Stormlight Archive Alethkar
The Ghostbloods in general are described on The Stormlight Archive Other and Wax and Wayne based on how they are seen in those series.
- Thaidakar/Kelsier - Mistborn: The Original Trilogy, Wax and Wayne, The Stormlight Archive Other
- Moonlight/Wan ShaiLu - The Emperor's Soul, Wax and Wayne
Ulaam - Tress of the Emerald Sea
The Sorceress/Riina - Tress of the Emerald Sea
Design - The Stormlight Archive Heralds Knights And Spren
Nomad/Sigzil - The Stormlight Archive Urithiru, The Sunlit Man

Others

Frost

Shardworld: Yolen
Magic: Immortality; possibly others
Appearances: The Way of Kings (mentioned), Words of Radiance (epigraphs)

"It seems to me that all things have been set up for a purpose, and if we-as infants-stumble through the workshop, we risk exacerbating, not preventing, a problem."

A mysterious old friend of Hoid's, residing on Yolen, known only via unpublished works and a letter to Hoid in Words of Radiance. He's a strong believer in non-intervention policy, dislikes Hoid for his meddling, and is also a dragon.

A Form You Are Comfortable With: Can assume a human form in lieu of his shapeshifting powers. In his only appearance in the old maybe-not-canon short story The Traveler, Frost appears as an elderly silver-haired man in grey robes, with unnaturally metallic irises.
Bystander Syndrome: Refuses to take active part in events unfolding in Cosmere, even at Hoid's nagging.
In Mysterious Ways: The basis for his non-intervention policy. He belives that Adonalsium allowed themself to be shattered for a purpose, and that intervening will wreck the intricate design.
Our Dragons Are Different: The first confirmed dragon in the Cosmere. As with other Yolish dragons he's intelligent, immortal, can fly, and can shapeshift. His appearance in the short story The Traveler depicts him as taking an elderly human form, but with unnaturally metallic irises.
The Atoner: He seems to have some guilt stemming from his part in Shattering of Adonalsium.
The Man Behind the Man: Hoid suggests he has some control over the Seventeenth Shard.
Time Abyss: So far, he is the oldest known living being in the Cosmere (even older than Hoid), which is telling, given how Shards are possibly tens of thousands of years old.
Vitriolic Best Buds: Though he and Hoid argue and insult each other in their letters, and frequently get on each other's nerves, they still openly consider themselves friends.
Frost: You've always been able to bring out the most extreme in me, old friend. And I do still name you a friend, for all that you weary me.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: Like other Yolish dragons, he can shapeshift, even capable of assuming a human form.

The God Beyond

Shardworld: N/A
Magic: N/A
Appearances: N/A

A theoretical divinity above the Shards and even Adonalsium. It is said to be the true God of the Cosmere, and resides in the Beyond where the Shards cannot go.

Have You Seen My God?: There is no actual proof of its existence besides vague theories. Most people haven't even heard of it. It is mostly only worshiped on non-Shardworlds, since Shards are far more direct examples of godhood.

Characters / The Cosmere

Adonalsium

Adonalsium

Shards of Adonalsium

Autonomy

Cultivation

Devotion

Dominion

Endowment

Honor

Invention

Mercy

Odium

Preservation

Ruin

Valor

Virtuosity

Whimsy

Ruin and Preservation/Harmony

Dawnshards

Aethers

Known Worldhoppers

Hoid/Midius/Cephandrius/Topaz/Wit/Roamer/Lunu'anaki/Dust/The Imperial Fool/Others. Oh, so many others.

Khriss

Nazh

Riino

Felt

Joshin Yomen

Mi'chelle Ostlin

Other Worldhoppers and Where To Find Them

Others

Frost

The God Beyond

Previous

Index

Next

Characters / The Cosmere

Edit Locked

Adonalsium

Adonalsium

Shards of Adonalsium

Autonomy

Cultivation

Devotion

Dominion

Endowment

Honor

Invention

Mercy

Odium

Preservation

Ruin

Valor

Virtuosity

Whimsy

Ruin and Preservation/Harmony

Dawnshards

Aethers

Known Worldhoppers

Hoid/Midius/Cephandrius/Topaz/Wit/Roamer/Lunu'anaki/Dust/The Imperial Fool/Others. Oh, so many others.

Khriss

Nazh

Riino

Felt

Joshin Yomen

Mi'chelle Ostlin

Other Worldhoppers and Where To Find Them

Others

Frost

The God Beyond

Previous

Index

Next