Trivia / The Cosmere

• Creator's Favorite: Word of God is that it’s whoever he’s writing at the moment, but he does have a fondness for Dalinar and Hoid, since they’ve been with him the longest.
• Fan Community Nickname: Sanderfan, or Sharder for Sanderfans who frequent the 17th Shard forum.
• Word of God: Many, many things. To wit:
  • There are worldhopping characters in the earlier books of the Cosmere (including at least one kandra), but they are only meant to be identified retroactively.
  • Aluminum tends to No-Sell Investiture - this is seen most dramatically in Wax and Wayne, (with the guns, ammo, and hats that don't react to Allomantic Pushes or Pulls) though it has been stated to not cast an atium shadow. In addition, ralkalest (a metal that is immune to Forgery) is aluminum under a different name.
  • All the magic systems are powered by Investiture, but the harnessing method differs wildly from magic system to magic system. Similarly, Investiture (regardless of source) can be used to power any magic system in the Cosmere, but it might require a bit of hacking and kludging to get it to work.
  • Names of many Shards have been revealed by author's notes and interviews with fans.
  • These have grown so prelevant that the fandom has its own specific term for them, WOB (Word of Brandon)
  • There is now an entire site that is dedicated to collecting these tidbits into one place.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Originally, the Cosmere was to have nine Mistborn books and seven Dragonsteel books; with The Alloy of Law growing into a Mistborn Era all of its own, Mistborn cycle was changed to thirteen novels. Meanwhile, Dragonsteel was cut, first to five, then to three books.
  • The first cut of what now became Dragonsteel was The Liar of Partinel, bits of which are now available online. The novel is now considered uncanonical, with bits of it cannibalized for other novels, and the eventual Liar rewrite being pushed from one of the first Cosmere novels to one of the last.
  • At various points, the comic book Dark One was written as a Cosmere story. Brandon ultimately chose to set its own universe.

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