
Sel: the planet on which Elantris and The Emperor's Soul are set.The confirmed core Shardworlds so far are:
At least ten of these worlds are important in being 'core Shardworlds', where one or more Shards of Adonalsium are located.

The Cosmere appears to hold countless inhabitable (and maybe inhabited) planets.


However, at this stage crossing between the worlds is only possible by magical means and limited to a very small number of people. Collectively these worlds are located (relatively) close to one another in a compact dwarf galaxy, and Sanderson has indicated that later books will show people crossing between worlds using starships equipped with magic-powered FTL drives. The Cosmere itself is a collection of various planets all linked by a shared extradimensional realm known as Shadesmar. Sanderson's take is a little bit more involved and slightly more prevalent in each book, however. It wasn't until King wrote and completed his epic Dark Tower cycle that the connections between all of these books and characters became clear prior to that point it was more like an assorted collection of Easter eggs for hardcore fans to puzzle over and analyse. The Cosmere can be likened to how most (or indeed all) of Stephen King's novels and stories take place in the same universe, something that is for the most part completely irrelevant to the book at hand but occasionally becomes important when characters cross from one novel to another (like Randall Flagg appearing in both The Stand and Eyes of the Dragon). Spoilers for Elantris, Warbreaker, the Mistborn trilogy, The Alloy of Law, The Emperor's Soul and both Stormlight Archive books (including the recently-released Words of Radiance) follow. This article includes detailed discussions of events some readers may be unaware of in Sanderson's novels.
