Order the Mistborn Campaign Setting for the Cosmere RPG today! This pre-order store will be open until February 28th, 2026.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
April Micro-update
over 1 year ago
– Thu, Apr 10, 2025 at 09:53:02 AM
Greetings, Worldhoppers! We are already in the second week of April, which means Spring is officially here! We've been keeping busy preparing for the digital release later this Summer and continuing the playtest for the Mistborn Campaign Setting.
This update is coming a little early because Johnny is on vacation in Japan, and we wanted to give you a timely update this month! In this update, we'll talk about:
Cosmere RPG: Gen Z Edition
Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game Award Nomination
Production and Tariffs Update
Cosmere RPG: Gen Z Edition
Please continue reading below if you are Gen Z. If you are not Gen Z, then DON'T continue reading!
Ok, now that we've got ONLY Gen Z backers reading this...wsg gng? Want to aura farm your way through Roshar and experience peak? Look no further than the Cosmere RPG: Gen Z Edition!
This brand-new edition of the RPG is tuff and hits different, so make sure to check it out! #AprilFools
Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game is up for an award!
The Mistborn Deckbuilding Game has been nominated for "Best Card Game" on Board Game Quest! We are absolutely honored to be considered for this award.
If you've enjoyed playing Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game, please consider voting for us! No need to register for anything to vote! Winning this award will help ensure the game gets seen by everyone, including non-Cosmere fans. This will go a long way towards ensuring the success of future expansions and more.
And if you don't yet have this amazing game from designer John D Clair, what are you waiting for? Hop over to the Dragonsteel Books store and get your copy.
Production and Tariffs Update
In our last update, we mentioned the Stormlight Campaign Setting is officially in production! Since then, books are being printed, dice molded, and cards cut. We're still on track to complete production sometime in June, but (in case you've been living in a chasm) the latest news on tariffs has thrown a few wrinkles into our timeline.
As of this writing, President Trump has promised what amounts to crippling 145% tariffs on (almost) all goods produced in China, which just happens to be where we're producing the Cosmere RPG. Because this situation is evolving so quickly, and changing day to day, we have to be cautious and flexible in how we plan for dealing with them. While we want to assure you that we are considering every possible option for handling these tariffs and even setting plans in motion to try and account for the various possibilities, we are going to wait until we get a bit closer to the end of production before we announce those plans publicly. There is so little certainty about things right now, that anything we were to announce today could be moot by Monday of next week.
We know that you are anxious about what this might mean for your pledges. Please know that we are going to do everything possible to get these delightful products to you with the least amount of pain. Brotherwise cares about the Cosmere and the Cosmere fan base as much as you do. One way or the other we'll find a path forward.
Marching Into Production
over 1 year ago
– Thu, Mar 20, 2025 at 09:56:24 AM
Hello, Worldhoppers! It's been a little over a month since our last update, but our team has been very busy since then! In this update, we're excited to share info on:
Production & Physical Proofs
Beta Material End Date & VTT Availability
What's next for the RPG team
Let's jump straight into the most exciting news:
Production Update
Production has officially begun! We're now in the process of printing our core sourcebooks, which are by far the biggest part of this initial print run. (We're printing more than 60,000 copies of each book!) Miniatures are also well underway, and moving to the packaging stage. We've received and approved samples of every physical reward for our Stormlight launch.
Everything is shaping up beautifully, as you can see in this 5-minute video from Johnny, the project's Creative Director:
Everything on this table is technically a "pre-production" sample, shipped to us by the factory so we can make final comments and provide approvals. We have approved everything you see in the video, so everything there is either in production or about to be!
The project continues to be right on schedule for our promised fulfillment date of September. We'll provide updates on that timing every month, and we live in a world where geopolitical events could cause unexpected delays. But for now, thanks to the efforts of our hard-working team, we remain on track.
Beta Materials Coming Down on March 31st
In our Valentine's Day update, we noted that the Beta materials and compendium content for each VTT partner will be removed on March 31st. This means that all free trial materials for the Cosmere RPG will be taken down, and won't be back up until after the digital release. Don't worry, though! The free trial material will be replaced with similar free trial content around the digital release to help recruit new players in the years to come. If you made a character using Demiplane, you will continue to have access to your playtest player characters made on Cosmere RPG Nexus both during this transition period and after.
We're just trying to give our partners ample time to change over to the final game, and minimize any crossover between outdated/Beta content with the final rules. It may be slight overkill, but the Beta materials were primarily there to A) support playtesting and B) give folks a chance to try the system before backing. We do appreciate the resourceful folks who have already started campaigns using demo materials, but hopefully, those groups can make do with downloads of existing materials. For now, our focus is on making sure our digital partners are prepared with top-quality support when we send digital rewards in the summer!
Planning for the Future
Along with all that production excitement, the core Brotherwise team just came back from a very productive off-site retreat. Thank you for being patient while we were out of the office! Brotherwise full-time staffers Jillian, Matt, and Hayden joined Johnny and Chris in California for two days of vision planning, brainstorming, and strategizing. We discussed what's next for Cosmere RPG, and where we'd like to take the underlying core rules, which we call Plotweaver.
Chris and Johnny led a presentation on the future of Cosmere Games and Collectibles
As you know, 2025 is all about Stormlight, and 2026 will see the release of our Mistborn sourcebooks. In 2027, we're currently planning to keep the focus on those two campaign settings. We'll be developing new adventure content and a fully-featured solo rulebook that's fully compatible with all the existing sourcebooks. Beyond that, we're working with Brandon and Dragonsteel on long-term rollout plans for Worldhopper, Warbreaker, and Elantris sourcebooks (not necessarily in that order).
We're also in the early stages of developing Plotweaver as a standalone system. We won't let those efforts slow down Cosmere RPG releases, but we're recruiting a second team of folks to work on fantasy, modern, and sci-fi rules that can be used for any setting. That initiative will be supported by an open game license that will allow independent creators to monetize their own (non-Cosmere) IP. For at least the next year, that work will all be behind-the-scenes, but our discussions at the retreat confirmed that this will be a major initiative for Brotherwise Games over the next three years.
Thank You!
As always, we appreciate your support and patience as we work hard to make these materials the best they can be. We're really pleased at how pre-production went, and production seems to be (knock on wood) going just as smoothly. If you have thoughts or questions, please share them in the comments!
Find Your Passion
over 1 year ago
– Fri, Feb 14, 2025 at 09:37:45 AM
Happy Valentine's Day, backers! This is a day for love and appreciation, so we're excited to send an update to show you all how much we appreciate you. We have a quick production update and a reminder to finalize your BackerKit selections, but first... something fun.
The Thirsty Scholar
A couple of weeks ago, Jillian asked the RPG team if they had anything to share for Valentine's Day. She was thinking they might have a message for the fans, or maybe an idea for a Cosmere RPG-themed Valentine's Day card. She should have known they'd have something even better...
Some key members of the RPG team, with a little help from Dan Wells, were already cooking up a new Scholar specialty: the Devotary of Thirst. Inspired by Ardent Ellista, this talent tree is perfect for anyone who wants to bring a little romantasy into their fantasy.
Now you can live out your fan fiction dreams and cultivate some passion! This path is totally unofficial, but it's a lot of fun. It's fan content that just happens to come straight from the Cosmere RPG team. Which brings us to our next topic...
Fan Content Policy
Ever since the Beta went live, players have been asking us about our fan content policy. While we're still working on a formal policy with more detailed legal language, we've posted the key information on the Cosmere RPG website. The TLDR:
Homebrew game content is encouraged! Just make sure it's A) not monetized, B) doesn't copy the official graphic design elements like borders and backgrounds, and C) specifies that it's fan content.
Actual play content is in a category of its own, and can be monetized (e.g. on an ad-supported YouTube channel). We'll be offering some perks and support for Cosmere RPG APs.
Plotweaver™ (the system underlying the Cosmere RPG) is coming! It will have its own open game license, which will allow for monetization of IP that you own.
Reminder: Stormlight Physical Items Leave Backerkit on February 28
We will be taking the Stormlight Physical Items off of the BackerKit pledge manager and pre-order store on February 28th! This timing will ensure we have accurate estimates for our printing quantities.
This includes all physical items in the "Stormlight RPG Products" section (but not PDFs, VTT modules, or miniature STLs). Of course, all Stormlight retail items will be available in the future when the game hits store shelves.
Digital items for Stormlight and all items for Mistborn will remain active in the pledge manager and pre-order store.
Pre-Production Turnover is Complete!
In our update two weeks ago, we said that we'd be sending all print files to our factory partner by the end of the Chinese New Year holiday. Since then, our team has been working hard to do just that: we've handed over files for the Plot Decks, Item Cards, Map Pack, and Token Collection.
As we like to do, we've put some extra love into those items along the way. We promised "over a hundred" tokens, and the final number is 195. We promised 12 maps, but decided to make them all double-sided, so the final pack really contains 24 ...including every battlemap from Bridge Nine and Stonewalkers. The card sets are also looking awesome.
Now that they're back from the Chinese New Year holiday, our friends at LongPack are working to send physical samples of the RPG for us to review before mass production. We've already sent notes on the Handbook and eagerly await the other book proofs.
What about the digital products?
We've seen some folks on our Discord server theorizing that digital rewards would be released early, but we want to clarify that we're still following the plan we announced during the campaign: we'll send digital rewards shortly before physical fulfillment begins. There are a few reasons for this:
We want to make sure the files are in perfect shape before we hand them over to our partners at Roll20/Demiplane, Fantasy Grounds, and Foundry. We've just sent those files for the core books, and we're still working on the e-supplements.
Our partners want to make sure that content is in great shape, so they're taking the time to get everything right.
We don't want there to be too much lag between people getting digital rulebooks and physical books.
That last point is really the most important. We want the Cosmere RPG to have staying power, which is part of why we set up this Kickstarter to fulfill across two years of releases. We think the digital materials are a great preview for backers, but we don't want the game to feel like old news by the time you get your physical books. It's tricky to time everything out over the course of years, but so far we're right on track!
The only reason we haven't set a specific date for digital delivery is because that depends on how everything's going with physical reward fulfillment. Our goal is to send digital rewards to all backers 2 months before physical rewards begin reaching US backers. If we stay on track for our physical fulfillment in September, digital rewards will go out in July.
VTT Availability
As mentioned above, we are working with all our VTT partners to get the finalized ruleset for the Stormlight Campaign Setting up and running on their platform. Starting on March 31st, each platform will remove its compendium content, and the free trial for the Cosmere RPG will be taken down until after the digital release. (However, it will be replaced with similar free trial content to help recruit new players in the years to come.)
If you made a character using Demiplane, you will continue to have access to your Playtest player characters made on Cosmere RPG Nexus both during this transition period and after.
Production & Fulfillment Timeline
Physical proofing can take several weeks, and once that process is finished, we'll have a better idea about LongPack's production timeline. This will determine our projected fulfillment timeline for digital and physical rewards, so we'll keep you posted in future update.
Thanks for your support, and have a very happy Valentine's Day! ❤️
Pre-Orders, Playtesting, and Pre-Production!
over 1 year ago
– Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 12:08:44 PM
Happy 2025, backers! The RPG team has hit the ground running in January, and we can't wait to officially release the first wave of the Cosmere RPG later this year. That said, we've got a lot to cover in this update, so let's dive in! This update will include these topics:
Physical Stormlight items closing on 2/28
Playtest opportunity
Our growing team
Project status video
Last Day to Pre-Order Stormlight Physical Items: February 28
With the Stormlight items getting ready for production, we will be taking the Stormlight Physical Items off of the BackerKit pledge manager and pre-order store on February 28th! This timing will ensure we have accurate estimates for our printing quantities.
This includes all physical items in the "Stormlight RPG Products" section (but not PDFs, VTT modules, or miniature STLs). Of course, all Stormlight retail items will be available in the future when the game hits store shelves.
Digital items for Stormlight and all items for Mistborn will remain active in the pledge manager and pre-order store.
"Life before death. Strength before weakness. Playtesting before publication!" - The First Stormlight Archive TTRPG Ideal
We are seeking playtesters for two of our e-supplements: Advanced Adversaries and Stormlight Scenarios.
Advanced Adversaries is an e-supplement presenting new higher-tier adversaries, Surgebinding modules that can be applied to make any adversary a Surgebinder, and even the Awakened sword Nightblood! The goal is to ensure this new content is balanced, fun for the GM to use and the players to face, and easy for an experienced GM to implement into a game session with limited prep.
Stormlight Scenarios includes seven short adventures that showcase the variety of moods, locations, and structures that Cosmere RPG sessions set on Roshar can feature. The goal of these adventures is to provide a two- to three-hour scenario that GMs can prep in 10 minutes or less.
If your group is selected for either playtest, you will receive a playtest version of the rulebook and an early copy of the Advanced Adversaries or Stormlight Scenarios manuscripts. You will then have between Monday, February 3rd, and Sunday, February 23rd, 11:59 PM EST, to run a playtest and submit a feedback report.
Those who submit a feedback report will be included in playtesting credits and considered for future playtests. If you are interested in joining one of these playtests, please complete this linked form by February 2nd.
New Writers, Editors, and Promotions, Oh My!
With the success of the Kickstarter, we've been able to hire more folks to help make the Cosmere RPG as awesome as possible. Join us in welcoming them and congratulating our existing team members on their hard work!
Welcoming New Contributors
Matt DeMino is joining us as Art Director for the Mistborn campaign setting! He'll work closely with Johnny and Marie to commission hundreds of illustrations that will bring Scadrial to life! A little more about him: Matthew DeMino is a Texas based art director and illustrator who has art directed 10 TTRPG projects, including Ghostfire Gaming’s Grim Hollow: Valikan Clans and Grim Hollow: Transformed. As an illustrator, he’s worked with Wizards of the Coast, Ghostfire Gaming, Archvillain Games, Hitpoint Press, R. Talsorian Games and many more. Matt spends his free time attempting to give equal attention to his many hobbies, painting, watching movies, playing games and spending time with his partner, three cats and dog.
Eli Scovill is joining us on the editing team to work alongside Laura and Sebastian. Eli is a freelance TTRPG editor currently grinding hard to escape the grim hills of Oklahoma. Eli brings their awkward-yet-charming flare for Making Stuff Better to everything they love—from the home games they've been GMing since the turn of the century, to the fresh new TTRPG projects they're thrilled to collaborate on professionally today. Important Trivia: Eli read so much as a kid, the summer camp they (involuntarily) attended actually made up an award for them for "most books read" out of sheer, awed pity; Eli may have lost that nifty medal*, but they've never lost their love of stories—especially the ones we create together. *For some reason, it was a silver medal, because apparently Eli only performed well enough to win second place in Competitive Social Anxiety.
Sen H.H.S. is a Taiwanese freelance writer with over thirty TTRPG credits on books published by EN World, Paizo, Roll for Combat, and more. She is one of four winners of the Diana Jones Emerging Designer Program in 2023, and part of the writing team behind the ENnie Award-winning Pathfinder Lost Omens: Tian Xia World Guide. In order to join the Cosmere team, she read the entire Mistborn series—both eras—in two weeks. You can follow her on Bluesky under senhhs or visit her website.
Matt Wiens is a writer, gamer, and lifelong Cosmere fan, hooked on the books since he purchased Elantris from a local bookshop as a teenager in 2005. Matt is a senior staff member for the Brandon Sanderson fansite, 17thShard, with over a decade of involvement in the online Cosmere fandom community. He wrote and ran Diceborn: Secrets in Stained Glass, a five-part actual play series set in the Final Empire, using the Mistborn Adventure Game system designed by Crafty Games. Offline, Matt enjoys brunch, board games, talking too loud, and watching cartoons.
New Promotions
Imogen Gingell has consistently contributed excellent design, adventure, and writing work. She's now joining the Core Design team to lead our adversary design efforts. As we finish up Mistborn, she'll be developing design guidance for our Cosmere baddies and leading the revisions for Mistborn adversaries.
Ross Leiser has become our first Senior Designer, a role that recognizes the mentorship he's provided to folks upskilling on Cosmere design (such as leading Advanced Adversaries) and his leadership in developing how we handle the Invested Arts.
Meric Moir has written for every core book we've worked on, clocked possibly the most GMing hours of anyone on the team, and is leading Stormlight Scenarios. As we move into 2025, he will be working with Lydia as Book Lead for the Mistborn World Guide.
Lydia Suen has been a powerhouse on the team, moving from writer to lead writer, and now playing an increasingly important role on the core design team. Over the course of 2025, she'll be working closely with Andrew to continue that growth, starting with a shared Book Lead credit on the Mistborn Handbook.
Project Status
In our last update, we shared the news that the Handbook was off to the printers and our other books were close behind. Since then, we've sent final files for the World Guide, Stonewalkers, Welcome to Roshar, and Bridge Nine. These are now in the hands of our printing partner, LongPack. (Ironically, the last supplement we're sending to print is The First Step.)
This part of the project is what we call pre-production, when we're past layout and getting ready for actual production. It involves getting final Dragonsteel approvals, file prep back-and-forth with the factory, and reviewing physical prototypes. Pre-production is the long, careful, "measure twice" step before the rapid, decisive, "cut once" step of physical production.
Today's update video features a sneak peek at production-quality prototypes for the Stormlight Handbook and miniatures. Thanks to the team's efforts, we're in great shape to head into production in those shortly after the end of the Lunar New Year holidays. We'll continue to share more samples as we have them!
Our current progress puts us right on track for our promised September fulfillment. We might save time or lose time during the upcoming steps of shipping and fulfillment, and a looming global trade war adds some uncertainty. But as of today, assessing all the factors within our control, we're feeling very good about our progress.
In parallel with all of this, our writing and design team has been working hard on Mistborn. The team recently completed full manuscripts of the Mistborn Handbook and Mistborn World Guide, which are now headed into playtesting and rewrites. We'll share more in the future, but for now it's all top secret!
Happy New Year!
almost 2 years ago
– Tue, Dec 31, 2024 at 01:57:18 PM
Happy Holidays, Worldhoppers!
We hope everyone is enjoying a joyful and restful end of the year. There’s no question that 2024 was an incredible year for Brotherwise Games. We had two Kickstarter campaigns that exceeded our highest hopes. We launched the Mistborn Deckbuilding Game to rave reviews and runaway sales. We also got to celebrate with fellow Cosmere fans at Dragonsteel Nexus and read Wind and Truth.
As we cross the finish line of this awesome year, we wanted to share a few quick updates.
Cards Getting Charged Today
In our last update, we notified you that cards would be charged for the Pledge Manager at the end of the year. If you've paid for your add-ons and shipping costs on BackerKit, your card will be locked and charged today. We’ve already started locking placed orders and the actual charges take time to process, so it may not be until tomorrow before every card is charged.
No action is required today. We’ll keep the Pledge Manager open through January, but this is a good time to finalize your pledge for the Stormlight-related items. If you have any questions about your order, you can contact [email protected] for help.
Note that Backerkit customer service is off for the holidays, so if you have any issues, you may not hear back from them until Friday at the earliest.
Project Status
The Cosmere RPG team must be tapping bronze, because they’ve been working around the clock to get your Stormlight rewards ready for production! In particular, three team members have stayed busy right through the holidays: our Graphic Design Lead Gordon McAlpin, Lead Editor Laura Hirsbrunner, and Art Director Katie Payne.
As we mentioned two weeks ago, the Stormlight Handbook is fully approved and at the printers. Since then, it has gone past the “e-proof” stage and is moving to physical proofing. We’ve also handed over all files for physical items like dice and miniatures. The World Guide is just a few days away from handoff to the factory. Stonewalkers is fully laid out and just awaiting a final round of Dragonsteel review. We’re now putting the finishing touches on our softcover releases: Bridge Nine, The First Step, and Welcome to Roshar.
We couldn’t be happier with how everything is looking. In parallel with all this pre-production work for Stormlight, our designers and writers are hard at work on the Mistborn Handbook and Mistborn World Guide so we can stay on track for our 2026 delivery dates, too!
A Holiday Gift
Two of our team members, writer Meric Moir and artist Marie Seeberger, surprised our team with a short adventure during the holidays! We’d like to pass their gift on to you in the form of this lighthearted, holiday-themed scenario: Middlefest in Urithiru.
This adventure is intended for Tier 2 characters and references some adversary profiles from the Stormlight World Guide, but if you’d like to give it a try, it would be easy to substitute some of the NPC stat blocks for ones available in the Beta Rules Preview. We should also mention that this adventure hasn’t been reviewed by Dragonsteel, but we thought it was too fun not to share.
Spreading the Word
The Cosmere community is the best fandom we know, and we’d like to call upon your power! There are two easy ways you can help the community grow by spreading the word about Cosmere games.
The Mistborn Deckbuilding Game is already a hit, and spent most of December at #1 on the BoardGameGeek “Hotness” chart. You can help it stay strong simply by visiting our BGG page. (Positive ratings can also help it maintain its very strong score, but please only review it if you’ve actually played the game.) If you’re in the US and want this game, check your local Barnes & Noble or FLGS. A new printing will also hit stores in January, which should make it much easier to find.
We’re longtime fans of EN World, a TTRPG news site and community, so we’re delighted to see that they’ve included the Cosmere RPG as a nominee for the Most Anticipated RPG of 2025. Log in to EN World to cast your vote! Please note that the game is listed alphabetically as "Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere RPG." Getting recognized by EN World could help us reach even more people, so thanks in advance for anyone who helps us rock the vote.
Always the Next Step
As fantastic as 2024 has been, we’re just as excited for 2025. In the year ahead, we’ll finally get to share the Stormlight sourcebooks with all of you, and introduce the rest of the world to the Cosmere Roleplaying Game. Thanks to every backer of this campaign for making our dreams a reality, and here’s to exploring a universe of adventure for years to come!
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