Everything we know about the first campaign of the Cosmere RPG
While many fans are eagerly awaiting the fall release of Isles of Emberdark, those well Invested in the Cosmere will know that it’s not the only canonical Cosmere story we’re getting this year.
To be released alongside the world books and players guide, the Cosmere RPG will see its first full campaign release in September of this year.
For those who aren’t up to speed, the Cosmere RPG is a new table top role playing game made by Brotherwise Games in close collaboration with Brandon Sanderson and Dragonsteel Entertainment.
The first campaign setting will be launching in September and will take players on a journey from the Shattered Plains all the way to Shinovar, with plenty of stops along the way.
In this video we’ll explore the journey that Roshar’s latest adventuring party will be embarking on, while exploring what we know so far about the campaign.
Spoiler warning; for those who want to be surprised by the adventure, we’ll be going over several plot points. There’s also going to be some spoilers, for The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance.
Here’s generally what we know about the campaign thus far.
- The campaign book is about 160 pages long.
- The adventure is set during Words of Radiance.
- Players can expect to level from 1 to 7.
- We’ll meet some major characters, including Nale, Taln, the Nightwatcher and Axis the Collector.
- We’ll visit familiar locations, like Rathalas, Shadesmar, and the Shattered Plains, but also visit places we've only heard of in lore, like Rall Elorim.
- The main adversary is a corrupted Truthwatcher named Ylt
Let’s explore the campaign and see what what’s on offer.
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Chapter 1: Outside the Shattered Plains
The first chapter in the Stonewalkers campaign appears to be in Alethkar north of the war camps.
While I’m unsure if this has been officially confirmed, key art for the campaign heavily suggests that we’ll be helping transport Taln to the Shattered Plains.
For those who need the refresher, at the end of Way of Kings we see Witt meet Taln as he enters Kholinar. Later, Taln is brought to the Shattered Plains by Bordin, one of Dalinar guards.
Witt also accompanies the escort at some point, but leaves soon after departing Kholinar.
I’m interested to see if we get to meet Wit during the course of the campaign.
Meeting him in the first act would be a great easter egg for long time fans of the Cosmere.
He’s not mentioned in any of the press materials or interviews we’ve seen thus far, but can you really call it a Cosmere story without him kicking around in the background somewhere?
Even if we don’t meet him in the official storyline, there’s nothing that says you can’t have him stop by in your own campaign.
Assuming we travel with the caravan bringing Taln to the Shattered Plains, that’s our next destination.
Chapter 2: Shattered Plains
We’ll come to the Shattered Plains at the start of Part 3 in Words of Radiance.
At this point in the book, Shallan is just arriving after her trek through the frostlands, Kaladin is settling Bridge 4 in to their new role as bodyguards for the Kholins, and the Singer forces at the center of the Shattered Plains just discovered Stormform.
What we’ll be up to at the Warcamps is still a mystery, but I do have a small tidbit on our time at the Shattered Plains.
A few months back I made a battlemap of a marketplace in the Warcamps and posted it on Investedinthecosmere.com as well as Reddit.
On the Reddit post, Johnny O’Neal, President & Co-Founder of Brotherwise Games, commented that the map would be “Very practical for chapter 2 of Stonewalkers.”
This suggests that there may be some early combat encounters in the Warcamps.
I’m not too sure what quest will send us to Rathalas, but that’s the next destination in the campaign.
Chapter 3: “The City That Smolders”
Chapter three sees us visit the ruins of Rathalas.
Rathalas was destroyed by Dalinar in 1163. The campaign is set towards the end of 1173, and I think it will be cool to see what has become of the city a decade after its destruction.
From an interview with Meric Moir at Gencon 2024, we learned that this chapter is meant to be a more traditional dungeon crawl aimed for characters around level 3.
For those unfamiliar with tabletop RPGs, expect to see challenging puzzles, combat encounters, and even a boss battle to cap it all off.
While not strictly confirmed, my guess is that after our tour of Rathalas, we will be heading to Shadesmar on our way to the next chapter.
The Spren city of Celebrant is located in the nearby Sea of Spears, and would be a great place for a break from the dungeon crawl of Chapter 3.
This is further supported by the concept art shared at Dragonsteel Nexus 2024, which showed players facing off against Angerspren, which are common in the areas around Celebrant.
If we’re not traveling through Shadesmar, we will likely pass through the city of Karanak, which we have only heard of in passing in the books.
Traveling across the Tarat Sea, we land on the coast of Greater Hexi, and make our ways towards The Valley, home of the Nightwatcher.
Chapter 4: The Nightwatcher
During our travels we will meet and interact with the Nightwatcher.
The campaign book will include blessings and curses, some of which have been previewed on the campaign’s Kickstarter.
The book will provide some example blessings and curses, some of which are wild, but there will also be advice on how to create your own.
When we have more official information, I will be publishing my own boon table on Investedinthecosmere.com.
We also have some additional information about what will be happening while we travel throughout the valley: the campaign's main adversary Ylt sought out the Nightwatcher looking for a way to kill a god, and was given a black shardblade, presumably Nightblood.
How and why Nightblood got to Roshar is one of the big mysteries in the Stormlight Archive.
I hope we get to learn more about what’s going on in Vasher’s story through this campaign.
Chapter 5: Travel across Emul
After we leave the valley, we’ll travel across Emul. During this time in the books, Emul was locked in the Eighty’s Year War with neighboring Tukar.
The people were also suffering from a famine that put the whole region on edge, and sent refugees pouring into nearby Azir.
Making our way through Emul will be a challenge, but we eventually make our way to the coast. Where exactly we end up is a bit of mystery.
There is the nearby city of Sesemalex Dar, but the travel line doesn’t seem to suggest we go there.
It’s well within the rights of the writing team over at Brotherwise to create new locations not canonized yet, and with the full support of Sanderson, we may be seeing cities we’ve never even heard of before.
Chapter 6: Rall Elorim
On that note, a place we’ve never seen, but certainly have heard of, is our next destination.
We’ll sail north and go straight to Rall Elorim.
We don’t know much about Rall Elorim from the books, but it’s characterized as an odd place with a strange culture.
The nickname “City of Shadows” gave me the impression it would be a dark and sinister place.
This is the birthplace of Lift, who also remarked that it was as strange as it's rumored to be.
Now with some official artwork on hand, we know it’s quite the opposite.
The capital of Iri is a bright and colorful place. The aforementioned “Shadows” comes from the massive cliff face the city is built into, which casts a shadow across the city.
The art was shared at CosmereCon 2024 in Spain.
Reddit user SirZinc was kind enough to translate the text, I’ll link to that Reddit thread below.
What I caught on to in that translation was the notes about the Singer occupation post the True Desolation.
Depending on how canonically long the campaign is intended to run, we might either see the Singer occupation take place, or just make it there in time before it does.
Chapter 7: Shinovar
We end our campaign in Shinovar.
Now that we have a more fleshed out map of Shinovar from Wind and Truth, we can look at where the journey comes to end.
It looks like we’re somewhere in between the Edgedancer and Dustbringer monasteries, and given that the monasteries were said to be remote locations, we can expect that there is some kind of settlement around there.
The one detail from the books that we can hold on to is that Nale eventually gets Nightblood.
Time will tell what role the adventuring party will play in making that happen.
Journey before destination
And that’s pretty much everything I was able to dig up about the Cosmere RPG campaign to date.
Were you one of the lucky few who got to play Chapter 3 at Gencon? Have you found other tidbits that I missed?
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