Cosmere Roleplaying Game
Originally created by Johnny O'Neal and Andrew Fischer
Play in the fantastical worlds of Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere universe, the shared cosmology of The Stormlight Archive, the Mistborn series, and more! The Cosmere RPG is a tabletop roleplaying game in which players assume the roles of heroes fighting for the fates of these beloved settings. Defend your ideals with force of arms, wield spiritual Investiture to use magic power, and unlock the mysteries of the Cosmere and the godlike Shards who shape its affairs. Using a familiar d20-based system with the addition of the story-twisting Plot Die, the Cosmere RPG draws on the extensive lore of Sanderson's work to offer players unique character options, heroic paths, and magical abilities to create compelling characters who instantly belong to this fantastical world. Each sourcebook contains options unique to its world; for example, the Stormlight Handbook includes rules for playing a Knight Radiant, forging a bond with a spren spirit, and wielding magical surges. The Cosmere Roleplaying Game is a "living" game world, meaning it will continue to expand as Sanderson collaborates with the designers to add new worlds, new magic, and new technology to the Cosmere. The handbook and setting guide for the Stormlight Archive was released in 2025, with Mistborn slated for 2026. Elantris and a "worldhopper" book are also planned for release.
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How to Play the Cosmere Roleplaying Game
The Cosmere Roleplaying Game is a tabletop roleplaying game where players create fantastical heroes from the worlds of Brandon Sanderson's fantasy novels, and one player, the Game Master, presents them with an adventure, playing as the other characters, villains, creatures, environments, and factions they encounter. When player characters attempt something risky or uncertain, they'll turn to the dice to test their skills and determine whether they succeed or fail. The core mechanic of the Cosmere RPG is rolling a 20-sided die, adding any bonuses from your character's abilities or circumstances, and comparing the result to a target number, a difficulty set by the GM. Meeting or exceeding this target number means your character succeeds! For especially important rolls, the GM might "raise the stakes" and include the Plot Die as well, a six-sided die marked with unique symbols that can add unfortunate complications or beneficial opportunities to the roll. If abilities or circumstances grant your roll an advantage, you can roll multiple copies of your choice of the d20, Plot Die, or damage dice (if you're attacking), and choose the higher one. If you have a disadvantage, you'll choose the lower one.
Player characters choose attributes and paths that allow them to customize their character as they advance, taking abilities and specialties from one path or many as they grow and change. In combat, players attack by making a test with the core mechanic: rolling a d20, adding their weapon skill, and comparing it to the target's defense value. A success deals full damage to the target's health, but even on a failure, players can spend a resource called focus to "graze" the target and still deal some damage. Conversations, or social encounters, work similarly, but use negotiation skills instead of combat-based ones, and the target's defense value is their Cognitive instead of Physical defense, and they can spend available focus to resist being swayed. Endeavors, which cover various things like traversal, chases, and investigations, are a structured way to resolve longer challenges that require multiple rolls to accomplish.
Using magic also works with the core mechanic; once players have access to magical abilities, they'll roll to use them just like any other skill. Talents gained from paths grant more powerful skills as characters level up.
How to Create a Character for the Cosmere Roleplaying Game
Meric Moir, one of the writers of the Cosmere Roleplaying Game, walks through creating a character using Rlain, a character from The Stormlight Archive, as an example. To begin, players choose an ancestry, the type of being their character is. What's available to play will depend on the setting of your game. This will also influence what's available when choosing your character's culture, the societies in which they were raised. Both choices will give your character access to talents and expertise that will help them as an adventurer.
Next, you'll choose a starting path, what kind of adventurer your character starts out as. You'll be able to choose magical or "radiant" paths as you advance, as well as dip into other paths, but choose one to start. The path will give you a talent and a bonus to a skill. At this point, you'll need to determine your character's attributes, their bonuses to Strength, Speed, Intellect, Willpower, Awareness, and Presence. Starting characters can distribute 12 points across these attributes. Characters then get four skill points to assign to their skills, and expertise equal to their Intellect points. Then equip your character with a starting kit of gear.
Then it's time to round out your character's personality: choose a purpose, the character's drive; an obstacle, something that gets in their way; and a goal, their long-term or short-term objective. These offer some easy narrative hooks for the game master to involve your character.
Finally, you'll use everything you've recorded to derive your characters' statistics, including their defense values, health, focus, attack and skill bonuses, movement, and senses.
Cosmere Roleplaying Game community artists
Ekaterina Burmak
Ekaterina Burmak is a Ukrainian artist celebrated for her vibrant and detailed illustrations. She provided the cover art for the Cosmere Roleplaying Game, as well as "Light of Xaryxis," a component of the "Spelljammer: Adventures in Space" boxed set, bringing the cosmic adventures of D&D to vivid life.
Explore ArtFrequently asked questions about Cosmere Roleplaying Game
Explore Cosmere Roleplaying Game Paths
Agent
Artists of duplicity and sabotage, Agents grasp the threads of fate in the palms of their hands, waiting for the perfect moment to pull and unravel the carefully laid plans of others. Agents can fool even the most prudent with their clever ruses, swift movements, and calculated strikes. They can specialize as an Investigator, Spy, or Thief.
Dustbringer
Dustbringers enjoy engineering and taking things apart to learn how they work. The surges of Division and Abrasion make them incredibly hard to pin down, giving them a great advantage as mobile artillery and sappers on the battlefield. Division allows them to selectively decay and destroy, whether by disabling war machines, rending the air into flame, or destroying weapons, armor, and structures. With Abrasion, they can make any part of themselves frictionless, enabling them to slip, slide, and dodge at incredible speeds. Dustbringer is a Radiant Path available from second level onward.
Edgedancer
An Edgedancer’s core duty is to provide service and assistance to the common people. These Radiants generally prefer to avoid combat, instead using their surges of Abrasion and Progression to perform triage for the wounded, rescue the trapped, and create cover for noncombatants. However, when necessary, Edgedancers reveal their deadly grace, vexing their opponents with their speed, literal slipperiness, and ability to grow obstacles and cages from plants. Edgedancer is Radiant Path available from second level onward.
Elsecaller
Elsecallers have the strongest connection to the Cognitive Realm of all the Radiant Orders. They use the surges of Transformation and Transportation to outwit and outmaneuver their enemies while turning their surroundings into weapons. Transformation allows an Elsecaller to converse with the Cognitive aspect of objects, offering Stormlight and potentially convincing them to become a different material. Meanwhile, Transportation generates temporary personal perpendicularities—passageways between the Physical and Cognitive Realms—allowing the Elsecaller to peer into and travel strategically through Shadesmar. Elsecaller is a Radiant Path available from second level onward.
Envoy
Prominent organizations throughout Roshar appoint Envoys who vie for resources, curry favor, or offer service on the organization’s behalf. These stewards dutifully further the reach of their ideologies through precise rhetoric, patient attendance, and ceaseless fervor. Envoys might specialize as a Diplomat, Faithful, or Mentor.
Hunter
The thrill of the chase thrums in a Hunter’s mind as they patiently surveil. No detail is too small or insignificant to ignore. Experience teaches the most important lesson: you don’t have to be more powerful than your quarry, so long as you’re better prepared. Through careful planning, Hunters choose when and where to strike, securing an upper hand through clever use of traps, high ground, and the element of surprise. Their specialties include Archer, Assassin, and Tracker.
Leader
Beacons of encouragement and direction, leaders oversee the efforts of others. Some are born with an unquenchable thirst for power and influence. Others solemnly accept their calling out of a sense of duty. Either way, skilled leadership requires both natural aptitude and dedicated learning. Mistakes are unavoidable, and indecision is a costly pitfall. Leader specialties include Champion, Officer, and Politico.
Lightweaver
The Order of Lightweavers includes many painters, musicians, sculptors, thespians, and practitioners of similar arts. These Radiants create works of beauty to boost the morale of their comrades and the common people—but they also serve as the spies of the Knights Radiant. Using the surge of Illumination to deceive the senses and the surge of Transformation to alter their surroundings, Lightweavers excel at clandestine operations to gather information and sow confusion in enemy ranks. Lightweaver is a Radiant Path available from second level onward.
Scholar
Creativity, acumen, and patience are hallmarks of legendary Scholars. Each time a Desolation sweeps away centuries of progress and scientific advancement, Scholars rise to build Roshar anew. To a Scholar, every mystery is a challenge with a befitting prize. No matter their field of study, Scholars use their insatiable hunger for knowledge to change the world for better or worse, one brilliant discovery at a time. They can specialize as tinkering Artifabrians, cunning Strategists, or healing Surgeons.
Skybreaker
Skybreakers are justice incarnate, ensuring that power is never abused and that order never devolves into chaos. Though other Radiant orders see them as rigid fanatics, Skybreakers typically use moral codes and legal structures to fight for justice, protect civilization, and champion vital causes. They are the bane of tyrants, violent criminals, anarchists, and all who seek to pervert the law and prey on the weak. With the surges of Gravitation and Division, Skybreakers can bypass or annihilate nearly any obstacle that hinders them from delivering justice. Skybreaker is a Radiant Path available from second level onward.
Stoneward
The Order of Stonewards are the heavy infantry of the Knights Radiant, standing side by side with their allies as an unflinching vanguard. With their two surges, Cohesion and Tension, the entire environment is theirs to wield. They can use Cohesion to sculpt stone and earth, strategically blocking and slowing their enemies while creating vantage points and cover for their allies. With Tension, they can turn even the softest materials into powerful weapons and armor. And their focus on teamwork makes them an invaluable part of any unit. Stoneward is a Radiant Path available from second level onward.
Truthwatcher
The cosmere contains countless secrets and mysteries. Truthwatchers live to uncover and solve as many as possible, acting as the researchers and investigative reporters of the Knights Radiant. Their quest for knowledge can take them almost anywhere, and their surges of Progression and Illumination empower them with illusions and plant structures as they explore enemy strongholds or long-lost ruins. Meanwhile, the power of Regrowth helps them survive the experience, providing crucial healing for themselves and their allies. Truthwatcher is a Radiant Path available from second level onward.
Warrior
Roshar is a world riven by conflict, and many of its people follow the path of the Warrior, whether for good or ill. A Warrior might view fighting as a calling, an ethos, a profession, or simply an unpleasant necessity for survival—but in all cases, battle follows the Warrior like a shadow. The Warrior specialties are Duelist, Shardbearer, and Soldier.
Willshaper
Willshapers embody freedom. This can be the freedom of liberating the captive, but also the freedom of choice and self-expression. They’re the builders and craftspeople of the Knights Radiant, laying the foundations of not only buildings, but of civilization. These Radiants use the surge of Transportation to bypass physical obstacles and travel using Shadesmar, and they use Cohesion to soften the walls and chains that prevent people from being free. Willshaper is a Radiant Path available from second level onward.
Windrunner
In the modern era, when the average person thinks of the archetypal Knight Radiant, they picture a Windrunner: a hero soaring through the sky who stops at nothing to see others safe. Windrunners are the scouts and special forces of the Knights Radiant, wielding the surges of Adhesion and Gravitation. The first allows them to create powerful bonds between objects, such as sticking an enemy’s clothing or weapon to the floor. They use the second to glide through and above the battlefield, dynamically changing the direction gravity affects them. Windrunner is a Radiant Path available from second level onward.
