Solution: The Only Sanderson Puzzle
Answer: OUTBREAK
Written by Thomas Gordon
This puzzle consists of eight visual representations of sets of items, locations, or concepts in the Cosmere, a shared universe of epic fantasy novels written by the American author Brandon Sanderson. Each of these images has a section marked with an enumeration; determining the represented concept/set/location and calling the enumerated word into the answer checker leads to partial confirmation. After five of these "mini-minipuzzles" have been solved, an additional tab is unlocked that includes indices for the eight clued words.
The source datasets for all of these images are much easier to find if you're familiar with the books, but it's also possible to find them even if you're not. Googling colors, planets, or sizes of sets will help you find many things, as will guessing at what's being represented. In the last image, reverse image search will give you the components directly.
The clued words, their datasets, and their sources are:
| # | Word | Series | Explanation |
| 1 | NOMON | The Stormlight Archive | This is a view of the night sky from Roshar, with the three moons (Salas, Nomon, and Mishim) and two other nearby planets (Ashyn and Braize) visible. The largest moon, Nomon, is labeled. |
| 2 | AUTONOMY | (general Cosmere) | This is a diagram of the sixteen Shards of the Cosmere, annotated with planets which they have Invested. The marked Shard has invested on three planets, which fit the enumerations for TALDAIN, OBRODAI, and FIRST OF THE SUN; these are all planets which the Shard Autonomy has Invested on. |
| 3 | THRENODY | (general Cosmere) | This is a replica of the Cosmere star chart. The labeled star is the Threnody system. |
| 4 | BENDALLOY | Mistborn (Era 2) | This is a diagram of the metals used in Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy, arranged in the same manner as it is on the Coppermind page for Allomancy (the arrangement on the Feruchemy and Hemalurgy pages are slightly different). The colors easily disambiguate which arrangement this diagram is in. The labeled metal is bendalloy. |
| 5 | GARNET | The Stormlight Archive | This is a diagram of the ten Polestones on Roshar, ordered by their canonical ordering from left to right. The labeled Polestone is garnet. (Note: by extraordinary coincidence, there are also ten gas giants in the Roshar system with the same colorations and ordering; however, the fact that this is set on a white background (and not a black one like the other two space diagrams), and the (6) enumeration on the garnet instead of a (5) (the relevant planet is named SHASH) will help you disambiguate.) |
| 6 | TOWER | The Stormlight Archive | This is a diagram of the different kinds of Lights on Roshar (a form of Investiture). The synthesis of stormlight and lifelight is towerlight, leading to the labeled word "tower". |
| 7 | JASNAH | The Stormlight Archive | This is a family tree of the Kholin family, with each individual marked by their eye color. Marriages are indicated by horizontal dashed lines, while sibling relationships are indicated by solid brackets which extend above the circles. The individuals in the family tree are (in reading order) Evi, Dalinar, Navani, Gavilar, Shallan, Adolin, Renarin, Jasnah, Elhokar, Aesudan, and Gavinor. The marked individual is the best character from this family, Jasnah. |
| 8 | KAE | Elantris | This is a set of Aons, arranged in a circular shape. The Aon at the top is Aon Ato, meaning "north"; the Aon on the left is Aon Ake, meaning "west"; the Aon on the bottom is Aon Toa, meaning "south". The missing direction is east, represented by Aon Kae. |
When the indices are unlocked, the following letters can be extracted:
| Word | # | Letter |
| NOMON | 2 | O |
| AUTONOMY | 2 | U |
| THRENODY | 1 | T |
| BENDALLOY | 1 | B |
| GARNET | 3 | R |
| TOWER | 4 | E |
| JASNAH | 2 | A |
| KAE | 1 | K |
Which gives the answer, OUTBREAK.
Author’s Notes
There had to be at least one, right?
Otherwise, the process of writing this puzzle was pretty fun; coming up with ways that different datasets could be represented was very enjoyable, and the making of individual images was easy enough as to (usually) not be a huge timesink. I think my favourite ones are either 6 or 8.
The Stormlight Archive is, unfortunately, slightly overrepresented. This is largely because Stormlight has much better data; while I had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to include some of the datasets in this puzzle, there were Stormlight datasets that I wanted to use, but didn't have space for! It's not my fault that the worldbuilding for that series is so much more extensive. Except I'm not sorry, because it is my favourite series.