If you have ever wanted to play Hearts but with the warring gods of Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere standing in for the four suits, Shards of Creation is about to make your week. It's a trick-taking card game for 2-4 players that swaps the usual hearts, clubs and spades for eight Shards of Adonalsium, and it lands at retail on 24 June 2026 for $24.99 after pre-orders opened on 22 May.
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Start organising for freeHere's the clever bit. Instead of four suits, the deck has eight, one for each Shard: Autonomy, Cultivation, Devotion, Dominion, Honor, Odium, Preservation and Ruin. Each suit carries different values and its own special abilities, themed to that god's personality, so leading with Odium plays nothing like leading with Preservation. You win by collecting enough Shards to dominate a sphere of influence, and a game runs in 30 minutes or less, which makes it an easy one to slot into the start or end of a session.
The game is designed by Hayden Dillard and published by Brotherwise Games, the studio working as the official games partner for Sanderson's Cosmere (they're also behind Call to Adventure: The Stormlight Archive and the upcoming Cosmere RPG). The entire deck is illustrated by Medusa Dollmaker in a lavish art nouveau style, and for Sanderson readers there's a genuine treat hiding in the box: the cards include the first ever canonical artwork of Devotion and Dominion, the two Shards behind the magic of Elantris. Sanderson has said Devotion's intent could just as easily be called Love, and the pair were loosely inspired by yin and yang.
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Find events near youYou don't need to have read a word of the Cosmere to enjoy it, though. If you can play Euchre or Hearts, you can play this. A second expansion adding eight more Shards is already planned, so there's room for it to grow.
Got a Sanderson fan in your group? Time to round up a game night and put the gods to work.
Sources: Dragonsteel Books | Winter is Coming | Brotherwise Games
