We’re going through Hoid’s appearances across the Cosmere, looking at who he’s pretending to be in each book, where you can find him, and what he’s actually doing there.
Some of these are easy, especially if you’ve read Stormlight and know him as Wit. But others are a lot easier to miss. And sometimes, what he does in one book explains something we see him do in another.
This article contains full spoilers through Wind and Truth and Isles of the Emberdark, but we’ll keep spoilers for The Fires of December out of this article, since I know a lot of you haven’t read it yet.
Where Is Hoid in Every Cosmere Book? [Video]
Elantris
In Elantris, Hoid is the beggar Sarene hires to help get weapons into the city. We meet him in Chapter 58, when he and his people deliver crates of swords and bows over the wall.
Sarene knows Hoid’s name, but she’s never seen his face. Hoid refuses to meet during daylight, and from his voice she assumes he’s an older man.
But if you have the tenth-anniversary edition, there’s an extra scene after the postscript that shows us what else he’s been trying to do.
In that scene, Hoid is sitting beside Devotion’s perpendicularity above Elantris. That’s the pool where people can cross between the Physical and Cognitive Realms. He takes off his gloves and bandages to check whether he’s become an Elantrian, but it hasn’t worked. There’s a skaze with him, a dark floating sphere, that points out he hasn’t gotten the powers he wanted. Hoid still wants to figure it out, though. As he puts it, “And I do love a good puzzle.” Then he drops into the perpendicularity and disappears.
So we learn that he’s also been trying to get AonDor, the magic the Elantrians use. He leaves without it this time, but we’ll see him try again when we get to Tress.
The Emperor’s Soul
Hoid’s other appearance on Sel is in The Emperor’s Soul, although he’s already gone by the time the story begins.
He was the Imperial Fool who betrayed Shai while they were stealing the Moon Scepter. Hoid got away with the real scepter and left a counterfeit at the palace, while Shai ended up getting captured. And at the end of the novella, Shai still wants to track him down for betraying her.
He isn’t named as Hoid in the published story. We know it’s him because Brandon confirmed it in his commentary on the deleted prologue. Originally, Hoid was going to visit Shai in her cell, but that scene was replaced in the final edit.
Mistborn Era One and Secret History
The Final Empire
Over on Scadrial, we first meet Hoid in The Final Empire as an informant Kelsier goes to see near the Sootwarrens.
This is Chapter 19, while the crew is trying to pass Vin off as Valette, a young noblewoman connected to Lord Renoux. Kelsier wants to know whether their cover is holding up, so he asks Hoid what people are saying about Renoux and Valette. He also feeds Hoid false rumors about dealings between the noble houses, hoping Hoid will pass them along and help turn those houses against each other.
Hoid looks bald and scrawny, and he pretends his eyesight is poor. But he has no trouble picking up a coin, so Kelsier suspects he can see just fine.
The Well of Ascension
Next is his appearance in The Well of Ascension. Hoid is generally identified as the spokesman for the Terris refugees Elend encounters after the destruction in the north. He isn’t named in that scene, and Brandon has changed the explanation for why he’s there since the book came out.
Originally, the explanation was that Hoid was looking for the Well. But Secret History changed that order: he visits the Well first, then heads north. Peter Ahlstrom later explained that Hoid went to Terris to investigate getting Feruchemy and ended up helping the people there. We still don’t know whether Hoid can use Feruchemy.
Mistborn: Secret History
So, going back to that visit to the Well, Secret History shows us what happened when Hoid ran into Kelsier again.
Kelsier is dead by this point, but his mind is still in the Cognitive Realm as a Cognitive Shadow. Hoid arrives looking like a white-haired traveler, riding across the mist on another Cognitive Shadow that looks like a corpse. He calls it Spanky and uses it to stay afloat, because his physical body would sink through the mist. Kelsier calls Hoid the Drifter, and Preservation calls him Cephandrius.
Hoid is trying to get into the Physical Realm through the Well, and he’s annoyed that Kelsier destroyed the Pits of Hathsin. The Pits contained a perpendicularity. Travelers used that crossing to get on and off Scadrial through the Cognitive Realm, so destroying the Pits also disrupted trade with other worlds. Kelsier had no idea he was doing that when he attacked the Lord Ruler’s atium supply.
Kelsier doesn’t want Hoid using the Well, so he attacks him. Hoid fights back and beats him up.
Normally Hoid can’t physically hurt people, so he’s surprised he can do this. But Kelsier doesn’t have a physical body here. Hoid explains that Kelsier feels pain because his mind expects the punches to hurt. Kelsier later manages to lessen that pain by concentrating. So Hoid is causing him pain without injuring a living body.
Once Hoid gets through to the Physical Realm, he takes a bead of lerasium from the Well. That’s Preservation’s god metal, and eating it gives someone the powers of a Mistborn. Brandon has confirmed that Hoid did eat his bead, so this is how he becomes a Mistborn.
The Hero of Ages
Then, in The Hero of Ages, Hoid is posing as an informant again. Vin is in Fadrex, looking for people who might have useful information, and Hoid is one of her contacts. She finds him disguised as a beggar, humming to himself, but gets the feeling that something is wrong and leaves without speaking to him.
In Secret History, we get to see why. Kelsier recognizes Hoid, who beat him up at the Well of Ascension, and tries to warn Vin away from him. Vin doesn’t hear a clear warning, but she gets that feeling that she should stay away.
Warbreaker
In Warbreaker, Hoid is the storyteller Lightsong introduces to Siri in Chapter 32.
He looks like an old man with a long white beard, and he uses sand, dust, petals, and other materials to help tell his story. Siri is trying to understand Hallandren, so he tells her about the First Returned, the royal line, and the Manywar. She gets to hear how the people of Hallandren see that history, which is different from what she learned back home.
At the end, Siri asks about his own training. Hoid says he learned in “a distant place where two lands meet and gods have died.” Siri thinks he’s just being mysterious, but knowing who Hoid is, there may be more to it than she realizes.
We later see Hoid using Breaths to Awaken objects on Roshar in The Stormlight Archive, so we know he’s acquired the magic of Nalthis, the planet where Warbreaker takes place. We just don’t see when he gets those Breaths.
White Sand
In White Sand, Hoid is a hooded musician playing a stringed instrument. You have to look for him in the artwork, where he can be sitting in the background while you’re following Kenton or Khriss.
One of the easiest places to find him is near the end, when he performs a song aboard the ship heading to Darkside. So we know he visits Taldain, but we don’t see him gain Sand Mastery while he’s there.
The Stormlight Archive: Hoid as Wit
In Stormlight, Hoid has a much larger role as Wit. He serves as the King’s Wit under Elhokar and later becomes involved with Jasnah. At Elhokar’s Alethi court, the job lets him spend time around the people running the kingdom, listen to what’s happening, and insult the nobles as part of his official duties.
The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance
We get his name directly in Chapter 54 of The Way of Kings, when he tells Dalinar to call him Hoid. But the longer we stay on Roshar, the more we learn about what he was doing before he took that job.
He was Sigzil’s teacher, training him as a Worldsinger. Shallan met him years earlier when he visited her family as a messenger and storyteller, and she recognizes him when they meet again. Rock remembers a white-haired man coming out of a sacred pool, whom he knows as Lunu’anaki, the god of travel and mischief. Zahel knows him as Dust, and Kelek calls him Midius.
Edgedancer and Dawnshard
The novellas also mention earlier encounters with him. In Edgedancer, Lift remembers a white-haired man jumping into a greatshell’s mouth; Sanderson confirmed that was Hoid. In Dawnshard, Cord recalls a warning from Lunu’anaki. Both are references to earlier visits, rather than scenes where Hoid is there with them.
Wit’s stories and goals
We also see him helping Kaladin and Shallan when they’re struggling. He tells Kaladin stories like Wandersail and Fleet, and later The Dog and the Dragon when Odium is tormenting him in a nightmare. With Shallan, he helps her deal with her past and encourages her not to give up on herself.
But even though he’s helping people on Roshar, he makes it clear that his own goals come first.
In Words of Radiance, he tells Dalinar, “If I have to watch this world crumble and burn to get what I need, I will do so.”
The letters in the Stormlight epigraphs show him contacting people on other worlds, including other Shards, to ask for help against Odium.
He also disappears for stretches of the series. Sometimes that could mean he’s visiting another world, but we can’t match every absence to an appearance in another book.
Oathbringer
He explains in Oathbringer that he can know where he needs to be without knowing why. He’s drawn somewhere, and then he has to work out what he’s supposed to do.
Then, at the end of Oathbringer, Hoid is in occupied Kholinar, disguised as an injured beggar. He finds the Cryptic spren that was left behind when Elhokar died and offers to bond with her, starting the oath that begins a Radiant bond.
That’s Design, and bonding her makes Hoid a Lightweaver. She’s the same spren we later see running the noodle shop in Yumi.
The same epilogue shows him bringing a doll to life while color drains from his clothing. He’s Awakening it with Breaths, using the magic from Warbreaker while he’s on Roshar.
Rhythm of War
At the end of Rhythm of War, Taravangian has replaced Rayse as Odium, but Hoid doesn’t know that when they meet. Hoid uses some of his Breaths to store memories, and Taravangian tampers with those memories so Hoid won’t remember how their conversation actually went.
Wind and Truth
In Wind and Truth, he realizes he’s missing time and starts working out what went wrong. That attack also seems to explain something we’ll get to in Yumi.
By the end of Wind and Truth, Hoid has taken up a Dawnshard again. The Dawnshards are powerful Commands used in the Cosmere’s creation, and the one he’s carrying is Exist. As Taravangian takes up Honor as well as Odium and becomes Retribution, Hoid passes the Dawnshard to Sigzil and sends him into Shadesmar, Roshar’s Cognitive Realm.
Retribution then destroys Hoid’s body, but Ulaam has kept a culture of Hoid’s cells on Scadrial. Hoid regenerates from those cells, which is how he survives and ends up back on Scadrial. Design is still on Roshar, though, so they’re now on different worlds.
He plans to help with the trouble on Scadrial and look for Valor.
Mistborn Era Two
Over in Mistborn Era Two, we see Hoid several times around Wax and Wayne.
The Alloy of Law
In The Alloy of Law, he’s the scruffy man in black speaking to the bride and groom at the Yomen wedding reception in Chapter 4. He isn’t named, but Sanderson confirmed the cameo and later explained that Hoid was there to congratulate friends.
Shadows of Self
By Shadows of Self, he’s working as Wax’s coachman. Wayne calls him Hoid in Chapter 7, so this time he’s named in the book.
The Bands of Mourning
Then, in The Bands of Mourning, Wax meets him outside Kelesina’s mansion in New Seran. Hoid is posing as a blind beggar, and when Wax gives him a banknote, Hoid throws back a coin as change. He throws it straight to Wax, despite supposedly being unable to see him.
That coin is actually a metalmind with a memory stored in it through Feruchemy. When Wax accesses it in the epilogue, he sees through the eyes of a traveler arriving among the southern Scadrians. The traveler has a scarred arm, which reveals that he’s Kelsier. So Hoid has given Wax a way to learn that Kelsier survived his death and later reached southern Scadrial, though we don’t know why Hoid wanted him to see it.
Hoid also appears in one of the book’s newspaper inserts. During Nicki Savage’s Ghastly Gondola adventure, a young white-haired man offers to tell her a story, and she turns him down. Sanderson confirmed that this is Hoid, while pointing out that Nicki’s account can contain inaccuracies.
The Lost Metal
By The Lost Metal, Hoid is still driving for Wax’s family, but now he has a motorcar. Wayne trades him a white rat for a harmonica, and the two talk about whether someone who’s been a villain can become a hero. Wayne still blames himself for the man he killed, and Hoid pushes him to consider that he can become a better person.
Near the end of the book, after the bomb explodes at sea, Hoid picks Wax up from the water in a small motorboat.
Tress of the Emerald Sea
In Tress of the Emerald Sea, Hoid is both the narrator and someone Tress meets during her journey. He’s telling it afterward, once he’s free of the curse that affects him for most of the book.
He first appears as the cabin boy who delivers Charlie’s cup to her. When she finds him again aboard the Crow’s Song, he’s behaving strangely because the Sorceress, Riina, has cursed him.
The curse takes away five senses: taste, humor, decorum, purpose, and self. That includes his taste in clothes, which helps explain some of his outfits.
Ulaam is also aboard the Crow’s Song as the ship’s doctor. He’s the one who kept Hoid’s cells on Scadrial, which allowed him to regenerate after Wind and Truth. In Tress, he’s come looking for Hoid and found him cursed, so he’s stayed aboard. He’s also been telling their friends what’s happened to Hoid.
We eventually learn that Hoid agreed to be cursed. He wanted to become an Elantrian, something we already saw him try to do in Elantris, so he made a deal with Riina. But breaking the curse turned out to be much harder than he expected.
To break his curse, Hoid needs to get back to a particular room in Riina’s tower, but the curse stops him from telling Tress that directly. Earlier in the book, he manages to tell her to bring him to her planet.
Near the end, when Tress is inside the tower, she sees a map of her planet on the floor and realizes what he meant. She asks the crew to bring Hoid into that room. His curse breaks, and he uses his new Elantrian powers to draw an Aon that shields Tress from Riina’s magic.
He also helps Charlie, whom Riina has turned into a rat. Hoid can’t remove Charlie’s curse outright, so he changes what Charlie has to do to break it. Charlie can then become human again by bringing Tress home and writing her a poem.
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
Hoid is also the narrator of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. In the story itself, he’s frozen in place for most of the book.
He’s the man Design has painted copper and turned into a coat rack in her noodle shop. Hoid gave Design a human-looking form through Lightweaving, and she’s used money from his pockets to help set up the business while he’s stuck there.
We learn that after somebody stole his memories, likely referring to what Taravangian did at the end of Rhythm of War, Hoid created new magical defenses to protect himself from another attack.
So when he arrived on Komashi, the world where Yumi takes place, the machine that harvests spirits tried to drain his Investiture. His new defenses reacted by freezing him in place, which left him stuck in the noodle shop for roughly three years. He’s still aware of what’s happening for much of that time, but he can’t move or really do anything.
When the machine is destroyed at the end of the story, he can finally move again. Design proposes stealing a local spaceship instead of waiting years for their next ride, and Hoid agrees.
The Sunlit Man
The Sunlit Man brings us back to Sigzil, who’s now calling himself Nomad. We saw Hoid give him the Dawnshard at the end of Wind and Truth, and by this book, Sigzil has been on the run for years because of it.
Nomad no longer carries the Dawnshard, but he’s still magically Connected to it. That’s why the Night Brigade is hunting him: if they capture him, they could use that Connection to find the Dawnshard.
When Hoid appears, it’s through a projection. Auxiliary, Nomad’s spren companion, strengthens the magical Connection between them so they can talk. So Hoid isn’t actually on Canticle, where Nomad is stranded. Rain passes through his image, and so does a pebble Nomad throws at him.
At first, Nomad hopes he’s seeing Kaladin. But once he realizes it’s Hoid, he’s angry, because he blames his old teacher for what’s happened to him.
Hoid tells him that carrying the Dawnshard may have saved the Cosmere, but Nomad thinks he may only have saved Hoid. He isn’t satisfied with Hoid’s explanation for what he’s put him through. Eventually, though, Hoid apologizes for ruining Nomad’s life, and Nomad believes the apology is sincere.
Isles of the Emberdark
In Isles of the Emberdark, we meet another of Hoid’s students: Starling, the dragon who served aboard the Dynamic. Hoid is her missing master, and she’s still expecting him to come back.
He’s been gone for six months, and the crew has been dealing with the ship’s debts and its transfer to Xisis’s control. Starling still expects Hoid to come back and help, but some of the others don’t believe he will.
Starling meets him on the Spirit Shores, a place in the Spiritual Realm where living dragons can visit the spirits of dead dragons. She sends her mind there while her body stays behind. She’s looking for Frost, but Hoid appears instead, with Design there too.
Hoid has also projected himself into the Spirit Shores. His physical body is still trapped in a vault that rarely opens, which is why he can talk to Starling there but can’t come back to help the crew.
He can’t get out to help the crew himself, but he does give Starling some advice. She’s been trying to solve everything on her own, and he tells her she needs to trust the others and let them help.
He also mentions his wife, who doesn’t fully remember their marriage. He suggests Starling ask two people he calls “the twins” for help, but we aren’t told who they are or how they’re related to him.
Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell
There’s also Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell. For years, Brandon said Hoid wasn’t in it, including in the preface, so it used to be left off lists like this.
But in October 2024, Peter Ahlstrom said he’d checked with Sanderson again, and Sanderson confirmed that the character Peter had identified was Hoid after all. Then, at Celsius in 2025, someone asked specifically whether Daggon was Hoid, and Sanderson said they were theorizing in the right direction.
Daggon is the storyteller at Silence’s inn who uses the name Amity and tells a traveler about the White Fox. That makes Daggon the most likely character in this story to be Hoid, but Brandon’s answer doesn’t explicitly confirm it, so we still don’t know for sure.
The Fires of December
Hoid is also in The Fires of December, both as the narrator and as a character in the story. But since most people haven’t read it yet, we’ll leave the details of his role there for another time.
You can read more about the book in our spoiler-free review of The Fires of December.
Featured Hoid artwork by Howard Lyon. © Howard Lyon & Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
