And I have a question, for I can't really find it on TWG, and everybody's talking about it... What is exactly "the Shard"?
"Shard" is a generic term for Ruin, Preservation, and a number of other similarly powerful beings/forces that exist on the various planets most of Brandon's books are set on. It is mentioned in at least one of the chapter headings in Hero of Ages, along with the being that all the Shards originally came from (Adonalsium*). Adonalsium, as much as we can figure out so far, appears to be the equivalent of God. He was broken into a bunch of Shards a long time ago, and the settings of Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, the upcoming Stormlight Archives, and a few more planned for the future all feature one or more Shards of Adonalsium, each of which has a major impact on the nature of the setting and that setting's magic system.
* Hero of Ages has a typo in the name, calling it Adonasium. Brandon has repeatedly stated this is a mistake, and the correction somehow got missed before the printing, and it's supposed to be Adonalsium.