Search the Community

I'm probably deeply misguided for thinking this. But hear me out. This has been bugging me for YEARS. Since the first time I read and completed the mistborn trilogy as a teenager. And it seems like no one’s addressed it. At least not comprehensively. So I will attempt to now. I humbly ask that you read the whole thing through before commenting. So you can see the full picture I’m trying to paint. Then judge my argument on its full merit. I am very open to the (probable) reality that I am very wrong. Still, it can't hurt to rant a bit ya? Brandon Sanderson (A living printer & absolute gigachad of an author) has either made the biggest accidental blunder regarding one of the most important magic systems in the Cosmere. Or has been setting up one of the biggest plot twists in the Cosmere’s history. And this is why; Allomancy, which Brandon categorised as ‘Preservation’s power’ in era one. Is NOT actually Preservation’s power, but rather Harmony’s. And I will be attempting to convince you that that is the case. Argument: Allomancy, functionally, has nothing to do with preservation, but in contrast, ferruchemy absolutely does. Ferruchemy’s whole shtick is that it allows its user to preserve attributes within metals for a practically indefinite amount of time for use later on. While allomancy on the other hand, not only doesn’t give one the power to preserve anything. But instead REQUIRES that one destroys metals by burning them in order to gain investiture and abilities. Yes, you get more out than you put in. But the same could be said about splitting an atom in a nuclear fission reaction. You destroy something in order to gain the power to do something. Ruin’s influence within this magic system is quite obvious. And yet we can’t say that it is purely his power, because even though mistborn are walking killing machines. Their power can be used to create and preserve just as well. (Ferruchemy being Preservation’s power also acts as a perfect contrast to hemallurgy. The two are exact mirrors of each other, just as the shards are.) Ferruchemy preserves. Pure and simple. Hemallurgy kills, steals, twists, and decays. Allomancy on the other hand just doesn’t quite fit either shard completely. It’s the odd one out. It always has been. Allomancy is an end-positive power precisely because it is not Preservation, or Ruins’ power singularly. And we can deduce this by looking at the natures of the two shards themselves. On their own, neither shard is capable of creating. Only preserving or destroying. Neither one is capable of producing an end-positive system. It was only when the two shards came together, agreeing to work in harmony. That they had the power to create an entire planet, biosphere, and human race entirely from scratch. Harmony did that. Not Preservation. Not Ruin. But the harmonious efforts of the two shards. And later on at the end of era one. It was only through the unification of the shards into Harmony that all the mistakes and errors made by either shard could be mended, and the world restored to its original state. The entire story is about Harmony. Harmony created the world. But once the world was created, and the agreement between the two shards fulfilled, discord followed. The two shards warred, each motivated by opposing intents. Leading to the gradual destruction of their world. And in the end, it was only the rebirth and re-establishment of Harmony that put it all back together. This thematic truth can also be observed within the characters themselves. One could argue that Vin’s entire story was about finding harmony within herself. Learning to accept the fact that she can’t cling to everything and everyone hoping that they don’t change. That they don’t leave her alone(Preservation.) While simultaneously accepting the darker parts of herself. Her capacity for violence is foremost among them(Ruin.) And through the marriage of these two sides of her, the part that seeks to protect, and the part that causes destruction. She finds harmony within herself. Learning to use that destructive force for the sake of preservation. The ruin within her yields to the preservation within her. And it is that resultant internal harmony that not only makes her so potent a mistborn, but gives her the strength to sacrifice herself to destroy Ati once and for all. Mistborn are children of Harmony. And this truth can also be seen by simply thinking about what separates them from all other allomancers. As well as what separates the normal mistborn from the great ones. Their ability to use all of their abilities in conjunction with each other to accomplish incredible acts. Vin’s creativity, her willingness to experiment, to see how two metals no matter how unrelated their powers may first seem, could work in unison with each other to produce unexpected and fantastic results. That is what made her a force of nature. Vin is the greatest mistborn we’ve ever seen precisely because she, more than any other character, mastered the art of using ALL her abilities in harmony. Viewing them as complementary pieces within a greater harmonious whole, rather than entirely distinct and separate elements. The way others, such as mistings, typically would. Counter: Platitudes! That’s all a stretch. We know that allomancy is preservation’s power because it comes from consuming beads of lerasium! Rebuttal: Does it though? This wouldn’t be the first time that the characters in the story said one thing about the nature of a metal, only for Brandon to come out later stating the opposite. I.e Atium’s true nature in era 1. So the same thing could be said about ‘Lerasium.’ I think that what we’ve been led to believe is ‘Lerasium’ is actually ‘Harmonium.’ And the fact that the beads are only found around the well of ascension is evidence of this. Why? Because the well of ascension is the location of the final clash between Ruin and Preservation. It is where Preservation died, sacrificing himself to trap ruin. I believe that when the two shards clashed here, the two clashing investitures produced beads of Harmonium as a side effect, scattering them around the well. And that it is the consumption of Harmonium that actually makes one a mistborn, not Lerasium. Counter: But in Era 2 we see what ‘Harmonium’ is actually like. It doesn’t make people mistborn. It stores allomantic charges and is extremely reactive and combustible. It can’t even be consumed! Rebuttal: Aha, exactly! Because what we see in era 2 isn’t actually ‘Harmonium.’ It’s DISCORDIUM! Somewhere in between the end of era one and the start of era two, something went wrong with either Sazed, his shard, or both. And this is what led to the shift in his shard’s capabilities and attributes in era 2. It is why he’s incapable of wielding the same degree of power he did at the end of era one. Because he’s not in harmony any more, he’s discordant. And that subtle shift has been reflected in his god-metal, twisting it from an inert metal, something that creates mistborn, to a hyper reactive metal capable of nuking cities if agitated enough. It also fits with the hero of ages prophecy. “They shall call him discord(not harmony!), and they will love him for it.” Counter: Okay then but if the beads that create mistborn are actually shards of ‘Harmonium’ created when Preservation and Ruin last battled at the well of ascension. Then what does true Lerasium actually do? Where do mistings come from? Why is it that Vin could burn Preservation’s mist to fuel her allomancy? Argument: Simple. Lerasium’s true property is that it creates ferruchemists. And in order to better support that, I need only ask. Why is it that only Sazed’s people have ferruchemy. What distinguishes them from other people on Scadrial? Simple, they are the only group of people that have been living around Preservation’s perpendicularity for centuries. They are the closest to preservation’s influence than any other group of people on the planet. I believe that either through continued exposure to high levels of preservation’s investiture over countless generations. Or the consumption of trace amounts of lerasium forming within the environment around the perpendicularity. Or even just being descended from the initial group of people who discovered the perpendicularity, who perhaps interacted with it and consumed the invesiture there somehow. And then passed on the power genetically. Mistings emerge naturally because all humans on scadrial have souls formed from both preservation and ruin. And I believe that a misting could snap from both the white or the black mist. Vin was able to use preservation’s mists to fuel her allomancy because 1) she aligned with the shard’s intent very strongly, hence why only she had the power to do this. And 2) She could absolutely have done the same thing with Ruin’s black mist if her personality aligned with his shard’s intent instead. Because allomancy arises from the union of both shards’ powers. Whichever one you can use to fuel it is entirely dependant on how strongly you align with the intent and not with the nature of your allomantic abilities. Counter: But in era 2 we see that when Wax splits ettmetal it produces atium and trace amounts of lerasium, which then go on to turn him and Wayne into mistborn! Rebuttal: No, we think that’s what happened, because that’s what the characters think happened. But the truth is, none of the characters actually know what true Lerasium is. Or what it’s supposed to behave like. Heck, they don’t even know what true Atium is like, because we’ve still never seen it! What we’re actually seeing here is the correction of an imbalance within the Ettmetal. The excess influence of ruin’s investiture in the metal is being removed, resulting in a metal that’s perfectly balanced between ruin and preservation. I.e, true ‘Harmonium.’ Ettmetal is actually ‘Discordium.’ It is innately imbalanced, carrying within it a bit more ruin than preservation, making it extremely volatile. But once split in this explosive reaction. The excess ruin investiture becomes malatium(not pure Atium, which we’ve never seen, because of whatever Leras did to ruin’s power in era 1), while the rest which is perfectly balanced with preservation’s investiture becomes true ‘Harmonium.’ And THAT is what turned Wax and Wayne into mistborn. If one wanted to produce actual Lerasium, they’d have to repeat the splitting procedure once more in order to fully split ruin’s investiture from Preservation’s. Producing pure Atium, and pure Lerasium. Whether or not that’s actually possible though is up for debate. Brandon seems to have eluded in past interviews that this should not be possible. The truth is that in era 1, Preservation did something spiritually to ruin’s power that made it so that it spawned into the world not as pure Atium, but rather as a twisted or dirty version/alloy. Malatium. Perhaps because he feared what true, pure Atium could do if people tried to burn it. And Somewhat similarly, there is a spiritual defect within Sazed and his shard that is reflected in his metal. Preventing it from manifesting as pure ‘Harmonium.’ But rather as a hyper reactive alloy, ‘Discordium.’ Which the characters refer to as Ettmetal. The truth is, we have never actually seen pure Atium, or Lerasium in ANY of the books. Only their alloys. I think that this may actually be intentional. And these intricate layers and webs of contradictions, and misconceptions will serve as the catalyst for the conflicts in the upcoming stories. And perfectly explain why Sazed has never been quite the same as the Sazed we saw at the end of Era one. Something insidious is going on. And he might not even be aware. It’s entirely possible that the main reason Sazed struggles to use his shard is because he mistakenly still thinks of the shard as Harmony, when in actuality it is Discord. The shard and the vessel are not in sync, and this is slowly destroying Sazed from within. Perhaps leading to the development of something… other. I personally think that this spiritual defect is a leftover consequence of the conflict between Ati and Leras in the past. We already know thanks to stormlight 4 that new shard holders inherit changes made to their shards by past holders. The shard’s investiture retains those spiritual bonds and quirks from the previous holder. My theory is that Sazed’s problems emerge from a confluence of 1) Whatever Leras did to Ruin’s power when he split it from him. 2) A weakening of preservation’s power, or rather output/influence/capacity, when he put more of himself within humanity than ruin did. 3) His own lack of awareness on the true nature of his shard’s nature and intent, gradually leading to him becoming an unfit vessel for the power, and thus incapable of using his powers as easily as he otherwise should. Setting up massive implications for future stories and conflicts. Conclusion: Perhaps I’m deeply misguided. Perhaps Brandon made a little mistake and I’ve been reading far to deeply into it for all these years. And in actuality none of this means anything. Perhaps Brandon is entirely unaware that this one little categorization choice he made ages ago could potentially yield all these implications. Or, maybe, just maybe. He did all this on purpose. Maybe Sazed was fated to walk the path of Discord from the start. Maybe we’ve all been duped for years and he’s been gradually working towards this grand reveal. If the latter is true my soul would quite literally ascend into the beyond. And I’ll feel like an absolute legend for having seen the whole thing coming from day one. But if not… Frankly speaking I’ll be so mad XD. Lots of love though Brandon! Thanks for the headache *End Note: The implications of all this kind of answers another question that's been bugging me as I’ve watched the grander narrative of the Cosmere slowly unfold. And that's the fact that Scadrians, without a singular doubt, seem like absolute A-holes in every story when viewed from an other-outworlder's POV. They seem exploitative, apathetic, and in many cases, they sow discord wherever they go. E.g. Sunlit Man, most interactions between ghostbloods and other-worlders, & the new secret project prologue. I noticed this because (in case you couldn’t tell by now) Scadrial and it’s people are the closest to my heart in the Cosmere. So their consistent douchebagery in other Cosmere stories has been very glaring to me. If my theory is true, and Sazed is actually Discord. And the traits of a shard can be seen reflected in the people of their world. This would all make perfect sense. Modern day Scadrians are children of Discord and that naturally makes them more prone to A-holery than most.*

Essentially, the metal arts are spiritually genetic (ignoring you hemalurgy) I believe which could allow for some breeding. We see that the metallic arts have become watered down among the population esssentially removing the possibility for mistborn or full feruchemists but what if, with careful breeding, there could be a way to bring these power sets back into being outside the use of godmetals like Lerasium. Would this sort of breeding allow for a Fullborn perhaps? I do recognize that these people would most certainly not come close to the power level of an original allomancer or feruchemist but that is not quite the point. Perhaps you could strengthen the power level of people with this but the first priority I’d assume is giving someone a greater skill set in metals. What do you guys think? Am I missing some important info that would throw all this out the window?

Quick random thought that came to me; if the only difference between a Misting and a Mistborn Snapping is the level of power (which I don't think we have real proof for), then would grafting a Hemalurgic spike to a non-Snapped Scadrien that added a lot to their total level of Investiture and had the same Identity potential make them into a Mistborn?

Copperclouds can protect one from being sensed by Seekers, and any beings that detect Kinetic Investiture. They can also protect from emotional allomancy. Copperclouds have limits to their strength and can be pierced by a strong enough Seeker. So would it be possible, even hypothetically for a Smoker to become so powerful, either momentarily through Duralumin or permanently through Lerasium-Copper alloy, that they can either block the sight of a Shard or at least protect them from having their emotions messed with?

So. There are 17 types of Allomancers, and 17 types of Feruchemists (technically 18 if you’re counting full feruchemists and Mistborn). That means there is 289 twinborn combinations. That is way too many for anyone to theorize on, but there could be a lot of cool possibilities of twinborn that you wouldn’t expect. So what I will be doing on this thread is randomly picking a twinborn, analyzing the potential of it, theorizing some potential resonances, making up a name for it, and giving it an arbitrary rating from 1-10. I kind of want to mimic the style of daily posts over on Reddit, so I’ll be picking a new twinborn every day, and see how long I can keep this up. Hopefully it’ll be fun! Well, without further ado, here’s day 1! Random Twinborn Day 1: A-Tin and F-Steel Well, this is already interesting! These two admittedly don’t have too much immediate synergy, but they are both useful in their own right. A-tin is great for detecting others in the area, and is generally used as a sentry-type person. However, it could be quite nice in a political setting as well, enabling you to hear and see things that you normally shouldn’t be witness to. Overall a really nice ability to have, but certainly more of a background role than a front lines sort of role. F-steel however is quite the combat role. You can certainly use it to evade being caught, but generally you would go on the offensive. Hitting others before you get hit, and evading other’s attacks, that sort of thing. The only limitation is storing, in which you are pretty useless while doing so. Now, with both, it would actually be quite nice! When storing speed, you can act as a sentry type, and then you can basically be the ultimate spy. It’s definitely not the type of thing where you could be using both abilities at once, as the wind speeds would probably be painful, but they can be used whenever the other isn’t. You can be snooping around, using A-Tin, but then quickly move to another location using F-Steel. Alternatively, you can act as a jack of all trades in combat, as you can listen for potential attacks when stationary, and dodge and attack quickly when moving. It would certainly take a lot of training, but it would be quite the act. Overall, this is a very solid Twinborn combination. I could definitely see this pop up in a book, and it would be very fun to see. Resonance: Well, I would think that with speed and heightened senses comes extra awareness and reaction time. Whether that would count as a resonance, I’m not sure. But the abilities definitely lend themselves to that. Name: How about…a Shade/Shadow? Always listening, but you will never find them. Rating: a solid 8/10! Not completely overpowered, but definitely not something that a non-Twinborn could easily beat. Again, let me know your thoughts! Is there something I missed? Do you have a better name? This is already off to a fun start, and I’m excited to continue this!

I've been thinking about how silver works in the Cosmere, and realized that we know that it interrupts investiture. My thoughts are that silver is allomantically inert due to needing to be an alloy with another metal to be burned by a Mistborn or else it just does nothing as it has the ability to interrupt investiture. In addition, we know that Electrum (45% gold, 55% silver) is able to block the godmetal of Ruin (Atium). Do we know if the other godmetals have a silver counter part that can interrupt them as well? Can someone tell me if I am just slowly losing my mind or if I'm on to something with silver, because the amount of disruptive power that it seems to have for the few times it has shown up I think could be huge and we as a fan base are just overlooking it.

How useful would the Steelsight/Ironsight of a Steel Inquisitor actually be? Yes, you can see in the dark and it's harder to be blinded (from pocketsand and flashbangs, but are there any other ideas for it's use? Also, do you think an Inquisitor or other Hemalurgist could wear an eyepatch to conceal their eye spike, but learn to ignore the cloth's presence and see through it? Otherwise, having an eye spike just feels too much like a give away to literally everyone around you.

---- Main topic here! Download the current demo here! Imagine you're a Mistborn in Luthadel and you're jumping over rooftops through the mists. That's what this game project is. It's 100% spoiler free if you're familiar with the basic allomantic powers. I'm a student at Future Games in Stockholm, and this is a pet project I'm working on between classes. I'm working in Unreal Engine 4 and its Blueprint visual coding system. I started this a couple of months ago when I was just done with the Hero of Ages and really into the allomancy magic system. The goal of this project is to make an FPS-style Mistborn game, where you can play around with some schmexy allomancy. It's not finished, and probably won't be for a while. However! I'm updating the demo as I go along, so you can see where it's going. What's in it? Currently, it's a playground with the physical powers (steel, iron, pewter and tin), set in Skaa areas of Luthadel by the wall. There are a couple of NPCs (some friends, some not), a koloss, the fabulous mist, coins, vials and plates. There are some tutorial signs posted in the level to help you control your powers. Read the main topic (linked above) to get specifics about the content. What's coming? The mental powers, a progression system, levels and storyline. It'll take a while, but I'm going at it when school's not overwhelming! What now? I dunno! Go play it and tell me what you think!

For a long time, I've wondered just how much faster does Allomantic pewter actually make you. It would certainly be useful for determining just how much you could siphon off as an A-pewter/F-steel Twinborn for extra speed. Okay, so we from when Breeze rode away from Cett's army in WoA that it was mentioned that Vin could keep up with his galloping horse. I feel that this is the best example we have right now to figure out Allomantic pewter's enhancement to speed. A thoroughbred horse can run between 38 to 44 mph, though that is without a rider. With a rider, it drops from 38 to 32 mph, and Breeze isn't exactly a light man. Plus, his horse was already exhausted if I recall correctly, so I'll ere on the slow side for the horse's speed and say it was probably running around 32 to 30 mph. Vin mentions that she doesn't exactly love running in TFE during her extended Pewterdrag with Kelsier; she's not a couch potato, but she isn't going to be running any marathons without a boost from pewter as she hasn't honed her ability to do so. That said, she's also a bit stronger than other Allomancers in terms of raw power (Ham mentions this during their sparring in WoA and Kel when her tin lets her see light sooner in the cave hideout in TFE), so this very well may compensate for her lack of natural athleticism. As such, I think I'll just say she's going to get the average speed for an athlete to cover this discrepancy. I was going to factor in Vin's 5' height, but there are many conflicting sources that say it does and doesn't (here's a few of them; link, link, and link). As such, I think I'll omit this from Vin's total running speed. What's more, it seems that Vin is sprinting in the scene with the galloping horse instead of jogging (as would be seen in a longer marathon-like run). Okay, with these in mind, Vin's sprinting speed without her pewter is probably going to be around 17 mph. Her enhanced speed lets her move closer to 30 mph when sprinting. Soooo, this means that standard Allomantic pewter's speed may grant you around double your normal speed, at least when Flaring. Despite this number having a LOT of variables I had to fudge, I think this is at least somewhat accurate. If anyone has other ideas on calculating this speed (or would like to point out any mistakes I made with this), I'd would love to hear it though

Hi! Hope you like the birthday cake I just made for my son’s 16th birthday. No one in my family has any idea what it is, but they are impressed that it’s is so shiny….

The thread I made on balancing Allomantic iron and steel for a D&D Mistborn homebrew went really, really well- thank you so much @Tamriel Wolfsbaine, @Lunamor, @KelsierFortnite, @Returned, and @Duxredux! I really appreciate the ideas and commentary and would love more if you're willing! I've now got a system for these two metals that I think is quite good, and I can't wait to post it once I've gotten the rest of my second draft polished up and finished! However, there are two more powers that are really bothering me. I just can't figure out how to handle Allomantic gold and Feruchemical zinc. Gold is just plain weird; you see a hallucination that is either a vision of how you could have turned out had you made different choices or a past version of yourself. I. . . honestly am kind of stumped on how to use it effectively. Very minor tES spoilers. And F-zinc. . . that's a tough one too. Feruchemical steel has the movement speed bonus, the AC bonus, and the extra actions to be made, and I don't want zinc just to be an inferior version of it. I also don't really see zinc adding a direct attack or damage bonus (especially since F-pewter kind of does that already too), and tin is mostly used for extra perception and awareness, so that's off the table as well. Would anyone who's willing please offer suggestions for how I may form these powers for a 3.5 D&D game?

As I've been working on a Mistborn adaptation for D&d, I've been trying to balance Allomantic iron's and Allomantic steel's abilities. Problem is, I find this very, very hard to do. Any ideas for how Allomantic iron can be better in certain situations?

The effects of using Allomantic gold have been described as being "emotionally stressful" and can be quite jarring to the Auger. My question is, does this emotional stress cause cracks in the Spiritweb at all? After all, those that are mentally unstable are able to have Shards and Cognitive Shadows communicate with them, so would an Auger who used their powers on occasion be susceptible to this?

This is a theory that I've been coming back to for a bit now. I was thinking about how atium and its alloy have distinct properties in the metallic arts. I know all god metals shown in the series so far interact with the metallic arts, but only atium works the same as the 16 allomantic metals. That got me thinking, are there other god metals that act similarly to atium? Atium acts like a temporal metal, but both it and its alloy see into the future, which is the mark of the spiritual realm. I started thinking about these as the spiritual temporal metals, to fit with external and internal. This got me thinking, are there other god metals that could act like the spiritual component to other categories? Could the honor metal and its alloy make up a spiritual physical metal? If so, what kind of effect could it give off? Although I think this is an interesting line of thought, it does however, break the pattern of 16 pretty soundly. Despite the fact that I don't think this is that plausible, I like how Brandon's magic systems follow a set of strict rules so you can speculate possibilities like this, and I hope that sharing this idea can add to other speculations. That's all I have for my strange theory. I hope I was able to properly articulate it and that it gives you something to think about.

So...simple question here, but I was struggling to find a good WoB on the subject one way or the other: It's well demonstrated that an allomancer can hide a metal object from (normal) steel-sight by placing it in their mouth (thanks Zane!). But...could they burn the metal just by holding it in their mouth? I imagine several simple scenarios: 1. An augur (gold misting) with one solid gold "tooth" which has been surgically implanted into their jaw, meaning it touches internal nerves, capillaries, & bone, in place of a previously removed permanent tooth. Can they burn their implant and can they control whether they burn it or other gold in their body? (My understanding is that a solid gold implant would be very unusual by modern standards, buuuuut...I'm not aware of a reason it wouldn't technically work from a bio-compatibility perspective, so i think this scenario is legitimate even if it feels a little like cheating.) 2. An augur with a gold crown/filling (IE: a more modern implant that doesn't hammer metal directly into the mandible but still connects gold and internal flesh inside the mouth). Can they burn their implant? I would think that it would technically count as being in direct contact with their bones and nervous system, and since it's in their mouth, I would think it would count as being "inside" their digestive tract. 3. An aluminum gnat has an aluminum tongue piercing. Can they burn it? This one...I legitimately don't know. Surely this must have been explored before??? 4. A coinshot puts two steel coins in their mouth. Can they spit one out and burn the other (without swallowing it!) As an emergency weapon? Then, on the flipside, which (if any) of these four scenarios would result in the metals being consumed if the hypothetical allomancer in question was targeted by a leecher? Thanks in advance for any thoughts, opinions, insights, or references!

i was reading the ars arcanum of wax and wayne and i saw that it mentioned that every god metal and its 16 alloys are allomantic. is there any WoBs to support this? or at least any clues about what any of them might be because i calculate that there is about 288 possible alomancic powers.

If I recall correctly, Breeze had a habit of speaking what emotions he was going to Sooth away from his targets. Additionally, he was a very, very skilled Soother, so much so that he had trouble telling when he or wasn't using his Allomancy at times. That screams of either Savantism or near Savantism to me. In any case, I propose that Breeze wasn't actually using Commands that had Realmatic implications, but that he was close to doing so, as his Spiritweb had become so familiar with his Allomancy that it would have started subconsciously pushing him to uncover new secrets about it, similar to how Awakeners start to gain a greater inherent understanding of their Investiture as they collect more and more Breath. This isn't too important really, more trivia for the most part, but it leads up to the second part of this post; I'd like to question what Commands would look like if used in Allomancy or Feruchemy, assuming that they would be applicable at all. Would you be able to tweak your power, such as being able to make your Pewter Allomancy focus on specific aspects of physical augmentation, such as enhancing strength more but at the cost of reducing the enhanced stamina or speed, or using a Command to make A-tin focus on specific senses to reduce things like added pain sensitivity? What do you guys think?

Hello, this is a quick thread about curiosity basically. We know that to become an allomancer, you swallow a load of metals and, at least BC, beat to an inch of your life to make you Snap. Then you burn the metals. Harmony changed how Snapping works because he didn’t like it, so how does one find out they’re a Allomancer? Is it institutional, where kids in school are given metals to try and burn? And how about Feruchemy. Assuming it doesn’t require any form of Snap, how does one discover they’re one? Do you just stop by the Village and the Terris people give you some minds to hold? How do you find out you’re metal born?

@Cocoa recently made a post questioning about what would happen if an Aviar or its Bonded person were to have a Leecher or Nicroburst try to affect them with their power, and it got me thinking along a similar line of reasoning; what if a Kandra were to use A-duralumin or have a Nicroburst charge them up? Their spikes don't seem to run out of power, so it the effect not considered Kinetic Investiture and therefore not a valid target for enhancement Allomancy? And if the powers were able to be affected by enhancement Allomancy, would there be some other consequence such as the Kandra not having their Blessing's effects available temporarily, kind of like how a Feruchemist can temporarily go without part of an attribute to draw more Investiture from it? Would a Leecher be able to stop a Kandra's Blessings from functioning while touching them, similar to how a Shardblade can't be summoned while a Leecher is interfering? What are everybody's thoughts on the matter?

How do you think a misting with an external enhancement metal would (or wouldn't) affect an Aviar's abilities? It doesn't seem that they keep any particular store of investiture in their bodies that could be burned/wiped away, so would it work a bit like how a Leecher burning chromium while holding onto a shardbearer can keep them from summoning their blade, but actually destroying a shardblade with leeching is near-impossible?

Damascus steel is pretty neat. It looks very pretty, and irl that's its primary purpose. But can it be used for more regarding the Metallic Arts? I've made the hypothesis before that it's possible to use a Hemalurgic spike to hold multiple powers, perhaps even having a spike that contained two metals to hold even more so long as they're of the same Hemalurgic quadrant (such as H-steel/H-pewter). Damascus metal could make the latter more possible, allowing multiple metals to be woven together as one object while retaining their individual properties. From their description, the Bands of Mourning seem to be a form of Damascus steel as well, having all sixteen Allomantic/Feruchemical metals blended into one Metalmind. It's possible that this was done instead of making sixteen separate Metalminds due to the interference they might have potentially caused to one another, meaning that Damascus metal may be useful for the creation of Unsealed Metalminds (and since the Malwish Consortium has the Bands now they may discover this property). And what about aluminum? It can prevent an object from being Pushed or Pulled on Allomantically, so could a steel knife, sword, or other blade with layers of pure aluminum in it prevent those Invested manipulations while retaining their structural integrity from the steel?

This post was inspired by @JustQuestin2004's thread on turning anyone into a Mistborn. I felt the need to continue their just quest of finding out this answer, at least in some way. We know that it's possible to make Scadriens Snap, even if they don't have a lot of Innate Investiture and wouldn't Snap normally. That's what the Mists did, after all. However, it seems that doing this requires there to be more trauma involved, more cracks in the Spiritweb to let Preservation's power rise to the forefront and function as intended. Additionally, when the Mists Snapped people they raised the level of Innate Investiture in them slightly to aid the process. I hypothesize that to Snap any Scadrien you must fulfill these requirements then. I believe that there may be multiple ways to do this. First off, if you were to use a Hemalurgic spike with a Command specifically meant to crack open the Spiritweb wider, but also meant to increase the person's Innate Investiture (specialized Command on a nicrosil spike charged from a single non Allomancer, probably with a Blanked Identity to make it more compatible with the would be Allomancer). This would create cracks in the Spiritweb large enough to Snap the potential Allomancer and would increase their Investiture enough to make it more viable. After they've Snapped, you can probably remove the spike and recycle it to Snap someone else, which is pretty convenient. It's also possible that the spike's own contents are now programmed to the new Allomancer's power though, which may prevent this, but you would have a new power spike and an independently functioning Allomancer, even though both would have a below average power level. It's also possible that if you use a Hemalurgic spike to add it their Investiture you won't get the standard of Allomancy, but may instead get a Ruin-fueled version of it, a mixed version, or maybe end up with Feruchemy instead as it is a mix of Ruin and Preservation. Perhaps an Unsealed Nicrosilmind could allow one to increase their base level of Investiture instead of needing a spike, removing this complication, but a trauma inducing spike would likely still be required for the Snapping part. The second idea is that you increase the Scadrien's Connection to Preservation instead of Investiture, then trying to Snap them. This could be achieved either with Hemalurgic duralumin or Feruchemical medallion shenanigans, Connecting you to the Shard of Preservation in the attempt to make a spiritual bridge between you and it so that it can suffuse your Spiriweb more when you try to Snap yourself. You also may just want to increase both Innate Investiture and Connection to Preservation in the person, though I figured I'd start with the possibilities that require the least work. It also may be possible, based on this new WoB, to at least temporarily access the Metallic Arts by Blanking Identity and tapping massive quantities of Connection to Preservation through medallion technology, though this may not lead to a permanent power manifesting and would require the proper Intent (which requires specific knowledge). It might just let you pull in the Mists, however, and maybe raise your Allomantic potential, though this is highly theoretical and would also probably require a specific Intent. SA spoilers

So, A-Pewter is a wondrous thing. It provides enhanced speed, strength, balance, dexterity, durability, healing, and hardiness. It seems to Push every positive physical attribute that exists. It is, in a word, overpowered. Thank Harmony A-Pewter is limited by the power ceilings of Allomancy, especially in its post-Era 1 diluted form. After all, imagine if a person could increase the enhancements provided by burning pewter. They would be nearly unstoppable. They would heal faster, hit hard, break harder, move swiftly, and more. They would have impeccable balance. They might theoretically be immune to all poisons, drugs, and foreign substances. Yep, so glad there's no way to hack this. Oh wait... Alrighty then. Feruchemical attributes can be tapped at abnormally high rates, at the cost of net loss of stored power. Thus, Windwhisperers can hear further than Tineyes, Brutes can lift more than Thugs, and so on. Feruchemy can manifest impressive amounts of Investiture in a single glorious burst, as opposed to Allomancy's more steady burns. A-Pewter strength can be stored in a metalmind, which can then be tapped later, potentially at higher rates. This is great. I have several questions now, inspired by this post. Could the appropriate Twinborn Compound a pewtermind containing A-Pewter strength? Benefits: A-Pewter strength does not increase physical mass. Does this have any effect, or does such a metal produce the same amount of Investiture as burning normal pewter? Is this actually limiting, since such a metalmind would only provide A-Pewter's strength, with nothing else? Could a Full Feruchemist store each of the attributes enhanced by A-Pewter? They could fill steelminds, goldminds, bronzeminds, pewterminds, and tinminds with the powers of Allomantic Pewter (for my reference, that stores the enhanced speed, healing, wakefulness(?), strength, balance, dexterity, and probably more). And...yeah, that's about it. Thoughts?

So, first things first, during TLM the Set were shown to have discovered how to use hemalurgy (likely with a Nicrosil spike) to strip a Scadrian of the extra bit of Preservation's Investiture that exists in all Scadrians. The same power that creates Allomancers. The Set scientists also mentioned that they used these spikes to actually make people into Allomancers, though only briefly for an undisclosed reason. (TLM CHP 47) I believe that reason is because of Identity. Because charging a spike is just like filling a Metalmind, Identity keys it to a specific individual, the one it came from. So in order to improve this method, you just have to find a way to Blank the identity of either the 'Donors' or perhaps just the receiver. Most likely the former. There exist several ways to accomplish this through F-Alumnum though the man issue is actually having your donor's willing Blank their Identity. Ettmetal charged with F-Aluminum might provide a way to forcibly Blank other people's Identity though that is just speculation. So that's how you create a power-granting Spike out of normal people, but I'm not stopping there, Hemalurgy can only grant you so many powers because your soul can only accept so many Spikes but what if there was a way around that? What if you could permanently intergrate the Spike to grant yourself the power in a deeper way? What if you tried to Compound Hemalurgy with Allomancy? It works for Feruchemy so there exists a precendent. So let's dive in. First, you'd need the previous steps, stab a bunch of muggle Scadrians while Blanking their Identity to make an Unkeyed Spike. Then, assuming it's made of Nicrosil, acquire an Electrum spike that grants A-Nicrosil, then Burn the Unkeyed Spike. If it works the same way as A-F Compounding, then it's possible that you'd be granted additional power, gaining more allomantic potency than what was in the Unkeyed Spike, potentially turning you into a Mistborn straight off like Lerasium. Though I'm going to be assuming that you will just integrate the extra Preservation into yourself, granting yourself a single Allomantic ability, probably a random one. This method, if it works like I think it does, would prove superior than just spiking yourself for 2 reasons: 1: You would have the ability without the spike, meaning the power can no longer be removed from you as it exists fully within your soul, while also closing the 'hemalurgic hole' in it to avoid the Flaw of being controlled, enabling you to have more powers without opening yourself up to external control. 2: It would allow you to overcome the 'cap' on the powers you can be granted from Hemalurgy, since in Era 2 if too many spikes are added to a soul, it stop's gaining powers, this method could allow you to circumvent this by fully integrating the power into your soul. Do this enough times, barring unforeseen consequences of this method, and you could become a Mistborn without killing anyone or becoming a Steel Inquisitor. However it's incredibly likely that this method would be extremely painful. But though I feel my reasoning is sound, this is just a theory. A BOOK THEORY! Thanks for reading.

Let's say we either have a Mistborn or a Hemalurgist with A-steel, A-pewter, A-duralumin, and A-Bendalloy. They make a duralumin augmented Steeljump and rocket a mile in one direction, allowing them to move very quickly. However, the fun doesn't stop there, as they then put up a Speedbubble with Bendalloy. So here's the question; can a Metalborn flying with a duralumin-Steelpush move so fast that they can anchor a Speedbubble to themselves? We know that you don't even technically need to be a Savant to pull off this trick, you can theoretically do it with some training, presumably that alters your perception (I'm apparently terrible at finding WoBs, as I, again, can't find the exact one I'm looking for). If they could do this, they could travel very, very quickly. They would still feel like they were traveling at the same speed, but compared to the outside world they would be moving very fast, so they could get to places they were needed much faster, such as if an ally were being attacked by enemies and called the Mistborn via phone. Anyway, I just thought that this could be a cool little trick that a Mistborn or Hemalurgist could pull off and wanted to share it.