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Okay, so as most people will hopefully be aware by now, there isn't exactly a lot of atium or lerasium left over from the time of the Final Empire, as of Bands of Mourning. The Pits have not been producing atium due to an unfortunate terrorist attack involving one of the retired miners, and Leras was always a bit of a Scrooge when it came to lerasium. Since then, Harmony hasn't seemed to want to make more, though Brandon's naturally being coy about the why of that. However, I'd like to make the case that atium and lerasium will both return for Era 3 and beyond, if not in The Lost Metal itself, and that if not, it would be better if they did. There are three primary strands to this: one in-world, one from an authorial perspective, and one from a reader perspective. That is to say: it suits Harmony's goals, it's a case of Chekhov's Gun, and it would be really cool. --- From an in-world perspective, there are good reasons to think that Harmony might wish to return to production of atium and lerasium in some capacity. As a Shard, he takes a much more active role in the management of his Shardworld than most other shards, with obvious exceptions being the three musketeers over on Roshar. The old Scadrian god metals offer unparalleled utility in creating strong tools for him to make use of, especially if he wants Marsh to stick around. Marsh will run out of atium eventually, and a chap with dozens of hemalurgic spikes and centuries of knowledge is a very useful tool indeed. It might also be desirable for Harmony to have other full Mistborn running around, as Atium shadows in an era of guns become actually insane in terms of utility, especially when no one knows that atium exists nor how to counter it. Even if they did, Electrum mistings are not typical combat Allomancers. If Harmony wants atium, then he must also have lerasium, because Atium Seers are no longer born. However, this still assumes that he would create atium, but keep it from the wider populace. Harmony may also wish to allow atium and lerasium into the wider Scadrian ecosystem, even if only in very limited quantities. Harmony seems disappointed in how little his people have innovated since the Catacendre; if the converse of this is true, and Harmony wishes for Scadrial to develop, grow, and change, then he may wish to provide them with more "toys", so to speak: atium and lerasium are incredibly potent god metals, and the potential for their use is almost limitless. Remember, they can be alloyed with every other Allomantic metal: for all of the possibilities of 16 metals interacting across 3 Metallic Arts, now you have 48. --- From an authorial perspective, consider this: we still have many questions relating to the god metals which are unanswered and RAFOed. Some of these, Brandon does not want to answer because they relate to wider Cosmere things, which he either doesn't want to spoil, or hasn't pinned down yet. However, many of them do not. These two in particular stand out: If lerasium and atium were never going to feature again on Scadrial, there would be no good reason not to answer these two questions: they both directly imply that the answers will be relevant to some forthcoming book. Therefore, I propose that Brandon does still plan for one or both of them to return to Scadrial, or at least that he has not ruled out doing so. Atium would be the most likely, as it is "less potent", but as mentioned in the previous section, much of the utility of atium relies upon full Mistborn and full Feruchemists, which means probably lerasium. (yes atium spikes are an option, but it's also the most boring option). --- Finally, let your own imagination run wild. It's crazy to ask that on a forum about fan theories, I know, but bear with me here. Atium and lerasium have incredible potential within the world of Mistborn — indeed in other worlds, now that we know that there are worldhopping Mistborn — so it would be such a tragedy if we never get to see them get used to their fullest. Picture a cyberpunk Scadrial where criminals on death row are executed by being spiked with Lerasium or Atium spikes, which allow for incredible fusions of technology and magic in new and diverse Hemalurgic constructs; you thought social media was bad? Just wait for an AI super intelligence which can use emotional Allomancy. Harmony is able to equip his kandra agents with a myriad of different Blessings, especially chosen for the given mission and individual — alloys of atium or of lerasium, each providing esoteric and much more specialised abilities than the traditional four. Picture a Cosmere-aware Scadrial, where promises of just a few lerasium beads can buy the alliance of an entire planet. Deeper understanding of lerasium and allomancy in its purest form has allowed for artificial Seers to return through the use of metalminds like those of the Southern Scadrians. Public speakers, assassins, bomb disposal teams, professional footballers — everyone in a high pressure environment wants to know the future, and now you can, for a price. Picture Harmony, actually having a good retirement plan for his agents. "Look Wax, I know I've been dragging you through the mud for the last... uh... well most of your life to be honest, but once we're done here I'll give you everything you need to live in peace and I'll never bother you again. Shardic pinkie promise." Picture Twinborn, but they aren't just Metalborn Twinborn. They're Returned Oracles, Windrunner Coinshots and Lurchers, Edgedancer Sliders (speedbubbles).... The resonances which make Surgebinding such an interesting magic system are suddenly being considered across the entire Cosmere. Picture a secret society, selectively breeding humans so that they can train full Mistborn from birth in the use of multiple magic systems; the love child of the Envisagers and the Set. Hell, I can't even picture it, but just think about what Lerasium and its alloys, or Atium's alloys, might do as Feruchemical metalminds or Hemalurgic spikes. Would you finally be able to get lossless Hemalurgy? Metalminds for pure investiture in the different magic systems? --- If you made it this far, well you've got more patience than me.

Is there a WoB out there that says that non-Scadrians can burn Lerasium? I know that Hoid was able to burn it, but he could possibly manipulate connection or the something similar (as he attempted to do on Sel) in order to burn it.

So I just thought of something! For atium, you steal one ability hemalurgically, and with lerasium, you steal all of the abilities! This is like the allomancy/ Feruchemy thing! You can only have one or all but what makes this better is that there is one way for you to have two abilities: if you are a twinborn. so what if harmonium hemalurgically steals one of each ability from a magic system! one from Feruchemy, one for allomancy, one for surgebinding, and so on! i feel like this has some merit and I’m losing my spheres/marbles!

We know that Lerasium is the condensed power of preservation, as Atium is to Ruin. The power of shards can exist in material form in solid and liquid states. Logically, it should be able to exist in gaseous form as well (and plasm) which leads me go believe that the Mists are - in fact - Preservation's own power in gaseous form. -Vin is able to absorb the Mists and enhance her Allomancy with it, becoming capable of manipulating metals inside someone else like the LR and perform a Steelpush so powerful it decimates Kredik Shaw. Lerasium turns people into Mistborn, but apparently this is just a side effect. Lerasium's true power is unknown, but we know that using the Mists (a sort of dilute Lerasium) gave Vin a huge boost. According to the wiki, burning enough Lerasium to achieve Savanthood would make one the Shardholder of Preservation; this seems to be what Vin did by absorbing all of the Mists. We know that Leras intended for her to succeed him temporarily, and she Ascended after his death. This makes me wonder, however, what would have happened if Leras still lived and Vin absorbed the Mists - would she have been unable to, as someone already held Preservation? Or, can anyone at anytime take hold of Preservation by burning enough Lerasium? (I know it's unlikely anyone would have access to the relevant amounts) -Lerasium is also unique in that anyone can burn it, thereby becoming Mistborn. Lerasium spikes steal all abilities, much like Atium spikes. The wiki states that Atium spikes are "better" at this than other metals - and I believe that this means Atium spikes lose less power during the transfer. Based on Preservation's intent, however, I believe that: 1- A Lerasium spike is exempt from the Law of Hemalurgic Decay, that is the powers it steals will always remain at full strength, barring that the spike is split. 2- A Lerasium spike isn't just able to steal any ability (like Atium) but will invariably steal and store all abilities. My problem with the second part of this theory is that things beyond Metallic abilities can be stolen, like Investiture and Identity. I'm not sure what the implications of this are. I have no idea what Feruchemical properties Lerasium has. Maybe it can somehow store the Preservation part of people, making the person more destructive while feeding a Lerasium mind, and more Preservative while tapping it? This is, however, rather flimsy guesswork.

I saw this in the coppermind while researching Ferachemy . I know the coppermind is not canon . So I’m asking as an opinion of what you guys thought . I know IRL people use chemistry and Alchemy to make alloy of metals and superarte metals . Could it be possible to get Harmonium and superate it into its two base metals . I’m Assuming Harmonium is theoretically an Allow of Atium and Lerasium . If so this is something the set would greatly abuse. One of my favorite quotes as a child was “ A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”

What would happen if a kandra were to burn a lerasium bead? We know that when they consume a body they don't gain their allomantic abilities. But if one were to burn lerasium would their spirit web be changed to make them a mistborn? If this were to be combined with what kandra can already do with their malleable bodies, and their blessings, then I imagine you'd have an incredibly effective assassin.

What would happen if a mistborn burnt shard-material? iron that was messed with by a forger and turned into steel?

I was curious how people interpreted the meaning of lerasium's ability in hemalurgy. My interpretation (almost certainly wrong) was that it basically stapled the entirety of one soul on to a new body. (Kelsier's new body maybe?)

So, when Sazed revived Spook he fixed up his savantism and made him a mistborn. Do we know whether Spook was made as a regular mistborn, or was he more like Elend and a lerasium strength mistborn since he got his power directly from harmony? Thanks in advance for your input.

As we know, if a person has the ability to use the same metal both allomantically and feruchemically, then they can compound that metal (i.e. burn feruchemical storages to multiply the ability stored in the metalmind). So then my question is, would a more powerful allomancer gain more out of compounding than a weaker one? So, would a natural twinborn compound their feruchemical storages by a lesser multiplier than a feruchemist who had burned lerasium for example. In short, does allomantic strength affect compounding efficiency? I welcome your input.

So we know that Elend is a ridiculously powerful mistborn, as he swallowed the lerasium bead, and thus can control vast armies of koloss or push/pull with allomancy more powerfully than an inquisitor. So then why is it never discussed that he can pierce copper clouds? Seeing Elends power, particularly in his fights with inquisitors, I had always perceived lerasium strength mistborn as at least three times the strength of an average mistborn at the time of the final empire. So surely he too would be able to pierce copper clouds? Was he able to and it just never came up? Or am I overestimating the strength of a lerasium mistborn? I welcome your input.

So we know that when a regular person burns lerasium their connection with Preservation is increased drastically and they become a mistborn. However is this the same effect we'd expect to see if an allomancer were to burn lerasium? Presumabely a misting would become a powerful mistborn, or would they instead just become a very powerful misting? This seems unlikely as we know that the difference between becoming a misting or a mistborn is in the strength of your bloodline and thus your connection to preservation. So presumably when their connection to preservation increases they too would become a mistborn. However, what about a mistborn? Would they become a stronger mistborn? Stronger than a regular lerasium mistborn since they already have the basis for their power? Or would they, since they can already burn all metals, be able to experience another effect whih is the true power of lerasium and the connection to preservation is simply a side effect? I welcome your thoughts on the matter.

Is there a chance there is more Lerasium? Preservation was obsessed with 16 as his sign, so would he not have also put 16 Lerasium beads in the chamber of the Well of Ascension? Also could Harmony choose to produce either of his godmetals, should it be needed?

So it's made very clear that Allomancers can be either Mistborn or Mistings - no inbetween. You either get one power, or you get all of them. However, it's also been stated that burning an alloy of lerasium and a metal makes you into a misting of that metal. So what would happen if you were to burn multiple, different alloys of lerasium - would all the investiture you burn compound and enhance one ability? Would they override each other, "wasting" the lerasium you previously burned? Would they merge and form a new allomantic ability entirely? Or would they have the intended effect and make you a "polymisting" of the metals that were chosen? Or, is it something else entirely?

I am rereading mistborn era 1, and I've thought a lot about lerasium (who hasn't?) and I'm curious how people would use it. Clearly the most common response would be to burn it to become Mistborn, but I feel you'd be wasting so much power on things like aluminum and gold. Let me present how I would use it, with a few variations. First off, I'm ignoring that becoming mistborn is a 'side effect' of lerasium, and I'm not sure either have been confirmed, but I am assuming that burning more or less will vary your power levels, as well as assuming that alloys of lerasium produce mistings. With my bead, I would split it into 16 pieces of equal size, and then alloy 6 of them with Steel, Iron, Pewter, tin, zinc and brass. I would then burn all of these alloys to become lerasium level mistborn for all of these. I would then burn the 10 other pieces as normal and become a full mistborn of 10/16 lerasium strength for all metals except those 6, where I am 26/16 times the strength of a lerasium mistborn, making me super powerful in all of those metals. In my mind, metals like duralumin and electrum will work just as well no matter your Allomantic strength. Duralumin will burn away all of your burning metals at once, whether you are a lerasium level mistborn, or a super diluted level mistborn. I don't think it matters. Electrum will still be poor mans atium, aluminum will still burn away your metals no matter your strength. The only reason I left 10 slivers of Lerasium is just in case I were to come across a new metal. If I knew I would never find a new one, I would actually put more lerasium into the other powers. That way, I would use a second piece of my lerasium bead in both steel and pewter, and maybe brass. I could also put a piece into copper and bronze, and being such a powerful user of those metals, I could possibly pierce copperclouds without a spike, and maybe make my own copperclouds unable to be pierced, even by someone with a spike. If I were to do all of those slight variations, I would end up being 21/16 LS (Lerasium Strength) in Iron, Tin, Zinc, Copper, and Bronze. I would be 37/16 LS in Steel, Pewter, and Brass. I would also be 5/16 LS in every other metal, which would all work the same, except possibly Bendalloy and Cadmium, which I'm not sure how they would react to the varying power. Now I am curious how other people would split theirs up, or if they would simply burn it, or keep it, or sell it, or whatever you would do. Let me know.

So I've been thinking about whether it'd be possible to create a full feruchemist using lerasium? Since alloying lerasium with a metalmind makes a feruchemist of that metal, could you alloy lerasium with a metalmind that would form a full feruchemist? Perhaps nicrosil? Since nicrosil stores investiture, if a full feruchemist were to store their investiture inside a nicrosilmind and then alloy that with lerasium and a regular person were to burn it, would they become a full feruchemist? If I've made any terrible mistakes due to a lack of understanding of lerasium or nicrosil, feel free to correct me.

So, this theory is centered around Lerasium, Allomancy, and Hemalurgy. The first thing we need to do is figure out Lerasium in Allomancy. See, there is this WoB that suggests that consuming Lerasium makes one Mistborn. However, burning it supposedly has a different effect, and it is also said that anyone can burn Lerasium. So, we'll use clues from our knowledge of the mists, Atium, and the Well of Ascension. So there is that quote from Kelsier: "It's the same power, after all. Solid in the metal you fed to Elend. Liquid in the pool you burned. Gaseous in the mists, confined to the night, hiding you, protecting you, giving you power! So, I figured something interesting: what if it really is the same power? The mists could be burned as a catch-all, any sort of metal, and more effective than any other as well. Evidence 1: Elend somehow obtained pewter that worked especially well, which saved his life after a gut wound. Or was it Lerasium? Evidence 2: Atium is a catch-all in Hemalurgy, so Lerasium should be a catch-all in Allomancy. So, Hemalurgy. Lerasium, near as I can figure, "preserves" more effectively. Since Atium "ruins" more effectively in Allomancy, as pointed out by Vin and Elend.

As I understand it, in hemalurgy, atium is a universal spike capable of stealing any attribute (if the person making the spike has the proper knowledge). We also know the feruchemical and allomatic properties of Atium. We don't know any of the feruchemical, allomatic, or hemalurgical properties of Lerasium. Assuming that Lerasium can be used in hemalurgy (which seems reasonable, Trellium is hemalurgically viable), I propose that it would make spikes that don't suffer from hemalurgical decay. The attributes are preserved. Lerasium shouldn't compete with Atium as a universal spike. Without any real evidence, I'll suggest that Lerasium spikes can steal allomatic power (since it is Preservation's magic system), and perhaps human attributes (since there is a little more of Preservation in humans than Ruin.) Further theory: Harmonium, if it can be used without blowing up, is both a universal spike (from Ruin), and doesn't suffer from hemalurgical decay (from Preservation). sidenote: Is Trellium a universal spike? In shadows of self, it steals both allomatic and feruchemical abilities, and is used to make the hemalurgical constructs (apparantly from stolen animal attributes)

So. As Brandon said, we've seen Hoid use allomancy, right? But he's never explicitly stated that Hoid consumed his Lerasium, we just know that he's an allomancer. So here is my proposal. On Coppermind, it states that Hoid uses feruchemy to gain "foresight." We know that Atium, a god metal like Lerasium, can be used temporally. As in, it let's one see into the future, and store age. Perhaps Lerasium is sort of the opposite in a way. After all, ruin and preservation are opposites too. So, what if atiums power to see into the future is FORESIGHT? And storing age-most likely works in the Spiritual realm. Now, I read a post earlier that basically said that allomantically utilizing Lerasium makes one mistborn, in a way similar to forgery in that it is changing an object's past to affect its present. SPIRITUALLY! Now, if Lerasium has a spiritual effect through Allomancy and Atium through Feruchemy, both temporally (somewhat), then perhaps in Atium allomancy, foresight, works the same way as Lerasium Feruchemy: storing FORESIGHT. I guess you know where this is going. Hoid never ate that Lerasium. He has been using it as a metalmind for feruchemy this whole time. A lerasiummind. He's waiting for that Atium at the Pits of Hathsin to reform so he can collect it, burn his Lerasium, and use it, effectively leaving him with omega-allomancy and Atium. He's simply using his Lerasium metalmind as a substitute till then. BAM. Theory complete.

What happens when a spren burn a lerasium bead? (Let's just assume spren can burn Lerasium beads) When someone burns lerasium their spiritweb is rewritten so that they are connected to Preservation and make them an allomancer. So if a sentient spren were to become an allomancer can they burn themselves when they take their metal form? What about when they form a nahel bond. The nahel bond is when a spren forces their spiritweb into the identy of another sentient being. So now that their spiritwebs are fused can the radiant perform allomancy. Can the radiant burn his shardbalde even if it has a different identity(the radiant's spren) since the spren's spiritweb is fused to the radiant's?

1) Basically what it says in the title. Would an allomancer be able to push on a piece of lerasium? Reason for inquiry: in Stormlight, it is mentioned that shardplate and shardblades cannot be affected by the Surges. Sp & Sb are basically concentrated Investiture. In Mistborn (the series), it is also mentioned that hemalurgically and feruchemically charged metal are harder to affect with allomancy than metals without a charge. Basically, what the question is actually saying is 'does how much Investiture something holds affect how much it can be affected by Investiture? Because if it does then you wouldn't be able to affect lerasium. Otherwise, you would be able to push on lerasium.

So I created an account just so I could pose this questions to everyone. Be warned, Oathbringer spoilers here! ---- We now have scenes from Oathbringer (as well as WoB) demonstrating the use of one type of investiture to fuel a different off world sub-type of magic (ex. Szeth using stormlight to fuel Nightblood rather than breath). Now that Hoid is Knight Radiant in addition to a fully powered lerasium mistborn what sort of effect would stormlight have fueling allomancy? We see Kaladain receive a renewing supply of energy flying at the front of the everstorm and Szeth able to unleash the full effects of Nightblood without having to utilize biochromatic breath. Would stormlight act as a "metal supply" for Hoid? And if so, would it also potentially fuel him with an "atium reserve", possibly even a renewing one if he was near the everstorm? Conversely what sort of effect would metal vials have fueling surgebinding?

We've been led to believe since the very beginning that feruchemy is completely end-neutral, meaning that you always get out the same power that you put in. (Excluding compounding) Something that I noticed while rereading the Mistborn era one books, however, seems to not match the pattern! Atium! Atium is not end neutral! The trait that it stores is age, which means that as soon as you store it, you've lost the time that you spent being old to store it in the first place! Let me explain better: if you were to store age in an Atium metalmind, even only for a few seconds, then use it to become equally younger for the same amount of time, you would be OLDER by a few seconds at the end, then when you started! Someone needs to ask Brandon if this is a quirk of storing an atribute that naturally decays over time (people age constantly), or if the feruchemical use of Atium is end-negative on purpose, because it is of Ruins power. If it isn't just a quirk, or I'm not a crazy person, this could mean that lerasium should be able to store something end-positive, which people gain over time rather than loose, (wild speculation ahead) such as wisdom or experience. Stormfather! I think I might have found something! Thoughts and criticisms?

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU'VE READ FINISHED THE MISTBORN 1ST AGE TRILOGY Well, let's start off with what we know about Lerasium: Lerasium is the metal that Eland burned and gained mistborn powers with after getting gutted at the climax of the Well of Ascension, which allowed him to burn pewter and survive the otherwise fatal wound. Lerasium is the god metal of the shard of Preservation, and is named after Preservation's original (post-shattering) holder, Leras. The coppermind wiki states that if you alloy it with another allomantic metal, it makes people who burn the metal into mistings of the metal it is alloyed with, though how they learned this I have yet to determine. Due to being a pure metal instead of an alloy, it is a pulling metal. Now that we've established what we know about Lerasium, it's theory time: First, let's ask some questions: Does Lerasium have an allomantic alloy pairing, or does the misting-making alloy property eliminate a need for an allomantic pushing/pulling pairing? If so, what would said alloy do? What are Lerasium's Feruchemical/Hemalurgic properties? Is there still Lerasium out there in the 2nd age, waiting to be discovered? Well, personally, here are my theories as relating to the questions: For the first question, I think that the answer is most definitely yes. It does have a pushing/pulling pairing, weird other alloys or no weird other alloys. For the second question, I think it is very probable (unfortunately), that its paired alloy removes the powers of allomancers that burn it (think of it like permanent aluminum). However it could be one of those weird pairings (like tin/pewter) that does something completely different. Like grant feruchemical abilities, for example (that would be really, really cool). As for the third question, I'm stumped. I'm not even going to try to guess until I've thought this over a whole lot more. I'll probably just have to RAFO. As for the fourth, this is a tossup. On one hand, there were boatloads of Atium (Ruin's god metal), but on the other hand, Preservation stole Ruin's body (or something similar), but Preservation's body was never stolen (or anything similar). HOWEVER, Preservation spent most of his time barely holding together, not to mention dying and being inherited by a keeper who was less than Ideal (I'm not talking about Vin. Listen to Mistborn: Secret History if you want to know who.) and could barely hold together. I personally think it's very likely, though not nearly as likely as my Lerasium Alloy theory. Feel free to discuss and thell me what you guys think!

For the following questions, we are assuming that in the Well of Ascension Vin had a way to cut or divide the Lerasium nugget into two or more pieces. Otherwise these questions are irrelevant. When Vin found found the nugget of Lerasium in the Well of Ascension and gave it to Elend, why didn't she break it in half to have to pieces of Lerasium? Does the size of the Lerasium nugget determine the power of the Mistborn? We know that hereditary Mistborn abilities are less powerful than those that have actually burned Lerasium, so if Vin burned Lerasium would the power she already had be added to the new strength she got from the Lerasium, or would she just be brought up to the level of power that Elend has? I don't spend a whole ton of time reading theories, so if I asked any questions that are already answered or if I've accidentally taken taken someone else's I'm sorry about that.