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This contains spoilers for Bands of Mourning.

Introduction: What We Know About Southerner Medallions I'm sure some of you are already sick and tired of medallion-related speculations, so before I start giving my own take on this Scadrian mystery, let me first summarize what we already know. Let us clear our minds first and take a hard look at what was already revealed about these medallions, both in BoM and in various WoBs, because there are facts about these objects that many people forget or aren't even aware of. The Southerners create medallions using devices called Excisors. These excerpts from BoM show that any medallion theory cannot be complete without an Excisor theory, because it is through these devices that medallions are created. We should always keep Excisors in mind. In fact, while we already have a canon term for an Identity-less metalmind (what Marasi calls an unkeyed metalmind), I would like to propose this fan term: "excised metalmind" for a metalmind created with an Excisor, as opposed to the "unsealed metalmind" term I've been seeing that is frankly confusing. (Update: As @Oversleep pointed out, "unsealed metalmind" actually came from Brandon. So...oh well.) Creating medallions require Connector powers. This is a WoB from a recent signing in Germany. As you all know, Feruchemical duralumin stores Connection. Strangely enough, I have yet to see anyone post a medallion/Excisor theory involving Connection (everyone seems to believe VenDell in that it only involves Identity and Investiture), so I don't know what prompted that question. But suffice to say that thanks to this WoB, my medallion theory will involve Connection. The key to understanding medallions is that they are a way of fooling the magic system into thinking that you have the right sDNA. Take note, this is a totally different thing from what the Set's unkeyed metalminds do. The unkeyed goldmind that Wayne uses is a hack on the ownership requirement of Feruchemy. What Brandon is saying here is that medallions require a separate hack. Medallions can be used by non-Scadrians This is from the same Germany signing as above. This should put to rest any theory involving the need for Terris or Scadrian blood. Sorry, VenDell fans. The medallions interfere with each other. Unlike Hemalurgic spikes, one cannot obtain multiple powers by getting multiple medallions. Again, this is a problem that has gotten little attention from Sharder theorists. I intend to rectify that. The Southerners had to figure out two-powered medallions by themselves. This gives the following implications: - The Sovereign only taught them how to use Excisors to create single-powered medallions like the memory coin we've seen. - The method for creating a multi-powered medallion from multiple Metalborn is very difficult to scale. So, those are some things we know for sure about the medallions. Before I continue, here's one thing that I'm pretty certain of, even though we don't have direct confirmation of it: You cannot Feruchemically tap Investiture from the medallions unless they contain Nicrosil Feruchemy As @Moogle repeatedly points out in this thread, we don't ever see people being described as tapping the nicrosilminds in the medallions (with the exception of the Bands of Mourning), despite the numerous descriptions of them tapping or storing from the non-nicrosil part of the medallions. For example, in the Epilogue Wax only senses the Memory store of the copper part in the memory coin, not the Investiture store of the nicrosil part. Remember that aside from the Bands, each nicrosil ring in a medallion only contains one power. In the memory coin, the nicrosilmind contained Copper Feruchemy. In a Weight+Heat medallion the inner nicrosil ring contains Iron Feruchemy while the other nicrosil ring stores Brass Feruchemy. Without Nicrosil Feruchemy, one cannot Feruchemically tap Investiture from a nicrosilmind. Hence, while Nicrosil Feruchemy was obviously used to create Southern medallions, something else entirely must be responsible for their ability to grant powers. Now, allow me to go into deep speculation based on those facts. First I will discuss the different ways an object can be Connected to another object in the cosmere and how that relates to Feruchemy and Hemalurgy. Then I will discuss several theories about Hemalurgy that will form the backbone of my Excisor theory. Of course, I'll need to cover soul interference and the theory behind multi-powered medallions. Finally I will describe the steps of creating medallions, both single-powered ones and multi-powered ones. This will be a huge undertaking, so much that I've decided to divide everything into several posts. For those who don't have time, I will attempt a TL;DR: An unsealed metalmind can form a hybrid Being consisting of a person and itself, allowing the person to use the metalmind's Investiture without Feruchemically tapping it first. This property, shared with Hemalurgic spikes, exists because the unsealed metalmind contains a Hemalurgic charge, though this charge was taken without killing the donor. Finally, multi-powered medallions involve using the Connection of religious devotion to counteract soul interference between a medallion's nicrosilminds.