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So I was rereading Bands of Mourning in an effort to get a better grasp of medallion creation when I came across this line: Bolded for emphasis. From this quote, it is implied that a group of metalborn can work in teams to create medallions. It got me thinking about how this could be possible without the need of spikes. For this to work, we need to be able to create medallions which grant two abilities, which has been shown to be difficult but possible in Bands of Mourning. I have no idea what makes this difficult, but let's assume it has been worked out. From my understanding, a medallion is simply a nicrosil metalmind filled with a desired type of metalborn Investiture that has been divorced of any Identity. This allows anyone to tap it and temporarily gain the abilities of said metalborn. The added rings of other metals are simply a convenience. With this in mind, I think it is indeed possible to create a medallion without someone who has multiple feruchemical abilities. For this, you would need 3 metalborn: 1 Nicrosil Ferring, 1 Aluminum Ferring and 1 Metalborn of the desired ability, let's say Steel Misting. My theoretical process has 6 steps. Warning, this is about to get very wordy, but I have avoided pronouns to make it absolutely clear who's filling and tapping what when. Here goes. 1. The Nicrosil Ferring fills a nicrsosil metalmind with nicrosil ferring Investiture, which is keyed to their Identity. This metalmind should now grant anyone who can tap it the abilities of a Nicrosil Ferring. 2. The Aluminum Ferring begins filling an aluminum metalmind with nearly all of their Identity, which should allow them to tap the keyed nicrosil metalmind created in step one. 3. Now able to store their Investiture, the Aluminum Ferring fills an unkeyed nicrosil metalmind with aluminum ferring Investiture, which should grant anyone the ability to store Identity. We shall call this Medallion A. 4. The Nicrosil Ferring then taps Medallion A, which grants them the ability to store Identity. This should allow them to create unkeyed metalminds. 5. Here's the step that is difficult for unclear reasons. The Nicrosil Ferring now needs to create an unkeyed medallion filled with both aluminum and nicrosil ferring Investiture, which should grant anyone wearing it the ability to store Identity and Investiture. We shall call this Medallion B. 6. Assuming that worked, the Steel Misting then taps Medallion B and stores their Identity in an aluminum metalmind while filling a nicrosil metalmind with steel misting Investiture. This should theoretically create a third medallion that grants anyone the abilities of a Coinshot, which we shall call Medallion C. From this point, anyone should be able to tap Medallion C until the Investiture runs out. There's an extra step from here to create medallions with any two abilities, but I think that was already difficult enough to follow. Thoughts?

I'll try to hide my spoilers, but the fact is, if you haven't read Emperor's Soul, just don't read this thread. And then read Emperor's sould, because it's a great book. When Allik Neverfar is using his connection Medalion to speak in the language of Elendel, he says that it will not work if one of the others wears it. He says that it has to be the person visiting. He says that "The visitor always has to wear the medallion, It's filled with Connection, yah? Bland Connection, to no place. But Connection can't just be connected to nothing, so when you tap it, it reaches out and connects you to the place where you are. Makes your soul think you were raised in this place instead, so your language changes" This sounds very much like Emperors Soul, The medallions are very much similar to the Sel magic.