Savants: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Ease of Acquisition

[Koloss17 Soulcaster]

Okay, so this will be a silly deep dive on all stuff savantism. I will be going through all 16 metals, listing the advantages, disadvantages, and ease of savantism. Feel free to add on to this list, as I am certain that I do not know all there is to know about savantism. I just want to get folks thinking.

Obviously each comes with a universal advantage and disadvantage, so I’ll get those out of the way. Of course it will be addictive, so you will feel weird when not burning it in some quantity. Additionally, you will be getting a lot more band for your buck in terms of efficiency using the metal.

with that out of the way, let’s get started!

 

 

Iron

Advantages: 

Much greater control over your pulls, with potential to pull things heavier than you or identify what metal you are pulling. Perhaps being able to manipulate invested metals in some capacity? Certainly an increase in pulling range (how far away you can sense the metal).

Disadvantages:

Honestly, past a reliance on that extra sense, I wouldn’t really know.

Ease of Acquisition:

This is fairly easy to get, but you probably won’t be getting it accidentally. There’s a few times where you would want to constantly burn iron, but the cost is rarely worth it for most.

 

Steel

In terms of general effect, everything will likely be the same for steel as it will be for iron. Increased adeptness, power, and range, with it being a rare occurrence to naturally manifest. If you folks think there would be a difference, let me know!

 

 

 

Tin

We saw the advantages and disadvantages pretty clearly with Spook. Quite powerful, with some major disadvantages. Probably wouldn’t recommend.

 

Pewter

This was touched on slightly on the books, but I’ll give a brief refresher. You get real strong, but your immunity to pain can lead you to not feel pain, making you die from wounds that you didn’t know existed. It’s not an advised one, but it is unfortunately quite easy to get. Strength is one hell of a drug.

 

Zinc

Advantages:

Standard rioting of extra people, likely with better extremes (rioting very subtly and outrageously noticeably). Can’t think of much else, but it sure would be interesting to see someone that constantly manipulates emotions

Disadvantages:

This would likely have to do with emotions, so either you become very picky about other’s emotions, and extraordinary manipulative, or you would be lacking in your own emotional capacity. It would certainly be quite the experience.

Ease of Acquisition:

I would think this would be relatively easy to get, as rioting is quite a useful trait.

 

Brass

I think soothing would have very similar effects to that of rioting when savanthood is achieved, with maybe minute differences. Let me know what you all think!

Copper

Advantages:

This is quite subtle, with likely an expanded field of use, as well as increased difficulty to pierce. I’m sure that if you tried, you could make your coppercloud larger or smaller. I don’t know how you would test for that, though.

Disadvantages:

Apparently, savantism is very subtle, and the disadvantages are slight.

Ease of Acquisition:

This is quite common, and I would even say that this is probably the easiest metal to become a savant in. 

 

Bronze

Advantages:

With savanthood for bronze, the advantages are useful, but slight. Increased range, increased strength. That’s pretty much it. You would probably be able to detect other non-allomantic forms of active investiture a bit easier, but even a non-savant can do that.

Disadvantages:

Again, very minimal disadvantages. 

Ease of Acquisition:

This is another of the really easy metals to achieve savanthood in. Easy to acquire the metal, has a long burn time, and has a lot of passive utility.

 

Aluminum

Advantages:

Apparently, you can heal your spiritual self this way. Past that, I don’t know.

Disadvantages:

You are probably now broke.

Ease of Acquisition:

This one is near impossible. The metal is expensive, useless to burn, and wipes your reserves as soon as you burn it.

 

Duralumin

Advantages:

Would there…be any advantages? Maybe burning it more efficiently?

Disadvantages:

You have wasted a lot more time and money than you probably should have.

Ease of Acquisition:

Not very easy. Theoretically possible, but why? What’s the value in doing so?

 

Gold

Advantages:

I’m sure there’s some advantages. Unfortunately, we know sparingly little about A-gold. You would probably be keenly aware of your past, as well as the consequences of your decisions. It would be really weird, though.

Disadvantages:

You would probably be heavily morphed by this. I’m not sure what exactly, but it would be quite the experience. You would be quite detached from the present, and likely warped in the past.

Ease of Acquisition:

Gold is presumably still rare, if not seen as the currency that we on Earth have decided it would be. You could theoretically become a gold savant, but the circumstances that would allow that would be very, very odd.

 

Electrum

Advantages:

This could actually be quite useful. You would be very, very hard to kill, and you would have a lot of potential. The electrum shadows would likely extend further than normal, but I don’t really know how far you could stretch it.

Disadvantages:

This would likely be quite warping as well. Constantly knowing what you are about to do will morph you, and instead of dwelling in the past, you would likely dwell too much in the future. Maybe you would have quite a bit of indecision. I don’t know, but it would certainly be interesting.

Ease of Acquisition:

Given how uncommon the metal is, this would be quite hard, but very doable. 

 

Cadmium

Advantages:

Manipulate bubble size, speed, and allow it to anchor to oneself. Pretty nice stuff.

Disadvantages:

This is a tad less clear, but my guess is that due to massive time dilation, they would feel quite disconnected from others.

Ease of Acquisition:

This one is very hard, but not impossible. It would require quite a lot of continuous punting, which would be both expensive and a bit boring.

 

Bendalloy

Pretty much the same as cadmium. I’m sure there’s a difference, but it would be slight.

 

 

Chromium

Advantages:

I don’t really know about this one, but perhaps it would allow leeching at range? It’s a smidge unclear.

Disadvantages:

I also don’t know about this. Any idea what would work?

Ease of Acquisition:

Savanthood seems quite possible, just not particularly likely to encounter. A middle of the road metal on ease of acquisition.

 

Nicrosil

This seems to be the same as Chromium in terms of pretty much everything.

 

 

And that’s what I have so far! If there’s stuff you think should be added, please let me know! There are a whole bunch of places that I’m not sure of, or even have no clue about.

[HSuperLee Shardbearer]

I think that what we've seen of tin savantism has biased us towards the idea of losing a sense. I also think we need to acknowledge that we really don't fully understand what allomancy is or what it does. Take a-iron and a-steel, we say that they let you see the presence of and remotely affect metals, but that's not quite it. Kel describes what we've named "steelsight" as the sight of gods, and Wax believed while using the Bands of Mourning that he could use steelsight to see people's souls. Iron and steel may perhaps be better described as having the allomantic effect of allowing the physical portion of your soul to Connect with and influence the physical parts of other souls, the most obvious and common application being through metal, as metal seems to be the physical manifestation of certain spiritual ideals. But now I risk straying into wider Cosmere territory. My point is this, iron and steel savantism may not have much to do with steelsight or your ability to push and pull metals, but may have a deeper effect on the very soul of the savant.

[Koloss17 Soulcaster]

5 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

iron and steel savantism may not have much to do with steelsight or your ability to push and pull metals, but may have a deeper effect on the very soul of the savant.

What would you suggest? I think you’re on to something, but I don’t quite know what. I made this post mostly to seek a bit more theories on allomantic savants, without just going through and making 16 separate posts about it.