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Allomantically active elements


Gagylpus

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I was bored the other day, so I looked up the compositions of all the Allomantic metals and alloys and overlayed them on the periodic table. I thought the result might be interesting to some of you.

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As Sanderson himself has said, it appears to be pretty random. A couple curiosities:

Most basic metals are paired with alloys for which they are also the base metal, that is, the most predominant metal in the alloy. The exceptions are brass, which contains more copper than zinc, and bendalloy, which contains more lead, tin, and bismuth than cadmium. Depending on the exact composition, electrum might also fall into this category (if I recall correctly, electrum usually contains between 45% to 55% gold, with the rest silver).

Most of the alloys are (as far as we know) binary alloys, combining only two elements. The exceptions are bendalloy (cadmium with lead, tin, and bismuth) and nicrosil (chromium with nickel and silicon, as well as trace amounts of magnesium).

Most of the alloys have significant quantities (10% or more) of the alloying elements. The notable exception to this is steel, which contains less than 2% carbon.

(Side note: If I were to guess the composition of Allomancer's steel, I expect it would be 0.8% carbon and 99.2% iron. This is known as eutectoid steel, and has the property that it transitions from a the ferrite phase to the austenite phase at a unique temperature while heating, rather than transitioning to ferrite + austenite and then to austenite over a range of temperatures.)

I should probably get back to studying for my exams now. Have fun! :D

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You're right, Allomancer's electrum is 45% gold and 55% silver. I think Brandon might be simplifying alloys to just make them pairs. In AoL Wayne mentions bismuth and cadmium in reference to bendalloy with no talk of lead or tin. On the other hand it could just be because those two are easier to get his hands on.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Umm...if bendalloy really is cadmium, bismuth, tin, and lead...that's essentially cadmium and pewter...because pewter is tin, bismuth, and lead (according to the wikipedia pewter also has copper and antimony).

Which by the way, do we have a break down of what Allomantic pewter is? (EDIT: 91% Tin, 9% Lead, which is different slightly. I wonder what happens if a Pewterarm burns our modern version of pewter with bismuth, antimony, and copper, would it work better or worse?)

Edited by Lanscaper
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Umm...if bendalloy really is cadmium, bismuth, tin, and lead...that's essentially cadmium and pewter...because pewter is tin, bismuth, and lead (according to the wikipedia pewter also has copper and antimony).

Which by the way, do we have a break down of what Allomantic pewter is? (EDIT: 91% Tin, 9% Lead, which is different slightly. I wonder what happens if a Pewterarm burns our modern version of pewter with bismuth, antimony, and copper, would it work better or worse?)

Worse. Any non-allomantic pewter will work worse.

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Worse. Any non-allomantic pewter will work worse.

In clarification, I mention this because of what Brandon wrote in A House of Ashes where an Allomantic metallurgist added a slightly different amount of tin to his alloy to make bronze which resulted in what other Allomancers claimed was a better burn. Albeit in this case it is still the main two metals that create the alloy. I guess by what happens later in the story, we understand that adding other elements will cause a worse burn. Still the point that I was trying to make is that easy access to bismuth is not common in the era of the Lord Ruler and so what we know of Allomantic pewter may be different in AoL era, although all the literature that we have access to at this point indicates otherwise (in that you are correct Reader).

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