God Metal Alloys?

[Vision]

Am I reading the Ars Arcanum of AoL correctly? (Just finished reading it, btw. So good!)

It says "There are sixteen base metals that work, though two others- named the God Metals locally- can be used in alloy to craft an entirely different set of sixteen each."

So there are 16*3+2*2 allomantic metals?! That's ridiculous (assuming it's true)!

Explanation of maths, just in case: base 16, plus 16 base-atium alloys, plus 16 base-lerasium alloys, plus atium and malatium, plus lerasium and possibly a unique alloy for it too.

I'm probably totally off somewhere, but are there really 52 allomantic metals? Of course, finding the materials to make and test all of them, and the ferrings to do so, are a totally different matter.

[Unhinged]

I'm glad you posted this topic I've had a theory for lerasium alloys that I've been wanting to share but I never got around to it, lerasium alloys make people mistings  . Think about it if pure lerasium turns you into a full mistborn then the alloys could have a similar effect a mixture of lerasium and tin could make someone a tin eye and lerasium and steel makes you a coinshot. I suspect that you could use these alloys to make super powered mistings that only had access to the best alomatic abilities and it would let you create easy compunders just give a ferring the bead and let them enjoy their infinite Feruchemic power.I don't really have any supporting WOB for this but it just seems to make sense and it would also mean that Brandon wouldn't have to come up with 16 more crazy powers for the lerasium alloy mistings.

[Topomouse]

Iirc it's almost like that, except that Malatium is already one of the sixteen alloys of Atium (precisely Atium+gold).

Plus, I'm pretty certain that we have Word of Brandon that burning Lerasium with another metal creates a Misting of that metal instead of a full Mistborn, so you are right that could be their only use... If we stick to Allomancy. Think about how many uses they could have with Feruchemy and Hemalurgy!

[A Joe in the Bush]

Yeah, We know what Lerasium Alloys do, we don't know what Atium Alloys do.

[Moogle]

I'm probably totally off somewhere, but are there really 52 allomantic metals? Of course, finding the materials to make and test all of them, and the ferrings to do so, are a totally different matter.

 

You're off - there's 16 base, 16 atium alloys, 16 lerasium alloys, and there should be 16 harmonium alloys, along with lerasium + atium + harmonium for a total of 67.

 

Malatium is an atium + gold alloy by WoB, which we might expect since malatium just does gold's power on other people.

 

And, as far as we know, there's no Mistings for any of the god metals/god metal alloys as of Alloy of Law. Preservation, by WoB, was responsible for atium Mistings existing, and I think (the WoBs always confuse me on this issue) that Sazed stopped atium and malatium Mistings from being born naturally (if malatium Mistings ever existed?).

Edited January 16, 2015 by Moogle

[Blaze1616]

You're off - there's 16 base, 16 atium alloys, 16 lerasium alloys, and there should be 16 harmonium alloys, along with lerasium + atium + harmonium for a total of 67.

 

Malatium is an atium + gold alloy by WoB, which we might expect since malatium just does gold's power on other people.

 

And, as far as we know, there's no Mistings for any of the god metals/god metal alloys as of Alloy of Law. Preservation, by WoB, was responsible for atium Mistings existing, and I think (the WoBs always confuse me on this issue) that Sazed stopped atium and malatium Mistings from being born naturally (if malatium Mistings ever existed?).

 

I don't think Malatium mistings ever existed. As you said, there are no mistings of the alloyed god metals (Particularly the Lerasium ones, as being a misting of a metal that turns you into a different misting is just...odd).

[Topomouse]

You could argue that everyone is a Misting for Lerasium and its alloys.

[Vision]

I... didn't know Harmonium was even a thing. Well I suppose that changes my calculations a bit (thanks all for clarifying, it's just surreal to me that we've gone from 11 metals to apparently 67!) Oh, how times change. It's incredibly interesting to me to read about a magic system with rigid rules that aren't known even to their users. Is Brandon the kind of author to release all of his details on something (e.g. complete workings of mettalic arts) once he's done with a series? When Mistborn books are finished decades down the line, will we still be discovering metallic powers or will Brandon have mercy on us?

[Blaze1616]

I... didn't know Harmonium was even a thing. Well I suppose that changes my calculations a bit (thanks all for clarifying, it's just surreal to me that we've gone from 11 metals to apparently 67!) Oh, how times change. It's incredibly interesting to me to read about a magic system with rigid rules that aren't known even to their users. Is Brandon the kind of author to release all of his details on something (e.g. complete workings of mettalic arts) once he's done with a series? When Mistborn books are finished decades down the line, will we still be discovering metallic powers or will Brandon have mercy on us?

 

I'm not sure if your question is rhetorical or not. If not, the answer is we don't know. Brandon has yet to finish any of his own series (even his standalones have sequels churning in his head).

[Moogle]

It's incredibly interesting to me to read about a magic system with rigid rules that aren't known even to their users. Is Brandon the kind of author to release all of his details on something (e.g. complete workings of mettalic arts) once he's done with a series? When Mistborn books are finished decades down the line, will we still be discovering metallic powers or will Brandon have mercy on us?

 

I agree that it's super interesting. It's the main reason I enjoy Sanderson's writing, I think. The way he writes just takes the inner engineer/geek in me and brings it right out and makes me insatiably curious. (The other big thing being Sanderson's way to make a finely crafted plot. WoK has the best last hundred pages of... anything I've read ever?)

 

As to whether or not he'll release the rules:

JoshuaGuess ()

Are you planning on putting together a Cosmere bible at any point? I've fallen down the 17th shard/Coppermind wiki rabbit hole so many times it's not even funny, so I for one would love to have a book with all the bits and pieces laid out eventually.

Brandon Sanderson

Perhaps. But not for a while.

(source)

 

Of note, the Wheel of Time had an encyclopedia for it made, so I could definitely see Brandon putting one together.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Moogle

[Messremb]

My thoughts are that Brandon will never release "ALL" the information pertaining to anything. In the words of Brandon via Kelsier "there's always another secret."

 

The good news is his magic systems are so complex that he can release tons of new information in every book and still keep his secrets.

[skaa]

I'm currently developing an extensive list of my own speculations regarding god metal alloys based on the principles I postulated in my god metals theory thread. I plan to make a thread for it after Shadows of Self comes out, but only if that book doesn't disprove my theory. In the meantime, it's in my Coppermind page.

Edit: If you have questions or suggestions regarding that list, it might be best to put them here instead. I wouldn't want to hijack this thread.

Edited January 17, 2015 by skaa

[Curiosity]

I always assumed that there was more than one alloy for the god metals. How else can lerasium have various enhancement and physical effects? Obviously, Mistborn and Misting creation is an enhancement effect, but where does the physical side of things come in? This is why I think that different ratios of lerasium to base metals may produce metals with different effects. 

[Dunkum]

I always assumed that there was more than one alloy for the god metals. How else can lerasium have various enhancement and physical effects? Obviously, Mistborn and Misting creation is an enhancement effect, but where does the physical side of things come in? This is why I think that different ratios of lerasium to base metals may produce metals with different effects. 

to be honest, I thought I saw a WoB saying something to this effect, but when I went to look for it, I couldn't find it.

[skaa]

I always assumed that there was more than one alloy for the god metals. How else can lerasium have various enhancement and physical effects? Obviously, Mistborn and Misting creation is an enhancement effect, but where does the physical side of things come in? This is why I think that different ratios of lerasium to base metals may produce metals with different effects.

Maybe the physical part is that the body of the lerasium-burner is also changed so that it could withstand the toxic effects of some metals, not to mention the possible effects of "burning" said metals.

 

to be honest, I thought I saw a WoB saying something to this effect, but when I went to look for it, I couldn't find it.

I believe it's this WoB:

 

17TH SHARD

Are there a limited amount of atium and lerasium alloys for each metal?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Hmm, yes…I suppose there would be but there are…

17TH SHARD

More than sixteen?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yeah, way more than sixteen.

The different ratios interpretation is of course valid speculation, but my own interpretation is that "way more than sixteen" refers to 16 atium-base alloys + 16 lerasium-base alloys + 16 lerasium-atium-base alloys = 48 alloys.

In my list, I didn't bother including the lerasium-atium-base metal alloys (except the simplest: lerasium-atium-electrum) because I'm lazy. But I'll probably get to that one of these days.

Edit: And I guess I'll also have to list the effect of harmonium on each metal. *sigh*

Edited January 18, 2015 by skaa

[Moogle]

I always assumed that there was more than one alloy for the god metals. How else can lerasium have various enhancement and physical effects? Obviously, Mistborn and Misting creation is an enhancement effect, but where does the physical side of things come in? This is why I think that different ratios of lerasium to base metals may produce metals with different effects. 

 

Where are you getting the "various enhancement and physical effects" thing from? I recall hearing something similar, but I can't find the WoB... is it from the MAG?

Edited January 17, 2015 by Moogle

[Dunkum]

I believe it's this WoB:

Thanks, that's what I was thinking of, it didn't come up when I did my searches, for some reason.  must hav ejust used the wrong keyword.

 

maybe he just means that there is a thirds set of 16 for an atium-lerasium alloy, but that isn't how I read "way more than sixteen", though admittedly thats a subjective judgement.

[skaa]

Where are you getting the "various enhancement and physical effects" thing from? I recall hearing something similar, but I can't find the WoB... is it from the MAG?

It's from the Allomancy poster that Brandon sells on his site. Not sure if it's also in the MAG.

Edited January 18, 2015 by skaa

[ElendIncarnate]

Maybe the atium based alloys are half turning normal people to mistings for the mental and temporal and half new powers? the same for lerasium for physical and enhancement. then the atium-lerasium-based alloys (or harmonium-based) would make ferrings.

 

[Weltall]

Psssst, this topic was dead for three and a half years. We know that atium alloys can't make someone an allomancer because that's Preservation's magic system and thus requires lerasium. You can't burn atium or alloys of it if you're not already an allomancer; the revelation that Seers exist and were a secret of the Lord Ruler is based on this. Unless you already have sDNA for allomancy, the only metals you can burn are lerasium and its alloys.

The combination of lerasium and atium would make you a Seer.

[tmnsquirtle]

23 hours ago, Weltall said:

 Unless you already have sDNA for allomancy, the only metals you can burn are lerasium and its alloys.

Technically, you can't even burn those. 

 

Quote

Questioner

I was curious, what would happen if a full Mistborn burned lerasium? What would the Allomantic powers be?

Brandon Sanderson

Oohh, excellent, excellent question. So, I have not revealed what lerasium does if you already have Investiture. So, the answer to that is a RAFO. We've actually had like three people ask that tonight, so there must have been a discussion on the Sh-- the forums about it and I didn't answer them, so I can't answer you.

source

Heavily implying that burning Lerasium and eating it to become a full mistborn are different things.

Here's more solid evidence:

Quote

18th_Shard

So you have said that making someone Mistborn is not lerasium's primary function, that a Mistborn burning it would have another effect. Is this also true of its alloys?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

source

 

[Weltall]

2 minutes ago, tmnsquirtle said:

Technically, you can't even burn those.

You're reading a bit too much into it, though the fundamental idea is sound. Lerasium can have a different effect if you're already an allomancer and burn it (we don't know what that is) but even someone with no sDNA for allomancy can burn lerasium.

Quote

17th Shard

If a Mistborn burns lerasium, as in, not just ingests it, what effect would it grant Allomantically?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a RAFO. It would do something, but the thing you've gotta remember is that, when ingesting lerasium for the first time and gaining the powers, your body is actually burning it. Think of lerasium as a metal anyone can burn. Does that make sense? By burning it you gain access to those powers. It rewrites your spiritual DNA, and there are ways to do really cool things with lerasium that I don't see how anyone would know. Were most Mistborn to just burn it, it would rewrite their genetic code to increase their power as an Allomancer.

source

 

[tmnsquirtle]

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Preservation's Power

All right, so maybe I lied about there only being three magic systems in this book. It comes down to how you term the powers of Preservation and Ruin, who kind of blanket the entire system. There are a lot of things going on here, and—well, the truth is I don't want to mention all of them, for fear of spoiling future books. However, I'll give you a few rules to apply.

First, to these forces, energy and mass are the same thing. So, their power can take physical shape—as Preservation's did in the bead of metal Elend ate. Second, there is a bit of Preservation inside of all the people—and it's this that allows the people to perform Allomancy. It needs to be awakened and stirred to be of use, but when it is, a proper metal can draw forth more of Preservation's power. It's like the metal attunes the bit within the person, allowing it to act as a catalyst to grab more power.

Allomancy is not fueled by metal; it is fueled by Preservation. The metal is the means by which a person can access that fuel, however. If there were another way to access it, then the metal wouldn't be needed.

Preservation's touch on people differs. Some have more, some have less. This doesn't make them better or worse people—indeed, some most touched by Preservation have been among the worst people in the world. As Ruin later points out, there is a difference between being evil and being destructive.

Regardless, if a person can get more Preservation into them, they become better Allomancers. Hence Elend becoming a Mistborn. Like all people, he had the potential within him—it was just too small of a potential to be awakened through normal means. That little jolt of Preservation's body, however, expanded and awakened his Allomancy.

As a tidbit, that was a side effect of what that bead of metal did. It wasn't the main purpose of the bead, and if another Allomancer were to burn it, it would do something else.

source

I suppose that based on that last sentence, I assumed that 'burning' lerasium and consuming it to become a mistborn were two fundamentally different actions.