Is it equally likely to be any form of Misting/Ferring as any other?

[+robardin]

I'd always assumed that Misting-ness was a certain distribution in the population, and that each type of Misting was essentially equal in distrubution. (At least in Era 2, after Harmony undid the "atium Misting twiddle")

But I seem to remember reading in one of the Era 2 books that Coinshots were considered "common" for Mistings, implying there were more Coinshots than Leechers - or the as-yet-never-seen Nicroburst, or the unfortunate "gnats" who can only burn aluminum or duralumin.

Ah yes, here it is - in Alloy of Law, Ch. 13, when Wax surprises Miles Hundredlives with his F-iron ability to increase his weight in a fistfight: "[Miles] was used to dealing with Coinshots - they were one of the most common types of Allomancer, particularly among criminals. Feruchemists were far more rare."

And Ferrings, too: Steelrunners were described by Wax in Shadows of Self as "uncommon, even as Feruchemists go", which suggests that F-steel is less common than other forms of Feruchemy.

Is there a WoB on the distribution of the Metallic Powers? Maybe Wax was simply talking about how prominent Coinshots were (like Pewterarms) in terms of being Obviously Useful versus other Mistings, but the comment about Steelrunners being uncommon among Feruchemists suggests distributions are indeed skewed.

Just what is the approximate population of Northern Scadrial in Era 2, anyway? I was trying to work out the probability/distribution of a Twinborn. If I assumed (and it appears to be a false one) that all 16 forms of Allomancy are equally likely; that Feruchemy is about 4 times rarer than Allomancy (an arbitrary assumption), and that Allomancy occurs in the Northern Scadrial population at, say, a 1 in a 1,000 rate (another arbitrary assumption - maybe there's a WoB on those?), then in a total population of a nice, round, normalized figure of 10M people in the Basin, that would work out to about 10,000 Allomancers, of who no more than 1 in 4,000 would also be a Feruchemist (if they were all at least a little bit Terris-blooded). Which comes out to 2.5 out of 10M being Twinborn.

Make the current population of the Basin something like 50M (about the population of Spain) and there are about ten Twinborn walking around, period.

Two of them are Wax and Wayne, and they just killed Miles Hundredlives!

How unlikely is it for a Natural Born Compounder like him to come up, then? If it were all equal probabilities by metal, it'd have to be 1/16 of all Twinborn, right? Whatever metal your Feruchemy happened to be, it's a 1/16 chance that your Allomancy would be in the same metal?

Except it seems some metals are more likely than others?

 

Edited April 16, 2018 by robardin

[Eldergod3]

It could be the availability of metals, too expensive to test everyone to see if they can burn gold, nicrosil or aluminum. Steel and Iron are much cheaper to produce. 

[Kidpen]

That math works out. If they are all equal, 1/16 twinborn will be a compounder. Just keep in mind the twinborn are not particularly common. The Terris have restricted their bloodline, so very few outside of their enclaves are ferrings.

[+robardin]

1 hour ago, Kidpen said:

That math works out. If they are all equal, 1/16 twinborn will be a compounder. Just keep in mind the twinborn are not particularly common. The Terris have restricted their bloodline, so very few outside of their enclaves are ferrings.

I agree, with my assumptions it seems like there works be a max of 10 Twinborn in a Northern Scadrial population of 50M, and that was assuming all Feruchemists were as likely to be Allomancers as the non-Terris population, when in fact that would be even lower a rate.

Which makes Khriss' comment that Wax was "only" the third Crasher Twinborn ever kind of interesting, since it's less than 350 years since the Catacendre. Maybe some Twinborn are more likely than others. 

[Kidpen]

59 minutes ago, robardin said:

I agree, with my assumptions it seems like there works be a max of 10 Twinborn in a Northern Scadrial population of 50M, and that was assuming all Feruchemists were as likely to be Allomancers as the non-Terris population, when in fact that would be even lower a rate.

Which makes Khriss' comment that Wax was "only" the third Crasher Twinborn ever kind of interesting, since it's less than 350 years since the Catacendre. Maybe some Twinborn are more likely than others. 

My memory might be off, but didn't she say he was the third or something?

[+robardin]

1 hour ago, Kidpen said:

My memory might be off, but didn't she say he was the third or something?

It's in The Bands of Mourning, Ch. 12:

Quote

“You realize,” she said, “that you are a very rare specimen. Crasher: a Coinshot and a Skimmer.”

“Neither are that rare,” Wax said, “in terms of Metalborn.”

“Ah, but any Twinborn combination is rare indeed. Mistings are one in a thousand; most Ferrings even more unusual, and their bloodlines constrained. To arrive at any specific combination of two is highly improbable. You are one of only three Crashers ever born, Lord Waxillium.”

I was a little surprised when Suit said they could gain three boons via Hemalurgy without being subject to Harmony's "interference", that he'd made himself a Bloodmaker Ferring... And an Allomantic Leecher and a Coinshot.

I get that with the ability to create unkeyed goldminds maybe he didn't feel the need to make himself like Miles, but pairing complementary physical metals seems to be the way to go. Like how Spook felt about gaining pewter after a lifetime as a Tineye, or how Kelsier used both Steelpushes and Ironpulls to amazing effect (not to mention the Four Horseshoes Flying Trick). Leecher? Get a henchman to do that, like the guy who threw the Allomatic cube at Wax on the train.