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Era of the Compounders


MountainKing

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At the end of Bands of Mourning, northern Scadrialians got their has on medallions. The next book in the series take place a few years later, which allow northern scadrialians time to figure out how to produce medallions with one power only. Medallions give the user the ability to store one feruchemical trait in the metal that corresponds to that trait. So what's stopping any rich or noble allomancer from ordering a medallion and becoming a compounder. With a steel medallion Wax can have near infinite speed, Wayne can have unlimited nutrition, and Marasi gets unlimited oxygen. But what is more worrying i that Set agents can become dual compounders. Take a Set allomancer give him a medallion and two spikes and now he can compound any two feruchemical traits. How can Wax and Co. defeat someone who can have infinite health and speed or unlimited speed and senses.

The greater question is how will this affect the world, the power to basically become unstoppable by mixing all three metallic arts (or just two). Will Scadrial have terrorist attacks on large scales, and how will this shape wars when future governments learn hemalurgy? There will be  wars where everyone is a compounder+.

Edit: What happens when they realize with hemalurgy they can store up to nine traits per medallion.(Three feruchemists, each spiked with two unique feruchemical traits, using nicorsil /aluminum medallions to gain the ability to create medallions. Because the powers don't interfere with each other, but the process of multiple people storing new abilities in the nicrosil part of the medallion when there are already things stored in the medallion )

Edited by MountainKing
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The powers will have effective limits to prevent the books from being redundant or silly. Like (totally hypothetical): "natural born nicrosil ferrings must be involved in the creation of all medallions, thereby severely bottlenecking production," or, "medallions can be filled during creation, but never refilled," or, "medallions can't be used for compounding," or my favorite, "allomantic powers that can't be stored in a hemalurgic steel spike cant be put into medallions."

There are lots of very simple and practical ways to limit the medallions. Right now they look infinitely powerful, much like how electricity or nuclear fission probably seemed miraculous when first harnessed and demonstrated irl. The final truth will likely be much less grandiose than you are proposing, otherwise a solid plot would be difficult to deliver...

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I haven't read any WoB that said that but the book given reason is that because to store multiple powers you need multiple people, and each time a new person stored a power it made it harder to store a new power, but with Hemalurgy people can have between 2-4 powers before reaching the threshold where Harmony can mind control them allowing them to store a lot more powers.

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1 hour ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Couldn't they just make separate medallions and glue them together?  

I'm pretty sure it's said in the books that only one medallion can be used at a time, and that they have to be specifically made to grant more than one power at a time. And that it's difficult to make multi-power medallions. Which is part of what makes the Bands of Mourning so unique.

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