Allomantic Gum?

[+Keeper Exile]

I was re-reading Shadows of Self and when I read the part about Wayne and the gum, a question came to mind:

What if someone put some allomantic metals into the gum and then a misting, twinborn, etc. chewed it for the metal? Would that work? Could it be used to discretely get some metal reserves? Feel free to theorize on this. I would like to know.

[Elegy]

That is a very good idea and I would love the gum appearances in SoS to be foreshadowing to modern times metal chewing practices! Although it would be way more efficient and convenient to just swallow them (maybe as pills) or drink them with some beverage like Wax does. I imagine it would be time-consuming and you don't swallow the gum whole so you probably wouldn't even come through to all its resources. Would be cool though!

[Bigmikey357]

A practical use for this would be for the slow burning metals, your tin, your cadmium ect. The idea behind this is so one wastes less of the metal. Remember, some of these metals are toxic when not being burned away. So you are about to have a battle or something just before sundown, you swallow an entire vial, after the battle you still have metal in your belly when it's time for bed. But pop a stick of gum in the morning and you have all day reserves. You waste less metal and have it available if you come upon an unexpected fight.

[+Invocation]

My only concern with metal gum would be the taste and potential damage to teeth.

[+Keeper Exile]

Ture, but what if you just had microscopic flakes of the metal, or ground up particles.

13 hours ago, Elegy said:

Although it would be way more efficient and convenient to just swallow them (maybe as pills) or drink them with some beverage like Wax does.

1

Pills sound interesting. You could buy them and then break them up depending on how much metal you want/need. A full pill for a day, a quarter for a couple of hours, etc.

[SwordNimiForPresident]

I still can figure out why they keep their metals in glass vials. Put the rusting metal in an aluminum tube for Harmony's sake! So tired of coinshots pushing the protagonists metals away.

As for storing your metals in gum, it would be a handy way to prevent spills. If you're a dummy and don't keep your metals in aluminum vials, this could save you when someone else breaks your glass vials. Instead of licking your fish oil/metal flake mixture off the floor, you can just 5 second rule the gum and kick some chull.

[+Invocation]

Just now, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I still can figure out why they keep their metals in glass vials. Put the rusting metal in an aluminum tube for Harmony's sake! So tired of coinshots pushing the protagonists metals away.

Aluminum is still rare, though that's getting less and less of an issue, and probably something similar will happen in Era 3 or 4.

1 minute ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

As for storing your metals in gum, it would be a handy way to prevent spills. If you're a dummy and don't keep your metals in aluminum vials, this could save you when someone else breaks your glass vials. Instead of licking your fish oil/metal flake mixture off the floor, you can just 5 second rule the gum and kick some chull.

Pills are still so much better, though. No texture oddities, no potential teeth damage from having actual metal in your mouth (even in small amounts, copper doesn't do well with saliva and soft tissues, if I recall correctly).

[Calderis]

6 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I still can figure out why they keep their metals in glass vials. Put the rusting metal in an aluminum tube for Harmony's sake! So tired of coinshots pushing the protagonists metals away.

At this point, it's definitely a cost issue. 

Prior to the processes that allow large scale, cheap, production of aluminum, it's exceedingly rare.

Aluminum is more valuable than gold on rarity alone, not even accounting for its magic negating properties. It was true in our world too. Napoleon had a pair of aluminum plates that were very very valuable. 

By Era 3 I imagine aluminum containers will be common practice. 

Edited April 13, 2019 by Calderis

[SwordNimiForPresident]

@Invocation @Calderis Even still, Wax is rich. If he can line a hat with it, he can line a tiny little vial with it.

2 hours ago, Keeper Exile said:

Ture, but what if you just had microscopic flakes of the metal, or ground up particles.

Pills sound interesting. You could buy them and then break them up depending on how much metal you want/need. A full pill for a day, a quarter for a couple of hours, etc.

Aluminum Pez dispenser. The Pez are metal.

Edited April 13, 2019 by SwordNimiForPresident

[+Invocation]

9 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

@Invocation @Calderis Even still, Wax is rich. If he can line a hat with it, he can line a tiny little vial with it.

2 hours ago, Keeper Exile said:

Yeah, but it's such a little thing, and consider what he normally does with the vials: chucks them away. He's probably worried he'd do that to the aluminum one.

[SwordNimiForPresident]

19 hours ago, Invocation said:

Yeah, but it's such a little thing, and consider what he normally does with the vials: chucks them away. He's probably worried he'd do that to the aluminum one.

Worried about losing small piece aluminum because he's careless. Willing to die for it.

I imagine the real reason is that if he did use an aluminum vial, enemies couldn't push his metals, and that wouldn't work for some of the scenes.