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How Many Lerasium Beads Were There?


Raven Wilder

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So there's a Word of Brandon that the lerasium beads found at the Well of Ascension were originally created and left there by Leras (a.k.a. Preservation). We know that Rashek consumed one to make himself a Mistborn, that he gave several others to kings who swore to serve him (a Hero of Ages epigraph refers to "the original nine Allomancers", but it's unclear if that number includes Rashek himself), and that two others were left by the Well, one stolen by Hoid and one used to make Elend a Mistborn. That adds up to either eleven or twelve beads of lerasium.

But we know that the number sixteen is super-important on Scadrial. Heck, that Hero of Ages epigraph I mentioned (for Chapter 22) comes immediately after Vin and Elend discover that the number of people who succumb to the mist sickness is always sixteen percent, and wonder what sort of cosmic significance the number sixteen might have.

Now, I'm not saying Leras would have to create sixteen beads of Lerasium, especially if their vaguely defined prophecy powers said only eleven or twelve would be necessary. But just like how Honor created ten Honorblades to give their Heralds, because ten is an important number on Roshar, it feels right that the lerasium beads would come in a set of sixteen. So if there were sixteen pieces of lerasium originally, then there could still be four or five beads unaccounted for. That could end up being one hell of a plot point.

Edited by Raven Wilder
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37 minutes ago, Raven Wilder said:

So there's a Word of Brandon that the lerasium beads found at the Well of Ascension were originally created and left there by Leras (a.k.a. Preservation). We know that Rashek consumed one to make himself a Mistborn, that he gave several others to kings who swore to serve him (a Hero of Ages epigraph refers to "the original nine Allomancers", but it's unclear if that number includes Rashek himself), and that two others were left by the Well, one stolen by Hoid and one used to make Elend a Mistborn. That adds up to either eleven or twelve beads of lerasium.

But we know that the number sixteen is super-important on Scadrial. Heck, that Hero of Ages epigraph I mentioned (for Chapter 22) comes immediately after Vin and Elend discover that the number of people who succumb to the mist sickness is always sixteen percent, and wonder what sort of cosmic significance the number sixteen might have.

Now, I'm not saying Leras would have to create sixteen beads of Lerasium, especially if their vaguely defined prophecy powers said only eleven or twelve would be necessary. But just like how Honor created ten Honorblades to give their Heralds, because ten is an important number on Roshar, it feels right that the lerasium beads would come in a set of sixteen. So if there were sixteen pieces of lerasium originally, then there could still be four or five beads unaccounted for. That could end up being one hell of a plot point.

As Brandon would say - because he did say just that - it's "an excellent guess" that there were sixteen of them originally!

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SageOfTheWise

Is there a reason why Rashek left a nugget of Lerasium at the Well of Ascension?

Brandon Sanderson

He left several. It was, in his opinion, one of the best kept secrets and best protected locations in his empire.

Phantine

Were there originally 16 of them?

Brandon Sanderson

An excellent guess.

/r/books AMA 2015 (Aug. 11, 2015)

But, Leras did not place them there next to the Well of Ascension; Rashek collected them (maybe not all of them), from a place or places unknown, and left a few spare ones there:

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Questioner

Did the Lord Ruler create the lerasium that he gave to the ten foreign kings? Or were they put there by Leras--

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, good question… No one's asked me that before, I don't believe. Did the Lord Ruler create the lerasium that he gave-- No, he found the lerasium. It was existent before his Ascension.

Questioner

Can I ask if it was placed there intentionally by Leras or did it sort of grow similar to how atium--

Brandon Sanderson

The Lord Ruler-- It was not placed for him, he had to-- he had to get it.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

 

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42 minutes ago, Raven Wilder said:

The lerasium could still have been left at the Well of Ascension (finding the Well was the end of a long quest, after all, which would fit with Rashek needing to go and get it); it just wasn't left there for Rashek, specifically.

Glad to know I'm not alone in wondering about that!

Here are a few more fun WoBs about lerasium with questions you have have in mind:

 

Were they "naturally occuring" expressions of godmetal, the way that atium geodes form at the Pits, or intentionally created by Leras?

... It's the latter.

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Questioner

How were the original beads of Lerasium created?

Brandon Sanderson

They were created for the purpose that they were originally used for.

Questioner

Who created them?

Brandon Sanderson

They were created by Leras.

Words of Radiance Seattle signing (March 8, 2014)

(Note that in other Cosmere works, all instances of "god metals" that we see are explicitly willed as such by the Shards themselves; I think what happened with the atium at the Pits of Hathsin was a cycle set in place by Preservation, to hide the portion of Ruin's power that he splintered off while imprisoning him as a natural process. I also wonder if Leras' side knife was to do with how that maneuver was achieved...)

 

Can or will Harmony make more "lerasium" (solid Preservation)?

Yes, but...

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Questioner

Will we ever see more beads of lerasium?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO. Definitely a RAFO. It's-- It would require some... *sighs*

Shadows of Self release party (Oct. 5, 2015)
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Questioner

Could [Sazed] also bring back lerasium beads, if he wanted to?

Brandon Sanderson

It would be within his power to do so, yes.

Firefight Miami signing (Jan. 8, 2015)

(...or maybe "see more lerasium" really means "see the other 5 or 6 original beads that are unaccounted for resurface in the Cosmere"?)

 

When Hoid emerged from the Well of Ascension in Secret History, why didn't he take all the lerasium (leaving the other nugget for Vin to give Elend)?

Basically, "Fortune frowned upon it" and he didn't ask why.

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Questioner

Why didn't Hoid take the second bead of lerasium?

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid knew that if he did so, bad things would happen.

Idaho Falls signing (Dec. 29, 2018)
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Paladin Brewer (paraphrased)

Why did Hoid not take both beads of lerasium?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Hoid has an innate ability to know where he needs to be and what he needs to do. Calamity San Antonio signing (Feb. 26, 2016)

 

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I wonder if those original ones were used a very long time ago, and the power they put into the gene pool become so watered down that that's why Alendi was a seeker without ever actually knowing what was happening. This bit in the annotations on that is quite cryptic:

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Also, as a note, Alendi was an Allomancer, as the epigraph notes here. He had to be—he heard the pulsing at the Well of Ascension when nobody else could. "Ah," you might say, "but I thought that you said Allomancy didn't exist before those beads." That isn't 100% true. The legends say that Allomancy came with the Deepness. Alendi was one of the very first Allomancers, and he gained his powers as the mists began to cover the world.

That's important. ;)

Because, of course, he was Snapped by the mists, like is happening to people in this book.

 

 

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I'm inclined to think that, whether leftover from the original set, or because Harmony or someone else makes more, we will see lerasium again. The title of the series is Mistborn, after all, so while the Mistings-only thing works for the Wax & Wayne books (which weren't originally supposed to be part of the chronology, afterall), sooner or later new Mistborn are gonna have to come from somewhere.

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17 minutes ago, datalaughing said:

I wonder if those original ones were used a very long time ago, and the power they put into the gene pool become so watered down that that's why Alendi was a seeker without ever actually knowing what was happening. This bit in the annotations on that is quite cryptic:

Doubtful, as we're told that the dilution of magical power that we see in Era 2 is about as weak as it's going to get and that everyone on Scadrial has the seeds of the Metallic Arts in them innately because they were created by Preservation and Ruin.

Quote

Comatose

So here's my last question. If there ARE people on the other side of the world, did Vin kill them all by placing the sun on their side, or do they have they're own Ruin/Preservation battle going on over there as well? Do they also have allomancy feruchemy and hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

No, they're not dead. Yes, Rashek was aware of them. In fact, he placed them there as a reserve. I knew he wanted a 'control' group of people in case his changes to genetics ended with the race being in serious trouble. All I'll say is that he found a way other than changing them genetically to help them survive in the world he created. And since they were created by Ruin and Preservation, they have the seeds of the Three Metallic Arts in them—though without anyone among them having burned Lerasium, Allomancers would have been very rare in their population and full Mistborn unheard of.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

Note that last sentence, even without any Mistborn sDNA from lerasium-burners, allomancers can still exist. That tracks perfectly with Brandon's annotation on Alendi.

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Side Note: Brandon has canonized that Rashek used the power of the Well of Ascension to turn himself into a Mistborn rather than using a Lerasium bead

Quote

Leinton (paraphrased)

Did Rashek use the Well or a bead of lerasium to become a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He didn't know at first, I told him there were interviews with him saying both, and he eventually answered with "I'm canonizing it as he used the Well".

Firefight San Diego signing (Jan. 20, 2015)

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I would like to think that Harmony would make a stable perpendicularity where lerasium grows (like the lerasium version of Pits of Hathsin). In order to balance out Preservation and Ruins power, once the Pits of Hathsin produce atium again (it was mentioned somewhere in era 1 that the Pits would regrow all atium in ~300 years (the length of time between era 1 and 2).

 

He would also likely destroy the Well of Ascension (or atleast the perpendicularity part) because it know serves no purpose. 

 

Obviously this is pure wishful thinking, nothing else (felt the need to clarify)

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