Original Magic Idea: Metalbinding

[JustQuestin2004]

Hey there, so I've recently had an idea that I'd like a bit of help fleshing out.

 

So this idea sort of came to me while I was thinking about a certain section in a Mistborn Era 2 newspaper, the one with 'K and N', who are probably Krhiss and Nazh, asking people to come to them if they hear their metal tools start to talk to them (Which all on it's own is interesting to wonder about but I digress) and I was also thinking of a fanfiction idea where a new magic system occurs on Scadrial.

 

So the idea is that during the Catacendre things go a little wrong and bit of Ruin and Preservation are torn and became Splinters, like Spren (Though I don't know if I should call them that or not) these Splinters then attempt to mimic the Nahel Bond but due to Scadrial's Affinity for Metal they need to use one of the 16 Metals as a middleman. And the metal they Bond to must have some kind of Connection to the one they wish to bond with , so they can't just Bond with a piece of scrap metal, more like some kind of family heirloom or something of great significance to the 'Bonded' which is also Allomantically viabe. 

They can't Bond with a Metalmind or a Hemalurgic Spike due to them being Invested. Which would mess up the Bond.

 

There will be 16 types of Splinters which for the sake of simplicity I''m just going to call Spren, there would be one for each of the metals like Steelspren, Pewterspren and so on,

 

I don't know exactly what powers the person would get from this Bond or if it's be more like an Aviar Bond. But I wouldn't want them to be anymore powerful then what is shown by the Metallic Art, Compounding not included.

 

Any thoughts? I'd love to hear some.

Edited September 1, 2022 by JustQuestin2004

[FlowerGirl]

This is such a cool idea! A mix of spren and allomancy would be super interesting to see. what if people bonded to the spren had ideals as well? If they did it could be really interesting, maybe the ideals could relate to the type of metal. For instance Zinc and Brass bonded could have to pay special attention to people's emotions. Or maybe pewter bonded could have to keep themselves in peak physical condition. 

[JustQuestin2004]

15 minutes ago, FlowerGirl said:

This is such a cool idea! A mix of spren and allomancy would be super interesting to see. what if people bonded to the spren had ideals as well? If they did it could be really interesting, maybe the ideals could relate to the type of metal. For instance Zinc and Brass bonded could have to pay special attention to people's emotions. Or maybe pewter bonded could have to keep themselves in peak physical condition. 

Maybe, I do want Metalbinding to have similar principles but I also want it to be distinct from either Surgebinding and the Metallic Arts.

I'm starting to think that maybe Metalbinding should work like the Aviar Bond, where the person themselves doesn't actually have any innate powers of their own but they can benefit from the thing that actually has powers, which in this case would be the Metalbound, which is what I'd call the 'Spren' when they're bonded to metal.

 

And the powers, still not sure. Maybe Pewterbound become tougher?  

[FlowerGirl]

Maybe the strength of the powers could depend on the emotional bond the person has with the object the spren bonded to. The strength of the powers could also depend on how close or far the person is for the object. Idk how you plan on the interaction between the person, object and spren. 

For power idea's maybe the zinc and brass are more in touch with people emotions? 

Maybe duralumin could grant the power to strengthen other allomancers or metal bound?

Aluminum metal bound could wipe other allomancers metal reserves or maybe mess with the bond with spren and metal bound temporarily?

Idk, just some random ideas.

 

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

Oh this is a neat idea for a magic system!! It might be interesting to make it so that it doesn't have to be personal connection to the object though; that way you can have a powerful [Spren] bonded to some legendary object, like a sword or a cane or something. And that object can grant power to anyone who bonds to the object. (I also like this narratively, as suddenly there are ways to get powers outside of being born with it (or hemalurgy, but most people don't know about it and is too immoral for a lot even if they did). We do have the medallions doing this now, but still) and I think it would be very interesting to see how that shakes up society. Each of the metallic arts functions in a specific way- hemallurgy steals, feruchemy stores, allomancy gives a burst of power. So what does this one do? Well with the way it works with connection, what about sharing?

What should the different metals do? Here are some random ideas for a few

Iron

Steel -

Tin - You can see through the sense of someone else for a short while after you touch

Pewter - Allows you to lend your physical abilities to someone else.

Zinc

Brass

Copper - Allows you to read the thoughts of someone you're touching

Bronze -

Aluminum -

Duralumin -

Chromium - Allows you to block others of their investiture

Nicrosil - Allows you to lend your own investiture to others

Gold - (KandraTime) allows you to temporarily take the appearance of someone you touch.

Electrum

Cadmium

Bendalloy

 

This is of course an incomplete list, and I will presumably edit updates to it

[JustQuestin2004]

3 hours ago, FlowerGirl said:

Maybe the strength of the powers could depend on the emotional bond the person has with the object the spren bonded to. The strength of the powers could also depend on how close or far the person is for the object. Idk how you plan on the interaction between the person, object and spren. 

For power idea's maybe the zinc and brass are more in touch with people emotions? 

Maybe duralumin could grant the power to strengthen other allomancers or metal bound?

Aluminum metal bound could wipe other allomancers metal reserves or maybe mess with the bond with spren and metal bound temporarily?

Idk, just some random ideas.

 

Random ideas are better than no ideas at all.

32 minutes ago, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

Oh this is a neat idea for a magic system!! It might be interesting to make it so that it doesn't have to be personal connection to the object though; that way you can have a powerful [Spren] bonded to some legendary object, like a sword or a cane or something. And that object can grant power to anyone who bonds to the object. (I also like this narratively, as suddenly there are ways to get powers outside of being born with it (or hemalurgy, but most people don't know about it and is too immoral for a lot even if they did). We do have the medallions doing this now, but still) and I think it would be very interesting to see how that shakes up society. Each of the metallic arts functions in a specific way- hemallurgy steals, feruchemy stores, allomancy gives a burst of power. So what does this one do? Well with the way it works with connection, what about sharing?

What should the different metals do? Here are some random ideas for a few

Iron

Steel -

Tin - You can see through the sense of someone else for a short while after you touch

Pewter - Allows you to lend your physical abilities to someone else.

Zinc

Brass

Copper - Allows you to read the thoughts of someone you're touching

Bronze -

Aluminum -

Duralumin -

Chromium - Allows you to block others of their investiture

Nicrosil - Allows you to lend your own investiture to others

Gold - (KandraTime) allows you to temporarily take the appearance of someone you touch.

Electrum

Cadmium

Bendalloy

 

This is of course an incomplete list, and I will presumably edit updates to it

Sharing Investiture? Now that is certainly an angle to work with.

A core theme of Metalbinding would be community? We all lift together or something?

So with Metalbinding, when enough people have a Connection with a particular object (like a family heirloom or a national treasure or whatever), enough to give it it's own Identity, a Scadrian Spren would bond with this object's spiritual self and make it a sentient object, also known as a Metalbound, sort of like Nightblood but without the whole 'Destroy Evil' thing.

The abilities would require multiple people in order to work and only a single person could wield the Metalbound at a time.

Also making an object have it's own Identity wouldn't be something that could just happen in a day, it would need nearly a lifetime to develop.

An example would be like if a Noble House had a sword made of pure iron, that sword was passed down for generations and was given a name of it's own, and over time that sword's Identity would slightly change, instead of just 'I am a Sword' it would be 'I am a Sword called (Insert Name)', then a Scadrian Spren would see this sword in the Cognitive Realm, which would be easy because metal glows in Scadrial's CR, and sensing the unique Identity and the number of deeper than usual Connections it has, it would bond with the psuedo-soul of the sword and form a true soul, granting the sword sentience and an ability corresponding with Metalbinding Iron.

 

The personality of the Metalbound would depend on 2 things, the object's personal history and the type of Spren that Bonds with it. Like certain Spren are Splinter of just Ruin or Preservation and they would be the majority, Ruinspren would influence the personality of the Metalbound to make it want to destroy things and go on the offensive, Preservationspren would make the Metalbound act more Defensively. And then there would be the rarer 2, the Discordspren and the Harmonyspren, the Discordspren would be as erratic as they are rare, generally acting like Wildcards at the best of times while Harmonyspren would encourage peace and stuff.

 

Man this has been some good stuff. Thanks.

 

[JustQuestin2004]

The powers granted by Metalbound would depend on the metal they are made of, and also whether they want to grant them to you or not. 

The basic overview is that a Metalbound would allow you to make temporary Connections with other willing people, allowing you to share certain things with them depending on the Metal. The Connections would fade after a time depending on your own Connection with them requiring you to set it up again, and it must be willing. They also have to be within a few miles of you.

The main limit of Metalbinding is that you need allies to use it and there are limits as to how much you can share.

Tin would be the most obvious, it would allow you to share senses with people you are Connected to. Seeing what they're seeing, hearing what they're hearing and doing the reverse with letting them see what you see.

Nicrosil would probably share Innate Investiture, which would have a use even without Metalborn. But with Metalborn you could share powers. 

Though I don't want Metalbinding to be 1-to-1 with Feruchemy so there would be differences. Like maybe Zinc or Brass could share emotions. I'll need to think on this but it is all coming together.