Why It's Better to Alloy Lerasium

[Trusk'our]

There was a WoB that talked about why on Scadrial would someone want to alloy Lerasium to make Mistings instead of just making yourself Mistborn:

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/361/#e11225

Snarlezz

What's the incentive of alloying lerasium and becoming a misting when you could just burn it normal and be a Mistborn?

AltF4WillHelp

My guess is that you'd presumably you'd use less of it? Also, arguably, not every way of using a magic is going to be the most optimal way.

It's probably just a way that lerasium can work. If you alloy it or somehow mix it with things from other systems, it's quite possible you'd end up getting those magics instead, because it'd Connect you more strongly to a different Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

The replies to this are correct.

I would like to argue in favor of Alloying Lerasium any time you get it;

1. You can choose to divide the power amongst a team of specialists, such as the Wax and Wayne gang, to make them all more competent. Sometimes, having a few individuals who have their strengths further augmented and their weaknesses reduced are just going to be more effective than having a single person who's got more abilities than they'd normally use.

2. You can make new types of "Twinborn", but only with Allomantic powers. These dual-Mistings would have new kinds of Resonances, and if you understood the principles of how they worked ahead of time, you may be able to make some very useful combinations.

3. Even if your only goal with Lerasium was to become a Mistborn, I'd still advocate alloying it, as you get to choose how your power gets routed. Basically, Mistborn have some redundant or nearly redundant powers that aren't all that useful when compared to their counterpart, particularly if that counterpart is an option.

So, for instance, a person who took a Lerasium bead could make sixteen smaller beads that were alloyed to endow powers of their choice. They could forgo aluminum, brass, cadmium, nicrosil, and gold (unless they expect to be able to alloy to Atium as well and become a Fullborn. keep gold and nicrosil in that case).

This gives them five extra powers worth that they get to cherry pick, such as tripling pewter, doubling bronze, and adding a level of power to iron and steel each. This would make them more than your standard Mistborn in a lot of scenarios, as they now have sizable edges in more directly competitive powers.

[LightRinger]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

2. You can make new types of "Twinborn", but only with Allomantic powers. These dual-Mistings would have new kinds of Resonances, and if you understood the principles of how they worked ahead of time, you may be able to make some very useful combinations.

To my memory, burning a Lerasium alloy overwrites your previous allomantic powers. But that might just be MAG specific. 

[Trusk'our]

29 minutes ago, LightRinger said:

To my memory, burning a Lerasium alloy overwrites your previous allomantic powers. But that might just be MAG specific. 

It's an addition to your Spiritweb canonically, not an overwrite.

Spoiler

Firefight Seattle UBooks signing - Arcanum (coppermind.net)

Shardlet

If Vin and Elend hypothetically each blindly ingested equivalently sized beads of lerasium, would Vin be a stronger Mistborn than Elend, or would they be equal?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Vin would be stronger. It is additive, not just an overwrite.

Didn't know that about MAG though. Was it put there to let Full Feruchemists get Allomancy without making them overpowered perhaps?

I mean, as I've been making the Mistborn D&D homebrew I've realized just how much things need to be tweaked so as to make a good game, so it would make perfect sense to me.

Edited March 16 by Trusk'our

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

On 3/16/2024 at 11:33 AM, Trusk'our said:

There was a WoB that talked about why on Scadrial would someone want to alloy Lerasium to make Mistings instead of just making yourself Mistborn:

  Hide contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/361/#e11225

Snarlezz

What's the incentive of alloying lerasium and becoming a misting when you could just burn it normal and be a Mistborn?

AltF4WillHelp

My guess is that you'd presumably you'd use less of it? Also, arguably, not every way of using a magic is going to be the most optimal way.

It's probably just a way that lerasium can work. If you alloy it or somehow mix it with things from other systems, it's quite possible you'd end up getting those magics instead, because it'd Connect you more strongly to a different Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

The replies to this are correct.

I would like to argue in favor of Alloying Lerasium any time you get it;

1. You can choose to divide the power amongst a team of specialists, such as the Wax and Wayne gang, to make them all more competent. Sometimes, having a few individuals who have their strengths further augmented and their weaknesses reduced are just going to be more effective than having a single person who's got more abilities than they'd normally use.

2. You can make new types of "Twinborn", but only with Allomantic powers. These dual-Mistings would have new kinds of Resonances, and if you understood the principles of how they worked ahead of time, you may be able to make some very useful combinations.

3. Even if your only goal with Lerasium was to become a Mistborn, I'd still advocate alloying it, as you get to choose how your power gets routed. Basically, Mistborn have some redundant or nearly redundant powers that aren't all that useful when compared to their counterpart, particularly if that counterpart is an option.

So, for instance, a person who took a Lerasium bead could make sixteen smaller beads that were alloyed to endow powers of their choice. They could forgo aluminum, brass, cadmium, nicrosil, and gold (unless they expect to be able to alloy to Atium as well and become a Fullborn. keep gold and nicrosil in that case).

This gives them five extra powers worth that they get to cherry pick, such as tripling pewter, doubling bronze, and adding a level of power to iron and steel each. This would make them more than your standard Mistborn in a lot of scenarios, as they now have sizable edges in more directly competitive powers.

I think I would definately forgo gold and perhaps nicrosil.  But I really think aluminum would be a really smart one to keep.  In a world where you had access to near limitless metals... or if there was something in the cosmere that could perhaps change grains of sand into metals of your choice... having aluminum would be super valuable.  You could walk around with a full stomach never needing to worry about burning everything or risking metal poisoning. Ingest ludicrous amounts and then purge your system each night before bed.  

As far as why alloy? I think you nailed it with the power options. A bead can split its power ober 16 different metals or you can concentrate all of that power into one metal. 

If a pewter arm born in the final empire is twice as strong as a normal human and Elend was 3-4 times as strong. How much stronger could he have been with pewter if that bead was focused only on giving him pewter?  I don't know if there are caps but I imaging a bead of Lerasium that size would bypass all soft cap and set you squarely at the top end of the hard cap before possibly being wasted.  

Imagine if it did give him 16x the benefit to just that one. If he were 16x stronger than a normal person.  His pewter burn would be more powerful than certain power armors...

[Trusk'our]

2 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Imagine if it did give him 16x the benefit to just that one. If he were 16x stronger than a normal person.  His pewter burn would be more powerful than certain power armors...

Don't forget that's also 16x the speed, dexterity, and healing boost too.

2 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

As far as why alloy? I think you nailed it with the power options.

Thanks, I try my best 

2 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I think I would definately forgo gold and perhaps nicrosil.  But I really think aluminum would be a really smart one to keep.  In a world where you had access to near limitless metals... or if there was something in the cosmere that could perhaps change grains of sand into metals of your choice... having aluminum would be super valuable.  You could walk around with a full stomach never needing to worry about burning everything or risking metal poisoning. Ingest ludicrous amounts and then purge your system each night before bed.  

I mean, eh, you could keep it, but you could also have a Leecher or a Harmonium cube (filled with Leeching) do that for you as well. Or you could just barf it up, assuming it hadn't passed too far at that point.

Though, I suppose if you had a fractured aluminum bullet lodged in your system, being able to immediately purge it would be nice, even if the side effects aren't.

Another possible option discussed at some point on the Shard for an Allomancer to hold lots of metals would be to have specialized piercings, which could be removed whenever needed and wouldn't cause metal poisoning.

[Koloss17]

I really like this idea! I would say that it honestly really depends on how much lerasium you need to make an alloy. And past that, how much would you need to make a lerasium-strength misting. 

And obviously you would need to tinker to make even one usable alloy, which would likely take at least one, if not multiple beads, but we’ll just assume that’s already been done or whatever, as it obviously kinda blows a massive hole in the idea.

If you could have an alloy that would allow for 16 misting powers, I could see the advantages. I do really like the resonance combos of having two allomantic metals! There is some very strong potential there.

[alder24]

10 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

But I really think aluminum would be a really smart one to keep.  In a world where you had access to near limitless metals... or if there was something in the cosmere that could perhaps change grains of sand into metals of your choice... having aluminum would be super valuable.  You could walk around with a full stomach never needing to worry about burning everything or risking metal poisoning. Ingest ludicrous amounts and then purge your system each night before bed.  

7 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I mean, eh, you could keep it, but you could also have a Leecher or a Harmonium cube (filled with Leeching) do that for you as well. Or you could just barf it up, assuming it hadn't passed too far at that point.

Though, I suppose if you had a fractured aluminum bullet lodged in your system, being able to immediately purge it would be nice, even if the side effects aren't.

Metal poisoning doesn't affect Allomancers. Being able to cleanse your soul out of negative effects of investiture is much more handy. Burning aluminum bullets is a really smart idea.

Spoiler

rederel

Now i'm morbidly curious whether u/mistborn has considered it [cadmium poisoning] while writing his books.

Brandon Sanderson

I have, actually. Though I had to consider it for other metals first. I decided that allomancers are immune to these kinds of effects--they're just physiologically different in that regard.

General Reddit 2021 (June 11, 2021)

 

Spoiler

Douglas

What benefit does an aluminum savant get? Yes, I know this would normally never happen because aluminum burns itself up. Suppose a mad scientist with a willing Mistborn test subject shoved a feeding tube down the Mistborn's throat to pump in a continuous stream of aluminum, replenishing it steadily so there's always a new unburned supply. Add another tube to pump out excess water if necessary. What would he discover? Alternatively, what would Sazed with his Shard-granted knowledge know?

Brandon Sanderson

Ha, that IS a little silly of a method. However, on the extreme end of aluminum, I have in the notes the possibility of cleansing the spirit of unwanted effects of other Investitures. You'd get really good at this, and maybe even be able to cleanse the body of other impurities.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 27, 2012)

Threnody spoilers:

Spoiler

And if you are a Worldhopper, it would protect you from Shades.

Spoiler

Kurkistan

If you're on Threnody and you get withered by a shade, are you better off burning Allomantic aluminum, or tapping Feruchemical gold?

*laughter*

[clarification on the question]

Brandon Sanderson

They would both work pretty well. I would say if you burned aluminum, that would kind of have the effect that you are wanting it to have, which is the effect-- negating and sucking out, so that's probably safer. But the gold would work, too.

Kurkistan

So would it be fair to describe withering as a kind of cancerous Forging-

Brandon Sanderson

Sure.

Kurkistan

That just kind of slowly takes over your soul?

Brandon Sanderson

Sure.

Shadows of Self Chicago signing (Oct. 12, 2015)

 

 

Edited March 18 by alder24

[Duxredux]

Well reasoned and I appreciate the depth of thought. I'll also add that since Harmony's agents will be slowly producing Atium and presumably Lerasium to keep Marsh alive for a while longer this means that they will be able to produce functional powers at a faster rate than creating a full Mistborn every X decades - assuming they wanted to. Minimizing the possibility for enemy agents to identify and backtrack production to the source is easier if the apparent new abilities given individually here or there could be explained by Ettmetal tech like the Allomantic grenades... rather than someone obviously with the full powers of a Mistborn. If the greater Cosmere organizations learn about Lerasium and its potential to give anyone powers... that's a really good reason for Harmony's agents to obscure all signs of Lerasium being produced, transported, or utilized.

[QuantumAce]

2 hours ago, Koloss17 said:

I really like this idea! I would say that it honestly really depends on how much lerasium you need to make an alloy. And past that, how much would you need to make a lerasium-strength misting. 

This seems like an important point. Any sort of potency loss during the alloying process could diminish the value pretty quickly. 

[Trusk'our]

8 hours ago, Koloss17 said:

I really like this idea! I would say that it honestly really depends on how much lerasium you need to make an alloy. And past that, how much would you need to make a lerasium-strength misting. 

And obviously you would need to tinker to make even one usable alloy, which would likely take at least one, if not multiple beads, but we’ll just assume that’s already been done or whatever, as it obviously kinda blows a massive hole in the idea.

Definitely a valid point; experimentation with Lerasium alloys would require more and more of the precious metal to bring about useful affects, so there's that to worry about. I bet F-chromium or A-electrum would prove useful in finding them more quickly though, which could help negate some of costs of experimenting.

New question that I just thought because of this; if a bad alloy causes Mistborn headaches and such, it goes away because it's a temporary thing, just some Kinetic Investiture gone awry. But Lerasium fundamentally changes the Spiritweb by permanently adding/augmenting your Connection and Investiture, so would a bad Lerasium alloy cause permanent unwanted side-effects?

8 hours ago, Koloss17 said:

If you could have an alloy that would allow for 16 misting powers, I could see the advantages. I do really like the resonance combos of having two allomantic metals! There is some very strong potential there.

Yeah, it could have some really interesting applications, especially for research into the nature of Resonances.

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

Metal poisoning doesn't affect Allomancers. Being able to cleanse your soul out of negative effects of investiture is much more handy. Burning aluminum bullets is a really smart idea.

Threnody spoilers:

  Hide contents

And if you are a Worldhopper, it would protect you from Shades.

  Hide contents

Kurkistan

If you're on Threnody and you get withered by a shade, are you better off burning Allomantic aluminum, or tapping Feruchemical gold?

*laughter*

[clarification on the question]

Brandon Sanderson

They would both work pretty well. I would say if you burned aluminum, that would kind of have the effect that you are wanting it to have, which is the effect-- negating and sucking out, so that's probably safer. But the gold would work, too.

Kurkistan

So would it be fair to describe withering as a kind of cancerous Forging-

Brandon Sanderson

Sure.

Kurkistan

That just kind of slowly takes over your soul?

Brandon Sanderson

Sure.

Shadows of Self Chicago signing (Oct. 12, 2015)

While these are both certainly good reasons to have this power, the later isn't going to come up nearly as often and the former leaves you drained of all other metal sources.

It's obviously more of a personal choice where both options have pros and cons, but I'd probably maintain the decision of devoting the Investiture that would have gone to A-aluminum to A-pewter instead due to the large edge it would bring to many more circumstances.

5 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Well reasoned and I appreciate the depth of thought.

Thanks!

5 hours ago, Duxredux said:

I'll also add that since Harmony's agents will be slowly producing Atium and presumably Lerasium to keep Marsh alive for a while longer this means that they will be able to produce functional powers at a faster rate than creating a full Mistborn every X decades - assuming they wanted to. Minimizing the possibility for enemy agents to identify and backtrack production to the source is easier if the apparent new abilities given individually here or there could be explained by Ettmetal tech like the Allomantic grenades... rather than someone obviously with the full powers of a Mistborn. If the greater Cosmere organizations learn about Lerasium and its potential to give anyone powers... that's a really good reason for Harmony's agents to obscure all signs of Lerasium being produced, transported, or utilized.

Good points.

I really hope we see more Lerasium in era 3 so that it can be experimented with.