Lerasium Questions

[UltimateArchivist He/Him]

We know that anyone can burn Lerasium.

But do we?

So far, the only Non-Scadrian we've seen ingest and burn Lerasium is Hoid. We know that when Preservation and Ruin created humanity, Preservation Invested humanity with just a little bit more, presumably to allow them to Preserve more than they Ruin. This grants them Allomancy, unless I am misinformed.

However, we've also seen this surplus Investiture siphoned off by the Set to partially invest a Hemalurgic Spike, which means that all people have at least some Preservation in them as long as they are from Scadrial.

My question is this; can only Scadrians burn Lerasium because of the innate Preservation within them? (I don't count Hoid because we already know he wouldn't let something like insufficient Connection stop him from gaining Allomancy.) Otherwise, can people from other worlds burn Lerasium? Also, if off-worlders cannot burn Lerasium, how would this relate to the inexplicable ability of the Malwish Consortium to create metalminds that anyone can tap? Perhaps they are using that same bit of Investiture.

Thoughts?

[alder24]

12 hours ago, UltimateArchivist said:

We know that anyone can burn Lerasium.

But do we?

So far, the only Non-Scadrian we've seen ingest and burn Lerasium is Hoid. We know that when Preservation and Ruin created humanity, Preservation Invested humanity with just a little bit more, presumably to allow them to Preserve more than they Ruin. This grants them Allomancy, unless I am misinformed.

However, we've also seen this surplus Investiture siphoned off by the Set to partially invest a Hemalurgic Spike, which means that all people have at least some Preservation in them as long as they are from Scadrial.

My question is this; can only Scadrians burn Lerasium because of the innate Preservation within them? (I don't count Hoid because we already know he wouldn't let something like insufficient Connection stop him from gaining Allomancy.) Otherwise, can people from other worlds burn Lerasium? Also, if off-worlders cannot burn Lerasium, how would this relate to the inexplicable ability of the Malwish Consortium to create metalminds that anyone can tap? Perhaps they are using that same bit of Investiture.

Thoughts?

We don't know the answers to those questions. Brandon has said that "anyone" should be able to burn god metals, but he also said that you need to have a proper Connection to burn some of them. So we don't really know for sure, even the WoBs on this matter are confusing.

I see several possibilities:

1. Everyone in Cosmere can burn god metals.
2. You need to have a Connection to Shards to burn their god metal.
3. You need to be an Allomancer of any kind to burn any god metal.
4. The Connection is needed specifically to burn pure alloys of god metals, while pure god metals are burnable by anyone/any Allomancer.

Personally I subscribe to the third option - with the exception of Lerasium, which should be burnable by anyone in Cosmere, no matter their Connections or origin planet (at least to become an Allomancer, which is a side effect). We know Lerasium alloyed with base metals makes you a Misting of those metals and those alloys are also burnable by "anyone" (whatever anyone means here), while Atium alloyed with base metals are not - Atium-electrum alloy from Era 1 was burnable only by Mistborn and electrum Mistings. But we also know that Lerasium making you into a Misting/Mistborn is just a side effect and an Allomancer burning it would get something else from it, which is in line with the 3rd option here. So overall Lerasium is just different, it can be burned by anyone to become an Allomancer, but to reach its full potential you need to already be an Allomancer.

The WoB that said "you need Connection to burn god metals" was about burning Shardblades, but Shardblades are alloys of Tanavastium and Koravellium. Recently we got another WoB explaining why Shardblades can't be burned at all - it's because they are alive and therefore aren't treated as metals in your body. This might mean that Connection is only revelat with alloys of god metals, or not at all because of the new WoB. As I said, we don't know for sure. In my opinion it makes the most sense that only Allomancers can burn god metals, with only Lerasium and possibly Edglium (Endowment's god metal) that are different because of the nature of those Shards (Allomancy is a gift that gives you strength, Breaths are a gift with no strings attached - both Shards gift people magic, so it makes sense that their god metals can be burned by anyone in Cosmere to at least get the side effect, which in the case of Lerasium makes you into a Mistborn).

Lots of WoBs:

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Preservation's Power

All right, so maybe I lied about there only being three magic systems in this book. It comes down to how you term the powers of Preservation and Ruin, who kind of blanket the entire system. There are a lot of things going on here, and—well, the truth is I don't want to mention all of them, for fear of spoiling future books. However, I'll give you a few rules to apply.

First, to these forces, energy and mass are the same thing. So, their power can take physical shape—as Preservation's did in the bead of metal Elend ate. Second, there is a bit of Preservation inside of all the people—and it's this that allows the people to perform Allomancy. It needs to be awakened and stirred to be of use, but when it is, a proper metal can draw forth more of Preservation's power. It's like the metal attunes the bit within the person, allowing it to act as a catalyst to grab more power.

Allomancy is not fueled by metal; it is fueled by Preservation. The metal is the means by which a person can access that fuel, however. If there were another way to access it, then the metal wouldn't be needed.

Preservation's touch on people differs. Some have more, some have less. This doesn't make them better or worse people—indeed, some most touched by Preservation have been among the worst people in the world. As Ruin later points out, there is a difference between being evil and being destructive.

Regardless, if a person can get more Preservation into them, they become better Allomancers. Hence Elend becoming a Mistborn. Like all people, he had the potential within him—it was just too small of a potential to be awakened through normal means. That little jolt of Preservation's body, however, expanded and awakened his Allomancy.

As a tidbit, that was a side effect of what that bead of metal did. It wasn't the main purpose of the bead, and if another Allomancer were to burn it, it would do something else.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Nov. 12, 2009)

 

Spoiler

17th Shard

If a Mistborn burns lerasium, as in, not just ingests it, what effect would it grant Allomantically?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a RAFO. It would do something, but the thing you've gotta remember is that, when ingesting lerasium for the first time and gaining the powers, your body is actually burning it. Think of lerasium as a metal anyone can burn. Does that make sense? By burning it you gain access to those powers. It rewrites your spiritual DNA, and there are ways to do really cool things with lerasium that I don't see how anyone would know. Were most Mistborn to just burn it, it would rewrite their genetic code to increase their power as an Allomancer.

17th Shard Interview (Oct. 3, 2010)

 

Spoiler

Kaimipono

Allomancy is fueled by Preservation's body? How exactly does that work? And how does that interact with Atium—it's fueled by both gods' bodies?

Brandon Sanderson

The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

Condensed 'essence' of these godly powers can act as super-fuel for Allomancy, Feruchemy, or really any of the powers. The form of that super fuel is important. In liquid form it's most potent, in gas form it's able to fuel Allomancy as if working as a metal. In physical form it is rigid and does one specific thing. In the case of atium, it allows sight into the future. In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.)

So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she'd doing just that—using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself—to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive.

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

 

Spoiler

Xais56

Brandon has said that everyone ought to be able to burn Atium, like they can all burn Lerasium, and the fact that they can't was an oversight on his part that he would've done different in hindsight.

Maybe now he's had an in-universe reason to re-write the laws of allomancy it's back to his intended concept; Mistborn burn all 16 base metals, mistings burn one base metal, non-allomancers can only burn godmetal.

Peter Ahlstrom

My explanation for this is that Preservation somehow caused all naturally occurring atium to form as an alloy of atium and electrum. The atium Mistings were actually electrum Mistings.

Xais56

It's a very tidy solution, but it creates the maddening question of what does pure atium do?

Peter Ahlstrom

That answer has already been revealed canonically. RAFO.

Footnote: It has since been clarified that the effect was revealed on the Table of Allomantic Metals poster and seen at the end of The Hero of Ages.
General Reddit 2021 (Nov. 2, 2021)

 

Spoiler

Radix2309

The Atium we experience in Era 1 is actually an alloy of Atium and Electrum called Nalatium. The stuff produced by the pits was naturally an alloy. 

Peter Ahlstrom

The name nalatium is not canon.

Tetrarchon

But what about alloys of lerasium with allomantic metals - can anyone still burn them to become a misting of that metal?

Peter Ahlstrom

Yes.

General Reddit 2022 (Oct. 18, 2022)

 

Spoiler

LewsTherinTelescope

At the end of The Lost Metal, we learn that Marsh will be using atium from the ettmetal experiments to stay alive going forward. However, Peter recently revealed (and you confirmed) that the atium in Era 1 which stored youth was actually a mix of atium and electrum. How will this continue to work to keep him young?

Brandon Sanderson

They're going to have a different term for pure atium and for what has been known as atium--what they're making. It is not hard to get the right mix down for what he needs to stay alive. It is hard to make enough of it to keep him alive. Well, not hard, but definitely not scalable to more than one person, how about that. They are able to do it, you've just got to make an alloy.

I will apologize for this. This is a post-Era-1 retcon where I realized I need all the God Metals to do different things, and this is just one of the aspects that comes down. For those who don't know what's going on: I get done with Era 1, I start really working on the nature of metals in the cosmere. I'm like, "Ehhh... Atium really should be burnable by anybody. It's a God Metal. The way God Metals work is not in line with how I've made atium. So what they call atium has to have trace elements of something else, and then there's a pure form of atium out there that would be the true pure God Metal." That is one of those unfortunate retcons when you're doing all this continuity. And it works just fine in the books, because the way that atium is being made is a pretty complicated little process there in the Pits of Hathsin.

The question is the right question. Sazed is going to get out of this pure atium, which he is going to need to tweak before he gives it to Marsh. Whether Marsh knows he is getting a tweaked version or not is subject to your own interpretation.

For arcanist purposes, if you want to call the other one pure atium and the regular one just atium, I'd recommend something like that for your wikis and things like that.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

Spoiler

Dave Smith

Can a Mistborn burn any god metal such as tanavastium?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes they could.

Footnote: Previously Brandon indicated they would need a tie to that type of Investiture.
YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

 

Spoiler

mail-mi

We know that any person can burn lerasium. Are there other God Metals that any person can burn?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

 

Spoiler

NeedsToShutUp

What would happen if Hoid tried to burn the shard that came off Ishar's Honorblade?

Brandon Sanderson

If you were able to get a hold of that piece and burn it, it would act like burning... You would be burning a very pure form of a God Metal, and those have some very interesting effects. RAFO.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

 

Spoiler

word_thief

What would happen if a Mistborn ingested the metal of a Shardblade/Plate?

Brandon Sanderson

A Shardblade is Invested. A Mistborn isn't likely to have a tie to that type of Investiture. So probably nothing would happen…

General Twitter 2013 (Oct. 24, 2013)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

What would happen if a person from Scadrial were to try to burn a manifested metal from Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

So you're meaning they're in Shadesmar, they manifest it, and they try to burn it, right?

Questioner

Say a Spren of a Radiant manifests as a bead of metal instead of a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

You're not going to be able to burn that if it's something that's coming from a spren, because that's not going to be treated as a metal in your body. Like, those are God Metals, and that one is actually alive and awake and it's just not gonna work. There are ways, though, that you could make that work. So it's totally possible, but you're gonna need something that's not an alive spren that's manifest like that. You're gonna need some way to get access to some tanavastium or something like that that's not, like, some living being.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

Spoiler

[...]

meh84f

The bit about atium is a bit confusing. The Ventures are going to have the Atium stash? Not the stash that we don’t find until the end I’m assuming? So it’ll be a stash but much smaller than expected?

Brandon Sanderson

So, I'm not sure I can explain it all in this, but one big change I wished I'd made from the start of Mistborn is making atium usable by all Allomancers. As I've gotten further in the cosmere, using a god metal as just for Mistborn has felt off.

So the lore change for the films will mean any Allomancer can use atium. This, in turn, lets House Venture have access to the LR's atium as a "Control the city" last resort. They keep a task force of allomancers for this purpose--which Ham can join, in anticipation of being able to steal it once Shan accesses it. (They don't know that House Venture is only given about a hundred beads of atium, not access to the full mythical cache, which will be reserved for the third movie.)

Makes the worldbuilding and storytelling more elegant, I've found, in the film. And it fits better with more "modern" cosmere fundamentals as have developed over the last decade. I think I'd make this change even if we moved to a television show and long form.

[...]

General Reddit 2020 (June 22, 2020)

 

Edit:

12 hours ago, UltimateArchivist said:

Also, if off-worlders cannot burn Lerasium, how would this relate to the inexplicable ability of the Malwish Consortium to create metalminds that anyone can tap? Perhaps they are using that same bit of Investiture.

We don't know how Malwish create Unsealed Metalminds. We know they use a device called Excisor and it somehow involves Connection and that Malwish Medallions have identity and life-force on their own but not that much. VenDell in BoM speculated that medallions do involve the Preservation's fragment (Innate investiture of Preservation) that anybody on Scadrial have. Is that true, we don't know. That it's highly unlikely that Lerasium is involved in that process - the last bead of Lerasium was used by Elend in WoA and no more was made. Harmonium might be involved but in more of a mechanical way, as you can't even touch it without making it explode. 

BoM ch 3:

Quote

“Possibly,” VenDell said. “Or is there another possibility? Most people living right now have at least some Feruchemist blood in them. Could it be that such a metalmind as I describe, one that is keyed to no single individual, might be usable by anyone?”
Understanding settled on Wax like a slowly burned metal. From the chair beside the image device, Wayne whistled slowly.
“Anyone could be a Feruchemist,” Wax said.

 

Spoiler

Raddatatta

In Era 1, Sazed says the only thing you can Feruchemically store while sleeping is wakefulness, but in Era 2 they have the sky ships that require everyone to be storing weight to fly and they don't land while people sleep. Was Sazed just wrong, or is that a difference between normal Feruchemy and using the unsealed metalminds?

Brandon Sanderson

Unsealed metalminds, I am moving toward complete—you probably already guessed this—mechanical uses of Investiture, and this indeed is a step toward that. And so we are stepping toward having a little machine that gives you powers. That's what the world wants to try to find. And this is—this being mechanical—we'll just say that the medallions and the things that they're building have more of a life-force, more of an Identity of their own than a traditional metalmind does, even though they're unkeyed and all of this stuff.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

Edited May 3, 2024 by alder24

[Lego Mistborn he/him]

If you're after a discussion, the best place is the cosmere discussion, not the q and a.

To answer your question, Brandon intends for any and all, not just scadrians, to be able to burn lerasium. 

I'd like to point out the following.

Quote

Dave Smith

Can a Mistborn burn any god metal such as tanavastium?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes they could.

Footnote: Previously Brandon indicated they would need a tie to that type of Investiture.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/467/#e14753

 

 

 

This does conflict slightly with a ooold 2013 wob, but that one seems to be getting at something slightly different. (You can't burn a manifested spren easily).

[UltimateArchivist He/Him]

Ah, I see. From the WoBs and their greater lack of definite information, I'm going to assume that if I asked Brandon this question, I would recieve RAFO. Thanks for the opinions and clarification, your insight is vastly appreciated!

11 hours ago, Lego Mistborn said:

If you're after a discussion, the best place is the cosmere discussion, not the q and a.

I am aware. This is definitely a question; it is simply more broad than a typical one. Thank you!