Theory on Lord Ruler's power

[BubblesTheCat]

I have a theory that needs more research. At the end of The Final Empire, Sazed explained the Lord Rulers immortality from compounding feruchemy but couldn't explain why he had such strong allomancy. We later learn that the Lord Ruler knew about the other metals (citation needed). We also learn that anyone could become an allommancer by tapping nicrosil. If the Lord Ruler became an allomancer, stored his investiture, then tapped it later, would that not allow him to become twice as powerful? Then he could compound that and have almost infinite allomantic strength? In the CopperMind it says "While Compounding typically refers to Allomancy enhancing Feruchemy, there is most likely a way for Feruchemy to enhance Allomantic abilities as well." . Could this be the way you can use feruchemy to enhance Allomancy? 

(Also: feruchemy is end neutral so the investiture stored in nicrosil would be the ability to store traits in metal. Would tapping nicrosil that has feruchemical investiture stored allow the feruchemist to store more than is normaly possible? Example: when storing heat in brass, instead of only being able to store until your body is room temperature, you are able to make your body temperate go below freezing (good for firefighters?). In most cases it would be dangerous and possibly deadly, but it could prove useful)

[Trusk'our he/him]

5 hours ago, BubblesTheCat said:

I have a theory that needs more research. At the end of The Final Empire, Sazed explained the Lord Rulers immortality from compounding feruchemy but couldn't explain why he had such strong allomancy. We later learn that the Lord Ruler knew about the other metals (citation needed). We also learn that anyone could become an allommancer by tapping nicrosil. If the Lord Ruler became an allomancer, stored his investiture, then tapped it later, would that not allow him to become twice as powerful? Then he could compound that and have almost infinite allomantic strength? In the CopperMind it says "While Compounding typically refers to Allomancy enhancing Feruchemy, there is most likely a way for Feruchemy to enhance Allomantic abilities as well." . Could this be the way you can use feruchemy to enhance Allomancy? 

We don't really know how nicrosil Feruchemy works yet, but this is a function that has been theorized possible, especially given how the BoM worked.

That said, nicrosil wasn't a metal used pre Catacendre. It's not impossible that TLR secretly developed and used the metal, but I think it's less likely. 

The current cannon for how he got his Allomancy is that it came from the WoA, a direct Shardic tweaking of his Spiritweb to make himself an incredibly powerful Allomancer. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/263-chris-king-interview/#e9889

Chris King

Did the Lord Ruler use lerasium to gain his super Allomantic abilities or did he grant that to himself with the Well's power? If he used the bead, does he count as one of the nine original Allomancers that Sazed mentions?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. He did not use the bead. He-- In all of this he granted himself basically, he rebuilt himself to be extremely powerful and he did not use one of the beads.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/63-firefight-san-diego-signing/#e685

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".

As such, he probably just chose to make his Allomancy higher than normal, even beyond what the Lerasium beads could do. 

5 hours ago, BubblesTheCat said:

(Also: feruchemy is end neutral so the investiture stored in nicrosil would be the ability to store traits in metal. Would tapping nicrosil that has feruchemical investiture stored allow the feruchemist to store more than is normaly possible? Example: when storing heat in brass, instead of only being able to store until your body is room temperature, you are able to make your body temperate go below freezing (good for firefighters?). In most cases it would be dangerous and possibly deadly, but it could prove useful)

I don't know if that would work. The attribute stored comes from the Feruchemist, and increasing their Investiture shouldn't change that attribute. 

I do think you can store heat to resist fire regularly though- you can't get into negative heat, but if you get warmer, you should be able to skim off it too.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/105-17th-shard-forum-qa/#e1097

Thoughtful Spurts

If tapping heat means your own body gets hotter, does it also mean you become immune to hot temperatures so long as you're tapping it, or should you fill heat and grow colder for that to happen?

Brandon Sanderson

As everything in Feruchemy, you become immune to the effects of the ability only. Like weight doesn't crush you, but at the same time doesn't have a net gain in strength. Growing colder, however, would be more helpful in this regard.

 

[alder24]

8 hours ago, BubblesTheCat said:

I have a theory that needs more research. At the end of The Final Empire, Sazed explained the Lord Rulers immortality from compounding feruchemy but couldn't explain why he had such strong allomancy. We later learn that the Lord Ruler knew about the other metals (citation needed). We also learn that anyone could become an allommancer by tapping nicrosil. If the Lord Ruler became an allomancer, stored his investiture, then tapped it later, would that not allow him to become twice as powerful? Then he could compound that and have almost infinite allomantic strength? In the CopperMind it says "While Compounding typically refers to Allomancy enhancing Feruchemy, there is most likely a way for Feruchemy to enhance Allomantic abilities as well." . Could this be the way you can use feruchemy to enhance Allomancy? 

Although we don't know what F-nicrosil does, I believe this is possible. However, we know that Rashek used the power of the Well of Ascension to directly grant himself powerful Allomancy, which does explain why he was so strong.

Spoiler

Chris King

Did the Lord Ruler use lerasium to gain his super Allomantic abilities or did he grant that to himself with the Well's power? If he used the bead, does he count as one of the nine original Allomancers that Sazed mentions?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. He did not use the bead. He-- In all of this he granted himself basically, he rebuilt himself to be extremely powerful and he did not use one of the beads.

Chris King interview (Sept. 24, 2013)

 

8 hours ago, BubblesTheCat said:

Also: feruchemy is end neutral so the investiture stored in nicrosil would be the ability to store traits in metal. Would tapping nicrosil that has feruchemical investiture stored allow the feruchemist to store more than is normaly possible? Example: when storing heat in brass, instead of only being able to store until your body is room temperature, you are able to make your body temperate go below freezing (good for firefighters?). In most cases it would be dangerous and possibly deadly, but it could prove useful)

I don't think so. Allomancy suffers from the decay and weakening of genes, in Feruchemy this is also happening, but it's not so profound like in Allomancy. Feruchemy is end-neutral - what you store is what you tap - but there is a minimal loss of attribute that's happening when storing/tapping. I think with compounding nicrosil you might be able to minimize this loss, maybe reduce the loss associated with diminishing returns at best. But you're already tapping almost the same amount of attribute which you stored and you can't get more than that.

Spoiler

Yoonseo Chang

Looking at Allomancy, you've mentioned that over time the power dilutes and each ability becomes less powerful. (for example a Tineye in Era 2 will generally be less powerful than one in Era 1) Does the same effect happen in Feruchemy as well? How would Feruchemy become less pure or diluted (other than Ferrings appearing)?

Brandon Sanderson

I have not gone as far with Feruchemy in that regard. I would say that if you're going to get a weakening of Feruchemy, which you're asking about, is the amount of stored attribute you get for lost attribute. There is decay there, you don't get a 1:1. Feruchemy generally I would say is not much weaker than it was before, a little bit but not much. This was done partially for narrative reasons. I wanted Allomancy... I wanted to back off a little on Allomancy and tell stories with it a little bit weaker. Again, mostly narrative reasons at this point. At this point on Scadrial, it's weakened about as much as it's going to because by this point people are having children that are more powerful because of the certain mixing. I'm not saying it's going up, I'm saying they have hit an equilibrium on Scadrial for the most part, at least in the Basin.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

 

[BubblesTheCat]

Thanks. The last part about feruchemy was a bit of a stretch. But I thought they explained how nicrosil could work in BoM. Was that just theories they had on how the medallions and stuff work?

[Treamayne]

23 minutes ago, BubblesTheCat said:

Thanks. The last part about feruchemy was a bit of a stretch. But I thought they explained how nicrosil could work in BoM. Was that just theories they had on how the medallions and stuff work?

Correct. BoM describes Nicrosil Fabrials (Medallions) and WoB says that F-Nicrosil is "similar but different."

Era 3 is supposed to cover much of this, which is why most questions so far have been RAFOed. WoBs:

 

Spoiler

Quote

Necarion

Could a double-nicrosil Twinborn compound Breath or Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, you’re getting a RAFO card on that. You're getting SUCH a RAFO card on that!

Arcanum Unbounded San Francisco signing (Nov. 30, 2016)

Quote

Pagerunner

When you tap the nicrosil portion of a medallion, will it run out over time? Or is it like a coppermind, where something discrete is taken, used, and returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question! Like a coppermind.

General Signed Books 2018 (Oct. 15, 2018)

Quote

Questioner

So nicrosil.  Wax couldn’t use a blank gold metalmind because he’s not a gold ferring, why can he use a blank nicrosil metalmind?

Brandon Sanderson

So this will all come out eventually but the idea is there are certain ways to connect yourself to magic, to hack the magic and make it think you have the Spiritual DNA that you don’t actually have.  And this is one of the ways.

Questioner

So then the people who made this medallion have this thing that a regular nicrosil Ferring couldn’t--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, you’re picking up on it. We’ll dig deeper into it as the series progresses.

Calamity Seattle signing (Feb. 17, 2016)

Quote

Calderis

Does the nicrosil portion of the medallions function identitically to how a Soulbearer Ferring would use Nicrosil? 

Brandon Sanderson

Not exactly. The medallion is a little more restrictive, for one thing.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 31, 2018)

Quote

Argent

You've dropped a few tidbits about the plot of the next Mistborn series over the years. Putting all those things together, we have a nicrosil Ferring Terriswoman hacker recruited for fieldwork in an "Allomancer SWAT team" to chase a Mistborn serial killer. Could you give us a more recent and concise pitch/blurb if the above is no longer accurate?

Brandon Sanderson

Ha. That's not far off, as all of those things still exist in the series, though the weight I'll give them is relative. With the Alloy series covering some of the police procedural aspect of storytelling, I'm inching the outlines slowly away from the SWAT idea and toward more spy thriller--but the SWAT team isn't not gone completely. (Of course, who knows what will happen in the intervening years between now and when I write it.)

Stormlight Three Update #4 (Oct. 4, 2016)

Note - Sanderson had previously indicated a Nicrosil Misting, not Ferring (but maybe both)

Quote

Cheese Ninja

For the modern day Mistborn trilogy, have you decided on whether the nicrosil Misting main character will be male or female yet? I haven't seen you mention it anywhere.

Brandon Sanderson

I have him as a guy right now, but that could change. (It has before.)

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 28, 2012)

 

Edited January 7, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG