Mistings

[The Grand Jesk]

Mistborn era 1

We know that there are atuim mistings and that anyone can burn lerasium so is the little part of Preservation that is in everyone why anyone can or is becoming a lerasium misting way more common. 

 

Mistborn era 2

Can you still become a atium misting even though atium is not a metal that can be found by a natural process.

[Entr0pic He/him]

The answer to both of these questions are the same. You can’t become a misting for a god metal. The seers in era 1 were just electrum mistings, who were burning an atium-electrum alloy.

[Treamayne]

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5 hours ago, StormBlessed101 said:

Mistborn era 1

We know that there are atuim mistings and that anyone can burn lerasium so is the little part of Preservation that is in everyone why anyone can or is becoming a lerasium misting way more common.

As @Timiny said - Atium Mistings are actually Electrum Mistings, because in order to trap Ruin's power in an investiture cycle, Preservation created the Pits of Hathsin so that Ruin's leaking investiture was contaminated with the Electrum content. Leras then changed the Metals by removing Bendalloy and Cadmium to make space in the Temporal Quadrant for Atium and Malatium (preserving the Sign of 16)

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Mistborn era 2

Can you still become a atium misting even though atium is not a metal that can be found by a natural process.

No, because Harmony restored the original Temporal Metals - reversing Leras' changes.

WoBs:

Spoiler

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Czanos

Are Atium and the External Temporal Pulling metal really the same?

Brandon Sanderson

You are on to something. 

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

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little wilson (paraphrased)

I saw Brandon at a book signing back in mid-December, and I asked him about the 16 percent deal. He said that Preservation replaced the real External Temporal Metals with atium and malatium (at least I'm assuming malatium, but he didn't mention that specifically. He only said atium). So not-cerrobend and cadmium weren't counted in the 16%. nicrosil and chromium, on the other hand, were. So there are chromium andnicrosil Mistings running around, not knowing that they're Mistings.

TWG Posts (Jan. 20, 2009)

Note: Brandon's first choice was Cerrobend, until he learned that name is Trademarked. For a while we did not know what the new name would be (so fans called it not-cerrobend) - and eventually he chose Bendalloy

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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)

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<edited for length and relevance>

Brandon Sanderson

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.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

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Questioner

Before Preservation locked up Ruin, or whatever, or if Ruin had won. Would atium exist?

Brandon Sanderson

...There are timelines where there would be no atium.

Questioner

...So if Harmony exists, does atium exist?

Brandon Sanderson

Atium does not exist because there is no Ati. Well there is atium left over from before, but--

Questioner

So it was only part of Ati's body and not part of Harmony's body.

Brandon Sanderson

There is no atium, there is no Preservation any longer, there is no Ati.

Questioner

So does harmonium exist?

Brandon Sanderson

...There's no Leras and there's no Ati, there's no Ruin--

Questioner

Does harmonium exist then?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question.

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

 

Hope that helps

[AleStaar he/him]

@Treamayne I was wondering exactly how the atium Investiture cycle went away. I didn’t know if Sazed deliberately shut it down after his Ascension, or it shut down automatically after he took up both Preservation and Ruin, or if right after Vin killed “Ati.” I guess it was the middle option? Maybe it was an Investiture cycle that was active specifically when someone held only Ruin…

[Treamayne]

9 minutes ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

@Treamayne I was wondering exactly how the atium Investiture cycle went away. I didn’t know if Sazed deliberately shut it down after his Ascension, or it shut down automatically after he took up both Preservation and Ruin, or if right after Vin killed “Ati.” I guess it was the middle option? Maybe it was an Investiture cycle that was active specifically when someone held only Ruin…

Caveat: Some of this is inductive/deductive based on WoBs and Books, but we do not have a full description from Brandon specifically about Ruin and the Pits. 

Normally, expended investiture returns to the Shard itself in the Spiritual Realm (Brandon likened it to a Water Cycle). What Leras did was cut off a chunk of Ruin's power, tie it to the Physical Realm at the Pits, so that expended Atium Beads only returned to the perpendicularity there to reform Geodes and make new Beads. That's why Ruin had to "find" the Atium to break that change so the power returned to the Shard as it normally should. 

WoBs (Cosmere minor spoilers)

Spoiler

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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)

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Skyler Cecil

Is there an Investiture cycle on Roshar? Cycling through the crem rain and flora and fauna back into the storm, or something like that. Like the water cycle. If Investiture is finite, is it recycled back into the Cosmere when Investiture like Breath or Stormlight is expended? Otherwise, wouldn't Investiture run out?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there is such a cycle. It is renewed and changed time and time again. It gets in and out of the Spiritual Realm, often with the birth of new individuals.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 5, 2018)

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Argent

Awakening and Surgebinding, Stormlight and Breath seem really similar in some aspects--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

--except Breaths seem to stick to things better--

Brandon Sanderson

They do.

Argent

--than Stormlight. So when you are holding the Breath it doesn't expire when you put it in something it doesn't go away. Can you tell me something about why that's happening?

Brandon Sanderson

Part of this is kind of inherent to the Shard and the power it's coming from. I mean the power of Endowment is just going to stick, that's part of the nature of its magic. Does that make sense? But it also kind of has to do with how the ecosystems are working. For instance the Stormlight is essential to the ecosystem of Roshar, it needs to be expended, it needs to get out and-- It's like evaporation, does that make sense?

Argent

Recycling? Not the recycling but the cycle of--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah like the cycle of water. And so just part of the way the nature of it works, it has to get out, it has to leak out, it has to run out. I mean it leaks even from spheres, right?

Argent

And when you lash things it's temporary--

Brandon Sanderson

Yep. And even though Szeth says that he thought Voidbringers could hold it they can't. Like it is just not the way that it works.

Argent

Can they just hold it better?

Brandon Sanderson

They can hold it better. It's not permanent. Now there are things that can do it permanently but--

<Redacted>

Firefight Chicago signing (Feb. 20, 2015)

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ajrula

A being with a lot of Investiture worldhops, then dies. What happens to the Investiture that was part of them?

Brandon Sanderson

Most likely, it returns to the Spiritual Realm, where all places are one, and where you were is irrelevant.

#SandersonChat Twitter Q&A with Audible.com (Feb. 4, 2016)

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Argent

Investiture in the Cosmere when used goes to the Spiritual Realm, except in one place. What determines which Realm Investiture returns to when it's being used? 

Brandon Sanderson

Too many factors for me to actually say right here, Evgeni, so I'm gonna RAFO this one. There are lots of reasons that it could go in different ways and different places. 

Billy Todd

How many of those reasons are rule of cool? 

Brandon Sanderson

Rule of Cool is definitely a reason. I think he's trying to get at why on Sel things are weird, and I have not explained why things are weird on Sel yet. 

JordanCon 2021 (July 17, 2021)

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karsen (paraphrased)

What is the difference between innate investiture and kinetic investiture?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Kinetic investiture is energy/power that is being actively (currently) used. Innate investiture is when a person is a conduit to/from the Spiritual realm.

Shadows of Self San Diego signing (Oct. 8, 2015)

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Lance Alvein (paraphrased)

You've said that "The Pits of Hathsin were crafted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin's body that he had stolen away". How does one Shard steal a portion of another Shard and create a Physical outlet for it, like the Pits were for Ruin's power?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It has to do with clash between the two Shards' power. When pressed, he then said that it was "kind of" like splintering

Hal-Con 2012 (Oct. 30, 2012)

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asmodeus

You've said before that a lot of the magics we see across the cosmere come from an interaction of Shards and their Investiture with the planets they Invest in. What does this mean practically? If Scadrial explodes tomorrow, will Hemalurgy stop working across the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgy wouldn't stop working, most likely, but it could. There are ways that you could make it stop working. I kind of mean that the Shards are an innate part of physics in the cosmere, and the magics that arise are an innate part of physics because of that. Like atium seeped out into the Pits of Hathsin, in the same way, these magics are just gonna leak out, and different places are going to affect them. You'll see Lightweaving happening in different places, and the way the Shard is interacting with the local... The way the Shard is is going to affect how Lightweaving is administrated in the various magics, but it's still gonna be there. Hemalurgy is kind of a similar thing to that. You will see Midnight Essence, you will see some of these recurring ideas popping up, and these are like natural parts of the physics, but they're influenced by the Shards on the local planets.

I don't know if that answer, that's gonna be a really fun one for them to transcribe into the Q&A thing, because I go around in circles on that question a ton. Put this part in when you do it.

Footnote: It was a really fun one.
YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

Hope that helps

[Duxredux he/him]

@Ale the Metallic Conjurer and @Treamayne, regarding when the Atium-electrum cycle ended, I think the point is moot because Sazed modified the Pits of Hathsin anyway and moved the natural points of Investiture accumulation a continent away. We know from TenSoon in SoS that Sazed deliberately modified the Pits of Hathsin to have bioluminescent fungus so that no one would ever have to crawl through them in darkness again. We also know from HoA epigraphs that Sazed was aware that Perpendicularities were movable as Rashek had relocated the Well of Ascension to Kredik Shaw. My extrapolated assumption is that Sazed would not have been unattentive about the location of his new Perpendicularity that produces Ettmetal. Presumably its location is not casual as it seems to be on the southern continent being harvest by the Malwish.

Actually, considering the stuff explodes on contact with humid air, it wouldn't surprise me if Sazed intentionally put Ettmetal into a cycle that produced it in a way that could be safely harvested and utilized, as opposed to being a periodic exploding natural disaster. He almost certainly did not go with the crystal and geode setup from Hathsin.

[Treamayne]

2 hours ago, Duxredux said:

@Ale the Metallic Conjurer and @Treamayne, regarding when the Atium-electrum cycle ended, I think the point is moot because Sazed modified the Pits of Hathsin anyway and moved the natural points of Investiture accumulation a continent away.

I'm sorry if my post somehow implied that the Pits were relevant after Era 1. I concur - their time is done, I was just trying to Answer Ale's question about how they (presumably) functioned.