Next Fullborn in Era 3?

[Epicdaf]

So, I've been giving this a lot of thought lately and I needed to hear some thoughts on this. 
Basically, we all know how powerful a Fullborn (TLR) can be. 
That being said, with the advancements in Hemalurgy seen in TLM, I can imagine that we could be heading towards the creating of another Fullborn via Hemalurgy. From what I can remember Harmony has made sure compounding is restricted to the Spiked, however, Discord might have a different view on this. It would be interesting to know of the draining of the Bands of Mourning and the advances in Hemalurgy could lead to another Fullborn. Would this be a secret project for the Set, the Ghostbloods or maybe someone else? Who knows? I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

Well, we already have the answer to half of this, Lerasium is now obtainable by splitting Harmonium with Trellium and some other thing that Wax did that no one else seems to have.

So, we'll have Mistborn for sure.

Now for the more complicated issue, Feruchemy. We still don't know how the original Full Feruchemists came into being like we do with the original Mistborn besides a (an annoyingly difficult to find) WOB stating that it was a 'gift from Preservation'. Maybe a Godmetal? Maybe a Godmetal Alloy of Lerasium and Atium? We don't know.

The Ghostbloods would probably try to look into this, but I'm sure even Kelsier would be wary of giving someone permanent Fullborn powers after he was so easily killed by the last one. The powers in the Bands of Mourning can run out, but a natural Fullborn's won't. Very dangerous if he makes the wrong person one.

The Set are gone, but Autonomy is still around. And to be honest, I doubt she'll look into this too hard herself for fear of it leaking and then all Scadrians attempting to become Fullborns, which would make her goal of destroying Scadrial that much harder when there's multiple Cosmere-equivalent of Kryptonians running around.

And with the newly discovered restrictions on how many spikes a person can gain powers from, I don't think Hemalurgy will ever be enough to make a Fullborn, so anyone who wants to try would need a different way.

[DoctaDajman]

I think it should be noted that you dont need to be a fullborn to be an absoluty terrifying opponent. I think you could make a build nearly as physically capable with medallions and 3 spikes alone. 

Also worth noting that there is something fairly good evidence you can stack charges on a single spike and ramp up the raw power level of said spike. 

Who knows what a pure nicrosil spike that is stacked to the max with innate investiture could do for a metalborn. 

There are a lot of "this is possible RAFO" answers given in WoBs.

Warbreaker / awakening spoilers

Spoiler

If it gave something similar to heightenings I think it would open up the capabilities of each metal. We see that each heightening allows the user to just be better and innately understand new things that they can do with their breaths. 

 If nicrosil spikes allow some higher innate understandings of each metal we might see that Rashek was just barely scraping the icing off of the fullborn potential cake. 

[+robardin he/him]

On 3/31/2025 at 4:36 AM, Epicdaf said:

So, I've been giving this a lot of thought lately and I needed to hear some thoughts on this. 
Basically, we all know how powerful a Fullborn (TLR) can be. 
That being said, with the advancements in Hemalurgy seen in TLM, I can imagine that we could be heading towards the creating of another Fullborn via Hemalurgy. From what I can remember Harmony has made sure compounding is restricted to the Spiked, however, Discord might have a different view on this. It would be interesting to know of the draining of the Bands of Mourning and the advances in Hemalurgy could lead to another Fullborn. Would this be a secret project for the Set, the Ghostbloods or maybe someone else? Who knows? I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

I doubt we'll ever see another in-the-flesh "Fullborn" in the Cosmere again; we haven't even seen someone wielding the Bands of Mourning again yet, and that's the artificial way to grant someone the full complement of Metalborn powers for both Allomancy and Feruchemy.

And even hemalurgy can't help now, at least not with spikes for both powers that have been created since the Catacendre. Marsh can Compound atium (and probably a few other metals, depending on what Feruchemical spikes he was given) because his F- and A- spikes for atium were made before then, but new spikes created in Era 2 have "Identity contamination" that prevent Compounding -- information that Marsh ("Death") himself drops on Wax and Co. in Ch. 28 of The Lost Metal.

I can feel the wheels turning in some heads out there right now: Hey, if one can create unkeyed metalminds with no Identity, why not an unkeyed hemalurgic spike?

For one, it feels like that would require the donor to be actively involved in shunting off their Identity at the time of the spike's creation, which would be... Difficult to arrange?

But really, the better question is: if one had possession of the Bands of Mourning, a much better way to gain Compounding in all metals in one go; and could, as Wax intuited, recharge the Bands with Compounding... Wouldn't your first order of business be to construct more Bands, and then fill them with the unsealed powers, too?

Sure, the one they got at the temple was given over to the kandra for "neutral safekeeping" between the Basin and the Malwish claims, but can you imagine Kelsier being involved in creating them, and then not making a private copy?

Since he obviously didn't (or he'd almost certainly have used it to stop the Set in TLM), ... well ... there's always another secret, eh?

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

18 hours ago, robardin said:

I can feel the wheels turning in some heads out there right now: Hey, if one can create unkeyed metalminds with no Identity, why not an unkeyed hemalurgic spike?

For one, it feels like that would require the donor to be actively involved in shunting off their Identity at the time of the spike's creation, which would be... Difficult to arrange?

Difficult? Of course. That is, if one was using a method that required the Donor to be the one actively Blanking their Identity.

There is a possibility that, much like how Harmonium can reduce the weight of Airships, storing the weight, then one might be able to create a Harmonium device that can forcibly strip someone of their Identity. Making the process of creating Unkeyed Spikes a cinch.

18 hours ago, robardin said:

But really, the better question is: if one had possession of the Bands of Mourning, a much better way to gain Compounding in all metals in one go; and could, as Wax intuited, recharge the Bands with Compounding... Wouldn't your first order of business be to construct more Bands, and then fill them with the unsealed powers, too?

I think that the Bands may be too external for that to work, otherwise the Malwish could just use Medallions to make more Medallions, but we know they can't because Marasi stated in TLM that even the process to create them requires Metalborn.

I think that Nicrosil Feruchemy is limited to only what's an actual part of your soul, a Bond to a little machine that gives you powers, like the Bands, won't count.

18 hours ago, robardin said:

Sure, the one they got at the temple was given over to the kandra for "neutral safekeeping" between the Basin and the Malwish claims, but can you imagine Kelsier being involved in creating them, and then not making a private copy?

Since he obviously didn't (or he'd almost certainly have used it to stop the Set in TLM), ... well ... there's always another secret, eh?

Kelsier confirmed in his epilogue in TLM that he hasn't yet found a way to use Allomancy, and Harmony confirmed that even Lerasium wouldn't work on him. So, chances are he can't use the Bands, but he can use Unsealed Metalminds since his memory was stored in the Copper Medallion given to Wax by Hoid?

Makes no sense to me, but it does seem like the Bands and Medallions work differently since the Bands have a finite supply while the Medallions don't seem to have a limit to their use. Maybe because the Medallions were further developed over the course of centuries while the Bands were an original prototype that was never improved?

[therunner he/him]

40 minutes ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Difficult? Of course. That is, if one was using a method that required the Donor to be the one actively Blanking their Identity.

There is a possibility that, much like how Harmonium can reduce the weight of Airships, storing the weight, then one might be able to create a Harmonium device that can forcibly strip someone of their Identity. Making the process of creating Unkeyed Spikes a cinch.

I don't think that would work, but in order not to divert a thread I created this post

40 minutes ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Makes no sense to me, but it does seem like the Bands and Medallions work differently since the Bands have a finite supply while the Medallions don't seem to have a limit to their use. Maybe because the Medallions were further developed over the course of centuries while the Bands were an original prototype that was never improved?

I don't think it makes sense for Kelsier/proto-Ghostbloods to create BoM, and then never improve on their design or make use of them. Unless they somehow lost them quickly after creation, but how would that happen? There are a lot of mysteries around them. I would almost think that Kelsier was not actually involved in their creation at all, but this pesky WoB seems to rule it out (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/314-salt-lake-city-signing/#e8921), though you could argue it was just someone posing as The Sovereign and Brandon simply does not want to give away that reveal.

I hypothesized that Bands contain Mists, and that Mistings/Ferrings fueled with Mists can use all Metalborn abilities (it being basically question of Intent of how to shape the Investiture)

[HSuperLee]

On 3/31/2025 at 5:57 AM, JustQuestin2004 said:

Well, we already have the answer to half of this, Lerasium is now obtainable by splitting Harmonium with Trellium and some other thing that Wax did that no one else seems to have.

So, we'll have Mistborn for sure.

Now for the more complicated issue, Feruchemy. We still don't know how the original Full Feruchemists came into being like we do with the original Mistborn besides a (an annoyingly difficult to find) WOB stating that it was a 'gift from Preservation'. Maybe a Godmetal? Maybe a Godmetal Alloy of Lerasium and Atium? We don't know.

I agree that we'll eventually get lerasium mistborn again. Its possible that lerasium will only be able to be created in tiny amounts such that we won't see any Elend-strength mistborn again. But if nothing else, the title of the series is Mistborn and it would be rather odd if we had to tell people, "yeah, that title can only be applied to the first three books and then the seventh. After that, mistborn don't really come up again."

As for feruchemy, I actually think that's the easier part of it. Feruchemy is very closely correlated with pure Terris bloodlines, which can be accounted for. As squicky as it can be for modern audiences, arranged (business) marriages make up most of human history and are still very much a thing on Scadrial and we know that the Terris are interested in trying to produce a full feruchemist. I suspect they will eventually succeed, no magical intervention required. Once full feruchemists (we seriously need a better term for that. Feruborn?) begin being born, then the harder part is producing the lerasium. Put the two together and Spook's your uncle: fullborn.
 

On 3/31/2025 at 5:57 AM, JustQuestin2004 said:

The Set are gone, but Autonomy is still around. And to be honest, I doubt she'll look into this too hard herself for fear of it leaking and then all Scadrians attempting to become Fullborns, which would make her goal of destroying Scadrial that much harder when there's multiple Cosmere-equivalent of Kryptonians running around.

It only took several years, but my propaganda has begun spreading. Excellent.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

4 hours ago, therunner said:

I don't think it makes sense for Kelsier/proto-Ghostbloods to create BoM, and then never improve on their design or make use of them. Unless they somehow lost them quickly after creation, but how would that happen? There are a lot of mysteries around them. I would almost think that Kelsier was not actually involved in their creation at all, but this pesky WoB seems to rule it out (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/314-salt-lake-city-signing/#e8921), though you could argue it was just someone posing as The Sovereign and Brandon simply does not want to give away that reveal.

Maybe he just never trusted anyone enough to give them to anyone and thought it'd be better to use them as a macguffin to make people go through their own personal Indiana Jones plot?

Or maybe, just a theory, he just lacks a potential key component in making them, like someone who has naturally possesses half of the powers necessary to make the Bands in the first place, who was working with Kelsier years before he went to help the Southerners, who studied the rust out of the Metallic Arts and wrote a whole book on Hemalurgy to make sure it wasn't forgotten, who was initially skeptical to working with Kelsier until he got goaded by the promise of immortality, who disappeared one hundred years after the Catacendre and we have no confirmation on whether he is alive or dead? 

Didn't Alik once say that it'd be a lot easier making something like the Bands if one already possessed all the powers?

Funny that.

(BTW please don't take my wording as insulting, it's not intended to be, I'm just having some fun)

34 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

As for feruchemy, I actually think that's the easier part of it. Feruchemy is very closely correlated with pure Terris bloodlines, which can be accounted for. As squicky as it can be for modern audiences, arranged (business) marriages make up most of human history and are still very much a thing on Scadrial and we know that the Terris are interested in trying to produce a full feruchemist. I suspect they will eventually succeed, no magical intervention required.

The Kandra did say that. I'd hate to be them though, imagine being born, finding out you're the one guy in the world who naturally has the powers necessary to revolutionize the local Magitech and will be expected to do so from the moment your people find out about your powers.

Would make an interesting character, being expected to help change the world from the day you were born regardless of your own desires.

38 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

Once full feruchemists (we seriously need a better term for that. Feruborn?)

I think Keeper is a better term personally. A lot of meaning and history behind that name.

39 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

begin being born, then the harder part is producing the lerasium. Put the two together and Spook's your uncle: fullborn.

Yeah, that would be the easiest and most plausible way. Which is probably why that won't be the way it'll happen in the books. In fact, Harmony would likely do his best to keep Lerasium far away from a Full Feruchemist. Unless it was needed to save the world again. Whiiiich it might be...

41 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

It only took several years, but my propaganda has begun spreading. Excellent.

What can I say? It's accurate.

[therunner he/him]

17 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Maybe he just never trusted anyone enough to give them to anyone and thought it'd be better to use them as a macguffin to make people go through their own personal Indiana Jones plot?

So he didn't trust anyone enough to give them to them, yet left them lying around for literally anyone to just take?
That is not particularly consistent reasoning.

Quote

Or maybe, just a theory, he just lacks a potential key component in making them, like someone who has naturally possesses half of the powers necessary to make the Bands in the first place, who was working with Kelsier years before he went to help the Southerners, who studied the rust out of the Metallic Arts and wrote a whole book on Hemalurgy to make sure it wasn't forgotten, who was initially skeptical to working with Kelsier until he got goaded by the promise of immortality, who disappeared one hundred years after the Catacendre and we have no confirmation on whether he is alive or dead? 

That is likelier, but does not explain the other half of the powers (Feruchemy). So

Personally, I would also find it somewhat cheap if another character from Era 1 survived.

Quote

Didn't Alik once say that it'd be a lot easier making something like the Bands if one already possessed all the powers?

Funny that.

Yeah, and no one does. Spook is Mistborn, but not Fullborn (and cannot become one, due to limits on Hemalurgy after Catecedre).

And remember that Southerns don't know how Bands work at all, and would really like to be able to study them. So Alik's opinion is likely not accurate.
 

[+robardin he/him]

16 hours ago, therunner said:

So he didn't trust anyone enough to give them to them, yet left them lying around for literally anyone to just take?
That is not particularly consistent reasoning.

That is likelier, but does not explain the other half of the powers (Feruchemy). So

Personally, I would also find it somewhat cheap if another character from Era 1 survived.

Yeah, and no one does. Spook is Mistborn, but not Fullborn (and cannot become one, due to limits on Hemalurgy after Catecedre).

And remember that Southerns don't know how Bands work at all, and would really like to be able to study them. So Alik's opinion is likely not accurate.
 

Yeah, I was already posting thoughts going back a few years about how what we learned in The Bands of Mourning -- the Big Reveal about how The Sovereign = creator of the Bands = Kelsier -- had a lot of holes in it.

And after reading The Lost Metal, where we actually see Kelsier again in the... Umm... In the person, those holes only get bigger.

I don't see Kelsier being able to create the Bands of Mourning, certainly not on his own; and having had help in doing so, would not have made just one of them, nor would he just have left it as the spearhead on a statue of himself in a frozen mountain area of the Northern Hemisphere, while telling only people in the Southern Hemisphere about them.

Especially when we know kandra still existed, still served Harmony (well, except for that one, ... eventually), and could well have cached Kelsier's bones somewhere from Era 1 that became accessible, especially with God's help (Harmony).

But this is becoming fodder for another thread, eh?