TacoBellChoutaMeal Posted June 5, 2025 Posted June 5, 2025 (edited) Hey there. I've got a question (MANY) question(s) I might know the answer to, but would like someone else's opinion about the topic. If I threw Idashwy (the only steel ferring Brandon has written about) (the one Wax and Wayne find dead in her apartment who had a crush on Wax as a teenager) out of a plane, could she survive by filling an empty metal mind? I know in WoA that Sazed specifically fills Iron when he and Marsh investigate the Conventical of Seran, and that's how he survives the long drops, but could he have also filled Steel-and-only-steel and been just fine? Does filling Steel only store your body's movement and reaction speed, or does it fill accumulated speed as well? Are there any wobs on this? It's been a while since I've listened to WoA and I didn't know if it had been updated for the leatherbounds or anything like that. Additionally, could a steel ferring and a Cadmium misting communicate with one another or experience the same amount of time dilation if the ferring was filling his metal mind and the misting was burning his metal?When Bleeder taps speed at the governor's mansion, Wax is able to keep time with her and shoot her using one of Wayne's speed bubbles. This leads me to believe that the inverse is true. Would this make Idashwy and Marasi best friends? Would a steel ferring age slower than a regular person if they only filled their metal mind and never tapped it? What if a twinborn Pulser/Steelrunner burned their metal while filling their metal mind? Is this what Spook is doing right now? Could this same twinborn tap their metalmind while burning steel and be unaffected by their own speed bubble? This sounds incredibly useful. How come Steel gets to be consistently the best metal across arts? That seems a bit unfair. Feruchemy is a much more fun metallic art to think about than Allomancy and anyone can fight me on that. I'd love to know your thoughts about any of this nonsense. What would you name the Pulser/Steelrunner Twinborn? I like "Blinker" or "Timekeeper" as ideas. Edited June 5, 2025 by TacoBellChoutaMeal 3
TruthwatchingRadiant He/Him Posted June 5, 2025 Posted June 5, 2025 (edited) While I’m not very brushed up on the terminology, I think it sounds plausible. I don’t remember who it was, but I believe someone in the second era of Mistborn said something about Feruchemy manipulating how the planet views your personal physics. Maybe Feruchemy interacts with the Connection you have to the planet. Like Knights Radiant “manipulating the primal forces or nature” or something like that. Edited June 5, 2025 by TruthwatchingRadiant
Treamayne Posted June 6, 2025 Posted June 6, 2025 (edited) 3 hours ago, TacoBellChoutaMeal said: If I threw Idashwy (the only steel ferring Brandon has written about) (the one Wax and Wayne find dead in her apartment who had a crush on Wax as a teenager) out of a plane, could she survive by filling an empty metal mind? I know in WoA that Sazed specifically fills Iron when he and Marsh investigate the Conventical of Seran, and that's how he survives the long drops, but could he have also filled Steel-and-only-steel and been just fine? Does filling Steel only store your body's movement and reaction speed, or does it fill accumulated speed as well? Are there any wobs on this? Additionally, could a steel ferring and a Cadmium misting communicate with one another or experience the same amount of time dilation if the ferring was filling his metal mind and the misting was burning his metal? When Bleeder taps speed at the governor's mansion, Wax is able to keep time with her and shoot her using one of Wayne's speed bubbles. This leads me to believe that the inverse is true. Would this make Idashwy and Marasi best friends? Would a steel ferring age slower than a regular person if they only filled their metal mind and never tapped it? What if a twinborn Pulser/Steelrunner burned their metal while filling their metal mind? Is this what Spook is doing right now? Could this same twinborn tap their metalmind while burning steel and be unaffected by their own speed bubble? This sounds incredibly useful. How come Steel gets to be consistently the best metal across arts? That seems a bit unfair. Feruchemy is a much more fun metallic art to think about than Allomancy and anyone can fight me on that. Nope. F-Steel is not about body momentum or velocity, it's about fast twitch muscle fibers and how the body moves. Nope. Iron worked by reducing mass such that his fall was slowed by air resistance Yep, as above - muscle fiber speed. Please see below Unlikely. Filling speed makes the body work slower, but does not actually slow perceptions or time. Sazed filling his rings in WoA is a good example. That's because Bleeder is outside of the bubble tapping speed, while the bubble offset's Wax's perspective from inside of the bubble - the only comparison with Storing Speed and Pulsing, is that a Pulser in a bubble normally sees people outside of the bubble as blurs (as if they were tapping Steel) so a Steelrunner storing speed would slow and appear to move normally from inside the bubble - but they could not speak across the bubble boundary and the Steelrunner's perceptions of the world around them outside of the bubble are unchanged. Unlikely, considering one of them is dead. Nope, but a Pulser would experience less time per year by burning cadmium often - otherwise Feruchemy manipulation of age is the province of E1Atium. So, you mean a Twinborn with A-Cadmium and F-Steel? They likely would be able to watch the world outside of their bubble in near-real time instead of only seeing the world outside of the bubble as a blur. But they still would not be able to cross the bubble without breaking it. Conversely, they could use a version of Wayne's trick, trap somebody in a bubble with them, then use Steel to fight much faster in the bubble (but that does not help against opponents outside of the bubble) Unknown reference or why it was stricken They would be affected by their bubble, they would just mitigate some of the downsides by use of their second power. Many would argue that it true. I disagree that Steel is the best in any of the Metallic Arts (especially Feruchemy). WoBs Spoiler Quote Brainless So if you jumped off a high place and you were a steel Feruchemist, could you store the speed of you falling? Brandon Sanderson No, because-- I'm going to say you need to be moving under your own-- because otherwise it's all relative, right? If you're falling, it's no different than if you're traveling on the planet or things like that. Glamdring804 So it's related more to muscle contractions. Brandon Sanderson *hesitantly* Yes, kind of. Feruchemy bends all sorts of weird things, ever since I started doing the weight one. So, yes. Brainless The thing about Feruchemy is it feels like you could be like a savant short of it, but it would be much more minor than something like a savant for-- It would be more things like what you could get for exercise and stuff like that. Brandon Sanderson Yeah. Yeah, that's possible. MisCon 2018 (May 26, 2018) Quote Thoughtful Spurts If there's really no upper limit to Feruchemy for practical reasons* , why didn't Sazed just fill steel at ridiculous levels for a few minutes in [Well of Ascension], and then go back to running instead of leaving his steelminds there? Say, being some 100,000 times slower than he would normally be for about a minute. Meaning that a Feruchemist should be able to fill a given metalmind in very short periods of time if you fill at a high enough rate. *(yes, you have the limit of how much you can store in a given metalmind and for how many metalminds you can carry on your person, but those are probably too high to really be taken into account in more "normal" circumstances) Brandon Sanderson The low end is bounded. You can pull out tons--but in filling, you can only go so far. I didn't ever explicitly talk about this in the series, but the implications are there. Not all have the same bounds, but in your example, the body just can't slow beyond a certain point. Think of it this way--you can only fill a weight metalmind with as much weight as you have to give. So you can become very, very light--but you only add to a time for doubling your weight. You can't make yourself 100,000 times slower and gain 100,000 times multiplication. You can give up all of your normal speed, and so when you tap that speed out you are at 200% for an equal period. (And that's a theoretical maximum; realistically, you can only go to down around 75% slower or the like.) 17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012) Quote Alteroden With [Feruchemical] zinc, you get mental speed. How is that any different from [Feruchemical] steel, except without [physical] speed? Brandon Sanderson I think of the mental speed actually turning you into... Let's say you sped up your body, and you wanted to figure out some really complex equations. Alteroden So it lets you have intuitive leaps. Brandon Sanderson Right. It basically turns you into Ken Jennings. That's how I imagine it. Kurkistan So it's not like bullet time? Brandon Sanderson No... It'll bullet time a little bit, it certainly will, because you're thinking faster than everyone else, but it has applications beyond bullet timing. Bullet time is really-- Kurkistan That’s steel’s thing? Brandon Sanderson That’s kind of steel's thing. They kind of overlap on that one, because the steel thing... But yeah. It's more like "I think fast, but my reaction speed is not sped up". Shadows of Self Chicago signing (Oct. 12, 2015) Quote Questioner (paraphrased) My friend wants to know how fast steel Compounders could possibly go, can they run up walls or over water like the Flash? Blightsong (paraphrased) *jokingly* Can they run through time? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) Steelrunners can resist a lot things due to the power, like they can withstand the Gs they are out through, but they can't ignore wind resistance and friction. They will burn up if they start running too quickly. OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016) Quote Questioner I'm just curious about Steelrunners. I have to ask, assuming they have physical limitations? Brandon Sanderson They do. We can't go Speed Force on this sort of thing. Wind resistance is still a thing, and stuff like that. Questioner Bodily, their bodies-- Brandon Sanderson Yeah. So, most magic in the cosmere will strengthen your body to let you use the magic to an extent, but-- Yeah, there's some pretty strong limitations. Questioner If you had a steel/steel Twinborn racing a pewter/steel, would you say that the pure steel, or the pewter burning to enhance their body-- in a short race? Brandon Sanderson Who would win? Probably pewter then, at that point. I would have to have Peter-- I wouldn't do it myself, make Peter run the math, and see what he comes up with. Those are the sort of things I go to him with. Oathbringer Houston signing (Nov. 18, 2017) Quote Quote Calderis In Shadows of Self, in the scene where Paalm is speaking to Wax from a floor above, she rushes out the window and down past him. The window isn't damaged, the earth that she runs on isn't damaged, and she runs down a flight of stairs at speed. Being as "speed" affects gravity, and physics apply to Paalm as if she were moving at normal speed, is Feruchemical steel a temporal effect? Brandon Sanderson *laughs* Nice. I'm going to ask for more definition. What do you mean by temporal effect. What exactly do you mean by that? Are you reaching into magic system definitions, or are you trying to use our definitions? Give me more. Footnote: A follow-up for this question was asked here. Skype Q&A (Oct. 8, 2018) Calderis I recently got the opportunity to ask you a question about Feruchemical steel and if it was a temporal effect and you told me to define that better. When tapping steel, the mind of the Feruchemist is sped up and physics affects their actions normally. When storing, their mind is not slowed and the effect seems tortuously difficult to amass. Storing generally seems to be the more dangerous/difficult option in Feruchemy, so does [Feruchemical steel] alter a person's personal relationship to the flow of time, with the disconnect between the Physical and Cognitive as a drawback of storing? Brandon Sanderson I see what you're asking. The mind-altering effects of [Feruchemical steel] are similar to the slight strength you gain from [Feruchemical iron]--it is your Spiritual nature adapting to the new influx of an attribute that it's not really expecting, and siphoning some of that investiture to make you capable of actually using it. So there is a slight temporal effect here, but nothing as big as I think you're looking for. Footnote: This question is a follow-up to this question. Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 31, 2018) Quote Kurkistan Speaking of time bubbles, can iron and steel and emotional Allomancy go beyond the boundaries of time bubbles; like if I'm inside a time bubble can I just like super Steelpush outside? Brandon Sanderson Oh, time bubbles interfere with almost all forms of Investiture. Firefight Chicago signing (Feb. 20, 2015) Quote Alterodent If a hermit were to take a whole lot of cadmium and go off and live by himself, how far within a lifetime, reasonably, could he get into the future by essentially time-capsuling himself? Assuming they live to be 70 or 75. Brandon Sanderson They could get pretty far. Alterodent What would the savantism do to them? Brandon Sanderson The savantism would probably allow them to get further… It’s completely reasonable… you can treat this like relativistic travel. Calamity Chicago signing (Feb. 22, 2016) Quote Questioner (paraphrased) Does burning cadmium actually slow down time or just slow down the perception of time? (there was a bit more to the question but I was on the opposite end of the room) Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) It does actually slow time. An Evening with Brandon Sanderson (Feb. 1, 2017) Hope that helps Edited June 6, 2025 by Treamayne SPAG 3
Trusk'our he/him Posted June 6, 2025 Posted June 6, 2025 2 hours ago, TacoBellChoutaMeal said: If I threw Idashwy (the only steel ferring Brandon has written about) (the one Wax and Wayne find dead in her apartment who had a crush on Wax as a teenager) out of a plane, could she survive by filling an empty metal mind? I know in WoA that Sazed specifically fills Iron when he and Marsh investigate the Conventical of Seran, and that's how he survives the long drops, but could he have also filled Steel-and-only-steel and been just fine? Does filling Steel only store your body's movement and reaction speed, or does it fill accumulated speed as well? Are there any wobs on this? It's been a while since I've listened to WoA and I didn't know if it had been updated for the leatherbounds or anything like that. This is a creative use of Steelrunning, but it wouldn't work, unfortunately. Feruchemical steel is a little wonky and only stores your body's own propellent. Spoiler MisCon 2018 - Arcanum Brainless So if you jumped off a high place and you were a steel Feruchemist, could you store the speed of you falling? Brandon Sanderson No, because-- I'm going to say you need to be moving under your own-- because otherwise it's all relative, right? If you're falling, it's no different than if you're traveling on the planet or things like that. Glamdring804 So it's related more to muscle contractions. Brandon Sanderson *hesitantly* Yes, kind of. Feruchemy bends all sorts of weird things, ever since I started doing the weight one. So, yes. Brainless The thing about Feruchemy is it feels like you could be like a savant short of it, but it would be much more minor than something like a savant for-- It would be more things like what you could get for exercise and stuff like that. Brandon Sanderson Yeah. Yeah, that's possible. 3 hours ago, TacoBellChoutaMeal said: Additionally, could a steel ferring and a Cadmium misting communicate with one another or experience the same amount of time dilation if the ferring was filling his metal mind and the misting was burning his metal?When Bleeder taps speed at the governor's mansion, Wax is able to keep time with her and shoot her using one of Wayne's speed bubbles. This leads me to believe that the inverse is true. Would this make Idashwy and Marasi best friends? Would a steel ferring age slower than a regular person if they only filled their metal mind and never tapped it? Possibly. There are parallels that can be drawn between the two powers, though given the previous WoB and the free movements of Wax and Wayne in Speed Bubbles (no slow falling) I think there are still distinct differences. Spoiler Starsight Release Party - Arcanum ElephantEarwax Would tapping Feruchemical speed cause you to burn metals faster as your whole body speeds up? Brandon Sanderson Yeah. I think it probably would. I don't know if we've gotten to that interaction yet, but it probably would. Good question. If it's speeding up... Yeah, I think it would. Good question. If you're in a speed bubble and doing it, it's totally going to do it, and there's some analogies there. 3 hours ago, TacoBellChoutaMeal said: What if a twinborn Pulser/Steelrunner burned their metal while filling their metal mind? Is this what Spook is doing right now? Could this same twinborn tap their metalmind while burning steel and be unaffected by their own speed bubble? This sounds incredibly useful. Probably, though given just how much cadmium slows a person down and just how painfully difficult it is to fill a Steelmind I don't think this would be terribly powerful. Tapping the Steelmind alone would be stronger for many situations, I think. 1 minute ago, Treamayne said: Nope. F-Steel is not about body momentum or velocity, it's about fast twitch muscle fibers and how the body moves. Nope. Iron worked by reducing mass such that his fall was slowed by air resistance Yep, as above - muscle fiber speed. Please see below Unlikely. Filling speed makes the body work slower, but does not actually slow perceptions or time. Sazed filling his rings in WoA is a good example. That's because Bleeder is outside of the bubble tapping speed, while the bubble offset's Wax's perspective from inside of the bubble - the only comparison with Storing Speed and Pulsing, is that a Pulser in a bubble normally sees people outside of the bubble as blurs (as if they were tapping Steel) so a Steelrunner storing speed would slow and appear to move normally from inside the bubble - but they could not speak across the bubble boundary and the Steelrunner's perceptions of the world around them outside of the bubble are unchanged. Unlikely, considering one of them is dead. Nope, but a Pulser would experience less time per year by burning cadmium often - otherwise Feruchemy manipulation of age is the province of E1Atium. So, you mean a Twinborn with A-Cadmium and F-Steel? They likely would be able to watch the world outside of their bubble in near-real time instead of only seeing the world outside of the bubble as a blur. But they still would not be able to cross the bubble wihtout breaking it. Conversely, they would use a version of Wayne's trick, trap somebody in a bubble with them, then use Steel to fight much faster in the bubble (but that does not help against opponents outside of the bubble) Unknown reference or why it was stricken They would be affected by their bubble, they would just mitigate some of the downsides by use of their second power. Many would argue that it true. I disagre that Steel is the best in any of the Metallic Arts (especially Feruchemy). WoBs Hide contents Hope that helps Ninja'd by like 5 seconds 1
TacoBellChoutaMeal Posted June 6, 2025 Author Posted June 6, 2025 @Trusk'our @Treamayne my heroes. Thank you. Not to nitpick, but I just went and looked through WoA, at the scene where Sazed fills his metal minds, and I do think Sazed perceives Clubs as moving quicker than he normally does while he fills his metal mind. Maybe steel doesn’t give you the same effect cadmium does, but it certainly contributes to how your perceive reality. But again, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. Treamayne, do you not subscribe to the hypothesis that spook has been burning cadmium since giving up his tenure as Lord Mistborn and that he’ll be back for era 3? 3
Treamayne Posted June 6, 2025 Posted June 6, 2025 4 minutes ago, TacoBellChoutaMeal said: at the scene where Sazed fills his metal minds, and I do think Sazed perceives Clubs as moving quicker than he normally does while he fills his metal mind. Clubs was blurry from storing Vision Tinmind. Also, his perception is slowed by storing mental speed in a Zincmind. WoA Ch 50: Spoiler Clubs hobbled into the kitchen. He seemed a blur to Sazed. Even wearing his spectacles—to help compensate for the vision he was storing in a tinmind—it was difficult for him to see. <snip> It was an odd process. His thoughts moved so slowly that it took him a moment to decide to eat. Then his body reacted slowly, the arm taking a few seconds to move. Even then, the muscles quivered, their strength sapped away and stored in his pewtermind. Finally, he was able to get a spoonful to his lips and take a quiet sip. 1
TacoBellChoutaMeal Posted June 6, 2025 Author Posted June 6, 2025 Ahh, now I feel like a goober. Thank you for checking for me, I appreciate it. I think that's really unfortunate, though. One of the cooler aspects of Feruchemy is the fact that some of the metals seem to grant you boons even when you're filling them--iron, bronze, brass, etc. I think steel would've been much cooler if you could pass time while filling a metal mind, in addition to already having such a good ability by tapping it. Oh well. 1 hour ago, Treamayne said: Many would argue that it true. I disagree that Steel is the best in any of the Metallic Arts (especially Feruchemy). You don't think steel's the best over all? What would you argue is the best, then? Duralumin? 1
Riino He/Him Posted June 6, 2025 Posted June 6, 2025 1 minute ago, TacoBellChoutaMeal said: Ahh, now I feel like a goober. Thank you for checking for me, I appreciate it. I think that's really unfortunate, though. One of the cooler aspects of Feruchemy is the fact that some of the metals seem to grant you boons even when you're filling them--iron, bronze, brass, etc. I think steel would've been much cooler if you could pass time while filling a metal mind, in addition to already having such a good ability by tapping it. Oh well. You don't think steel's the best over all? What would you argue is the best, then? Duralumin? Not by itself, but a fair bit of the time, you don't want to burn duralumin with your metal (say you had a duralumin spike). I honestly prefer Iron or Tin, but F-iron has some cool uses. 1
TacoBellChoutaMeal Posted June 6, 2025 Author Posted June 6, 2025 (edited) I think you could definitely argue Iron being the best overall. Tin I'm more iffy on. You wouldn't want to be a tin compounder, because A-tin and F-tin do super similar things. Sidebar, but have you noticed that tin and pewter have this super weird relationship with each other when it comes to which power is better in which art? Because A-Pewter is way better than F-Pewter, but A-tin isn't as good as F-tin. You ever notice that? But yeah, both iron powers are great. You'd kill yourself compounding iron for sure, but as long as you kept both powers mostly separate and didn't try to use both at the same time, I think iron would definitely be in the running for best metal overall. Edited June 6, 2025 by TacoBellChoutaMeal
Treamayne Posted June 6, 2025 Posted June 6, 2025 (edited) 23 minutes ago, TacoBellChoutaMeal said: I think you could definitely argue Iron being the best overall. Tin I'm more iffy on. You wouldn't want to be a tin compounder, because A-tin and F-tin do super similar things. Sidebar, but have you noticed that tin and pewter have this super weird relationship with each other when it comes to which power is better in which art? Because A-Pewter is way better than F-Pewter, but A-tin isn't as good as F-tin. You ever notice that? You may want to revise your assessment of Tin: F-Tin is the Best F-Tin Day-to-Day Overthinking F-Tin A double-tin Twinborn Compounder would have a huge range of options available. 33 minutes ago, TacoBellChoutaMeal said: You don't think steel's the best over all? What would you argue is the best, then? Depends on the person and occupation (e. g. not best for combat, or best for <situation>). For just a normal woldhopper, in day-to-day living: Misting: Bronze, maybe Cadmium or Pewter Ferring: Copper, maybe Bronze Hemalurgy: none, downside just not worth it to me There are a lot of easily searched threads on Best/Favorite Misting/Ferring and you may be surprised at the large variety of answers. If needed, please see the Sharder FAQ for tips on searching the Forums (and many other Forum tips and info) Edited June 6, 2025 by Treamayne SPAG
Trusk'our he/him Posted June 6, 2025 Posted June 6, 2025 44 minutes ago, TacoBellChoutaMeal said: Ahh, now I feel like a goober. Thank you for checking for me, I appreciate it. I think that's really unfortunate, though. One of the cooler aspects of Feruchemy is the fact that some of the metals seem to grant you boons even when you're filling them--iron, bronze, brass, etc. I think steel would've been much cooler if you could pass time while filling a metal mind, in addition to already having such a good ability by tapping it. Oh well. Well, with your mind not being slowed you still have the chance to do mental tasks while you store. Your mind speeds up while you tap, but that's due to your Spiritweb adapting to the influx of Investiture. Spoiler https://wob.coppermind.net/events/361-skyward-pre-release-ama/#e11520 Calderis I recently got the opportunity to ask you a question about Feruchemical steel and if it was a temporal effect and you told me to define that better. When tapping steel, the mind of the Feruchemist is sped up and physics affects their actions normally. When storing, their mind is not slowed and the effect seems tortuously difficult to amass. Storing generally seems to be the more dangerous/difficult option in Feruchemy, so does [Feruchemical steel] alter a person's personal relationship to the flow of time, with the disconnect between the Physical and Cognitive as a drawback of storing? Brandon Sanderson I see what you're asking. The mind-altering effects of [Feruchemical steel] are similar to the slight strength you gain from [Feruchemical iron]--it is your Spiritual nature adapting to the new influx of an attribute that it's not really expecting, and siphoning some of that investiture to make you capable of actually using it. So there is a slight temporal effect here, but nothing as big as I think you're looking for. Footnote: This question is a follow-up to this question. You could read a book, watch a TV show, do calculations in your head, plan your calendar, or listen to music with little downside I think. You might want to momentarily stop storing to flip a page, jot a note, or change the channel, but that doesn't seem too difficult.
Riino He/Him Posted June 6, 2025 Posted June 6, 2025 1 hour ago, TacoBellChoutaMeal said: You'd kill yourself compounding iron for sure, but as long as you kept both powers mostly separate and didn't try to use both at the same time, I think iron would definitely be in the running for best metal overall. Not so sure abt that. you could compound iron in small amounts and that would stop you from being like Wax in every book, how he always uses up all his weight at once. Also, having increased weight and denser muscles gives you a whole lot more force in combat.
CoderDrag0n8 He/They Posted June 6, 2025 Posted June 6, 2025 1 hour ago, TacoBellChoutaMeal said: I think you could definitely argue Iron being the best overall. Tin I'm more iffy on. You wouldn't want to be a tin compounder, because A-tin and F-tin do super similar things. Sidebar, but have you noticed that tin and pewter have this super weird relationship with each other when it comes to which power is better in which art? Because A-Pewter is way better than F-Pewter, but A-tin isn't as good as F-tin. You ever notice that? But yeah, both iron powers are great. You'd kill yourself compounding iron for sure, but as long as you kept both powers mostly separate and didn't try to use both at the same time, I think iron would definitely be in the running for best metal overall. A-Pewter can basically store anything. I disagree. Iron compounding is underated. Iron compounders can level cities. No fight.
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