Why does Ruin's perpendicularity manifest differently?

[dstokes7]

From what I understand, every shard makes at least one perpendicularity at a place where their power pools. Almost without exception, these places of power condensation manifest as glowing pools of power. But Ruin's perpendiculatiry at the Pits of Hathsin is different. Instead of appearing as a glowing pool, Ruin's power trickles through specialized crystals that grow geodes filled with Ruin's god metal. Why does Ruin's power coalesce differently from all of the other shards?

Also, come to think of it, I'd expect the power of the shard that embodies entropy to seep out of the Pits in the form of a gas or a plasma, the most disorderly forms of matter, but instead it seems to be the only one of all the shards to coalesce in the form of a solid, the most ordered form of matter? Perhaps one could argue that it's due to Preservation's influence since he locked Ruin away, but it doesn't seem like the various shards are usually capable of manipulating the power of the others (with the possible exception of Odium corrupting spren via the Unmade, I suppose), so I doubt that explanation is valid. What makes Ruin's power manifest as a solid metal instead of a gas? 

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, dstokes7 said:

From what I understand, every shard makes at least one perpendicularity at a place where their power pools. Almost without exception, these places of power condensation manifest as glowing pools of power. But Ruin's perpendiculatiry at the Pits of Hathsin is different. Instead of appearing as a glowing pool, Ruin's power trickles through specialized crystals that grow geodes filled with Ruin's god metal. Why does Ruin's power coalesce differently from all of the other shards?

Also, come to think of it, I'd expect the power of the shard that embodies entropy to seep out of the Pits in the form of a gas or a plasma, the most disorderly forms of matter, but instead it seems to be the only one of all the shards to coalesce in the form of a solid, the most ordered form of matter? Perhaps one could argue that it's due to Preservation's influence since he locked Ruin away, but it doesn't seem like the various shards are usually capable of manipulating the power of the others (with the possible exception of Odium corrupting spren via the Unmade, I suppose), so I doubt that explanation is valid. What makes Ruin's power manifest as a solid metal instead of a gas? 

I believe that the most reasonable explanation is that Rashek made it manifest that way.

Your thoughts on this being unlikely for a wielder of Preservation's power I think are valid, but we also know that Ruin was fully capable of pushing Preservation's Mists into something more oppressive and covering the land too much for life to hold out.

Spoiler

HoA Epigraph 81

Snapping has always been the dark side of Allomancy. A person's genetic endowment may make them a potential Allomancer, but in order for the power to manifest, the body must be put through extraordinary trauma. Though Elend spoke of how terrible his beating was, during our day, unlocking Allomancy in a person was easier than it had once been, for we had the infusion of Preservation's power into the human bloodlines via the nuggets granted to nobility by the Lord Ruler.

When Preservation set up the mists, he was afraid of Ruin escaping his prison. In those early days, before the Ascension, the mists began to Snap people as they did during our time—but this action of the mists was one of the only ways to awaken Allomancy in a person, for the genetic attributes were buried too deeply to be brought out by a simple beating. The mists of that day created Mistings only, of course—there were no Mistborn until the Lord Ruler made use of the nuggets.

The people misinterpreted the mists' intent, as the process of Snapping Allomancers caused some—particularly the young and the old—to die. This hadn't been Preservation's desire, but he'd given up most of his consciousness to form Ruin's prison, and the mists had to be left to work as best they could without specific direction.

Ruin, subtle as ever, knew that he couldn't stop the mists from doing their work. However, he could do the unexpected and encourage them. And so, he helped make them stronger. That brought death to the plants of the world, and created the threat that became known as the Deepness.

So when Rashek took up the power Well of Ascension, I think he probably took the piece of Ruin surrounding the Well and encouraged it to manifest as Atium so he and his Mistborn followers could make use of it while keeping it away from Ruin.

(If I were to guess on the mechanics of Ruin and Preservation doing this, I'd say it's probably because they're not denying the other's Intent at the time, but pushing it towards a more neutral action. It probably helps that both Shards are Connected to Scadrial, which might allow them to influence and mix with each other's power a little if it's not currently attached to the whole of the opposing Shard.)

Edited August 15, 2025 by Trusk'our

[Treamayne]

3 hours ago, dstokes7 said:

From what I understand, every shard makes at least one perpendicularity at a place where their power pools. Almost without exception, these places of power condensation manifest as glowing pools of power. But Ruin's perpendiculatiry at the Pits of Hathsin is different. Instead of appearing as a glowing pool, Ruin's power trickles through specialized crystals that grow geodes filled with Ruin's god metal. Why does Ruin's power coalesce differently from all of the other shards?

Also, come to think of it, I'd expect the power of the shard that embodies entropy to seep out of the Pits in the form of a gas or a plasma, the most disorderly forms of matter, but instead it seems to be the only one of all the shards to coalesce in the form of a solid, the most ordered form of matter? Perhaps one could argue that it's due to Preservation's influence since he locked Ruin away, but it doesn't seem like the various shards are usually capable of manipulating the power of the others (with the possible exception of Odium corrupting spren via the Unmade, I suppose), so I doubt that explanation is valid. What makes Ruin's power manifest as a solid metal instead of a gas? 

It has to do with how Preservation hid part of Ruin's power by binding into a Physical Realm Investiture Cycle to prevent it from returning to Ruin in the Spiritual Realm. By binding the power in such a way that it becomes tainted with naturally occuring Electrum to form (Era 1) Atium Geodes - he also caused it to no longer be "Pure Atium" and harder for Ati to locate should he become free. @Trusk'our is likely correct that Rashek moved the pits to their location, and likely caused them to be in chasm-caves (as another method of obfuscation) when he remade Scadrial to begin the Final Empire. 

WoBs:

Spoiler

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Chaos2651

Hemalurgically, atium steals Allomantic Temporal Powers. But, that seems unlikely, since atium is a god metal. It wouldn't fit in with the rest of the magic system. Did Preservation, in addition to switching cadmium and bendalloy for atium and malatium, also switch atium's Feruchemical and Hemalurgic powers with cadmium? Because it seems to me there's not a lot of atium Marsh can use to live for hundreds of years into the next Mistborn trilogy.

Brandon Sanderson

Preservation wanted atium and malatium to be of use to the people, as he recognized that it would be a very powerful tool—and that using it up could help defeat Ruin. But he also recognized that sixteen was a mythological important number, and felt it would make the best sign for his followers. So he took out the most unlikely (difficult to make and use) metals for his sign to his followers. But that doesn't have much to do with Hemalurgy's use here.

Remember that the tables—and the ars Arcanum—are 'in world' creations. (Or, at least, in-universe.) The knowledge represented in them is as people understand it, and can always have flaws. That was the case with having atium on the table in the first place, and that was the case with people (specifically the Inquisitors) trying to figure out what atium did Hemalurgically.

Their experiments (very expensive ones) are what determined that atium (which they thought was just one of the sixteen metals) granted the Allomantic Temporal powers. What they didn't realize is that atium (used correctly) could steal ANY of the powers. Think of it as a wild card. With the right knowledge, you could use it to mimic any other spike. It works far better than other spikes as well.

As for Marsh, he's got a whole bag of atium (taken off of the Kandra who was going to try to sell it.) So he's all right for quite a while. A small bead used right can reverse age someone back to their childhood.

But this was a little beyond their magical understanding at the time.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A (July 8, 2009)

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Brandon Sanderson

Vin Asks Ruin about Preservation

After this scene, perhaps you can see why I wanted so badly to spend some time with Vin and Ruin talking while she was imprisoned. I felt this was important enough that I was willing to stretch plausibility a tad to make it possible. (The spoiler in the chapter 54 annotation explains what I mean by that.)

The discussion of morality here is an important one, as I wanted Ruin and Preservation to represent forces, not moral poles. This is vital for various reasons in the underlying cosmology. If they represented poles, then that implied there could only be two like them. But, as they represent opposites, that leaves more room.

Preservation did betray Ruin. This brings us onto the shaky ground of the morality of lying to achieve a greater good. If as much were at stake as is here—the end of an entire world—then perhaps you'd betray someone too. (I love fantasy. Where else can you talk about the end of the world as a consequence of a betrayal and have it be literal?)

Ruin's consciousness—separate from his power—isn't a particularly nice being. But you can't much blame him, as there's very little that is left of the mind that once was. The force of Ruin has pretty well molded the mind to fit with the force's intent.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Jan. 26, 2010)

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Chaos (paraphrased)

Why is there such an imbalance between the amount of atium and the amount of lerasium in the world? Also, why are atium and lerasium very imbalanced in Allomantic power (Lerasium is far more useful than atium, really)?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There isn't. Leras is just spread out further. He is in the mists, in the Well, and in the lerasium. Ruin's power however is condensed strictly in atium.

Ancient 17S Q&A (May 1, 2010)

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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)

 

 Hope that helps

Edited August 15, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[alder24]

17 hours ago, dstokes7 said:

From what I understand, every shard makes at least one perpendicularity at a place where their power pools. Almost without exception, these places of power condensation manifest as glowing pools of power. But Ruin's perpendiculatiry at the Pits of Hathsin is different. Instead of appearing as a glowing pool, Ruin's power trickles through specialized crystals that grow geodes filled with Ruin's god metal. Why does Ruin's power coalesce differently from all of the other shards?

When Ruin was imprisoned, Preservation Splintered a part of his power (investiture) and trapped it in the Physical Realm in the Atium cycle. Because investiture in the Physical Realm manifests as solid, liquid or gaseous investiture, this investiture manifested as Atium as it started to seep into the Physical Realm. This is natural for every single Shard in Cosmere, Preservation also has investiture manifesting in the Physical Realm, more as a gas and liquid than solids, but it's the same thing, the same rules govern this phenomena. HoA ch 78 epigraphs:

Quote

Atium, then, was an object that was one-sided. Instead of being composed of half Ruin and half Preservation—as, say, a rock would be—atium was completely of Ruin. The Pits of Hathsin were crafted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin's body that he had stolen away during the betrayal and imprisonment. Kelsier didn't truly destroy this place by shattering those crystals, for they would have regrown eventually—in a few hundred years—and continued to deposit atium, as the place was a natural outlet for Ruin's trapped power.

However, Atium and geodes were not Ruin's perpendicularity. A Perpendicularity is a massive collection of any investiture that will pierce realms together. It doesn't have to be liquid investiture like in the Shardpool, it just has to be a lot of investiture in one place to make a perpendicularity. In the case of Ruin, there were two perpendicularities present, one was a liquid Shardpool before Rashek's Ascension. The Shardpool was found and described by Alendi during his journey to the Well of Ascension. TFE ch 33 epigraphs:

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We are close now. Oddly, this high in the mountains, we seem to finally be free from the oppressive touch of the Deepness. It has been quite a while since I knew what that was like.

The lake that Fedik discovered is below us now - I can see it from the ledge. It looks even more eerie from up here, with its glassy - almost metallic - sheen. I almost wish I had let him take a sample of its waters.

Rashek moved this Shardpool underground, under the Pits of Hathsin. That's where the Ruin's perpendicularity was during the events of the Mistborn Era 1. However, there were also several smaller perpendicularities manifesting below the Pits and that's because there was so much investiture in the Pits that it was enough to pierce Realms on its own and manifest multiple perpendicularities, not just one Shardpool. After Kelsier destroyed the Pits, this investiture disappeared from the Physical Realm and with it all perpendicularities collapsed, including the Shardpool. All of those perpendicularities existed below the Pits because of the Atium gathering there.

WoBs:

Spoiler

Questioner

In our universe, mass and energy curve space. I was wondering if Investiture does the same or something similar.

Brandon Sanderson

It does something similar. It draws the three Realms together. So it's got like-- Imagine a gravitational pull piercing Realms. Right? Of kind of--

Questioner

And that's how a perpendicularity works?

Brandon Sanderson

That's not the only way a perpendicularity works, but one surefire way to create a perpendicularity is a massive collection of Investiture in the Cognitive or mostly Physical realm. But Cognitive's weird, doesn't always work the right way. But there are ways to do it that way too.

Salt Lake City signing (Dec. 16, 2017)

 

Spoiler

Vegasdev

The other lake in Alendi's bumps?

Brandon Sanderson

A manifestation of Ruin's gathered consciousness, much like the dark mists in book two. The lake was still around in Vin's era, but had been moved under ground. (Note that the Well is a very similar manifestation. You've also seen one other manifestation like this....)

[...]

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

 

Spoiler

Chaos (paraphrased)

Does Ruin have a pool, similar to Preservation's pool with the Well of Ascension and Skai's pool in Elantris?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes. His pool is the Pits [Pits of Hathsin].

Ancient 17S Q&A (May 1, 2010)

 

Spoiler

Dalenthas

Does the Well of Ascension still exist in the new world? Or is it no longer necessary? I assumed that Preservation collected there like Ruin collects in the Pits of Hathsin, so if Atium keeps forming then the well should keep filling...

Brandon Sanderson

The Well (and the small wells in the Pits) is no more. For now at least.

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

 

17 hours ago, dstokes7 said:

Also, come to think of it, I'd expect the power of the shard that embodies entropy to seep out of the Pits in the form of a gas or a plasma, the most disorderly forms of matter, but instead it seems to be the only one of all the shards to coalesce in the form of a solid, the most ordered form of matter? Perhaps one could argue that it's due to Preservation's influence since he locked Ruin away, but it doesn't seem like the various shards are usually capable of manipulating the power of the others (with the possible exception of Odium corrupting spren via the Unmade, I suppose), so I doubt that explanation is valid. What makes Ruin's power manifest as a solid metal instead of a gas? 

This doesn't matter. Shardic investiture permeates everything on Scadrial and it naturally leaks into the Physical Realm, where it manifests as either solid, liquid or gaseous investiture. This is a natural law of Cosmere, independent from Shardic intent. Preservation created Mists out of his investiture and he set up the Well of Ascension, thus that's why his investiture manifested like this. He also Splintered Ruin's investiture and made it manifest as Atium. Physical investitures of both Shards were more or less equal to each other, but one was concentrated as Atium, the other mostly as Mists. Without Preservation's involvement, there would be far less Ruin's physical investiture on Scadrial, because that investiture was forcefully taken away from Ruin and trapped in the Physical Realm. However, Ruin did manifest gaseous investiture of his own - it was the black smoke Vin and Elend found around the Well when they entered it. Due to the long time concentrated presence of Ruin's mind in the Well, his investiture leaked into the Physical Realm and naturally manifested as a black mist. HoA ch 14 epigraphs:

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Ruin's consciousness was trapped by the Well of Ascension, kept mostly impotent. That night, when we discovered the Well for the first time, we found something we didn't understand. A black smoke, clogging one of the rooms.

Though we discussed it after the fact, we couldn't decide what that was. How could we possibly have known?

The body of a god—or, rather, the power of a god, since the two are really the same thing. Ruin and Preservation inhabited power and energy in the same way a person inhabits flesh and blood.

 

Spoiler

BlackYeti

Can I ask you about the body of a Shard in the Physical Realm? About the different states of matter. What determines the state of matter that they are in? Because I've been reading the bits very carefully, and I haven't noticed much in terms of temperature difference.

Brandon Sanderson

The idea for me working on this was that they transcend-- They permeate everything, right? They permeate all life on all the Realms. And that there are manifestations of them that leak out, and it's kind of like they make-- they appear there in the various states but-- When you say that you've got the gas, you've got the liquid, you've got the solid: but you've also got inside of you, and inside of that plant, and like-- they're everywhere. And so what determines it? In my head it's just like when some of that power permeates, some of it distills, just like water. There's some water in the air, there's some that freezes: that's temperature. But it's not always temperature whether it's in the air, or whether it's falling. Imagine a Spiritual version of humidity, that is influenced by what's happening on the Spiritual Realm and the Cognitive, and that's what you'll get.

Manchester signing (Aug. 6, 2014)

 

Spoiler

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)

 

Spoiler

Chaos (paraphrased)

Why is there such an imbalance between the amount of atium and the amount of lerasium in the world? Also, why are atium and lerasium very imbalanced in Allomantic power (Lerasium is far more useful than atium, really)?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There isn't. Leras is just spread out further. He is in the mists, in the Well, and in the lerasium. Ruin's power however is condensed strictly in atium.

Ancient 17S Q&A (May 1, 2010)

 

Spoiler

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.

[...]

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