Multi-Tasking Savantism

[Trusk'our he/him]

The Savantism caused by using Fabrial Soulcasting causes a spiritual, cognitive, and physical change to the Savant. 

But what if they regularly use multiple essences, such as with a multi-essence Soulcaster or just swapping between multiple? Would they overwrite the previous changes, or would they amalgamate into something new and unique?

What about Allomantic Savants? If a Mistborn or Hemalurgist overused multiple powers, would they get new, weird side-effects, kind of like a Resonance?

[Myst He/Him]

3 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

The Savantism caused by using Fabrial Soulcasting causes a spiritual, cognitive, and physical change to the Savant. 

But what if they regularly use multiple essences, such as with a multi-essence Soulcaster or just swapping between multiple? Would they overwrite the previous changes, or would they amalgamate into something new and unique?

What about Allomantic Savants? If a Mistborn or Hemalurgist overused multiple powers, would they get new, weird side-effects, kind of like a Resonance?

For the first one, they’d probably get both side-effects, unless the first transformation somehow gave them resistance to it again, it’d just give them both side effects. Though gaining a resistance would be cool, but I don’t think it works that way. 
As for the second, absolutely, that’s how resonances form, you use two powers a lot and they give you an effect. So if a mistborn solely used pewter and steel, they’d gain a resonance for it. We just don’t usually see that power combination. I don’t know really how savantism would factor into that.

[Trusk'our he/him]

11 minutes ago, IHadAThought said:

As for the second, absolutely, that’s how resonances form, you use two powers a lot and they give you an effect. So if a mistborn solely used pewter and steel, they’d gain a resonance for it. 

Well, yes, but I'm specifically thinking about Savantism.

Like, if a Mistborn loves Pewterdragging, ramping up their senses, blasting their iron and steel all the time, maintaining a flared Coppercloud whilst also (for some reason) simultaneously burning bronze, all while Rioting and Soothing those around them constantly, would the many different Savantism effects blur into a completely new thing (probably not a Resonance though, since too many powers washes it out)?

 

Edited November 1, 2025 by Trusk'our

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

10 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Well, yes, but I'm specifically thinking about Savantism.

Like, if a Mistborn loves Pewterdragging, ramping up their senses, blasting their iron and steel all the time, maintaining a flared Coppercloud whilst also (for some reason) simultaneously burning bronze, all while Rioting and Soothing those around them constantly, would the many different Savantism effects blur into a completely new thing (probably not a Resonance though, since too many powers washes it out)?

 

People with too many powers, like Mistborn, don't have observable Resonances due to too many powers mixing together.

I think you're confusing Savantism and Resonances as being more closely linked than they are, you don't need to be a Savant in two powers to gain a Resonance, the Windrunners have more Squires even if they've only recently gained their abilities for example. 

As for Multi-Power Savants, the Lord Ruler was said by WOB to be a Savant with every metal, so you can do that. Now whether you would enjoy that is another thing altogether, we already know what happened with Spook after all. And Pewter Savantism doesn't seem beneficial to a long life either if you're living dangerously.

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

People with too many powers, like Mistborn, don't have observable Resonances due to too many powers mixing together.

I think you're confusing Savantism and Resonances as being more closely linked than they are, you don't need to be a Savant in two powers to gain a Resonance, the Windrunners have more Squires even if they've only recently gained their abilities for example. 

No, I am still (trying, but apparently failing) to refer to multiple forms of Savantism interacting with one another, not the standard mix of Investiture.

 

[Myst He/Him]

5 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

No, I am still (trying, but apparently failing) to refer to multiple forms of Savantism interacting with one another, not the standard mix of Investiture.

 

Oh, idk then. 
HoA spoilers:

Spoiler

So, the closest we get to this is spook, when he’s a a tin savant while constantly burning pewter. While it’s not likely he became a pewter savant in the days he had the power, he was burning it non-stop, so maybe he did. Anyways, the two seemed to cancel each other out. The pewter let him ignore the heightened tin senses. Now, this is probably because the metals are paired. If you constantly both push and pull at everything, assuming your allomantic strengths are equal, nothing moves, if you constantly riot and soothe, nothing changes. I don’t know how this would work with non-paired metals, but it would be cool. 

 

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

22 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Now whether you would enjoy that is another thing altogether, we already know what happened with Spook after all.

I bet nicrosil feruchemy could help off-set the worst side effects of it somehow, if you know what you're doing

[TacoBellChoutaMeal]

Would this work for all of the “passive” metals? Hypothetically, could a Mistborn just leave their duralumin on all the time while not burning anything else? Would this make duralumin even more powerful when they combined it with something else? What would Duralumin+a savant metal get you? Would that just kill you? 

Edited November 5, 2025 by TacoBellChoutaMeal

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, TacoBellChoutaMeal said:

Would this work for all of the “passive” metals? Hypothetically, could a Mistborn just leave their duralumin on all the time while not burning anything else? Would this make duralumin even more powerful when they combined it with something else? What would Duralumin+a savant metal get you? Would that just kill you? 

I think it should work, yeah.

That would be interesting to see. Maybe a duralumin Savant could better control their super Flares, so they wouldn't use up all their metals at once but instead get a very potent (if metal expensive) version of Allomancy?

[Xanpheon]

On 11/3/2025 at 3:40 AM, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

I bet nicrosil feruchemy could help off-set the worst side effects of it somehow, if you know what you're doing

I doubt that, somehow. 

It's not Investiture actively doing something that causes Savantism and all the problems it can cause. It's your Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual aspects being adapted to the constant flood of Investiture. Those changes still exist when you turn off the flow of investiture - see Spook commenting about the world seeming dull and hard to sense when he wasn't burning tin anymore after becoming a Savant.

Nicrosil feruchemy just stores the investiture, and capacity to use the investiture - but those changes to your physiology are still *there* in the absence of you being able to burn metals for investiture.

[TacoBellChoutaMeal]

Does a person have to actively be *using* the metal they're burning to become a savant? Could I just keep my steel on all the time and not push on anything? If that's the case, this works for the majority of the metals. 

-Iron/Steel

-Zinc/Brass

-Chromium/Nicrosil

-Duralumin (if you could get enough)

-The rest of the ones are like a toggle switch every time you burn them. But is it the constant burning or the constant *using* of the powers that does? Sazed says that a lot of Seekers become Savants without realizing it, but that's one of the metals that the burning turns the power on and turns it off. Same thing with Tin, which is what we see in Spook and Pewter which is what we see in that one Koloss blooded in Alloy. Is it even possible to become a steel-savant or would you have to be CONSTANTLY pushing on things? 

[Trusk'our he/him]

21 minutes ago, TacoBellChoutaMeal said:

Does a person have to actively be *using* the metal they're burning to become a savant? Could I just keep my steel on all the time and not push on anything? If that's the case, this works for the majority of the metals. 

-Iron/Steel

-Zinc/Brass

-Chromium/Nicrosil

-Duralumin (if you could get enough)

-The rest of the ones are like a toggle switch every time you burn them. But is it the constant burning or the constant *using* of the powers that does? Sazed says that a lot of Seekers become Savants without realizing it, but that's one of the metals that the burning turns the power on and turns it off. Same thing with Tin, which is what we see in Spook and Pewter which is what we see in that one Koloss blooded in Alloy. Is it even possible to become a steel-savant or would you have to be CONSTANTLY pushing on things? 

For some metals, such as pewter, tin, bronze, copper, iron, and steel, you kinda have to get an effect along with burning the metal.

But I would think the Investiture just has to flow through you to make a Savant.