Allomancy in the wider Cosmere

[Epicdaf]

I'm curious to know more about the Allomantic metals and how they interact with different magic systems in the Cosmere. 
Here are a few questions that I hope we can all answer together.
I've categorized the effects we know of and some questions, per magic System-Planet:

*Scadrial: Allomancy, Feruchemy and Hemalurgy. There are still some unknown variables when it comes to the use of certain metals, but I'm sure we will find out more during era 3. 

*Roshar: Surgebinding,Voidbinding and Fabrials. We've primarily seen the Allomantic metals being used in fabrials.
We've also seen aluminium and the god metals heavily interact with the story.  Does silver have any effect on Spren? 

*Sel: AonDor, Forgery, Dakhor, Bloodsealing and Potions. Do the allomantic metals have any effect on any of these systems?
From what I remember aluminium does seem to block forgery. I'm assuming that it would also work for bloodsealing. 

*Nalthis: Awakening. We know that if you were to awaken different metals, the result would vary depending on the metal, the amount of breath used and the command. Have we seen any examples of this outside of Nalthian tech in Lumar, Nightblood and Azure's blade?

*Taldain: Sandmastery. I can't remember if any allomantic metals were shown in Taldain besides aluminium.
I remember there was a WOB about Silver also affecting Sandmastery. Are there any other examples? 

*Komashi: Yoki Hijo. Do the allomantic metals make an appearance?
What would happen if you were to slice a nightmare with aluminium or silver?
If you used a pulling or pushing metal on Hion, what would be effect?

*Canticle: Sunhearts. We've seen Scadrians using Scadrian technology based on the allomantic metals and we do see Nomad trying to make a spike out of a sunheart, but what other effects could we see here.
Does Aluminium/Sliver have any effect whatsoever on Sunhearts? 
Could you harvest the intense heat of canticle with an unkeyed medallion or would it just melt?
What metal is the Continuity Chain made of? Is it an an awaked metal object or something else?

*Lumar: Spores. We've seen spores interact with some metals like silver, aluminium, steel and iron.
I wonder what would happen if spores interacted with other metals like Zinc, Bronze, Copper or even Brass?

*Yolen: Microkinesis: I haven't read Dragon Steel Prime yet so I'm not aware of the metals being mentioned here. But I wonder, are the Dawnshards made of a specific metal/godmetal?

*First of the Sun. I've read the Arcanum novella but not Emberdark. Have the metals made an appearance there, if so, what were the effects?

*Threnody: Shades: We're very aware of the effects of Silver on this planet. Did aluminium or any other metal have any effect on the shades/evil?

Please let me know if I missed anything or if you've spotted something. 

 

 

[Treamayne]

Overall WoB:

Spoiler

Questioner

Quick question on aluminum. Why does it affect other forms of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

When I was building the cosmere, I just had to build certain themes into it, and metal was one of those. And the metals have kind of a Spiritual integrity, and Spiritual component, that if I can get into Dragonsteel explaining why, you'll get your kind of origins.

Questioner

And that's why, in Warbreaker, metals are different with Awakening, and stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

And even in Roshar, the cages that you're building for fabrials, once you start to figure out how those metals affect it, you'll be like, "Oh wait, that makes sense!" And these are just across the cosmere.

And if you want an in-world answer, it has to do with stuff in Dragonsteel. But really, the answer is, I was building this and I'm like, "I just want this to be a theme. So I'm just going to give this Spiritual component to metals." So it works in Mistborn, and it works all across everything.

LTUE 2020 (Feb. 15, 2020)

4 hours ago, Epicdaf said:

*Roshar: Surgebinding,Voidbinding and Fabrials. We've primarily seen the Allomantic metals being used in fabrials.
We've also seen aluminium and the god metals heavily interact with the story.  Does silver have any effect on Spren? 

WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Ace Heat

Would it be possible to use an aluminum spike to permanently kill a spren?

Brandon Sanderson

No, that's not gonna work. Silver, on the other hand, there's some possibility.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

Quote

Argent

It seems there is a special interaction between silver and Investiture, in at least certain places in the Cosmere. We've seen how silver interacts with aethers, and we've seen over on Threnody. So that makes silver the second really really special metal to interact with investiture. Is the plan now to have aluminum block investiture, and silver destroy investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's the way I'm going with it. To make a distinction between them, that's where we're going.

Argent

But silver is still non-Allomantic. No silvereyes.

Brandon Sanderson

No, non-Allomantic, yup. No silvereyes. This is my nod towards silvereye-ness, and yeah, there we go.

Argent

So would [silver] be effective against spren, just like [anti-Investiture]?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, you'll have to find out. RAFO!

Footnote: Argent tried. He also horribly mangled his last question, but it got RAFO'd, so that doesn't matter...
Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023)

Quote

Questioner

Does silver break Connection or bonds? If silver does have this effect, does it get used in the creation of unkeyed metalminds?

Brandon Sanderson

These are good questions. Silver, as I have it right now, is not capable of that. What silver's doing is is disrupting. It's more like interference. You know how, in White Sand, people can have these columns of sand. If you swiped silver through that, they would fall; but then they would be able to do it again. It's this little nullification for a short time. It's very dangerous to things like shades, and stuff like that. It's more disruptive. If you hit a spren with this, it would be like hitting them with a Shardblade. They're gonna come back together. They're not dead; they're gonna reform eventually, and probably won't take too long. So it's not severing Connection; you're gonna need anti-Investiture to do really destructive stuff. But you can disrupt with some silver. It's specifically bad for Shades for reasons maybe I'll get into someday.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

 

4 hours ago, Epicdaf said:

*Nalthis: Awakening. We know that if you were to awaken different metals, the result would vary depending on the metal, the amount of breath used and the command. Have we seen any examples of this outside of Nalthian tech in Lumar, Nightblood and Azure's blade?

WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Argent

On Nalthis, can aluminum prevent somebody from Returning? So if you kill somebody with aluminum and leave the weapon in them?

Brandon Sanderson

I don't think that's going to be enough. I think that…

Argent

Different way then?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah there are totally ways. I don’t think that that’s going to be enough. There's a difference between being inert and blocking Investiture, and actually sucking out Investiture. If you stuck Nightblood inside of a corpse; there are certain things… if you had a larkin or whatever sitting there that ingests the Investiture as it was coming in, that would prevent [Returning]. I think with aluminum you would just have somebody that comes alive with a wound, so maybe... But I think it would just heal around [the aluminum] and you'd just have a spike in you, kind of like Hemalurgy—but not like Hemalurgy. It's inert, but you know what I mean.

Argent

Which suggests you can't actually Awaken aluminum.

Brandon Sanderson

No. It's not going to hold a charge.

Kurkistan

I assume you can't Forge it, either.

Brandon Sanderson

No. In fact the unForgable metal-

Argent

Ralkalest?

Brandon Sanderson

There's an unForgeable metal mentioned.

Kurkistan

Could we call it aluminum if we wanted to?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's just say that aluminum through most cultures was considered a mythological metal, and when people could actually find some, they considered it more valuable than gold, in our culture. So just sayin'...

Shadows of Self Chicago signing (Oct. 12, 2015)

Quote

Questioner (paraphrased)

What would happen if Allomancer was also an Awakener and Awakened metal he'd burn?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

If he did that, he’d get Allomantic power and also get back the Breaths used in Awakening the metal.

Footnote: Supposedly it was around half an hour into the signing line; has not been found on the record although we may have started it after it was asked already; follow-up to this
Warsaw signing (March 18, 2017)

 

I'll find more WoBs when I have some time.

[Nitpicking]

On 1/22/2026 at 6:55 AM, Epicdaf said:

*Yolen: Microkinesis: I haven't read Dragon Steel Prime yet so I'm not aware of the metals being mentioned here. But I wonder, are the Dawnshards made of a specific metal/godmetal?

Spoiler for Dragonsteel Prime.

Spoiler

I don't recall any mention of god metals in Dragonsteel Prime. 

We see dawnshards in W&T and Sunlit Man. No metals involved.