Allomancy and Godmetals

[IAmThatOneGuy He/Him]

So I know that in order to access Preservation's power, an Allomancer needs to burn metal. In order to access the Investiture, it has to be metallic in nature, which allows God Metals.

Shardblades and Shardplate are considered God Metals, right? So, hypothetically, could an Allomancer burn a broken piece of Shardplate, and if so, do we know what happens?

[PanLin they/he]

So we know that anyone can burn pure Lerasium and Atium—otherwise, how would Elend have burned Lerasium to become an Allomancer?

 

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LewsTherinTelescope

At the end of The Lost Metal, we learn that Marsh will be using atium from the ettmetal experiments to stay alive going forward. However, Peter recently revealed (and you confirmed) that the atium in Era 1 which stored youth was actually a mix of atium and electrum. How will this continue to work to keep him young?

Brandon Sanderson

They're going to have a different term for pure atium and for what has been known as atium--what they're making. It is not hard to get the right mix down for what he needs to stay alive. It is hard to make enough of it to keep him alive. Well, not hard, but definitely not scalable to more than one person, how about that. They are able to do it, you've just got to make an alloy.

I will apologize for this. This is a post-Era-1 retcon where I realized I need all the God Metals to do different things, and this is just one of the aspects that comes down. For those who don't know what's going on: I get done with Era 1, I start really working on the nature of metals in the cosmere. I'm like, "Ehhh... Atium really should be burnable by anybody. It's a God Metal. The way God Metals work is not in line with how I've made atium. So what they call atium has to have trace elements of something else, and then there's a pure form of atium out there that would be the true pure God Metal." That is one of those unfortunate retcons when you're doing all this continuity. And it works just fine in the books, because the way that atium is being made is a pretty complicated little process there in the Pits of Hathsin.

The question is the right question. Sazed is going to get out of this pure atium, which he is going to need to tweak before he gives it to Marsh. Whether Marsh knows he is getting a tweaked version or not is subject to your own interpretation.

For arcanist purposes, if you want to call the other one pure atium and the regular one just atium, I'd recommend something like that for your wikis and things like that.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

Spoiler

Questioner

Can an Allomancer burn any god metal? Or is it specifically Preservation and Ruin?

Brandon Sanderson

That is actually a RAFO. There's some funkyness going on there.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

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mail-mi

We know that any person can burn lerasium. Are there other God Metals that any person can burn?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

Potentially, anyone can burn any God metal if they have a strong enough Connection to that Shard.

Regardless, an Allomancer absolutely can burn any God metal, and Shardplate is some sort of alloy of Tanavastium and Koravelliumium (I'm certain there's a less goofy name than that for it). Shardblades are pure Tanavastium iirc.

That said, burning living God metals like plate and blade is going to be suuuuper tricky, like trying to burn someone else's Metalmind.

Couple of extra quotes below to assist this, but the ones we know are:

• Lerasium: overwrites / adds to Spritweb (also makes someone a full Allomancer)
• Atium: gives burner ability to see into the Spiritual Realm
• Harmonium: either super volatile, or rewrite sDNA with Atium's power. Either way, Harmonium reacts violently with water so we're unlikely to see it successfully burned

And time for some speculation:

• Trellium: severance of all physical, cognitive and spiritual Connection (similar to Trellium Hemalurgy)
• Tanavastium: ability to bind natural phenomena to rules while burning (basically creating new Surges), and/or ability to create new Heralds
• Koravelliumium: controlled manipulation of one's own Spiritweb directly
• Raysium: based on what the metal itself does, potentially ability to absorb/redirect pure Investiture

I'm not going to get into all the other Shards, but every Shard does have an associated God metal.

Spoiler

Questioner (paraphrased)

What will an Atium-Lerasium Alloy do ?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Ah, I've been asked this before. There are a number of theories, but nobody's really sure, since there haven't really been any opportunities to alloy lerasium with atium. You can choose which one to believe. Most require an understanding of realmatic theory to comprehend, which you need to be a Shard or Splinter to even begin to understand.What Lerasium is, is essentially a hack for something like your spiritual DNA. It rewrites what your spiritual self is capable of. So, combined with atium, which allows you a glimpse into the vision of everything - past, present, future - the theories say it could do one of two things. It could either create a substance so volatile that it would have world-ending repercussions, or rewrite your "spiritual DNA" (his phrase, not mine) with atium's power. Is that a vague enough answer?

TWG Posts (March 23, 2010)

 

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Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Lerasium overwrites Spiritual DNA. It can do some interesting things, and can overwrite your Spiritual DNA in different ways if you do it right. If a Surgebinder ate lerasium, he would become an Allomancer, but Brandon implied other things could be done.

Alloy of Law 17th Shard Q&A (Nov. 5, 2011)

 

[Frustration]

Some WoBs on this topic

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Questioner

If a Mistborn were to burn a piece of a Shardblade, what would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

This would be hard to make happen, but it would be possible. A Shardblade is going to act as, basically, an alloy of the god metal of Honor and so  what would it do? RAFO, but it is possible and it would do something. It would not be inert. It would be Allomanticaly viable.

Footnote: This question was also addressed here.
Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

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word_thief

What would happen if a Mistborn ingested the metal of a Shardblade/Plate?

Brandon Sanderson

A Shardblade is Invested. A Mistborn isn't likely to have a tie to that type of Investiture. So probably nothing would happen…

General Twitter 2013 (Oct. 24, 2013)

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Kuron (paraphrased)

Is it possible for a full Mistborn to ingest and burn a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It is possible, and it is possible that I might be able to see that in the future if I can fit that in.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022)

 

[Oranjejuicemonki He/Him]

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Koravelliumium (I'm certain there's a less goofy name than that for it)

It might just stay as Koravellium. Koravelliumium is kinda fun to say though.

Spoilers for WaT:

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Taravangianium is also gonna be a weird one

 

[Qianweilian He/him]

27 minutes ago, Oranjejuicemonki said:

It might just stay as Koravellium. Koravelliumium is kinda fun to say though.

I could see Avastium. Only concern is that it is a bit close to atium.

27 minutes ago, Oranjejuicemonki said:

Taravangianium is also gonna be a weird one

I think Taravangium flows better.

[alder24]

22 hours ago, ThatOneGuyOverThere said:

In order to access the Investiture, it has to be metallic in nature, which allows God Metals.

Kind of, but no. Both Vin and Wax used Mists to power Allomancy, Marasi and other metalborns in TLM used unkeyed Dor and Autonomy's perpendicularity as the fuel. Using Mists as the fuel requires a special Connaction, while to use any investiture you must first unkey it. 

But that's to fuel your Allomantic powers, god metals are different as they each are pure investiture in a metallic form, thus as metals they each have unique effects. 

22 hours ago, ThatOneGuyOverThere said:

Shardblades and Shardplate are considered God Metals, right? So, hypothetically, could an Allomancer burn a broken piece of Shardplate, and if so, do we know what happens?

You can't. Pieces of Shardplates or Shardblades aren't treated like metals by your body, they are alive thus they are treated as living beings and that's why you can't burn them. You would need to kill the spren and remove them from the god metal, which is hard as the god metal is the spren. Pure god metal, like Tanavastium or Raysium is a different question, they can be used by any Allomancer - a piece of Ishar's Honorblade chipped by Nightblood in RoW is burnable and acts as pure Tanavastium. 

However, we have no idea what any other god metal beside Atium and Lerasium does, even Lerasium turning you into a Mistborn is just a side effect and a Mistborn burning it might get a different effect. 

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Questioner

What would happen if a person from Scadrial were to try to burn a manifested metal from Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

So you're meaning they're in Shadesmar, they manifest it, and they try to burn it, right?

Questioner

Say a Spren of a Radiant manifests as a bead of metal instead of a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

You're not going to be able to burn that if it's something that's coming from a spren, because that's not going to be treated as a metal in your body. Like, those are God Metals, and that one is actually alive and awake and it's just not gonna work. There are ways, though, that you could make that work. So it's totally possible, but you're gonna need something that's not an alive spren that's manifest like that. You're gonna need some way to get access to some tanavastium or something like that that's not, like, some living being.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

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NeedsToShutUp

What would happen if Hoid tried to burn the shard that came off Ishar's Honorblade?

Brandon Sanderson

If you were able to get a hold of that piece and burn it, it would act like burning... You would be burning a very pure form of a God Metal, and those have some very interesting effects. RAFO.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

 

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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Preservation's Power

All right, so maybe I lied about there only being three magic systems in this book. It comes down to how you term the powers of Preservation and Ruin, who kind of blanket the entire system. There are a lot of things going on here, and—well, the truth is I don't want to mention all of them, for fear of spoiling future books. However, I'll give you a few rules to apply.

First, to these forces, energy and mass are the same thing. So, their power can take physical shape—as Preservation's did in the bead of metal Elend ate. Second, there is a bit of Preservation inside of all the people—and it's this that allows the people to perform Allomancy. It needs to be awakened and stirred to be of use, but when it is, a proper metal can draw forth more of Preservation's power. It's like the metal attunes the bit within the person, allowing it to act as a catalyst to grab more power.

Allomancy is not fueled by metal; it is fueled by Preservation. The metal is the means by which a person can access that fuel, however. If there were another way to access it, then the metal wouldn't be needed.

Preservation's touch on people differs. Some have more, some have less. This doesn't make them better or worse people—indeed, some most touched by Preservation have been among the worst people in the world. As Ruin later points out, there is a difference between being evil and being destructive.

Regardless, if a person can get more Preservation into them, they become better Allomancers. Hence Elend becoming a Mistborn. Like all people, he had the potential within him—it was just too small of a potential to be awakened through normal means. That little jolt of Preservation's body, however, expanded and awakened his Allomancy.

As a tidbit, that was a side effect of what that bead of metal did. It wasn't the main purpose of the bead, and if another Allomancer were to burn it, it would do something else.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Nov. 12, 2009)

 

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17th Shard

If a Mistborn burns lerasium, as in, not just ingests it, what effect would it grant Allomantically?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a RAFO. It would do something, but the thing you've gotta remember is that, when ingesting lerasium for the first time and gaining the powers, your body is actually burning it. Think of lerasium as a metal anyone can burn. Does that make sense? By burning it you gain access to those powers. It rewrites your spiritual DNA, and there are ways to do really cool things with lerasium that I don't see how anyone would know. Were most Mistborn to just burn it, it would rewrite their genetic code to increase their power as an Allomancer.

17th Shard Interview (Oct. 3, 2010)

[Nitpicking]

On 2/18/2026 at 12:23 PM, Qianweilian said:

I could see Avastium. Only concern is that it is a bit close to atium.

For the record: you do realize that's also the first Vessel of Honor's name?

Tanavast = Tanner Avast. Presumably his married name.

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, Nitpicking said:

For the record: you do realize that's also the first Vessel of Honor's name?

Tanavast = Tanner Avast. Presumably his married name.

Yes they are aware.

Honor was held by Tanavast

Cultivation was held by Koravellium Avast

[Qianweilian He/him]

16 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

Tanavast = Tanner Avast. Presumably his married name.

14 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Yes they are aware.

Actually, that never occurred to me. I suppose I don’t say Koravellium Avast in my head very often.