16 god metals

[Joltizard1337 He/Him]

I was thinking, if we have harmonium-which is atium and lerasium- and bavadininum does that mean there's a god metal for all 16 of the shards? and what would they do if allomantically, feruchemically, or hemalurgically and is this determined by what the shard is? like does lerasium give all allomantic abilities when burned because its of preservation or is it just the way it works and why does bavadinium allow for more hemalurgic abilities without being noticed by harmony. and would they be called by the vessel name (like ATIum) or the shard name (like harmonium) and what decides that? do the 

Edited April 30 by joltizard1337

[Qianweilian He/him]

26 minutes ago, joltizard1337 said:

does that mean there's a god metal for all 16 of the shards?

Yes.

26 minutes ago, joltizard1337 said:

and what would they do if allomantically, feruchemically, or hemalurgically

We don't know.

26 minutes ago, joltizard1337 said:

is this determined by what the shard is?

Yes, probably.

27 minutes ago, joltizard1337 said:

like does lerasium give all allomantic abilities when burned because its of preservation

Yes.

27 minutes ago, joltizard1337 said:

why does bavadinium allow for more hemalurgic abilities without being noticed by harmony

We don't know.

27 minutes ago, joltizard1337 said:

and would they be called by the vessel name (like ATIum) or the shard name (like harmonium)

The vessel name.

27 minutes ago, joltizard1337 said:

and what decides that?

The shards do.

Quote

youshallnotpass

Will there be a metal called harmonium in the mistborn world?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. But good question.

WeiryWriter

Just an fyi but you have confirmed the existence of harmonium before. (And this is probably a RAFO, but is there a reason you didn't follow the convention of the other "god metals" and call it something like sazedium? "Harmonium" just seems out of place.)

Brandon Sanderson

Sazed didn't like the sound of Sazedium.

/r/books AMA 2015 (July 6, 2015)

[Frustration]

Well actually, there are way more than that

https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/95797-the-ultimate-metal-count/#comment-1185305

[Joltizard1337 He/Him]

so the god metals when alloyed with lerasium give you the magic of that god. this is very intriguing 

[Joltizard1337 He/Him]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Well actually, there are way more than that

https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/95797-the-ultimate-metal-count/#comment-1185305

ive scolled through about half of the ultimate metal count and storms it's a lot. but i still have some questions. are the properties of the godmetals to do with the shard or the vessel? Harmonium has drastically different effects than atium or lerasium, so each time the shard changes vessels does it make an entirely new metal? 

[Frustration]

7 minutes ago, joltizard1337 said:

ive scolled through about half of the ultimate metal count and storms it's a lot. but i still have some questions. are the properties of the godmetals to do with the shard or the vessel? Harmonium has drastically different effects than atium or lerasium, so each time the shard changes vessels does it make an entirely new metal? 

Both.

Harmonium isn't an alloy of Atium and Lerasium, but something differemt altogether. If a vessel other than Sazed were to take Harmony the metal might be different, or it could stay the same, both are possible.

[GG0z He/Him]

 

7 minutes ago, joltizard1337 said:

are the properties of the godmetals to do with the shard or the vessel? Harmonium

I think that it has to do with a mix of both, as some Shards let their Intent take over(Odium) and others, like Honor, let their Vessel stay in control. I think it totally depends on the Shard and their Intent 

[Joltizard1337 He/Him]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Both.

Harmonium isn't an alloy of Atium and Lerasium, but something differemt altogether. If a vessel other than Sazed were to take Harmony the metal might be different, or it could stay the same, both are possible.

what about with something like with devotion and dominion being shattered? and what does that fully entail? could someone become a vessel of those or no?

 

Edited April 30 by joltizard1337

[GG0z He/Him]

They left a lot of splinters behind(Seons and Skaze), which can technically be turned into shardblades with the blade having the godmetal of Devotion for Seons and Dominion for Skaze

 

Edited April 30 by GG0z

[Nitpicking]

There's also dragonsteel, which acts more than slightly like a god metal. One wonders if it's Adonalsiumium (Adonalsium's god metal).

[Joltizard1337 He/Him]

On 5/1/2026 at 5:50 AM, Nitpicking said:

There's also dragonsteel, which acts more than slightly like a god metal. One wonders if it's Adonalsiumium (Adonalsium's god metal).

would this have the effects of all of the god metals? that wouldn't make sense which points me to thinking the god metals have to do with how the shard perceives them self. which is why lerasium (with leras as the creator of allomancy) makes you a mistborn and why harmonium (with harmony seeing himself as unstable) is unstable. Ive been looking around (I can't remember where I saw this) and someone was talking about how atium as we see it in the era 1 isn't pure atium because then it would be able to be burned by anyone, meaning it would be able to be burned by anyone, supposedly it was alloyed with electrum. which means, alas, we'll never be able to see what atium actually does.

[alder24]

22 hours ago, joltizard1337 said:

Ive been looking around (I can't remember where I saw this) and someone was talking about how atium as we see it in the era 1 isn't pure atium because then it would be able to be burned by anyone, meaning it would be able to be burned by anyone, supposedly it was alloyed with electrum. which means, alas, we'll never be able to see what atium actually does.

We know what pure Atium does, it has the same effect as Atium-electrum alloy burned with duralumin, which Eland did at the end of HoA. And Atium's effect is described on the Allomantic poster too. WoBs:

Spoiler

Xais56

Brandon has said that everyone ought to be able to burn atium, like they can all burn lerasium, and the fact that they can't was an oversight on his part that he would've done different in hindsight.

Maybe now he's had an in-universe reason to re-write the laws of Allomancy it's back to his intended concept; Mistborn burn all 16 base metals, Mistings burn one base metal, non-Allomancers can only burn godmetal.

Peter Ahlstrom

My explanation for this is that Preservation somehow caused all naturally occurring atium to form as an alloy of atium and electrum. The atium Mistings were actually electrum Mistings.

Xais56

It's a very tidy solution, but it creates the maddening question of what does pure atium do?

Peter Ahlstrom

That answer has already been revealed canonically. RAFO.

Footnote: It has since been clarified that the effect was revealed on the Table of Allomantic Metals poster and seen at the end of The Hero of Ages.
General Reddit 2021 (Nov. 2, 2021)

 

Spoiler

AAKS

My understanding is that Brandon thinks it is a plothole that lerasium can be burned by Scadrian (regardless of if they are Mistings/Mistborn) but atium can't.

His solution is to retcon the Pits to naturally produce an atium/electrum alloy, presumably by the design of Preservation. Therefore we don't know what pure atium looks like or does when used in any magic.

Peter Ahlstrom

We do know what it does. It’s on the Allomancy poster, and the effect appeared one time at the end of Hero of Ages.

LewsTherinTelescope

Interesting. Do you know if he had already conceived the retcon by the time the poster was written, or if that line about pure atium just turned out to fit really well retroactively?

Peter Ahlstrom

The retcon is way older than a lot of people assume.

LewsTherinTelescope

Does this mean he had it in mind by the time Hero of Ages released (since the first public version of the poster dates to 2008), or just that it's old but not sure exactly how old?

Peter Ahlstrom

Remember that what's in the books is filtered through the understanding of the characters. So even if Brandon planned it from the beginning, if the characters didn't know about it, it's not going to come out in the book.

And see this thread reply from 2009.

Footnote: The link is to a post on the Timewaster's Guide forums, where Peter responds to someone asking about whether atium is an alloy by saying he now knows enough to confirm or deny the theory, but is not allowed to.
General Reddit 2022 (Dec. 4, 2022)

 

[Joltizard1337 He/Him]

There are some interesting WoB regarding spren as god metals.

Spoiler

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)

this makes me wonder about a dead spren, he uses the term "alive" and in a different WoB he says that if a spren is dead then it could be used as a hemalurgic spike so, if a spren was turned into a bead and then killed, via the breaking of a nahel bond, it should be able to be swallowed by a normal person, since it would be a god metal. is there any reason this wouldnt work?

Spoiler

FearTheOldBlood

I remember in another WoB you confirmed that the living nature of spren would make them unviable for Allomancy. So I was wondering, if a Radiant were to kill their spren--but will it into the shape of a spike beforehand, and use that spike for Hemalurgy, could the person who was spiked have a Connection established between them and a Vessel of Honor or Cultivation?

Brandon Sanderson

You horrible person. But this would work. Yeah, you're absolutely horrible, that would work. Remember that that's going to make a god metal spike and that's going to have some weird effects being a god metal, but yeah, that could work.

Worldcon 2025 (Aug. 16, 2025)

I have more questions about god metals but i fear we just don't know enough yet and I hope we get access to more god metals in the ghostbloods and era 4 books.

Edited May 15 by Joltizard1337