Lanscaper

So...I've had this thought for a while, and I just realized that I'm not sure if it actually works or not. So my question is: Do Copperclouds stack? As in, if there are two Smokers burning copper and their bubbles overlap could a Steel Inquisitor pierce through that area of overlap? And in terms of the Adventure Game if there are two Smokers/Copperclouds with a rating of 6 and they overlap, could a Steel Inquisitor with the max rating of 10 pierce through the overlapping area? I think that I've asked this before, although I can't remember who I asked and what the response was, but I have a slight recollection that they do stack, and have an additive effect.

Then the problem is that nicrosil was not something that the Ministry knew about to my knowledge...I'm fine with the idea of a rare nicrosil metalmind. But the thing that comes to mind for me is that TLR would need nicrosil to burn to continue the compounding process. Whereas if my theory of storing Allomantic power in a metalmind works then TLR is just using brass or zinc for his powerful Allomancy, and is not limited by a supply of nicrosil. Personally I think that it's got something to do with the fact that people just don't know how to store Allomantic potential into a metalmind. In Feruchemy they are storing a bit of themselves, it's something that they are familiar with and have everyday exposure to. Raw Allomantic power is alien in comparison, they know how to channel it through their bodies, but diverting that power to a static piece of metal would be a different mental/spiritual process. If the compounder is channeling Allomantic power through their bodies then there is a loss of power in the transfer as most of the power is dispersed through the body (at least this is my interpretation for the physical metals), and therefore would not be able to direct/divert the power to the metalminds. What I think needs to happen is a direct transfer of power somehow, from that part of Preservation or Harmony, directly into the metalmind. What mental and spiritual gymnastics are involved in achieving this...I've got no clue. Also to avoid double-posting this is my clarifying thought: My interpretation is this: DISCLAIMER This is my own thoughts on the mechanics of the Metallic Arts none of this is verified. A person's spiritweb is altered or shaped to be able to channel the power of Allomancy, or is born with the proper spiritweb that creates Feruchemy. These spiritwebs allow Mistings, Mistborn, Ferrings, and Feruchemists to channel the appropriate powers associated in the Metallic Arts of Scadrial. In terms of our current knowledge of Compounding, we know that the power of Preservation, which is the fuel source for Allomancy is tricked into providing whatever storage was in the metal, and because of the personalized nature of Feruchemical storages only that person, or a person with that spiritweb identifier is able to tap into that power. My first idea, that of more potent metals works like this in my head. Take Pewter for example. You burn pewter because you have the correct spiritweb. We know that the purity of the metals has an impact on the transfer of power, and that in alloys like Pewter exact percentages are necessary. Because I'm used to data management and other database systems I think of it like this. When Pewter is burned I think of it like a call to the system (the system being the power of the Shard - Preservation/Harmony), or another way to put it is like shooting off a signal flare. That call for attention sends power from Preservation/Harmony to the Allomancer at which point the spiritweb of the caller takes that power and utilizes it. If someone figures out how to do said mental/spiritual gymnastics that I described earlier, where their spiritweb is only used to call the power from Preservation/Harmony but rather than going through the body it hits the metalmind instead we create Pewter. Pewter in my mind (or a more potent metal) is the same physically, there is no way to differentiate metalminds from normal metals on a physical level that we know of. Rather the strength of the spiritual call is different. In my mind I think of pewter to have some sort of unique shape, a unique symbol that Preservation recognizes to differentiate it from the other metals. However when that Allomantic power is sent to the metalmind directly the power instead reinforces something that it is familiar with, the spiritual symbol. Thus the reason why I'm calling Pewter in bold, it is the same symbol, but it demands more attention from the other masses. Take my analogy of the signal flare further, say that Pewter (unaltered) is burned and the signal flare is sent up and the power is sent. However if Pewter is burnt an even bigger flare is sent up, it screams for more attention and thus more power is sent to that location. For another random thought... perhaps instead of the Allomantic power going into the metal and reinforcing the symbol, I think that perhaps the power is treated similarly to a Feruchemical charge. My understanding of Feruchemy is that a potential of yourself is stored into the metal. But rather than thinking of the metal as a cup that can hold a fixed volume of power, I think of the metal as an anchor that holds down that Feruchemical charge or potential of what could be from flying into nowhere and being lost. Therefore the idea of more potent metals could work like this. Not only is the call or the signal flare sent up to Preservation/Harmony to send power, but existing power is freed as the metal is burned, and that is channeled by the Misting. Lanscaper ends his theorizing for today

Namely my question is can Allomantic power be stored? And also what might be achieved by this? 1. More potent metals - By storing an allomantic trait upon an existing allomantic trait, when the metal is burned it creates a more profound effect, similar to purity gradients. What would also be interesting is if we assume that Allomantic power is not individual specific, but rather channeled power. If this is so then perhaps a Misting other than the Compounder who made the more potent metal may be able to utilize the more potent allomantic charge placed upon the metal. 2. Removing the upper limit of Allomantic ability - By tapping massive reserves of stored allomantic potential the limitations that each individual would normally face when flaring can be surpassed, if only momentarily. 3. Ferrings able to use stored Allomantic charges made by Compounder - This works off of the assumption that Allomantic charges of power are not individual specific. In Feruchemy you are storing a part of yourself and therefore other people cannot use that power. In Allomancy you are tapping into a larger power source, and therefore it can be seen as raw power that is being channeled. Of course if the Ferring does not have the appropriate spiritweb to channel the power they use the charges with no effect. Soo...I'm looking for input on these random thoughts, whether I'm making some unfounded assumptions, and the potential effects that this would have on the Mistborn Universe. The more potent metals might be interesting, and removing the upper limit on Allomantic ability is also cool, but Ferrings going around with Misting powers...Thoughts?

Hmm...I guess since it's got more to do with the spiritual that definitely makes sense, although I guess that for some reason when I was thinking of copperclouds, I was literally thinking of a cloud of copper dust, which would have the Faraday's Cage effect. In that case, the older generation Allomancers have a denser coppercloud, making it harder to pierce, and now as time has gone on the density is less, allowing the potential for Seekers to pierce it, like how if the Faraday Cage has too large of a gap, it allows the EM waves through...But it this all happens on the spiritual level it probably doesn't have an EM effect as you said. Unless that is just one of those weird but interesting side-effects that occurs from time to time with certain abilities. As for Seekers having massive bubbles, they do, at least according to what I read in the Mistborn Adventure Game.

In clarification, I mention this because of what Brandon wrote in A House of Ashes where an Allomantic metallurgist added a slightly different amount of tin to his alloy to make bronze which resulted in what other Allomancers claimed was a better burn. Albeit in this case it is still the main two metals that create the alloy. I guess by what happens later in the story, we understand that adding other elements will cause a worse burn. Still the point that I was trying to make is that easy access to bismuth is not common in the era of the Lord Ruler and so what we know of Allomantic pewter may be different in AoL era, although all the literature that we have access to at this point indicates otherwise (in that you are correct Reader).

Umm...if bendalloy really is cadmium, bismuth, tin, and lead...that's essentially cadmium and pewter...because pewter is tin, bismuth, and lead (according to the wikipedia pewter also has copper and antimony). Which by the way, do we have a break down of what Allomantic pewter is? (EDIT: 91% Tin, 9% Lead, which is different slightly. I wonder what happens if a Pewterarm burns our modern version of pewter with bismuth, antimony, and copper, would it work better or worse?)

Here's an interesting thought that occurred to me. Do Smokers, that is Copper Mistings, have an effect on EM fields when burning copper? The reason why I think of this is because of the concept of a Faraday Cage (which is sometimes made of copper, coincidence?) and how it cancels out most EM waves. If so...then a Smoker would be great against remote detonated bombs, or really most RC items.

Quick thought, if you have two metalminds of the same metal, can you tap one, and fill the other simultaneously, since they are two discrete reservoirs? Or is this like transferring the charge from mind to another? And if my ignorance has made me state something that has been addressed before, well my apologies for interrupting this thread.

Well the thing about those two temporal metals is that they have fixed locations, but we don't know what that reference point affixes to. If you could affix the 'bubble' to yourself then compounding bendalloy would allow you to move through space in decent time, or alternatively, maintain your age as you pass through time...the tricky bit being that you have to get the 'bubble' to move with you through space, which as far as we know so far is not possible.

Yeah, the text does not say that Marasi cancelled Wayne's bubble, but you do bring up a good point. What we read is Wax's viewpoint, and that is how he rationalizes the events, we don't know what Marasi was thinking, or Wayne for that matter, and thus we don't truly know what happened there. I do forget though where Marasi and Wayne have that discussion of what happens when they are both burning their metals at once...Marasi quotes an University Study record is what I recall. But I remember that the two powers cancel each other. The other thing that I can think of is that Wax's increased weight forces the distortion of the bubble to not warp him somehow...too 'massive' to break apart?

Umm, couldn't a simple explanation be that Marasi burnt some chromium, which negates Wayne's bendalloy...like she does it out of stress subconsciously?

Okay so here goes another massive post. There are two ways that I can envision a Mistborn Game: 1) RPG (solo) 2) MMORPG (battlegrounds style) For the first it would be a route type game, it would be set in Elendel in the midst of a war between the families. For no other reason but to perpetuate the theme of even numbers I envision eight different Noble Families. You begin with the eight basic Mistings, which eventually lead to the Mistborn storyline. This way you introduce all the different skills stage by stage. I can also see an interesting idea being able to play a Feruchemist, where the storyline is retrieving your copper metalminds to discover something, would be something of a mini-game. As for game mechanics...as everyone has mentioned Iron/Steel will be the hardest to program. I forget who mentioned it exactly, but this is certainly a skill that would need to scale with increased skill level. The user starts with a small level of influence, which would slowly increase as you improve the skill. As for the mechanics I envision you toggle it on with a hotkey, which would switch you to a greater third person view. This third person view shows the entire sphere of influence, with a gradient of influence shown by the intensity of the colors of the metals around the person. Now then for selection I envision a 'brush' idea, where you hold a key/button and a scroll feature to increase/decrease the size of the brush for multiple selection, and for the power of the push/pull you have another combination of button holding and scrolling (with a passive bar showing what percentage of power you have your push set at as default). Hope that this makes sense. Burning Tin well this will make a shout out to the new SyFy series Alpha, where they basically have a Tineye. The show symbolizes smell as colors which for a Tineye makes some sense in terms of a video game, the smells of things would be a distraction from what you are trying to focus on while you are 'zooming', also whatever platform this game runs off of Tin would allow the programmers to have some ridiculous fun with high definition sound. Again I envision sound being based off of gradient spheres, where as the person burns tin the sphere of sounds that they would normally be able to hear increases. As for touch, well you are more sensitive so you could potentially take 'damage' from things that hit you too hard, or from extreme heat/cold. As for Pewter someone mentioned a 'health bar' concept. Well that would be included, an additional health bar that appears while you are burning Pewter, kinda like the concept of shields. However, if you toggle pewter off while there is damage on that bar it is taken from your actual health bar. Everything else Pewter enables would be passive effects upon the character, increased damage, increased armor, increased speed, and the like. For Zinc/Brass it would have to be with NPC interaction, where you stir up riots/armies to fight for you or make distractions, or in storyline interaction. This skill would also require training, you start out with a few basic emotions that you can riot or soothe. As you progress you begin to recognize more emotions. Again with the gradient brush tool for selection of multiple targets, and over each target a selection menu of emotions you can target, and again scrolling to increase or decrease the amount that you pulse. There would also be a large DC system running while Zinc/Brass is going on. Copper/Bronze this story arc would be more interactive with party members, the more that you increase this skill, the more party members you can have. For the game mechanics I kinda envision it like moving pylons from SCII. You need to be aware of where your party members are for copper so that you can cover as many of them as you can. This would be potentially interesting if the arc was that you and your little sibling are running from a non-hazekiller Inquisitor. That covers the Copper aspect. For Bronze it would be that you are seeking someone, or perhaps in the group setting you are the non-Tineye scout. For these it would be a set sphere of influence with a gradient sphere on the fringes. This covers the eight basic metals. For the Temporal Metals I am still working things out, Gold/Electrum would be plot/storyline events, I cannot see any use for them otherwise. Cadmium and Bendalloy would be interesting, however the mechanics for that in an MMO become ridiculously hard to represent properly, although they are entirely possible for a solo-RPG setting. For the Enhancement Metals I am also still working things out. For the Second Idea for the MMO it would kinda be like WoW battleground, where you have two sides and fight it out. Again I was thinking of a Family War background for the story, where you choose a family, and the families are on different sides of the war. Alternatively I thought of the idea where the war is channeled through a Gladiator setup where the Families earn prestige through victory (kinda like Brandon's Mythwalker Prime and the House Wars). Other thoughts on the topic include how to appropriately incorporate Feruchemical Powers as those are heavily time related, as well as Hemalurgy. I will post more as I think of more ideas, and I will update this post once I have more concrete ideas of how to appropriately incorporate the temporal and enhancement metals.

Okay, so Brandon also alluded to the fact that you can store a Allomantic charge in a metalmind through compounding. Then in theory could a compounder store that allomantic charge into the metal, and then burn it to 'break' the system? or since it is the same aspect does this not work? Because in theory the charge is in the metal through Ferumancy which is what allows for Miles ridiculous regeneration. This would in theory allow a compounder to have ridiculously strong allomantic powers (TLR could very well have done this...not that he needed it) and would make sense for rare metals, where acquisition is hard. By investing a bit in ferumancy you get a tenfold yield. But if it turns out that since you are essentially putting the same charge onto the same metal that the yield is only onefold then there wouldn't really be much of a reason I guess, and unfortunately Sazed mentions that there is a limit to the amount of charge that you can put into a metalmind. What triggered this thought was bendalloy compounders (Wayne keeps running out of the stuff) so I was trying to think of a way that he might increase his yield through compounding.

Here's something that I've been thinking about...does Miles necessarily have to shave his goldminds, couldn't he in theory invest the health into the gold shavings in his stomach, and then burn that, refill the goldminds on the outside of his body, and during the entire process of investing health into the gold shavings in his stomach be tapping on his external goldminds? Then it's a simple matter of acquiring generic gold shavings and consuming it like any other misting, which in AoL Brandon rarely mentions the consumption of shavings. That would also be a potential source of explanation as to why he was healing without his external goldminds, he was using gold inside himself as a goldminds and there could have been a few flakes of gold in his stomach that he invests in and burns, but since it is only a few flakes that minor bit of health can't deal with four barrages of gunfire.

Thanks for the welcome, although what I really find interesting for a compounder is Bendalloy. You never go hungry, never get thirsty, and if I'm right about amphetamines and other compounds you could drug yourself to do ridiculous things. Since you never get hungry or thirsty you can never be poisoned through your food, and if you do get poisoned you might be able to store that away to stop yourself from dying of poison. Then the issue becomes the amounts of Bendalloy that you can acquire, which through Wayne we find might be more expensive that actually buying food...aww stumbling block, guess it comes down to how much food/drink bendallow would turn into... As for the thoughts about electrum I think that people can still experience mini episodes of emotion while storing. The way I figure is that when you store determination you do so at a fixed level, it doesn't increase the amount that you store in tandem with your emotional fluctuations...of course if you store to the point where your spikes in emotion don't matter, then I guess we would be getting at a hard counter.

Well then, as my first post into this community I pray that I am constructive. All of the ideas below this are to address the combinations that were brought up by None70 for his iron posting: Here are some quick thoughts that I had on the subject of Tin Ferrings. The five senses that we have are Sight, Smell, Taste, Hearing, and Touch. However, where does our sense of balance stem from? It is hearing, because our sense of balance comes from our ears, or is it touch? Either way, if a sense of balance could be stored through Ferumancy that would be a good potential ability to combine with Lurchers or at least while they are flying through the air they may be able to change posture to change their center mass potentially; kinda like how when a gymnast does a flip they manipulate their center mass to change the arc of their jump except how I visualize it for a lurcher is that by changing center mass they are able to create slight angles to their pulls. Whether or not this is feasible I have no clue, but it is an idle thought that occurred to me. Something that occurred to me about Zinc Ferrings. Does the increased thinking and reasoning allow for increased processing of information? Perhaps I should word this better, would tapping into a zinc metalmind allow for the Sparker ferring to think about multiple thoughts at the same time? If so then the user could think about how to pull on all the different pieces of metal around themselves to spin through pulls and for non-linear movement. I envision that this mind processing might become something like how Kvothe from The Name of the Wind partitions his mind to better handle what goes on around him. Onto the subject of Bronze Ferrings. Storing Wakefulness is indeed an odd ferumancy ability to combine with a fairly combat oriented ability such as that of a Lurcher (although a Lurcher does have non-combat utility as shown through Ranette). For combat, being able to enhance alertness would be good as it ties your ability to notice details (not in the sense of how a tineye notices details, but rather how actions catch your attention) this could potentially allow the lurcher to engage multiple opponents being more aware of the actions but still with the limitation of the mind only being able to process so many actions at once, at which point that person would be fighting on a more instinctual level responding off of reflex rather than conscious action (at least that is the way that I interpret it). Either way the Lurcher/Sentry setup would be good for a craftsman potentially, where they can work for extended periods of time continuously on one project allowing for continuity. The downside would be the amount of time that they need to store wakefulness. For Copper Ferrings or Archivist Ferrings. This is an interesting idea the more that I think about it. For combat potential there is quite a few uses to the storing memories and having no recall of them while they are stored. Storing the memories preceding a fight is useful in that suddenly your mind is freed from thinking about previous thoughts and allows your mind to focus entirely on the fight. It also makes me curious if you can store the memories leading up to mental fatigue to lessen said fatigue (the fatigue would still be there but not in the forefront), which would accomplish a diminutive skill as a Bronze ferring or Sentry Ferring. Also, you can pull your memories of past fights and have all your actions from past fights brought to the forefront of your mind, allowing you to fight at top form as you perfectly recall how you manage to accomplish fantastic feats of combat. For Cadmium Ferrings or Gasper Ferrings. Much how a sniper needs to control their breathing when they make their shot a Gasper Ferring could potentially increase their focus by tapping their metalmind as it takes part of our focus to breathe. Also by highly oxygenating their blood they allow their cells to undergo through anaerobic processes allowing for fast-twitch muscle reactions to be utilized with greater potential (they can sprint for a longer period of time) as well as supplying their slow-twitch muscles with a constant oxygen source (they have ridiculous endurance). This is much like a lesser version of a Steel Ferring (as they are not increasing their speed, but rather their bodies ability to go at faster speeds). And more on highly oxygenated blood, it allows increased cell activity meaning that they are able to think faster and react faster. For Bendalloy Ferrings, well they are weird. Ars Arcanum says: "Subsumer Ferrings can store nutrition and calories in a bendalloy metalmind; they can eat large amounts of food during active storage without feeling full or gaining weight, and then can go without the need to eat while tapping the metalmind. A separate bendalloy metalmind can be used to similarly regulate fluids intake." This ability is useful in terms of survival and health. By having a large store of energy (through vitamins and nutrition and fluids) and constantly feeding that to your body, your body becomes used to that constant flow. This idea of constant flow is similar to the idea of having an IV bananna bag hooked up to your body, your body only gets what it needs without flooding it creating fluctuations in blood sugar and the like. Another thought that just occurred to me is whether or not the Subsumer Ferrings can store stimulants (like amphetamines), and by tapping into the stimulants at a lower rate, they allow themselves to go into a stimulated state at will with mitigated side effects. For Electrum Ferrings and their storage of determination, I would consider it a soft counter to a Rioter or Soother, as they would have to be able to detect that there is something that they need to be determined to do against something. In terms of what determination does to our bodies it is mainly hormonal manipulation and heightened brain activity in a centralized region of the brain (least that is my understanding from the little psychology that I have taken). So when you store determination I feel that your mind goes into a depressed state as Brandon says and then later on flooding the brain with hormones and activity to create that determination, which I would say is similar to the Bronze and Zinc Ferrings storing Wakefulness and Mental Speed. The differences between the three are slight but major, and all three seem to accomplish the same thing through different means as I see it. Electrum functions through hormones and intent, Bronze through different hormones and our ability to recognize our surroundings, and Zinc through synapse speed. For Chromium Ferrings or Spinner Ferrings the way that I envision the mechanics behind it is that they are storing their ability to manipulate the quantum mechanics of their environment. Like when you roll a dice 1000 times with the intent to roll a certain number, that number appears more often than the others, this occurs because of how we perveive our surroundings (it has a lot to do with the physics that go on around us and how an objects state changes when it is observed, like the nature of light). Either way, in combat I envision a Lurcher constantly filling his metalmind rather than tapping into it. If the Lurcher is used to having to respond to the unfortunate events that occur to him then by dragging that 'area of unluckyness' towards their target you force the enemy to have to function with increased chance of disaster as well potentially. Of course if the mechanics of filling the metalmind allows for the environment to be more easily manipulated by other people (making them more lucky) then there would be problems with constantly filling the metalmind during combat. We need more information about Nicrosil Ferrings, and what Brandon exactly means by Investiture, but seeing as the people of Teris don't know exactly what they are doing I have this bad feeling that we will never truly understand what occurs. Aluminum Ferrings store Identity. So I imagine that while they are storing their Identity they become less aware of their spiritual selves and thus lower inhibitions? That's a weird thought to follow, as I'm not entirely sure what is meant by Identity. If it refers to a persons sense of self worth and purpose, then I'd guess that it would be similar to an Electrum Ferring...perhaps someone will respond and throw in an idea for how this would work exactly... Hope that these musings of mine become helpful in coming up with combinations, and I know that I stop throwing in the implications of how these feruchemical powers might combine with a Lurcher. Also, none of this information that I'm throwing out there is confirmed in terms of their mechanics, they are how I rationalize Ferumancy.