Isilel

She gave the Set a significant amount of technical information not otherwise available on (their part of?) the planet. Telling the Derethi what they need to do to cause another Reod would track. Providing some explosives ditto. She did give the Set her god-metal, after all. Unless, maybe, she isn't as dead-set on destroying Elantris once and for all as Dilaf and the Wyrn were. Perhaps she'd prefer to control it, which given it's apparent vulnerability, should be doable. For that matter, what happens if someone erases Raoden's line on the ground? New Elantris looks very fragile to me, unless there is something that I am not taking into account. As to the "whole world" needing to be converted for Jaddeth to come, their definition is already very idiosyncratic. Looking at the map, there are landmasses very close to Fjordell that apparently don't count? Not to mention the Rose Empire and, presumably, a lot more if Sel has got more than one continent. There is a WoB that they'll eventually decide that Arelon and Teod don't count either and they have already converted all the world that matters.

Having just re-read Elantris I can't help but wonder why Wyrn was able to specifically foresee Hrathen's betrayal and send an assassin provided with the exact place and time to find him in the future... but couldn't do the same to the other 2 protagonists. Does it have something to do with Connection? But if so, why not take Hrathen out earlier? And the other thing is - Elantris continues to be extremely vulnerable. If Autonomy had something to do with the earthquake and wants Elantrians to be eradicated rather than brought under her control, shouldn't she be able to change landscape in some other ways and cause as many Reods as it takes for the Fjordells to genocide Aonic people? Like, divert rivers via powerful explosives, for instance.

I always thought that it had a bit of A-Pewter because Wax seemed a little bit stronger and more resilient when he fought wearing it. He would have had some background accumulation of pewter in his body even without expressly downing flakes, like Vin did. And it also seemed like Harmony surreptitiously fuelled him with the mists on a few occasions.

Ability not to breathe for extended periods of time would help with being a sniper. Also, in addition to the physical enhancement via hyper-oxygenation of the blood, it would also help to keep going with some otherwise debilitating/mortal wounds for as long as the stores last. After all, blood loss and even a stopped heart wouldn't be lethal if tissues could be oxygenated by other means. For that matter, outside of combat F-Cadmium would be helpful for surviving heart attacks and general circulatory system breakdowns until medical assistance can be provided as well. And shouldn't routine storing over a period of time improve one's lung capacity? It has much more potential and is much less niche than it looks at a first glance. As to A-Electrum, I would claim that we got some idea of it's usefulness even in a limited context in cosmere spoiler I don't see why the broader application on Scadrial, with mental training and experience, can't be much more useful still. After all, we have seen how such things can make the use of A-Tin, A-Steel and A-Brass much more flexible and nuanced than just what the mere ability to burn provides.

I am not sure that the characters' speculations should be taken as absolute truth. Besides, if TLR didn't intend to live forever in the beginning, he may have wanted a Fullborn heir. He wouldn't have been the first leader who wanted his heir(s) to inherit power that he intended to keep away from everybody else. Perhaps it was his very inability to produce such a heir, among other things, that convinced him to stay on for the duration. It is entirely possible that because of the conflict between Allomancy and Feruchemy genes his immediate offspring didn't exhibit any powers at all, either because they didn't have any or because they were, say, Metalborn of unknown metals. We also have no idea how Feruchemy first manifests and whever people who have it necessarily become aware of it without somebody explaining things to them. Maybe there were ferrings and Twinborn among TLR's descendants, who simply didn't know what they were.

Honestly, I think it is just 1. Because 2 and 3 actually argue against him being Spook. I mean, yea we know him and know him to be a veteran undercover operator and fighter. Which is the opposite of Sixteen. Also, we know that the worldhoppers coming to Roshar, including Ghostbloods, have a means to communicate in local languages, so how comes Sixteen, if he is Spook, doesn't? And 16's behaviour strongly suggests that he is neither a Mistborn nor even a Pulser, but relies on an automated mechanism for his cadmium allomancy, because why would someone who can burn at any time become panicked when he can't return to his hut within a few minutes? He may also use F-bendalloy to avoid producing waste, but that wouldn't have solved the problem with the lack of bathing, would it?

Quoting is acting up for me today for some reason, so @alder24: During his visits to the vision of Aharietam Dalinar specifically noted how much better the weapons and equipment of the forces on Odium's side were, while their opponents had to literally resort to sticks and stones in some cases. Which means that the singers had a significant industrial base at that point, compared to the humans opposing them. I don't see how it could be possibly compatible with the Silver Kingdoms map we know. Concerning the Heralds, Jezrien mentioned how they took up their duty voluntarily in the WoK Prelude and Dalinar saw a glimpse of him inviting Nale, who had been his enemy, into the Pact in RoW chapter 47 "A Cage Formed of Spirits". "There is no person we would welcome more eagerly into this pact than you." Intriguingly, Jez also called him "an enemy who was correct all along, making me the villain, not you". Judging by this whole scene, Ishar and him were just inviting people whom they considered to be worthy. Taln was "THE ONE WHO WASN'T MEANT TO HAVE JOINED THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE; THE ONE WHO WAS NOT A KING, SCHOLAR OR GENERAL." according to the Stormfather in chapter 38 of OB "Broken People". What Ash meant, presumably, was that he was more fit to wear a crown than anyone who ever did, not that he had been an actual king. It would appear that a general who was supposed to become the 10th Herald refused to do so at the last moment and Taln, who likely was a simple soldier and possibly in love with Ash, stepped up. The whole thing smells of Hoid's shenangians, IMHO. It is rather ironic that Chana, who according to SF's declaration, must have been a general, ended up with a moniker of "Herald of Common Man", while Taln became "Herald of War". Whom the Heralds fought on Braize? Presumably, not all Fused souls slept all the time, somebody had to catch, secure and torture them. Regarding Odium, "restrictions Honor placed upon me... preventing me from using my powers on most individuals" RoW chapter 112, likely stopped him from dealing with the Heralds on Braize personally. He can only touch people who give him a foothold in their souls. @cometaryorbit: IMHO "The Girl Who Looked Up" has something to do with humans attracting the attention of spren. She brings back "a piece of god's light". Dalinar's visions also showed that use of ancient fabrials didn't prevent highly evolved material cultures from existing during the Heraldic Epochs, which got beaten further down during each Desolation. And people were pretty much at the stone age by the time of Aharietam. Not to mention that the majority of the planetary population must have been killed off. Now, it is true that in the 2 millenia between Aharietam and the Recreance humanity recovered only very slowly. But then, so much has been lost. That being said, the "modern" fabrial science couldn't have developed. But I don't think that the old idea that magic, if it is very limited and exclusive, should interfere with the progress of mundane technology, is valid.

This doesn't explain how and why Honor would have been able and willing to side with such egregious and dishonorable oathbreakers. @cometaryorbit pointed it out earlier, but it bears repeating - Honor may not have been a complete slave to his Intent at that point, but he also had held the Shard for long enough that going directly against it shouldn't have been possible. And for what reason would he have wanted to? Or, for that matter, why Cultivation would have gone along with it? IMHO, like with "betrayal of spren" that the listener songs talk about, which, as RoW hinted, may have also (or even first?) been betrayal _of_ spren by singers, the initial clash between humans and Dawnsingers wasn't unilateral, but probably a result of a tragic misunderstanding that warmongers on both sides and Odium took advantage of. I imagine something similar to "the Field of Camlann", where a parley unintentionally turned into a slaughter. Which gave Honor wiggling room to pick and choose among the 2 peoples and Odium a chance to recruit the Fused. I have long had a crackpot idea that a second group of humans, unconnected to the Ashynites and their treaty, showed up and the singers took it for a malicious breach of agreement. There was that odd Makabaki legend in... WoR I think? About their country being repopulated by animated stones from a mountain peak, which caused me to speculate in this direction. But at this point it seems very unlikely, though we know that non-Ashyn immigrants did arrive later. "The Girl who looked up" story is somehow connected to whatever happened too, I am sure. Generally, we have to be aware that Elia Stele and even more so listener traditions are biased and can't be accepted uncritically. Ditto modern Rosharans interpretations of the few historical facts available to them at the moment. This is an excellent question. My suggesstion is that the map of the Silver Kingdoms that we are familiar with was produced after the imprisonment of BAM. Yes, their respective ages (as per WoK prologue) have always been a headscratcher. Also, why on Roshar did Jezrien think that it was a good idea to make his barely adult daughter a Herald?! Hm... I have strongly suspected for some time that the Heralds could use their Honorblades even as disembodied CSs on Braize. After all, they supposedly fought there before getting captured and tortured. But was this part of the original idea for the Oathpact? No clue, honestly.

Of course the TLR was quite good at hurting and killing, despite being a sliver of Preservation, he just couldn't directly use the power of the Well to smite somebody. Now, Kelsier is much more thoroughly permeated by Preservation's investiture of course, but his views on Hemalurgy and general stance on fighting for Scadrial in the epilogue of TLM suggest to me that he is still capable of violence. His being a CS that is viewed as a revolutionary, a destroyer of previous social order, is probably helpful in this regard. IIRC, they didn't really give powers, just got people to the same level of investment as someone with powers would have been - for a short time. Re: Navani

Airtight aluminum containers? Though I wouldn't be surprised if he managed to squirrel away a perfect gem. Also, the monasteries are bound to have really big decorative gems which retain stormlight for most of the Weeping and that he can secretly siphon it off.

Well, we just have very little idea about how much it would take. But let's say a couple of months of 24/7 storing. Yes, ethically sourced spikes would be expensive. Still worth it for certain powers. BTW, it occurs to me that if a Twinborn has one of their powers spiked out, they'd still be more invested than a normal Scadrian, so not in danger of being "worse off than a drab" and simple physical healing might suffice. They are, of course, extremely rare. There will be 50-70 years between Eras 2 and 3 - I'd expect either the Ghostbloods or the Set to have cracked this problem or even invented synthetic spikes by then, and the new protagonist discovering this to become one of the sub-plots. "Same principles, divergent applications" isn't "the same way" in my book. But that's beside the point - Honorblades which don't bestow the Surge of Regrowth only heal as a side-effect of letting the holder infuse stormlight. Those that do provide Regrowth are bound to be as capable of healing souls, if applied in a timely manner, as Regrowth fabrials are. A Gold Feruchemy medallion bestows healing. It is it's function and it's Intent, not just a nice bonus. Not really comparable. There is also a big difference between primer cubes and fabrials in that primer cubes are just lumps of Harmony's investiture that copy and amplify whatever Metalic Art is directed at them*. Fabrials have set functions, determined by the spren involved and their construction. Just as the medallions are by the Feruchemy in their Nicrosil portion. Both require fuel to produce an effect, though medallions need a specific one - compatible stored attributes, while fabrials work on generic investiture. *When the Set team tries to leave on a skyship at the end of BoM they mention one of their members priming machinery with Iron Feruchemy. So it isn't restricted to Allomancy. If Moonlight as Elantrian wasn't getting fuel somehow, why did the Ghostbloods think that she might not revert on her own, once her investiture jar was used up? I didn't like it, but there it is. The need for Dor pipes seems to be over. The Sorceress didn't have any either. Speaking of power creep. Why not both? The idea of synthetic Metallic Arts has been specifically floated. And yes, of course other powers are much more complex, not to mention much less is known about hemalurgic uses of them in the first place. For instance, Nahel bonds can be stolen, but the spren would be free to and certain to leave. The spren themselves can be spiked while in the Cognitive according to a WoB, but what would be spiked out of them is unknown. Not to mention that they shouldn't have binding points, the requisite metals are a mystery, binding points on a recipient are also unknown, etc. How do you even set out to synthetically copy something like that? By contrast, a lot is already known about how Metallic arts work with Hemalurgy - most of it directly from Ruin himself back in the day. Rythms of Metallic Arts are known. It has been learned on Roshar how to blank investiture and overlay it with a different tone. Though I suspect that the Ghostbloods knew all this even prior to Navani's discoveries. What remains is to find blank investiture that would stick to a spike and figure out the proper "code" - maybe a hybrid rythm between Preservation and metal in question? Which the Ghostbloods would be in the best position to accomplish, having a sliver of Preservation among their ranks. And the powers themselves are simple and straightforward - give a power to burn/store in a metal. The metal itself determines the effect. Nor are they, without compounding, overpowered. Which these spikes shouldn't allow either, of course. And there surely are drawbacks to hemalurgic spikes, however sourced - susceptibility to the Shardic and similar influences, because they would still cause a hole in recepient's Spiritweb, the more powerful among other cosmeric abilities likely being incompatible - spren and Aethers not liking them, Elantrian healing rejecting them, having them impeding self-Forgery, etc. I am sure that Sanderson will come up with necessary limitations. But he did warn us that Scadrial is moving towards mechanized use of investiture. When did this happen? I must have missed it. Sorry, it doesn't make sense to randomly include something like that if it won't bear fruit in the later books, 50-70 years later Scadrian-time. Now, if it had been part of a plot-line devoted to somebody trying and failing to do this, then I could see it. So? How are the powers not lost, given that the medallions are more limited? And that according to what Allik told Wax, you can't create new medallions using other medallions, but need a Metalborn? We don't know how quickly the medallions wear out either. Yes, I am aware of the WoB that they are "like Copper Feruchemy", but memories do pale with each retrieval. I also don't think that a single Metalborn can create a limitless amount of medallions. Time and effort needed _are_ real constraints. Not to mention that training and institutional knowledge may be required as well, and could be lost if too few of the rare, but necessary Metalborn appear in a given generation or 2. Agree to disagree.

Anyway, I think that we can all agree that if Nicrosil can indeed be used to strengthen allomancy, Seekers might be able to hear rythms which are otherwise out of their range and that could lead to various investiture science and magi-tech breakthroughs. Now, Copper allomancy hides investiture use from detection and protects the misting from emotional allomancy - and similar influences? Basically, on Scadrial and most other worlds a Coppercloud is mostly useful as part of a team, but there are places in the cosmere where this power might be valuable by itself like spoilers I think that tapping Identity might have been potentially useful to resist any changes imposed from outside, like cosmere spoilers and maybe to provide additional protection against emotional allomancy. However, Sanderson RAFOed all questions touching on tapping Identity and even hinted that it might not be possible. In which case Identity mind would be just a sink, which would make certain amount of sense because aluminum. Then F-Aluminum part of the pair wouldn't contribute anything.

With a scar where his power used to be, yes. But worse off than a normal unpowered Scadrian? I quoted the relevant portion of the WoB and Sanderson is clearly speaking about Miles being turned into a spike factory, rather than donating once, losing his allomancy, getting healed, and being OK afterwards: "I see now, and I appreciate you putting this all together for me so I can see what the fans are trying to figure out. So the answer is a cautious yes. The problem here is that he'd need to compound a TON of healing first--but yes, it would work. You could theoretically turn someone like Miles into an invested spike factory. If he didn't have enough healing stored, though, he'd end up with a healed soul but a gap (like a scar on his soul) where his spiked-out abilities were. " I'd also point out that in TLM in the chapter where they spike people non-lethally, it is mentioned that they need 20-30 people to fully invest a spike. IMHO, it is a good ballpark figure for envisioning the amount of healing/investiture influx difference between healing someone to normal non-powered standard or maybe very slightly below that, but better than drab and turning somebody into a spike factory. The former appears to be pretty doable if you have multiple people storing health 24/7 in the same metalmind for months. Kelesina's goldmind from BoM might have done it, IMHO. Yes, but we are talking about gold-healing happening immediately/concurrently with spiking. Szeth's soul fully separated from his body, but was still in the Cognitive. I also fail to see why gold medallions wouldn't be similar to Re-Growth fabrials - both have healing Intent, whereas with Honorblades that don't have Regrowth, healing is an incidental by-product of being given ability to infuse stormlight. Re-Growth fabrials, being made from spren are also bound to have Identity, BTW. And we know that they can heal spiritual wounds, as can gold Feruchemy. So? Elantrians are so absurdly powerful that having any of them being able to operate so far from their world without losing their abilities is a massive power creep. Being able to create synthetic spikes of Metallic Arts won't move the needle much by comparison. And I do think that Metallic Arts are the only powers that could be eventually created and bestowed that way, because they are the simplest and most straightforward. The Set seemed pretty far along in that respect already in TLM and Moonlight brings up the idea of making victimless spikes using pure investiture for a reason, I imagine, or why even mention it? Or do you suggest that it was all just an elaborate red herring? Not according to BoM, you aren't. At least not to Allik's knowledge. "You can create these as you wish? If we have the Metalborn to do so and the Excisors, yes" Transfering powers between generations allows for accumulating them and ensuring that you always have the powers you need, despite the randomness of people being born with them or not. Yes, powers become weaker with each transfer, but even weak powers can be very useful.

I'd really like to see skilled and nuanced use of A-bronze in Era 3. Seekers being able to detect Feruchemy in active use in TLM was already a new wrinkle. I imagine that that will also apply to medallions and allomantic grenades, in that they'd be able to distinguish them from natural Feruchemy, maybe even different models of them. Metal Arts via Hemalurgy should also be identifyable, shouldn't they? Surely it should affect the rythms, even if slightly. And why stop there - it should be possible to tell apart natural active users by the strength of their powers too. So, a lot could be done with it, but for a pretty narrow purpose of policing the use of Metallic Arts by other people or tracking somebody. Ditto with other invested arts on other words. However, here is where it gets interesting. A-Bronze is supposed to only detect kinetic investiture, but Vin and Alendi (who was a Seeker according to a WoB), heard the rythms of the Well. So, it seems that under certain conditions they can overcome this limitation. And of course, if Nicrosil feruchemy can be used to strengthen allomancy, it would be exactly the tool for that, in addition to punching through copper clouds. Which might help Seekers to do more in the future of cosmere, re-writing investitures into each other and such. TLM hinted at these possibilities.

@Underwater_Worldhopper, I thought the new state of things was that any pure god-metal can be burned, so that alloy with lerasium wouldn't even be needed? Or is your proposed alloying with lerasium intended to obtain a permanent effect? But then, some other god-metals likely already provide one, IMHO. As to Stormlight spoilers:

The WoB was about turning Miles into a spike factory, so not applicable to what I am talking about here. Even after the retcon there was still a shardblade wound to the arm, which was healed by a Regrowth fabrial along with bringing a thoroughly dead person back to life. And IMHO the gold medallions would be comparable to Regrowth fabrials, rather than to generic Honorblade healing. I think that a certain Elantrian was terrifyingly powerful, but sloppy and cowardly. In the North the Terris were the only people who had Feruchemy. And they likely had it because they lived around the Shardpools of both Ruin and Preservation. There were no Ferrings among any of the other peoples, so there is no reason why SoScads would have had them either, leave alone more commonly than mistings. But that's beside the point. The important thing is that Metalborn are very rare in the South and yet certain of their powers are completely essential for it's population's survival after Catacendre. Pretty sure that these things have been occasionally compatible iRL. But as I said, I think that it must be an internal tradition among the southern Metalborn, not something done to them by the worshipful populace. I am quite frustrated that so many mysteries introduced in BoM remain completely unexplained so far, and particularly that we still know next to nothing about southern cultures and whatever was going on with the Bands. I do think that the ideas about societal management of Hemalurgy in Spook's book have been introduced for a reason. And I frankly don't see how the Southerners could have managed to create and maintain their magitech otherwise.

How do you know that it would be years rather than months? Though even a year or so might be worth it for the most crucial powers. They looked pretty overpowered to me in "Tress" and restrictions were not necessarily obvious. Re: your quotes about healing from Hemalurgy, they seem to be along the lines of "it would depend on many factors". I am not sure why a healing medallion couldn't be similar to a Regrowth fabrial - which, as seen in WoR/OB, not only returned a thoroughly smashed dead person back to life, but also completely healed their shardblade wound - which is a spiritual wound, as far as I understand. Allik said in BoM: "Taught us that the Metalborn were pieces of god, each of them, though we didn't have any of those at first..." So, we don't really know. In particular, in the North nobody except for Terris has ever exhibited Feruchemy, so where did Southern Ferrings come from? Mistings, at least might have been the result of mist-snappings and we know that they tended to occasionally appear naturally too. In any case, Kelsier was the one who molded attitudes towards and among the Metalborn in the South. Eh, how did Kel get himself a new body, do you think? That eye-spike isn't a fashion choice. And it wasn't just Spook figuring it out - according to "The Secret History" he was working under the direction of Kel, who got a lot of privileged information on the matter from his time as a Shard and spying on Ruin. His first instruction to Spook in the end was to gather all old Inquisitor spikes that he could get his hands on. Anyway, Kel came south about 10 years after Catacendre according to BoM chapter 21, so they did have some time to research. We also know that Kel's priesthood in the temple, which seems to have numbered in the hundreds, commited suicide by cold, so his cult in the South was very much into self-sacrifice and hard choices, which fits with convincing dying Metalborn to submit to Hemalurgy as outlined in Spook's book.

A single person can't store 24/7 anyway - but passing a metalmind and means of storing unkeyed attribute in it around would allow for constant storing. So yes, it would be quicker to fill it, not to mention less unpleasant for people involved. Not sure how they would be more of a power-creep than what is already happening and is promised for the future with mechanization of powers, fully powered Elantrians rampaging across the cosmere, etc. They could be limited in interesting ways as well. And magical systems can be subverted from the Intents of Shards that created them. Regrowth can bring a messily dead person back to life, if applied soon enough. It is only if too much time has passed that it becomes notably less potent than internal healing powers. And there might be a middle ground between a person being able to regenerate a spiked-out power and becoming worse than a drab, where with application of enough gold healing, they just become normal, but with Spiritual scars. Like a kidney donation. According to BoM, Metalborn had been unknown in the South prior to Kelsier's arrival there. Where and how they suddenly popped up from - particularly the Ferrings, is unknown. But Kelsier, who was certainly behind the ideas about convincing old and mortally ill Metalborn let themselves be spiked for the good of community in Spook's little black book, and whose stance on Hemalurgy we saw through his thoughts in TLM, was the author of Southern attitudes towards them and their traditions. As such, I expect that SoScad Metalborn consider it their duty and honor to bequeath their abilities to the next generation at the end of their lives. This is likely a closely guarded secret among them. In fact, given the rarity and existential importance of Metalborn in that part of Scadrial, I don't see how it could work otherwise. They can't gamble on the powers they need to produce medallions naturally appearing in sufficient numbers in every generation. Sanderson is pretty unsure whether it is possible without it in the WoB concerning a bunch of Mistings and Ferrings. He is much more definite in the one with a Mistborn and a full Feruchemist. IMHO, jump-starting medallion production and creating initial tools for it in the absence of those, most likely requires Hemalurgy or some incredibly rare materials. Like, if you had a universal metalmind, where anyone can store and which anyone can tap, for instance. But after that initial phase, no further Hemalurgy may be required for continued production.

Yes, but given that everyone in the South needs to use heat medallions on a daily basis in order to function and extreme rarity of Metalborn there, how could there be enough Firesouls to produce requisite metalminds? Kelsier may have brought some spikes with him when he first came, but F-Brass wouldn't have been the most common spike among the Inquisitors either. He couldn't have found more than a handful. But putting harvesting medallions on regular people would have allowed him to quickly scale up production of unkeyed heat metalminds. Allik never claimed that Firemothers/fathers had to be Metalborn, IIRC, just that the Sovereign founded the institution. We don't really know that it is that easy, and there is still the fact that even in the Basin there is less than 1 Ferring per thousand of population according to Khriss. Even if Firesouls are one of the most common varieties, I still don't see how they could each store enough for the continous daily use of thousands . Leave alone in the South, where Ferrings are considerably rarer. Anyway, in my first post I didn't actually get to how I envision the economy. Well, I think that while harvesting medallions are going to make storing more convenient, unkeyed F-gold metalminds are still going to be the most valuable, because it would be very unsafe to store health at anything other than very low ratio if one doesn't want to develop a chronic disease. According to this WoB "strength" of individual Ferrings is expressed in efficiency of their storing: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/467/#e14740 This is how I rationalize Wayne's ease of quickly saving enough health to survive ridiculous amount of damage - that he was an extraordinarily healthy individual, who was also an extraordinarily powerful Ferring. Well, a regular Bloodmaker should be worse at storage and a harvesting medallion worse still. However, multiple persons would be able to work at filling a metalmind by storing around the clock for a few hours each. That could be a fairly widespread method for young people to make some extra money while studying/sleeping, etc. F-Zinc and F-Steel would be the next value tier - their storing would become less onerous once possible while asleep, but still only at a low ratio so as not to disrupt mental/physiological processes . F-Cadmium may not be far behind - it would be more unpleasant to store, though the process could also be used to train endurance and lung capacity. F-Copper might just be the one ability where you won't want to use a harvesting medallion, because storage efficiency likely affects quality of stored memories. So, it would be just Archivist Ferrings storing their identity + memorization time. Frankly, these metalminds should be expensive and of somewhat narrow utility. F-Bendalloy (calories) would have to account for price of food, metal, time spent eating, etc. Travel rations would likely be preferable in most cases. OTOH, F-Bendalloy (hydration) should be much cheaper to fill and much more convenient than the alternatives for journeys, consequently more popular. F-Duralumin (place connection) - obviously useful for travel, but could become pretty cheap to store, once aluminum becomes cheap and with harvesting medallions. Local demand might be limited, but it would become an extremely desirable off-world export. Not sure about F-electrum - storing while asleep may side-step depression and listlessness or it may not. If it doesn't, the metalminds would be have to be quite expensive. Would there be much demand for it in this case? F-Bronze - storing wakefulness doesn't let you rest while you sleep, IIRC, so it has to be worth your while to spend more time in bed. There should be a lot of demand, though. F-Tin (all senses) and F-Pewter would be much easier to store sleeping and could be done at high ratios too, so they should be reasonably common and somewhat affordable. F-Brass - storing would be of benefit in a lot circumstances, so heat metalminds should be widely available. F-Iron would be the cheapest of all because storing weight is so helpful - and mostly of interest only if they develop industrial processes using it. I ommitted F-Chromium and other applications of F-Duralumin, as we don't know enough about them. Anyway, I imagine that people are going to mostly rent or more rarely buy harvesting medallions to make some extra money. Ferrings would be able to natively produce more, but even they might use them for convenience - and of course they'd still need to be able to store Identity if they want to sell. People using these unkeyed metalminds in their own medallions or with their own powers would buy them. Some would be more affordable and widespread than others.

Also a deadly sharpshooter/sniper and somebody who can easily operate in total darkness. Combat potential of Tin Metalborn in the era of firearms tends to be underrated. This combo would also be less susceptible to the usual anti-Tineye countermeasures, as they would intuitively know when to stop burning whilst tapping Fortune. Indeed. Or maybe being very good at finding things?

IIRC nothing in the books suggests that they can't. As long as they can pass around whatever means that lets them store unkeyed attribute, multiple people should be able to fill the same metalmind. In fact, that's pretty much the only way for medallion use to become common, as we have been led to expect will happen in era 3. There is also a possible workaround for the lack of Twinborn compounding if they manage to figure out how to prime harmonium with health. It might be as simple as a Gold misting burning an unkeyed gold metalmind... or not. However, the true revolution will come with something that was hinted to be eventually feasible in the future in TLM - wholly synthetic spikes charged with reprogrammed investiture that wouldn't have to come from people at all. Yes, we already saw that in BoM with translation medallions, which didn't seem to offer any other uses of Connection. This could likely be generalized to all feruchemical abilities, where different applications require storing in different metalminds. You'd need a different medallion for each. But F-Gold usage doesn't appear to have any diffentiation in it, so that may not necessarily be a problem. Not to mention that the WoB question was about the feasibility of a spiked person retaining their power, while also imbuing a spike, not about just physically healing from spiking, but losing the power. Yes, there would be spiritual scars, but the whole thing could work along the same lines as organ donations do iRL. If you donate a kidney, you are not the same afterwards, but people still do it voluntarily. Anyway, I am fairly convinced, given Kelsier's influence and extreme rarity of Metalborn in the South, as well as existential need of the same by society, that they must already employ hemalurgy in the ways proposed in the OP there since Catacendre. The North will likely need to use it to jump-start their own medallion production too. There must be strictest accountability, though, and anybody caught with a spike of unknown provenance should be automatically convicted of murder.

Now, after TLM we just don't know enough to theorise about how the Nicrosil parts of medallions are made and why they only copy some, though not all, feruchemical abilities in Era 2, but not allomancy. However, there are a few interesting hints about their future role: Now, the books text suggests that medallions have limitations that normal feruchemy doesn't - the translation medallion, for instance, didn't offer other applications of Connection, and they also seem to only provide a one-way access - i.e. it very much seemed in BoM that they allowed either storing or tapping of a given feruchemical store, but not both. They do have one big advantage over traditional feruchemy, though, that you don't need to be awake to store (or tap?) - once you start the process it continues going automatically. Which only randomly reading this WoB made me realise, heh. After TLM's revelation that Twinborn of the same metal hemalurgically created post-Catacendre can't compound, I have been vaguely wondering how SoScads, with their few Metalborn, manage to supply themselves with enough unkeyed brass heat metalminds. But of course, the likely solution was right in front of me the whole time - a medallion that stores Identity and a given attribute at the same time! A normal person could put it on when going to bed, say, and have an unkeyed metalmind to use or sell come morning. It would even make storing easier for actual Ferrings in many cases! Not to mention render wide-spread use of medallions and unkeyed metalmind economy possible in Era 3.

Thanks for the exhaustive research! I have completely missed these references - though to be fair, they are very much "blink and you miss it", rather than an organic part of the worldbuilding and narrative. MHO This is where I fundamentally disagree. If nearly everybody else on their side has to be stupid and useless, or just always conveniently absent when things go down, for the heroes to shine, it weakens the story and the characters for me. IMHO, if police/security Metalborn had been present where it made sense and displayed basic competence, but it just wasn't enough for these new challenges, it would have better showcased the skill and heroism of the protagonists than them just always being the only powered non-criminal people on the scene and therefore the only ones capable of dealing with powered opposition by default. This "comic superhero" approach also leads to said challenges being very obviously and artificially constructed around the main characters capabilities. For instance, all adversaries in the Second Era "kinda forgot" that Tin Metalborn and Seekers are superior lookouts and intruder detectors, so that the heroes could sneak around their secret facilities unhindered. Oh and returning to the Nicrobursts, it occurred to me that the pair of Set's emotional allomancers in SoS shouldn't have been able to affect a crowd of thousands. IIRC Breeze needed teams of allomancers working under him for something like that back in Era 1. So, maybe there should have been a Nicroburst sitting with them in that carriage.

Some great ideas here, but I just wanted to point out that Odium's spren and Unmade seem to retain their sapience in the Physical without Nahel bonds. The 3 great spren of Roshar do too, though their intelligence increases when bonded. The situation with Seons and Skaze is similar, IIRC.

Well, I have independantly come to worship at the altar of F-Tin a few years previously, but F-Duralumin and F-Zinc are very strong contenders in my view. I don't include F-Chromium because we have very little idea of how it works and particularly what the consequences of storing look like. We have seen some of what Connection can do, via broadsheets and medallions, but there are also WoBs that manipulating it can extend life better than atium compounding. It may allow for Forging-like effects as well. Whether it is something that a mere Ferring is capable of learning to do remains to be seen, of course, but I could imagine a huge potential for creative uses of F-Duralumin. And storing seems to be easy and even beneficial, if one wants to sneak around. F-Zinc is obviously also great, but storing is slow and onerous. I do think that doing so while engaged in simple, repetitive tasks like cleaning or certain fitness excercises would somewhat alleviate the problem and make them feel less boring, but yea. During trips as a passanger ditto. Intensive storing should also help one fall asleep, IMHO. Speaking of which, storing senses while lying in bed ought to facilitate falling asleep too. I have to reiterate my defense of F-Iron from another thread here too - while not nearly up to the level of these top 3, it still tends to be sadly underrated: There are a lot of cool things that a skilled practitioner could do with it. First of all yes, big jumps and parcours over the rooftops - push off normally and store mass once airborn. Ditto running - you won't be Flash, but if every step becomes, say, 2-3 times longer, the speed will increase accordingly. Ditto bicycles* - via constant mass manipulation riding them could become very speedy, with just normal physical effort. But there is more - if an Iron Ferring wears a wingsuit while 100% storing, they should be able to glide like Batman. They could also use a hang glider to freely fly around, building up speed or height by changing mass as needed. Finally, they can power simple machinery. Let's not forget that storing is both trivial and beneficial to round up the package. Now that I think about it, even using weight medallions, which, I suspect, don't allow tapping, just storing, should already provide many of the benefits. *In fact, Iron Ferrings likely would make much better bicycle messengers than Steelrunners, given the difficulty of storing speed and the mechanical limitations of bicycles.