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Stormlight Three Update #4 ()
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mcase19

Could someone Feruchemically storing connection in an Aonic nation become an Elantrian?

Brandon Sanderson

It's a little tougher than that, but it would be a start. And for some people, it would be enough.

yahasgaruna

Is it tougher because of some inherent difficultly with the selection process of Elantrians? Or because of something to do with using connection?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm getting a few too many 17th Shard style questions on the thread. I'm going to start curtailing them, as waking up to an hour' or two's worth of detailed cosmere questions each day is going to seriously impact my ability to actually write. So I'm going to liberally apply RAFO from here out.

So RAFO. :)

Bands of Mourning release party ()
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Questioner

If you were a Twinborn with both steel, would you be able to move faster than people could use atium to see what you were going to do?

Brandon Sanderson

So you couldn't move faster than their atium, but you could move potentially faster than their mind's ability to process what they're seeing. You might be able to-- but the atium does lend a certain ability of natural reaction, but you are still limited by your muscles, and things like that. So I think you could probably beat atium that way. That would be a valid way.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
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Phantine

Irich had that degenerative disease. If the Set still had Miles available, could he have cured Irich's disease by giving him Compounded health with a primer cube?

Brandon Sanderson

This requires more steps than it would appear, but this is the sort of thing people will trying very hard to figure out in coming novels.

General Reddit 2016 ()
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Brandon Sanderson

The Lord Ruler died because he had filled his bracers with a large amount of youthfulness, and had to keep drawing it out to stay young--as his soul knew how hold it was, and his body kept trying to 'bounce back' to its perceived age. Compounding is how he gained enough extra youthfulness to pull this off.

Phantine

Actually, I have a question about the 'bouncing-back'.

Is the 'bounce back force' actually what's stored in a metalmind?

For instance, when storing atium a feruchemist ruins his body to make himself old, and then his metalmind 'catches' the force the soul puts out as it tries to restore his true, younger age?

So you create metalminds by seesawing a ruining and a preserving impulse together.

Brandon Sanderson

The bounce back is caused by the relationship between the three realms of the cosmere. What you're saying isn't terribly far off, but at the same time, ignores some underpinning fundamentals of how it all works.

In the cosmere, your soul is basically an idealized version of yourself--and is a constant force pushing your body to match it. Your perceptions are the filter through which this happens, however, and many of the magics can facilitate in interesting ways.

Worldbuilders AMA ()
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Phantine

So... CS question here, I'm seeing identity as essentially a 'encryption' on the metalmind - the spike has the decryption key to existing metalminds, but when you encrypt a new one you use your personal encryption key with the spike's hardware, so you still have compounding access to the metalminds even after removing the spike.

Is it possible for there to be a 'key collision' with Identity? Two people just randomly end up making compatible metalminds, because the pieces of their Identities that the magic looks like happen to be the same.

Brandon Sanderson

This would be about as likely as two unrelated people ending up with the exact same genetic sequence.

But, so far as I understand, that WOULD be possible.

Lucadaw

So identical twins could share metalminds ?

Brandon Sanderson

:) RAFO.

JordanCon 2014 ()
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Trae Cooper (paraphrased)

If a Feruchemist using an aluminum metalmind stored their Identity to zero, then filled a coppermind with all of their knowledge, would another Feruchemist with an identity set to zero be able to access the first Feruchemist's coppermind?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I'm not going to tell you a definite yes or no, this is something that needs to be saved for future books, but you are thinking along the correct lines about how Identity works regarding Feruchemists.

JordanCon 2018 ()
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Argent

Do Feruchemical metalminds experience physical change such as wear and tear, due to just being used as Feruchemical metalminds

Brandon Sanderson

Never thought of it.

Argent

Do you want to make up canon?

Brandon Sanderson

Sure...

Argent

Half-canon?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's say half-canon. Wear and tear being used as metalminds, not counting clasping them on and things like that. Simply tapping or taking out? I would say no, but I would really have to think about that. Are we losing any particles to the transfer, the change? I don't think you are, but I don't know. I'd have to really dig into the physics of that. I had not even considered of that. There are ramifications of things-- So I'm going to say no, half-canon.

LTUE 2020 ()
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Questioner

As far as the Lord Ruler goes, how did he use the Twinborn thing? Feruchemy and Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

What he had to figure out how to do is: Allomancy is powered by Spiritual power directly from the Shard of Adonalsium. Whereas Feruchemy is powered by your own Investiture and effort being transferred into the thing. What he needed to do was figure out a way to power Feruchemy with Allomantic power, right? You could have done the same thing by fueling it with the Dor, or with Stormlight, or another external. But he only had access to three magics. So what he had to do was figure out that.

So what he's doing is, he's basically taking metals, (since he's a Feruchemist and an allomancers), and he is burning metals that he has Invested himself, but then using... basically, switching it so he gets a burst of Allomantic power that is charged with a Feruchemical attribute. So it's powering Feruchemy with Allomancy by burning the metal that he himself has Invested.

Questioner

So he was essentially putting stuff into the metal?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, priming the pump. He puts it in with Feruchemy. Then he burns it with Allomancy. But that fuels Feruchemy with Allomancy, which allows him to draw on the powers of the Shards, rather than himself. So it's not really a perpetual motion machine, because he's drawing the power from someone else. But it's external, which allows him to break the rules of Feruchemy.

The big question I have is: that works in the book, because you can dig into the technicalities of the book. But that's not gonna work in the movie, right? That explanation right there, that's so many levels over the heads of the audience. So I have to figure out a way to not break the cosmere magic, but make it simpler to understand in the movie. Which is the big headache in writing the screenplay. That's probably the biggest challenge in the screenplay is to figure out how to make that all work.

Alloy of Law Milton Keynes signing ()
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Questioner (paraphrased)

How does compounding work in Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I can explain this better in person because I know things that the characters in the book don’t. So, they haven’t worked a lot of this out. All the magic systems in my work are linked because the books all take place in the same universe. In Elantris, magic works by drawing symbols in the air. What actually happens is that when they draw a symbol, energy passes through it from another place (which is my get-out for the laws of thermodynamics) and the effect of that energy is moderated by the symbol. In one case it may become light, in another it may become fire. In Mistborn, the metals have a similar effect. The magic is not coming from the metal (even if some characters think it is). It is being drawn from the same place and moderated by the metal.

In the case of Feruchemy, no energy is being drawn from this other place. So, you spend a week sick and store up the ability to heal. It’s a balanced system, basically obeying the laws of thermodynamics. So, while it’s not real, it’s still rational.

In compounding, when you have the power of both Allomancy and Feruchemy, you draw power from the other place through the metal and it recognizes the power that is already stored—"Oh, this is healing, I know how to do that”—and so you get the power of Feruchemy but boosted by energy from the other place. This is how the Lord Ruler achieved immortality.

Open The Fridge Interview ()
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Lyndsey Luther

Ok, last question. It was really difficult coming up with three questions that haven’t been asked already...

Brandon Sanderson

OK... you’re not going to ask me the “what would you ask me” question?

Lyndsey Luther

Not quite...

Brandon Sanderson

OK good, because I hate that one! (laughs)

Lyndsey Luther

My question is if there’s anything that you’ve never been asked that you would like to talk about?

Brandon Sanderson

Oooooh, ok. Hm. That one is so hard! Every time people ask me something like this... What have I never been asked that people should be asking, is basically what the question is? Something that the fans have just missed... They pick up on so much, that it’s hard... I do wonder if, you know… all the magic systems [in my books] are connected and work on some basic fundamental principles, and a lot of people haven’t been asking questions about this. One thing I did get a question on today, and I’ll just talk about this one... they didn’t ask the right question, but I nudged them the right way, is understanding that tie between AonDor [the magic system from Elantris] and Allomancy [Mistborn’s magic system].

People ask about getting the power from metals and things, but that’s not actually how it works. The power’s not coming from metal. I talked a little about this before, but you are drawing power from some source, and the metal is actually just a gateway. It’s actually the molecular structure of the metal… what’s going on there, the pattern, the resonance of that metal works in the same way as an Aon does in Elantris. It filters the power. So it is just a sign of “this is what power this energy is going to be shaped into and give you.” When you understand that, Compounding [in Alloy of Law] makes much more sense.

Compounding is where you are able to kind of draw in more power than you should with Feruchemy. What’s going on there is you’re actually charging a piece of metal, and then you are burning that metal as a Feruchemical charge. What is happening is that the Feruchemical charge overwrites the Allomantic charge, and so you actually fuel Feruchemy with Allomancy, is what you are doing. Then if you just get out another piece of metal and store it in, since you’re not drawing the power from yourself, you’re cheating the system, you’re short-circuiting the system a little bit. So you can actually use the power that usually fuels Allomancy, to fuel Feruchemy, which you can then store in a metalmind, and basically build up these huge reservoirs of it. So what’s going on there is… imagine there’s like, an imprint, a wavelength, so to speak. A beat for an Allomantic thing, that when you burn a metal, it says “ok, this is what power we give.” When it’s got that charge, it changes that beat and says, “now we get this power.” And you access a set of Feruchemical power. That’s why Compounding is so powerful.

General Twitter 2019 ()
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Ben Gowens

In terms of Feruchemy, wouldn't storing Investiture reduces one's ability to store Investiture? Since Feruchemy is a type of Investiture, wouldn't storing that Investiture reduce one's ability to use Feruchemy? It's basically using Investiture to store said Investiture.

And if so, how exactly can a Feruchemist store Investiture? Wouldn't storing Investiture create a kind of paradox?

Brandon Sanderson

I promise to explain eventually. This one is meant to be a little confusing.

General Reddit 2016 ()
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UndertakerSheep

If I remember correctly, Allomancy is from Preservation, Hemalurgy is from Ruin and Feruchemy is from both Preservation and Ruin.

legobmw99

This is correct. It isn't caused by a shard, but the interaction of two opposing shards

Invisible_Walrus

Would something like that happen between honor and odium?

legobmw99

I just read WoK the other day, I have yet to start in on WoR. That said, my speculation is possibly, but I don't think so. It sounds kind of like Odium isn't from Roshar. Maybe I'm wrong there, but I got that impression. That would mean his form of investiture is somewhere else.

Also, I think that the reason Preservation and Ruin have Feruchemy is also that they worked together to create. There has to be some reason that they interacted while others didn't, and I would guess it is probably their working together

Edit: We could summon [Brandon] but I am almost positive this would get RAFO'd

Brandon Sanderson

...RAFO.

West Jordan signing ()
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Questioner

In the prologue in The Alloy of Law, it talks about how the guy actually spikes people to the wall. Is there going to be Hemalurgy involved?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO. Hey, RAFOs! I will say, in Alloy of Law time, Hemalurgy is not well-known and that's not been spread around, and Feruchemy as an art moved like Allomancy did in that you can have just one of the powers. And we decided... Chemings? What did we decide, Peter? Oh, Ferrings. We decided Ferirngs. We couldn't decide between the two of those. It's in the book somewhere.  But anyway, you can have one Allomantic and one Feruchemical. But not a lot of Mistborn and not a lot of full Feruchemists anymore.

Questioner

Do you explain how the Feruchemists came back, because at the end there were a lot of eunuchs and...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, well, that's one of the reasons why Feruchemy has been split because it's very diluted now. The Terris people did survive because they made it. And so, the genetic code is there.

Questioner

And so, every once in a while, hereditarily, the gene will come up.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. But that's why there aren't very many full-blooded Feruchemists anymore. A thousand years of the Lord Ruler trying to breed it out of the population followed by a cataclysm that destroyed most of the population of the world did them in, yeah.

The Hero of Ages Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Magic System Focus

I've mentioned before that, in my mind, each of the three books has a focus on one of the three magic systems. Book one introduced Allomancy. And in book two, Sazed became a viewpoint character, and his story is very important to that book. Through him, we see Feruchemy work.

We will, of course, see lots more Feruchemy and Allomancy in this book. However, we also add Marsh to introduce us to Hemalurgy. The secrets behind how this magic system works are a major focus of the plot of this volume, as they explain to us how Ruin and Preservation operate.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide ()
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Kaimipono

Allomancy is fueled by Preservation's body? How exactly does that work? And how does that interact with Atium—it's fueled by both gods' bodies?

Brandon Sanderson

The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

Condensed 'essence' of these godly powers can act as super-fuel for Allomancy, Feruchemy, or really any of the powers. The form of that super fuel is important. In liquid form it's most potent, in gas form it's able to fuel Allomancy as if working as a metal. In physical form it is rigid and does one specific thing. In the case of atium, it allows sight into the future. In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.)

So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she'd doing just that—using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself—to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
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Shadowglass0

If someone used Hemalurgy to give Lift from Words of Radiance the ability to use Bendalloy Feruchemy, could she convert the nutrition she gets out of Feruchemy into stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

Theoretically possible, I suppose.

The Hero of Ages Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Forty-Nine - Part One

Sazed's Memorization Skills

Okay, long chapter here. I'll bet I have to split this annotation in two. But, let's launch into it. First off, you should know that Sazed tends to gloss over just how hard he had to work to memorize those copperminds of his in the first place. Keepers like him go through intense memorization training early in their lives, learning how to build near-photographic memories even before they use their metalminds. The goal of this, of course, is to train the mind to hold a perfect image of what it has read so that knowledge can be kept as pristine as possible before being shoved into the coppermind.

Generally, a Keeper can keep the entire contents of several books memorized in their head even without use of Feruchemy. Like a Muslim who memorizes the Koran, Sazed could take a book and memorize it word for word, then repeat it all back to you. He's trained himself in this skill for so long, however, that it seems mundane to him. Beyond that, the application of Feruchemy changes his abilities—and how he uses them—somewhat.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
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BenFoley

You have stated in your blog that Mistborn had three magic systems (Allomancy, Feruchemy and Hemalurgy) and also that The Way of Kings will have upwards of 20. For comparison, how many magic systems would you say the Wheel of Time series has? Two (One Power and the True Power)? How do you classify other abilities (not necessarily related to the One Power or True Power) such as Dreamwalking, viewing the Pattern, Wolfbrother-hoodness, and changing 'luck' or chance? Would you classify these abilities as a magic system in and of themselves? Has your chance to see the background material Robert Jordan left changed how you view these abilities?

Brandon Sanderson

This kind of gets sticky, as it's all up to semantics. Really, you could say that Mistborn had a different magic system for each type of Misting. But at the same time, you could argue that something like X-Men—with huge numbers of powers—all falls under the same blanked 'magic system.' And take Hemalurgy in Mistborn 3—is it a new magic system, or just a reinterpretation of Allomancy and Feruchemy?

So what do I mean by twenty or thirty magic systems in Kings? Hard to say, as I don't want to give spoilers. I have groupings of abilities that have to deal with a certain theme. Transformation, Travel, Pressure and Gravity, that sort of thing. By one way of counting, there are thirty of these—though by another way of grouping them together, there are closer to ten.

Anyway, I'd say that the Wheel of Time has a fair number of Magic systems. The biggest one would be the One Power/True Power, which is more of a blanket "Large" magic system kind of like Allomancy being a blanket for sixteen powers—only the WoT magic system is far larger. I'd count what Perrin/Egwene do in Tel'aran'rhiod as a different magic system. What Mat does as something else, the Talents one can have with the Power something else. Though I'd group all of the Foretelling/Viewing powers into one.

Sounds like a topic for a paper, actually. Any of you academics out there feel like writing one?

Let's just say that The Wheel of Time has a smaller number of larger magic systems, and I tend to use a larger number of smaller magic systems. Confusing enough? ;)

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide ()
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Czanos

Preservation can fuel Allomancy, (minus atium.) but can Ruin fuel Hemalurgy? (Or atium?) And could Sazed fuel all three Metallic Arts?

Brandon Sanderson

Both gods could, if they wanted, fuel all of the Metallic Arts. Preservation is stronger at fueling Allomancy, Ruin stronger at fueling Allomancy or Feruchemy when it has been given via a spike. Both are balanced when it comes to Feruchemy. But this rarely comes up in the books, as it required expending power in a way that the gods were hesitant to do.

The Hero of Ages Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

The Blessing of Stability

It's mentioned in this chapter, and in the preceding chapter's epigraph, where the epigraph author notes that it is "rarely used." There's a simple, rational reason why you never see this one getting used in the book.

I added the Blessing of Stability after the fact.

You see, I realized that I needed at least one more Blessing to fit with what I'd built for Hemalurgy. I needed another mental power to complete the set of four. Two are the basic physical powers from Allomancy and Feruchemy: strength and fortitude from one, increased power of the senses in another. However, for Allomancy and Feruchemy, the mental powers deviate from one another. So I wanted the same thing to happen here. Hence the Blessing of Presence—which makes the mind more stable.

But after writing the book, I realized I needed a forth. The Blessing of Stability was born, and I wrote it in in a few places just to make token note of it. I like the concept for the power—that of making one emotionally stable—and am kind of glad I don't show anyone using it. I can show it off better in a later book.

Mistborn: The Final Empire Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Epilogue - Part Two

The discussion of Feruchemy and Allomancy working together is one of the most complicated magical explanations I've ever done, and I hope it works. One of the fun things about my books are the magic, and it's really tough to walk the line between making magic that has technically interesting aspects without making it either a) too complicated or b) feel like I'm just making it up as I go along.

I was trying to get across here an unexpected consequence of mixing the two magics. Like how certain chemicals react oddly when mixed, or even like two computer programs running on the same computer can cause odd reactions, letting someone use Feruchemy and Allomancy together makes for some very strange mixtures of the powers. (I intend to get into this later.)

Of course, what this also does is un-deify the Lord Ruler somewhat, which is intentional. I don't want it to undermine the accomplishment the characters have made–what they did was difficult and they have achieved a great victory. However, what I'm trying to give in this book–however–is a sense of foreboding.

Arcanum Unbounded release party ()
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Questioner

In the Mistborn books, there's no one who can do chromium Feruchemy. If there was someone who had both the Feruchemy and the Allomancy related to chromium, they could create infinite luck. So doesn't that mean they could just do whatever they wanted?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, we will deal with how exactly Fortune works in the cosmere at a later date. There's a reason I haven't shown somebody with it yet, because I'm saving that for later on. Let's just say that even the Terris people don't quite understand it, even during Era 2.

General Reddit 2022 ()
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Isphus

Gentlemen, i have gamed the system. [Diagram of infinite energy being generated by Terrisman storing weight on a Ferris Wheel.]

Brandon Sanderson

I realize this is mostly for fun, but I will say you have discovered the reason why weight manipulation feruchemy has to play by slightly different rules from most other parts of feruchemy, and why it fascinates Khriss so much. (To the point of going in person to interrogate someone on the subject, something she rarely does.)

Prague Signing ()
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Oversleep

So you have said previously that you could categorize metals in Feruchemy like 8 Physical, 4 Cognitive, and 4 Spiritual. But the Hemalurgy chart says they are Hybrid <Feruchemy> metals so...

Brandon Sanderson

So they are what?

Oversleep

The Hybrid metals.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, remember that all of these categorizations are by in-world philosophers doing their best to come up so you can decide how you want to categorize them, alright.

TWG Posts ()
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Arabas

The question is about the Lord Ruler's death.  He is basically killed because Vin was able to remove his Feruchemy storage bracelets thus depriving him of his stored youth and strength correct?  Once he didn't have access to these she could simply kill him like a normal man.Now on page 627 about the 3rd paragraph down the Lord Ruler states " I've survived burning and beheadings.  I've been stabbed and sliced, crushed and dismembered." (I also think this is also reference somewhere else in the book that I could not locate)If all it took to drain the Lord Ruler of his power was to remove access to his Feruchemy items wouldn't he have died if he was dismembered?  Remove the storage devices from the trunk of the body and he would die?

Peter Ahlstrom

I asked Brandon about this once, and I'm pretty sure he said the beheading survival part was a lie/exaggeration. I'd have to go back and check my notes.

The Lord Ruler would have reason to want people to believe he had survived beheadings and being burned to ash.

Idaho Falls signing ()
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Questioner

Did Harmony change the laws of Feruchemy and Allomancy just so that people wouldn't want to do Hemalurgy by making it possible to get those powers otherwise, or was that already...

Brandon Sanderson

No, that wasn't the purpose. It was already built in.

I made the call. I didn't built that Sazed did it, but it's a little bit of a retcon, breaking Feruchemy into its separate powers. I felt that would just be a more interesting narrative.

So, the behind-the-scenes answer is, I just broke those apart. My rationale for myself in-world was that now that the bloodlines were spreading out more, this was a natural effect of the bloodlines mixing.

Questioner

Makes sense. Just Sazed didn't want people looking at Hemalurgy so I figured maybe he retconned it a little bit just so [you?] wouldn't.

Brandon Sanderson

That isn't the answer I came up with. But it sounds rational. I want to be careful not to have too much Sazed retconning going on. But at the same time, it is kind of a retcon, so maybe I should have.

Starsight Release Party ()
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Questioner

If a Mistborn were to burn a metal that's been Forged by a Soulstamp, is there a different effect from another, or?

Brandon Sanderson

So they Forged it from one metal into another metal?

Questioner

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

So once they started to burn it, it would break the Forgery and it would turn back into its original metal. So you'd have just the briefest moment of getting what it said it was and then it would go back to the other and then if you were a Misting of the wrong type, you would get no more from it.

Questioner

What about Feruchemy or Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

So Feruchemy and Hemalurgy. You would have a lot of trouble Investing it because it's already Invested. So you would run into troubles right away trying to Invest it, because it's already got all the Investiture messing with it. You could theoretically make it happen, but it would take enough work and conniving that it just wouldn't be worth it.

Dragonsteel 2023 ()
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Questioner

In a battle versus a Feruchemist and a Windrunner, if the Feruchemist were lashed directly upward, would increasing his weight cancel that lashing out?

Brandon Sanderson

The way that lashings work are by rewriting your body's interaction with gravity. That's very weird. It's very, very weird. The way that Feruchemy works, it is kind of the same way. I play loose and free with this one (this is the one that drives everybody else mad). It is actually changing, so would it... what would it do?

So, part of me wants to say you would fall upward faster. But that's not how gravity works, so that wouldn't happen. But would it counteract the lashing? I think that the lashing would incorporate it, and nothing would change. That is my best guess, but your lashing, then, probably runs out faster. That's my off-the-cuff answer; I'd have to really look at the mechanics of that. But you can take that for now. I'll have to consult with the arcanists to make sure I'm not going crazy on that.

Shadows of Self Lansing signing ()
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Questioner

There is a Mistborn pen & paper RPG, Dungeons & Dragons style RPG does it give more information on the world?

Brandon Sanderson

It does.

Though I oversaw that I let them go-- They wanted to do more than I felt comfortable doing myself for my timing, so I let them go pretty crazy. So I say that it is canon until I contradict it. And some of it I will end up contradicting because they needed to be able to make the game the best way they could and I didn’t feel comfortable telling them all the stuff that was coming up because I didn’t want that to sneak into there.

For those who don’t know the Mistborn books, I’m going to do across the period of many centuries of writing—no, of in-world time.

*laughter*

The initial pitch to my editor was past, present, future. So the Mistborn books, we still haven’t hit present yet. We will eventually hit-- Present for these is going to be 1980’s level spy thriller, Tom Clancy-esque Mistborn with Allomancy. Yeah, it’s going to be really cool. The main character, she’s a code monkey who gets involved in all of this. It is really cool. And then we are going to go forward from there to the point where we get to a space opera and epic-- science-fiction space opera where Allomancy and Feruchemy have become the means by which space travel is possible. So that’s coming [...] I’m six books into what's going to be many, many. So just anticipate that with excitement.

Arcanum Unbounded Seattle signing ()
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Brandon Sanderson

So one of the things people have been asking about a lot the nature of Identity and its uses for accessing other people's metalminds, and things like this right. And I hedged a little bit when somebody asked me... *inaudible*...send people into spirals of confusion, so I'm gonna clarify it for now. So, someone comes in and says, we need a blank metalmind, anybody can use that. I'm like, yes but, the reason that it's a hedge is that you need to actually be a feruchemist to access it, right, you can't just hold the blank metalmind not being a feruchemist, even though it's somebody else's investiture that's been blanked, right. So people keep kind of missing this thing. I'm hedging in the sort of, you don't quite have it, I've kind of dodged it, but I worry that it's just going to be confusing.

So the issue is, you need two things from one of these. You need something that makes you a feruchemist, and then you need a metalmind that somebody else has filled with blank investiture, ok. Now if you can get pure investiture, that can be used by anybody, regardless, ok, you need it in pure form though. But, so there are some other tricks with this as well that don't make it...so anyway, you've got a couple of things that can go on. So you've got a blank metalmind, right, with nothing. You need either investiture, to be able...like you need to be the right type. There are ways to access that if you are completely blank also, if you were a blank slate, but that is still...kind of hard. It's even harder if you are blank, and the metalmind is not blank, but that's not what they're doing in Mistborn right now. You are tapping investiture, gaining the ability of feruchemy and then you are drawing out a blank metalmind, ok. That's the one you need to be...and everything else I'm hedging on intentionally, and I'm worried I hedged in a way that made it sound confusing, ok. So you know now what they're doing. You know that there are other things possible. But I don't want you to think that you have the explanations for how all those things happen, ok.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
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mooglefrooglian

You've said previously that the molecular structure of metals serve to act sort of like the Aons in AonDor. Why, then, can mists power Allomancy? Shouldn't the metals themselves be the things causing the powers? And if metals don't cause the effect, how can a non-Feruchemist burn a metalmind that has been 'unlocked' through identity tricks and get a boost of an attribute without Feruchemist sDNA?

Brandon Sanderson

I was trying to figure out how to answer this, and then I realized while driving to get a hair cut that you were regarding this wrong in a fundamental way. Remember, the source of power for Allomancy is EXTERNAL while the source for Feruchemy is INTERNAL. This is a fundamental difference discussed in the series.

When you burn metals, you're drawing power from another place. When you tap a metalmind, you are drawing power that the person has created--a battery developed by themselves, so to speak.

So I think that's going to answer the source of your confusion.

Mistborn: The Final Empire Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Ten - Part Two

We've now seen Sazed preach a couple of religions to members of the crew. You may be interested in my process of coming up with his character.

It actually began when I was watching the movie The Mummy. Yes, I know. Sometimes it's embarrassing where we come up with ideas. However, my inspiration for Sazed was the moment when the oily little thief character gets confronted by the mummy, and pulls out a whole pile of holy symbols. He goes through each one, praying to each god, looking for one that would help him.

I began to wonder what it would be like to have a kind of missionary who preached a hundred different religions. A man who, instead of advancing his own beliefs, tried to match a set of beliefs to the person–kind of like a tailor looking to fit a man with the prefect and most comfortable hat.

That's where the inspiration for the entire sect of Keepers began. Soon, I had the idea that the Lord Ruler would have squished all the religions in the Final Empire, and I thought of a sect of mystics who tried to collect and preserve all of these religions. I put the two ideas together, and suddenly I had Sazed's power. (I then stole a magic system from Final Empire Prime, which I'll talk about later, and made it work in this world. Feruchemy was born.)

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide ()
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Czanos

Does every metal have a Feruchemical and Hemalurgic property? If not, are there metals which have Feruchemical or Hemalurgic properties which do not have Allomantic ones?

Brandon Sanderson

Every metal has a Feruchemical, an Allomantic, and a Hemalurgic property. The godly metals each also do something else. There are several interesting Feruchemical powers yet to be discovered and revealed in the next series. Feruchemy is less widely understood because there were so few practitioners in the modern era, and a lot of the time they were too afraid of capture to really study and use their powers.

Calamity Seattle signing ()
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Questioner

When you are burning a Compounded metal are you getting the metal’s effect and the stored power? Can you explain, I’m unclear on the Compounding.

Brandon Sanderson

Compounding is a way to hack the magic system so you can get a Feruchemical attribute out of-- basically powering Feruchemy with Allomancy.  If that makes sense.

Questioner

So you’re not actually burning the metalmind?

Brandon Sanderson

Kind of? There’s a big explanation on Reddit, if you send me an email I can link you to it, that steps you through exactly, easier than explaining it here