Questioner
Will we ever see more beads of lerasium?
Brandon Sanderson
That's a RAFO. Definitely a RAFO. It's-- It would require some... *sighs*
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Will we ever see more beads of lerasium?
That's a RAFO. Definitely a RAFO. It's-- It would require some... *sighs*
First of all, Lord Ruler had his Lerasium beads. Did he use them for feruchemy?
The Lord Ruler, that's an excellent question, I'm not answer that one.
Will you answer if Hoid used it for Feruchemy?
His bead, he originally got it because he wanted to become an Allomancer.
So here's my last question. If there ARE people on the other side of the world, did Vin kill them all by placing the sun on their side, or do they have they're own Ruin/Preservation battle going on over there as well? Do they also have allomancy feruchemy and hemalurgy?
No, they're not dead. Yes, Rashek was aware of them. In fact, he placed them there as a reserve. I knew he wanted a 'control' group of people in case his changes to genetics ended with the race being in serious trouble. All I'll say is that he found a way other than changing them genetically to help them survive in the world he created. And since they were created by Ruin and Preservation, they have the seeds of the Three Metallic Arts in them—though without anyone among them having burned Lerasium, Allomancers would have been very rare in their population and full Mistborn unheard of.
Lerasium overwrites Spiritual DNA. It can do some interesting things, and can overwrite your Spiritual DNA in different ways if you do it right. If a Surgebinder ate lerasium, he would become an Allomancer, but Brandon implied other things could be done.
When will we find out about the other effect of burning lerasium?
Ummm, you-- I think it-- Ehhh, maybe eventually. I don't know. Not as relevant as it once was.
Is Hoid using the Lerasium as a metalmind.
That's a read and find out, but I'll give you a card!
We know that Hoid has a bead of lerasium. Does he have any atium?
He has access to atium, yes.
Is there a reason why Rashek left a nugget of Lerasium at the Well of Ascension?
He left several. It was, in his opinion, one of the best kept secrets and best protected locations in his empire.
Were there originally 16 of them?
An excellent guess.
If there's a Forger like Shai who plausibly had an opportunity to ingest lerasium and become Mistborn, but she passed it up, could she create a stamp that makes her temporarily a Mistborn?
She would have to have access to enough Investiture to make that happen. The stamp saying, "Hey, I'm a Mistborn!" doesn't actually give her the Investiture to do that. She could rewrite her past so that she took that bead. She would not actually be able to use the power, until she got an infusion of Investiture, which could be done with a stamp in the right manner, but most of the time you're gonna have to have some external source. Basically you're gonna have to take a hit of Investiture, a large amount of it, and then use the stamp, and then it will feed on that to change you into basically any of the other magics.
Stormlight?
If you could get a hit of Stormlight, that'd work. The problem is, Stormlight's not easy to get off of Roshar, and it still is technically keyed. You could get it a lot more easily-- Stormlight would work fairly well, but what you really want is some pure, unkeyed Dor. That stuff, you could do all kinds of things with. But, you know, it's kinda dangerous. But that's the stuff you're gonna want, or something like unto it.
How many shards has Hoid received powers from, whether taken, stolen, given, etc?
Well, he has a bead of lerasium.
So, in Allomancy, most of the metals are in pairs, they're equal and opposite, pushing and pulling, Rioting, Soothing, that kind of thing. The god metals have always-- lerasium and atium, have always struck me as kind of unbalanced in a way. Like, lerasium gives you the power to use all these metals, plus atium being one of them. Is there a reason for that?
Yes, there is, and it kinda has to do with Snapping and some of the fundamental rules of the Mistborn world and the fact that people have Preservation and Ruin inside of them and all these sorts of things. So, the answer is yes.
Partially, narratively, I built that in partially just 'cause I wanted atium to seem odd in the placement, right, when people got to it it's like "What? Why is this one-- This one doesn't match the others. This doesn't really work." When I was building Mistborn, one of the big things I wanted was this idea of a periodic table that was, kind of a flawed construct, that, as you read the books, you came to understand better and better. And that was something I executed-- I don't think I executed that 100% right, but I'm pleased with the general concept and how it plays out. And so I wanted atium to stick out like a sore thumb.
The other thing is, I knew I needed some good foreshadowing for Fortune, for people being able to kinda see the future or versions of the future, for the whole cosmere to work. And, so, I built in atium specifically to do those things. And I built in lerasium to have, kind of, the ultimate sort of benevolent endowment sort of thing. (Not Endowment the Shard, you know what I mean.) But I also wanted to show these two magics were intrinsically tied together on Scadrial because the way that humankind was created. We're getting into some deep stuff, I'll just leave it there. But that was what was going through my mind as I was building those things all out.
Why can lerasium be burned by anyone in the cosmere, while atium is restricted to a small portion of the population of one planet?
RAFO.
What would happen to someone who burned an alloy of Lerasium and lead? Would they a) gain Mistborn powers and a splitting headache from trying to burn lead, b) gain Mistborn powers and no splitting headache, c) just get the splitting headache, d) gain the ability to burn lead without a splitting headache, or e) die of lead poisoning?
This is a RAFO, not because I want to imply that lead has some big secret to it, but because I don't want to dig into the mechanics of Lerasium right now--and I don't want to kick off more questions like this at the moment.
If you were to make an alloy of atium and lerasium, what would happen.
You have... and a lot of people have theorized it, I haven't confirmed one hundred per cent yet. You have probably seen one already. You have probably seen it. People think you have seen it already.
I've got a list of various Cosmere bits of metal and I was wondering if you would rank them from like one to ten or just easy to difficult on how hard it would be to steelpush on them. So with one being just a regular coin, ten being like when the Lord Ruler was moving bits of glass on the floor, so like metal inside a person's body.
It depends on how strong the Investiture in them is.
Is that gonna be the answer for all of these?
Probably!
How about a spike charged with Hemalurgy?
A spike charged with Hemalurgy... that depends on...
Not in a person.
Depends on how strong, yeah, a spike is moderately, (in the realm of these kinds of things) moderately easy to push on because a spike does not rip off very much Investiture. Only enough to short circuit the soul, and less it over time. I would put that at the bottom, with the top being very hard, to be one of the easier things.
How about a metalmind that is full?
That is full? That is going to be middle of the realm of the, yeah. Generally easier than, for instance, a Shardblade which is going to be very hard.
A Shardblade is [inaudible] actually metal? [metal]-ish?
Ish. Is Lerasium a metal? Yeah.
So that'd be the same for Shardplate too?
Shardplate and Blade are very hard. Blade is probably gonna be a little harder.
A Half-shard?
A Half-shard shield? That's gonna be moderate.
Nightblood? I imagine that being hard.
Hard, of all the things you've listed, that is going to be the hardest. Far beyond even a Sharblade.
Far beyond metal inside a person?
Uh, yes. Depending on how invested the person is.
If somebody was invested as much as Nightblood?
Yes, for instance the God King, right. At the end with all those Breaths. Pushing something inside of him, getting through all of that? Gonna be real hard. Average person on Scadrial? You've seen how hard that is. A drab? Much easier.
That was my next one, or no, sorry not a drab. A lifeless?
A Lifeless, yeah. Even... yeah. Lifeless are kind of weird because they've had their soul leave but then they've had a replacement stuck in in the form of Breath which leaves them in a very weird position compared to a drab which has had part of their Investiture ripped away but a majority remains, so, anyways. I'm going to give you one more. Pick your favorite.
A soulstamped piece of metal?
A soulstamped piece of metal is going to be on the lower, easier side. Not a lot of Investiture going on in a soulstamp.
Is the liquid in the Well of Ascension Invested mercury? What is the chemical composition of lerasium + atium?
No.
RAFO!
If a lerasium spike is used to steal a trait--
You're straying way into RAFO territory here.
Will the recipient of the spike gain anything other than the ability stolen?
I'm not going anywhere near this one. This one’s a RAFO.
Can a kandra burn things if they-- could they burn lerasium--and if they did would they be able to burn other things?
Yes that is possible. It is even plausible that an kandra could gain other powers, they just don't know how to do it.
Could a person Soulcast more atium and lerasium if they had a bead?
No. Investiture messes things like that up.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Preservation's Power
All right, so maybe I lied about there only being three magic systems in this book. It comes down to how you term the powers of Preservation and Ruin, who kind of blanket the entire system. There are a lot of things going on here, and—well, the truth is I don't want to mention all of them, for fear of spoiling future books. However, I'll give you a few rules to apply.
First, to these forces, energy and mass are the same thing. So, their power can take physical shape—as Preservation's did in the bead of metal Elend ate. Second, there is a bit of Preservation inside of all the people—and it's this that allows the people to perform Allomancy. It needs to be awakened and stirred to be of use, but when it is, a proper metal can draw forth more of Preservation's power. It's like the metal attunes the bit within the person, allowing it to act as a catalyst to grab more power.
Allomancy is not fueled by metal; it is fueled by Preservation. The metal is the means by which a person can access that fuel, however. If there were another way to access it, then the metal wouldn't be needed.
Preservation's touch on people differs. Some have more, some have less. This doesn't make them better or worse people—indeed, some most touched by Preservation have been among the worst people in the world. As Ruin later points out, there is a difference between being evil and being destructive.
Regardless, if a person can get more Preservation into them, they become better Allomancers. Hence Elend becoming a Mistborn. Like all people, he had the potential within him—it was just too small of a potential to be awakened through normal means. That little jolt of Preservation's body, however, expanded and awakened his Allomancy.
As a tidbit, that was a side effect of what that bead of metal did. It wasn't the main purpose of the bead, and if another Allomancer were to burn it, it would do something else.
Could you become a double misting if you took two lerasium/metal alloy beads (I think the example was iron and steel) at the same time?
Yes.
What happens to god metals when a Shard is Splintered?
God metals are unaffected.
And atium and lerasium stayed unaffected when they merged?
Lerasium and atium that existed before were unaffected.
Previously you were asked if Hoid could have been using the lerasium to alloy with other metals to change his spiritweb, and you answered it was technically possible. Does that mean you’re finally admitting that Hoid did not digest the bead?
I am not admitting that. It was possible for him to do that, but he did not.
What would happen if you used lerasium as a spike for Hemalurgy?
Oh lerasium as a spike for Hemalurgy? Um lerasium as a spike for Hemalurgy--
Would it work or would it just not work?
No I mean it would work--
If you were to place a lerasium spike would you transform into a full Mistborn as opposed to--
Well it can also steal powers, not just grant them, right?
Um, right. The thing about it is you're trying to Invest something that is already very Invested, which always has weird effects. So while you could do it, it would be a gross waste of the potential. It's like using a nuclear bomb as a paperweight. It is functional but--
Does that mean it would be hard, for example, to make Nightblood stick something? Because--
Yes it would be very hard to make Nightblood stick to something. The amount of Investiture in Nightblood is--
Astronomical?
Yes. Larger than most things you've seen. So Pushing on Nightblood, really hard.
What's the incentive of alloying lerasium and becoming a misting when you could just burn it normal and be a Mistborn?
My guess is that you'd presumably you'd use less of it? Also, arguably, not every way of using a magic is going to be the most optimal way.
It's probably just a way that lerasium can work. If you alloy it or somehow mix it with things from other systems, it's quite possible you'd end up getting those magics instead, because it'd Connect you more strongly to a different Shard.
The replies to this are correct.
Can lerasium alloys grant Feruchemy?
It c--RAFO, we'll RAFO that.
Brandon confirmed that "the element" is the bead of lerasium. Which confirms both this theory, and the theory that Hoid wrote the letter.
When I asked the question, I also thought the element and the lerasium were different. I asked it as a "Hoid clearly has a habit for taking important items. He has the bead of lerasium and the element. What other items does he have that we should know about?"
Brandon's response was that the bead and the element are the same. And that he has many items he should not have.
Before Preservation locked up Ruin, or whatever, or if Ruin had won. Would atium exist?
...There are timelines where there would be no atium.
...So if Harmony exists, does atium exist?
Atium does not exist because there is no Ati. Well there is atium left over from before, but--
So it was only part of Ati's body and not part of Harmony's body.
There is no atium, there is no Preservation any longer, there is no Ati.
So does harmonium exist?
...There's no Leras and there's no Ati, there's no Ruin--
Does harmonium exist then?
Good question.
I was curious, what would happen if a full Mistborn burned lerasium? What would the Allomantic powers be?
Oohh, excellent, excellent question. So, I have not revealed what lerasium does if you already have Investiture. So, the answer to that is a RAFO. We've actually had like three people ask that tonight, so there must have been a discussion on the Sh-- the forums about it and I didn't answer them, so I can't answer you.
If Hoid was to get his hands on "bavadinium," could he alloy it with lerasium and get Sand Mastery?
This is theoretically possible.
If I were to alloy atium and lerasium, would I get harmonium? Or is harmonium different after the Shards combined?
It's different after the Shards combined.
If I was to take harmonium and separate it out through distillation, would I get lerasium and atium or something that functions similarly?
No, you would-- It actually has become a different--
Can't be split?
Yeah. I mean, you could find a way, but you're not going to get it through normal, mechanical means.
Could [Sazed] also bring back lerasium beads, if he wanted to?
It would be within his power to do so, yes.
Because you've talked about alloying the god metals with other ones-- I was wondering whether you would be able to melt them down as you would with normal metals.
If you could distill the god metal: you could distill it out of the mist, that's theoretically possible.
If a Misting burned the correct alloy of Lerasium and their metal, would that be akin to them becoming a Savant?
No.
In Allomancy, normal metals are simply a tool that channels Allomancer's already existing Connection to the power of Preservation, which is why non-Allomancers don't get powers from digesting metal. But if I understand it correctly, god metals are an exception, since they are a form of a Shard's power, burning them directly uses the power stored within.
If I have this right, how come a normal person can burn lerasium, but not atium? Or could they, and no ones thought to try? But if that was true why are there atium Mistings?
Suffice it to say that what people both in the books and out think about the god metals has some holes in it.
What's lerasium?
That is the bead of metal that Elend finds at the end of Book 2, that Vin finds and gives to Elend.
Oh so there were only two and the Lord Ruler kind of left it there?
There actually were a bunch of them, and the first Mistborn came from people who ate that. The Lord Ruler took one for himself and he left others there to use if he needed them.
The Hemalurgy table, you wrote down "atium steals any power, lerasium is all abilities, nicrosil is Investiture"; what's the difference between those three?
Hemalurgic atium, lerasium, and nicrosil. What's powers, abilities, and Investiture?
People are Invested in ways that do not give them active powers. So for instance, everyone on Nalthis is Invested. Everyone in the cosmere is, really. You want to steal their Investiture, but they don't have a power. You're still ripping off a piece of their soul. So there is a distinction between the actual Investiture that's in a human being and a specific power that they have.
So that distinction is pretty easy. You can also, with Hemalurgy, steal specific things. You can steal just general Investiture. You can steal, if you want--this is where the kandra Blessings come from. You can instead steal specific things that are not like stealing Allomancy. Stealing, for instance, someone's mental acuity.
So abilities is like the half that's all the strength, speed, all that kind of stuff? Those are abilities, versus the Metallic Arts are all powers?
Yes.
Then Investiture, is that offworld magics?
No, no, it's the raw power.
Nicrosil is their soul?
Yes. A piece of their soul, essentially.
So how would you go about stealing an offworld power?
It's going to depend. A Breath, you would steal with nicrosil. It's general Investiture, is what you would probably going call that. You could forcibly remove someone's Breath from them. The ability to be a Sand Master you would steal with the power ability.
What about a lerasium savant? Or would that require so much lerasium that the person attempting it would ascend to become a new Shardholder?
Basically, this is what Ascension is.
I was also wondering if... I just finished reading the Ars Arcanum in the back of Bands of Mourning and I heard it mention that god metals could be alloyed to give different abilities or traits.
Yes.
Could you give an example of one?
So, you could alloy lerasium with certain metals of the sixteen in the table and get, if you had just enough lerasium, it would make them a misting of those powers.
Can lerasium be regrown like atium, like in a Pits of Hathsin, just for the lerasium, or no?
Lerasium did not have a Pits of Hathsin analogue... Not anymore, Leras is dead.
On the Coppermind there is this idea that if a natural Mistborn burned duralumin and then lerasium it would empower them to godly levels. Would this actually happen or would another effect happen.
That actually wouldn't work, but it is a clever idea.
So I just finished Secret History about an hour ago.
Okay.
And I just have a simple yes or no question? Is Kelsier's spike made of lerasium?
No... Good question.
How were the original beads of Lerasium created?
They were created for the purpose that they were originally used for.
Who created them?
They were created by Leras.
The size of the metal, does it matter to transfer Allomancy or can it be really really tiny or really really big?
For Allomancy? Or what, a bead of lerasium? Is that what you're talking about?
Yeah, when you're transferring the powers, like to make someone a Mistborn...
Yeah it has to be-- The size of it is going to influence how strong a Mistborn you are.
It couldn't be a sliver.
Yeah-- Well it could, you'd just be really weak as a Mistborn.
Is Wit, or Hoid-- Is he an Allomancer
He did steal a bead of lerasium off of Scadrial. If he were to make use of that bead, certain powers could have been gained.
Okay. "If he were to have used it."
If he were to have used it.
So you have said that making someone Mistborn is not lerasium's primary function, that a Mistborn burning it would have another effect. Is this also true of its alloys?
RAFO.
Does Lerasium have Feruchemical and Hemalurgical powers?
Yes. Brandon will probably be getting into these, and the other metals Hemalurgical and Feruchemical powers, in greater detail in the future Mistborn trilogies. He also will probably release full charts for these as he did with Allomancy.
Can you share any abilities that Hoid has accrued so far in the books, does he-- with him taking the bead, I can't even pronounce the L-word...
Yes, lerasium, he is indeed an Allomancer. So. That has happened. I haven't confirmed much else, but he does have that.
Would an alloy of atium and lerasium produce the same effects pre- and post-Harmony?
Yes.
I asked what would happen if you burned lerasium or atium near ettmetal.
RAFO! :)