Mistborn: What twinborn powers would you want to have

[Silver Swift]

Warning: This post will contain minor spoilers for the entire mistborn series up to alloy of law.

If you could be a Twinborn from the Mistborn series and you could choose both your feruchemic and allomantic powers, what would you choose ?

For reference, here are all the known allomantic metals and their effects:

{table=head]Metal | Allomantic Power| Feruchemic Power
Iron | Pull Metals | Store Weight
Steel | Push Metals | Store Speed
Pewter | Increase Physical Strength | Store Physical Strength
Tin | Enhance Senses | Store Senses
Brass | Strengthen specific emotions in others | Store Warmth
Zinc | Weaken specific emotions in others | Store Mental Speed
Copper| Immunity to mental allomancy | Store Memories
Bronze | Detect the use of allomancy | Store Wakefulness
Bendalloy | Speed up time around you | Store Energy (= Food)
Cadmium | Slows down time around you | Store Breath
Gold | See your own past | Store Health
Electrum | See your own future | Store Willpower
Aluminium | Use up all your metals without effect | Stores Identity
Duralumin | Use up all your metals for greatly enhanced effect|Stores Connections
Chromium | Generate the effect of burning aluminium in others | Stores Luck
Nicrosil| Generate the effect of burning duralumin in others | Stores Investiture* [/table]

*: Whatever the hell that is


Remember that you still live in this world, so being able to burn atium and lerasium is useless and some of the more expensive metals might be hard to get in large quantities for allomancy. Also remember that if you have the same metal for both your powers you can use compounding to get near unlimited use out of your feruchemic side (as long as you can get enough of said metal).

Personally I'm thinking either Pewter or Tin as allomantic ability. Pewter because it is just incredibly versatile (you're stronger, you don't get tired, you heal faster and you get a better sense of balance) and Tin because having better senses than everyone else is cool :smallsmile: .

On the feruchemic side I'm torn between Iron, Bronze and Electrum, Iron would just be plain cool to have as it is useful both during filling and during tapping, plus Steel/Iron twinborns can practically fly, so Pewter/Iron twinborns can probably also do really amazing stuff. Bronze and Electrum are less awesome, but have more practical applications (schedule your sleep whenever you want and focus more intensely when it is important or summon enough determination to get through the boring but necessary tasks of the day at the expense of being less determined at other times).

[Kitten Champion]

Compounded chromium, particularly if I can store bad luck all the time.

[Sanguine]

Well there is the obvious Compounded Gold Immortality and Steel/Iron Flight.

But I think I would go with something a bit different. Pewter and Copper. Copperminds mean I never forget anything ever again! I would love that! I can't tell you how many times I have strained and stretched trying to remember some little detail about something, with Copperminds that becomes a thing of the past. Not to mention all the practical applications.

As for Pewte*, being stronger, faster, tougher, more nimble, and just supernaturally good at all physical pursuits. Sounds awesome.

Which Allomantically does a lot more than you listed.

[DaedalusMkV]

Atium/Atium, thanks. Living as long as I want, at whatever age I want? Sounds good to me. Oh, wait, Divine metals probably don't count, do they? Oh well.

In that case, Steel/Steel. A very useful Allomantic power, being explicitly capable of deflecting bullets, and in our modern universe something approximating flight, which is just darned awesome. Plus, one of the most hax Feruchemical powers you could possibly want to compound. I mean, somebody tries to punch you? Speed up to 10 times human speed, push him, trip him over your leg and laugh at him. Nobody can touch you, you can run at highway speeds, and with Steel just kind of Superman it up leaping tall buildings in a single bound. A nice, versatile power set, overpowered as heck if someone actually tries to fight me and just generally extremely useful in everyday life thanks to the superspeed and Steeljumping. Gold/Gold (live as long as a human feasibly can, with utter immunities to sickness and almost all forms of damage) and Chromium/Chromium (what does infinite good luck even mean? I have no idea, but it cannot be a bad thing) would be close seconds, but the general awesomeness of Steel/Steel is hard to beat.

Yeah, Compounding is extremely desirable, not surprisingly. If I was forced to pick a non-Compoundable pair, it would be Pewter/Copper, for the greatest general utility, with Pewter Allomancy providing a very useful and wide-ranging physical boost while Copper is just cool. But any of the decent Compounding sets will inevitably blow a non-Compounding set out of the water.

[The_Snark]

On the allomantic side, I'd probably go for Electrum or possibly Pewter. Seeing possible futures sounds pretty handy, assuming that this is the see-possible-paths version and not the locked-in-predestination version (which, knowing Brandon Sanderson, seems like a safe guess). I don't know that I would get that much use out of Pewter, but it's always nice to not have to worry about your physical limits so much—plus, you get to ignore pain, heal faster and power through sickness. Nice.

On the feruchemic side... oooh. I'm torn between Brass or Zinc. One keeps you comfortable in any weather: store warmth in summer, let it out in winter! The other lets you control your sleep cycle, curing insomnia forever and letting you nap or stay up more or less as you please. Most feruchemical stuff comes with a nasty downside (in order to store up health, you have to spend time being sick), but with those two you win coming and going. I guess Electrum could be nice if compounded; a little more willpower would probably be good for me.

You can tell I have no real desire to be a superhero. But some of these things would be really convenient in everyday life!

[Silver Swift]

But I think I would go with something a bit different. Pewter and Copper. Copperminds mean I never forget anything ever again! I would love that! I can't tell you how many times I have strained and stretched trying to remember some little detail about something, with Copperminds that becomes a thing of the past. Not to mention all the practical applications.

If I recall correctly you still have to know where you stored it, Sazeds copperminds had extended indexes storing only the memories of where he had put his other memories. I think you can mimic most of what Copper does with a phone that has an internet connection and the ability to write notes.


Atium/Atium, thanks. Living as long as I want, at whatever age I want? Sounds good to me. Oh, wait, Divine metals probably don't count, do they? Oh well.

Yeah, no imprisoned Ruin in this world means no Atium means no immortality

Also, double steel crossed my mind, but in most real life situations super speed is not all that useful (unless you want to become a superhero) and steelpushing is very dangerous if you don't have someway to prevent yourself from crashing into the ground/buildings when something goes wrong (ie. misjudging a jump, running out of steel, ending up above an area where there is no metal). In the books Every allomancer we see using steel to jump through the air has had access to either allomantic pewter or feruchemic iron to catch them.

And yes, compounding obviously is very useful, but in general it forces you to pick a non optimal allomantic power (the most useful feruchemic metals have comparatively uninteresting alomantic counterparts). Also, remember that double gold is only useful if you have access to large amounts of gold.



On the allomantic side, I'd probably go for Electrum or possibly Pewter. Seeing possible futures sounds pretty handy, assuming that this is the see-possible-paths version and not the locked-in-predestination version (which, knowing Brandon Sanderson, seems like a safe guess).

Unfortunately Electrum visions aren't very useful, you can only see about a second into the future and whenever you see a possible future, that knowledge changes the future, creating a new Electrum shadow. In the end all you see is a blurry mess of shadows (though I wonder if Electrum would let you get more useful information about the future if you force yourself not to act on the visions).


On the feruchemic side... oooh. I'm torn between Brass or Zinc. One keeps you comfortable in any weather: store warmth in summer, let it out in winter! The other lets you control your sleep cycle, curing insomnia forever and letting you nap or stay up more or less as you please. Most feruchemical stuff comes with a nasty downside (in order to store up health, you have to spend time being sick), but with those two you win coming and going. I guess Electrum could be nice if compounded; a little more willpower would probably be good for me.

Ooh I hadn't even considered Brass, that would be useful. Yes, the key to a good feruchemic metal is being useful both when tapping and when filling, which is why I really like Iron, but I don't think Bronze (Zinc stores mental speed, Bronze stores wakefulness) is one of those metals, I imagine sleeping gets a lot less pleasant if you just instantly fall asleep and wake up as tired as you went to sleep. Electrum compounding suffers from the same problem as gold compounding in that it is a relatively expensive metal to acquire, other than that, yes it would be useful.

[mangosta71]

Zinc or brass for allomantic. I would manipulate the crap out of people.

Possibly steel for feruchemic. I mean, I spend enough time stationary that I could store up a lot of speed without varying my routine at all, and then sprint down the interstate whenever I want to go somewhere.

[Mewtarthio]

No love for double zinc? Really? As an allomantic metal, zinc makes you a Soother, which is obviously a very useful trick to have. As a feruchemical metal, zinc stores mental speed. Long wait at the doctor's office? Just spend that time filling your zincmind so you can pull it out later, when you really need it. And taking both powers lets you Compound that mental acuity, making you essentially the most brilliant person on the planet.

[Lord Raziere]

I came by these metals through process of elimination:

Metal
Allomantic Power, Feruchemic Power
Steel Store Speed
Pewter Increase Physical Strength Store Physical Strength
Zinc Store Mental Speed
Cadmium Slows down time around you
Electrum See your own future
Chromium Stores Luck

allomatic electrum and feruchemic Chromium can be great for planning.

compounded Pewter is always useful in the classic "be superstrong" sense.

and of course, allomantic Cadmium and feruchemic Steel can be a potent combination.

and thats all I really got.

[DaedalusMkV]

Also, double steel crossed my mind, but in most real life situations super speed is not all that useful (unless you want to become a superhero) and steelpushing is very dangerous if you don't have someway to prevent yourself from crashing into the ground/buildings when something goes wrong (ie. misjudging a jump, running out of steel, ending up above an area where there is no metal). In the books Every allomancer we see using steel to jump through the air has had access to either allomantic pewter or feruchemic iron to catch them.

And yes, compounding obviously is very useful, but in general it forces you to pick a non optimal allomantic power (the most useful feruchemic metals have comparatively uninteresting alomantic counterparts). Also, remember that double gold is only useful if you have access to large amounts of gold.


Hmm? Wax Steeljumps all the time, and he has access to even less metal than we do in the modern world to stabilize and course-correct. Power Lines are basically Spike Highways between every settlement in the first world and our cities are made of metal to a degree that can be hard to fathom at times. Skyscrapers? Metal. Traintracks? Metal and ideal for long-distance Steeljump travel, to the point that you can just constantly Push with minimal attention necessary. Concrete walls? Better believe there's iron rebar in there. Sidewalks? Uh-huh. Ashfalt streets? Yep, metal anchors. Cars, buses, skyscrapers, the homes we live in, the paths we walk, there's metal everywhere in our world. And the more metal around, the easier it is to safely Steeljump. Sure, without Iron around I wouldn't be able to manage quite Mistborn levels of agility, but it's still enough to be able to act as a limited sort of flight thanks to sheer quantity. Plus, I expect it would be fun to a degree that can hardly be imagined.

As to the superspeed, I can think of a lot of uses for that as well. Missed the bus? Just run to work! In fact, who needs a car? You can walk as fast as most in-city speed limits, and with Steeljumps can just bypass almost any obstacles. With Steel/Steel, I could walk from one side of the city to the other in half an hour, even in the heaviest of traffic. It would make my life way, way easier, and more active as well. Also, Steel is one of the least disadvantageous Feruchemical metals to fill. Fill it when you sleep, when you're sitting still, when you're waiting, when you're watching TV or reading. With Compounding you only need to spend a relatively small amount of time Storing speed, so you can have as much superspeed as you can find steel. Which is extremely plentiful and inexpensive. It seems like a very strong set to me, and very exciting and fun to boot.

[Kitten Champion]

Hmm? Wax Steeljumps all the time, and he has access to even less metal than we do in the modern world to stabilize and course-correct. Power Lines are basically Spike Highways between every settlement in the first world and our cities are made of metal to a degree that can be hard to fathom at times. Skyscrapers? Metal. Traintracks? Metal and ideal for long-distance Steeljump travel, to the point that you can just constantly Push with minimal attention necessary. Concrete walls? Better believe there's iron rebar in there. Sidewalks? Uh-huh. Ashfalt streets? Yep, metal anchors. Cars, buses, skyscrapers, the homes we live in, the paths we walk, there's metal everywhere in our world. And the more metal around, the easier it is to safely Steeljump. Sure, without Iron around I wouldn't be able to manage quite Mistborn levels of agility, but it's still enough to be able to act as a limited sort of flight thanks to sheer quantity. Plus, I expect it would be fun to a degree that can hardly be imagined.

As to the superspeed, I can think of a lot of uses for that as well. Missed the bus? Just run to work! In fact, who needs a car? You can walk as fast as most in-city speed limits, and with Steeljumps can just bypass almost any obstacles. With Steel/Steel, I could walk from one side of the city to the other in half an hour, even in the heaviest of traffic. It would make my life way, way easier, and more active as well. Also, Steel is one of the least disadvantageous Feruchemical metals to fill. Fill it when you sleep, when you're sitting still, when you're waiting, when you're watching TV or reading. With Compounding you only need to spend a relatively small amount of time Storing speed, so you can have as much superspeed as you can find steel. Which is extremely plentiful and inexpensive. It seems like a very strong set to me, and very exciting and fun to boot.

I don't think the process of maneuvering is easy enough for a steel-misting to do something like allomantic railroading. Wax's complimentary feruchemical metal gives him some more freedom while airborne without worrying overmuch about gravity or the weight of his anchors, but he still couldn't do what Mistborns can with Iron/Steel/Bronze.

As for super-speed, it seems attractive, but no where is it mentioned that you get super-endurance with the bargain. Unless you compliment it with allomantic pewter, I think storing feruchemical speed could be quite painful on a normal human.

[Silver Swift]

No love for double zinc? Really? As an allomantic metal, zinc makes you a Soother, which is obviously a very useful trick to have. As a feruchemical metal, zinc stores mental speed. Long wait at the doctor's office? Just spend that time filling your zincmind so you can pull it out later, when you really need it. And taking both powers lets you Compound that mental acuity, making you essentially the most brilliant person on the planet.

Well, from a moral standpoint, soothing is somewhat questionable. As for feruchemic Zinc, I interpreted that as thinking faster, not better, so you could analyse any given situation much quicker than other people, but you wouldn't be genius levels of smart. But yeah, it is a very interesting combination


allomatic electrum and feruchemic Chromium can be great for planning.

compounded Pewter is always useful in the classic "be superstrong" sense.

and of course, allomantic Cadmium and feruchemic Steel can be a potent combination.

Maybe I should note that the stuff I put in that table sometimes isn't a very accurate descriptions of what the powers do. Electrum, as I pointed out above, only allows you to see a few seconds into the future and doesn't yield much useful information, compounding pewter would be interesting, but note that feruchemic pewter makes you physically more muscular so compounding pewter would basically turn you into the hulk without the loss of mental capacity (not that that necessarily is a bad thing) and Cadmium slows down time for everything in a bubble around you, including yourself, the rest of the world moves faster by comparison (Bendalloy, which I think is the metal you're looking for, has the opposite effect).


Hmm? Wax Steeljumps all the time, and he has access to even less metal than we do in the modern world to stabilize and course-correct.

Yeah, but Wax can make himself lighter and heavier basically at will, so if he runs out of steel at an inconvenient moment he can always land safely. I agree on the unimaginably fun part btw, but without some way to catch yourself I think it would be like an extreme form of street running: reasonably safe if you know what you're doing, but very dangerous if you start making mistakes. Which I think is why we don't see regular coinshots jump through the streets like full mistborn.

As for using super speed to get to places faster, while it would undoubtely be cool, at least for my situation I don't think that would save more time than being able to schedule when you sleep or when you have the motivation to work.

You are right about being able to fill steelminds on the couch while watching tv, or generally slacking of in a way that would be much more unpleasant to do with, for example, Goldminds (though you can't fill most metalminds while sleeping, that only works on Bronzeminds).

[Battleship789]

Personally, I don't think I would enjoy being a non-compounding Feruchemist, with some few exception. Going at a reduced capacity for any amount of time would be rather annoying.

Double Pewter would be nice, if just for any physical activity. Double Zinc is nice for Soothing and super fast thinking (as noted, it doesn't actually make one smarter, just think faster.) Double Steel would also be sweet. Double Duralumin could be interesting, though only the Feruchemical side would be useful (and probably the cheapest metal to burn in our world.) Double Chromium is interesting: it turns you into Mat Cauthon. Double Gold would also be cool, being practically invincible. Pewter Allomancy and Feruchemical Bendalloy could also be interesting. Above human speed, endurance, strength, and balance combined with no need to eat or drink would make one impressive distance athlete.

Troll answer: Lerasium Allomancy and Nicrosil Feruchemy.

[Silver Swift]

Personally, I don't think I would enjoy being a non-compounding Feruchemist, with some few exception. Going at a reduced capacity for any amount of time would be rather annoying.

Actually, there are a lot of metals that are very easy or even useful to fill and only a few would be really annoying to fill (I count four that can't be filled while watching a crappy tv show from your couch). Most people also have quite a lot of times in their daily lives where they don't have to perform at full capacity: commuting to and from work, boring sunday afternoons, uninteresting social events, you could use those moments to fill your metalminds (depending on the type of metal of course, filling Zincminds while driving to work isn't advisable and people may act surprised if you start filling your Cadmiumminds during a boring family dinner).


Pewter Allomancy and Feruchemical Bendalloy could also be interesting. Above human speed, endurance, strength, and balance combined with no need to eat or drink would make one impressive distance athlete.

Wasn't it mentioned somewhere that you effectively get a better physical condition if you tap Cadmium at more than regular speed (getting more oxygen to your muscles?) ? If so, that combined with Allomantic Pewter would also be a very good choice for athletes.

[Lord of the Helms]

Maybe I should note that the stuff I put in that table sometimes isn't a very accurate descriptions of what the powers do. Electrum, as I pointed out above, only allows you to see a few seconds into the future and doesn't yield much useful information, compounding pewter would be interesting, but note that feruchemic pewter makes you physically more muscular so compounding pewter would basically turn you into the hulk without the loss of mental capacity (not that that necessarily is a bad thing) and Cadmium slows down time for everything in a bubble around you, including yourself, the rest of the world moves faster by comparison (Bendalloy, which I think is the metal you're looking for, has the opposite effect).

I also thought about the compounding pewter option. Allomantic Pewter is definitely among the most useful powers available, especially the super- healing powers to help get over all kinds of injury and illness, and the strength and speed boosts as well as improved balance also seem like they have worthwhile applications. The massive strength boosts possible with pewter feruchemy also can be useful un occasions, especially for heavy lifting/carrying, but the hulking out thing means that at the very least you have to make sure you're wearing either very baggy of very elastic clothes whenever using it, otherwise you risk outfit-shredding.

Gold compounding's usefulness would depend on how fast gold burns as well as how much health you can fill into a gram of gold and thus how much money you'd have to spend for your health. Also, the whole Augur shtick that you'd be doing while filling your minds with more and more health seems like it could be psychologically hard to take. Pewter Allomancy with gold feruchemy seems like a good combination, though - burning pewter could probably counteract the sickliness caused by storing health, and when push comes to shove you could combine the use of your stored health with the healing boost of pewter.


Yeah, but Wax can make himself lighter and heavier basically at will, so if he runs out of steel at an inconvenient moment he can always land safely. I agree on the unimaginably fun part btw, but without some way to catch yourself I think it would be like an extreme form of street running: reasonably safe if you know what you're doing, but very dangerous if you start making mistakes. Which I think is why we don't see regular coinshots jump through the streets like full mistborn.

Actually, the two elite mooks Wax battles in Alloy of Law are a Lurcher and a Coinshot who both jump around a lot, and neither is indicated to have a complimentary feruchemical power (which could pretty much only be iron anyway, I don't see any of the others being of help when jumping, except gold for healing injuries afterwards). Wax almost always gets by on his steeljumping throughout the book and doesn't spend a lot of time using his iron to break falls (he reduces his weight by about 20% all the time, but that's not siginificant if you are falling down from dozens of meters). The main issue with steeljumping appears to be the training: Skilled steeljumpers could easily get around in the modern world without any risk because they always have something to break their fall available in the ground, and can use coins as anchors in the rare cases when they don't. However, until they've trained enough to get the fine control neccessary to control their trajectories and to break their falls with just the right amount of force, I can see a lot of twisted ankles and broken legs coming up. You'd probably need a few months in dedicated training halls covered with soft mats or the like.

One thing I do agree on, though: Iron is definitely a great feruchemic power to go along with Coinshot or Lurcher allomancy, for jumping higher, softening falls, and increasing your weight when you really need to push/pull. Incidentally, being a Lurcher sounds plenty handy for shee utility: You can pull any metal object over to you. With a little preparation and practice, this can basically become force pull in your household, allowing you to draw any item into your hands at will. Those that have metal inside (remote controls, kitchenware, most shoes) can be moved already, and other items could easily be outfitted with metal pieces to become pullable, too.


As for using super speed to get to places faster, while it would undoubtely be cool, at least for my situation I don't think that would save more time than being able to schedule when you sleep or when you have the motivation to work.


I disagree here. If you compound steel, chances are you can walk around at five times your normal speed at ease, probably ten times, and as others have said, saving speed is ridiculously easy while reading books, watching TV, working an office job etc. Combined with steeljumping, you could basically do super-parkour, traversing a city with ridiculous ease. If a fifteen-minute-walk becomes a three-minute-walk, that's significant. If a half-hour-walk becomes a six-minute walk, even moreso. Even distances that I would normally drive become more feasible by foot (covering a one-hour walk in twelve minutes? DEAL.), saving gas and money in the process.

All things considered, though - I'd say Pewter/Gold would be my favorite, or Gold/Gold if you don't have to burn too much Gold, since that extra healing would be VERY useful for all kinds of injuries and illnesses, and pewter's boost to pretty much all physical traits is plenty useful on top of that.

[Battleship789]

Actually, there are a lot of metals that are very easy or even useful to fill and only a few would be really annoying to fill (I count four that can't be filled while watching a crappy tv show from your couch). Most people also have quite a lot of times in their daily lives where they don't have to perform at full capacity: commuting to and from work, boring sunday afternoons, uninteresting social events, you could use those moments to fill your metalminds (depending on the type of metal of course, filling Zincminds while driving to work isn't advisable and people may act surprised if you start filling your Cadmiumminds during a boring family dinner).

Eh, running at anything sup-par is rather annoying, even if one can control it.


Wasn't it mentioned somewhere that you effectively get a better physical condition if you tap Cadmium at more than regular speed (getting more oxygen to your muscles?) ? If so, that combined with Allomantic Pewter would also be a very good choice for athletes.

Yes, if true then the effects of Cadmium would be similar to blood doping (seen in cycling and other distance sports.)


I also thought about the compounding pewter option. Allomantic Pewter is definitely among the most useful powers available, especially the super- healing powers to help get over all kinds of injury and illness, and the strength and speed boosts as well as improved balance also seem like they have worthwhile applications. The massive strength boosts possible with pewter feruchemy also can be useful un occasions, especially for heavy lifting/carrying, but the hulking out thing means that at the very least you have to make sure you're wearing either very baggy of very elastic clothes whenever using it, otherwise you risk outfit-shredding.

Gold compounding's usefulness would depend on how fast gold burns as well as how much health you can fill into a gram of gold and thus how much money you'd have to spend for your health. Also, the whole Augur shtick that you'd be doing while filling your minds with more and more health seems like it could be psychologically hard to take. Pewter Allomancy with gold feruchemy seems like a good combination, though - burning pewter could probably counteract the sickliness caused by storing health, and when push comes to shove you could combine the use of your stored health with the healing boost of pewter.

While Compounding a Feruchemical attribute with Allomancy, the Feruchemical effect overrides the Allomantic one. So while burning a piece of Pewter that has Pewter Feruchemcy stored in it there is no increase in speed, balance, or healing, only a super-boost of Pewter Feruchemy. Miles only burns Allomantic Gold because he is too curious (and, possibly, he secretly hates what he has become and burning Gold allows him to really feel that way.)


Actually, the two elite mooks Wax battles in Alloy of Law are a Lurcher and a Coinshot who both jump around a lot, and neither is indicated to have a complimentary feruchemical power (which could pretty much only be iron anyway, I don't see any of the others being of help when jumping, except gold for healing injuries afterwards). Wax almost always gets by on his steeljumping throughout the book and doesn't spend a lot of time using his iron to break falls (he reduces his weight by about 20% all the time, but that's not siginificant if you are falling down from dozens of meters). The main issue with steeljumping appears to be the training: Skilled steeljumpers could easily get around in the modern world without any risk because they always have something to break their fall available in the ground, and can use coins as anchors in the rare cases when they don't. However, until they've trained enough to get the fine control neccessary to control their trajectories and to break their falls with just the right amount of force, I can see a lot of twisted ankles and broken legs coming up. You'd probably need a few months in dedicated training halls covered with soft mats or the like.

One thing I do agree on, though: Iron is definitely a great feruchemic power to go along with Coinshot or Lurcher allomancy, for jumping higher, softening falls, and increasing your weight when you really need to push/pull. Incidentally, being a Lurcher sounds plenty handy for shee utility: You can pull any metal object over to you. With a little preparation and practice, this can basically become force pull in your household, allowing you to draw any item into your hands at will. Those that have metal inside (remote controls, kitchenware, most shoes) can be moved already, and other items could easily be outfitted with metal pieces to become pullable, too.

Like Ranette does while in her house.


I disagree here. If you compound steel, chances are you can walk around at five times your normal speed at ease, probably ten times, and as others have said, saving speed is ridiculously easy while reading books, watching TV, working an office job etc. Combined with steeljumping, you could basically do super-parkour, traversing a city with ridiculous ease. If a fifteen-minute-walk becomes a three-minute-walk, that's significant. If a half-hour-walk becomes a six-minute walk, even moreso. Even distances that I would normally drive become more feasible by foot (covering a one-hour walk in twelve minutes? DEAL.), saving gas and money in the process.

All things considered, though - I'd say Pewter/Gold would be my favorite, or Gold/Gold if you don't have to burn too much Gold, since that extra healing would be VERY useful for all kinds of injuries and illnesses, and pewter's boost to pretty much all physical traits is plenty useful on top of that.

However, without Compounding, Steel is an incredibly hard attribute to save up. Also, remember that one cannot store 100% of an attribute at a time. Brandon (http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/2383-qa-with-brandon-sanderson/page__view__findpost__p__42125) (3rd question's response in the post. Beware of reading the rest of the thread for spoilers.) has said that, for most people, storing 25% of an attribute is their limit.

[Lord of the Helms]

However, without Compounding, Steel is an incredibly hard attribute to save up. Also, remember that one cannot store 100% of an attribute at a time. Brandon (http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/2383-qa-with-brandon-sanderson/page__view__findpost__p__42125) (3rd question's response in the post. Beware of reading the rest of the thread for spoilers.) has said that, for most people, storing 25% of an attribute is their limit.

See, this I disagree on. Massively. Unless you both work a physically active job and pursue only physically active hobbies, speedstoring is one of the easiest things to do. Ever. I can save it when I'm going places by bus, train or metro. I can do it while reading books. I can do it while watching TV/DVDs. I can do it while playing some types of computer games (Strategy or Tactical RPGs that don't require good reflexes at the very least). I could probably do it at work too, since I have an office job. Even if it's only 25% of my speed I can store, I could easily spend several hours a day filling that mind. Four hours of storing would give me one hour of double speed, or fifteen minutes of quadruple speed, or ten minutes of sextuple speed.

BTW, thanks for the spoiler warning, but I've read every Cosmere novel out there, some several times. I cannot be spoiled! :smallbiggrin:

[Silver Swift]

Actually, the two elite mooks Wax battles in Alloy of Law are a Lurcher and a Coinshot who both jump around a lot, and neither is indicated to have a complimentary feruchemical power.

Wow, you're right, I completely forgot about those. So I guess there are canonical examples of steeljumping mistings. Still, it is not something I would trust myself doing in anything but a completely controlled environment.


I disagree here. If you compound steel, chances are you can walk around at five times your normal speed at ease, probably ten times, and as others have said, saving speed is ridiculously easy while reading books, watching TV, working an office job etc. Combined with steeljumping, you could basically do super-parkour, traversing a city with ridiculous ease.

Ten times your normal speed is still on the low side as far as I can tell, but even twenty times your normal speed would only be about twice as fast as a regular train.

My more or less daily commute takes slightly more than 45 minutes from door to door and according to google maps I travel about 30 kilometers in that time. With steelrunning/jumping I could cut that down to 7 minutes, so that is impressive, but it would only save me about an hour and 15 minutes a day and it would be completely infeasible without compounding (you would need to move at 75% speed for 16 hours to get those two 7 minute sprints).

If I instead use the time I spent in the train to charge my bronzeminds I can go to sleep one and a half hour later, saving me just as much time using only my feruchemic power (you would obviously get much greater time profits from compounding bronze, but allomantic bronze is rather sub par in our world).


Eh, running at anything sup-par is rather annoying, even if one can control it.

I guess we have different ideas about what is annoying. Leaving out the metals that have obvious positive effects when charging (Iron, Brass and Bendalloy). There is the above mentioned Steel, which can effortlessly be filled anytime you're sitting still, Tin can be filled any time you're not using some of your senses (so all but sight and touch can be filled like 90% of the time) and Pewter can be filled any time you're doing something that isn't physically straining. For comparison, the only metals that I would consider really annoying to fill are Zinc, Bronze, Gold and Chromium.

[Mewtarthio]

Duralumin's also pretty annoying to fill, to say the least. It would probably be less difficult for an iterant and downright useful for a few of the more unsavory sorts of people (a conman would kill for that power), but the average person would likely find it more trouble than it's worth.

[Silver Swift]

Duralumin's also pretty annoying to fill, to say the least. It would probably be less difficult for an iterant and downright useful for a few of the more unsavory sorts of people (a conman would kill for that power), but the average person would likely find it more trouble than it's worth.

That depends on how exactly that process works, if people actively start to dislike you, then yes, it would be annoying, but if they just ignore you it might not be so bad and even useful under some circumstances (not being harassed by drunk people or people trying to sell you something would not be a bad thing). Plus, I imagine you could always fill it when you're alone.

[Lord of the Helms]

Wow, you're right, I completely forgot about those. So I guess there are canonical examples of steeljumping mistings. Still, it is not something I would trust myself doing in anything but a completely controlled environment.


I would absolutely insist on spending months, at the very least, training it in a controlled environment. However, once you are well-trained, you can use it really well due to the fact that in a modern city, metal is pretty much everywhere, so you always have something to breakt your fall at hand.

It's sort of like parkour: You'd be mad to try using parkour to get around a city when you're a beginner, and in fact are almost certain to break, twist or otherwise hurt something. But if you've actually spent a while training, taking careful steps to learn the proper techniques in a controlled environment, it can become crazy useful even out in the "real world".

Now, using your lurcher powers to jump around seems much, much harder, since you require to have anchors above you rather than below, thus the main emergency solution steeljumpers can rely on (pushing a coin to the ground and using it as an anchor to slow your fall) isn't available, and that I really wouldn't want to try unless I also had Iron Feruchemy. Though the Ask Brandon section on his forums includes an interesting theory about an Iron Compounder using his power to attain quasi-flight and Brandon deemed it plausible (the idea being: You increase your weight, pull up a heavy metal object, let it pass by you, reduce your weight, pull on the now-heavier-than-you object to pull yourself up, fly by it, increase your weight, pull it towards yourself, let it pass by you, rinse and repeat), it would be would be incredibly difficult to achieve in practice since you need mad control for not hitting your anchor in mid-flight.

[Mewtarthio]

That depends on how exactly that process works, if people actively start to dislike you, then yes, it would be annoying, but if they just ignore you it might not be so bad and even useful under some circumstances (not being harassed by drunk people or people trying to sell you something would not be a bad thing). Plus, I imagine you could always fill it when you're alone.

We've never actually seen a (confirmed) duralumin ferring in the books*, so I suppose it could work like that. The impression I got was that filling a duraluminmind would make your friends and loved ones forget about you, letting you forge a similar relationship with someone else.

*I have my suspicions about Wax's sister that he forgot about.

[mangosta71]

Lurchers have anchors they can use to break falls anywhere there are power lines, or tall buildings, or bridges, or airplanes flying overhead... Actually, tying yourself to an airplane, assuming your fine control is good enough to keep you from pulling yourself high enough that the air starts getting too thin to breathe, would be a fun and fast way to travel...

[Silver Swift]

Lurchers have anchors they can use to break falls anywhere there are power lines, or tall buildings, or bridges, or airplanes flying overhead... Actually, tying yourself to an airplane, assuming your fine control is good enough to keep you from pulling yourself high enough that the air starts getting too thin to breathe, would be a fun and fast way to travel...

Would you even be able to reach airplanes with lurching? If so, forget tying yourself to the bottom of an airplane, use feruchemic Cadmium, bring some really warm clothes (and a deathwish) and hitch a ride on top of an airplane :smallbiggrin: .

[mangosta71]

Would you even be able to reach airplanes with lurching? If so, forget tying yourself to the bottom of an airplane, use feruchemic Cadmium, bring some really warm clothes (and a deathwish) and hitch a ride on top of an airplane :smallbiggrin: .
You could in the city where they're taking off/landing at the very least. I don't recall range for any of the abilities being mentioned when I read the books, so I was assuming they could use anything they could see as an anchor.