Magic Systems Workshop: Allomancy
An analysis of Allomancy from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn novels, and my own expanded version of it.
Fans of magicbuilding will likely know of Brandon Sanderson, creator of his eponymous Laws of Magic. I’d like to analyze one of his most popular magic systems, allomancy, and then show you my process as I come up with my own expanded version of it.
What is Allomancy?
Allomancy is a set of 16 powers, each with a corresponding metal. In Mistborn, allomancers can be Mistings, which have access to one allomantic power, or Mistborn, which have access to all allomantic powers. Naturally, Mistborn are far more uncommon.
To use allomancy, an allomancer must first ingest the appropriate metal. Then they can use the corresponding allomantic power, depleting their internal store of that metal in the process. This is not a big limitation with most metals, as allomancers can get a lot of “juice” out of small amounts of metal.
Here is the table of allomantic metals and powers, from the wiki:
The Good
The powers are specific. The most prominent example of this is the steel and iron powers, which allow an allomancer to reciprocally push or pull on metals respectively.
First of all, these allomancies can only target metal, and the force they exert is always reciprocal; an allomancer experiences an equal and opposite counterforce whenever they burn steel or iron.
Second of all, these allomancies can only push or pull. Sanderson has excluded all other axes of telekinesis.
Third of all, Sanderson has subdivided the possible exertions we have left: Coinshots can only push and Lurchers can only pull. This both increases variety and produces another compelling limit to the powers.
This is a pattern, and an extremely effective one. Sanderson has taken many powers which most would consider atomic or basic, and both narrowed and subdivided them into more specialized powers.
Zinc and brass cannot induce completely novel emotions, only work with what is already there, and zinc can only intensify while brass can only suppress. The enhancement mentals don’t grant generalized enhancement or suppression of allomancy; instead half enhance while half suppress, and half target the self while half target others. Cadmium and Bendalloy don’t grant generalized time manipulation or super speed; instead they affect a fixed radius around the allomancer, and one accelerates while one decelerates.The powers are not balanced. Aside from some allomancers being Mistborn while others are mere Mistings, the powers themselves vary greatly in usefulness, particularly for Mistings. Steel is clearly more useful than iron. Coinshots have offensive, defensive, and mobile applications in launching coins, deflecting metal projectiles, and pushing themselves. Meanwhile, Lurchers have little offensive or defensive ability and inferior mobility. In the Mistborn novels, the main way that Lurchers use their power in combat is by carrying big shields and pulling projectiles away from allies, which is underwhelming.
Duralumin and aluminum mistings are useless, which is why they’re called gnats. Bendalloy is far more useful than cadmium in and out of combat. And of course, there’s great variance in the utility of the powers across categories: pewter and steel are obvious standouts.
This is something that many writers shy away from when creating these sorts of powersets, but it makes the powerful allomancies feel cooler and challenges the reader to think about how they would use the less obviously powerful abilities. It also lends a bit of verisimilitude, as the powers don’t feel like they were designed to be fair to everyone.Versatile and kinetic powers are awesome. The most fun part of reading Mistborn, in my opinion, is seeing the characters fling themselves around with coins, and get in shootouts and tugs-of-war with other users of iron and steel allomancy. Reciprocal attractive-repulsive telekinesis is such a dynamic power because it’s viscerally kinetic— it involves mass and momentum— and because it can be used for offense, mobility, and utility. It can even be used for information gathering, since iron and steel allomancers can burn minute amounts of those metals to detect the presence and position of nearby metals.
In general, when you’re working on a power, it’s a good idea to think of ways it could be exploited or expanded for movement or information gathering. Spider-man’s webslinging is awesome because it’s movement, offense, and utility in one package. This is also a big part of why bending in Avatar: The Last Airbender is so awesome: airbending, earthbending, and firebending can all be used for propulsion, and Toph’s tremorsense is a natural extension of earthbending.
Pretty much any power that connects movement or informational applications with something else will be fun to read and fun to write. Allomancy does a great job at this.The structure makes the powers memorable and adds flavor. Analyses of allomancy tend to focus too much on the thing where allomancers burn metals. This is not actually a strong example of Sanderson’s third law, where limitations make powers more engaging and add tension.
What the metallic element does add is uniqueness and memorability. If the different allomancies were just neat powers, they’d feel harder to remember and more arbitrary, despite the fact that objectively speaking, adding the metals into the picture increases the complexity and arbitrariness of the system. When you read Mistborn, you learn what each metal does very quickly— and then when someone burns tin, you immediately know what that means, and feel engaged with the power system. The way many powers are duals or opposites of one another and the way they form natural sets also plays into this.
This mnemonic effect will also comes into play later when we discuss Feruchemy, which makes use of the same set of metals in a different way.
The Bad (minor nitpicking)
I have only one issue, or maybe two, and they’re nitpicky annoyances that don’t affect how well allomancy works in a narrative sense.
We’ve got this really cool grid subdivision thing going on. Four categories of powers-slash-metals, and each one has four elements, representing the product of the sets {pushing, pulling} and {internal, external}. Sweet. Great structure, helps the system stick in my brain.
But, hm. We’ve got the physical metals. Sure. We’ve got the mental metals. Cool. We’ve got the temporal metals. Okay. And… we have the “enhancement metals.” Huh???
First of all, half of the “enhancement metals” are suppressive, not enhancive! Second of all, they don’t fit in with the other three categories.
So naturally, I have to overhaul the entire system to rectify this CRITICAL FLAW.
Overhauling Allomancy to rectify this CRITICAL FLAW
Physical, mental, ENHANCEMENT, temporal is a ridiculous set. So let’s replace the enhancement powers with something else. How about spatial powers. That makes a good amount of sense. Physical, mental, spatial, temporal.
We’ll start with spatial internal pushing and spatial internal pulling. We want something that targets the allomancer, and we want it to be space-related. So how about teleportation? But that’s not limited enough, and we still need to split it in two. It would also be nice to incorporate a kinetic element, to echo steel and iron a bit.
Skippers and Snappers
For the internal pushing power, let’s say an allomancer can burn metal to teleport themselves, with the displacement vector being proportional to their velocity vector multiplied by the quantity of metal burned. We’ll call mistings who can burn this metal Skippers. They can run forward and blink forward, or run backward and blink backward, and so on, and the faster they’re moving, the further they can teleport with the same amount of metal burned. Cool, right? And we’ll say they teleport on the near side of obstructions if they would otherwise teleport inside of them, so they won’t kill themselves all the time. And teleporting nullifies any momentum they have, which adds a sort of cooldown: a skipper has to build up speed again before they can teleport an appreciable distance.
The natural internal pushing power, then, would be the power to teleport in the direction opposite your current velocity vector. Let’s call mistings who can burn this metal Snappers. They can run forwards and teleport backward, or run backward and teleport forward, and so on, with the distance also scaling with speed and metal burned, like with Skippers. It’s less obviously useful than Skipping, but still has plenty of applications in combat, for dodging and retreating and things like that. Maybe Skippers tend to more frequent, smaller teleports in combat, and it’s really hard to hit them. Dodging left gives them the option of teleporting right, and charging forward lets them retreat instantly. Skippers telegraph which way they’re going to teleport more clearly but can get around really fast, and Snappers are worse at covering distance in one direction but they’re tricky and hard to pin down.
Stretchers and Squeezers?
For the external spatial powers, the first thing that comes to mind for me is warping space: compressing and expanding distances, like Vista from Worm. And this leads to a very natural division. We can have Stretchers, who stretch space out, magnifying distances, and the Squeezers, who compress space, decreasing distances. It would also be nice to involve external metal somehow, like with the steel and iron powers, so we could say that Stretchers and Squeezers have to target an area that is between two pieces of metal. Also, the affected spaces revert to their previous dimensions when the Stretcher or Squeezer stops burning metal.
This is neat enough, and I was initially satisfied with these powers, but they’re a bit annoying to write. Say there’s a coin on the ground at each end of a hallway. Is that enough for a Stretcher or Squeezer to change the length of the hallway? Maybe they need like, metal arches at either end, or something more substantial like that. Now they’re no longer interesting in combat, in most environments. So I tried to think of something that would be as simple and clear as coinshots and lurchers.
Builders and Packers
We can be a little more flexible with our interpretation of “spatial” here. After all, the physical category of allomantic powers includes both telekinesis and self-enhancement. So I thought of something simple and “spatial” that involves targeting metal.
Builders can enlarge metal objects. An object stays enlarged for as long as a Builder burns metal, and the degree of enlargement depends on the rate of the burn. This enlargement can’t exert significant force, but de-enlargement can, potentially deforming the metal object or damaging things caught in it. The object’s density remains constant, so enlarging it makes it heavier. Momentum is also conserved.
Packers can shrink metal objects. An object stays shrunken for as long as the Packer burns metal, and the degree of shrinkage depends on the rate of the burn. Again, this shrinkage can’t exert significant force, but de-shrinkage can, potentially deforming the metal object or damaging things caught between it and another surface. The object’s density remains constant, so shrinking it makes it lighter. Again, momentum is also conserved.
These powers are dead simple and have plenty of applications in and out of combat. Builders can deploy obstacles, dynamically enlarge weapons, and execute brutal garotte attacks by enclosing enemies in enlarged loops of metal and then letting them shrink. Packers can launch themselves by using shrunken objects as launchpads when they unshrink, and can accelerate projectiles by shrinking them. Both Builders and Packers can disarm enemies in their own ways. I think these powers are much easier to write about and understand than the Stretcher and Squeezer powers, and they fit well thematically as well.
Our new table of allomantic metals looks like this:
But what about the enhancement powers?
In replacing the enhancement powers with spatial powers, we have replaced a disgusting asymmetry with beautiful conceptual harmony. However, in the process, we had to throw out a perfectly good and interesting set of powers. And that’s terrible.
We could just stick the enhancement metals in the middle, as a fifth category. And call them the regulatory metals. Because half of them do not enhance.
Unfortunately, this introduces a burr into our beautiful pattern. No longer are there four sets of four, neatly arranged in a four-by-four grid. The structure is symmetrical, sure, but not recursively so.
Obviously, the answer is to come up with a fifth “neutral” power for every category. We will improve the system by adding EVEN MORE POWERS.
Adding Even More Powers
Let’s try to be quick with these. We’ll start with neutral physical.
Wielders
Mistings who can burn the neutral physical allomantic metal are called Wielders. Wielders can burn metal to increase the inertia of a piece of metal they’re touching— while themselves ignoring this increase in inertia. In effect, they get a sort of highly specific super strength. A Wielder who burns metal while throwing a coin doesn’t increase its velocity, but can give it the impact of a cannonball. A Wielder who burns metal and swings a metal sword can make their swing nearly unstoppable. Wielder-enhanced blocks are and parries are similarly difficult to turn aside. A Wielded object loses its enhanced inertia over time when the Wielder stops burning metal, so projectiles can retain the effect long enough to deal damage after being thrown.
This power has an external aspect— modifying the properties of the Wielded object— and an internal aspect: enhancing the force that the Wielder exerts with respect to the Wielded object. It’s also neutral between pushing and pulling, since the enhanced impact of the Wielded object can be thought of as a pushing effect, while its enhanced resistance to being moved by external forces can be thought of as a pulling effect. Or something.
Next, the neutral emotional.
Diplomats
Mistings who can burn the neutral emotional metal are called Diplomats. Diplomats can burn metal to create a reciprocal emotional and mental link with someone else. The link transmits both feelings and thoughts both ways, and the intensity of the link is proportional to the magnitude of the allomantic burn. The emotional effect is empathetic: A Diplomat and their target don’t merely become aware of each other’s emotions, they experience them as well. Furthermore, the effect conserves the intensity of the emotions, in that if a calm Diplomat links with a furious target, the Diplomat will become more angry and the target will become more calm, and the inverse can also occur, if the Diplomat is the one experiencing the more intense emotion.
Both the emotional and the mental effect are involuntarily bidirectional. This is particularly important to the transmission of thoughts: the Diplomat cannot learn a target’s thoughts without transmitting their own thoughts in turn. Perhaps an extraordinarily skilled Diplomat can still their mind and emotions while connecting with another so fully that they go unnoticed, but it’s not possible in most cases for a Diplomat to read minds stealthily, unless the target is extremely distracted or inebriated. Naturally, this downside is less of a problem in an interrogation.
Despite the symmetric nature of the connection, a Diplomat’s powers can still be useful in combat, as their target will likely be unskilled at interpreting thoughts and feelings to predict an opponent while obfuscating their own, whereas the Diplomat should be experienced with this game. Thus, a skilled Diplomat could make use of both preternatural insight into an opponent’s intentions and telepathically conveyed misdirection.
This power’s bidirectional transmission is has conceptual elements of both pushing and pulling. It is also both internal and external in its effect. Furthermore, if we look at the other mental Allomantic powers, two are emotional while two are informational, and a Diplomat’s power is correspondingly both emotional and informational.
Next, the neutral spatial.
Mountebanks
Mistings who can burn the neutral spatial allomantic metal are called Mountebanks. For their neutral spatial, they wield a GUN. Just kidding.
A Mountebank’s power is simple: they can swap their own position with that of metal a nearby metal object, teleporting both themselves and the metal. The amount of burned metal this requires is proportional to both the distance of the swap and the difference in mass between the Mountebank and their target. So a Mountebank can reasonably swap themselves with a nearby coin, or a more distant anchor, but not a faraway coin.
The reciprocal nature of the power gives it conceptual elements of pushing and pulling, and its effect on the Mountebank and on external metal gives it an internal element and an external element. Maybe by this logic steel and iron have internal elements, but whatever. It’s a neat power. My direct inspiration is Trickster from worm. I think needing to swap with stuff is a really neat limitation on a teleportation power.
Next, the neutral temporal.
Stallers
Mistings who can burn the temporal neutral metal are called Stallers. When a Staller burns metal, time stops in a set radius around them for everything except their own mind. The only action they can take is to continue burning metal or to stop and allow time around them to resume.
This is extremely useful in a one-on-one fight or a fight against a small group, and moderately useful in a fight against spread out opponents. Against opponents who are spread out, a Staller has to be careful not to let the enemies outside of the range of their effect fire a bunch of arrows or bullets at them, as such projectiles will freeze a moment after entering the effect, but resume their course as soon as the Staller stops burning. Still, a Staller in such a fight can burn metal for moments at a time to help them react to nearby attackers without opening themselves up too much. Stallers can also be quite effective if they work with allies, as allies can cover for them or set up projectiles to hit Stalled enemies themselves.
If cadmium allomancers pull time slower, and bendalloy allomancers push time faster, then Stallers, uh, hold time in place? Which according to the pattern of cadmium and bendalloy might be more like super-pulling, but whatever. We can say that holding something in place is conceptually like pushing and pulling it. The external aspect is of course affecting time in an area around the Staller, and the internal aspect is carving out an exception for the Staller’s own mind. The internal temporal metals, electrum and gold, have an informational aspect, and comparatively accelerating one’s one cognition sort of has this aspect as well.
We’re almost done! Last is the neutral regulatory power.
Levellers
Mistings who can burn the regulatory neutral metal are called Levellers. When a Leveller burns metal, they can target another allomancer, and the allomantic reserves of the Leveller and the target gradually equalize, with the rate of transfer proportional to both the differences in the levels of each metal and the rate of metal burn.
So a Leveller can steal someone’s allomantic reserves, but only half of them. And they can distribute allomantic reserves to others, until all targets have equal reserves of each metal. For simplicity I’ll say that whatever the regulatory neutral metal is, reserves of that metal in particular are unaffected by Levelling.
Refilling allomantic reserves is easy for most metals, but Levelling could be a really big deal if a target has atium, which in the setting of Mistborn is a super-special overpowered “god metal” that grants potent combat precognition. A Leveller could potentially transfer atium from an enemy to an allied allomancer who can burn it, which would be neat. There would also be interesting logistics and tradeoffs to burning this metal, since the direction of transfer depends on the relative allomantic reserves of the Leveller and targets.
There are conceptual elements of pulling and pushing in how Levellers can both drain and increase reserves, and of course the way that both the Leveller and the target’s reserves are affected makes the power both internal and external.
All done! Now our allomancy has NINE shiny new powers, for a grand total of 25 powers, where the original has 16 (not counting the god metals). It’s also pretty and elegant.
Is this version better? Well, I like it more. But it’s also got more parts, and simplicity counts for a lot. I would not expect a rewritten version of the Mistborn novels with all these new powers to be better. But it could be neat to introduce 16 previously unknown allomantic metals in a fanfic! It could even be sort of consistent with the Mistborn books. Half of the original allomantic metals weren’t widely known at the beginning of Mistborn, and in third book I remember the bottom row still being undiscovered. So it’s not too much of a stretch that there could be even more allomantic metals, since they get discovered so slowly over the course of the series.
But this expansion begs another question. What about the feruchemical metals? They correspond to the allomantic metals, so surely new allomantic metals would necessitate a symmetrical arrangement of feruchemical metals, right?
Well, I’ve worked out a set of 25 feruchemical powers as well! As with this expansion, some correspond to Sanderson’s powers and some are original. I’m planning on reviewing feruchemy and presenting my own expanded version in a future post. In the feruchemy post, I’ll also get around to assigning actual metals or alloys to each new power. If I feel like it. Stay tuned!