***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****

[EUOL]

1.  The metal chunk that Elend ate is intended to be something of a mystery.  Much like atium, actually.  Suffice it to say that Atium isn't, and never was, what people thought it was. 

I intended Allomancy to be much like a real science.  People investigate and put things into boxes, trying to describe and understand the world around them.  That doesn't mean they always get things right, however. 

Let me say this, as I don't want to spoil too much.  If that metal Elend ate were fused into specific alloys with certain metals, it could have instead created Mistings of each of the different Allomantic powers.  Atium's abilities are not entirely explored yet either.

2.  Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy all work as they once did.  However, now they are more directly affected by the presence or absence of the mists, which will slowly return to the world but not be of the extent they once were.  (The mists are now an extent of Sazed's power, and where they roam, he is better able to influence things.  There will also be two kinds of mists.)  Note that in the future, Feruchemy powers will start to fracture and split, creating Feruchemical "Mistings." 

Yes, this means that in the future series, it will be possible for a person to have one Allomantic power and one Feruchemical power.  It will create for some very interesting mixing of powers.

3.  The Terris prophesies were created by Preservation before he attempted his imprisonment.  He knew that he wouldn't be able to do much for the world after he did what he did, and he foresaw a LOT of what was to come. 

4.  Way before Alendi's time.  Hence the need for the prophesies.  But Ruin managed to corrupt them.

[EUOL]

I would like to echo a question that someone beat me to.   The way you ended it seemed to leave the door wide open for other books with characters such as Spook and Breeze playing much larger rolls.  My question is was the ending planned as just an open-ended ending to make people wonder about what might happen, or was that with the intent of writing more books in mind?

I like it when my characters live on in people's minds.  I have no plans right now to write any more books about Spook or Breeze, though what they do in the next period of time will create the history for the next series.  However, there's a chance I'll change my mind on this.  However, this ending was not set up for another book specifically.  I just wanted to tell the best ending I could, and this is how it turned out.

[EUOL]

I know.

The real story is that Brandon was writing (or revising?) Way of Kings when Tor offered to buy Elantris. Brandon signed a two-book contract for Elantris and Way of Kings. Then Brandon realized he wasn't in the point in his career yet where he could write Way of Kings the way he wanted to, so while he was supposed to be revising Way of Kings he secretly wrote the first Mistborn book instead, which he then sold to Tor as a trilogy, replacing Way of Kings in the original contract.

But for some reason Amazon already had a listing for Way of Kings, with a release date. Thence the fake reviews.

I've read an early draft of the first book, and it aims to be very epic. (No, Elvis is not involved.) I do wonder, though, whether when it actually comes out, the fake reviews will get attached to its Amazon listing.

This is all true.  Note that the book would not be name The Way of Kings.  Most likely, I'm going to make that the series name.  So I guess the book "The Way of Kings" must be some kind of parallel novel or prequel or something...

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Oathshards is out, eh?

You're such a tease, Brandon. All these details about the next series will make everyone hungry for it, and then we'll all have to wait.

Of course, any other book you put out in the meantime will still be awesome, so we should be content, right?

[EUOL]

I don't think Oathshards is as strong a name as "The Way of Kings."  Plus, that's really what the series is about.

[zchance]

I'm surprised no one else has asked but does this new world have atium? If atium was the body of Ruin then it would seem when Sazed took up Ruins power he would have reabsorbed all of the atium. New atium then would be bits of Sazed's new powers and weaken him with each newly formed bead. It would seem then that if atium exists it would be much rarer, and mean that Sazed would not be able to control this process.

I guess I am trying to understand why he would want to allow any Atium to make its way into the hands of people or rather out of his control?

[happyman]

3)  The last two metals are Chromium and Nicrosil.  We'll reveal what they do on the Allomancy poster.  Suffice it to say that in the next trilogy, the main protagonist would be a Nicrosil Misting.  And, to make a Robert Jordan-type comment, what those two metals do should become obvious to the serious student of Allomancy...  (It has to do with the nature of the metal groupings.)

If I read the poster correctly, and have the correlations down, these metals are the external enhancement metals.

The simplest idea is that they do to another person what Aluminum and Duralumin do to the Allomancer burning them.  If this is true, then Chromium would destroy another Allomancer's metals (useful skill, that, especially in a group of Mistings fighting a Mistborn) while Nicrosil would cause the target's metals that are currently burning to be burned in a brief, intense flash.  This could be used either to enhance a group of Mistings or to seriously mess up an enemy Allomancer.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

The other metals do not have exact one-to-one power correlations like that, so it seems more likely to me that they would work differently. It could be like an area effect weakening or enhancing spell. You would want an enhancer in your party, and you wouldn't want to go up against a weakener.

Nicrosil is a rather more complicated alloy than the others. It's an interesting one to pick, rather than something simpler like nichrome (though I guess that's actually a brand name).

My theory about atium was that because Ruin was basically directed entropy, by burning a small part of his body you defeated entropy and could see the future. Does that hold up?

What metal do you alloy with atium to get malatium? If Preservation's body was metal as well, that would be a candidate...

It's a relief to be able to share MY theories now.

[Kirrin]

3)  The last two metals are Chromium and Nicrosil.  We'll reveal what they do on the Allomancy poster.  Suffice it to say that in the next trilogy, the main protagonist would be a Nicrosil Misting.  And, to make a Robert Jordan-type comment, what those two metals do should become obvious to the serious student of Allomancy...  (It has to do with the nature of the metal groupings.)

Good to hear that Marsh is still around. I always kinda liked him. So Nicrosil and Chormium enhance people somehow I'm guessing?

[VegasDev]

What I find interesting is that the most useless metal to the Mistborn world (Silver) would actually conduct electricity the best in the advanced world.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Silver's not totally useless...once you make electrum out of it.

[Dalenthas]

Hi, new here, registered just so I could ask some questions:

1) Will we get a map of what the new world? Or do we have to wait for the next trilogy, whenever that may be?

2) When the Mists come back, will they continue Snapping people?

3) Was Reen named that specifically because its so close sounding to Ruin, or is that a coincidence?

4) Did the Lord Ruler have any Hemalurgic spikes in him? It would seem he'd need to for Ruin to influence him, but it wasn't mentioned. Or did his bracers work as spikes?

5) Was TenSoon more susceptable to Ruin's powers than the other Kandra because he took OreSeur's Blessings?

6) Did Sazed leave information about how his new religion should be run for Spook and the others to find? His note to Spook implies that there is an afterlife...

7) With all the talk about action and reaction and whatnot, will some force form to counter Sazed's new Ruin/Preservation mix? It seems to me like the whole nature of the world can't stand to have one person unnopposed.

Does the Well of Ascension still exsit in the new world? Or is it no longer necessary? I assumed that Preservation collected there like Ruin collects in the Pits of Hathsin, so if Atium keeps forming then the well should keep filling...

9) Was Kelsier under Ruin's influence as well? It seems to me that destroying the Pits of Hathsin (and thus preventing Ruin's power from leaking) is something that Ruin would want to happen...

Ok, that's enough questions for now...

[Sylos]

Question about Atium and Duralumin

I was happy when Elend finally burned Duralumin with Atium. I was holding my breath hoping that someone would eventually do it. However we didn't really get any info as to what Elend experienced. Does a Duralumin enchanced atium burn allow a person to see significantly farther into the future. If so, being that Elend's army was dying all around him did he get to see into the afterlife . Also if you could tell us what he saw that would be awesome. Did something he saw make him not want to avoid Marshes strike.

On a similar note if someone bured electrum with duralumin would they get to see significantly into thier own future.

[kaimipono]

Another minor question --

What was Zane's hemalurgical power?  (Or was he just spiked for control?)

[Chaos]

The other metals do not have exact one-to-one power correlations like that, so it seems more likely to me that they would work differently. It could be like an area effect weakening or enhancing spell. You would want an enhancer in your party, and you wouldn't want to go up against a weakener.

Nicrosil is a rather more complicated alloy than the others. It's an interesting one to pick, rather than something simpler like nichrome (though I guess that's actually a brand name).

My theory about atium was that because Ruin was basically directed entropy, by burning a small part of his body you defeated entropy and could see the future. Does that hold up?

What metal do you alloy with atium to get malatium? If Preservation's body was metal as well, that would be a candidate...

It's a relief to be able to share MY theories now.

My thoughts on atium were very similar, with that entropy thing. Ruin causes more entropy in the world, so I think that works out.

On a completely different note, I was completely astonished that Yomen was an atium Misting. Even more astonishing, I am very certain that "Seer" was a term floating around in the Atium Mistings topic way back when.