Mistborn's three forms of Investiture use are known as the Metallic Arts, as they all require metals as either a focus or a fuel. Some of them provide superhuman physical abilities, some allow for incredible mental feats, and some have powers that the residents of Scadrial are still only just beginning to understand. As anticipation builds for the next arc of Mistborn novels, which will be set at a level of industrial development roughly equivalent to the real world's 1980s computer boom, there's also plenty of theorizing about just how the Metallic Arts will function in an increasingly technologically savvy society.

Metals Of The Cosmere And Their Invested Abilities

All forms of Investiture use the same metals in different ways, as the relationship between the and the power changes fundamentally depending on the Metallic Art in question. Yet each metal's innate properties mean that the manifestations of those powers are similar across Arts, and so metals are grouped into categories of effect (Physical, Mental, Spiritual, and Temporal), direction of force (Push or Pull), and relation to the of the power (External or Internal).

3 Feruchemy

Storing Abilities Away In Metal For Later Use

Feruchemy is nominally the weakest of the Metallic Arts, but that's only because it's effectively neutral. A Feruchemist must be in physical with a piece of metal (called a "metalmind" and often worn as jewelry) and make the conscious effort to store the appropriate attribute in it, and then can tap into it later. A Feruchemist could spend an hour storing their sight in tin metalmind (reducing it while they do so), and then could later tap that stored sense to increase their visual acuity proportionally; power is neither created nor destroyed, simply deferred.

Feruchemy is most common on Scadrial among the Terris people, who developed many practices around this form of Investiture, but few of those practices were concerned with traditional concepts of power. Instead, Terris Feruchemists used their abilities as a survival strategy for their people's culture, using metalminds to transfer knowledge from generation to generation. Still, to assume a Feruchemist is weak is a shortsighted thought, as steel or pewter metalminds could easily allow one to fight a koloss on equal , or a gold metalmind could allow even potentially fatal blows to heal instantly.

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After the Catacendre, as the Terris population reintegrated with the rest of northern Scadrial, intermarriage between cultures led to the spreading and dilution of Feruchemical powers. While many Terris of old were full Feruchemists, able to use any of the metals, by the second arc of Mistborn novels, most are only Ferrings, only able to use a single kind of metalmind. A similar dilution of Allomantic abilities also mean that era saw the development of Twinborn – people who could use a single Feruchemical and single Allomantic power, like Waxillium Ladrian and his partner Wayne.

2 Hemalurgy

Using Metal And Blood To Transfer Power From One Person To Another

The Metallic Art derived from the Shard called Ruin is known as Hemalurgy, and is the most dangerous form of Investiture on Scadrial. A Hemalurgist pierces a key location of a target's body with a metal spike, which then saps the target of whatever ability the metal relates to. The spike can then be embedded in anyone, and transfers the ability to them. Combinations of Hemalurgic spikes can be used to completely transform people and animals, such as the various creations of the Lord Ruler that allowed the Final Empire to have such overwhelming military supremacy.

As befits anything rooted in Ruin, Hemalurgy is destructive and easily abused to the point of seeming sadistic. Its intrinsically additive nature can allow someone to become horrifically powerful, like the Steel Inquisitors, which could easily overcome even a fully trained Mistborn. Still, Hemalurgy has weaknesses that can be exploited by those resourceful enough to mind them. For one thing, a body can only recieve so many spikes, so there is an upper limit to individual Hemalurgic power; for another thing, Hemalurgic spikes make the target vulnerable to emotional Allomancy – or even communication from one of the Cosmere's Shards.

1 Allomancy

Consuming The Innate Investiture Of Metal To Gain Incredible Power

While Feruchemy and Hemalurgy both store Investiture in pieces of metal, Allomancy works in reverse. An Allomancer consumes metal – most often as a solution of metal flakes suspended in alcohol or a drinkable oil – and then consciously metabolizes it in order to activate the power within. Activating Allomancy is usually known as "burning," as Allomancers describe it as causing a warm feeling in their belly. Unlike Feruchemy, where the Investiture comes from and returns to a body, or Hemalurgy, which requires a donor, Allomancy is limitless, with its limits bounded only by the Allomancer's supply of metal.

Allomancy, like Feruchemy, is spiritually hereditary, and can be ed on through bloodlines, although an Allomancer's abilities usually remain dormant until a sufficiently traumatic event unlocks them. Most Allomancers can only burn a single metal, and are known as Mistings; Mistborn, Allomancers who can burn any Invested metals, are phenomenally rare, particularly in the years after the Catacendre.

Some Allomancers are dangerous opponents, with metals like steel and iron allowing them to hurl metal projectiles around with dangerous force – doubly so after the Catacendre, as the development of firearms allowed Allomancers to perform the kinds of trick shots that real-world gunslingers like Annie Oakley couldn't even have dreamed of. Some metals, such as gold, only have esoteric Allomantic applications. But a full-blooded Mistborn like Vin, who can use all the metals in conjunction, is easily the most potentially powerful of the Metallic Arts – so long as their reserves hold out.