“She stopped, gazing up with wonder. They were faint, blurred to even her tin-enhanced eyes, but she could just barely make them out. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. So small, like the dying embers of candles recently extinguished.”1
Vin, upon burning Tin for the first time, learning of a far greater world and witnessing the stars above her.
Warning: This post contains potential spoilers for the Mistborn Trilogy
Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere setting leads to the Mistborn series, a sharp and grim tale of survival in the face of a world where the hero failed to save it. This in itself makes for an interesting premise, but what drew me into the series is how quaintly it describes the magical system from which the entire series draws upon.
To preface, commonly in fantasy settings magic is an art form that comes by as naturally as breathing. Wizards and mages cast spells from the wave of a wand or staff, drawing upon an invisible force of whomever it describes. In a Hard Fantasy, however, the free-flowing element of wizardry is now bound to a set of infallible rules. Guidelines are established and allows the user of this line of magic to only perform their work within the state that this power is allowed. Mistborn utilizes that exact formula, creating its own set of rules in the form of Allomancy.
Allomancy first and foremost is a hereditary trait – those born with the ability to control one metal are referred to as Mistings. Those who can control every metal are much rarer, referred to as the eponymous Mistborn. By ingesting the requisite metals, allomancers can perform miraculous feats of body and mind:
- Allow yourself to sense your surroundings in the most minute detail with the power of Tin
- Bring metal towards yourself with Iron’s pull
- Disappear from another allomancer’s view with Copper’s shroud
- Inspire others to feel more of an emotion with a riot of Brass
- And more, with a reference chart below
Each of these metals are also paired to the other in relation to their effect. Iron and Steel allows the user a gravitational effect on metals, while Tin and Pewter empowers the user’s mental and physical faculties respectively. Zinc and Brass interact with surrounding people, then Copper and Bronze interact with the visibility of allomancy in regards to others.
Allomantic powers will only last as far as the reserve of metal allotted within the allomancer’s body. Once that’s up, the power’s gone. Some metals, like Tin, have been noted to burn at a much slower rate, allowing the user to run hours with very little consumption. Pewter, on the other hand, will very quickly sputter out while providing the user unmatched physical prowess in this brief period.
I adore Mistborn due to the unique deviation of its power system and its applications from conventional magic. For the protagonists Kelsier and Vin, the real strength of their mistborn status is their own flexibility and ingenuity through using their powers. The utilization of these metals allows for very creative exploitation of the world around them, whether by traversing faster than normal humans (or Skaa) ever could, or tricking their way through people by influencing their emotions, and many more.
I would highly recommend reading further into the Mistborn trilogy, for the allomancy system is further expanded on with metals and how they interact with the world. The series over time introduces additional coexisting systems like Feruchemy, a similar magical system which allows users to store “information” within metals. The blend of interaction between man and metal creates a fascinating herald of survival, making the most of a world teetering on the brink of death.
Feature image from the Cosmere Roleplaying Game4
- Sanderson, B. (2019). Mistborn : the final empire. New York, Tor Fantasy.
↩︎ - Meehan, A. (2023, November 20). Sanderson’s Mistborn book series to be made into a deckbuilding game like Dominion. Dicebreaker. https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/mistborn-deckbuilding-game/news/mistborn-deckbuilding-game
↩︎ - The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. (2016, January 10). Meltotheany. https://meltotheany.com/2016/01/10/the-final-empire-by-brandon-sanderson/
↩︎ - (n.d.). Mistborn – The Cosmere Roleplaying Game [Review of Mistborn – The Cosmere Roleplaying Game]. Cosmere Roleplaying Game; Brotherwise Games and Dragonsteel. Retrieved January 31, 2026, from https://www.cosmererpg.com/mistborn ↩︎