hemalurgy

Hemalurgy is a magic system in Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere, most prominently featured in the Mistborn series. It centers on the creation and use of metal spikes that can steal, store, and transfer investiture—the magical power that underpins many supernatural abilities. Practitioners who work with hemalurgy are called hemalurgists, and they manipulate spikes to capture portions of a living subject’s power and later pass those powers to a different recipient.

The core mechanism involves a spike being charged with a donor’s investiture through a ritual act that often results in the donor’s death. The spike then becomes a conduit that holds the stolen power. When the spike is implanted into another person, the recipient inherits or manifests a portion of the donor’s ability. The transfer is not always exact or stable, and the process can introduce unintended side effects or cognitive or psychological changes in the recipient.

Spikes can be used to host multiple powers and to combine effects, giving rise to various hemalurgic constructs or altered beings under certain conditions. The practice is generally considered dangerous and morally controversial within its fictional setting, and it is associated with clandestine or militant applications as well as significant ethical costs. Hemalurgy is presented as one of the distinctive magical disciplines within the Mistborn milieu, separate from, though interacting with, other investiture-related arts such as Allomancy and Feruchemy.

In-world, hemalurgy has a long and contentious history, tied to the rise and fall of empires and to the ambitions of those who seek to weaponize or extend their power through stolen investiture.