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I've made a font for the steel alphabet as it was in the final empire period (because I think they look the best ). The letter assignments are based on our best knowledge of what they are. However it is possible that one or two symbols could be incorrect. If we do discover that I'll adjust it. You can find the names of the metals on Isaac's site here: http://www.isaacstewart.com/mistborn-series/ The website is being somewhat painful and not letting me upload any more attachments. So I have uploaded it at steelministry.com here http://steelministry.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=501 There's an example of the font in action and a key there as well as the main zip file. The zip file contains: -The font file -A readme with installation instructions and a bit about the steel alphabet/how it differs from english -A key showing the symbols to the letters (modified from the mistborn 1 key on Isaac's site). -A pdf of the shadows of self reading, converted into steel alphabet with all appropriate changes. A couple of things to note about the steel alphabet: -All double characters are represented with a single character (including things like "ie" and "ou") -The numbers 0-9 are included in the font using the numbering from the chapter headers. If you find any problems, or have any thoughts or comments please let me know =) Edit: the website has now decided that I *can* upload images and pdf's so here's the transcribed reading, key and quick sample image. I still cannot upload the font file or a compressed folder with it :/ shadows of self reading in steel alphabet.pdf Edit2: If any mods/admins have an idea how to fix the uploading problem I'll upload it here

(yes, double post, but of very different natures, so it's allowed. ) I guess I should probably share my story, since most of you haven't heard it. I used to shop at a Waldenbooks in one of the local malls often enough that the employees there knew me by name, and that I wanted to be an author myself. One of the employees (Steve. I think he's in the acknowledgements of a couple of the books), knew this and suggested Brandon to me, figuring I'd enjoy his works. I have to say, honestly, I put him down the first couple of times. I was given the hardback the first time, and didn't have the money. I was given the paperback the second time, and the back didn't catch my attention. (Really, that back is TERRIBLE!) Well, Steve told me one time that Brandon was going to be at this huge Authorpaloza type thing, and since I wanted to be a author I should come and pick his mind. This was on Black Friday, and it was insane! When I tried to find Brandon I was directed to the front. I asked one guy, who instead of saying "No, I'm not him, he's over there" he was all like "I'm not him, but let me talk your ear off about about medival history." (Which, was kind of cool. Also, when I said Brandon's name he was close enough to turn around and see who had said it, but I of course wasn't able to go over...) From there, my mother demanded I come home, so no luck that time. However, a little bit after that he held the pre-release launch party for Mistborn, and I was like "This is my chance!" I also decided if I was going to pick this guys mind, I should probably know something of his writing. It was only proper to support the guy, right? And while I was planning on picking up Mistborn, I figured I should also go into it knowing his stuff.) I picked up Elantris. I was blown away, simply put. I remember discribing it to people as a book that had predicitable twist, and things that you could never see coming. (I think it was the twist ending that I loved the most. I am usually able to pick up on foreshadowing a mile before it actually happens, so for someone to surprise me was awesome.) I went to the launch and ended up having a million questions to ask. At one point I had my recept, and kept on scribbling questions on the back so I wouldn't forget. I actually got teased for it a bit at the time. Mind you, this was a group of MAYBE 20 people asking questions. The total number of books sold had to be less than 100, and most of those were only sold because the book was being offered 3 days before the actual release date. From there it's a long story about how I ended up here, in charge of the site. I don't know that you guys would want to read that wall of text...

I can't get a very good reference but this says that a fast storm on earth can travel at 60 mph. Maybe faster over water? The circumference of the Earth is 24,901 miles at the equator. (Again, anyone out there with a better means of checking the circumference at a temperate clime like Roshar, please feel free. Actually, does anyone know what it says about axial tilt that the seasons shuffle like a shell game?) So it would take a normal thunderstorm on earth about 415 hours to circle the equator, or 17 days. I'm going to assume that a Stormlight-charged highstorm can travel at 90mph, half-again as fast as an Earth thunderstorm. I'm also going to peg the typical frequency of a highstorm at 5 days, and see how small the circumference of the planet would have to be at tropical Roshar for the highstorm to make it around. I get 10,800 miles. (Sidebar, in my attempt to figure out the circumference of Earth at specific lattitudes, I just broke maps.google labs. Sorry.) So... for my theory to work, it would help if I could get supporting evidence that highstorms ARE faster (at least over water) than Earth storms in Ohio. If not, then with the already-generous half-again estimate on speed, in five days a highstorm could make it around a circle whose radius is 1720 miles, approximately, so significantly less than half Earth's radius at the circumference. I know Roshar has lower gravity than Earth, so it's not wildly implausible to suggest that it might be smaller, but that seems much. There are still ways to save my theory: meteorilogical data that storms move faster over water would be one, or some trigonometry (which I will do tomorrow, when I haven't just taken a sleeping pill) which might give me better numbers for earth's radius at a temperate clime, or an alternate path for the highstorms (they might swing off course and take a short cut past a pole). Or, the simplest, Crys's theory that there are two or three storms chasing each other around the ball. LIES. I'm doing the math now. It'll be fun to wake up tomorrow and see how many mistakes I made. I'm using Baltimore as an example of a city with moderate temperate climes. I would be tickled to have someone explain to me that there's a better lattitude to pick to be more Roshar-like. According to this, Balto is 2703 miles (4350km) away from the equator. The earth's meridionial circumference is 40,007.86km, so I'm going to imagine a half-circle (I realize the Earth is SIGNIFICANTLY off from perfectly round, but unless you can do it better, don't bother pointint out how wrong I am) that is 20,003.93km long, with two points, each 4350km from an end. According to my calculations, each point is about 28% of the distance along the whole arc. Since the whole arc has 180 degrees, that means it is 50.4 degrees. So the angle between my two points is 180 - 50.4 - 50.4, or 79.2 degrees. So. We've got an isosceles triangle, the apex angle, and the length of the similar sides (I'm using earth radius, which I know will be too long, but again, please tell me how to find a better measurement from Balto to the spinning molten core of the Earth). If I remember my trig formulae correctly, the final side of the triangle (the line which connects Balto from its theoretical lattitudinal twin) should be Earth's radius * sin(theta/2). And the answer is... about 4061km, which should be the diameter. The radius, half that, would be 2030.5km. Which is... something like a third the Earth's mean radius. That makes NO sense. There's a reason I don't do math for a living. Forget everything I've typed, I'm off to bed.

This totally reminds me of a topic I made on TWG years ago. I'd link to it, but the archives are in maintenance mode. I held to the point that Raoden would beat everybody. Granted, this cage match was before Stormlight Archive, which throws in some strong abilities, but I still hold to Raoden beating anyone and everyone. As long as the match took place near Elantris anyway. As for some of the other matches with other characters battling it out (either physically or otherwise). Lord Ruler v. Seb was a tough one for me. Initially, I was thinking Seb, no doubt. Then I thought it was close, but still in favor of Seb. But then I really starting thinking, and now I've flipped the other way. Lord Ruler wins. Allomancy plus Feruchemy versus an Awakener? Yeah, the God King is powerful, but there's only so much Awakening can do, and unless Seb figures out about the bracers and gets them off the Lord Ruler, Rashek can heal immediately. Seb wouldn't be able to do any damage to him at all. I mean, this is a guy who merely gets irritated over decapitation. I'd like to see how Seb would hold up to that.... Kelsier v. Kaladin would go to Kaladin. If it's purely spears, it would take a while, but Kaladin would win. Kelsier is good, but he's not that good. Yeah, his fight with the Inquisitor was awesome, but he had a lot of other tricks up his sleeve, particularly with iron and steel. And if you give him other metals, you've got to give Kaladin spheres. And that makes this fight significantly shorter. Kaladin with spheres would take Kelsier down really fast. I mean, the entire Parshendi army couldn't take Kaladin down with all their arrows, so a few coins aren't going to do anything to him. And with all that stormlight, Kelsier doesn't stand a chance. I would pay good money to see both those matches of wits. Not sure which one I want to see more though, which surprises me a little bit. I love both Elend and Lightsong, and seeing them go at it would make my year, but Wayne and Shallan would be utterly hilarious. I think I would probably die of laughter....

It looks good, but I already miss the old website. It had a sense of... mystery around it. The only thing I don't like is how you can see the whole blogpost without clicking on the title.

He's an author and we keep expecting a physicist. Same thing with some of gold's inconsistencies. I honestly feel sorry for him when he tries his best to explain things and we're all THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT BECAUSE OF THIS EDGE CASE. If you do happen to ask about storing Breath in metal without the Ninth Heightening, make sure you specify that it's storing and not trying to awaken that we're looking for.

Yeah it's something I keep going back and forth over, it seems weird to me that Ruin could have a universally applicable magic system while no other Shards do. But perhaps this is a side effect of having an end-negative system? The only other thing I can think of is only Scadralian metal can be turned into spikes but I doubt that, the only thing I could think of is if Ruin's presence somehow gives Scadralian metals an increased Spiritual aspect or something (Not even sure how that woul work/if it's possible)