The Metallic Arts and Their Relation to The Shards

[The_Last_OneLeft]

Okay, I've been thinking. In coppermind.net and in Ars Arcanum, it says that Allomancy is of Preservation, Hemalurgy is of Ruin, and Feruchemy is of both. However why is it that Feruchemy is of both Ruin and Preservation when it creates a End-Neutral result quite literally preserving one's ability for use later. Similarly, it is stated that neither Preservation nor ruin could create, as such Allomancy being a End-Positive means it should be of both Ruin and Preservation.

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, The_Last_OneLeft said:

Okay, I've been thinking. In coppermind.net and in Ars Arcanum, it says that Allomancy is of Preservation, Hemalurgy is of Ruin, and Feruchemy is of both. However why is it that Feruchemy is of both Ruin and Preservation when it creates a End-Neutral result quite literally preserving one's ability for use later. Similarly, it is stated that neither Preservation nor ruin could create, as such Allomancy being a End-Positive means it should be of both Ruin and Preservation.

Welcome to the Shard! You may want to tell us about what books you've read in the introduction forum so we know what books we can talk to you about without spoiling things.

The terms of End-Positive, Neutral, and Negative don't necessarily mean that you're creating something new or destroying something. It just refers to how the flow of Investiture goes for the practitioner's internal system. End-Positive means that their is more Investiture flowing into the practitioner's system- Allomancy increasing the practitioner's total Investiture by pulling it from the Shard of Preservation, leaving their personal, internal system in a net positive state.

Neutral just means that there is no extra Investiture flowing into the system. Feruchemy does save up Investiture for later use, but only by diverting it first from the Feruchemist themselves. There is (in practical terms) no extra Investiture added or lost to the Feruchemist's personal Investiture levels, it's just moved around to be more advantageous.

End-Negative is rare, but means that there is an actual net loss of Investiture in the given system. A Hemalurgic spike doesn't just transfer or save attributes like with Feruchemy, there is a decay, a loss of power if you were to count both the individuals involved. True, the person bearing the charged spike will have a positive addition to their internal system, but more is lost when taking both the donor's and the recipient's systems into account (instead of having a full 200% Investiture divided into two Allomancers, the one Allomancer may have something like 180% of their base level while the remaining 20% is lost via decay).

 

There is definitely some weirdness with this though, as there is technically a tiny bit of extra Investiture added from the Spiritual Realm for the purpose of overcoming the loss of energy in moving the Investiture around. Plus, the Positive, Neutral, and Negative systems really fit mostly within the Scadrian magic systems better than most others.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/2-jordancon-2016/#e171

Questioner

So for the Old Magic, in this classification system of end-positive, end-neutral, and end-negative, where would that fall under?

Brandon Sanderson

So, almost every magic in the cosmere is end-positive, almost every magic is relying upon an external source of Investiture to power it. So that phrasing is mostly more relevant to Scadrial than anywhere else, because that concept is how I'm dealing with things like the laws of thermodynamics, and even what they call end-neutral is relying a little bit on the power of Investiture to facilitate. So even an end-neutral magic system as they define it on Scadrial is actually not end-neutral. What you get put in you get out, but the power is facilitating that transfer… So that phrasing is kind of a... Take that as a science on.. Scadrial that does not extrapolate well, and may not even be 100% accurate.

Moderator

That would have been a great thing to know before we did the cosmere magic panel. *laughter*

Brandon Sanderson

I look at it as, is an Investiture externally powering the magic, and if you look at Allomancy, yes it is. You are drawing that power out. Feruchemy, you are putting Investiture in from your own body, it's your energy transferring to Investiture, which is being stored, which you are then drawing out, and things like that. But that changing forms is facilitated by the magic. Whereas you're stealing stuff with-- So you could look, for instance at the magic on Nalthis, you could look at that one as being-- as kind of working as end-negative, meaning "I am taking it away from someone else", or end-positive depending on if you're the one receiving it or not. So again, it's a phrasing that can be useful as a tool but doesn't scale well to the other magics.

I hope this is helpful to you! Please feel free to ask anything else if you have questions.

Edited October 4, 2025 by Trusk'our

[Treamayne]

Welcome to the Shard. Please consider an Intro Post to let us know what you have or have-not read (whichever list is shorter). Also, please consider checking out the Sharder FAQ for some useful forum info and tips. 

1 hour ago, The_Last_OneLeft said:

Okay, I've been thinking. In coppermind.net and in Ars Arcanum, it says that Allomancy is of Preservation, Hemalurgy is of Ruin, and Feruchemy is of both. However why is it that Feruchemy is of both Ruin and Preservation when it creates a End-Neutral result quite literally preserving one's ability for use later. Similarly, it is stated that neither Preservation nor ruin could create, as such Allomancy being a End-Positive means it should be of both Ruin and Preservation.

@Trusk'our gave a good overview. To be more specific all three systems are linked to both Preservation and Ruin (See WoBs below) - but they are weighted:

• Allomancy is "of Preservation" and burning metals draws directly on Preservation's investiture to power the ability
  • The metal just makes the link into the spiritual realm and determines what effect happens
• Hemalurgy is "of Ruin" because abilitiy is lost when a power is stolen (the spike will grant a less-powerful version of the ability stolen) and the spike loses additional power being stored outside of a living body or in blood. Hemalurgy also damages the spiked person's Spiritweb
• Ferchumy is considered to be "of both" because it preserves traits for use at a later time, but it also loses investiture if that trait is tapped faster than it was stored.
  • Compressed traits consume part of the stored trait in order to compress more power in less time

Some of this is because descriptions are "in-world" and therefore subject to unreliable narrator and incomplete understanding. WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Andrew The Great (paraphrased)

What would happen if a person were to burn a metal that was Feruchemically charged using Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The metal used in Allomancy is like a key or a doorway to the power that Allomancy actually uses. The metal acts as a filter, much as the Aons in Elantris do, to determine what the power actually does. However, if the metal is Feruchemically charged, then it will basically become a super-burst of Feruchemical power with no Allomantic effect. The Feruchemical charge acts as a filter as well as the metal, and changes what the power does. in this case, say you were burning steel, you would just be massively speedy for a second, and wouldn't actually have the ability to push on anything Allomantically. Hope that answered the question. I get the concept, so if you need me to explain it differently, let me know and I'll try. Oh, the other thing I forgot is that this concept only works if it's a metal that you charged yourself. If it's a metal someone else charged, it would just work like regular Allomancy, and the Feruchemical charge would just cease to exist.

Idaho Falls Signing (June 20, 2009)

Quote

Master_Moridin

What is the relationship between blood and the Spiritual Realm? (Since Hemalurgy needs blood to graft the sDNA in a spike into someone else's sDNA)

Brandon Sanderson

The blood being in motion is part of it.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 28, 2012)

Quote

Kurkistan

How exactly does Hemalurgic decay work for Feruchemy? Is it like a leaky tube or something, or…?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah… yeah.

Kurkistan

So they try to store 10 units of health and only 9 gets through, or…?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgic decay meaning someone who has been spiked is less powerful? That Hemalurgic decay, or the Hemalurgic decay when a Hemalurgic spike is left outside of blood?

Kurkistan

Less powerful. So like the Inquisitors are less powerful Feruchemists so they had to spend longer storing: so why did they have to spend longer storing?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah they lose a little bit, it’s a leaky… You’re there, exactly. It just doesn’t quite… it’s not as efficient: it’s an efficiency thing.

Calamity Chicago signing (Feb. 22, 2016)

Quote

Sporkify

This is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power?

Brandon Sanderson

It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.

In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.

Footnote: This question was asked when fueling Feruchemy with Allomancy had only been seen in Rashek. As such, the term compounding is used purely to reference tapping at a higher rate than can be stored - and is now known as "compresssed trait."
Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

 

Hope that helps

[alder24]

19 hours ago, The_Last_OneLeft said:

Okay, I've been thinking. In coppermind.net and in Ars Arcanum, it says that Allomancy is of Preservation, Hemalurgy is of Ruin, and Feruchemy is of both. However why is it that Feruchemy is of both Ruin and Preservation when it creates a End-Neutral result quite literally preserving one's ability for use later. Similarly, it is stated that neither Preservation nor ruin could create, as such Allomancy being a End-Positive means it should be of both Ruin and Preservation.

Allomancy is of Preservation because it's a gift allowing you to preserve yourself, Hemalurgy is of Ruin because you have to kill and destroy to gain powers with a loss and Feruchemy is a balance system of those two because you have to become weak to save your strength for later.

Spoiler

Chaos

Allomancy provides many very dramatic effects, which some have noted is not very much like Preservation. Could you walk me through how Allomancy is of Preservation, though it does dramatic, dynamic things?

Brandon Sanderson

One of the 'basics' of the magic in all of the worlds is that the energy of Shards can fuel all kinds of interactions, not just interactions based on their personality/role. I did this because otherwise, the Magics would all be extremely limited.

The 'role' of the Shard has to do with the WAY the magic is obtained, not what it can do. So, in Preservation's case, the magic is a gift--allowing a person to preserve their own strength, and rely upon the strength granted by the magic. While Hemalurgy has a huge cost, ending in net entropy.

/r/fantasy AMA 2011 (Aug. 31, 2011)

[Shadeshadow227]

On 10/4/2025 at 9:29 AM, The_Last_OneLeft said:

Okay, I've been thinking. In coppermind.net and in Ars Arcanum, it says that Allomancy is of Preservation, Hemalurgy is of Ruin, and Feruchemy is of both. However why is it that Feruchemy is of both Ruin and Preservation when it creates a End-Neutral result quite literally preserving one's ability for use later. Similarly, it is stated that neither Preservation nor ruin could create, as such Allomancy being a End-Positive means it should be of both Ruin and Preservation.

Feruchemy temporarily Ruins you (diminishing attributes while storing), and then those lost attributes are Preserved within a metalmind for later access when tapping. It fulfills both Intents in a way that the other metallic arts don't, which happens to lead to no net gain.

With Hemalurgy, power is taken, people are hurt or killed, destruction is necessary, and power isn't really preserved even though it is transferred, hemalurgic spikes decay outside of a host or certain storage methods, energy is lost into the surroundings. 

Allomancy uses Preservation's power almost exclusively, it has less to do with Preservation as a shard and more about Preservation's relationship to the people on Scadrial. They have more of Preservation than Ruin, because of how they were made, and that extra Connection to Preservation enables them to draw on the shard's power, but not freely. Something else is required to initiate and continue the reaction (because Preservation itself cannot really start anything), which is then naturally expended as part of that reaction, and the spiritual aspects of that material determine what effect the Investiture produces. Steel Pushes (Physically), Zinc Pulls (Cognitively), Aluminum blocks Investiture (Pulling it, and the materials used to access it, out of the Allomancer's system), etc., because that's naturally part of those materials' spiritual properties, Preservation doesn't have to do anything to produce those effects, it's just providing power which is then filtered through the metal.

In addition, Allomancy doesn't alter the user in the same ways that Feruchemy and especially Hemalurgy do. Savantism is a thing, but that's a thing with all long-term flows of Investiture through a spiritweb, it's a consequence of the physics of how Allomancy and other things that use similar mechanisms function, not directly something Allomancy itself does.

There's a particular irony to how things end up, with some shardic systems, Allomancy is one of those cases, where circumstances lined up in the right way where Preservation's power is likely to expend more material than Ruin's in the long-term.