spacemonkey

To answer your questions, I live near Seattle, and I've only listened to one or two of Brandon's podcasts.

Well, one way of looking at it is that since some power is lost through Hemalurgy, Ruin accomplishes its Intent of breaking things down by diminishing the overall amount of Preservation when someone is spiked. Allomancy is apparently linked to Preservation, so presumably one would have to transfer that connection through Hemalurgy, whereas Feruchemy and the Physical attributes are probably a combination of both Ruin and Preservation, with a bit more Preservation, given what we know about how the Shards invested humans on Scadrial.

Actually, having looked through Szeth's chapters again, I noticed something interesting. From the prologue: And later, in ninth interlude: Blinking is mentioned twice in connection with a Basic Lashing. That's probably not coincidence. So maybe the focus for the gravity surge is related to the eyes.

I agree with you on gold, cadmium, and bendalloy, but electrum stores determination. That's clearly a mental attribute. And yes, brass stores actual heat. So the breakdown for Feruchemy seems to be as follows: Physical: Iron, Steel, Tin, Pewter, Bendalloy, Cadmium, Gold, Brass. Cognitive: Zinc, Copper, Bronze, Electrum. Spiritual: Aluminum, Duralumin, Chromium, Nicrosil.

I'm twenty one, and I live in Washington (State, not city). I first came across Brandon's works after he was announced as the author for the final Wheel of Time books, as I suspect many others did. I'm actually planning to write a few fantasy novels of my own someday, and Brandon's works were one of the things that inspired me to become an author.

First time poster here. It seems likely to me that Soulcasting uses gems as the focus. When Jasnah purified Shallan's blood of poison in Chapter 48, she needed a garnet to transform blood. And when she turned the rock into smoke earlier in the book, she used a smokestone, which matches with the Soulcasting chart. So from this we can conclude that the focus for Soulcasting is gems. There is no indication in Kaladin or Szeth's chapters that gems are required for Windrunning, though, except as a source of Stormlight. Possibly, each Surge has its own focus, which would fit with each one being its own separate magic system.