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shadowsaber415

How long ago did you come up with the Monarch twist?

Will Wight

I assume by that you mean the link between the Monarchs and hunger madra. And the whole time I had intended for Monarchs to be a final obstacle for Lindon. Not necessarily THE final obstacle, of course you still have the Dreadgods, but involved in Lindon's final trials. What I always wanted was Eithan guides Lindon up to the final two books, and then in the final two books, Lindon and company have to deal with the challenges themselves. And what I wanted the final boss of Cradle to be, was effectively Cradle itself. I wanted it to be them working against the world. The whole world. Against them. So that was my original intention, and I intended therefore for the Dreadgods and Monarchs to be on the same side at some point, but the mechanics of doing that shifted and changed. I had certain ideas, I kind of knew how they were kind of linked, and it was one of those things where I set myself up for several ways I could have done it, and ended up picking the way that made the most sense.

DJflopdog

Can an advanced enough sacred beast, who has transitioned to human form, change back into beast form at will? The dragon monarch Seth for example.

Will Wight

Somebody advanced enough can. Seth definitely can. He can do whatever he wants. But, it's somebody like Sophara from Ghostwater, the Underlady, she doesn't have a dragon form. She does, but she would have to spend soulfire and time slowly making herself back into a dragon. And, that would be an inefficient use of time and soulfire. So, it would be difficult. Even and Archlord, it's not easy. But a herald, or above, so a monarch, a herald or monarch, those can shift all the time. And shift. And shift.

Questioner

What are the fundamental tenets of aura theory on Cradle?

Will Wight

It's actually very different from culture to culture. We've spent the entirety of the series so far in the western half of the Blackflame Empire, so culturally it's all very similar. They see it as different though everything in nature radiates a different kind of power, and these can be blended and molded in order to shape your own madra. Other cultures see aura as one connected force, the spirit of the world, which takes on different forms (aspects) as it weaves through nature.

Questioner

Were the sacred artists Suriel revealed to Lindon a mere sampling of the beings at that power level, or are these literally the only three groups at their level?

Will Wight

They are not the only ones. In the form of a young boy, an ancient dragon rules the desert to the east of the Blackflame Empire. He is kept from consuming the humans by the deterrent of the Akura clan, whose Matriarch is one of the few beings on the planet he respects. Northstrider gathers power in the hopes that he will one day be able to challenge this particular dragon.

manty65

How do Remnants cycle?

Will Wight

They feed on other Remnants and similar sources of compatible madra, which is how they stay cohesive enough to avoid dispersing. As long as they do that, they passively absorb vital aura.

Questioner

Since sacred beasts can become sentient over time, do advanced ones view ownership of sacred beasts akin to slavery? For example, Eithan says his family owned a breeding pair of Heavenly Sky Tigers. What would Reigan Shen think of that?

Will Wight

By and large, its kind of like how humans think of monkeys. So, if it's not a sentient sacred beast, they don't really care. It's just an animal to them as well. They eat non-sentient sacred beasts. So its just a distinction between are you sentient or are you not sentient. That's it. While virtually any animal can become sentient by absorbing aura, its so far removed that that's not considered something that anybody really worries about. Unless they have developed sentience, in which case, then they're off limits. And that counts as effectively cannibalism in their world, if you ate a sentient creature.

SomeWhoCallMe... Tim

Will Wight

I mentioned the other day that, in my D&D campaign, I chose to play a human fighter because it was the character I would normally choose last. This is why: I'm way better at playing nuttier characters, so I'm trying to stretch myself so that I can play the "normal" grounded characters more convincingly.

PLangdon84

How does the hollow domain not disrupt enforcer techniques? Didn’t it disrupt Daji’s and Sophara’s in Wintersteel?

From Wintersteel, battle report against brother Aekin:

Lindon dashes up with the Soul Cloak, carrying the Hollow Domain in an orb around him. When he gets close enough, even Aekin’s Enforcer technique falters.

Will Wight

Yeah, it’s a lack of specificity in my writing. Sorry about that.

I intended it to take a lot more power to wipe out Enforcer techniques because they’re internal. Someone of approximately equal power to Lindon would have an easier time keeping their Enforcer technique active inside the Domain, but it still comes down to Lindon’s power against theirs.

I meant the scene with Brother Aekin to be an example illustrating Lindon pushing the Domain hard, which is why “even” his Enforcer technique fails, and with Yerin is a scenario where he’s just keeping it on at default strength so Enforcer techniques aren’t wiped out. (Unless they were significantly weaker than Lindon.)

With Aekin specifically, that technique does indeed have an external component as some people have pointed out. That part is true, but I still should have clarified.

But I phrased that inaccurately in this scene. My bad. 

magi1201

What about the barrier of body? Should that keep internal enforcement running?

Will Wight

That’s what makes it harder, but of course internal madra resistance is not impenetrable, or you could never hurt anyone directly with a Striker technique.

Questioner

And is there other ways to create illusions than with light + dreams?

Will Wight

Yes. There are light Paths or dream Paths that craft either purely visual or purely mental illusions. And there are other Paths that rely on sensory trickery, it’s just that those are the most common.

Shadow madra is a thing, for instance.

Hjorth

It seems that powers specific to iteration aren't related to biology, but perhaps instead granted by the iteration at birth.

Will Wight

Some Iteration powers are hereditary, and others are environmental. Cradle powers have elements of both, in that you can inherit some spiritual traits or powers from your parents, but madra really comes from aura, which is environmental.

PurplePudding

Are you at least enjoying writing this one a bit more this time around? I know you were quite stressed the past couple books

Will Wight

I wish!

I’m really not enjoying it more, and it’s no easier. However, I’ve been able to recover a lot faster. After slamming out words for a few days in a row, I start acting human again after only a few hours, and it used to take days.

I admit I’m a little disappointed, though. I thought getting rest and taking the extra pressure off would make the process of writing feel significantly easier, and it turns out it’s just hard whether you’re burned out or not.

Questioner

Is everyone a Sacred Artist on Cradle, or does every community practice Sacred Arts in some way, for example, is it possible on some remote island there would be people not practising Sacred Arts?

Will Wight

When people in Cradle call themselves sacred artists, what they're really saying is that they're actively pursuing advancement. They cycle aura every day, they practice their techniques, they hone their craft, and so on.

So while madra would be a part of everyone's everyday life, and while everyone has technically attained some advancement level in the sacred arts, not everyone is a sacred artist.

Numuhukumakiaki'aialunamor

I have a few questions for you, Will.1) Would someone from the Abidan Court leave a remnant, can someone who uses the power of the Way even leave a remnant?2) If Lindon, Yerin and Eithan advance to the world beyond Cradle would they be babies in the new world or adults?3) Does any world beyond Cradle use Madras?

Will Wight

I can't believe you typed out that entire name. Now I want to hear you sing it.

1.) Most of the seven Court members are not from Cradle, so no, they would not leave a Remnant. Any normal Abidan from Cradle would leave one, but it might not be capable of tapping into the Way. If it can't, then it's much less powerful than the Abidan was in life, and would be easily exterminated by anything capable of killing an Abidan.

2.) Depends on where they go and when/how they advance. Lots of factors in play.3.) Not exactly. This is difficult to answer without getting into spoiler-y specifics.

Numuhukumakiaki'aialunamor

On the second answer.   Are the factors their age, power "level" during ascension, the world they are advancing to?   Or is it something completely else? Do they keep their memories, even if they become babies? This is so weird...    

Will Wight

As it turns out, I completely misunderstood your question.

Suriel used the "infants/adults" terms metaphorically, so I didn't realize you were asking the question literally.

They will be adults. They're going to physically transport themselves to another world, not reincarnate there.

Questioner

Please tell us more about Sesh's reign. Can you tell us anything about him at all?

Will Wight

Ah, yeah. I think he... the way I think of him is or the Akura family sees him as this tyrant who wants to kill humanity kind of thing but I see him as more of a character who believes that Cradle is run by the rule of the jungle anyway, the law of the jungle. And that we should all kind of embrace that and that everybody would really be better off if we were just honest about it. So I see him as sort of someone who from the outside looks cruel but doesn't think of himself as that way. And he goes listen I'm going to get mine because I'm the strongest so let's all be clear about that. And that the problem with a lot of things, including the relationship between the Monarchs and the Dreadgods comes from the fact that we're trying to impose order on chaos. So kind of in that way, he's similar to his... his worldview is more similar to the Vroshir than to the Abidan because he's going look let's deal with the world as it is and not try to make it something that it isn't. That's how I think of him.

Kalani

Is Dross's "physical" form just an illusion of dream madra or can it interact with other objects like dream tablets? And if it can interact with other physical things, can other people somehow capture him if he strays too far from Lindon?

Will Wight

Dross’ physical form is now a projection that can’t move far from Lindon. He can interact with small or light physical objects, but if he were to be captured and taken away, he would dissolve and be reborn from the seed inside Lindon. Although it might hurt him, he couldn’t be stolen.

Jason

1 b.) As per the split the core question, I'm assuming that the number of cores would dictate the number of paths one could take or is it possible to follow 2 paths with one core?2 b.) This is more a fan fic thing from my own imagination. The Nye tend to fight with chains (I wonder why) and there are chain tattoo's to show how much power is being used. Is there another ability that can be granted by the Nye (or the territory in general?) that would enable a traveler to use a (shadow chain?) as a weapon? In my mind I picture it like a manriki gusari sort of weapon used to entangle an opponets sword or to bind or entangle limbs.

Will Wight

1.) If everything goes according to plan, we should meet a character in book four or five that cultivates two different types of madra in one core. It's normally not possible, because they blend.2.) I thought of that, but it sort of breaks the theme of Valinhall. Valinhall powers are internal, not external like most of the other Territories.Sure, they can summon weapons, but the internal power they use to do so is the key to the armory. The only external power they have is the ability to summon their Dragon's Fang. They can't even summon their advisors.

Wait a minute

Wait wait wait. There are seven [Judges in your blog posts], not nine!Did Will count wrong here? And why did I think there were nine?

Will Wight

Hahaha, I was wondering when someone would notice. I thought it would take longer.

There are eight Judges in the Court of Seven. It's been a real headache for them.

(There used to be nine, but Garbagiel, the Raccoon, was exiled and beaten for crimes against decency.)

I was going to wait until a few posts from now to point this out, but since you've already counted: Ozriel is relatively new. None of the other Judges were around when the Eledari Pact was created; they're the third to bear the mantle of Makiel, or the fourth Razael, or whatever.

This Ozriel is the only one there's ever been, but he didn't show up until the middle of the previous Suriel's generation. Before then, the Judges had to destroy worlds the old-fashioned way (by depopulating humanity), so it was messy. They could only keep a few hundred worlds protected and controlled, because chaotic fragments were so much more common.

But with a clean way to dispose of infected or expired worlds, they could expand their influence and protection more widely.

Megan Kurlac

I love Shera, as a woman I resonated with her, what is the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex?

Will Wight

It's fan response, it's reviewer response. People have certain ideas about what it means to be writing in a characters head based on their gender. So in general, speaking very candidly, when you are a man writing in the head of a woman, really even if you're a woman writing a woman character, it is, people have these assumptions that what you're doing is a statement on women in general. Where as when you do a male character, it's not taken that way. So, when you, so I can write a male character doing anything, and it isn't taken as a judgement or a statement on who men are, but whatever I have a woman do it is taken as, it can be taken as a statement on what women are like or what I think about women. So that is really the hardest thing, it's not really writing the characters, so there's a lot of good reasons for that, I'm really not attacking that, it's just what it is. So because of that I have to keep in mind what people are going to expect or how they're going to read this. I don't really have to do that for male characters, so that's the hardest part. That's the, I have to go, however the way I prefer to write characters is, and the way that I usually do is I write them just as the people that they are in the scenario, and then I kind of assign gender later. So I sort of have them in their role and their personality and their backstory, and then I figure out who they are as a human. So because of that, gender kind of comes along later in the process. So I write them the same, I write them the exact same ways, the same process. It doesnt change. Except that then, I have to determine, afterwards, okay is this, what can I? Am I allowed to do this? Are people going to take this, is this going to offend any body? Is this something that is going to, is there a problem here? You know, I've got to check, right? A lot of my beta readers are women, so I get to have that checked for me, they get to tell me what they think about it. That is primarily how I write characters, the same. That is how I would prefer to do it the entire time, I would prefer to write them exactly the same way. You have to keep reader expectations in mind, I certainly don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. That's the hardest thing, in terms of how you'd write people, look, you write people as authentically as you can. theres this idea that there's a gendered voice in a pov, and I have not found that to be true. It all comes down to how authentically you are writing the character, and if you're writing the character authentically then I think it comes across as an authentic voice and if you are not then I think it doesn't. There you go. 

Jess H

I'm glad Yerin is female.

Will Wight

 Okay so Yerin is one of those characters that I had as a woman from the beginning, and the reason by that is, she is the character who is the protagonist, who would be protagonist if Lindon wasn't around. She's got the sword powers, she's got the blood powers, main characters in these cultivation stories always have either sword, darkness, blood or fire powers or often all of them. Therefore Lindon got the fire and darkness and magic powers, and she got the sword and blood powers. So, I had her just be the, she's kind of the protagonist, and that's why she's the one who wants to fight all the time. Thats the typical cultivation protagonist. So her being gender flipped was intentional on my part, because she's the other side of the coin. Of a normal cultivation protagonist. Thats the backstory of Yerin's design there. 

Questioner

How do you cycle force aura so you can make your own force madra?

Will Wight

So, sword aura it just an application of force aura. Ya, its just a derivative of force aura. It builds up in things that do exert great force. Not things that could, which of course anything can, anything physical. But, things that do. So, things that really do bash up against other things on a daily basis. So, like a machine or manufacturing plant would generate a lot of force aura. A rushing river does too. But you tend to not sense that. Its a lot easier to sense sword aura than it is to sense force aura until you become kind of attuned to it and you sort of cycle it some a little bit. So, the more advanced you get on a force path the easier it is to feel that, see that. One of the things I've kind of referenced a little bit, but its sort of subtle and I probably need to draw it out more explicitly, is as you get more advanced on a certain path it becomes easier for you to pick up aura of that path. So, Lindon had to learn to see destruction aura even in a place where its very prevalent. So later, its a lot easier for him to see than other people to see. 

Questioner

Like when he was cycling for blackflame during Ghostwater, he sees or at least senses destruction aura in the fire. 

Will Wight

Right. So, I mentioned that force aura would be in a rushing river. It certainly would and it would be there for anybody. But, when Lindon looked at a river he would basically just see water aura. If Renfei, who is on cloud and force, she might se, basically, the force of the white water crashing against the rocks and she would see the water aura as it interacted with the air as a big cloud. So, her vision if she opened her copper sight, her vision of the river would look very different than Lindon's.

RedHavoc1021

It always throws me when I remember Lindon is supposed to be this mass of muscle. I think it’s because he’s so meek, but my mental image always defaults to a relatively small, wimpy looking kid.

Will Wight

Lindon is a W I D E B O I

Honestly, when I was first designing his character, it just appealed to me to have a protagonist whose appearance was so at odds with his personality.

I didn’t realize how much people’s understanding of his character would form their mental image, even when it contradicts the actual physical description.

I learned something!

Brightbane

Wait a second, was it intentional that Lindon was suppose to be jacked because of his core deficiency?

I just saw this comment a few minutes ago and it clicked in my head that normally even children make it to copper so they can cycle madra to their limbs on the journey to iron and that is what helps them battle gravity.

Since Lindon couldn't do that he had to rely on pure muscle to move around so his whole life was like resistance training. There's so much detail that goes into how books are put together that it blows my mind.

Will Wight

Yeah, that was a big part of the original idea. He has to keep up in physical training with people who are supernaturally stronger than he is.