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Who's your favorite character to write the persepctive of?
Bliss, from Elder Empire. She's really fun. Pure fun, just enjoyable.
From Cradle, it is Eithan, hands down. It is easy and he gets to do whatever he wants.
What is the average life expectancy of someone on the path of gluttonous avarice?
Adarsh is right.Some of them, of course, eat anything they can get their hands on. These are almost impossible to kill, as their bodies process the power they consume to protect them. But they often die on their own, as their organs will eventually fail so badly that Enforcer techniques can't preserve them any longer.However, some of them devour only the most valuable delicacies. Ancient Remnant dead matter processed by Soulsmiths to be edible, the delicately seasoned meat of a thousand-year-old Underlord-level sacred beast, or fruits of such pure power that they glitter like crystal.These practitioners might be rail-thin and live for centuries more than their counterparts. Their bodies also tend to take on strange properties.
is balance generally an important mechanic in cradle magic systems?
I’m not sure how to respond to the balance question, because I don’t know what you mean by balance. Me balancing the Paths so they’re all roughly on the same level? The Paths keeping their madra in balance? Balancing different factions?
more like a general yin yang type deal. like destruction aura but no creation, is that a oddity and most things have an opposite to compliment?
I had a balance element to Cradle for a while, but I ditched it for (meta answer incoming) being more philosophical than fun.
Are Ziel's scripts a part of his path or a workaround around his core injury?
That is part of his path. That's kind of like the Path of the Last Oath that was briefly shown in Blackflame. He's forging scripts. So, therefore, that allows him to do certain specific things with his madra really well.
How are scales made and what are they? An inert Forger technique for storing power?
Scales: pretty much, yeah. It's a way to store inert power. They actually take more concentration and skill to make than normal Forged madra, which we'll (probably) go into in Skysworn.
Is the a cycling technique that aids digestion?
The Path of the Crimson Furnace has developed a cycling technique that they use in conjunction with their Iron bodies to eat as many spirit-fruits and sacred elixirs and pills as possible. They gorge themselves on sacred beast meat and sacred herbs, and then digest as quickly as possible. Their Iron body involves stuffing yourself to bursting and then using life madra to accelerate your body so that you digest it quickly. After about two weeks of this, combined with some pills they have developed for the purpose, your body becomes able to do it naturally. It's a great all-purpose Iron body; they are able to receive further benefits from elixirs that improve the body, and much of what they eat strengthens them and makes them tougher. The only downside is an accelerated metabolism: now they HAVE to eat all the time. At Jade, they have a cycling technique to go along with it. It allows them to milk further benefits out of restorative pills and elixirs, and extracts aura from the things they eat, improving advancement.
How do the people on Cradle age? Is it similar to many other Xianxia's, where the lifespan increases with every new cultivation rank? If yes, how old could a person approx. get?
Regardless of whether or not their lifespan is increased via ranking up, they will live longer on average. Their immune systems and internal organs appear to become far better at combating pathogens and toxins. As they human body ages, its immune system weakens, but who knows if that is the case with an iron body?
Furthermore, the elderly do seem to cling to life rather tightly, as evidenced by the jai clan. Not to mention that they would be well along their paths, and very hard to kill in combat.
As is usually the case with raccoons, Family of Raccoons is correct. Below roughly Underlord, it's just that their spirits compensate for age really well. Living over 100 isn't too uncommon.
At Underlord, you actually start to age slower. It partially depends on your madra, but Underlords can live to be 200+.
More advanced sacred artists can live even longer.
Okay, I'm a bit confused on how Cradle has that many people living on it. I know Will said that the planet is bigger and that vital aura helps to keep people alive, but I'm still not sure how it has such a huge population if there are so many dangerous conditions(monsters, remnants, kill-happy people, poisonous plants, etc.) and how there doesn't seem to be much large-scale agriculture(at least from what we've read). Is there agriculture that we haven't seen? Are they completely immune to disease? Is the planet just ridiculously huge(many times bigger than earth) to the point where that stuff could happen and still support a population of billions?
It has many times more surface area than Earth.
Also, as B pointed out, we haven't seen any REALLY civilized places yet. We'll see a city in Blackflame, but even that will be a relatively small, isolated city.
Thanks to vital aura and the power of madra, there are lots of inhabited places in Cradle that would be uninhabitable on Earth. For instance, there are cities on the bottom of the ocean. And on the surface of the ocean. And on the clouds.
The inside of a volcano? The top of a rainbow? The back of a turtle? In a glacier? On a glacier? Under a desert? Suspended on a moon beam? Floating on sunlight? Deep under ground?
No moonbeams. And I would describe the city floating on sunlight as walking on sunshine, woah-oh-oh.
Sauron vs. Sha Miara
This hasn't been explored yet, but basically the nature of Sha Miara's madra is countering and controlling other people's skills.
He could raise armies, and she could banish them or take them over. Any spell he cast, she could break it.
More than that, at her level, she could simply walk into Mordor. She'd leave it a crater. She's the nuclear weapon of her nation.
Who is your favorite Judge or Abidan member and why?
Hm. Favorite Judge or Abidan member? Just for pure fun either the Ghost or the Fox. They're just fun characters to mess with, to think about. They kind of have fun personalities and they both are... so the Ghost and the Fox both have a tendency of popping up on people and, as you know, I really like characters who just pop up unexpectedly on people. So because of that they are probably my favorites. More fun to write. I obviously have a soft spot for Suriel but I kind of like them all.
I had a, I answered this earlier today, but I had a whole story line planned as like a heavenly/Abidan story line and it was about a person who was a new recruit to the Abidan and he was going to end up using both the power of the Void and the Way. And he had a dragon companion, a black dragon companion, that gave him destructive powers aligned with Void and he had a little tiny blue sort of river fairy spirit who gave him water aura powers. So you can kind of see where this is going.
And he was going to end up being a new Judge. He was going to replace one of the Judges but that was a long time before Cradle. So what happened was I was writing a cultivation knockoff, I knew I needed a heavenly realm, I needed a kind of a pantheon and a heavenly realm story line. So I went back to that book and I repurposed the Abidan from there pretty much wholesale. So, yeah. At that point, by the way, Mercy was the Ghost. So there you go.
How would Simon compare to people on Cradle?
Steel reinforces your body in general, so your muscles and bones are able to handle a greater degree of stress. It affects your skin to some degree too, but not like it's going to turn a knife blade. There would just be a little more resistance before it cut you. Turning a knife blade is what the stone is for.
In terms of Iron bodies, the "perfect" Iron bodies introduced in Soulsmith are specialized. So some of them would have tougher skin, others would have greater strength, others heal faster. In general, leaving aside the specialization, an Iron body is just the result of your spirit improving and to some degree perfecting your body. It's a general physical upgrade.
Simon, when drawing on the Valinhall powers, would be better than an Iron body. But a sacred artist would also be using Enforcer techniques, which could compete on the same level. It would depend on the specific situation, but in general, Simon is going to be Underlord-level physically with his mask on. Truegold-level would be his peak without it.
Of course, that's purely in terms of physical strength and ability. Also, there would be some Enforcer-focused Underlords who might be able to trade punches with him in the mask, and then when the mask wore off, they would tear him apart.
Additionally, those colored rings of madra that Lindon sees around the sword sages remnant! Those just little cool visual effects? Extra soul spaces (will yerin find some presents as she advances?) Or are they indications he has more than one path!?!
They are little extra powers that the Sword Sage gained over his long career that he had stored in his soul. They became part of his spirit over time, and merged with his Remnant when he died.The only spoiler is the nature of what those powers were.
Drizzt vs. Kai or Simon?
Garth of Lords of Dus vs. Simon or Kai (or someone who'd be better matched)?
Josef from Rachel Aarons Eli Monpress series vs (drawing a blank on who'd be interesting)
1.) Drizzt vs. a Valinhall Traveler
The hard part of this matchup is that Drizzt doesn't actually have superhuman strength or speed. He can conjure darkness and faerie fire and summon a panther companion, but there are Valinhall answers to all of that.
However, in a pure swordfight, Drizzt would certainly beat Simon. And probably Kai as well, given that Drizzt has had hundreds of years to refine his craft, and is known as one of the most gifted fighters ever to come out of Menzoberranzan.
2.) Garth vs. Simon
I don't know who this is. If you mean Lords of Dust, the DnD campaign, I don't remember there being a Garth.
3.) Josef vs. Anybody
You know, it's been a while since I've read Eli Monpress, and I don't remember the details of Josef's powers. I mostly remember his sword, which would be difficult for most of my characters to deal with.
(Heart of Stone, I want to say? Heart of the Mountain? It was a mountain-sword, I remember that.)
Going down the power scale:
Yerin's master wins. He's fought against weapons with similar powers before.
The Emperor wins because it becomes a fight about manipulating the properties of ancient weapons, and that's his thing.
Eithan wins because he kills Josef without ever being hit by the sword.
Simon...this could go either way, depending on specifics. Here's where my lack of memory about Josef's particular powers hurts me, because I don't know mechanically how his attacks work. I'll call it 50-50, but it might be in Josef's favor.
Yerin almost certainly loses, unless Josef makes some stupid mistake.
Lindon gets his butt kicked, but he would know that, so he'd try to cheat somehow. Maybe poison.
Ok so you have stated that chicken exists in cradle. So my question is regarding sacred chickens. What madra type would the chicken have to use to become the most tasty sacred chicken?
Blood path. That way they get all meaty.
Morality discussions are exactly the sort of thing I probably shouldn't chime in on. When I share my thoughts on this topic, that kills discussion between readers.
But since you tagged me in, I'm going all-out! Let's do this thing right!
There is no true morality or justice in Cradle, only might makes right.
I don't understand this. The "might makes right" mentality comes from a world in which one hundred people cannot necessarily overpower one person, so their cultures developed differently than ours. In the same way, ours developed because there is no way ten people could possibly fail to overpower one, so "power" is measured in one's ability to influence others to your side.
None of this is a reflection of "true" morality or justice. These are just power dynamics. It's not mutually exclusive with the same range of moral beliefs we have in the real world, it's just a practical reality. The series is primarily dealing with power dynamics, not the moral ramifications of such, because having Lindon extensively brood over whether his accumulation of power is morally justified in an inherently stratified society doesn't make for a compelling story.
Also, what are "true morality" and "true justice"?
So I fully expect Lindon to slaughter the Heavens Glory school.
Why would you expect that? He hasn't slaughtered anyone thus far. He's been in life-or-death battles and failed to wrestle with the morality of killing people who were trying to kill him, but that's a big leap to exterminating a school in revenge. He hasn't done that thus far, so I'm confused about why you would expect him to start doing so in the future.
There is no theme of moral development.
It is my one complaint in the series, there is no moral development.
I'm going to meet you halfway here and say that I think I agree with your intent, at least to some degree. Lindon needs to care about more than just his immediate problems in order to have a nuanced connection to the world and be fleshed out as a character, so I intend to explore that more as his ability to influence other people grows.
However, I don't think a theme of moral development is a necessity in every story.
Lindon withholding protection of SV out of revenge regardless of the innocents saved would be very consistent with the world.
Sure, but not consistent with Lindon's behavior or personality.
Everyone is a monster except the Judges who are forced to make horrible decisions to save some worlds.
I find it interesting that you singled this out, because the Judges are the only people I explicitly showed in an ongoing moral dilemma. The other characters face similar decisions with lower stakes, but because it's not a major theme of the series, I don't focus on it or spell it out.
And there doesn’t seem to be a moral arc as to why Judges would stop caring about clawing for power and suddenly flip a switch and be protective guardians of the universe.
I'm not sure why such a moral arc would have been demonstrated in the story thus far, nor why those two things would be mutually exclusive. We have a small amount of insight into Makiel, Suriel, and Ozriel--three of the four Judges introduced into the story thus far--and all three of them very clearly use their power with a strong set of beliefs. Suriel is trying to minimize suffering in the multiverse, Makiel seeks stability, security, and order, and Ozriel is (or was) looking for a way out of his distasteful role in the cosmos because he doesn't want to be mass-murdering people.
So we know that they do have moral standards and reasons for gaining power besides the power itself. Why would you think that they didn't before?
Besides Mercy, we haven’t seen anyone who cares about anything beyond their own problems (Lindon included).
I think you have a specific requirement or expectation in your mind for what constitutes the demonstration of a moral standard, because we definitely have seen those things from virtually every character. It depends entirely on your definition of "their own problems" and what it looks like to care about them.
Jai Long obviously cares about his sister, and Jai Chen cared about Sandviper Kral and grieves when he is gone. Lindon cares about his family and friends. Yerin cares about hers. Orthos cares about Lindon. Eithan's priorities are mysterious, but he demonstrates that he values the Arelius family, Cassias, and Cassias' opinion of him. Kiro from Underlord takes the responsibilities of his role seriously on behalf of his kingdom, as does Naru Huan, the Blackflame Emperor, who regularly prioritizes the development of his Empire over his own personal advancement. Charity cares about her family. Sophara cares about hers. At the very beginning of the series, we see each individual member of the Shi family trying to balance their own personal desire for advancement with fairness and equality in the form of the debate around the orus fruit.
You could include caring about one's own family in the "their own problems" category, but does trying to do what's best for your family make you a monster? You said "Everyone's a monster," but is someone who is primarily motivated by the good of those to whom they are responsible a monster? How many people are motivated by pure altruism? How relatable do you, as a reader, find a character who is driven by nothing more than abstract morality?
TL;DR - Lindon will be running up against more moral dilemmas in the future, now that he has the power to really influence the lives of more people, but I don't know that I'll ever be exploring the moral ramifications of the setting to your satisfaction. I just don't see it as an essential component of the story.
Does or did the Abidan every bother to research esoteric sacred arts?
Not really. What the Abidan did was they had...again getting into spoiler territory, oh no.
They had research facilities that they used to investigate the more fundamental nature of madra why certain aspects are on cradle, why things are, how sage works all that kind of stuff and they tracked that back to the function of The Way and that was really how they got off cradle.
So in that sense, they did but what they were really doing is they were looking into the origin of how sacred arts work and they were looking for other worlds and they were looking for deeper effects.
They were almost tracking sage authority backwards in a way.
But did they research strange types of sacred arts?
I mean, in their quest to do this, sure, but in the sense of are they trying to create new paths nobody ever seen before?
No, not really.
We've seen resonance in soulsmithing. Can the techniques on a sacred artist's path resonate with each other? As in, could you have a path where your abilities, when used together, create something stronger than sum of each of the techniques used?
The canon that Lindon uses sometimes operates on the principle of technique resonance, so saying that these techniques work together better than they work separately. So you're asking if there are Paths that do the same?
Yes there are. But it's not something that is typically the foundation of a Path, because it would be like a suicidal technique - not literally suicidal, as in it wouldn't necessarily instantly kill you - but it puts a higher burden on your spirit and your madra channels and your body, than using them separately would.
So typically Paths are not designed like that. But there are techniques that can be used together. One of the problems with that is it's often hard to use two techniques together that are similar, so it's hard to use one striker technique from one hand and another striker technique from another hand - that kind of thing.
Will, How many peopel have reached the same stage Northstrider has on Cradle. Currently we only know of 3, or is it 10?
Depends on whether all members of 8-Man Empires have reached the same rank, or if the woman Suriel singled out, who managed to get to Low-Gold when she was only 6 years old, exceeds the rank of her friends.
Hm. I don't think I can answer this with a worldbuilding story.
Therefore, I will sidestep with a story that sort of answers your question:
Reigan Shen is the creator and sole practitioner of the Path of the King's Key. Centuries ago, he consulted an oracle and grew to believe that he was destined to rule the world. He seeks to make that vision a reality.
He fought the Eight-Man Empire to a standstill, though they eventually drove him off. He has stolen Northstrider's prey. He is considered one of the Ninecloud Court's greatest enemies, though everyone below the Queen is instructed to treat him as an honored guest, should he arrive.
Only about six years ago, he finally slew his longtime rival. Though Lindon didn't know it, he felt the aftereffects of that battle in Sacred Valley.
What do people do on cradle who don't pursue sacred arts?
To a degree, advancement in the sacred arts is an act of survival. Almost every adult on the planet is at least Iron, because that's essentially the minimum it takes to interact with the world on a normal level. However, many of Cradle's people don't consider themselves "sacred artists" per se, because their life does not revolve around the pursuit of advancement. Aura and madra are still a part of their lives, but not personal power and achievement. Cradle certainly has farmers, but farmers who can pull the rainclouds closer with Ruler techniques. They have chefs who can determine your tastes by reading your feelings, doctors who can diagnose you from across the room by sensing your blood, and carpenters who shape wood with their spirits.
We all know your preferred spiritual elixir, the Oreo. Now we need to know despised food and spiritual food, IRL and in the books.
So... My most despised food are red bell peppers. I can't eat 'em. I just can't do it. I cannot eat red bell peppers. Anything with red bell peppers in it, if I smell red bell peppers, I will die. It is the worst, I can't taste them. Anything with them in there. And one of the big problems is with a lot of this frozen foods they don't have a whole lot of flavor so they add red bell peppers to it in order to give 'em a little bit of color and flavor and I can't; I can't do it; I just can't do it. And a lot of cheap crab cakes too. They just add red peppers to it. And I love crab cakes, but I can't do it.
What favorite spiritual food... most despised spiritual reward. I don't know what that means. I guess maybe like if red peppers gave you a power, what would it be? It would be something related to venom aura or poisonous madra because they are toxic and the food of death.
