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Questioner

Does the Eight Man Empire generate hunger aura?

Will Wight

They do not.

Questioner

Do you think you'd be interested in making a series about that once you are finished with one of your other projects? Or is like not really a thing anymore and you are planning on focusing on the single iterations with greater Way level conflict being more of an overarching plot instead of, like, a specific series.

Will Wight

I could still do an Abidan series. Its gonna be a long time before I do though and so its hard for me to say what I'm gonna do because it gonna be a while.

Questioner

Its far enough in the future?

Will Wight

Ya. It's just difficult for me. Who knows ideas I'll have in the next few years. Maybe I'll want to do an Avengers type series where it all comes together. But, maybe I won't.

eransamo

Can magnets draw/repel sword aura?

Will Wight

No.

Questioner

Why didn't Lindon's arm grow back, or start to grow back when he was chugging from the life pool? Orthos de-aged and healed a big crack in his shell. Shouldn't Lindon have healed a bit?

Will Wight

It worked the way it did because healing the crack in Orthos’ shell was easier than regenerating Lindon’s arm, and it had been too long, and his current arm is now bonded to his life aura just like his physical arm once was. You could regenerate his physical arm, but you’d have to do it intentionally

Green0Photon

Can you explain what's going on with Madra being pure, dense, deeper, etc.? What does Madra quality/density mean? For example, low gold Yerin was better than random Sandvipers (besides skill), or the parasite ring did *something* to improve Lindon's quality. I don't understand what that is. Just a short off hand explanation is fine, we can get something deeper later, not on voice chat.

Will Wight

So the idea of density is really what you are asking about. So really, your madra is kind of like water but you can make it have the consistency of honey, for instance. So, there's purity, there's how dense and potent it is. So, how much one drop...using the liquid analogy, how strongly flavored it is. So what that does, is a little bit of madra goes a longer way than somebody else's a lot of madra. So that's sort of the idea. I kind of mixed answers there. I did both the texture and the effect. But, basically what it's talking about is when you convert aura to madra its kind of loose, it's not very potent, and then you concentrate it. And so, the density of madra has to with the concentration; how concentrated it is.

Questioner

Are there any odd metals in Cradle other than goldsteel, halfsilver, and wintersteel?

Will Wight

So are there any odd or strange metals other than goldsteel, halfsilver, and wintersteel?  Yes, there are.  There were a few that I came up with, but I didn't want this to turn into a metallurgy thing.  It's one of those things where if crafting with mundane materials had been more of a thing in Cradle, we would have got into this more.  So what were they?  What were the other metals?  It's hard for me to say.  Typically, they are metals that have taken on extra properties based on icons associated with types of aura and events and the latent authority in the world, and these things have caused them to develop powers that interfere with the energy system in some way.  There would be other things like that.  We probably won't get to see them.  I have notes for some of them, but it's just something that probably isn't going to come up.  But those are definitely the most common, I don't want to say common, the most widely used, because they have the most universally applicable effects.  So halfsilver being disruptive and goldsteel physically interacting with things that usually aren't physically interactable.  

Puppet Master

Will Wight

Diego

I re-read Unsouled and noticed that in case of complete system collapse a few worlds would still be protected including Asylum. I'm going on on the obvious and thinking the Elders are scary even to the Court of seven and could possibly play the same role as the Court does but for chaos.

Will Wight

Yes, that's why Asylum is a protected world. If they get out, they're scary.

The Abidan intended it to be a temporary holding cell to imprison the Elders until they had fully corrupted the world, at which point Ozriel could destroy it.

Which wouldn't kill the Elders, but would drive them back into the void. So it was really just keeping them off the streets for a while.

Then the Emperor came along, and humanity has prospered beyond what the Abidan ever expected. That tethers the world more strongly to the Way and strengthens the prison, weakening the Elders. So Asylum has held on much longer than anyone anticipated.

The Elders, by the way, don't want to be trapped there OR cast back into the void. They want to escape into other Iterations, which is exactly what the Abidan don't want.

Back in the day, the Elders could have depopulated humanity. They didn't; they kept just enough alive to make sure the Abidan wouldn't obliterate the place while the Elders looked for a way out.

Questioner

How did the Sage of the Endless Sword become a Sage?

Will Wight

As an Archlord, the Sage of the Endless Sword was blessed enough to cross swords with a sword-wielding Monarch without getting obliterated. Swearing not to waste that opportunity, he tracked down an ancient Remnant called Memory, on the Path of a Thousand Dreams. She made sure his recollection of the fight would stay fresh, so he could experience the feeling of the Monarch's power every day as though for the first time. He began traveling from sword Path to sword Path, sensing their techniques and trying to develop a power closer to that of the Monarch's. As an experienced refiner, he also tracked down natural treasures attuned to the sword: spirit fruits, sacred herbs, and the parts of sacred beasts that gathered sword aura. ...this is where the story gets spoiler-y, but long story short, this quest led to him distinguishing himself as a Sage. Sorry for the anticlimax, but I have to dance around the details of how one becomes a Sage. Still, I hope that's enough.

Tievel

What would a non-illusory based path of pure light look like?

Will Wight

I can think of a few uses for pure light techniques. Bending sight, blinding opponents, cleansing areas of shadow aura, just plain lighting things up...it probably wouldn’t be the greatest punch-em-up Path, but it would be useful.

Questioner

What is the magic system of Traveler's Gate like in its native state, if the Way wasn't so thin and there were no fragmented Iterations attached to it? Would it serve no function?

Will Wight

I have some notes to this effect, but I’m afraid to lock myself into something by answering this question. Suffice it to say that I would like to explore this in the future.

Captain Nemo

Ok, so this is kind of related to answer 1). In the death match short story with the emperor and the incarnations, the emperor saw the incarnations' power as intent. Was this just something you allowed for the death match, or are Amalgam and Asylum's powers similar enough to be "compatible"?

Will Wight

George

Why is Ozriel being hunted again?I thought he simply left the Abidan, or is this, actually, the crime?

Reddan

Ozriel basically abandoned his post. As I understand it, the Abidan were able to expand their scope dramatically because of Ozriel's ability to cleanly remove worlds (especially corrupted ones). They're trying to find him because they can't support all the worlds they've been watching over without him.

Will Wight

Yep, that's it!

Since Ozriel came along, the whole strategy of the Abidan has basically hinged around his personal ability. But he wanted to change the way things are done, so he didn't have to kill as many people, and they resisted.

So he just left.

WITH the ability to cleanly remove corrupted worlds, they can control ten thousand Iterations.

WITHOUT that ability, every corrupted world becomes a virus, and every world they control is potentially another point of infection. They can't hold nearly as much territory.

Questioner

If Cradle is the "top source" of Abidan recruits, does it give the most recruits, the best recruits, or both?

Will Wight

So, Cradle is not the top source of Abidan recruits.  Cradle is the fir.. well, I guess it is technically.  So, it's the one where it's the easiest to ascend.  Right?  So it's the one where the magic system most easily translates to ascending, because if you continue to follow the magic system, you eventually ascend.  Not every magic system has ascension built into it.  This one does.  So that is why Cradle is such a great source of Abidan recruits.

What I meant to say a minute ago is that it is not the source of the best recruits.  So, people have asked "Are Cradle workers the strongest?"  No they are not.  There are iterations with a higher power level than Cradle.

Diego

Your basically saying Ozriel joined because he thought it was a way (no pun intended) to help more people and he pretty much did his job much better than anyone else. 

Now that he left they are out to either recruit or kill him because he didn't agree with all they were doing?

Will Wight

Pretty much. From Ozriel's perspective, he joined because he felt a personal responsibility to use his massive power for the benefit of as many people as possible, and the Abidan rules are preventing him from saving people. But they won't let him look for another, better way, even though he's shouldering the heaviest burden out of any of them.

From Makiel's perspective, Ozriel is so arrogant that he believes he knows better than everyone else, so he's abandoned his post and left millions if not billions of people to die.

Suriel's kind of caught in the middle. On the one hand, she agrees with Ozriel that there must be a better way to do things. On the other hand, he actually HAS risked the lives of everyone living in an Abidan-protected world.

***I need to cover this in another post, but just to be clear, here's the reason why it's a big deal that Ozriel left, even immediately.

Without Ozriel, the Abidan can handle a few hundred worlds. It takes hundreds of Abidan per Iteration, because they're constantly surrounded by corruption and chaotic fragments.

WITH Ozriel, they've expanded to several thousand worlds. Now it only takes a handful of Abidan per sector, because there are very few chaotic fragments and the corruption is easily handled.

With corrupted worlds destroyed completely, there are many fewer unhealthy fragments, so everyone's jobs become easier and they can spread themselves thinner.

But now that they've expanded so far, Ozriel is the cornerstone of their whole operation. With him missing, they've now got WAY more worlds than they can handle.

...I need to come up with an analogy for this. Maybe weeds in a garden?

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.

MedicoreWade

What happens when a space like [Valinhall] destabilizes? Does it just evaporate into the void or would it be like adding an extra sun to a solar system?

Will Wight

In this case, it would feel like an earthquake and would gradually interfere with the relationship the rooms have with one another.

Some of the deeper rooms might be lost or destroyed with only a few minutes of un-veiled Yerin’s presence, the House’s layout would shift chaotically, and doors might become unreliable or toss you out into the Void.

The effects would be worse the longer she stayed until she restricted her power or just chose to tear it apart, which would reduce Valinhall to its base components: fragments of destroyed Iterations floating in the Void.

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.

Jamie D. Woods

If they weren't stuck with the class 1 fiends would the readers and other people with powers of Elder Empire be able to ascend? Has anyone ascended from the world of Elder Empire?

Will Wight

(...class 1 fiends...?) Yes. (...has anyone ascended...?) No, after they were locked there, it was locked down. No one has ascended from that iteration. 

Questioner

How would a meal of the same ingredients be different if made from someone of higher rank? Suck as Turkey. Assuming a culinary path, how would that Turkey differ when made by a low-gold, underlord, sage, or Herald?

Will Wight

I'm not sure if you're talking about the level of the chef or the level of a sacred turkey. So I'm going to answer both.The problem with eating sacred beasts is that they get more intelligent as they advance. Most cultures have the same taboos against this as they do against cannibalism.However, there are a few exceptions. Some powerful individuals don't care about the rights of those weaker than them, and will consume sacred beasts regardless of their intelligence. Other cultures have no taboo, but make sure that the beasts have died of natural causes. And sometimes when sacred beasts are born instead of awakened from advancement, they have all the power and none of the intelligence. Though this can be hard to prove.So in the latter case, where you might have a Truegold-level sacred turkey with the intelligence of a normal bird, let's assume you ate it. It's going to be very tough, so it's difficult to cook, but if you prepared it perfectly, you would find it to be an intense experience. The concentrated blood aura in the body gives the meat a powerful flavor that you might find physically uncomfortable until you get used to it. When processed with the appropriate herbs, it can be delicious...although usually served in small portions.It can also help to refine the body, strengthening you and promoting physical health.As for a chef, here's what they say in the Blackflame Empire:A Lowgold chef will prepare you a wonderful meal.A Highgold chef will cook you the best dish you've ever had in your life.A Truegold chef will serve you your new favorite food.