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Questioner

How do Monarchs compare, power-wise, to the Abidan?

Will Wight

There are lesser Abidan that the Monarchs can beat. I may have answered this before, where someone asked if Northstrider could potentially beat the low level Hound that we saw in Kiuran in the Uncrowned tournament. And yes, potentially he could. Now they would have to have a fight, and it depends on what other powers Kiuran has, but potentially yes, Northstrider could do that. That's something where he's considering just killing Kiuran. The reason why he doesn't is twofold. One thing, you never know what tricks and Abidan has up their sleeve, and then of course he doesn't want to antagonize the rest of their massive interdimensional organization.

Arch

How old are Akura Malice, Reigan Shen, Northstrider and the Dragon Monarch?

Will Wight

Northstrider is older than Reigan Shen, who is older than Malice. The dragon Monarch Sesh is oldest of them all.

Questioner

Is Northstrider the most attractive Monarch.

Will Wight

I think you probably have to ask somebody... I mean that would be a... not to me. That would be a very opinion question I guess. Is Northstrider the most attractive Monarch? No? They're all effectively physically perfect pretty much so it's kind of down to viewer taste at that point. So I can't really answer the question.

Questioner

Clearly he is.

Will Wight

Yeah, in that case, I've been corrected. Clearly he is.

Questioner

Most attractive Monarch?

Will Wight

I guess I've answered that, huh?

Will's brother (offscreen)

Reigan Shen.

Will Wight

It's Reigan. Sam says it's Reigan Shen so it's Reigan Shen.

Will's brother (offscreen)

I like cats.

Will Wight

He's into cats. He does not have cats ears, does that anime style cat ears, does that affect your opinion?

Will's brother (offscreen)

Yeah, absolutely. 

Lil' Blue

How many hits would Northstrider get in vs. Saitama?

Will Wight

Northstrider would get in only as many hits as Saitama allowed him to

Sage of the Sleepless Night

Northstrider has a fairly unique name. Is it a nickname or does he come from a land filled with people named Southjogger, Westhopper, and Eaststaggerer or the like?

Will Wight

He became known as the Northstrider because he was named by the people who, hundreds of years ago, saw him come from the ocean to the north, and he didn't really have a personal name so that became his title. And so then it infected the culture in other places so now there are names similar to his.

Questioner

Northstrider vs Kelerac, or Northstrider vs high ranking elders

Will Wight

Unsealed Elders no, simply due to the nature of the fight. At that point it's not a power level thing. Using sacred arts to fight unsealed Elders is, by and large, like trying to use your fists to fight a virus.But sealed Great Elders (like the ones the Emperor dealt with)...yeah, easily.

Avinash

Been waiting for a new post to ask somethings

So finding out abidan archives was an info overload and I felt kinda like what dross must have felt on trying to integrate the Aurelius library. So I have a few questions/confusion.

1. Regarding Monarchs Will said that there are 8 active monarchs in cradle and at the end of underlord 7 live ones are mentioned Akura malice Seshethkunaaz, (dragon one) Sha miara Northstrider 8 man empire , counted as one, Emriss silent born ,The monarch remnant, Reigan shen , who apparently killed a monarch recently (possibly the Aurelius )

Now I am not counting the Aurelius monarch as he's been dead for a few years (~6) and Will said active monarchs.So the question is is there an unknown/hidden monarch?

Am I missing someone's name or is eithan the aurelius monarch and is hiding/repowered?

2. Of Markuth

I believed he was abidan level but he was confirmed to be sage at most, so I can get how he can travel off world maybe using portals or something like a Stargate but looking to fight the 4 dreadgods together or even one at a time when even monarchs cannot handle them alone seems unbelievable.Remember how malice was on the verge of retreating after 3 days and the blood Phoenix was still good to go but it retreated (maybe the influence of makael judge 001 ) wore off.

3. A few random musing

i. Who is judge 007 cause the reaper is 008.

ii. Is a ward key like a battery or an amplifier

iii.Do u have to die and be reborn(leaving ur remanent behind) to ascend/touch the way , this would explain the death of sage of endless sword.

Will Wight

This is a lot of questions, and these blog comments aren't a great medium for an in-depth discussion, but I'll do what I can.

1.) There are eight Monarch factions. Currently seven living/active Monarchs.

2.) He was an Archlord (or similar level) when he ascended from Cradle, but he has advanced beyond that in a different magic system after leaving. When he came back, he believed himself to be more powerful than anyone in the Iteration. Maybe he was, who knows? Maybe he was just prideful and Northstrider would have beaten the crap out of him. But he was definitely not more powerful than Suriel.

3a.) Zakariel is Judge Zero-zero-seven.

3b.) No, it's like a passkey that lets you walk in and out unharmed.

3c.) Maybe! That would be a spoiler.

Tourni-quet

Can someone explain why Lindon was all worked up at the end of the book and had to rush off to tell his friends that Sha Miara is actually a monarch?

Like he literally mentions her name in skysworn, when he says about northstrider, the 8 man empire and luminous queen sha miara.

And Eithan, Mercy and Yerin are all like yep they’re strong.

Is this a continuity error? Bc it seems like lindon believes this is some big secret that he has to divulge, that he already has years previously. And I checked she’s not under a fake name in the tournament, northstrider announces her name in the revealing of the fight schedule so our other MCs are aware of the name

Will Wight

Yeah, I can actually answer that one! My take on that, which I probably could have retroactively explained in this book when it became relevant, was that anyone with knowledge of the world knows who the Luminous Queen is. But at this point, the Ninecloud Court are keeping it secret that the previous queen has died and her daughter has succeeded her.

Also, she's participating in the tournament, so of course she's an Underlady.

Lindon's urgency at the end comes from the fact that, at previous points in the book, he doesn't want to say anything lest he get in trouble with a Monarch. But after the Abidan have come down, there's enough at stake now for him to risk it.

That's the idea, though obviously I could have communicated it more clearly.

morgf

Yup, it is a continuity error. Unfortunately, the book is riddled with them.

Lindon, Yerin, Eithan, and Mercy all know that Sha Miara is a Monarch. As the commenter I was responding to said, she was in the tournament under the name Sha Miara. There was no reason for Lindon to run to tell the others since they already knew, as the commenter said. He told the story to Yerin multiple times. He probably mentioned the Monarch names every time, but he definitely mentioned Sha Miara to them by name at least once. Didn't you read Skysworn?  

Travis Baldree

I read it out loud :) But I don't remember him mentioning her by name.

But even if he did, I guess I'm not sure it would ruin the book for me. The world is huuuuge. The distances are vast. The people almost mythical.

Will Wight

Jumping in here: I was aware of this scene in Skysworn when I wrote Uncrowned, but I didn't see the need to clarify that Yerin and company didn't make the connection to Lindon's story from years earlier. They're thinking he saw a vision of the Luminous Queen, who this girl competing in the tournament obviously isn't.

I thought that came across in the story, but obviously not clearly enough.

I knew when I wrote Skysworn that it wasn't common knowledge that Sha Miara led the Ninecloud Court, but since it wasn't relevant to that book or the next book, I didn't want to bring it up at the time. In Uncrowned, I thought the situation was clear enough to go without further explanation, but apparently I was wrong.

Chris646

If all Monarchs can travel like Northstrider and at least Heralds have a gate key why don’t they run whenever they are in danger? Is it just pride/reputation? Or can someone sufficiently skilled follow them? I’m asking because at one point you mentioned Reigen Shan killed his biggest rival, and people thought Northstrider was dead. Is it just that the rival wasn’t losing but was suddenly overwhelmed or is teleporting way not an option or..? Also, would the trick Jai Daishou used to remain alive work at higher ranks or would that person either be too strong to bring back or would someone better immediately see through it?

Will Wight

That's a lot of questions, but I'm boiling it down to what I think you're asking: >Why do Monarchs and Heralds not just teleport away when they're about to die? They do. But anyone capable of killing a Monarch or Herald can follow them.

Questioner

Was the Sword Sage considered an unaffiliated Sacred Artist or did he have an alliance/alligence to a monarch like Frozen Blade with the Akuras?

Will Wight

Yes. The sword sage was considered an unaffiliated sacred artist and as such he would be loosely...but not really... considered protected by Northstrider, thats sort of Northstriders thing.

Questioner

There has been debate about exactly what happened when Northstrider took Dross from Lindon but ended up letting Lindon join. Did Lindon prevent the spatial opening from fully closing? Did he start re-opening it? Or did Northstrider just feel Lindon's strength of desire and decided to re-open it and bring him? What exactly happened?

Will Wight

Good Question. Siiiiiiiiiip ((looks directly at the camera and sips loudly))

Questioner

Okay guys these are the strongest characters1. Abidan Court2. Great Elders before they were sealed3.Strongest Cradle characters, including Li Markuth (not really Cradle universe), Ninecloud Court Princess, NorthStrider, Eithan, Yerins master4 .Sealed Great Elders and Emperor tie5. Urzia, Meia and other enhanced warroirs6. Ragnarus Incarnation7. Valinhall

Will Wight

That's just about right!

#3 is a broad variety of characters over several different power levels--the Ninecloud Court princess and Northstrider are a level beyond Li Markuth and the Sword Sage, who are both a level beyond Underlord. Some of those would defeat the Emperor and the sealed Great Elders easily, some would have a hard time, and some of them couldn't do it.

Also #5-7 are all very close. Valinhall can compete with the Champions, but they would be difficult fights. And while the Ragnarus Incarnation is the strongest Incarnation thus far, and thus a notch above Valinhall/the Champions, in the end (City of Light SPOILER ALERT, I guess) a Valinhall Traveler DID beat him.

But I'd still put him a notch above them in terms of pure power level.

Bamfious

I have been planning a "Northstrider might have a blood shadow" video[...]

Will Wight

Northstrider doesn't have a Blood Shadow, I'll give you that one for free.

Questioner

Why aren’t Monarchs more liberal with their ability to bring back the dead? Is it a specific skill of Northstrider, too much of a resource drain, or was there something special about the Uncrowned King Tournament to give all the fighters infinite lives?

Will Wight

It is the sort of thing where... if you're not Suriel, you can't reverse time for an entire Iteration. You can't just effortlessly bring people back to life. It is something you can do if you're right there, if you have authority over them, and if they're not that powerful. So, the more powerful somebody is, the more authority it would take to bring them back. [clearing 20 squares in stardew] 

So that's the reason why they don't constantly bring everybody back from the dead. It is impossible to do if it's been too long. One of the issues with that is- we have really seen like Suriel-scale resurrection but not most lower-scale resurrection, and then we've seen what Northstrider did at the Uncrowned King tournament. Well, what he did at the Uncrowned King tournament was a lot easier than just bringing some random person back from the dead. For one thing, relative to him they're not that powerful. For another thing, he is given- lent special authority over this event by the rest of the Monarchs. And, for another thing, he sets that rule at the beginning, and then he's always right there.

So all of that makes it a little easier to do, so it was pretty simple for him to [bap bap bap] resurrect everybody, relatively speaking. Now, Suriel can do almost whatever she wants, so that's- relative to the Monarchs.

Questioner

Dross has nearly infinite knowledge.

Will Wight

He doesn’t! Let me nip that in the bud right now. To borrow the catch phrase from a certain fictional class rep, he doesn’t know everything, he only knows what he knows. That’s what I was illustrating when they leave GW and he doesn’t know what the sun is.He might know how to recreate the wells. That could be within the scope of his knowledge, because it happened within Ghostwater and under the supervision of people and constructs whose knowledge rested in Northstrider’s oracle tree, but Dross only got pieces of that.This will be explained relatively early in Underlord, but I thought I’d jump out in front of it now. Rebuilding the Wells is certainly a possibility, depending on what Dross knows, but infinitely knowledgeable he is not.

Questioner

If Luminous Queen Sheia (or whatever her name is, you know, the one that keeps all the chains) and Northstrider had a baby, then that baby grew up and had a baby with the strongest elder, then the baby of those two was given the powers of the way, What would its spirit animal be?

Will Wight

An electric eel.

TransEmo

... it was too odd, and due to this bloody discord involved northstrider having a harem lol.

(describing a cradle inspired dream questioner had and was sharing in humour)

Will Wight

Random response to a comment in General: you know who in Cradle canonically has a harem? Akura Malice.

Will Wight

Her real name is also Tim.

Superdragonboyangel

What was your favourite line of dialogue to write? (My favourite line at the moment is “I don't have any love for the Jai clan, but as for you, if I saw you on fire I'd hold an umbrella for you so the rain didn't put you out.”

Will Wight

That was actually a really fun line to write, and by fun I mean agonizing. That tends to be the case because when I spend a lot of time on something-

I like those. I liked Northstrider saying "No." In Ghostwater, that was a lot of fun because I really set it up so that you really think the villain of the book is going to survive, because of course he's gonna survive! He's a character that's been built up too much, he can't go away, and yeah, he does. So that was a lot of fun to write. I spend a lot of time on that one, where it's the 'I'd hold an umbrella to put you out' because I knew what sentiment I wanted to express but I was thinking 'What's a creative way I can say that?' and that took a while. A lot of times there's lines of dialogue that I didn't really think too much about and then I come back and read and later and I'm like 'that's pretty good dialogue, pretty good.' There's other times when I come back and I go 'Oh, OK, an ape wrote this, an illiterate monkey. I hate this person, past Will, and I want him to go away for ever.' That doesn't always happen, but it sometimes happens.

Questioner

Can Monarch Level items be worn by any sacred artist, or is there a pre-requisite to wearing them? For example, could a lowly Iron wear Northstrider's Robe as seen in the Deathmatch?

Will Wight

Monarch-level items could be worn by anyone, but anyone too far beneath them wouldn't be able to activate the binding. You haven't seen Yerin do anything cool with the Sword Sage's sword for the same reason.

Questioner

Eight-Man Empire versus Sha Miara...

Will Wight

She'd have more difficulty dealing with them as opposed to Northstrider, because they're relying on individual power and a formation that manipulates aura when they fight. In the end, it's roughly even, and it depends on a bunch of variables, but here's the bottom line: if Sha Miara can figure out and break their formation quickly, she wins. If she can't, they're sharing and pooling power, and they will overwhelm her.