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rawlsrorty

Why is Akura Malice So Passive in Uncrowned?

First, I’d like to say that I love this series. I even loved Uncrowned (Akura Justice’s interactions with Lindon were worth the price of admission).

That said, I don’t understand why Malice acted the way she did. We hear, again and again, from Charity, that the stakes of the Uncrowned tournament are very high for the Akura. They have to do well because they have enemies encroaching from every corner.

Then, the dragon faction proceed to kill an entire vassal team of hers, forcing the Akura to embarrassingly put in a backup team from their own family. Another vassal team has their transportation sabotaged -again by her greatest enemies- and she does nothing. Then, the one monarch who should be a logical ally of hers makes a last minute decision that certainly looks like it’s screwing over her faction. And again, she does nothing.

I find Malice’s behavior in Uncrowned even more inexplicable than Northstrider’s. Either she’s playing 17-dimensional chess, or she’s much weaker than the other monarchs and so is afraid to stand up to them even when they blatantly provoke her.

Will Wight

It’s political. In the sense that she and the other Monarchs are constantly jockeying against each other to try and get one up on each other without provoking anyone into a fight.

I originally intended for there to be 2-3 scenes of the Monarchs interacting over the course of Uncrowned in order to explain what was going on from their perspective, but I cut it because I’m already introducing a ton of new characters and names in the book and didn’t want to throw in a bunch more character introductions.

As for why she didn’t just teleport them there, at this point in the series we haven’t seen anyone teleport anyone else between continents. The Arelius portals do it once every ten years, which requires a permanent portal network, and until the last time they actually had an active Monarch.

Charity borrows Malice’s power to teleport a bunch of people across a long distance on the same continent, and she spends time and resources setting that up.

(I intend to include the Monarch scenes in the next book because I’m going lighter on the new characters this time.)

Questioner

Are there any paths that are agriculturally focused?

Will Wight

The Redflower family actually uses several Paths in conjunction in order to keep the Empire fed.The Path of the Yellow Flower involves moving earth and nurturing soil. The Path of the Green Flower encourages growth and the health of crops. The Path of the Blue Flower gathers water from the air and facilitates irrigation. The Path of the White Flower controls air flow and climate regulation.The Path of the Red Flower, for which the family was named, was designed to defend the others.

Questioner

Does the 8 man empire contribute to the hunger madra problem?

Will Wight

They do not.

Shane

For some reason, I think Lindon and the Fox would get on well together.

Will Wight

I've wanted to write a scene with the Fox for years now.With anybody really, but mainly between Ozriel and Zakariel. Because Zakariel irritates all the other Judges with a smile on her face, but the only one who gets on HER nerves is Ozriel.Fun fact: probably the first scene I wrote for this series, when I was working out the Suriel storyline, was a dialogue between Ozriel and Zakariel.

Kaileonis

Will we get to enjoy that scene that you wrote about?

Will Wight

Probably not, no. I originally wrote it for Elder Empire.

SirMisterGuyMan

Lindon seemed like he screwed up but somehow Malice and NS accept this as a victory.

Will Wight

That’s why Northstrider is initially furious. Lindon ruined their chance to fight and helped Shen run away.

The Monarchs treat it like a victory when they realize that teleporting RS away means Lindon has permanent control of the labyrinth, and since Malice and NS consider him a loyal asset, that means THEY have control of an ancient globe-spanning repository of power and knowledge.

Until the end of the book, when they realize Lindon’s not quite as under control as they thought.

Questioner

Does the Eight Man Empire generate hunger aura?

Will Wight

They do not.

Lil' Blue

How old is Saeya?

Will Wight

35. Also, Eithan being the youngest in the Empire refers to how old he was when he became an Underlord. Saeya only recently did.  

Cash4Golda

Was the icy location where Northstrider killed the huge dragon at the end of GW on the Iceflower Continent? What kind of dragon and level was it? 

Will Wight

It was on the ice flower continent if i recall correctly, and what level was it? I am not at liberty to discuss that, because it may or may not come up.

Will's EE swag

Will Wight

So I keep this hat, I got a ninja painting when I did Elder Empire, and I hang this pirate hat up next to it. And, fun fact, somebody asked me about maximum nerd level - fun fact, I'm hanging them up on iron hooks I forged myself at a smithy. That's actually true. I took a weekend-long blacksmithing course and so you forge a mound of railroad spikes - it wasn't hard at all, it was pretty cool.

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.

Michael Redman

If you had to choose a path, which path would you choose?

The answer I've given to this before, there's a couple of them. Path of the Cloud Hammer from the Blackflame empire, I would love to have that. I think Cloud/Force madra seems really cool. It lets you, like, double jump and fly around on clouds like Dragon Ball era Goku. Telekinesis type abilities, I think that's neat. Oh right, Path of the Broken Star, which I've talked about before. It was one of the paths that Lindon could have chosen in Blackflame. It's neat, it's basically like purple energy beams.

myzvdr

How does LIndon's new improved body stack up. Combat adjacent, bottom 1/3, mid 1/3 top 1/3

Will Wight

What?

myzvdr

Compared to combat path bodies

Will Wight

Oh, gotcha. He would stack up well against higher-level combat bodies in the Blackflame Empire. And he will do so very soon.

Questioner

Would you ever write a novel of someone who was transported to a pioneer world by the Abidan?

Will Wight

Actually, yes.  That was something I came really close to writing already.  It was something that I wanted to write kind of as a break book, in between Cradle.  Of course, I had Elder Empire, which was not so much of a break, as an intensification of the action.  The opposite of a break, whatever that is.  A seam?  I don't know.  That's the opposite of a break.  But I really wanted to do that, because I talked with some LitRPG authors, and they mentioned that I had brought up the idea of a Minecraft/Terraria LitRPG.  And I was like, I know there are a million of those.  And they were like, I don't know that there are.  And so I looked it up, and there are quite a few of those in Japanese, but there aren't too many in English, or at least there weren't a year or two ago, when I had this discussion.

So I said wow, that I had already outlined a book that involved a group of people on a pioneer world, the Abidan, where they're just kind of building a world.  Literally just starting from scratch, figuring out the magic system, and all that stuff.  I also had a story that I not only outlined, but also wrote a few chapters of, years and years ago, before House of Blades, in which a modern Earth-like but not technically Earth world had magic all of a sudden introduced,  and so it was like this magic apocalypse thing and it was slowly becoming more magical and the whole world was breaking down.  Which at the time was a new concept and is not nearly a new concept anymore because a lot of people did it, and they did a great job. So I missed the boat on that one, but that was fun to write.  I actually reread the first few chapters of that and I was like, that's pretty good.  Pretty good, young Will.  Not too bad.  So that was a... I kind of combined some aspects of that into this pioneer world developing idea.

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

Its been a while since I eead Elder Empire. How did Estyr and Jorin manage to live so long.I know not all of them had Nakothi hearts and I recall that they were in a deep sleep...

Will Wight

Awakened coffins. Keeps them asleep and alive until they're needed.

They've individually lived a few hundred years apiece, thanks to some extremely creative alchemy and investing on the Emperor's part, but they've EXISTED for basically two thousand.

Sorry Not Sorry

Does Elder Empire take place before, or after Cradle?

Will Wight

We get that question a lot; and I'm still not going to answer it. 

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

If I wanted to be the greatest travelling musician in the Blackflame empire, what Path should I be following to make this happen?

Will Wight

If you wanted to be the greatest musician in Cradle, you would have a rival. She is known as Nightsong, though the legends generally agree that she was not born with this name.

She follows the Path of the Moonlit Flute, and her powers vary according to the storyteller. Some say that she played a song over a battle between two Sages who had hated one another for years, and they walked away friends. Only weeks later, the two were married.

It is said she rides a Remnant, but never the same one. She simply plays a song on her flute, and Remnants compete to carry her around.

PlaceboJesus

[Emriss] may actually be saddened by the state of the world, but I think a certain part of that "sadness" is the mask she's been wearing while she waited for an opportunity like this one. To put it to a whole class of self-absorbed murdering bastards.

Will Wight

”I don’t forget anything,” she said sadly.

I don’t see her sadness as a facade at all. She’s sad because she’s thinking back over everything she remembers from her long history and ruminating on how nothing fundamental has changed.

She doesn’t take Northstrider’s threat to heart at all, because she’s always been conscious of the threat the other Monarchs can pose. Him outright threatening her doesn’t change anything for her.

That is certainly not mutually exclusive with anger.

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.