Recent entries

Railalis

How much was Ravnica an influence on Asylum's guilds?

Will Wight

Absolutely zero, despite what you would think, I realise I ended up in a similar place. But I had not actually played a Ravnica block at the time I came up with that system, so I really missed out, because there's some great, really colourful, fleshed out guilds there. One of the things I would have taken from that is the distinct visual styles between the guilds, also the nature of the guilds, they way the interact with one another, the way they think of one another, the alliances that form between guilds, all of that stuff I could have learned from and maybe enriched the guilds a little more, maybe made the world even more interesting than it is. All of that I could have learned from Ravnica, but I didn't! Because I didn't really know anything about how Ravnica's guilds worked. I knew that like, for instance, the red/white combo was called Boros, because I did play Magic, but I didn't know anything about the guild it was named after.

So that was not something that has anything...yeah really, it's also Magic the Gathering, the Plains Walkers didn't have any impact on the territories either. I fully understand why people thought they did, but they didn't really. Really it's just the themed power coming from them, that's an overlap, but I didn't think "oh man Magic does this what can I do to develop....", I maybe should have again, but I never really got into, until after I started writing, I never got into Magic for the lore reasons, I was always playing it for the mechanics, I  just enjoyed the games. So I didn't do anything with that.

 

One of the things I regret is that in Magic time travel, time magic is called Clockworking, which is the greatest name for time magic ever conceived of by man, and I really wish I had thought of that.....but I didn't.

Altonahk

Is there such a thing as Gravity Aura, or is it just Force Aura? If there is: are there gravity paths? If it's force aura: do any force paths cycle it?

Will Wight

I actually had a real difficulty about that! When I initially came up with the Fishers, they were using gravity aura, they were using attractive force aura so it was effectively the power of gravity. That's what they were doing because gravity was a constant power....so I ended up saying no, what they call connection madra or whatever was just directional force madra. So I ended up saying no on that, sometime in development that's what earth power was going to be, was just gravity, kind of like the dresden files where earth magic is gravity magic, but I steered away from that.

Udhay

Herald is the level just below monarch but in skysworn it is shown that the gatekeepers of akura castle are remnants matching herald in power and it makes it seem like herald is not a big deal since herald level powered remnants are used to just guard gates was it because at the time you intended to be a few more levels between herald and monarch or some other reasoning?

Will Wight

Good question. I admit that that was more of a presentation problem than anything else. The reason why I did that is just to show that the resource reach of the Akura family and also to show that even the most advanced remnants still do, remnants do weird things, so that's kind of part of what I was trying to show there. I did intend them to be Heralds because what I intended was the Akura have virtually unstoppable guards at their gates. The reason why they are doing mundane guard duty despite being as powerful in combat as heralds is...so, that's kind of why I had them be Heralds, but its also, remnant behavior is really simplistic, they're almost like, not robots because robots make it seem like they follow a specific set of programming. It's really more like there are only certain aspects of a person where you remove the rest of the aspects and then you kind of stitch the remaining aspects together, so they are not full people. They are not fully what we would call sentient, aware, or intelligent in most cases. So, therefore, its difficult to say that they are aware, these particular remnants, just by being as powerful as Heralds are also, they just guard things. That's what they do. So, they are compulsive about guarding things. They will just stand there and guard it as the world crumbles around them. So that's what I was trying to illustrate about remnants, but I didn't go into that at all so, you didn't even miss anything, I just didn't convey it.

Nick S.

What stage was Li Markuth at when he invaded Sacred Valley?

Will Wight

So in terms of advancement, he would be like a Sage, that would be the area he'd be at. But he was gone for a long time, so he also learned some of the magic beyond cradle, so he would therefore be more powerful than any sage in the world, which is why a long time ago when people asked me what level he was at, and I said Archlord, but I also said similar level to the Blackflame emperor... well the reason I did is because in an early draft, the Blackflame emperor was originally intended to be an Archlord. So that's what I was thinking, is Archlord, Sage and then Li Markuth. But I new even then that he was using magic beyond cradle, because he'd gone beyond cradle so I knew that was true, its not a retcon, I was aware of that, but its just hard to talk about things that are coming up without spoilers.

 

There's another thing that a lot of Cradle kinda looks like i'm making up the power levels as i go,  and every once in a while i am...like i'll make up something, like there'll be something I didn't know the answer to, and I knew I'd need to figure out at some point but usually that's terminology or exact specific function, because i had the general idea of how all these ranks worked way back in Unsouled.  I came up with most of this pretty early but i didn't know exactly the terms i was gonna use cos i didn't know how it'd work and what i liked and how it fit. It looks like i'm coming up with it as i go mainly because im trying not to overload the reader, I'malready overloading the reader with way too many terms they don't understand. The more ranks i throw at people earlier the more confusing that gets, so i try to not deal with it until it actually comes up in the plot, so as a result it feels like it just came out of nowhere like "wait a second now everybody know what an Underlord is", they're also moving to more advanced areas of the world where they do know what an Underlord is. But its really more about trying to control the release of information to the reader for the sake of confusion, and for the sake of what makes sense in the world.

Wodan

Who are Orthos’s parents? And which one is dragon?

Will Wight

Neither of them are dragons. He comes from a line of dragon turtles. So one of his distant ancestors was a dragon in the shape of a turtle

Questioner

Is there a decision/scene/event which wasn't pre-planned (i.e. you decided on something while writing a book that wasn't part of the vision for the series) which has greatly impacted the story's direction? What is that decision/event/scene?

Will Wight

Alright. Yes. Absolutely there is. There's a lot of them. I don't even know where to begin answering that question. Not because its a bad question, it's a great question, but because there's so many answers to that...So, when I'm writing, one of the reasons why I wrote Uncrowned the way I did in terms of writing the major rounds first and then going in and filling in the gaps is because I needed to lock down the story line because if I don't lock down the story line I change my mind constantly and I'm always like 'aw, I've got a better idea' and 'aw, this would be an awesome thing I could explore.' So, I have to lock that down so I don't, so the story doesn't run away with me. There were a few, mostly, I'll create characters or concepts or powers or places just because..So if you've read Traveler's Gate, there is a scene in the second book that is everybody's favorite room in the house, in Valinhall, and its these water cats that are made of water and they...there's rain in the room and its an enclosed room in a magical house, but it basically is like this open garden because magic and its raining and there are gaps in the rain that form the basis of perfect movement that you have to fight your way through the rain and if you touch the raindrops, the rain stops and the raindrops coalesce into these cats made of water that then attack you. And I loved the visual design of that room and that took me absolutely no time at all to come up with because I just came up with that off the top of my head. That entire concept was completely random. I was just like 'Hmm, I need this room to be cool,' tap, tap, tap, 'what's coming out of my fingers? There it is.' So that was one of my ideas that I was like 'Huh, that was cool.' And, yep, that was a surprise to all of us when that happened and so then I thought it was really great and so I came back to the room and I knew that in this room which I didn't know the details of, but I knew that in this room this was gonna be something that Simon was going to attempt multiple times, this was kind of going to be his growth over the course of the book, and it was and that was very cool. So, I really liked that. That's one thing that was completely of the top of my head. What about in Cradle? What was something in Cradle that I didn't plan? I don't know. There's definitely some, I don't know. Let me think back to Underlord, there's gotta be something there. For one thing, its hard for me to remember where each idea came from sometimes but its very often I'm writing the book and....but anyway, that happens all of the time. It doesn't usually affect the whole shape of the book. For instance, I had already plotted out that Simon goes to a room and he ends up learning and growing over the course, and he gets mentored. So, what happens in the plot, I had already determined and it didn't change that. But the actual execution of what the room looks like that and how that all worked out was all pure improv.

RxBriggs

How often do you read LitRPG books? Opinions on the future of the genre or of the progression fantasy genre as a whole? This includes Xianxia and Wuxia as well as LitRPG and some Manga iseka stuff. Just a fad or here to stay?

Will Wight

So the overlap, that people have noticed, between these Chinese cultivation novels and LitRPG is that they are more systematized, supposably they have a more harder magic system, but in reality they just have more rules and they have more specific things to know, a lot of times their magic systems are not hard at all. They have a focus on progression, on leveling up, they have that fantasy of getting stronger as part of the system, as part of the story. That's the overlap.

So what progression fantasy is, is what Andrew Rowe and I started calling, mostly Andrew Rowe, full credit to Andrew, he came up with this term, which is a good term, but what we started calling what we write, which has that progression built in, and it has those systems of progression, but its not LitRPG 'cos its not in a video game and it's not exactly cultivation, it's kind of an in between. So its more of a blanket term for fantasy that focuses on cultivation as a primary method of advancement. Wheel of Time for instance shows a lot of progression in the main characters...like he grows stronger as a channeler and he grows better at doing what he does, but its not really a progression fantasy, because that's not the focus of the series, that's just something that happens. Main characters often get better and stronger and whatever, but its not focussed on his progression, it's really focussed on how he relates to the world, and how he grows into the person the world needs him to be. That is less of a progression fantasy.

 

So I have read a lot of LitRPG, I wouldn't say I frequently read a lot for LitRPG, because its not my cup of tea, I've never enjoyed it much, and there's a good reason for that. I'm not sure what it is, but im sure its a good reason. I read LitRPG and I just can't get into it much, either it takes place inside an actual game, or a VR game, in which case, if it's takes place inside a game, why am I not just playing a game...I would rather just go and...I don't feel like the stakes are real, because they're just playing a game, and I don't really care cos I'd just rather go play a game. If its not inside a game, if its inside a world that works like a game, usually it's just the character running around playing the game, that is usually what a good rpg does, is it gets you really involved in the character just running around playing the game, and that's not compelling to me, I don't enjoy that, its... I don't know, I want there to be some significance to it, I want there to feel like there's a story playing out, I don't want to see him go on his quest, kill fifteen wolves and take their pelts back. When I'm playing a MMO and I'm doing a quest, I'm not fantasising about doing a quest, I'm fantasizing about being an awesome warrior or wizard or whatever, and part of what I do is go around and I do these things because there's an important reason and I'm going get something out of it, so therefore reading a book about someone going around doing these fetch quests is not my favourite thing in the world.

I've read what everybody recommended to me, I've read what people considered the best in the genre, I read them fairly regularly, I just don't like them that much. However, having said all that, I play a lot of video games, I really like their stories and I really like the experience of playing them. Obviously what I'm writing in Cradle, if you put numbers on the powers and the abilities, and you said Burning Cloak takes 5% hp per second but it increases your attack by whatever, and you put numbers on it it would basically be a LitRPG, so I'm not against that in theory, so I think there's probably a LitRPG that I'd enjoy writing, I just don't know what it is. I've spend a lot of time running at that and trying to figure out what is the LitRPG that I would want to write, what's Will Wight's favourite dream LitRPG that I can make happen. I don't know yet, I don't know what that is. There's also some adjacent genres like the dungeon novels like for instance, Dakota Krout write in the Dungeon Born Series, which I enjoyed those. So those LitRPG adjacent are considered LitRPG, I don't consider them LitRPG but they're similar, like Isekai and that kind of thing. Those I like, and I could easily see writing something like that, but it would have to be an idea that really struck me, that carried me.

I think a version of the genre is always going to be here, and has always been here, because these are... I mean Conan the Barbarian, it's not progression but its somebody going around fighting a bunch of stuff ad-infinitum. He goes around, he fights, he wins, he gets loot, he goes home and rinse and repeats in the morning. So I think that this kind of genre is going to take different forms, its fashion, a lot of literature stuff is literally movements or fashion and they come and go like anything else. I think some from of this is going to be here to stay.

TE

Does orthos have a normal turtle head or the chinese dragonish head?

Will Wight

More like a nornal turtle, its less like the actual chinese dragon turtle creature, which is really a form of dragon in that case. So its more like a turtle.

Crinisen

If Lindon had known more scripting or Soulsmithing, could he have converted the water binding into a near-unlimited canteen?

Will Wight

Yes, and that's commonly done. You can drain water from the atmosphere and you pick up water. That is something he absolutely could've done. It's not unlimited because the binding still would run out at some point, but it would be effectively, as long as it lasted, an unlimited canteen.

Xektalon

Since we know the Iteration is called Cradle ... what do the inhabitants of Cradle call their world? Is it rutabaga? or do all humans call the main planet terra or earth?

Will Wight

My thought on that is that almost always unless people are aware of a larger universe they just have a word that means the world, so we'd just translate it to Earth. That's usually my answer to that, because there's all these fantasy worlds where the inhabitants call their Earth "Kren", or whatever. And it's like - that's cool, that's really neat, that makes sense, they call it "Narnia" or whatever. I like knowing the name but would the inhabitants of their world really call it that, or just call it the world? So that's always my thought process on that. Depending on the language, they have different words - so that's just the world for Earth in their language.

Skull

Let it Go or Baby Shark? You have to listen to one for the rest of your life or else you cant read ever again

Will Wight

Its probably Let it Go. If i had to listen to something on loop for the rest of my life, probably be Let it Go.....thats a more interesting song, and there's more to it.

Questioner

Suriel v. Beerus

Will Wight

I don't know how that would go. The problem with Suriel v. Beerus, for one thing, I don't know how Beerus's powers work. I don't know how [inaudible] destruction energy works, I don't know how any of that works. I don't think anybody does. I don't think there's really an answer to that, I think they just kinda work. But I think that, if I assume Beerus's powers to work on the same level as Suriel's, he has no authority to erase her, but she can still restore herself, so he would be probably stronger in a fight and she would be able to just restore herself. So I think it would probably be a stalemate, because she would just kind of not die.

Questioner

In the Traveler's Gate books, both the ice dagger and diamond are powers that are said to be earned from a room called the winter garden. I was wondering if this was a mistake on your part, or if it is an example of a room holding more than one power?

Will Wight

Yes. So there's a couple of things in play there. For one thing, the power earned from a room can change - like the guardian and trial, that all can change. So there are examples of that happening. There's also examples of there being two powers because in some of these rooms, just beating the room once is enough to progress through it, and then you've got to really show mastery in order to get the power. But then in other rooms maybe there's one power and then a second power. Now, I don't remember about that room specifically because it's been a really long time since I wrote those books, but it could have changed or it could be, instead, that you just earn two powers from that room. That's absolutely something that could happen.

Questioner

What is the Cradle equivalent to Hershey's? Do they even have chocolate?

Will Wight

They do have chocolate.

Kaz

Hey Will, is Lindon's Bloodforged Iron Body and a typical Sandviper's both considered "Perfect Iron" in terms of advancement potential? I've always been a little uncertain, since "perfect" is kind of a binary term but we see with Lindon that the same specialization can have a large degree of difference

Will Wight

Yeah so that's a problem. I regret that terminology. What I should have done was call them 'Advanced Iron Bodies' or something; because I say perfect and that suggests that there are not any grades of quality (which of course there are). So I've created this implication that both Lindon's Iron Body and this other person's Iron body are both equally perfect when of course that is not so. So there are actually grades of Perfect Iron Body so of course they're not all perfect. The terminology I reget on that but I'm stuck with it now.

MountainKing

What were the earlier designs of Lindon's path?

Will Wight

So, in Blackflame, when you see Lindon choose from those other Paths, those were all things I considered for his path at one point. Though by that point I'd already decided he'd end up with Blackflame. In the Megaman Battle games there's a character called Bass. He's this rogue/virus kind of thing with a cool purple laser sword and powers. Anyway, I always thought that look was a really neat. So I took that aesthetic for a Path in Cradle and that's the Path of the Broken Star.

That was one of the one's I originally intended for Lindon, but I intended a lot of stuff for Lindon. There was at one point a plan to have him learn just a million different paths. I ended up straying away from that (though I'm not saying he won't split his core at least once more, maybe, potentially, could happen, who knows). But he's not going to be master of a thousand Paths because that's too many powers and the problem with giving someone too many powers is less that the reader can't remember it and more that if you don't know what a character can't do they can effectively do anything.

I thought about giving him all sorts of this stuff. But if he does split his core again there's going to be a limited number of things he can do. The reason why I went with Blackflame as his power was first of all because it was kind of in contrast to what you'd expect from Lindon - you wouldn't expect him to have this hyper aggressive Path that does allow him to fight on the level of people he probably shouldn't be able to fight; and it's cool to see in action and it contradicts who Lindon usually is so there's some interesting stuff you could do with that.

Calvitron

The Sword Sage could cut a single page of closed book. Could Eithan read a page of a closed book?

Will Wight

That's a good question! Ah...no, he could not as a matter of fact, that's actually something he could not do.....right now. So it could be that once he advances further, he could end up developing that ability, but for now, no he could not do that

BigManDan

Are you worried at all that as Lindon and Co.'s advancement continues into the heavens, are you worried at all about being able to maintain interest in fights as they escalate to ever more ridiculous levels? After all, Naruto struggled with that towards the end.

Will Wight

I am worried about my ability to convey the scale of the fights. I'm not worried about the fights scaling beyond interest. I think I'm going to design the fights well but am I going to execute them well? I'll try my best I can promise that. One of the big problems I've had with the serious so far is because Lindon and company are always competing against people who are roughly on their level, you never get enough of a sense of how strong they really are. So that's what I'm worried about - not conveying scale because I continue to escalate everything up with the characters.

Tievel

Where did the name come from for the territory Lirial?

Will Wight

Yikes. That's a great question because obviously most of the other territories are named after mythical afterlives. Lirial is one of the ones that I just made up. One of the things I do sometimes is I think of words that would just sound cool and I turn them into names. And that's really where Lirial came from. I wanted it to sound cool and ethereal because of course it's the moon territory.

Questioner

How are new methods for creating iron bodies discovered?

Will Wight

That very much depends, there are some Monarchs and Sages and high-level people that just understand how this works, and they'll develop it. There are also some sects that have figured out - they spend a lot of time trying to develop new Iron bodies. People understand the principles behind them, so a lot of people who really understand how it works can guess or develop new ones. And some people can guess at what it might take to develop an Iron body and they can try to execute it. And after that it becomes trial and error.

And the trial and error is really where the awkward part comes in because trial and error often involves people ruining their bodies or dying or going through horrific pain.