Revan
What is your favorite type of madra? Is there a sort of madra that can do psychic things, such as telekenisis or telepathy?
Will Wight
Telepathy yeah, 100%. Dream madra does that. That's basically what it does. Telekinesis... not reeeally. There's a lot of madra that lets you pick stuff up without touching it but not really telekinesis so much. Favorite kind of madra... If I were in Cradle I would probably want force madra or wind madra because the aura is everywhere and it's very useful, it's handy. And then you get the telekinesis kind of stuff so that's basically the telekinesis powers. My favorite to write is actually dream madra because you can do so many cool things with it, like you can share thoughts, communicate over distance, read minds and all that stuff.
Questioner
How does madra regenerate? How does a technique that would increase regeneration work?
Will Wight
It's the interaction between life aura, blood aura, and dream aura in humans. It's really like human aura. Humans have a unique relationship to it, so it comes back as they exist and live and are healthy and alive. It comes from your body and mind. A regenerative cycling technique would improve the efficiency of that process or increase the speed of that process.
Questioner
What's your stance on fanficton and would you mind if people posted fanfiction on third party sites?
Will Wight
No, I don't mind that. I like fanfiction a lot, you know, as a concept. I have no problem with that. The only thing is make sure it's fanfiction, don't claim is your idea not mine, and don't sell it.
Fable
At some point would you be willing to add a table describing how to cycle the basics of Madra? As well as some of the properties that certain Madra's possess? I am wondering this because I am trying to make mechanics for a Cradle Quest. (Quest meaning something like a DnD game that is run online.) If you do not have an answer at this time then I have a simpler question. What exactly is force madra, how do you cycle it, and how does it work?
Will Wight
So I definitely need to do that, this is something i probably need to bring up to the team, although they're certainly hearing this and are gonna hold me to this whether I want to do it or not. That's something I definitely need to do, i really probably need to do some sort of index or whatever for every series.....appendix that was the word i was looking for. The problem is it kind of changes based on the book, so you learn something new every book. So i either have to post just the very basics, so the very basics that you would learn in Unsouled, or the stuff that everybody knows, or I'd have to update it every book. So of course, before ebooks, you'd have all this at the back of the book, now i can create a page on my site and just link to it, so i could just have kind of a constant explanation encyclopaedia sorta thing up there. Its a lot more work that it sounds like, unless i do just the bare minimum and just put like a description up there of just kind of generally how the the madra system works. But i know i need to do something and i'm fully willing to do it, its one of those things that i feel like always is on my priority list, but never high enough to actually do, so it never gets to the top, so I'm sorry about that.
Human Number 678
What is the weirdest drug on Cradle?
Will Wight
Weirdest drug on Cradle. So again it's a world building question, so I can make up questions for this, that will actually be easy to make up an answer to, but I don't have a ready made answer to it and I'm afraid that if say something it will contradict something in my notes. It's hard to live-answer world building questions and I don't have the time to make up a cool answer, so I gotta pass on that one. I'm sorry.
Questioner
How do you cycle force aura so you can make your own force madra?
Will Wight
So, sword aura it just an application of force aura. Ya, its just a derivative of force aura. It builds up in things that do exert great force. Not things that could, which of course anything can, anything physical. But, things that do. So, things that really do bash up against other things on a daily basis. So, like a machine or manufacturing plant would generate a lot of force aura. A rushing river does too. But you tend to not sense that. Its a lot easier to sense sword aura than it is to sense force aura until you become kind of attuned to it and you sort of cycle it some a little bit. So, the more advanced you get on a force path the easier it is to feel that, see that. One of the things I've kind of referenced a little bit, but its sort of subtle and I probably need to draw it out more explicitly, is as you get more advanced on a certain path it becomes easier for you to pick up aura of that path. So, Lindon had to learn to see destruction aura even in a place where its very prevalent. So later, its a lot easier for him to see than other people to see.
Questioner
Like when he was cycling for blackflame during Ghostwater, he sees or at least senses destruction aura in the fire.
Will Wight
Right. So, I mentioned that force aura would be in a rushing river. It certainly would and it would be there for anybody. But, when Lindon looked at a river he would basically just see water aura. If Renfei, who is on cloud and force, she might se, basically, the force of the white water crashing against the rocks and she would see the water aura as it interacted with the air as a big cloud. So, her vision if she opened her copper sight, her vision of the river would look very different than Lindon's.
joe2222
Is it possible to kill a sage with poison or did something else happen to Yerin's Master?
Will Wight
It is a very good question, its just that this a question that has become a meme among the subreddit. It is indeed possible for them to have killed the sage, but only under very specific circumstances that I have not yet explained. So, it's going to be a read and find out.
DJflopdog
Can an advanced enough sacred beast, who has transitioned to human form, change back into beast form at will? The dragon monarch Seth for example.
Will Wight
Somebody advanced enough can. Seth definitely can. He can do whatever he wants. But, it's somebody like Sophara from Ghostwater, the Underlady, she doesn't have a dragon form. She does, but she would have to spend soulfire and time slowly making herself back into a dragon. And, that would be an inefficient use of time and soulfire. So, it would be difficult. Even and Archlord, it's not easy. But a herald, or above, so a monarch, a herald or monarch, those can shift all the time. And shift. And shift.
JohnnyBrew
How much of society is super dedicated to cultivation advancement? Are there swaths of society who live in protected cities and just get by or there ones who are more dedicated to decadence and leisure, or to commerce than to cultivation.
Will Wight
Yes. Absolutely there are. The rough number I work with in my head is, like, 10% of the people really focus on advancement, like really sacred artists, that's what they want. So, that's my rough number.
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.
Fortboy888
Would the life well of Ghostwater have healed Zel. If not, do you know what would?
Will Wight
No, it would not. And, yes, I do know.
Questioner
Does Eithan have any other cycling techniques and if he does, then, is that information addressed in Underlord? Because it was mentioned that the purification wheel was terrible for refilling your core. So, does he use external means, or is it just a different type of cycling technique?
Will Wight
So, it's not addressed in Underlord. It might be addressed in book 7, I'm not sure. So, he does have other cycling methods, but you only have one Jade cycling technique so that's his, like, core..
Questioner
That's like his bread and butter.
Will Wight
Ya. Right. So he definitely emphasizes quantity over quality.
Lil' Blue
What color is Seth and would he have cared with the Blackflame ruling the continent?
Will Wight
He is a gold dragon. He is the original gold dragon. His human form, unless I changed this, and I very well might, is a black kid. Someone sent me a picture of art of him as a little white 12 year old. I didn't think that image fit. I thought it seem like he should be a different ethnicity than the main characters, because he is from a long way away, kind of like Eithan. The whole reason he's white instead of Asian, which is the primary ethnicity of he continent, is to serve the purpose to say hey he's from a long way away. So that's his human form, but that really changes a lot. He actually can alter his skin color however he wants to. That's just kind of the form he chosen to take because that's the form humans take where he grew up. They can change little details like that very easily at his level.
Would he cared if the the Blackflames ruled the continent? His thing is he is all about the survival of the fittest, that's because dragons are the fittest. So when you do this survival of the fittest ideology, he always wins, so he and his people are the best. He feels like that the whole magic of Cradle and the whole sacred arts should be very pure and real, The strongest people directly win and they get what they need and that's the best for everybody and that's how Cradle works. That all this civilization stuff that the Akura clan love so much is just design to make naturally weaker people comfortable which does nothing but makes everything worse. So that's where all the problems come from. His main problem with the Black dragons ruling is that they are ruling and setting up a civilization, and not just holding territory. So that will be his main ideology difference with the black dragons.
Lil' Blue
Is Seth the Cradle take on the 1000 year old dragon loli?
Will Wight
Sort of. No joke. The existence of that trope definitely played into his existence. Because I am aware in most anime and manga he would be a prepubescent girl, which just have weird undertones. So now he's a young boy, because that just doesn't get done very often. The main reason was because it emphasizes a couple things, one is he intentionally took this form to walk among humans. He doesn't hate humans, he has no opinion on humans, strong humans are cool; weak humans suck. So therefore he takes a form that is nonthreatening, when he veiled himself and goes among humans, and also it is a nice contrast to his dragon form which is huge and monstrous and threatening. So you have this [Can't tell what Will says here] regular twelve year old dude, when actually he is this 12 bazillion year old dragon.
Chimeric
You mentioned earlier that all your books are connected in the same universe. In Skysworn, the Sage of a Thousand Eyes was mentioned. Is that Sage anyway connected to the Elder Empire Overseer, who also has the nickname Lord of a Thousand Eyes.
Will Wight
That's actually a really good question, but she is not related to him at all, Ach Magut i think it the one.
Chimeric
Is the path related?
Will Wight
No its more of a colloquial nickname, in both cases. So the sage of thousand eyes is not on the path of a thousand eyes, i don't think, i'll have to look that up, maybe they are. Most of the sage of "whatever whatever", so sages have two names, so there's the "sword sage" and "the sage of the endless sword". so there's two names for sages, the "whatever" sage, and the sage of "whatever", so usually the sage of "whatever whatever" is their path, but in the case of the Sage of a Thousand Eyes, unless i changed this, so take all this with a grain of salt, shes not actually on the path of a thousand eyes, shes a member of the Arelius family. Therefore her ability is to see everything, like she can see all over the place, so therefore her most defining feature is her command over her bloodline ability. Whereas Ach Magut, the Lord of a thousand eyes, just kind of has eyes everywhere, and he has like a thousand eyes. I know there's a lot of overlap there and i'm sorry about that, i probably should have called him like lord of a million eyes or something cos he has a million eyes, i dunno. I just though a thousand eyes sounded better, really is kinda the crux there. But I apologise, and I hate telling people that the connections don't exist, but I am sorry, that's just an overlap in the naming conventions.
Arch
Is necromancy a thing on Cradle?
Will Wight
Not in the traditional sense, so not in the sense that like death madra allows you to resurrect skeletons. What they do have is they make corpse puppets. In that case, yeah you can reanimate corpses, but they can really be made out of anything. So you could also make yourself a little metal battle-droid, and that would probably be better than an actual corpse.
Addendum
Will popped into the discord during a conversation referencing this WoW entry, and had this to add to clarify...
Will Wight
I say above that death madra cannot be used to resurrect skeletons. In the following sentence, I say that “they” can make corpse puppets. “They” in this case refers to the sacred artists of Cradle in general, not specifically death artists.
Questioner
Is the Deepwalker Ape dead?
Will Wight
No, he's alive; he's chillin'.
Questioner
What is Ziel's path/madra?
Will Wight
It's primarily force madra.
Questioner
Are Ziel's scripts a part of his path or a workaround around his core injury?
Will Wight
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.
Questioner
Did Lindon lose his badges in Ghostwater?
Will Wight
No. He's got 'em. They're listed as one of the few things he kept.
