Recent entries

Kalani

  is queen sha miara really just 10-11 years old or does she only look that age?

Will Wight

Sha Miara is a little older than she looks.

RMvice

Was elder whisper a witness to the end of the first blackflame empire

Will Wight

Possibly.

Decadakon

Does Lil' Blue have a path

Will Wight

No.

Lil' Blue

Is the age slowing an order of magnitude as you advance or is there xnumber of years added for each stage?

Will Wight

For the Lord realm, your body is re-forged in stronger soulfire each time you advance, so your body is made more like it was in your prime. If you were younger than your prime, you would look older, and older people look younger. Then, from there on, you age more slowly. It gets stronger each time you advance, but it only happens when you advance, so basically Jai Daishou's only hope of living significantly longer would have been to hit Overlord. Which he accepted that he couldn't do.

Tievel

Quick one: how old was Jai Daichou?

Will Wight

I'd have to look at my notes, but if I remember correctly, like 120-130?

Tievel

Wow, younger than I thought

Will Wight

Yeah, not as old as people think. I will say, though, that I could be wrong about that because I don't have my character notes in front of me.

dyring

There was a quote in the books stating he had been underlord for over a century thou, I thought he became underlord late?

Will Wight

You could very well be right. Maybe he was 160-170.

Tievel

I know your pain, Anu. I was inspired to try my hand at my take on xianxia, but I can't get past that any of my takes on the magic system want to be based on Cradle, and aren't as good without being a straight copycat. Vital aura, specifically, may be my favorite magic innovation I've ever read.

Will Wight

There are a lot of changes I'd make to the Cradle magic system if I got a do-over. The general shape of it would stay the same, but basically I would use harder definitions so that people understand what's going on more.     It's hard because I was trying to start with people who kind of but not really knew how the magic worked so that I could build out from there, because most people are just giving their beliefs and theories on how the sacred arts works. But as a result it's gotten confusing, so I would have been clearer from the beginning.

Aru

I haven't played League of Legends in a few years, is everyone still as salty as I remember? Also, is my boy Darius still meta?

Will Wight

Darius is actually really strong right now. There have been some great changes in the last few years, especially in terms of the client and UI.     The community is still cancer.

Mierin

speaking of questions for will were the dreadgods inspired at all by the endbringers in worm or are they just very similar in concepts

Will Wight

Not really. I hope they end up being similar in execution later on in the series, because his execution of the Endbringers was my second-favorite part of that series, but I needed some giant monsters to serve a specific plot function later on.

manty65

In cradle at what stage could a sacred or a dread beast become Godzilla sized.

Will Wight

The Dreadbeasts are Monarch-level or better, and some of them are Godzilla sized. Most sacred beasts are not that large, regardless of their advancement.     Most Monarchs aren't either, as Polycore pointed out.

Lil' Blue

Are your Facebook posts carefully planned out or more stream of consciousness?

Will Wight

Not planned at all. People said I needed to post more, so I started posting memes and stuff.     I kind of hate doing it, but I try to make them a little fun for me.

Polycore

And I feel like I agree with you Will, there shouldn't be too much emphasis on the levels, it's not the interesting part of the story, only some context and eventually motivation for the characters

Will Wight

I wholeheartedly agree, but evidently there are a lot of people out there who really do love the stats and the levels and the stat pages and all that stuff. It bores me, but it seems there are a lot of people out there who specifically like that stuff. Idk why.

For me, the interesting parts of having a world that worked like a game with stats and levels and everything would be how all that junk impacted the story

I mean, I want there to be fewer stats and shorter stat pages so that each of the stats and skills has more impact. When the MC has one level each in sewing, dodging, jumping, leaping, underwater basket-weaving, interpretive dance, hat-juggling, carrot-eating, and everything else they've ever done, I don't want to see that on their stat page.   That's a pretty cool element, I like that.   The pile-up of skills is what turned me off of Kumo desu ga, Nani ga?, which was once one of my favorites. But she got a point in a skill any time she did anything for the first time. Literally anything. It drove me crazy. She spins her web into a lasso? Bing, point in web manipulation and lasso-tying.   If there are too many, I can't keep track of them. And if they're not important enough to keep track of, don't include them in the first place. D&D is actually a great example, because frankly it would make a really good LitRPG. And now we have come full circle to the early days of fantasy novels.

ha ha yes

If Lindon was a character in overwatch, what would his ultimate be? What would Simons be

Will Wight

Lindon's: Void Dragon's Dance. His passive in Blackflame form would leave little black flames around the battlefield as he uses his abilities, kind of like Reaper's old passive. His ult would detonate all of those flames in a massive nova.   Simon's: Mask of Valinhall. Gives him armor and shield and greatly increases move speed and attack damage for the duration. If he doesn't have some sort of mobility skill in his kit, like a double jump or a dash or something, he gets one during his ult.

Aru

They can exploit the gamer demographic, which is huge relative to the fantasy novel reader demographic, and they pad page count with long tables     Which boosts Kindle Unlimited money because of page turns.

Will Wight

I'm not a LitRPG fan or author, but this is a misapprehension that for some reason keeps spreading. Stat pages and tables almost never significantly increase page count or increase the amount of Kindle Unlimited revenue. The increase is laughably small. No one I've ever seen is including those stat pages to boost word count or page count, but everyone thinks they are. It baffles me. They're including those stat pages because it's expected in the genre and it makes the world feel more like a game. If there were a way to include a hyperlink so that you could check the character's stat page at any given point in the book and see his stats, that would become the norm. Unfortunately, including stat pages is just awkward in a written book, so they don't have great options.

Mierin

and why do you play an inferior game

Will Wight

I don't know why I sometimes play WoW. That's a great question.

Mierin

will what is your league lane/main/waifu

Will Wight

Jungle/Warwick/Sona

Mierin

the author kept trying to like pull game stats out of his ass like it was wow where you knew everything going into it instead of giving the reader a system to work with

Will Wight

Yeah, that's why I'm not a fan of LitRPG as a genre     I feel like I should be, and part of me wants to support the LitRPG community, but it's just not my cup of tea     I want it to be, though. It makes me want to write some LitRPG, to see if I could create a LitRPG I really liked

Aru

Alright thanks Will. I suppose it's time for me to try and get back in touch with some people I knew in the fantasy creative writing club back at University. I don't think I'm going to get a MFA though. I don't know about your experiences but back when I was in college people kinda looked down on SF & F relative to real literature, which turned me off on my schools whole creative writing program. I'm not sure if it was different for you at school but I realized SF & F just wasn't something they get to explore in that program. It's a shame but even though Fantasy has been growing by leaps and bounds there's still plenty of people in academia who can't conceive of it qualifying as literature.     Which is bogus in my mind. Since when were their rules on what's literature and what's not? I believe in his writing course Brandon Sanderson talked about how SF & F is the only genre that's unbounded and unrestricted in scope, which I wholeheartedly agree with.

Will Wight

Yes. Exactly the same. They're all about the literary fiction train, which is complete crap and I disagree with their fundamental philosophy on literature almost totally. My master's was good for honing my basic skills in an environment where they made me write a lot, critique other people's work, and evaluate critiques of my own work. Those are all vital skills. I also got a very good grasp on what my strengths and weaknesses are as a writer.     You can learn all those lessons for free. However, I wouldn't have. I wasn't disciplined enough for it. So the master's was worth it for me.  

Okazaki

i missed the conversation, but yes, sages can advance.

Bamfious (paraphrased)

Did the scene with Northstrider cycling by the dragons hint at soulfire at all?

Will Wight (paraphrased)

No, but it did hint at a different magic system.

Bamfious (paraphrased)

Is there a benefit to doing Sage?

Will Wight (paraphrased)

There is a definite benefit to doing Sage.