Questioner
How does childhood development work in cradle? Especially in regards to higher tier families that can raise a baby to jade or gold in one pill. Taken to an extreme with luminous queen sha mirara, she inherited her power and is currently queen. Who controlled the super-charged baby when she was having fits? Also she only looks to be 10 or 11, if she is a monarch presumably she ages incredibly slowly, would she have the maturity of her true age? And what happens when she hits puberty? will she be affected by her hormones?
Will Wight
She doesn't age any more slowly than anyone else until after she reaches maturity. Advancement doesn't lock you into your current age so much as it optimizes your body; she won't be sick a day in her life or suffer the debilitating effects of age.
As for the families that can raise their kids to Gold instantly, these families also have the power to easily control an immature Gold. If everyone in the family is an Underlord, a five-year-old Lowgold throwing a temper tantrum has the same relative power as a normal five-year-old throwing a temper tantrum.
Danger only comes in two circumstances: when the child is more powerful than the family can contain, or when the child develops the power to hurt itself before the ability to resist/control itself.
Those are the situations they're trying to prevent. Usually, a child with the power to rocket-propel itself into a brick wall can also survive being rocket-propelled into a brick wall.
Questioner
Is everyone a Sacred Artist on Cradle, or does every community practice Sacred Arts in some way, for example, is it possible on some remote island there would be people not practising Sacred Arts?
Will Wight
When people in Cradle call themselves sacred artists, what they're really saying is that they're actively pursuing advancement. They cycle aura every day, they practice their techniques, they hone their craft, and so on.
So while madra would be a part of everyone's everyday life, and while everyone has technically attained some advancement level in the sacred arts, not everyone is a sacred artist.
Questioner
If you made a cradle/EE/ TG videogame, what type of videogame would it be? (FPS, RPG etc etc)
Will Wight
Survival RPG. More like Breath of the Wild than Skyrim.
Questioner
Is there an infinite amount of madra types?
Will Wight
Yes.
Questioner
Is there a path from cradle that only has one technique?
Will Wight
Yes.
Questioner
Has anyone ever had a child after ascending?
Will Wight
Yes.
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.
Questioner
what is a Cradle calendar like? I know that time basically works the same as here i.e. a day is 24 hours and a week is 7 days, but do the people on cradle count the days the same way as the do in travellers by counting the number of days to big days of each season? do they even have four season or is it more of a wet/dry season than winter/spring ect.
How many moons does cradle have? how many other planets are there in cradle's solar system?
Will Wight
Cradle has one moon, and it appears larger in the night sky than ours does. It's pocked with scars not just from ancient meteor showers, but also from the sacred arts techniques that have struck it over the millennia.
I haven't brought up the calendar in the main series because it changes so often. Sacred Valley had a calendar, the Desolate Wilds had a calendar, the Blackflame Empire has an official calendar and several more colloquial ones, and so on.
In order to keep it consistent in each region, I personally use a calendar based on year and season. That's not what they use in the world, though.
Questioner
What are some of the best entertainment professions?
I know light and dream mandra would be great but are there any other specialties such as madra that would create fireworks or balance mandra that would make spectacular jugglers?
Will Wight
There are entertainers with many different aspects of madra. Blood artists can sometimes give you physical impulses or emotions directly. There are actors on stone Paths who create their own scenery as they perform. Dream artists can store fantasies in a tablet, to be experienced by anyone. There are wind artists that can give you the experience of flying freely for a limited time.
Questioner
How do people on Cradle get information quickly for the average person? Does somebody come around on horseback delivering mail? Does somebody on a speed path run around delivering and picking up letters? Is there a portal system in place?
Will Wight
Most countries have some kind of a postal system run by sacred artists who can travel long distances quickly. Some of them use sacred beasts as mounts, but others do run it by foot. There are also communication constructs that can relay information over distances. Most of them are more like telegraphs than telephones.
Questioner
What is the Cradle analogue of a TV ? Like what do average people do to chill ?
Will Wight
What people do to relax on Cradle varies wildly depending on where you are. Some people have access to devices that record audio and video, so they have what is essentially a TV. For cultures with advanced dream tablets, they have accessible virtual reality experiences, and use those for entertainment.And of course they have books and games and everything else people did to entertain themselves before TV.
Questioner
What can Dream madra do besides read Fate? Are Time and/or Space actual madra aspects?
Will Wight
Dream madra affects thoughts and perception.Space madra is somewhat different than most aspects; it's not shaping madra INTO space, as that makes no sense, but there is a way to develop madra so that it affects space.
Questioner
Are remnants capable of having a society? Is there anywhere with particularly intelligent remnants and what do they do on a daily basis
Will Wight
Some of them are intelligent enough and capable of forming a society, yes. However, they're still Remnants: they're bound by the nature of their madra and the impulses that drove them when they were formed. So they don't interact as naturally as people do, no matter how intelligent they are.On a daily basis, they pursue "food," or compatible madra suitable to maintain their form and advance them. Some of the more intelligent Remnants have renewable sources of madra--which means human communities--where they can get their power, either from stealing scales or from making deals with humans.
Questioner
How does life madra affect other kinds if madra it is mixed with?
Will Wight
Life madra is strange. It's widely known on Cradle that your experience and the aspects of your Path affect how you perceive aura. Some types of less-tangible aura--like destruction, for instance--can't be detected by some people at all. These are usually the aspects that deal with intangible concepts. Therefore, in theory, life madra would be difficult for the average person to perceive. But it isn't. This is believed to be because we are all acclimated to life aura ourselves, as living beings, and because we're surrounded by plants and animals even before Copper. Life madra interacts with the force that animates a living being. HOW it interacts depends on the Path and the technique. Let's take life and fire, for instance. One Path might have a flame that uses life for fuel, consuming the target even underwater. Another Path might have a flame that ignites a life-fire and gives you inexhaustible life aura, meaning you have more energy and heal faster. It's a weird one.
Questioner
What sports do they play in cradle?
Will Wight
Most sports are combat-related (in some way), but there are a few that aren't. One sport involving getting a ball into a goal revolves around two teams of six people, each positioning themselves strategically on their half of the field. They have to use the sacred arts to maneuver the ball into the opposing goal without letting it touch the ground.Most of the rules exist to prevent them from attacking their opponents.
Questioner
Can new types of madra be made artificially? Like if somebody invented the computer on Cradle would it collect computer madra?
Will Wight
All aspects of madra are essentially human interpretations of aura. You might notice a unique blend of aura around a computer, and you could break it down into storm aura and dream aura or what have you, or perhaps you could find a way to cycle it into your own madra and create what you called a "computer Path." What would you be able to do? I'm not sure. That sounds like a confusing blend of madra.
Questioner
Does the board game of go exist on Cradle? If not, what is the closest existing analogue?
Will Wight
It does not, but Cradle's a large world, and there are alternatives. There's a game a cross-hatched board where you place your pieces at the intersecting lines and they grow more powerful each turn they survive (indicated by replacing the pieces with different colors). The name for it, in the language of the locals, translates to "garden of beasts."
Questioner
What’s the most popular holiday in the blackflame empire? What does it celebrate how do the people celebrate it?
Will Wight
They celebrate the Emperor's birthday every year with parades that throw scales into the audience. They also celebrate the Empire's founding...although the date for that changes depending on where in the Empire you are.Some people celebrate the founding of the current Empire, after the Blackflame family's fall. Others celebrate the founding of the original human empire, and still others celebrate the founding of the ancient dragon empire (although this date is highly disputed).
Questioner
What kinds of madra do the great schools of sacred valley use other than Heavens glory. I think they were Falling leaf, Golden blade and Divine wind.
Will Wight
Holy Wind: a strange Path of wind, light, and dream techniques that create zones of unnatural weather.Golden Sword: a Path of sword madra that uses Enforcer techniques on their weapon. The name of their Path comes from the goldsteel swords they use more than from their techniques.Fallen Leaf: focused on using life madra to guide the growth of spirit-fruits and sacred herbs.
Questioner
Are there any sacred beasts (besides dragons) that could go toe-to-toe with a Monarch or a Dreadgod?
Will Wight
There's Juwei, the Ghostwalker Fox, who has tricked Monarchs and escaped. There's a single Monarch-level dragon--known by some as the god of the desert--who has a centuries-old feud with Northstrider. There's Nightsong, the musician on the Path of the Moonlit Flute, who is either a sacred beast herself or has strong inhuman blood.
