Does Cradle have a community equivalent to video game theorycrafters, who spend all day working out min/maxed combos of ironbody/cycle method/madra paths?
There is such an organization, and I'd love to go into detail about them, but unfortunately I'm afraid it might be a spoiler.But the non-story answer is yes!
Were the sacred artists Suriel revealed to Lindon a mere sampling of the beings at that power level, or are these literally the only three groups at their level?
They are not the only ones. In the form of a young boy, an ancient dragon rules the desert to the east of the Blackflame Empire. He is kept from consuming the humans by the deterrent of the Akura clan, whose Matriarch is one of the few beings on the planet he respects. Northstrider gathers power in the hopes that he will one day be able to challenge this particular dragon.
Are there legendary remnants that are especially sought after? Also, are there any effects (good oreasonbad) that come from bonding a remnant that is insanely far beyond your cultivation level?
There are indeed some ancient or legendary Remnants, at least one of which will be shown in Skysworn. As far as bonding a Remnant beyond your advancement, it's a big risk. The Remnant has more of a sense of identity, so it can make your bonding process either much easier or much harder. Yerin could never have bonded the Sword Sage's Remnant, for instance, if he hadn't allowed it.
I assume the artists on the Path of the Starseed have some way of protecting their body from the aura? Also, can they only manifest it inside their hands, or within a certain distance?
It's cupped a few inches from their hands, like a ball. As they advance, they can control it more freely and project it farther.
What path is the best later on in the stages but sucks early in your advancement?
Path of the Starseed.
Practitioners gather aura of light and heat into a tiny ball of madra that they keep inside their spirits. They can manifest it, like a tiny star in their hands, but any power they use is taken away from the Starseed's growth.
As they advance, they also advance their Starseed, but it's far less useful than any similar Paths (like, say, Heaven's Glory) until they reach Underlord. Once the Starseed is bathed and forged in soulfire, it becomes another level of existence entirely.Now practitioners can use their Starseed to melt through stone, and as it gets larger and more dense, the sacred artists become deadlier. If they continue to advance, their Starseeds can eventually burn cities in seconds after manifesting.
Which sacred beast produces the best bristle material for the Aurelias Clans brooms?
There's a species of eagle whose tail-feathers have a unique relationship with wind aura. When you sweep such a feathered broom, the wind actually gathers up all the dust and loose debris in a small area and piles it neatly up. Scholars believe that the patterns in the feathers act as a script to produce such a unique effect, but no one really knows for sure. In battle, the Broom Sage used bristles from the tail of the Thorn Mountain Boar, a fifteen-story-tall boar that ate forests. The wood for his broom was taken from a branch of the Underworld Herald, a self-aware ancestral tree that once grew upside-down in an underground kingdom of blood and darkness.
So could Lindon learn all the dragon paths?(If he split his core some more of course.) And does this mean that technically he could learn other beasts paths? If he absorbed the remnant of the sacred beast that was in the arelius bloodline would he get their bloodline powers?
There is a way for someone born without bloodline powers to acquire them. But in order for him to get the Arelius powers, he'd have to find the same sacred beast they got their powers from. Or another of a similar type.
Are there other colors of dragon madra beyond "black"flame?
The dragons who inhabited the lands of the Blackflame empire were (and are) black, the color of the destructive aura that they cycled. There are sea dragons that are blue, sky dragons with a variety of colors, and earthbound land dragons that might be green or brown.But you asked about the color of their flame, not the color of their scales. Yes, there are dragons with toxic green flame, frigid icy "flame" that consumes even as it freezes, good old natural flame, and red living flames that drift around like Remnants burning as much as possible to extend their fleeting lives.
Is there a ranking system by the Abidan to measure the world level of advancement? Could u give us the rating for your currently displayed worlds if yes?
Yes, the Abidan do have such a system, and sufficiently advanced worlds are allowed to interact with the Abidan openly. Though most Iterations never make it to this point.I can't share it with you, though, because I haven't perfected it yet. I have an early version of the system, but I don't like it much, and it's likely to change before it makes an appearance in the books.
Would it absorb madra launched at it? A forged pane of pure madra would be very cool for Lindon to learn how to do if it could be used as a defense.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Technically it would intercept any madra thrown at it, but most of the time it would just shatter. Sometimes it would actually make the technique MORE powerful for having passed through and absorbed the pure madra.There could be ways to fashion it into a defense, but they're almost all hugely impractical. It would be much easier to just have a regular wall and carve a script into it.
Pure Madra as a building material in the emperor's palace?
Pure madra is an unreliable building material. It breaks easily, and it's so impressionable that placing it next to any other Forged madra will cause the two types to mix, changing both of their properties. However, it is used decoratively. Sometimes it is used to substitute for stained glass; you Forge a pane of pure madra and then stain it in spots with madra of different colors and properties. The other madra spreads like paint through the glass, creating a moving, swirling, blending canvas of living power. You just have to be careful about how long you let it sit and how much power you put into it, or it might randomly create a powerful effect.
How are shooting stars explained in Cradle?
One culture explains them this way:The night sky is our glimpse into the heavens. When we see a shooting star, we're seeing a heavenly messenger descending to someone in the world.
How did the other empires of Cradle consider the Blackflames when they were at their strongest? And how would they react to a new Blackflame?
"How would they react to a new Blackflame?" is a bit too much of a spoiler, but...When the Blackflame Empire was at its height, it controlled the whole (massive) continent. That was when it was ruled by dragons.When the Blackflame family was at the height of their power, their empire controlled about half the continent. As for the other half...well, the dragons and their descendants had to go somewhere.Now that the Blackflame lineage has fallen, the Empire is even smaller. About a third of the continent. The dragons outside are powerful enough to wipe out the human empire, except that the humans of the Blackflame Empire have a backer.To the other great nations around the world, including the Ninecloud Court, the original Blackflame Empire was a real power. Now, it's just one territory sheltered under the wing of a true powerhouse.
Are there any instances of sacred artists "selling themselves " into slavery at a coliseum to gain patrons and have a legal way to cultivate blood madra?
Most culturally acceptable blood Paths are medical, so it's not difficult to find sources of blood aura. Also, every living being generates some blood aura, so you can cycle a little wherever you are.
Cradle: Are there paths that grant tremendous power swiftly at the cost of later advancement?
The most common Paths for those who want to gain quick power at any cost are blood/sword Paths. It's a common pairing, because a battlefield typically has both strong sword aura and strong blood aura.The aura is powerful, as well as easy to create and cycle: you just have to keep killing people. The stronger the physical body, the greater the power of the blood aura. Virtually everyone who walks a Path of slaughter and bloodshed reaches Truegold quickly.The problem comes after that.First of all, you've killed a lot of people, so you've made enemies. They won't let you get away with enjoying the spoils of your evil Path.Second, even if you manage to slip away, there's no hiding that the power of your soul is drenched in blood. There are blood arts focused on healing, and others focused on strengthening the body, but it's easy to sense the difference between those and powers gained through murder. Peaceful civilizations won't accept you, and there are even laws in many places banning "evil arts," "slaughter arts," "demonic arts," etc.Therefore, because interaction with other people is difficult, it becomes harder to obtain the backing you need for the resources to cross into Underlord and above. As every further stage requires more and more resources, eventually you'll find yourself stranded and surrounded by enemies. That, or killed in combat.But it's not as though no one has ever succeeded in advancing along this Path...
What's the most advanced piece of technology native to Cradle?
There are cloudships far more advanced than the one the Arelius family use, and they have powerful onboard weaponry as well as long-range communications and detection.However, it's difficult to develop technology that works reliably everywhere in Cradle. Gunpowder might explode with too much force in an area where fire aura is strong, or destruction aura might cause an engine to burn too much fuel. There are patches of aura that block certain detection methods, and beings whose very existence can cloud a sacred artist's spiritual senses.
If the most pleasant iron body is asked, then what's with the most painful, except for Lindon's(if his IS even the most painful one)
It's hard to quantify the MOST painful Iron Body; is burning alive more painful than being torn apart piece by piece?Because those are both actual ways of developing an Iron body.There are some Iron bodies similar to Lindon's that involve being stabbed and cut over and over while you're being healed. There are others that involve adapting your body to fire, which basically means burning yourself one part at a time.
Screw Lindons wolverine body. The Drifting Iron body is the one for me. I imagine its for people whom want to fly ,glide, float or be a parkour ninja.
There's a similar Iron body for a Path that has rigid metallic wings as their Goldsign. They're not a wind Path, so it's difficult for them to fly, but if their bodies are light enough they can glide.This particular Iron body is from a sect of body-enhancing life artists that you might call ninjas.
What is the most pleasant and painless iron body type to develop?
The Drifting Iron Body. It involves undergoing a process to weaken gravity's hold on the body, making you lighter. The actual transformation process involves being woven into a silken cocoon made by refiners from plants that grow among the clouds. It feels like being suspended among hundreds of pillows for several hours a day over many weeks.
What's the biggest chain restaurant in cradle? Such as McDonalds.
Sungarden restaurants are all over a different continent. They have life artists that can grow tailor-made fruits and vegetables on command, so you're ordering from a menu of genetic options as much as a selection of dishes.
