Recent entries

Questioner

Would you ever write a novel of someone who was transported to a pioneer world by the Abidan?

Will Wight

Actually, yes.  That was something I came really close to writing already.  It was something that I wanted to write kind of as a break book, in between Cradle.  Of course, I had Elder Empire, which was not so much of a break, as an intensification of the action.  The opposite of a break, whatever that is.  A seam?  I don't know.  That's the opposite of a break.  But I really wanted to do that, because I talked with some LitRPG authors, and they mentioned that I had brought up the idea of a Minecraft/Terraria LitRPG.  And I was like, I know there are a million of those.  And they were like, I don't know that there are.  And so I looked it up, and there are quite a few of those in Japanese, but there aren't too many in English, or at least there weren't a year or two ago, when I had this discussion.

So I said wow, that I had already outlined a book that involved a group of people on a pioneer world, the Abidan, where they're just kind of building a world.  Literally just starting from scratch, figuring out the magic system, and all that stuff.  I also had a story that I not only outlined, but also wrote a few chapters of, years and years ago, before House of Blades, in which a modern Earth-like but not technically Earth world had magic all of a sudden introduced,  and so it was like this magic apocalypse thing and it was slowly becoming more magical and the whole world was breaking down.  Which at the time was a new concept and is not nearly a new concept anymore because a lot of people did it, and they did a great job. So I missed the boat on that one, but that was fun to write.  I actually reread the first few chapters of that and I was like, that's pretty good.  Pretty good, young Will.  Not too bad.  So that was a... I kind of combined some aspects of that into this pioneer world developing idea.

Questioner

Is it safe to say that Simon has the mindset to join the Abidan while Lindon doesnt?

Will Wight

Um, can't comment on that.

Questioner

Is ascending harder if you don't join the Abidan?

Will Wight

In a sense, yeah. We're obviously going to go into that process a little later in the series. But in a sense it is harder in the sense that the Abidan want you to join them, or at least support them. So one of the things the previous books have said that the Abidan only get a recruit from cradle once every century or whatever. That is... that’s a count of people who do end up ascending and joining the Abidan. The number of people who ascend is greater.

Not everybody who ascends joins the Abidan, a lot of people just kind of ascend to the next world and...chill. One other fun fact about ascension, you can bring other people with you and they do not count as having been ascended. This also ties into the question earlier about are there people in the Abidan who are weaker than sages. There are people who were brought along with other people who ascended so they can be.. you know, you don’t have to ascend completely alone. You can bring people who were not qualified. They are not treated the same, they of course don't have the same level of power or skill or whatever but it is something that can be done.

Questioner

How often do you read your own books?

Will Wight

However often I release books, so about twice a year I read my own books. Because I read the previous books in order to brush up on the next one, because is still of course I still have all my notes and all that and I generally remember what I put in my last book anyway. But you know it's never the same like there's a lot of times where - So shortly after Unsouled came out, I couldn't remember what Lindon's Dads name was because I was remembering all the names that I had potentially come up with. So I remembered it as one of a list of possibilities but I couldn't remember which one I settled on. - So that happens a lot. I remember what I planned to do as much as I remember what I actually did. So reading the books helps me refresh on that.

Questioner

How many books left until Cradle ends?

Will Wight

My goal is twelve books. I'm open to doing one more or one less, but it's roughly twelve, and I think that's about on track.

Questioner

All the Monarchs could ascend at any time, we assume?

Will Wight

That is technically correct. The Monarchs have the ability to ascend past Cradle. If you're a Monarch, you have the ability to personally get out of Cradle. They have all chosen not to.

Questioner

Aside from Sha Miara, who was the youngest when they advanced to monarch? Who was the oldest?

Will Wight

So among the current monarchs, I think...Emriss was the oldest when she advanced to monarch because she's a tree, so they advance slowly.I'm not sure is the youngest. Someone has asked this before...It could be the person who asked this now, I don't know, it's a mystery. I didn't remember then and I don't remember now. I don't know if I ever actually came up with an answer to that.

Questioner

How do you wind down/reset after an intense period of writing?

Will Wight

Slowly, Sam says, yes, My assistant gnome has spoken. Slowly is the correct answer. I uh, boy.... So what I like to do, the way I like to write, is I like to lock myself kind of... in a room, or a ship, for a week or two at a time. Then I just spend all my time writing, it's just what I do sort of from beginning to end. That has worked well so when I am done with that, it's typically been a long time so at the end of every day I’m really tired and I typically will play my Switch for an hour or whatever then go to sleep. Then I, when I’m done with that, I don’t know... when I am done with that, I crash. So I get home after that and I just kind of hole up and do nothing for a while I guess is the answer. I...uh, I just sort of crash, so I go home and I just sort of veg out for a couple of days. When it is really bad I sort of literally do nothing. Sort of just kind of lay on my bed and look at my computer forever and then hours pass and I'm like... "I don't know what I just did... maybe nothing...who knows? I have no memory from that period".

Occasionally I wake up and there's a bloody corpse of a bear and I’m in the woods and my clothes have been shredded and there is a lot of hair and I have dreams of the full moon but I don't....you know, I don't think that's weird or anything.

Questioner

How did you decide on the name Dross out of all the literal garbage names?

Will Wight

Wow. That’s a good question, and I remember doing it. I remember where I was when i was doing it. I was sitting in my car parked in the corner of a Wendy's parking lot with my seat all the way back and my laptop between me and my steering wheel. Which is where I sometimes just kind of get out of the house, I'm like "ok I just need an isolated place, I am just going to sit in the car" and I was sitting there just going through different versions of the names and I came up with a bunch and I don't really remember all of them I just remember I liked him being named for like trash you would find in a facility. I was thinking of all those, I kind of did it as I was going through the scene, I was going which of these trash synonyms do I like, and Dross sounded the most like a name. So...Dross.

Questioner

What other stories and monsters are the cradle kaiju inspired by?

Will Wight

So obviously they are modeled off the sacred guardian beasts of Chinese and east Asian mythology however those are benevolent divine creatures and obviously the Dreadgods are not; they are quite malevolent. So they are also modeled off of any big kaiju, you got it right, they are just big monsters.  So I picked them, I didn't model their power off the actual mythological versions, that would have been difficult to do.  So I kinda just picked their powers based on, like, I had their names kinda tied to what they were and then I (annoying subnautica notification).  So I came up with their appearances while coming up with their names and based on that I kind of had their powers developed and then I kind of just themed them as big kaiju around that.  So the bleeding phoenix of course, ok, so I'm going blood and rebirth, that makes sense and that's where that power came from. And the Silent King was I was like ok, white tiger with a cool halo, that sounds kind of mental to me so that's dream madra.  So then I had the Silent King mind controlling people.  Then there's the Wandering Titan who is big and made of stone, big crushy, smashy guy.

Arch

How many pancakes or Cradle pancake equivalents could Akura Fury eat in one sitting?

Will Wight

The only appropriate answer I can think of to that is "Yes."

Questioner

If humans are born with pure cores, what are sacred beasts born with?

Will Wight

If you're born a sacred beast, you are born with whatever madra your species has. You just have that naturally. So you're always born with aspected madra. So it depends on what you are. If you're not born a sacred beast, if you're just born a regular animal, you absorb ambient aura over time and slowly develop aspected madra. But since of course there is no pure aura, you can never develop pure madra.

Questioner

What can you tell us about Pride's Path? I was disappointed we didn't get to see Lindon fight him.

Will Wight

Pride's book is all Enforcer techniques. They're all solo combat, Enforcer, beat 'em up techniques. That is who Pride is and that is what his Path is about. Some of them are movement techniques, and so we get to see new types of Enforcer techniques that we haven't seen before. So it's not just a full-body Enforcer technique, which is obviously the most vanilla one. He's got a defensive one, a full-body one, one that is an attack technique, and one that is a movement technique. Those are the four that he can use proficiently. And of course, there are seven techniques in his book, as there are in all the books, but he hasn't unlocked those yet.

Will Wight

Travis loves reading mushy stuff. I've just learned this about Travis. I did not know that. So that means I'm going to have to just get real mushy in one of these bloopers. It's just going to have to be - I'm going to write a fanfic - oh, I'll just include excerpts from my Twilight fanfic.

Questioner

Were you originally planning on writing a series with romance in it? How do you feel about the community's response to the romance?

Will Wight

Was I originally planning on writing a series with romance in it?  You know, when I started Traveler's Gate, I was like, "Haha! I'm going to do  series with no romance."  Because all series have romance, and it frankly doesn't add anything to most series.  Well, not to most series.  Movies, so I was really comparing it to movies, and individual books or short series or trilogies.  So I was going, ok, in these short series and trilogies, it doesn't add a whole lot.  It's just there because it's supposed to be there, so I was like "Aha! I'm going to buck the trend! I'm going to do one with minimal or no romance."  And then I was very quickly like, "Nah, this doesn't really make any sense."  So the characters just, kind of, interact with one another.  They would be attracted to one another, which is logical.  So that became quickly a policy that I abandoned, although I still am not super comfortable writing romance.

So therefore, in this series, as Cradle went on, I knew that at some point in the series I was going to have to write some romance.  However, as I said in a recent blog post, I didn't expect Cradle to blow up quite the way it has.

(Will is briefly distracted by the threat of things exploding.)

So, I did not expect to get the point where I had to develop these characters to that degree, that it was going to be very important for me to write the romance.  But in fact, as I continued, I was like, "Yup, I'm going to have to develop this into a romance."  But it felt natural for the characters, it didn't feel like... I'm talking about it like I was forced into it because, you know, I was.  But I was forced into it by the natural progression of the story, so it made sense, where the characters would go, it felt right.  And so I knew I would have to stretch myself as a writer and challenge myself to develop character relationships as naturally as I could.  So that is what I am trying to do.

Questioner

Would you accept a copious donation of Oreos? Like a pallet?

Will Wight

You know, I don't know how many Oreos are in a pallet, but I'm going to guess it's not enough.

(Transcribers note: It is hard to get good data without being a retailer for Nabisco or having access to wholesalers, but as best as I can tell, there are twelve 20 oz packs of Double Stuf Oreos per case, and 36 cases per pallet.  This would be approximately 540 pounds of Oreos.  I will do everyone a favor and not figure out how many calories.)

(By request, I have now calculated the number of calories.  907,200 calories in a pallet of Oreos, assuming the above quantities.  For comparison, that's 1,055.07 kwH.  In 2017, the average home used 867 kwH per month.)

Questioner

Are there members of the Abidan that are below Sage level or didn't ascend?

Will Wight

Yes there are.  So, the way the Abidan work, which I hope to get into at some point, is there are people who

(Pause for Will to argue with the game.  It's a liar.)

(Also, a moment of silence for the massacre on Obraxis Prime)

So, the Abidan, there are definitely people who are born to Abdidan, who didn't ascend on their own, so they can join, maybe they can develop the powers necessary. That's certainly possible.  There are definitely people among the Abidan, who are in technical terms, not great.

Questioner

Dross cycled Charity's madra scales of shadow and dream. Does he only cycle the dream aspect of the scale?

Will Wight

Yeah, that's kinda how that works. There's a couple of ways to cycle things. It doesn't have to actually be the exact madra type that you cycle. So if you get the scale, you can process just the part of it that you can process.

Questioner

Who creates Iterations?  Can the Cradle world be duplicated?

Will Wight

Ok, that's a good question.  Can the Cradle world be duplicated?  In the sense that technically it could I guess...  Like in the sense that if you shuffled a deck of cards technically you could get the same order.  You almost certainly will not, but technically it is a possibility.  Now, all the people living there would not be there; they would be completely different people.  You could get a world that is very very similar.  There is not anything like parallel dimensions.  That's not a thing.  At least not as a primary universal mechanic.  There might be some Iterations that have some version of that.

And who created new Iterations?  Iterations are born as a natural part of the life cycle that Ozriel and Makiel and them are always talking about.  So as an Iteration gets closer to it's intended life span, as fate runs out and it starts to die, it splits up into fragments, which are basically like Territories from Traveler's Gate, and they float around in the void, and they eventually connect to one another based on common threads and ideas and concepts.  And then they fuse and they become the seed of a new Iteration, which over time gathers population, and becomes a new Iteration.  And the Abidan kind of, they are like gardeners, they kind of maintain that process.  So that is the idea.

Questioner

Can you tell us more about the training or techniques of some of the paths the books don't focus on? Specifically Amberwell or Chainkeeper?

Will Wight

Well, the Chainkeeper Path is mostly focused on one particular technique. 

(Interlude for Will to get blown up and drown) 

So, Path of the Chainkeeper is mostly focused on one technique.  So it is one of those single technique Paths.  It's not literally single technique, there are a few, but it's focused mainly on the Strings of Shadow technique that Mercy uses because it is so versatile.  It's also not a hugely combat focused Path, though of course they are all somewhat combat focused, but it is very versatile and it is focused on survival and just sort of everyday use.  You kind of Spiderman around, and lots of fun things you can do with that Path.

(More discussion of Will's drowning habits-spoiler-it involves inhaling water)

All right.  Amberwell.  The Amberwell path is... I don't know that I can really give a whole lot more detail than was in the books, even though the books were vague, because I don't have the specific techniques or anything on the Path memorized.  But it was an aggressive Path that was focused on using, on weaponizing dreams.  So it's sorta a water/venom/dream Path, so it's really complex to cycle, and the results are usually, they're all at least semi-mental attacks; you can sort of erode people's awareness, give them nightmares, that kind of thing.  But it is a very niche, very aggressive Path; a lot of other dream paths are flexible, and you can do things like make dream tablets and that sort of thing, but this one is like, nope, it's just about burning people's minds away.  That is the Amberwell Path.