Was the Sword Sage considered an unaffiliated Sacred Artist or did he have an alliance/alligence to a monarch like Frozen Blade with the Akuras?
Yes. The sword sage was considered an unaffiliated sacred artist and as such he would be loosely...but not really... considered protected by Northstrider, thats sort of Northstriders thing.
What would the emperor from Asylum be ranked comparatively in Cradle?
This is one of those questions that I’ve been asked before and it's hard to answer because relative to his world he’s a monarch, obviously. He's a global spanning superpower that manipulates reality directly. But relative to Cradle, all monarchs in Cradle have specifically designed combat powers and he doesn't. So, he would be much better at fighting on a conceptual level or creating artifacts - stuff that his magic system is better at - but in a straight-up fight, anybody from Cradle would annihilate him.
It's kind of like - is this person stronger than Goku? I mean... no, that’s what Goku's good at, it's the one thing he does - So that's the difference between Cradle and... virtually anywhere else. So, it's hard to say but in terms of his authority and his control over reality and his ability to manipulate things, I would still say he is monarch-level or close to it.
Would he be especially effective against a herald because of his intent?
Yeah, if you ever got into a direct Will-to-Willpower confrontation with him he would be able to crush pretty much anybody - monarchs, probably not, monarchs would be on the level with him - but your average herald or a sage for sure. Again, presumably. It's a case-by-case basis
Are there different zones of the Way that are unknown to the Judges or the Vroshir factions?
Yes, as a matter of fact. Absolutely. It is something that the Judges have theorized; that what they call the Way is actually one branch of the Way. Because as far as they can tell, the Way is infinite, but it gets thin enough that it can't support travel or existence anymore so they can't explore its depths.
But it is strongly theorized by the Judges. They believe that there are, and in fact, there are. There are parallel versions of the Way that they are not aware of. So, there are sort of other parallel universes.
What is Lindon's favorite meal? Why? Do the rest of the team have different favorites as well?
Two things I have cut out from the books., regarding people's meal preferences. One is that Yerin does not particularly like fish. Doesn't like seafood, just something she doesn't like. One thing I did include in the books; she gets a little weirded out by creepy crawlies. Not enough to shut her down. She knows she has to fight monsters. Just doesn't like bugs. So foods that resemble bugs, she also tends to not like. So that's Yerin's preferences. In terms of Lindon's preferences, for things that I cut out from the books, is that he doesn't usually pay attention to the flavor of food very much. He is not a food guy. He is someone who is passionate food. He is someone who is "Yes, I eat to fuel my body up optimally." Now, that doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy trying things. That doesn't mean he doesn't get pleasure out of a well-made meal, it's just not one of his passions.
Could you talk about your personal journey as a writer and an author?
Well, there's so many ways to respond to that, it's hard to do. And also, I feel like I talk about that a lot. Most of my interviews and panels generally tend to be things where I talk about my journey as a writer and an author. So, I'm trying to think of something I can say that I haven't already covered to death. One of the things I say most often, is it has just been a lot of fun. It has been a neat adventure over the last eight and a half years, being a writer, being an author. I've always wanted to write; I've really loved telling stories my whole life. Storytelling, I really have a passion for-I just really enjoy it. It's the kind of thing where I am constantly making up stories, and frankly, I think it's amazing I get to do that full time, and it's very cool. It's always changing. It feels like I would have gotten bored of it by now-not telling stories, I never get tired of that-but... (Strawberry Festival! *Vows not to buy anything, buys a mahogany chair.*) So I've just really enjoyed it. Talking about my journey as a writer, as an author. It's been really fun and I'm grateful to be on it. It's just really cool. And that's one of the things that I try to remember a lot, is it's supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be fun for me; it's supposed to be fun for you. It's just something that is supposed to be a good time. So that's it. There you go.
Now, I will say that writing is not fun. Writing stories is great; telling stories is great; having a finished story is great; writing is just hard work. There are some people who just genuinely enjoy the process of sitting down at a keyboard and writing out words. I don't understand that, because it is very difficult. So, it's one of those things. I enjoy telling a story. There's aspects of it I enjoy, but 90% of it is just... You gotta do your job. So, there's that. But I always enjoy the stories, I enjoy the characters, I enjoy making up ideas, I enjoy making up new ideas. So there you go.
Why aren’t Monarchs more liberal with their ability to bring back the dead? Is it a specific skill of Northstrider, too much of a resource drain, or was there something special about the Uncrowned King Tournament to give all the fighters infinite lives?
It is the sort of thing where... if you're not Suriel, you can't reverse time for an entire Iteration. You can't just effortlessly bring people back to life. It is something you can do if you're right there, if you have authority over them, and if they're not that powerful. So, the more powerful somebody is, the more authority it would take to bring them back. [clearing 20 squares in stardew]
So that's the reason why they don't constantly bring everybody back from the dead. It is impossible to do if it's been too long. One of the issues with that is- we have really seen like Suriel-scale resurrection but not most lower-scale resurrection, and then we've seen what Northstrider did at the Uncrowned King tournament. Well, what he did at the Uncrowned King tournament was a lot easier than just bringing some random person back from the dead. For one thing, relative to him they're not that powerful. For another thing, he is given- lent special authority over this event by the rest of the Monarchs. And, for another thing, he sets that rule at the beginning, and then he's always right there.
So all of that makes it a little easier to do, so it was pretty simple for him to [bap bap bap] resurrect everybody, relatively speaking. Now, Suriel can do almost whatever she wants, so that's- relative to the Monarchs.
I would assume that would be Yerin, in terms of the food thing.
Actually not, weirdly enough. Yerin likes food. She has strong food preferences. In the scene where he and Yerin are at the restaurant [game mumbling] she enjoyed trying the foods more than he did. So that's a fun fact about Cradle characters.
Are there banks and interest rates in Cradle?
Yes, there are! There is a banking system and a financial system in most major empires, especially those that are backed by Monarchs or other factions. So yes, they are established.
I'd love to know what you think about Warhammer 40k. How do you think the crew would hold up in the 40k universe?
No one holds up well in the 40k universe. So, not well. Warhammer 40k, to those of you who don't know, is the setting that coined the term grimdark. So, anybody can easily die in the Warhammer 40k universe. If the emperor of humanity can die, anyone can (he's technically not dead, but..). How would they fare? Badly. Everyone fares badly. But what do I think of Warhammer 40k? I love the lore. Big fan of the lore. Not a huge fan of most of the games or the books. Some of the books are great, but they tend to get extremely detailed.
One of the reasons why I've said I like the space fantasy or space opera aesthetic more than I like the sci-fi aesthetic is because sci-fi tends to be on the side of... harder sci-fi, harder concepts, stuff that might actually exist in science, and I don't really care about that- my favorite part of Star Wars is the Jedi. I don't care how X-wing hyperdrives work, so there's a lot of that in Warhammer 40k, there's a lot of, "ah yes, this legion has a wide and storied history," and I'm like, "oh cool, I'm good with that," and they're like, "Here it is!" and then for 40 pages they explain to you the entire history of whatever, the Burning Legion. Just kidding, that's from Warcraft, but whatever order of Space Marines it is and that's annoying to me. It's also, like, they get into the detail of how exactly Space Marines work. Oh, I don't care, they're bio-engineered by what is effectively an immortal living god. They're superhuman, you got me. I don't need to know that they have two hearts and six livers.
So, it tends to be irritating to me that- the Warhammer 40k books that I like the most were probably the Eisenhorn books, I thought those were great. [game related mumbling] So that's my sort of breakdown of Warhammer 40k, but I love the lore. Big fan of it. I obviously am not a grimdark kind of guy, so the tone is not my favorite. But I feel like it's so bombastic and over the top with everything that it gets away with it, it's not as serious as everyone in the universe is. Because it's all kind of inherently- a little ridiculous. Which I like. Big fan of that. I'm a big fan of Jojo's Bizarre Adventures, so there is no such thing as too over the top.
How did you begin planning for the Cradle series? And who was your first character that you envisioned?
So, I talked about this a little bit earlier. Cradle, the elements that made it into Cradle, came from a number of different places, but two in particular. One of them was an Abidan story line that I had planned out to be a completely universe spanning story from the beginning. And one of them was cultivation fantasy knock-off. So, it was really when I fused those two together that Cradle came into being. So, one of the first characters I came up with was Lindon. Definitely, I did him first because I need to know who the protagonist was. Then Yerin I kind of came up with, because I was like, if it was a normal cultivation series, there would be a few powers that the character would have, and one of them would be a sword path. But what I really did, was I made Yerin sort of the standard cultivation novel protagonist, except she's a woman instead of a man. So that's it. That's really where she started, then I need a unique way for her to speak. And a connection to the outside world, so I fleshed her out in that way.
Then I came up with Eithan not long after that. I really wanted to get to him in the first book, because obviously he is fun to write, but I didn't make it that far. So, Eithan was very early. And the judges. I had the judges fleshed out long before they appeared in the books. So, I knew who Suriel was. I knew who Makiel and Gad... Makiel, Gadrael, Ozriel, and the ghost, whose name I don't like pronouncing. Those characters were very vivid to me. One of the scenes I really wanted to do was... So, when Cradle was initially just the Abidan story line, was that Gadrael was going to be super against whoever the main character was, who ended up being Lindon. So, he was just going to be super prejudiced against everything he does, and then the more Lindon adhered to the rules, the more he was reluctantly on Lindon's side. And he was just like, "Yes, I still hate you, but you are correct." Because he's just a very rules-oriented guy. So that was one of the things I looked forward to, and that helped me flesh out Gadrael's character a lot. Which is funny because he plays virtually no role in the Cradle series. At least so far. So, he's like, "Yeah, I hate him because he breaks the rules. So, to the degree that he doesn't break the rules, I don't hate him." So that's kind of the arc there, I guess. So, I fleshed out the judges quite a bit, even before I started writing Unsouled.
So, this is a little bit of a tangent, but as I was fleshing out the system of Cradle... [delivery from off-screen] Ooo, I have more tea! As I was fleshing out the magic system of Cradle I got some more tea. [Rebecca says something unintelligible] Ooo, it's Star Wars tea! It's a Mandalorian mysterious black tea. [Rebecca cheers.] Not sponsored. If this was Yorkshire Gold, I would grow Super Saiyan hair, and instantly beat Stardew Valley. That's the next cup. I need the power of Yorkshire Gold. [Will sings: Yorkshire Gooold....] Uh... Anyway. What was I going to say. Oh yeah, when I started fleshing out Cradle, one of the first things I wanted to figure out was the magic system, so I had tried out a bunch of different thoughts. I thought about, I wanted to do a unique spirit thing, and I wanted Lindon to start off weak, so I considered animal spirits, totem animal spirits. I would tie into icons, and of course the Judges are at the highest end of that. And Lindon was going to have a rabbit or a little baby deer. I considered a squirrel, which is one joke that Yerin makes in book 2. So those were all things he was going to have. I thougth about tools or weapons being spirits, and everyone was going to have some really cool weapon, and then Lindon was going to have like a shovel, or a little hammer. Some little practical thing. Or a bucket. That was one of the things I considered. Something with utility, but the opposite of an awesome thing that you would want. Because I just thought it would be funny. A few things I thought of there. And then when I was coming up with the series, I was then of course doing the dual-control thing, I was trying to go, ok, what would be two cool things I could pair together? But I ended up going with what my initial gut instinct was, which was destruction and, not creation, but more like order based. Cleansing. So, there you go.
In Skysworn one of the goldsigns was a swarm of eyes. What path does that belong to?
Oh boy. I do not remember at all. I do not even remember what you are talking about. That is a long time ago. That is a question for Past Will. I do not remember at all. I'm sure I had an answer at some point. I don't know. Path of the many eyes. Wasn't that a Futurama joke? Something... Oh yeah, the beast of a thousand eyes or whatever. Yup. Path of a thousand eyes. That's it. That's what it is. The gold sign is typically called bees not the bees. It's the path of the cage. And it involves caging bees. So, one of the things you do is put a cage around people's head and you summon a bunch of little forged bees inside it. Another thing you can do with the path of cage that is really interesting is you can break into other people's cages. So, if there was some sort of national treasure you need to break into the path of the cage would be perfect for that. You follow a lot of secret maps. It's really more a thing they do; it's a cultural thing more than a map thing.
Favorite Halloween Candy?
This is going to be blasphemous to some of you, but I really like candy corn. [Sam boos] I know, I know, I realize that sounds like a terrible take, but I love candy corn. [Will's siblings' noises] I really like corn. Big fan of candy corn. I realize that's saying... pineapple pizza. Speaking of pizza, I love anchovies, [I] love anchovy pizza. Probably my favorite kind of pizza. I made an anchovy pizza a couple of days ago, and I had the the leftovers for lunch today. So I got a lot of hot takes comin'. The candy corn thing, a couple of things, I really just like it, and, as I as I said earlier about the Halloween aesthetic for a fantasy novel, I really love the Halloween the aesthetic, I love the Halloween's color palette, the designs, the common themes and tropes and icons. And candy corn is just one of those that just look iconic to me. I love Reese's'. That's probably my other favorite [candy].* That's the thing I would probably be happiest to get if I was trick-or-treating, but Reese's don't look as cool,. They are neat, but they are not as ionic, and I think candy corn just says Halloween to me. It's like having a peep for Easter. It just looks like the holiday.
*He said thing here, but I am pretty sure he meant candy.
How high up does the Atmosphere go on Cradle?
To the top.
Anything cool up there? Like any naturally occurring Island nations? Or a sky version of the EAC?
Actually, yeah. That is a good question. So, one of the things that I had initially envisioned for Cradle, there are a couple of things like this, was there was a whole, just like there are ocean civilizations in Cradle, there are sky civilizations. So not necessarily built on clouds; built on structures that can stay aloft indefinitely in wind aura. I don't know if you guys, in older editions of DnD, there were silver dragons that were said to make their castles out of clouds that they could manipulate, and that was the kind of thing that I wanted in the skies of Cradle. But there was also a base on the moon. There was a whole civilization on the moon that lived there, because there was an ancient, highly advanced sacred artist that could make it to the moon. Probably jumped there, Saitama style, from one punch man. And he or she settled this civilization and settled a bunch of people up there. So I really wanted to have that. It probably does still exist on Cradle. I have not filled out the details. Unless I did and just forgot. But we're not going to get there, so that is the problem. But I thought it was fun. When I was first outlining Cradle, I thought "Ooo, it would make sense to me that people could reach the moon. Is a moon base too weird for a magical martial arts series?" Then I laughed at myself. "Ha, ha, too weird? Ha, ha, ha, ha. No such thing." Then I went on.
Can you earn points after you ascend?
One might say you earn more points after you ascend than before.
Do you receive more Kindle unlimited downloads or kindle store buys for your Books? And do more people read or listen to your books?
I don't know the answer to either of those questions.
Read. By far.
Read. Read.
What was the other one?
Kindle unlimited vs. buys.
A lot more buys right?
Far more.
A lot more buys. A lot more reads. There are quite a few Kindle Unlimited reads and there are quite a few audio book buys. I think in general, audio book sales are catching up to ebooks. So audio book sales are definitely the next big thing. So they are to ebooks what ebooks were to print, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, but not quite there yet for me. You go Travis. Yes, 100%.
Almost 6,000 audible preorders.
Ok. Oh, is this information I am supposed to be reading?
Yes.
We have had almost 6000 audible preorders.
And almost 13,000... 5,000 audible preorders? And 13,000 ebook preorders.
Ok, we are rounding differently, I guess. 5,000 audio preorders, and how many? 13,000 Kindle preorders. Something like that. [responding to chat] "I definitely always buy both." Shout out to you grandtorso. By buying both formats, both ebook and audio book, you have proven that you do indeed have a grand torso. I certify it's grandness. This is now Cradle canon, that you have the grandest torso.
We actually sell more audiobooks than [inaudible.]
All right, so I'm getting more updates. This just in! Apparently, overall, that wwas for preorders, overall, we have sold 56%...? In the last year, in 2021, 56% of our sales were audio. So there you go.
Oh! See this cat? I do. Always [inaudible] cat. Adopt this cat? Absolutely. Alright, what am I naming the cat? Naming the cat. [inaudible suggestion off-screen.] It's got to be a Cradle name. Ruby. Shira? No. It's Shira. [Will's sister approves] I need to just get like one pig or a cow or something, some really lazy animal and name it Ziel. Make it be friends with the cat.
Is there a character attribute of one of the main characters that you wish you had either changed or written differently?
Yes, there is, in fact, an extremely core attribute of the main character that I wish I had written differently. And the answer is: Lindon's whole thing about going after the most powerful thing all the time. It's one of his most obvious and recognizable character traits and I really like it but the reason I designed that with him in mind is because one of the things I had initially envisioned with Cradle is really more of a series of looser adventures where he's just going into an independent scenario.
It's kind of like One Piece, actually, where he's just going into a preexisting conflict and sort of inserting himself where he's not wanted. And I wanted the kind of guy that was going to go in there and see that they've got a powerup or they've got a super soldier serum or whatever and they're all fighting over magic fruit that makes you a rubber man or whatever it is. And then he was going to try and find a way of walking out with that. And then that was how he was going to be powerful, right? He was going to be the kind of guy that would go in and get everybody's different powerup and that was how he was going to - instead of one path, he was going to follow a little bit of a lot of paths.
So that's how I designed that and how I intended it to be used. And that, of course, didn't end up being at all where I took the series. So, because of that, while it's a core aspect of Lindon's character, I would probably change how it's expressed if I had known exactly where the series was going to go. And that's why it changes a little bit every time.
Did this mean he was going to split his core again?
Not necessarily. I had always kind of intended this to be a dual path sort of thing. As I said, the original proto-Lindon from way back in the day when he was an Abidan trainee, not somebody in one of the lower realms, was going to be that he had a river spirit of order on his left hand and a chaos black dragon spirit on his right. So still a dual opposing paths thing. So that was always the intention. I had considered changing core splitting. I had considered that because it was kind of one of the obvious applications of the abilities he ended up having in the book. So I considered it and I rejected it.
Have you ever considered trying to turn Cradle into a TTRPG, either by doing a world book or a source book? We would all love to play in your world.
You know, it's the kind of that I have considered. I have thought of. What I think would be fun would be a light weight source book; something that is maybe not applicable to all systems, but is not system specific. That you could use to, like maybe some iron clad rules you could for making your own paths, which obviously...
So. Tabletop RPG. Something like a system you could apply to a GURP system or a Fate Core; something like that, but I, the way I DM, I'm really loose about the rules. If the rules are getting in the way of you having fun, then the rules are the ones that are wrong. So I don't really care what the rules are, so long as they have some method of determining outcomes. So I've never been a rules lawyer kind of guy; it's not me. So it doesn't really matter to me what system is used. But I like reading through source books. And I like using them as inspiration. And I like using them as tools of creating characters. It's just fun to have. So that's the kind of thing I would love to have for Cradle. The problem is, one of the things people ask me a lot, is how would you play a Cradle character in 5th edition? The answer is you'd have to really mod something, probably a monk. It would be super homebrew. That's the issue. You could re-flavor a lot of things so it looks like Sacred arts, but it would be under very different rules, so it wouldn't be very much like Cradle at all. But you could re-flavor a monk to look like Lindon. That would be fine; the difference of course being monks are terrible, and Lindon is actually good in combat and can kill things. So maybe re-flavor a paladin as Lindon.
Well, it's funny because I was using some Akura naming conventions to make up Shira's name in Bloodline, and I forgot that there was an Akura Shiria in Uncrowned. So that is probably a little too similar. The reason it was, is that I have certain rules for making up Akura names, and they were both created through the same process.
Are there any odd metals in Cradle other than goldsteel, halfsilver, and wintersteel?
So are there any odd or strange metals other than goldsteel, halfsilver, and wintersteel? Yes, there are. There were a few that I came up with, but I didn't want this to turn into a metallurgy thing. It's one of those things where if crafting with mundane materials had been more of a thing in Cradle, we would have got into this more. So what were they? What were the other metals? It's hard for me to say. Typically, they are metals that have taken on extra properties based on icons associated with types of aura and events and the latent authority in the world, and these things have caused them to develop powers that interfere with the energy system in some way. There would be other things like that. We probably won't get to see them. I have notes for some of them, but it's just something that probably isn't going to come up. But those are definitely the most common, I don't want to say common, the most widely used, because they have the most universally applicable effects. So halfsilver being disruptive and goldsteel physically interacting with things that usually aren't physically interactable.
