Recent entries

Questioner

How many bunches of Jades does it take to kill a Monarch?

Will Wight

I thought I had escaped this forever. (Will's sister laughing off screen.)

Will's brother (offscreen)

That is a top tier question.

Will Wight

That is a top tier question. How many bunches of Jades does it take to kill a Monarch? In Sacred Valley? All of them. Literally, every one. A bunch of Jades is like a cluster of Jades that grows on the same vine so if you have a sacred artist that's sprouting off the same vine as another, I think thats... It's like that simulation of how many lions does it take to take on the sun and the answer is, well, with enough, an infinite number of lions, eventually you would quench the sun and the sun would go out and the lions would win. So there you go.

Questioner

Who is/was the hardest character for you to write?

Will Wight

Well, I mentioned this not too long ago when someone went through and compiled all the Yerin-isms in all the books, that's what I call it when Yerin has some sort of folksy saying that she just happens to pull off the top of her head, I call those Yerin-isms, and those are hard to write. And they were harder. She was, for a long time, the hardest character to write just because of that dialogue convention that I made up myself. So, I have no one else to blame. But I wrote it that way so she would have a unique manner of speaking and I used to do an entire Yerin pass for the early books. Now, later on I got better at coming up with them off the top of my head. So, that became easier. But that's always hard.

In terms of the easiest characters for me to write, they always are Dross and Eithan. Just because I can just write jokes off the top of my head for them all day long. That's fun, very easy. So, yeah, there you go.

Questioner

What's your favorite RPG?

Will Wight

What is my favorite RPG?  Skyrim, as lame as that sounds.  It's so funny, because often, one of the reasons I go off about Subnautica so much, is it's not the most well known thing.  It's not obscure by any means, but I'm not talking about Stardew Valley or Minecraft.  It's not news to anybody that Undertale is good.  But it's often true that the most popular stuff is popular for a reason.  So, yeah, Skyrim is good.  It's a really good RPG.  I don't know what to say.  But I really loved Divinity Original Sin 2.  I have a lot of time in Divinity Original Sin 2, I've played through on every character in Divinity Original Sin 2.  Big fan of Divinity Original Sin 2.  I got half way though a play though not too long ago.  So yeah, big fan of that one.  When that first came out I was singing its praises to friends non-stop.  And I played through the first act, well Fort Joy certainly, literally four or five dozen times.  I've put a lot of time into that game.  

So, let's see.  Favorite RPG.  Ok, someone is saying meh Skyrim; consume one soup and you beat the game.  Ok, here is why I like Skyrim.  Yes you can be completely OP in Skyrim; you can be completely busted in Skyrim.  You can be OP, that's fine, but it's a single player game so who cares?  And it's sometimes fun to just be busted OP.  And if you want to play the game in a more challenging way, you can.  So I've done some playthrough where I've deliberately not done the fortify restoration loop or some other means of getting unlimited power fast, and it was fun.  

(responding to chat) So, Witcher.  Ok, I hate to say this, because I really like the Witcher books, but Witcher 3, I'm not a big fan.  And I've talked about it positively in the past; I do think it's a good game.  I'm not going to crap on it as a creation.  But, I don't really like it.  And the reason is it feels like it is the split between an open world and a linear RPG, so there is a lot of stuff that I wanted to go and run and do, that was a goal I set myself, like I want to go around and play all the best Gwent players, or I want to collect the cards.  Oh, you can't.  Because they are a higher level than you, and any random bandit patrol will just mulch you.  So therefore you have to level up before you can do stuff you actually want to do.  And one the things I love about Breath of the Wild, which is not really an RPG, otherwise that would have been my answer, is it's truly open world.  It's something where, one the first things I do, anytime I do a Breath of the Wild playthrough, is I go through and find all the towers so I complete the map, so I can have the map fully open and do whatever I want to do.  And that's fun.  I want to be able to set and drop objectives as I feel like.  Because the story really is the story of me, going through the game, right?  So Witcher I couldn't do that.  I had to progress with the story and not go off on my own.  I was like, oh, this is really annoying.  Until you get to certain parts of the the story where you are mandated to go and run around.  And that's also annoying.

Questioner

What is Shira’s Path? And does Ziel think she's cute?

Will Wight

Wow.  More Akura Shira questions.   For somebody that has like 4 lines in the whole series, that's a higher number of questions than I anticipated.

Will's brother (offscreen)

Mu Enkai, is that you?

Will Wight

Yes, it's Mu Enkai.  I do not remember; I don't remember that.  She is not an important person to me.  So I don't know.  I'm sure I have an answer to that question somewhere.  But I don't, I don't know.  I wish I knew.  Let's see.  Akura Shira's path.  I need to start saying Akura by the way.  Akura is how I always say it; it's sort of the Japanese pronunciation convention because it's obviously a Japanese inspired name.  But I told Travis  I guess, a long time ago, to pronounce Akura, and now the audio books say Akura, so I need to line up with the audio books.  I need to get in line.  So Akura.  Akura Shira.  What would be her path.  I don't know.  I can't think of anything sufficiently weird.  I was trying to think of she summons leaches or something.  I'll have to figure it out.

Questioner

Rocket boots?

Will Wight

Rocket boots.  It's probably rocket boots.  That's what it is.  It should be a fan path.

Questioner

What is Akura Shira's favorite kind of flower?

Will Wight

Is this the fourth Akura Shira question? What is the deal...? What is Akura Shira's favorite kind of flower? The Osmanthus flower.

Questioner

Is Akura Shira only interested in Ziel in hope of marrying a Archlord?

Will Wight

Is this the third Akura Shira question? That's another good fodder for a short story now. I need to just do this whole thing where it's just like somebody awkwardly pursuing Ziel or smoothly pursuing Ziel and Ziel just completely apathetic because that's usually how he reacts to things. So is she only interested in Ziel in hope of marrying a Archlord? No.

Questioner

What did Fury ask as his prize when he won the uncrowned tournament?

Will Wight

You know, I have that information but I don't remember it. That's one of those things... these are a lot of those things that I just write down in my notes and then it just gets buried in my big pile of notes. So it's on my computer somewhere but I don't remember the answer and I don't want to speculate. I think it was probably the right to create a perfect descendant then what he did was make Akura Shira.

Questioner

Will you kill off Akura Shira in the next book?

Will Wight

That's a misconception people have. I don't kill off the characters in the books because the characters are not real and I am not in their world. So, I am not doing anything to them. What's happening is I am designing a scenario in which they are maliciously killed by me.

Questioner

What other names were you considering for advancement stages?

Will Wight

Boy, there was a lot. I went real back and forth on those. One of them was Highgold was initially going to be the highest level of Gold and I was going to put something like Lowgold, something/Midgold, and we even went back and forth on Truegold being the middle but that ended up sounding like it was better than Highgold so we switched it up to where it was.

We also had, I think I tried out colors as the Foundation stages instead of materials. But because I wanted to the badges as a physical thing that's why they're physical materials.

Questioner

Superhighgold.

Will Wight

That's what it was. It was Lowgold, Highgold, Superhighgold. Like your hair turns gold and your eyes turn green.

So then for the Lord realm and higher I went back and forth on so many things. So many. I ended up really liking the sound of the word Underlord, that's why I kept that as the thing. I liked Underlord, I liked Archlord, and I didn't want to use the term Overlord again because I'd used it in Traveler's Gate. So I did not want to do that but, of course, I gave in because it made sense. You know, Underlord Overlord, right? Makes sense. So, because of that [trails off into Stardew Valley game play].

Questioner

Did you do a poll for the Overlord thing?

Will Wight

Yeah, I think I did.

Questioner

Ultra Instinct Gold.

Will Wight

I actually really liked, I'm going to spoil Dragon Ball Super a little bit for those who aren't caught up on the manga. So Dragon Ball Super, everybody probably knows this by now who cares but Goku got a power up a few years ago called Ultra Instinct and the idea behind that is it's skill taken to the highest expression. It is your instincts are perfected to the point you no longer need to think and I thought that was a really cool power up. I thought that was neat. I was not a fan of Super Saiyan Blue. I think they ended up making it look cool but it's just another Super Saiyan, right? But Ultra Instinct I thought was really neat. And then Vegeta did something in the anime that was kind of the opposite path and I liked that idea. And they expanded on that in the manga and in even more detail in the last couple of months. So that Vegeta has his own like different path he's embarking on and it really was similar to Sage and Herald and I thought that was really fun. So I really liked that.

For Herald and Sage and Monarch, I had a lot of different ideas. And that's honestly one of the reasons I don't talk about the advancement stages until later in the series. One is I don't like overwhelming the reader with terminology as much as I do. Like I'm already doing it more than I want to. But another one is because I wanted to be able to change my mind on the cultivation rank names. And then I didn't. I especially didn't like Herald because it implies that they have to be attached to a Monarch in order to get that rank. And that's not true. So what I did instead was because of that, because I ended up using the name, I invented this kind of cultural concept that most Heralds only advance because they are sponsored by someone which makes sense. So, therefore, they became known as Heralds of a Monarch. And that was something that was already kind of true. So I sort of just brought it out to explain the name. So that was how that went.

Questioner

If you had to pick between Sage first or Herald before Monarch which would you choose and why?

Will Wight

A Herald. I'd pick Herald. As much as I think Sage is the, I guess, more optimal option just because you gain access to abilities you didn't have and as Herald you don't exactly, like it's sort of you are like you were before but just kind of better at it. Uh, Heralds get a few things that I think are really important. And this I think is mentioned in Reaper but I don't think it gets fully explained but Heralds are effectively immune to any attack or attempt to harm them that doesn't have intention behind it, doesn't have will behind it. So, therefore, they can't drown unless someone drowns them. So they can just lay there at the bottom of the ocean and just sit there forever. And that would suck, they wouldn't have a good time but they wouldn't die. So they could fall from any height and be fine. They would have to be thrown into something to be hurt by it. So just for the sake of improving yourself-

Questioner

Only Will can kill a Herald? I see what you did there.

Will Wight

*laughs* For the sake of survival, if you're picking superpowers you always pick the one ensures your survival first. And yeah, that's my answer, I guess.

Questioner

Pure madra has multiple characteristics that can be selectively emphasized. Do other madra types have multiple characteristics as well? It seems like shadow madra and dream madra do.

Will Wight

Yeah.  Yes, so, one of the things I've called them in my notes, and I think maybe I've referenced them in the books a couple of times, is I call them lesser aspects.  So what they really are, is while they are not types of aura on their own, it is a characteristic that a type of madra can be programmed or cultivated to possess.  So, the Fisher path, like Fisher Gesha, is really just force madra; it's force madra that pulls and binds together.  So connection madra is not a thing, it's not a major aspect, but it is something that can be activated in force aura.  So it's sort of similar to how sword aura is really just an offshoot of force aura, and cloud aura is an interaction of wind and water aura in a unique pattern that appears in a cloud.  And as you learn to sense that particular pattern and cultivate it in your spirit, train your spiritual perception, you can sense that more clearly and it feels like one complete aspect to you, even though technically it isn't.  So yeah.  There's lots of... All madra aspects have this.

Questioner

When it is said that Northstrider drains a dragon of their latent authority, is that just authority associated with his dragon icon, or is it just a neutral flavor of authority?

Will Wight

No, it's dragon icon.  So it's dragon icon authority.  Dragons are multi-iteration representations of strength and power, all sorts of stuuf, elemental control, all that kind of thing.  And therefore, when he drains them, he expands his authority and his connection to the dragon icon.

Questioner

What's your favorite doughnut shoppe?

Will Wight

Krispy Kreme.  Is there another donut shop?  There's actually a couple of donut shops near us.  What is it?  Duck Donuts?  Voodoo Donuts.  And then Donut King.  There are a couple of those that are decent.  But I just... Nothing beats a glazed Krispy Kreme donut heated up in the microwave.  That's he peak of desserts really.  So it's really funny when you get more expensive desserts and you're like, yeah, this is pretty good, but I could have put a Krispy Kreme donut in the microwave.  (Transcriber's note:  Bear in mind I am simply a recorder of Will's words.  His positions are his own.  I take no blame for the horrors he perpetrates.)

Questioner

What happens to the contents of a sacred artist's soulspace when they die?

Will Wight

So your soulspace can be, it tends to meld with your remnant. So anything that happens to be in the soulspace sort of dissolves to spiritual energy and it merges with your remnant. So in some cases you can take what is in their soulspace from their remnant. You can have a soulsmith extract it. But usually it just kind of becomes a useless mass of energy in the remnant. So those rings around the soulspace, the Sword Sage's remnant, those were, I don't remember if I revealed exactly what they were so I'll be a little vague. Might not matter but I just don't remember. They are constructs that were in his spirit before he died. So, therefore, they just kind of became circles of energy. So they were not useful constructs, then. Yerin doesn't have them anymore they were just kind of absorbed and digested.

Questioner

What is your favorite book, web novel and game that you have discovered in the last year?

Will Wight

Ooh, book, web novel, and game. Does it count if I say Subnautica: Below Zero for the game? Is that cheating? Because while I did not discover Subnautica in the last year, Below Zero came out in the last year. So, still counts.

So book, web novel, and game. Trying to think of what all games... I mean I really liked the Demon Souls remake for PS5. That was really good. Again, I feel like that's a cheating answer, though, because it's not exactly a game that came out in the last year but technically it is. I don't know. I'll have to think about the game part.

Then book and web novel. Book and web novel. Now book is going to be hard. Let's see, let me look at my Kindle. I don't know. I liked Alec Hutson's The Shadows of Dust. That was a space fantasy series that came out and it was coming out when I was thinking out outlining a space fantasy series. So that was something I was like wow this is fortuitous and he wrote The Crimson Queen which was a book I really liked a few years ago and then, of course, the rest of that trilogy. So I enjoyed that, that was creative and neat. But that's the first one that pops into my head.

I really liked the last Dresden Files book. I actually really liked, there was a Dresden Files book, the one before last, that Peace Talks, that wasn't as popular and you know it wasn't my favorite Dresden Files book but it was a Dresden Files book and that is all I needed. And it had been way to long since I had had any Dresden Files book of any description so I was extremely happy to get both of those. Still really good.

And then web novels. Now the question is, how to narrow down my answers. Probably I'm the Lord of an Intergalactic Empire was, I think that was hilarious. It also happens to be scifi/space opera stuff. But it's just, I think it's very funny. One of the top negative reviews for that series is well it's almost like a comedy. Well it is a comedy, it is 100 percent a comedy. So I don't know what they were thinking. And I Want to be a Power in the Shadows or I think it got translated as Eminence in the Shadows. That's getting an anime which is great because it's fantastic. It's like fantasy isekai One Punch Man.

Someone is saying plus one on Iron Prince. And yeah, I would have said that if I had discovered it in the last year but I didn't. It's been more than a year, right?

So, Intergalactic Empire I think is great. I also have weirdly enough been really enjoying Kidnapped Dragons. I'm not all the way, actually I am all  caught up on that. I enjoyed that. That's very much not something I usually like because it's very slice of life but it's about a guy raising, effectively, four daughters who are shape shifted dragons because he has to keep them happy because otherwise they'll destroy the world. And it's surprisingly wholesome and slice of life and yet, I enjoy it. So that is an unusual combination. Usually I don't like those at all.

Questioner

The Beginning after the End was amazing.

Will Wight

Yeah, the Beginning after the End is amazing.

Questioner

Does Sha Miara have to manifest an Icon?

Will Wight

Yes, she did. In a sense, manifesting an Icon is, all it is, is the Way recognizing you as the manifestation or representation of a concept. So you really embody a concept enough to connect with it, to connect with its reflection in the Way. So, yeah, when Sha Miara inherited her mom's power she would have manifested an Icon, absolutely.

Questioner

The Silver Spoon Icon.

Will Wight

Yep, that's the one.

Questioner

Who is your favorite Judge or Abidan member and why?

Will Wight

Hm. Favorite Judge or Abidan member? Just for pure fun either the Ghost or the Fox. They're just fun characters to mess with, to think about. They kind of have fun personalities and they both are... so the Ghost and the Fox both have a tendency of popping up on people and, as you know, I really like characters who just pop up unexpectedly on people. So because of that they are probably my favorites. More fun to write. I obviously have a soft spot for Suriel but I kind of like them all.

I had a, I answered this earlier today, but I had a whole story line planned as like a heavenly/Abidan story line and it was about a person who was a new recruit to the Abidan and he was going to end up using both the power of the Void and the Way. And he had a dragon companion, a black dragon companion, that gave him destructive powers aligned with Void and he had a little tiny blue sort of river fairy spirit who gave him water aura powers. So you can kind of see where this is going.

And he was going to end up being a new Judge. He was going to replace one of the Judges but that was a long time before Cradle. So what happened was I was writing a cultivation knockoff, I knew I needed a heavenly realm, I needed a kind of a pantheon and a heavenly realm story line. So I went back to that book and I repurposed the Abidan from there pretty much wholesale. So, yeah. At that point, by the way, Mercy was the Ghost. So there you go.

Questioner

Is Northstrider the most attractive Monarch.

Will Wight

I think you probably have to ask somebody... I mean that would be a... not to me. That would be a very opinion question I guess. Is Northstrider the most attractive Monarch? No? They're all effectively physically perfect pretty much so it's kind of down to viewer taste at that point. So I can't really answer the question.

Questioner

Clearly he is.

Will Wight

Yeah, in that case, I've been corrected. Clearly he is.

Questioner

Most attractive Monarch?

Will Wight

I guess I've answered that, huh?

Will's brother (offscreen)

Reigan Shen.

Will Wight

It's Reigan. Sam says it's Reigan Shen so it's Reigan Shen.

Will's brother (offscreen)

I like cats.

Will Wight

He's into cats. He does not have cats ears, does that anime style cat ears, does that affect your opinion?

Will's brother (offscreen)

Yeah, absolutely. 

Questioner

When Malice was punishing Mercy after she lost in the Uncrowned tournament, did she intentionally not include Lindon in the punishment?

Will Wight

What I intended for that moment, and I'm still going to leave it a little bit up to interpretation because it's all about how you read the characters in the end, but my intention for that scene was more about Malice was kind of treading the line and so she was going okay which of these would be more embarrassing to Mercy and which of these would be a little too embarrassing and that was one she decided, based on her analysis of the situation, that would be a little too embarrassing for Mercy. Now is that true? Would it be too embarrassing to Mercy? She didn't know. It was just kind of one of the things that Malice thought at that time. So that was my understanding of it.

Questioner

You have a chance to spend a couple of hours with another author of your choice. Who is it and what do you discuss?

Will Wight

Another author of my choice? Jane Austen. That's who it is. And we'd discuss a couple of things. One is, I would like to know her opinion on prose and how she came to her style. She's very, she has a very concise prose style that I really like. And another one is, I would very much like to know what happens to you when you die. So two good things Jane Austen could answer for me.