Recent entries

    Underlord Release Q&A ()
    #1161 Copy

    Questioner

    Do you think you'd be interested in making a series about that once you are finished with one of your other projects? Or is like not really a thing anymore and you are planning on focusing on the single iterations with greater Way level conflict being more of an overarching plot instead of, like, a specific series.

    Will Wight

    I could still do an Abidan series. Its gonna be a long time before I do though and so its hard for me to say what I'm gonna do because it gonna be a while.

    Questioner

    Its far enough in the future?

    Will Wight

    Ya. It's just difficult for me. Who knows ideas I'll have in the next few years. Maybe I'll want to do an Avengers type series where it all comes together. But, maybe I won't.

    Underlord Release Q&A ()
    #1162 Copy

    Lil' Blue

    How would Gadrael kill someone, because he sucks at everything but barriers?

    Will Wight

    So, what he could do is he could isolate them from air. Or from whatever force they need to live and keep them there. He could probably cut them in half with a barrier depending on their power set and where they are. 

    Lil' Blue

    Like that Waygate guy from Wheel of Time?

    Will Wight

    Ya. Exactly. Or he could just, you know, seal them deep into the bowels of the earth and its like, well, I can't kill em, but they can't affect me ever again and now they're gonna go insane.

    Dheginsea

    Can I just say that Gadrael is my favorite Abidan because he's good at exactly one thing, but he's the best ever at it. The kind of crippling overspecialization that loops right back around to being perfectly usable because its just that ridiculously specialized. 

    Will Wight

    Yep. That's exactly him. I'm glad. Ya, he was a lot more prominent in a, there's a series, a series that I originally planned to use the Abidan for, which was an Abidan focused series, before I ever thought of Cradle. He was a lot more prominent. He was kind of the antagonist in book 1. So, he was sort of the guy who is all about the rules and all about what it means to be an Abidan and all about the code and all about all of this stuff. And then the main characters are, of course, breaking the rules left and right, and so he's all against them and he's trying to them kicked out, he's trying to get them whatever. And at the end, he's in a position where he has to decide. Where the main characters are like 'who's in charge of our case? Oh crap, it's Gadrael, he's gonna kick us out. He hates us.' He instead completely takes their side, defends them, beats the crap out of the other guys using only his seals and everything. And he totally takes their side and they're like 'why the heck would you do that?' and he was like "I don't know. What are you saying? You upheld the rules at the end. You did this, you upheld the spirit of the rules and protected us and you protected people and that's what I'm all about. I still hate you." And I like that character, of somebody who is just absolutely obsessed with his one thing he is good at. And that informs his philosophy, and it informs his personality and it informs his loyalties and it informs all that. I like him as a character and I'd like to get to use him more in the future. But, previously the series I had originally intended was just like entirely a judge series.

    Underlord Release Q&A ()
    #1164 Copy

    A_Moniker

    Who is the highest ranking non-combat focused Sacred Artist on Cradle?

    Will Wight

    One of the seven monarchs right now is Emriss Silentborn, and she is a monarch, who was a remnant for a long time. and it is largely thanks to her that most of the people on Cradle speak the same language or a variant of the same language. So what she does, she goes around- she is a dream artist- and she goes around spontaneously educating people. She wanders around, primarily one continent and she really does go around giving people the gift of language and making sure language doesn't drift too far. And also giving people educations so that people who are in isolated areas don't stay isolated for long. Cradle is very big so often by the time she gets back to an area the culture and language have drifted again, and she really goes around giving people the gift of language, and making sure that language doesn't drift to far. Also just giving people educations, so that people who are in isolated areas don't stay isolated for long. Cradle's really big, so by the time she gets back to an area, often, the language and culture drifted again.

    Underlord Release Q&A ()
    #1165 Copy

    MountainKing

    Are there any iron bodies that can affect the soul?

    Will Wight

    Yes, there absolutely are. So there will be iron bodies that will be more resistant to spiritual attacks. So an attack of madra will do more than an aura technique, and there will be some that would interact with aura differently, that's a potential iron body. There could be iron bodies that effect the processing of madra, but that gets kind of weird, because at that point it overlaps with a change in your cycling. So that's really the domain of the Jade cycling technique.

    Underlord Release Q&A ()
    #1170 Copy

    Wodan

    What is the official path of Arelius clan? And what are its basic principles?

    Will Wight

    That's an interesting question. So, the official path of the Arelius clan.

    The Arelius family in the Blackflame Empire does not have an official path. They don't have one; the elders are all on different paths. I mean they really do a lot of different stuff. They usually use their different paths to create links and bonds--kind of like arranged marriages between the different sects and schools of the empire. The path that Cassius is on, the Path of Silver Grace, the School of Silver Grace is actually an influential and prestigious school in the Blackflame Empire. Therefore, they send qualified people there from the Arelius Family in order to create bonds. So, really, it's their people in different sects and schools all over the empire.

    However, as has been alluded to for the last few books, there is a homeland continent the Arelius family come from and they have a main clan there. That clan does indeed have an official path but I'm not going to share it with you yet because I think it's going to come into play in book seven. Books seven and eight, so it's at least going to be featured in it. I don't know how prominent it's going to be so that's not as much of a spoiler as it sounds like.

    January 2019 - February 2019 (Pre-Underlord) ()
    #1172 Copy

    tleilaxanp

    What is the status of OKAK?

    Will Wight

    It’s going to be a few more months. Because of the complexity of the project, and because I’ve been trying some new processes to make my writing more efficient, I don’t know if that means more like 3 months or more like 6 months.

    I realized a couple of months ago that at the current rate, it was likely to be a whole year since Ghostwater by the time OKAK came out, and that’s a big gap in releases. I have assistants to pay now. So I wrote Underlord, because I basically knew how long that would take to do and that I could use it to cover the long gap between releases.

    I was reluctant to do that, though. I’d like to finish OKAK, both to get it off my plate and because I want to write the ending as much as its fans want to read the ending.

    January 2019 - February 2019 (Pre-Underlord) ()
    #1173 Copy

    Primaul

    Yerin recognized the "empty" on Lindon's wooden badge in the first book then in blackflame said she couldn't read.

    Will Wight

    As a corollary to this, even if she had been completely literate in Book 1, the badge doesn’t say “Unsouled.” It has a character that usually means “Empty,” but in Sacred Valley indicates Unsouled. So only local cultural knowledge would help her identify the meaning, not the ability to read.

    January 2019 - February 2019 (Pre-Underlord) ()
    #1176 Copy

    manty05

    Is it possible to develop a veil like technique that blocks the Arelius senses.

    Will Wight

    Yes, but it would be difficult, given that Arelius senses pick up physical sensory information, not spiritual. But you could develop a technique that would do it, and carry a construct around that prevented them from spying on you. Either it could scramble the particular threads of madra they’re using, or it could generate a shadow or cloud or whatever that blocked them from picking up anything from within it.

    It would be relatively easier to script a room or container to block them out, but you’d still need to know how.

    January 2019 - February 2019 (Pre-Underlord) ()
    #1177 Copy

    Patriarch Core Split

    What's a good way to really insult or humiliate a sacred artist?  For example, tarring and feathering was popular on the American frontier as a form of mob vengeance that both wounded and embarrassed the victim. Alternatively, is there an insult one sacred artist could deliver to another to force a duel that otherwise would have been backed down from?

    Will Wight

    On the Iceflower continent, there’s a punishment that involves forcibly manifesting the person’s Remnant so that it’s half-merged with your body. It’s both painful and hideous-looking.

    January 2019 - February 2019 (Pre-Underlord) ()
    #1178 Copy

    Reality Spasm

    What conditions result in the generation of either spacial madra/aura, or what types can effect space? What kinds of limitations would you encounter considering that spacetime isn't really a thing here, as far as I can tell?

    Will Wight

    It requires someone of Sage or above, or one of their Remnants/devices, to cause madra to take on space-altering properties. Someone of lower cultivation could get it and cultivate it, but only if someone higher helped them.

    Cradle ()
    #1179 Copy

    Will

    (I guess this is a spoiler, but not really, because I’m speaking hypothetically about things I haven’t written yet) Tbh it would be super cool to give Lindon the Arelius bloodline ability because of Dross, but if I did, that would rob me of the fun of giving him a new cool bloodline power.

    January 2019 - February 2019 (Pre-Underlord) ()
    #1180 Copy

    Discord

    Scientific classification of madra

    Will Wight

    If you ask too many questions about the categorization of madra aspects, you’re just not going to get very many satisfying answers out of me.   I didn’t organize it in, like, an elemental chart with categories and everything. There would have been advantages to that, sure, but I wanted to leave it open-ended to some degree.