Have you read read Legend of the Northern Blade?
That's a great question. I want to point out that the Webtoon version of that is really good. I don't know if I have read the novel, now that I think about it, I may have just read the comic, but the comic's really good. It doesn't matter, I still recommend you read the comic.
Would the top damage weapons from our world stack against Cradle?
They don't. At the level at which you are still affected by purely physical attacks, so Lords and below. Even Archlords would be affected by the artillery or military weapons to a degree. But they can react so quickly, and then they can throw missiles from their hands, a feasibly unlimited number of times, so they can break our stuff we can't break them. It would still be very difficult to beat an army led by lords, but you could. You could fight them. That's something where superior technology could even the odds to a degree. But once you get beyond Lord, to Sages, Heralds, and Monarchs, any one of them just wins. No interaction, Sages teleport you into space, what are you gonna do?
Which Monarch or important figure do you wish there was more time to explore in the books? I personally would love to see more about Emriss Silentborn.
I, too, would like to see more about Emriss Silentborn.
After gaining abilities from the Bleeding Phoenix, would Mu Enkai be able to separate enough plasma out of blood to make a plasma ball?
Yes, absolutely. You would be able to separate plasma from blood and superheat it so that he could make a plasma ball. That's 100%. As a matter of fact, you've actually seized on my next series, which is a Cradle spinoff in which Mu Enkai is firing plasma balls.
Is there a character from another world that you think would be more powerful than a Judge?
Yes! I've actually been looking into power-scaling a lot lately. Turns out there's this whole subculture around it. I have been involved in a lot of series where people compare the powers of people from different series. I didn't realized there was this whole subreddit and there is this culture dedicated to just doing nothing but categorizing and comparing power levels of various fictional characters. And I've been reading it because I find it fascinating and the ultimate thing I come away from is there is no way to do that. So, technically, Kirby is a massive interstellar, intergalactic, interdimensional threat but in reality what he's doing is not anything on that scale. But he's capable of it. But only if you take Kirby's lore seriously and you shouldn't do that because he's a pink floaty guy. So are there characters more powerful than Judges? Yeah, absolutely. There are characters in fiction like Zeno from DragonBall that creates and destroys universes on a whim. There is always a more powerful characters somewhere in fiction.
How did it feel to have Sanderson react to your Kickstarter?
Great! I was actually hanging out with some friends while I was doing that. We were playing Magic. Actually, I think that was in my video. My friend and I built a cube that he has kept so we had... a cube is a limited set of cards that you play for a card game and you choose the cards that are in there and they stay so you don't have to buy new cards every time you want to play. And we don't keep up with the meta or anything so we were just playing this cube. And so, we and our friends were putting together decks and all these people texted and messaged me that Sanderson put up a video that had called us out on the Kickstarter. So I left. I was making a mono-green deck. I left it on the table and I walked away. I was really excited. I made all the calls. I made a quick reaction video. And it was neat. It was really fun because when his social media reacted to it I knew someone on his team had seen it, right? But now I knew that he saw it and that was cool.
The topic that I really wanted to talk about tonight, in the sense that I wanted to talk about any particular topic in mind, is that Dreadgod is my twentieth book. Which is crazy. That's just a lot of books. So it's eleven books in this series, 3 books in Traveler's Gate Trilogy ('cause it's a trilogy,) and then six books in Elder Empire. So this book number twenty. We are having out twentieth book come out. I was talking before hand about things that I could talk about on stream, and they were going, "Do you have stories from the books?" What I thought, was I could do a really quick, rapid fire version, where I gave you whatever, just the first memory I have, just really quickly, just the first memory I have of writing each book. In all twenty books. In all of my series. So I'm going to go through them all; I'm going to tell you twenty stories, real quick. About whatever the first memory, I've not rehearsed this, this is something a just thought to do a few minutes ago, so I'm going to give you whatever story pops off my head for each book. It's going to be about the writing of the book, or where I was, or what I was doing, or any of that. Ok.
So, obviously House of Blades is the first one. And when I think of writing House of Blades, the number one thing that comes to my mind is we were in Roan Mountain. Roan Mountain, which is a park here in the US, and we're camping, and we're at a stone table, that is covered in moss. And I have set my laptop up, and I'm wearing a camp chair, and I've set my laptop up on the table, and I'm writing notes. Which rooms have which swords, and which advisors go with the swords. So that's the strongest memory for me from House of Blades. That's what I was doing.
Then, Crimson Vault, which was only two months later, we went back camping, because obviously that worked for the first one, but this time we were getting cabins. So I remember sitting in a cabin, because we could afford it, with House of Blades money, so I remember sitting in a cabin, and thinking over them, and trying to figure out the scene where we went on this montage over the Overlords of Damasca, and how they were reacting to the hanging tree; reacting in Crimson Vault to Valin breaking free. So that's the strongest memory for me from that one.
For City of Light, the strongest memory I
If dreadgods are at least as powerful as Monarchs, why do they never use spatial transfer? In the Wandering Titan's case it is because he doesn't like to expend energy, but that makes less sense when we think about the others.
What a question you have asked Charles. *siiiippp*
What a question that is!
What a question Charles has asked. Charles has asked the question, "If dreadgods are at least as powerful as Monarchs, why do they never use spatial transfer?" What a question Charles has asked. I'm going to move on.
Was there any dragon Monarchs before Sesh?
Oh yeah. Absolutely. He is known as *THE* dragon monarch, because he is *the* dragon Monarch now. There have been many dragon monarchs in the past.
In Bloodline, Yerin said that her master never trained against constructs, but in Wintersteel Tim thought about fixing her training constructs.
Ummm. I don't remember the first part of that. Her master never trained against constructs... I don't remember the context of that. So, he was considering repairing her training constructs for sure. That I remember.
Why did you name the sequel to Dreadgod, Plasma Bolts?
You'll find out in Dreadgod. You'll get to the end, and you'll be like, "That's why it's called Plasma Bolts. It's so clear now."
Is there an advancement beyond Judges?
Not currently.
Did the builders of the labyrinth ascend and return to Cradle with power from other Iterations?
No, they did not. Good question. That is not something that the builders did.
Maybe none of them want to, but do any of the Dreadgods have the capacity to ascend from Cradle under their own power?
No, they do not have the ability to ascend. The Dreadgods cannot ascend. It's not a matter of power level; they are too much part of the rules/substance/fabric of the world. That actually will come up a little in Dreadgod. It doesn't get super explained, but that subject is in there. So it's a good question, it's just a little technical.
Does Reigan Shen have a plasma bolt in his vault, or is such a treasure too rare even for him?
You know, maybe at this point I should start regretting having given you guys the phrase "Plasma bolts" and nothing else for my new story I'm working on, but I don't actually regret it. I'm glad I did.
Does he have a plasma bolt in his vault? No. He couldn't sell his entire vault for one single bolt from plasma.
Does ascending grant more power in addition to being able to modify the physical form, as stated by the Abidan?
When you ascend through a normal process that most people do, you are transforming yourself into a higher level of yourself. You would become physically more like your ideal form... usually. That's not always how it works, but that is usually how it works. So, Makiel not only has access to all the magic and technology he could ever need to genetically alter himself, but also, he has obviously ascended so he could have changed himself, but his ideal form was kind of... himself. So, that's kind of what that says about him.
Does it also grant you more power? Yes and no. It grants you access to more things. It doesn't immediately make you more powerful. You don't just level up like you do in Cradle. That's a Cradle thing.
Which Judge has the most seniority?
OK. That's Makiel. Makiel is the one that has been around the longest. He's the 3rd generation Makiel and therefore, he is an early (relatively early) generation. So, none of them are 1st generation on the court now. The 1st generation Abidan have been gone for a long time. And 3rd generation is the one who's been around the longest. So that's, that's Makiel.
Can you add a secret stretch goal reward of a second round of hot wings and rating the flavors?
No, because I won't do that again. The hot wings that we did... so we did the hot ones challenge at home. My brother, Sam, got what ever the cases they sell a bunch of different hot sauces for wings. And we went and got Publix wings at Publix grocery store, because we're in Florida, so we are privileged enough to have Publix. And we brought the wings home and we rolled them in the hot sauces and what we did, unfortunately, was they have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, not on the scale but which spiciness level. So you're supposed to eat them in order and what we thought was the second one was actually the second to last.
That was shameless shilling for Publix, you're right. I shill for Publix all day long. It's like my name is John Q. Publix.
So we accidentally put the one that is second-to-last one second and we ate it. So we misunderstood the order. So we went from, yeah this hot sauce has a nice smoky flavor, it's like a rich Tabasco, to my tongue tried to kill itself and leave my mouth. That was pretty abrupt.
So because of that, then we went on and did the rest of them in order and we ended with the Last Dab and that one was an experience. Sam dunked his face in the pool. I don't remember what I did. I remember a light. That I remember. Then I remember photos from my childhood. It flashed in front of my eyes. I remember spirits whispering my name. So that was an intense experience that I don't want to repeat. I'm going to leave it as a singular memory. But if you guys want to do it, by all means, you can send me your videos. Please don't do that.
Has the amount of the support from the KickStarter opened any new doors for you as an author?
Unfortunately, I do not have a great dramatic answer for you. It's hard to tell. It's one of those things where it's not like the KickStarter itself has blown open wide. It's not like we immediately got a movie offer but, at the same time, there was a huge showing of support and we keep moving forward and we're hoping with the KickStarter itself the results will get us into bookstores. So those would be some doors that would be opened.
Is there a sylvan seed for every aspect of madra? If not, what aspects can become seeds?
Here's how I see sylvan whatever seeds. I see them as natural spirits that form from centers of especially pure aura. So anything where it's not capable, where that wouldn't happen naturally, I suspect there would be no sylvan blade seed for instance like why would there be that many swords occurring naturally, that sort of thing. In general, I think most aspects do indeed have their own little blue equivalents, little green, little purple. Little green is the healer.
