Recent entries

Questioner

Are there any pests analogous to rats or mice in Valinhall?

Will Wight

There are beetles the size of your fist that eat rusted metal, but the Nye keep them under control.

Questioner

How would you, using cradle lingo in the blackflame empire, ask someone if they wanted to "Netflix and chill"? Same for in Damasca (Im think both what Simon would say and what Leah would say).

Will Wight

If you're asking what Simon would say and what Leah would say, I have to imagine Leah would be smoother about it than Simon.

Questioner

What other food sources exist in Valinhall? Since Kai could disappear deep within the house for long periods of time, he obviously didn't need to come back to the garden, do what else is there?

Will Wight

The deep part of the House contains some spoilers, because presumably I'll want to get into that when we return to Traveler's Gate, but there ARE other rooms with food in them.There are animals in the house that can be caught and cooked, and there are edible mushrooms that grow in many rooms.

Questioner

Using a sinister vibe integrate Barbie horse into travelers gate world as a fragment realm.

Will Wight

The air swirls in front of you with a vibrant pink light. Startled, you take a step back, but the light soon snaps into a recognizable shape: a pink-edged doorway into another realm. An endless, perfectly flat field of plastic grass stretches out before you. The clouds seem painted onto the sky. A glossy horse turns to stare at you--it seems to be covered in brown chitin instead of hair. Its eyes bulge as though it can never blink. A woman stands next to the horse, her hand on the animal's mane. Her smile seems to wear her. She looks like a mannequin wearing the face of a human woman as a mask. Though you lock eyes, she says nothing. Her teeth clack together as though she tries to speak, but cannot. You turn from the portal and run. It's best to let a Traveler deal with this.

Questioner

Of all your characters, who's the strongest character you could take in a fist fight?

Will Wight

Otoku the doll.

Questioner

What is the weirdest, creepiest room in Valinhall?

Will Wight

I'm tempted to say "Kai's bedroom," but I've made you wait two weeks for an answer, so I have to give you something decent.There's a deep room that is only roughly connected to the rest of the House, and it's something like an aquarium for spectral fish. The room is completely dry, but these pale, ghostly, aquatic creatures "swim" through the air as though on the ocean. They look horrific and alien, and their moans pierce the ear. If they cut you, your blood drifts up into a wispy cloud, as though dispersing into water that isn't there.

Questioner

What is a useless item that can be won in valinhall

Will Wight

A fork with one prong bent. Valin once dropped it, and the inhabitants of the House hoarded it like a treasure. It's just a fork.

Questioner

If I stuck my face inside a nye then inhaled, would i get the powers of the nye?

Will Wight

Only if the Nye really liked you.

Questioner

In ‘Crimson Vault’ Denner uses a bell that returns everything to its respective territory. Does that also mean that the Tartarus sword that Erastes uses would have also returned? If it would, did a bunch of Damascan officers lose their swords as well?

Will Wight

Good question, but Tartarus steel is typically taken from the Territory and worked in the Unnamed World. It doesn't have enough of a connection to the Territory to be banished.

Questioner

Are Incarnations as powerful as a Traveler can become?

Will Wight

Essentially yes, but there are many measures of "power" depending on the Territory. Incarnations aren't necessarily the most skilled, or the best at using the powers they can call upon.

Questioner

Are we ever going to see romance between Simon and Leah?

Will Wight

Romance? NEVER.

Questioner

In The Traveler's Gate series, where do the Common people (non-travelers in the unnamed world) believe they go after they die.?

Will Wight

Villagers mostly believe they go to the Maker to be judged, but instead of sending them to a Hell- or Heaven-equivalent, he assigns to them a personal reward and/or punishment depending on their accomplishments in life.In Damasca, there was an ancient belief that good people went to Elysia and bad people went to Naraka, and references to this belief system still remain in some turns of phrase and works of art. However, modern people don't really believe that; they believe that souls go on to become part of a Territory in some way. In Enosh, they believe that the dead become saints: white-clad beings who are constantly judging and determining the fates of men.

Questioner

How do you probe your with to use the valinhall toilets

Will Wight

I don't understand this question except for the words "Valinhall toilets," so I'll answer what I can! The Valinhall toilets are basically bottomless outhouses. There appears to be nothing down there at all, forever, but no one dives deep enough to find out. Only the waste goes down. Also, the bathrooms are haunted.

Questioner

Who out of all your series is your favorite character to write?

Will Wight

I know this is your least world-building related question, but I'll answer it anyway: I enjoy the more colorful, less grounded characters. Kai, Bliss, Eithan, etc. They're just fun to write, and I can basically ad lib their dialogue and have fun with it. The problem is getting that type of character to care about what happens to them and have a relatable goal. So I have to try and humanize them as well, which can be difficult. There's a middle ground there, and I'm seeking it. If I could write more of that sort of character, I'd have more fun, and I feel like my characters would pop more. But it almost feels like there's a slider between making them interesting and making them relatable and organically motivated. There isn't, it just FEELS that way. I'm trying to hit the happy medium.

Questioner

What is a powerful elixir with a huge drawback

Will Wight

A Dragon's Tear. It's refined from two perfectly balanced varieties of madra (the actual ingredients used depend on the refiner's Path and the availability in the region). When you swallow it, it releases an explosion of power that "supercharges" your soul, so to speak, releasing enormous power temporarily. However, it strains the madra channels, which can lead to permanent spiritual damage. In a severe case, it could leave you with no more power than an Unsouled. More importantly, it's addictive. Not chemically, but even users with no spiritual damage report feeling that their souls feel weaker afterwards in comparison to that brief moment of transcendent power.

Questioner

What would be a popular tale/story/folklore that people would tell their children to scare them in the world of cradle?

Will Wight

The Lonely Wolf.Once, there was a wolf pup born as the smallest in his litter. He wanted nothing more than to be close to his brothers and sisters, but they would shove him out of the den every night, where he would shiver alone in the cold. Every morning, he would try to get close to them again, but every night he was pushed out of the cave once more.So it was that when a tiger walked into the den and devoured the whole pack, he missed the lonely wolf pup.The lonely wolf survived, but he was even lonelier than ever. He tried to join another pack, but they too rejected him. He tried to join a flock of birds, but they flew away. Schools of fish fled when he approached the river.He wandered through life alone, and the years passed. Then the decades. Then the centuries.The lonely wolf had become more than a simple beast. The shadows responded to his desire to get close to others, and now they hid him. At last, hidden in the shadows, he could slip into other packs and pretend to be one of them. None of the wolves, not even other sacred wolves, ever saw more than a flickering shadow.But in a way, he was lonelier than ever. Now he could stay close, but not close enough. No one could see him, nor treat him as part of their family. He was nothing but a ghost, drifting through the lives of others.The loneliness grew until it became an ache, then a pain. Then a hunger.And he thought of one way to be closer to his fellow wolves.The first time he swallowed a wolf pup, he finally felt that burden on his soul lighten. Now that there was another wolf inside his skin, his loneliness was relieved. But only briefly.When his stomach was empty again, he swallowed another wolf. Then another. He worked his way up the pack until he was alone again.Then he found a village.Like a creeping shadow, the lonely wolf moved through the homes, looking for someone to join him inside his body. He started with the infants, and when they had all joined him, he moved his way up to the little children. Only when the entire village was with him did he move on to the next village.So at night, as the firelight flickers, keep watching those patches of shifting shadows at the corner of your eye. It might be the lonely wolf, just looking for another friend.

Questioner

Are there any paths that are agriculturally focused?

Will Wight

The Redflower family actually uses several Paths in conjunction in order to keep the Empire fed.The Path of the Yellow Flower involves moving earth and nurturing soil. The Path of the Green Flower encourages growth and the health of crops. The Path of the Blue Flower gathers water from the air and facilitates irrigation. The Path of the White Flower controls air flow and climate regulation.The Path of the Red Flower, for which the family was named, was designed to defend the others.

Questioner

Are there any (successful) tartarus travellers who traverse the labyrinth alone?

Will Wight

Tartarus Travelers still tell the story of Nasha, a young girl who was, according to legend, born in the Steel Labyrinth. She learned to crawl its corridors and bring its mechanisms to life, scavenging food and water from within the endless network of living gears.

Some Travelers swear that, when they were separated from their squads and lost in the corridors of the Labyrinth, they encountered a girl who silently guided them home.

Questioner

If Simon had to pick an animal he would be, what would he pick?

Will Wight

When Simon was a child, he found a badger burrow behind his family's house. The badger largely ignored humans, but viciously attacked any other animals who get close to the burrow entrance.

Simon enjoyed watching it, and he was impressed with the way the badger completely ignored anything that wasn't a threat, but wasn't afraid of anything. And it spent a lot of the day nestled snug in its den.

This left an impression on him, so he'd pick a badger.

Questioner

What would happen to the Crimson Vault if it had inhabitants?

Will Wight

The Vault itself is actually the tip of the iceberg. There's much more to Ragnarus than Leah or any of her ancestors ever discovered.