William Webb
asked
Andrew Rowe:
How did you choose which creatures would be the God-Beasts, like Seiryu, Suzaku, and Orochi. Is there a reason you chose the creatures you did instead of more traditional fantasy creatures like dragons and elementals?
Andrew Rowe
One of the principal inspirations for Arcane Ascension is the first SaGa game, an early gameboy JRPG. In that game, you climb towers with bosses based on the Four Symbols (Genbu, Suzaku, Seiryu, and Byakko). So, that inspiration was pretty direct for those four.
For reasons related to the magic system and the background of the spires, the number "six" was important, so I needed two more. Orochi was a natural fit, as a famous Japanese deity that commonly appears in in the same style of JRPGs, including the same franchise. Orochi is also hugely connected to the Kusanagi no Tsurugi (or Ame no Murakumo, if you prefer), a legendary weapon associated with one of their ancient deities and the Japanese imperial line. This association has some connections with the Six Sacred Swords line of books, which will be clearer later on.
Arachne is a outlier for a couple reasons. First, most Japanese spider deities tend to have their names used as general categories, rather than for individual entities. For example, you see a jorogumo appear in one of the tests. Naming a deity "jorogumo" would have felt out-of-place, since it feels more like a category designation. Tsuchigumo is similarly used as a more general term, rather than for a specific deity. While there might be Japanese spider deities that could have been usable here, I wasn't familiar with any that felt as iconic as the Four Symbols or Orochi (which is a very high bar).
Arachne is probably the most iconic mythological spider period, so I felt that the name was appropriately "epic" compared to names like Orochi. It also feels out-of-place in terms of mythological origins, which it *should* - the Spider Spire should feel *different* from the others. That's deliberate, and there'll be more discussion of that in the future.
For reasons related to the magic system and the background of the spires, the number "six" was important, so I needed two more. Orochi was a natural fit, as a famous Japanese deity that commonly appears in in the same style of JRPGs, including the same franchise. Orochi is also hugely connected to the Kusanagi no Tsurugi (or Ame no Murakumo, if you prefer), a legendary weapon associated with one of their ancient deities and the Japanese imperial line. This association has some connections with the Six Sacred Swords line of books, which will be clearer later on.
Arachne is a outlier for a couple reasons. First, most Japanese spider deities tend to have their names used as general categories, rather than for individual entities. For example, you see a jorogumo appear in one of the tests. Naming a deity "jorogumo" would have felt out-of-place, since it feels more like a category designation. Tsuchigumo is similarly used as a more general term, rather than for a specific deity. While there might be Japanese spider deities that could have been usable here, I wasn't familiar with any that felt as iconic as the Four Symbols or Orochi (which is a very high bar).
Arachne is probably the most iconic mythological spider period, so I felt that the name was appropriately "epic" compared to names like Orochi. It also feels out-of-place in terms of mythological origins, which it *should* - the Spider Spire should feel *different* from the others. That's deliberate, and there'll be more discussion of that in the future.
More Answered Questions
Bob Diner
asked
Andrew Rowe:
Hey Andrew, this is probably the wrong place for this, but thanks for the entertaining books you've written. That's it! Except, please keep on writing. Maybe just a wee bit faster, because I'm 65 and not getting any younger. Don't have the correct sword for that. Any idea if such a sword is hidden in the Pacific Northwest?
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