Cradle is low-key one of my favorite series of all time, but can I just talk about Suriel for a sec?
I just can’t stop thinking about how she comes down to save this weird giant toddler-man and give him a pep-talk like, “Hey man, keep working hard and you’ll get there eventually! :D” and Lindon immediately internalizes this as “Oh! I’ll just never stop working hard ever again!”
As the greatest healer in all creation I can’t imagine that wasn’t concerning for her. Imagine telling a 5 year old that if she practices every day then eventually she’ll be able to beat up the monster under her bed. Now imagine you see her in the back yard punching trees every day for months before one day showing up with a dead Boogeyman in one hand and it’s spine (which she has made into a sword somehow) in the other.
Pride: Listen, I know we don't get along with each other, but I got you a bath bomb for your birthday. So wherever you're feeling stressed and you need a bath, just fill your bathtub with water and drop this in
I wanted to talk about some Cradle stuff so I pulled this put of my drafts and polished it up a bit. This came out of my own musings as well as a conversation on reddit regarding what childhood and early sacred arts looks like for different people in the world.
We see a lot of different people with different types of paths but we don't know much about most of them or how children choose them. In some circumstances
For some Paths, it's obviously a question of tradition, while others are more utility, and more are products of ambition. But what does advancement look like when those things are absent?
As I organized my thoughts I ended up making some categories of what different upbringings with the sacred arts might look like.
The Traditional
This encompasses many of the Paths we see in Cradle. These are the well trodden and firmly established "Paths of the Clan". Here is your White Fox, your Grasping Sky, your Blackflame, your Stellar Spear. These are paths that the vast majority of the clan or family follow in unison.
Tradition and competition for resources weigh heavily on these paths. A path of light and dreams doesn't necessarily lend towards farming, but the Wei still overwhelmingly practice the White Fox. Every person on the path becomes a capable combatant under this method, and they might need to be.
Children start following this Path at Copper and follow it the rest of their lives.
The Lesser Clan
This is the path of clans like the Redflower, but also applies to smaller families as well. These paths bridge the gap between Tradition and Utility. The family path is not so heavily tied to the concept of honor or combat. Its a path that serves a purpose, and it's a purpose that you are born to. This is the path of "my father and his father before him." The path of "sixth generation farmer" and "my daughter will take over the family business." Whatever the parents do, the child can expect to do as well.
This path also starts at Copper.
The Great Clan
We see this in the Akura and the Arelius. These clans have resources and knowledge and their people follow a variety of Paths. There is likely an influence towards one type of path or another, purely due to there being more resources and knowledge regarding that type of madra.
Its hard to know how a path starts in these families—how much influence a parent takes over the path of the child. This is the path of options. A child here might delay starting their path until they have chosen the perfect one. A child might have the perfect path chosen for them and begin working towards it from a young age. A child might choose to develop their own path.
The age and level of advancement that a child is when they actually start on their Path could be highly variable, especially given the possibility of advancing through the lower realms via elixir rather than cycling.
The Mighty Sect
These are schools such as the Cloud Hammer or Jade Eyes. They have strength and resources and a specific Path that they teach, but they are not one family or clan. Prospective students are drawn from other families through a variety of processes. Its likely that some students' parents pay for them to learn from the sect, or else deal in favors to get their child admittance. Its likely that there is some sort of admission process in which children prove their worth to join the sect.
Its unclear regarding the age of admission for these schools. Perhaps they only take pure Coppers, or perhaps any artist below Jade or even Gold whose core can be converted to the path.
The Pathless
This is the path of Mu Enkai. Poor individuals with no resources or training that don't follow any real path. They harvest whatever aura is either most plentiful or most related to the work they are likely to be doing. Techniques are rough and not necessarily even frequently used. Remnant for advancement to Gold is likely a matter of opportunity more than anything else.
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The rest of my ideas are only partially supported by direct text, and some of them are entirely the result of unsupported theory crafting and worldbuilding.
The Worker
These are people who know what they want to do, and choose a path that will get them there. Writers on Dream Paths, gardeners on Life paths, builders on Earth paths. These are the children that know that they want to be when they grow up and follow a path that helps them with that. Just like in real life, not many kids actually know what they want to do at the age of six and then happily stick with it.
The Ambivalent
This one is similar but different to the Pathless. Where a poor peasant might be denied the resources to advance beyond lowgold, there are probably a large number of people, particularly living in large cities, that just don't care. They are going to work jobs and live their lives in a way that the sacred arts don't really impact. They probably advance to lowgold like a child being pushed through high school. Maybe they select an aura type as a child based on their favorite color. Maybe they select a remnant based on the appeal of possible goldsigns. It doesn't really matter, they don't care, the sacred arts are merely an afterthought in their lives.
The Modern Middle Class
These are the Cradle Suburbanites. People that live in towns and cities big enough that they don't really have to worry about sacred arts battles for the most part. Their parents work at jobs and bring home scales and buy their children elixirs. The child advances based mostly on elixirs until they reach peak Jade, and are old enough to pick a remnant from the remnant store. Maybe they stop there, or maybe they advance, but they are old enough to choose for themselves at that point.
The Educated
This is the advanced form of Suburbanite. These kids go to modern style schools for the sacred arts. The school provides elixirs and training. The students are taught principles of madra and technique fundamentals. They have homework and quizzes and tests with practicals. When they get older they start to specialize and begin working more directly with the types of madra they want. The school library has information that the children can use to craft their own paths, or manuals from common paths for the children to choose from. The school provides a selection of remnants for the children to advance with and high level classes to help integrate remnants with the goal of advancement to Highgold at minimum before graduation.
The Village
These are children that grow up in small poor villages that don't have many resources or much knowledge and that aren't actively being oppressed by more advanced artists. There's not really a big push for advancement or any competition over it. Children might talk with different relatives, neighbors, and family friends before choosing a direction that sounds interesting. While not a Path persay, they do get taught little lessons on techniques and receive advice from the adults around them.
The Tutored
Inspired by Oz's childhood, these children are taught the fundamentals of the sacred arts by tutors. This can apply to a wide range of economic statuses, from the children of Lords with private tutors, down to village or city children whose parents pay the cost demanded by tutors of their status. Education is a blend of custom directed learning for the child and a direct passing of the knowledge of the tutor.
Me reading the Cradle Series (by Will Wight) getting to Ghostwater: “Wow, I really love Dross. He’s just such a cool idea and I’m gelling really well with it. I wonder why I’ve taken to it so well?”
Me rereading the Dresden Files, specifically from Death Masks to White Night: “Ahhhh. That explains… much.”
