Weapon Archetypes

• Boss Spec, Taken Spec, Minor Spec, Major Spec, and Adept Big Ones Spec.

• Reduced damage bonus versus Minors from 40% to 30% (except Fighting Lion).

• Increased base PvE damage versus all combatants.
  
  • Pulse Rifles: 20%
    • Exceptions: Graviton Lance and Revision Zero's Heavy Burst mode. (These both have an intrinsic PvE damage buff built in.)
  • Pellet Shotguns: 10%
    • Exceptions: Legend of Acrius, Tractor Cannon, Conditional Finality, and The Fourth Horseman. (These are all already performing as intended.)
  • Slug Shotguns: 9%
  • Fusion Rifles: 7%
    • Exceptions: One Thousand Voices. (This one was just buffed.)
  • Sniper Rifles: 7%
    • Exceptions: Izanagi's Burden's Honed Edge shots and Cloudstrike's storm. (These are both performing well.)
  • Glaive projectiles: 7%
  • Linear Fusion Rifles: 5%
• Increased damage versus Minors (red bars)—this stacks with the base PvE damage increase.
  
  • Sidearms, Trace Rifles, Scout Rifles, and Bows: 20%
  • Auto Rifles and Pulse Rifles: 15%
    
    • For Pulse Rifles, this is in addition to the above buff, and Graviton Lance and Revision Zero's Heavy Burst mode are included.
      • I.e. Pulse Rifles will do 1.2 * 1.15 = 38% more damage to red bars.
  • Submachine Guns: 10%
    
  • Hand Cannons: 5%
    
• Increased damage versus Majors (orange bars).
  
  • Trace Rifles: 20%
• Increased damage globally, including PvP.
  
  • Machine Guns: 7%
  • Swords: 7%
• Splash damage from add clear-Exotic Primary weapons was overperforming in The Final Shape when combined with the damage buffs listed above, so we've pulled it down slightly on a handful of weapons.
  
  • Reduced splash damage by 10%:
    • Sunshot
    • Trinity Ghoul
    • Polaris Lance
    • Graviton Lance

• Kinetic damage type weapons no longer deal bonus damage to bosses; damage to other combatant tiers is unchanged.
  
  • For example, a kinetic Sniper Rifle and a Stasis Sniper Rifle of the same subfamily will both deal the same damage to a boss.

• Updated Heavy, Adaptive, and Aggressive Burst weapon intrinsic names to match burst count across all weapon archetypes. Functionality is unchanged.
  
  • 2-burst: Heavy Burst
    • Includes Sidearms, Hand Cannons, and Pulse Rifles.
  • 3-burst: Adaptive Burst
    • Includes Sidearms, Linear Fusion Rifles, and Adaptive Pulse Rifles.
  • 4-burst: Aggressive Burst
    • Includes Pulse Rifles.
• Removed the foundry name from the Veist Rapid-Fire, Häkke Precision, and Omolon Adaptive weapon intrinsics.
  
• Scout Rifles
  
  • Updated the hip-fire reticle to better show accuracy and aim-assist state.
• Hand Cannons
  
  • Some aggressive Hand Cannons struggle to compete with the stats of the top-tier examples [cough] Igneous Hammer [cough], so with Crimil's Dagger and Something New returning in The Final Shape, we updated their stats.
    
    • Crimil's Dagger (Iron Banner)
      • Stability: 23 to 31
      • Handling: 23 to 31
      • Magazine Size: 8 to 9
      • Airborne Effectiveness: 10 to 21
    • Something New (Solstice)
      • Stability: 27 to 30
      • Handling: 24 to 30
      • Magazine Size: 8 to 9
• Low inventory Sniper Rifles were a little too low in PvE for our liking, so we've increased the minimum.
  
  • Increased minimum reserves from 14 to 17 shots; maximum reserve is unchanged.
• Linear Fusion Rifles
  
  • Adaptive Burst Linear Fusion Rifles are strong, but in some cases are quite hard to control.
    • Reduced firing animation kick and recoil for Adaptive Linear Fusion Rifles.
• Wave Frame Grenade Launchers deal competitive damage as of the Destiny 2: Into the Light update, but some stats on these didn't have a gameplay effect. In this pass, we're adjusting the blast radius.
  
  • The size of the wave is now affected by the blast radius stat. This will mostly impact the width of the wave, though the length and height will also be scaled.
    • The default display stat for the blast radius has been changed from 100 to 50 (where 50 represents the previous baseline—any stat over 50 will result in a larger wave segment than what was possible before).
  • Special ammo Wave – Frame Grenade Launchers overperform as add clear weapons in their current state, so we've pulled the length of the wave back a little.
    • Reduced the length of the waves from 22 meters to 15 meters (except for Dead Messenger).
• Swords
  
  • Updated the Sword reticle to better indicate its charge state. When Sword energy is consumed, the amount of delay the Sword has before it begins to recharge now subtly appears in the reticle.
  • Bug fixes:
    • Fixed an issue where the Overwhelming Battlesong debuff from some missions would prevent Swords from recharging or losing energy while guarding.
    • Fixed an issue where unpowered caster Sword heavy attacks would not reset the Sword's energy recharge delay.
    • Fixed an issue where uncharged adaptive Sword heavy attacks cost the same amount of ammo as their charged counterparts. They now cost 1 ammo, same as other uncharged heavy attacks. ##Exotics

• Increased the number of shots required to generate the cage by 75% against combatants (PvP unchanged).

• Swapped the firing animation to the same one used by other auto-fire Sidearms.

• Fixed an issue where the firing animation from Devil's Ruin would get applied to other equipped Sidearms if the weapon was swapped during the firing animation.

• Catalyst now provides +10 reload speed, +10 handling, and the Eddy Current perk, in addition to its existing effects.

• Updated the visuals of Wolfpack Rounds to match the damage type of the weapon.For example:
  
  • On Gjallarhorn, they will use Solar effects.
  • On the Royal Entry Void Rocket Launcher buffed by Gjallarhorn, they will have Void effects.

• Increased duration of burn applied by the Darkness Ball against combatants from 2 to 3.5 seconds.

• Now has a 4-second cooldown on the poison burst on kills. (Poison burst from sustained damage doesn't receive this cooldown.)

• Intrinsic perk now provides increased reload speed after precision kills.
• Increased duration of burn applied by the Cursed Thrall explosion against combatants from 2 to 3.5 seconds.
• Catalyst has been rebuilt.
  
  • One for Thrall: Damaging 3 combatants in quick succession provides a period of increased damage, range, and aim assist.

• Reduced healing effect by 20%.
• While this weapon does inherit the 7% global buff to Swords, we've reduced the damage of the high end of the chained heavy attack by 20% from that point.
  
  • This means combos at lower stacks are less affected by the change than combos at higher stacks.

• Baseline:
  
  • Cranial Spike stacks now grant stability in addition to aim assist stat and range (+2 per stack).
  • Increased reload speed benefit of Cranial Spike stacks.
• With catalyst, iwhen hip-firing:
  
  • Slightly reduced accuracy benefits.
  • Increased magnetism falloff scale (1.6 to 1.7).
  • Increased baseline rate of fire from 130RPM to 140RPM.
  • Removed PvE-only damage buff that scaled with stacks of Cranial Spike and added a 15% damage bonus at maximum stacks of Cranial Spike.

• Now spawns additional insectoid robots on final blows. More robots (up to five) spawn from tougher combatants.

• Increased area-of-effect (AoE) damage such that it doesn't lose noticeable damage due to not dealing impact damage.
• Increased total reserves by 3. (This is on top of the reserves change to high impact Rocket Launchers from the 7.3.5 update.)

• Increased damage versus bosses, minibosses, Champions, and vehicles by 12%.
• Increased reserve ammunition by 3.

• Focus fire now will activate on Special reloads following a kill and will no longer reduce range or rate of fire.

• Reworked Saint's Fists perk: Dealing damage with melee increases your charge rate, damage, and reload speed for a short duration. Landing a majority of pellets in a burst increases melee damage.

• Breaking a matched shield or piercing a Champion's Barrier will cause the target to ignite.

• This weapon is now intrinsically anti-barrier.
• The Heavy Metal and Vexadecimal perks have had their locations and behavior swapped.
  
  • Heavy Metal now causes every 4th bullet to make targets volatile.
  • Vexadecimal now causes every 16th bullet to also weaken targets.

• The Fundamentals now maintains its state across death or respawn. ##Perks

• Will no longer work in Rumble.

• Reduced draw time buff from 66% to 60%.
• Reduced buff duration from 8 to 4 seconds (but it can now stack up to 8 seconds).

• Will now activate on dealing damage with a powered melee, in addition to standard melee kills.

• Special: About 15% smaller AoE size and 20% less damage.
• Heavy: Same AoE as before and 30% more damage.

• Now takes 1.5 seconds of sprinting to activate instead of 3 seconds.
• Also provides a bonus to handling and a 5% scalar on each stat at base.
• Being amplified will immediately activate the perk at its maximum effectiveness.

• Instances of Underdog have been replaced with Pulse Monitor.

• These no longer drop off when pulling out a Ghost or similar actions.
• Now partially refill the weapon's magazine on activation.

• Adjust the number of slow stacks applied based on properties of the weapon.
  
  • In this case, Rapid-Fire Fusions like Riptide will still require 3 shots to freeze, but slower firing Fusions only require 2.
• All other archetypes have been un-nerfed and only require 2 shots to freeze.
  

• Reworked to provide a stacking damage bonus when getting kills in any context (like Rampage) or instantly granting the maximum amount of stacks when damaging an enemy from the high ground.
• PvE max bonus increased to a 25% damage bonus, and PvP max increased to 15%.

• Osmosis and Tessellation now match the damage type of your equipped grenade.
• Permeability and Elemental Capacitor now match the damage type of your equipped Super.

• Now refills from reserves instead of from thin air and should trigger more reliably across weapon types. ##The Future

Weapon Archetypes

• Boss Spec, Taken Spec, Minor Spec, Major Spec, and Adept Big Ones Spec.

• Reduced damage bonus versus Minors from 40% to 30% (except Fighting Lion).

• Increased base PvE damage versus all combatants.
  
  • Pulse Rifles: 20%
    • Exceptions: Graviton Lance and Revision Zero's Heavy Burst mode. (These both have an intrinsic PvE damage buff built in.)
  • Pellet Shotguns: 10%
    • Exceptions: Legend of Acrius, Tractor Cannon, Conditional Finality, and The Fourth Horseman. (These are all already performing as intended.)
  • Slug Shotguns: 9%
  • Fusion Rifles: 7%
    • Exceptions: One Thousand Voices. (This one was just buffed.)
  • Sniper Rifles: 7%
    • Exceptions: Izanagi's Burden's Honed Edge shots and Cloudstrike's storm. (These are both performing well.)
  • Glaive projectiles: 7%
  • Linear Fusion Rifles: 5%
• Increased damage versus Minors (red bars)—this stacks with the base PvE damage increase.
  
  • Sidearms, Trace Rifles, Scout Rifles, and Bows: 20%
  • Auto Rifles and Pulse Rifles: 15%
    
    • For Pulse Rifles, this is in addition to the above buff, and Graviton Lance and Revision Zero's Heavy Burst mode are included.
      • I.e. Pulse Rifles will do 1.2 * 1.15 = 38% more damage to red bars.
  • Submachine Guns: 10%
    
  • Hand Cannons: 5%
    
• Increased damage versus Majors (orange bars).
  
  • Trace Rifles: 20%
• Increased damage globally, including PvP.
  
  • Machine Guns: 7%
  • Swords: 7%
• Splash damage from add clear-Exotic Primary weapons was overperforming in The Final Shape when combined with the damage buffs listed above, so we've pulled it down slightly on a handful of weapons.
  
  • Reduced splash damage by 10%:
    • Sunshot
    • Trinity Ghoul
    • Polaris Lance
    • Graviton Lance

• Kinetic damage type weapons no longer deal bonus damage to bosses; damage to other combatant tiers is unchanged.
  
  • For example, a kinetic Sniper Rifle and a Stasis Sniper Rifle of the same subfamily will both deal the same damage to a boss.

• Updated Heavy, Adaptive, and Aggressive Burst weapon intrinsic names to match burst count across all weapon archetypes. Functionality is unchanged.
  
  • 2-burst: Heavy Burst
    • Includes Sidearms, Hand Cannons, and Pulse Rifles.
  • 3-burst: Adaptive Burst
    • Includes Sidearms, Linear Fusion Rifles, and Adaptive Pulse Rifles.
  • 4-burst: Aggressive Burst
    • Includes Pulse Rifles.
• Removed the foundry name from the Veist Rapid-Fire, Häkke Precision, and Omolon Adaptive weapon intrinsics.
  
• Scout Rifles
  
  • Updated the hip-fire reticle to better show accuracy and aim-assist state.
• Hand Cannons
  
  • Some aggressive Hand Cannons struggle to compete with the stats of the top-tier examples [cough] Igneous Hammer [cough], so with Crimil's Dagger and Something New returning in The Final Shape, we updated their stats.
    
    • Crimil's Dagger (Iron Banner)
      • Stability: 23 to 31
      • Handling: 23 to 31
      • Magazine Size: 8 to 9
      • Airborne Effectiveness: 10 to 21
    • Something New (Solstice)
      • Stability: 27 to 30
      • Handling: 24 to 30
      • Magazine Size: 8 to 9
• Low inventory Sniper Rifles were a little too low in PvE for our liking, so we've increased the minimum.
  
  • Increased minimum reserves from 14 to 17 shots; maximum reserve is unchanged.
• Linear Fusion Rifles
  
  • Adaptive Burst Linear Fusion Rifles are strong, but in some cases are quite hard to control.
    • Reduced firing animation kick and recoil for Adaptive Linear Fusion Rifles.
• Wave Frame Grenade Launchers deal competitive damage as of the Destiny 2: Into the Light update, but some stats on these didn't have a gameplay effect. In this pass, we're adjusting the blast radius.
  
  • The size of the wave is now affected by the blast radius stat. This will mostly impact the width of the wave, though the length and height will also be scaled.
    • The default display stat for the blast radius has been changed from 100 to 50 (where 50 represents the previous baseline—any stat over 50 will result in a larger wave segment than what was possible before).
  • Special ammo Wave – Frame Grenade Launchers overperform as add clear weapons in their current state, so we've pulled the length of the wave back a little.
    • Reduced the length of the waves from 22 meters to 15 meters (except for Dead Messenger).
• Swords
  
  • Updated the Sword reticle to better indicate its charge state. When Sword energy is consumed, the amount of delay the Sword has before it begins to recharge now subtly appears in the reticle.
  • Bug fixes:
    • Fixed an issue where the Overwhelming Battlesong debuff from some missions would prevent Swords from recharging or losing energy while guarding.
    • Fixed an issue where unpowered caster Sword heavy attacks would not reset the Sword's energy recharge delay.
    • Fixed an issue where uncharged adaptive Sword heavy attacks cost the same amount of ammo as their charged counterparts. They now cost 1 ammo, same as other uncharged heavy attacks. ##Exotics

• Increased the number of shots required to generate the cage by 75% against combatants (PvP unchanged).

• Swapped the firing animation to the same one used by other auto-fire Sidearms.

• Fixed an issue where the firing animation from Devil's Ruin would get applied to other equipped Sidearms if the weapon was swapped during the firing animation.

• Catalyst now provides +10 reload speed, +10 handling, and the Eddy Current perk, in addition to its existing effects.

• Updated the visuals of Wolfpack Rounds to match the damage type of the weapon.For example:
  
  • On Gjallarhorn, they will use Solar effects.
  • On the Royal Entry Void Rocket Launcher buffed by Gjallarhorn, they will have Void effects.

• Increased duration of burn applied by the Darkness Ball against combatants from 2 to 3.5 seconds.

• Now has a 4-second cooldown on the poison burst on kills. (Poison burst from sustained damage doesn't receive this cooldown.)

• Intrinsic perk now provides increased reload speed after precision kills.
• Increased duration of burn applied by the Cursed Thrall explosion against combatants from 2 to 3.5 seconds.
• Catalyst has been rebuilt.
  
  • One for Thrall: Damaging 3 combatants in quick succession provides a period of increased damage, range, and aim assist.

• Reduced healing effect by 20%.
• While this weapon does inherit the 7% global buff to Swords, we've reduced the damage of the high end of the chained heavy attack by 20% from that point.
  
  • This means combos at lower stacks are less affected by the change than combos at higher stacks.

• Baseline:
  
  • Cranial Spike stacks now grant stability in addition to aim assist stat and range (+2 per stack).
  • Increased reload speed benefit of Cranial Spike stacks.
• With catalyst, iwhen hip-firing:
  
  • Slightly reduced accuracy benefits.
  • Increased magnetism falloff scale (1.6 to 1.7).
  • Increased baseline rate of fire from 130RPM to 140RPM.
  • Removed PvE-only damage buff that scaled with stacks of Cranial Spike and added a 15% damage bonus at maximum stacks of Cranial Spike.

• Now spawns additional insectoid robots on final blows. More robots (up to five) spawn from tougher combatants.

• Increased area-of-effect (AoE) damage such that it doesn't lose noticeable damage due to not dealing impact damage.
• Increased total reserves by 3. (This is on top of the reserves change to high impact Rocket Launchers from the 7.3.5 update.)

• Increased damage versus bosses, minibosses, Champions, and vehicles by 12%.
• Increased reserve ammunition by 3.

• Focus fire now will activate on Special reloads following a kill and will no longer reduce range or rate of fire.

• Reworked Saint's Fists perk: Dealing damage with melee increases your charge rate, damage, and reload speed for a short duration. Landing a majority of pellets in a burst increases melee damage.

• Breaking a matched shield or piercing a Champion's Barrier will cause the target to ignite.

• This weapon is now intrinsically anti-barrier.
• The Heavy Metal and Vexadecimal perks have had their locations and behavior swapped.
  
  • Heavy Metal now causes every 4th bullet to make targets volatile.
  • Vexadecimal now causes every 16th bullet to also weaken targets.

• The Fundamentals now maintains its state across death or respawn. ##Perks

• Will no longer work in Rumble.

• Reduced draw time buff from 66% to 60%.
• Reduced buff duration from 8 to 4 seconds (but it can now stack up to 8 seconds).

• Will now activate on dealing damage with a powered melee, in addition to standard melee kills.

• Special: About 15% smaller AoE size and 20% less damage.
• Heavy: Same AoE as before and 30% more damage.

• Now takes 1.5 seconds of sprinting to activate instead of 3 seconds.
• Also provides a bonus to handling and a 5% scalar on each stat at base.
• Being amplified will immediately activate the perk at its maximum effectiveness.

• Instances of Underdog have been replaced with Pulse Monitor.

• These no longer drop off when pulling out a Ghost or similar actions.
• Now partially refill the weapon's magazine on activation.

• Adjust the number of slow stacks applied based on properties of the weapon.
  
  • In this case, Rapid-Fire Fusions like Riptide will still require 3 shots to freeze, but slower firing Fusions only require 2.
• All other archetypes have been un-nerfed and only require 2 shots to freeze.
  

• Reworked to provide a stacking damage bonus when getting kills in any context (like Rampage) or instantly granting the maximum amount of stacks when damaging an enemy from the high ground.
• PvE max bonus increased to a 25% damage bonus, and PvP max increased to 15%.

• Osmosis and Tessellation now match the damage type of your equipped grenade.
• Permeability and Elemental Capacitor now match the damage type of your equipped Super.

• Now refills from reserves instead of from thin air and should trigger more reliably across weapon types. ##The Future

Further Details about Writing Murtagh

For Murtagh I did all the maps after writing the book, but that's because I already knew all the locations and was familiar with them from writing the series. So I didn't need to do the maps before writing the book. [12]
What is your system for drawing maps? I usually start by thinking of what I want a location to look like. And that has nothing to do with a map. That's usually just thinking about how it will serve the story. And then the map will be based off of that. The biggest decision is usually what the style of the map should be, whether I want to do like a top-down city map for a place, or if I want it to be a more of a realistic image. So more of, let's say, a landscape painting, one could say, or if I want to do something that's more allegorical and evocative or symbolic, which there's actually one of those in Murtagh that really isn't a map, but it's a symbolic map, let's put it that way. And all of that is governed by what is the effect I hope to achieve with the reader. Because if it doesn't achieve the effect I want, then what's the point of doing it. I do try to avoid maps where I have to draw every single building if it's a city map because that's just annoying. I'd rather draw mountains than cities. [12]
I love the sort of top-down look, which is why I drew the the original map for Eragon in this style. [12]
Maps are an awesome thing, and they add so much to a world. And that's why I love drawing them, and I love finding them in books I'm reading. And it's also why I make such an effort to draw and paint maps for my own books. [12]

What kind of scenes do you enjoy writing most? I really empathize with the characters, so I find it difficult to write scenes where they experience difficulties. I like to write scenes where people wonder about the world, or where the story reaches a climax. With Murtagh, for example, this is the confrontation at the end of the book. Or the fight with the big fish, Muckmaw. There are also quiet moments that I enjoy writing. Again in Murtagh, when Silna – the werecat child – kisses Murtagh's head, that was a very special moment. I like to write things that have meaning and that requires context, so you have to build up to moments that are meaningful, both for myself as a writer and for the reader. [23]
Do you have a favorite moment in the book between Thorn and Murtagh? I have a couple of them. There's a moment after the encounter with Muckmaw when they exchange true names that I quite liked. The end of the Gil'ead sequence. Thorn has an appearance at the end of that sequence, which was rather dramatic. And then right near the end of the book, Thorn gets a crowning moment of awesome, one might say, to use internet speak. But Thorn really, he comes through in a pinch, and I just loved writing that. [32]
What was your favorite scene or moment that you wrote for Murtagh? I'd say the last chapter, and I'm not gonna say why, but I think it's obvious. There's a scene with a creature named Muckmaw, which I quite enjoy. Not just the confrontation with Muckmaw, the aftermath in the water. I was reading Blood Meridian at the time, and I think that influenced my descriptions. And there is a point in the story where something is renamed. And that was a very meaningful scene for me. Also, there's a werecat in the book and I love werecats. They're so much fun to write. [34]
What is your favorite line you've written? The first line I wrote for Murtagh before I had anything really for the book, I thought it was going to be the first line of the book and it ended up being partway through the first chapter, and it was "A man with a dragon is never truly alone." Which since he's an outcast the whole theme of being alone or not alone is kind of relevant. [33]
My favorite good/bad line from Murtagh is: “The water was like liquid ice.”.. . . Yeah, yeah. I know. But you understand what I meant! And that’s the point of writing. Ahahaha!* I didn't notice! just imagined really cold water Can’t tell you how many times I stepped into the Yellowstone River and thought: “This feels like ice! But liquid.” [T]

In the acknowledgments section you said you owe your agent some sushi? Yes! I bet him a sushi dinner, an expensive new York sushi dinner, that I could keep Murtagh under the length of Eragon. And I got close. The first draft was one hundred and sixty eight thousand words long. Eragon is one hundred and fifty six thousand words long. And I figured well I usually drop about ten percent of length in editing, so I thought I'd do that. The problem is I hate over explaining things. I know that sounds incredibly hypocritical based off what I've actually written, but because of my experiences of over explaining things, I've really tried to not do that as much, and so I wrote the book assuming that someone had read the Inheritance Cycle and remembered it. So I didn't explain what a lot of things were because I assumed the reader knew. And my editor came back and said "Christopher, I know what you're doing, but you can't do that. Because someone might pick this up without having read the Inheritance Cycle. And even if someone read the Inheritance Cycle, it's been twelve years. So provide a little context." Well, that ended up being thirty-three thousand words, give or take. So now we're at one hundred and ninety eight thousand words, so I owe my agent a sushi dinner. [17]
It's always interesting to me to see how people do their first chapters in a series. Because I always feel like chapter one is like "previously on..." It's funny. I wrote my latest book with basically no callbacks or explanations of established information. After four books and a million published words, you kind of think people have it under their belt. And my editor came back and she was like, "It's been eleven years since the last book, even if people are fans of the series, you got to give them a little more." So usually when I write a first draft, it drops by about 10% in editing. And with that book, it went up by 33,000 words, which all of it was basically context, which was interesting. So that was a first for me. I'm a kitchen sink author, so I throw everything in and then I usually cut back during editing. [33]
I would love to write books that are more around the length of 100,000 to 150,000 words. Like that's a good, solid length. That's where I was shooting for with Murtagh, but for some reason my editor kept asking me to add more and more stuff so we ended up close to 200,000 words. [1]
Final word count of Murtagh is 198,983 words. So my editor had me ADD about 34,000 words to the book over the course of editing/revising. Ha! That's a first. [T]

Interesting choice to break it up into the sections of each city. Just the section in Gil'ead is basically a novel on its own. There's a full arc in Gil'ead that would be a normal size novel for any other writer. I nearly split it into two volumes, actually, there. But my editor said, "no, don't do that". The funny thing about Gil'ead is that actually was not in my original outline. The whole sequence. And the reason is that, for me, I was envisioning a much shorter book. And the whole thing was going to be them going to the village and dealing with Bachel. So let's get to the village as quickly as possible. So we'll just have a chapter or two at the beginning of getting the information. Well, storytelling 101, you can't make it easy for the character. So having Murtagh just be able to go get that information somewhere, find it out, just felt too easy. Also, I kind of locked myself into a little path because the first chunk of the book is reworking the short story from The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm. And at the end of that, Murtagh does not have the information he needs. So he can't get it from the people he interacts with in that chapter, which if I were writing Murtagh as a complete standalone, I could have considered that. So then I thought, "well, he'll go to Gil'ead and we'll have a really quick thing there. And he'll get his information." I started writing it the way I originally envisioned. But again it was too easy. So it was like, "OK. There needs to be a challenge here. What else is going on? How does it tie into my larger world and story?" And it does. There's some unresolved storylines there, but it does tie into the larger stuff I'm going to later. And then it was half the book. Seriously. At the end of the following chapter, right after Gil'ead, is almost perfectly 50% through the book. I'm sure everyone's heard of the three act play, but there's a competing theory of storytelling, which I'm actually very fond of, which is the five act play. So you have two acts at the beginning, two acts at the end, and then your middle act, and then you have an act in the middle. And in that middle act, you have a tipping point where your character sort of sees what they need, or sees what they can become. They ultimately see their own solution to their problems, but then the rest of the back half of the story is them grappling with that solution, coming to terms with it. And that actually worked, it was not intentional, but it worked out perfectly with the structure of this book. The structure of this book is also directly inspired by some of the structuring that I did in my sci-fi novels and I carried some of it back into Alagaësia. [11]
In regard of Murtagh or any other part of your work, what's the most intense moment for you during the creative process when you are in the midst of writing a novel? A lot of it is intense. I'm gonna divide it into two sections. The creative process itself, in the sense that where I'm creating the story and the characters and the world. In this case, of course, the world was pretty much in place, but in the outlining phase, I should say, that's a lot of fun. There's some pressure in the sense that I know if I don't get it right in that stage, that no matter how well I write the book, it won't hang together particularly well for the reader. So there's strain in that sense that I really want to get it right. But I wouldn't say there's any real pressure, because there's no deadlines at that point. I'm not actually writing the book. During the writing itself, there's definitely strain and intensity in wanting to get it right and do a good job of writing each individual scene and chapter and storyline. And sometimes that can get difficult, especially if I feel like I'm not really getting where I need to get in terms of the effect on the reader. I had that in a couple places in the first draft with Murtagh. One was with the character Bachel herself, who was quite different in the first draft. And then another one actually was the whole Gil'ead sequence, where my original idea for that sequence is actually what happens now in terms of the werecat kittens and all of that. And then I second guessed myself and thought, "well, maybe that's a little cheesy. Maybe I won't have a ticking clock element to that sequence. So I'm just gonna not have that, but he'll still have these various adventures in order to earn this information from the werecat Carabel." And the problem is it removed any sense of tension from that sequence. So I ended up having to rework a lot of the Gil'ead sequence to reintroduce that element, bring in the tension and make it all work. But both of those things happened in the second chunk, which I was gonna say is revision. And revision and editing tends to be the most intense part of the process, because at that point we're usually under deadline. We've committed to a release date and things are happening on the business side of things, that are sort of like unstoppable forces. The ticking clock in the real world. And that tends to be the most intense part because it's not that I can't do the work, I always can and I always am able to get where I wanna go. I'm not stressed about that, it's just instead of having two months to do something, now you got to do it in two weeks, and oh hey, you got a new baby you got to take care of at the same time. And that's what makes it really intense. [19]
One of the things that I loved about the very first half of this novel is that it is a quintessential RPG action adventure. Because poor Murtagh gets pushed and pulled willingly and unwillingly in the strangest directions. Yeah, he's on the series of fetch quests. It's funny. I've had a bunch of people react differently to that. I've seen people who kind of hate it and really love it, and a lot of people who say, "Well, Christopher's just writing out his D&D session". I literally have never played D&D except for my recent trip down to the Authors in the Dungeon down in Utah. So I don't play D&D. I have no one here to play it with. The only RPGs I've ever played are Skyrim and the Mass Effect series. My logic with that sequence was there was a whole lot we needed to see about Murtagh's back history without rehashing the Inheritance Cycle, without actually going back and rewriting scenes from his point of view. And just doing it all in flashbacks and dreams gets a bit tedious. On top of that, originally that sequence wasn't in the book I was going to write. I was going to start with essentially the opening. And then we were going to go to Nal Gorgoth fairly quickly in the book. But it just made it too easy. No one's going to give them the information for free. There's always a price attached to information. There had to be difficulty in getting it. And then once I was digging into that, I was like, okay, how can I use this to show some aspects of Murtagh's character, and then how will that then get reflected in the second half of the book? And how will that let me inform what happens in the second half of the book? And I really enjoyed that stuff. Muckmaw was a particular favorite of mine. [32]

One of the things that we get a lot of in this book that was really wonderful after reading Inheritance, was Thorn's-- we don't really get his POV, but we get some POV through Murtagh of him. I think he only has one line in the entire Inheritance Cycle. In the last book. And we get a lot of him here. And we get a very different Rider-Dragon relationship between him and Murtagh versus Saphira and Eragon. What was the process of crafting that relationship to be similar in its like magical quality, but also different in the fact that they had a very trying kind of hatching? Well that was the key right there. I wanted it to feel different while still maintaining the sense that they'll back each other up no matter what, which they have in the past. That's an important part of that. But Murtagh is kind of a difficult personality himself. Thorn, as we see in the book, of course, had a very, very difficult upbringing under Galbatorix and then later on. And that leaves scars. That leaves marks. So trying to find a way to reflect that in the relationship without having them also just be at each other's throats, because they're not. They are being supportive. But at the same time, it's perhaps an overused word these days, but they have trauma that they are having to battle. [11]
One of my favorite things is the relationship between Murtagh and Thorn--they’re such a lonely duo, but it allows the book to kind of delve into that dragon/rider bond in a new way. What sets their relationship apart do you think? Murtagh and Thorn were joined under the most difficult of circumstances, and that shapes their interactions in a thousand different ways. Their relationship is more, ah, thorny than Eragon and Saphira’s, but they also still love each other and would lay down their lives for one another, should the occasion demand it. I found their interactions really interesting to write. Also, it felt important that I didn’t directly replicate Eragon and Saphira’s relationship. Murtagh and Thorn are very different beings, and readers should see that. [15]
What is the relationship between Murtagh and his dragon Thorn? Thorn's egg hatched when they were imprisoned by King Galbatorix. The two friends have been tortured and manipulated. They retain many traumas. They care deeply for each other and are closely bonded. But their relationship is more difficult than that of Eragon and his dragon Saphira. [4]

I definitely got choked up with just Thorn and his claustrophobia and how it was written, how it was handled, everything surrounding it. Out of pure curiosity, do you or do someone you know have that kind of claustrophobia that you were able to speak to about? No. A large part of the act of writing is the act of imagination, just like with acting. But even though there's no one in my life who suffers from that, when I'm writing Thorn or anyone who might feel that, I do my best to feel what they're feeling, which is why when writing scenes or a large chunk of a book where perhaps things are difficult for the characters, I have a bad time. Yeah, I hope you take breaks. Yeah, that's where it's good to go play with the kids and take a load off one's mind. But some of the battle scenes in Inheritance really got to me at times, because I'm thinking actually especially in Inheritance, but also in Brisingr, there were some large set pieces, battles. And it just takes a couple of weeks to write sometimes. And that's a long time to have your head in blood and guts. [11]

You write so many diverse women in your books that we really enjoy. Between Arya, Angela, Nasuada, Queen Islanzadi, you write fantasy with women in positions of power, with agency and with action. And then we get to this book and we meet this villain, Bachel, and she's basically like, "what if Angela was evil?" I hadn't thought of it that way. I was reading the book. I was like, "Did Christopher Paolini and his sister have a fight? What changed in that relationship?" Because she's awful. So I've watched a lot of movies in my life, and a lot of old movies too. I was thinking of some of the classic actresses from the Golden Age of Hollywood who would come on the screen with a very imperious feel, like Sunset Boulevard or All About Eve or some of those films. And Bachel is sort of in that category of presence. And I think it's exactly what was needed to put Murtagh off balance. I was also thinking of Kai Winn from Deep Space Nine. I've always said that Kai Winn and from Harry Potter the headmistress Umbridge, and Hyacinth Bouquet from the British show Keeping Up Appearances. The three of them in a room together will be like a nuclear explosion. When you were approaching bringing this book from the short story about The Fork into a full novel, at what point did you create this character and where did she come from? I had a general idea before writing Murtagh, of course. I did a lot of plotting and preparatory work, but you never know how a character is going to come across until you write the first draft. And in the first draft, Bachel was not as successful as she is now, I think. I was writing the first draft quickly, and I was thinking of the stories a little bit more of like a Edgar Rice Burroughs style adventures. You go off into the jungle, and you find a hidden temple and lost civilization sort of thing. And as a result, in the first draft, Bachel was much more vampy. I really went hard on that angle. And then looking back over, it's like it didn't work. And it was so cliche and obvious. It was like, yeah, I needed to find another approach. So I kept reworking Bachel with each cycle of revision and it was getting better. The character was getting better and better, but I wasn't fully committing to the change. And it was right at the end of revisions. I mean, we were down to the wire and my editor said, we're still not quite there. And even though I hated to have to have any more work at that point, I knew she was right. So I went in. We're talking with a week to spare before we went to the printers. And I rewrote the first four chapters or so when he gets to the village. I rewrote pretty much every line of dialogue of hers and every description of her to bring it to where we are. And then I was like, "OK, now it works", and my editor agreed. She is terrifying and one of those characters that's not mustache twirly evil, but has so much evil within her. She thinks she can do no wrong, that she is always doing the right thing and that she knows what's best for all the people around her. And as a result is capable of anything. So all of which is to answer your question, her character was an iterative process to get where she needed to go. [11]
I try to imagine what it is to create characters and if some of them have the purpose to be a particular message or stand as a parable for a message or an idea and if yes, what does Bachel mean to you in a deeper way? I think the Bachel to me represents unquestioning belief and also the tyranny of unchecked power and control over people's lives. I think what differentiates Bachel from a real world cult leader, for example, and this actually kind of made it interesting to me, is that the Dreamers and Bachel are rational in the sense that they are believing in something that actually exists. The power that they are in awe of and that they are afraid of and that they worship actually exists. And the same is true of the priests of Helgrind. So in a sense they are not irrational to have that reaction. You might argue it's the wrong reaction. I would argue that they're overdoing it and the reaction is wrong and perhaps even evil, but they have more reason for their belief than a lot of people sometimes do because they have physical evidence on an ongoing basis of their object of worship. But again, Bachel would to me represent unchecked fanatical belief as well as personal exploitation of one's power over others. [19]
The cult experience in the pages of Murtagh eerily echoed in some ways certain experiences I've had with religion. Could you talk about where that part of your writing came from or how you went about writing it? I understand why that comment's anonymous, and I'm going to kind of adhere to that philosophy of anonymity here. Without going into details, I've had some family members who were in a cult at one point. And that occasioned quite a bit of discussion in my life growing up. Although the cult might seem, and probably is, completely over the top and cartoony in some ways, you would be astounded by how much of that was essentially true to life. Let's put it this way, playing Far Cry 5, if anyone's familiar with that, was a distinctly uncomfortable experience for me. So I did whatever I do when I encounter something uncomfortable. I played the game like four times in a row. [34]
No matter how outlandish a belief seems, it can be completely realistic in your world. Especially if you have people committed to it. I've had family members who've been in a cult at one point. That was interesting. So I've had firsthand experience seeing a lot of this stuff in person, and I used some of that in my latest book. [25]
How come Bachel is pronounced like that when it’s only one little line away from Rachel? The English language hurts my head. Because it’s not from English, and I wanted it to sound different from every other name in the series. [T]

In Murtagh I have a dragon who's not supposed to be a very nice dragon. I gave him the worst color I could. I have a puce dragon. And mind you, I don't necessarily mind the color itself. It's just for those who don't know, the original definition of the word puce is the color of dried flea blood. So it's a puce dragon. [33]

What was it like cranking up the anxieties of it, the horrors of it? It feels more mature this time around. Well, good. Murtagh is a more mature character, and he's always had a harder road to walk than Eragon. So, going easy on him was never an option, but it was hard to write. It's hard to put my mind in difficult situations for days on end, weeks on end, months on end when writing and editing. It takes a toll on you emotionally. At least, that's my experience because I empathize with the characters and the world. But at the same time, it's so interesting dramatically that I can't avoid it. Actually [the reason] why I wrote the book was that last chunk of the book. That's what everything leading up to was building and hopefully supporting so that when that hits, you're there going, “Oh my god.” [6]
There is a extended period of this book uh that is very traumatic. That is the darkest I think the series ever gets. Where did you find the line? Were there any drafts where you felt like you went too far with that section or where you had to pull it back? Yes. Not a huge amount though. First of all, I throw everything in in my first drafts, kitchen sink, because you can always dial it back, whatever it is. Even if it's a funny scene, it's like I push it as far as I can and then see how it hits the audience. So in the sequence you're talking about, there was one thing in particular I did that I actually don't want to talk about, that I cut out during editing at my editor's very wise advice, and I'm really glad I did. But that was a thing. Because I was like how far can I take this, and that was too far. [11]
Hopefully this is not scaring anyone off from reading Murtagh. No, it's fantastic. And I think just because it is darker doesn't mean it's bad. I think that it's honestly a perfect natural progression from the Inheritance Cycle to this character. I think it's what the character needed. I also don't think it's depressing, ultimately. [11]
Tell me a little about how you see Murtagh’s journey in this book. He’s certainly on a much darker road than his half-brother, how was it getting to write a story that has more mature themes? I found it enormously rewarding to write about a character who is both more mature and more complicated than Eragon was for the majority of the Cycle. Especially now that I’m older myself. Dramatically, Murtagh (and Thorn!) presented all sorts of interesting opportunities, and I did my best to take advantage of them in this book. Also, since a lot of my readers have grown up with the series, even as I did, I wanted to give them a book that would satisfy them as much as it will also hopefully satisfy younger readers. [15]
As a fifteen-year-old boy I would never have been able to imagine such a flawed character as a central figure, but I now view life very differently. And you notice that my readers who have grown along with me also see these extra shades of gray. [18]
Murtagh is indeed a more mature book than Eragon. Did you write it that way on purpose? Yes, Murtagh is an older character in the story than he or Eragon were in the first books. He is also a complicated person. And my readers have grown up with me in the meantime. So I felt it was important to write a book where my oldest readers would see my progression as writing, and read about characters they could once again identify with. At the same time, new readers should not be forgotten. That's why I wrote Murtagh in such a way that you can also read it without knowing the previous four books. I wanted to write a book that revolved around the difficult history of Murtagh and Thorn, but was still a fun adventure to read. [23]
If you love this fandom, why are you making us suffer so much with this book? I mean the ending redeems you a little bit but oh my god. I'm sure it's been an emotional rollercoaster for you too. There are parts of the story that are definitely very difficult for Murtagh and Thorn and part of that may be my own predilection for writing that sort of stuff but mostly it was that Murtagh has done some very unpleasant things in the Inheritance Cycle, especially to Nasuada. And he needed to come to terms with that, he needed to grapple that, he needed to face it. And there was no easy path forward for him. If I had done easy on Murtagh I feel like readers would have decided that I was cheating, going easy, and that Murtagh didn't actually have to face the consequences of his actions. Even if he wasn't a hundred per cent responsible for them at the time. I can assure you that, and I'll say this to other fans as well, after this story Murtagh is going to have an easier time of it. This book resolves his personal journey and Thorn's on a really fundamental level, and so life's going to be a little bit easier for Murtagh moving forward. [17]

So going to Uvek, you've introduced another Urgal. I think that for a lot of readers, the twist on the Urgals in Eldest. They are not just beastial orcs or Uruk-hai or whatever other franchise does with them, Trollocs for Wheel of Time. They are this sentient race that wants to join the fight on the side of good. I think that that shook me when I first read it. How was it bringing another lead character really from that race into the book? And one of the things I really loved about the book is the scene where they're flying to the village, and they see the village of Urgals. And they're just playing with bows. They're just having a normal day. And he has this moment internally where he's like, "oh, maybe I need to be more inquisitive?" Uvek is one of my favorite characters from the book. I like the Urgal culture. I find it interesting. I wouldn't want to live next to an Urgal village, necessarily, especially since I have kids. But dramatically, creatively, they're really interesting to write about. And trying to balance them in the sense that they're a warrior culture like, we could say, the Klingons. But the Klingons take it to such a degree that realistically, you start asking the question of, how have they survived? How do they build a space-frame civilization when it seems like they tear each other apart super quickly? So with the Urgals, I wanted to show more. And in fact, in The Fork of the Witch and the Worm, the largest of the stories in that is The Worm, which is an Urgal story. And since I was looking at ways of exploring the idea of Murtagh and Thorn's relationship with society, being an outcast, all of that. The Urgals are outcasts in the land also. The other races aren't particularly fond of them. That was a nice connection to bring in and reflect off of Murtagh, so to speak. [11]

I just got off a very fresh reread of Murtagh. I just sent in typo corrections and a couple little tweaks here and there for the reprints. [32]
You mention in Murtagh that Murtagh's Gedwëy ignasia is on his right hand, but I think the community assumed it was on his left from Eldest. We're we all wrong or is that a continuity error I found? Typo. Getting fixed in reprints. [T]

I've seen a couple of questions about this, so -- for the record, "divers" is not a typo of "diverse". (Probably got too clever for my own good, but there you go.) Archaic language in fantasy books?!?! Say it ain't so! The language is half the fun. :D [T]
Not a typo. :D Archaic word. [T]
If this hypothetical typo is “divers” … that’s actually the correct word and not a typo. If it’s something else, just send a pic and we’ll get it fixed in reprints. [T]
CHRIS WHAT IS THIS? An excellent and archaic word. [T]
*sigh* . . . “divers” is a real word. Not a typo (and it doesn’t mean those who dive in the water) [T]
I mean, "divers" isn't a typo, so . . . That said, if you do find typos in Murtagh, feel free to tweet them at me. We'll get 'em fixed in reprints. Happens with every book. [T]
Heh. Good thing “divers” is actually a word (and it doesn’t mean someone diving into water). [T]
The thing I want to talk to you about today is Twitter drama. You've been getting in tons of fights with readers lately on Twitter. You've been saying some really awful and hateful things to them just because they're pointing out typos in your book. What's the deal with this "divers" typo? Yes, on the first page of Murtagh there's a word "divers", which is an archaic word that means many or a multitude or different things. And too many people think that I'm referring to scuba divers. So it is a fight worth having. You make up fake words all the time. You're a fantasy author. I think the difference here is that you've made up a fake word which also has a real world definition, a person who dives as a sport, and you've put it on the front page of Murtagh without any context clues provided as to how we should interpret this. This is a book that's part of a world that no one has read in more than 10 years. So don't you think that maybe you should apologize to your readers who have waited all this time for a quality product only to be let down by an "archaic" word, aka a typo, on the first page? Absolutely. In fact, I had a conversation with my editor about this before heading out on book tour and we'll be reprinting the books but we're going to translate it all into Pig Latin which should make it more understandable for readers. [31]

I didn't read FWW,should I read it before read Murtagh? I Thought it was a spin-off book. You don't have to read it ... but I would. It acts as a direct lead-in to Murtagh Honestly I'm finding it shocking the number of people who haven't read FWW. There's a solution to that. . . . (Why does that sound mildly threatening?) [T]
Even if you haven't read the other books I think you can certainly enjoy Murtagh as much or even more. [12]
Is Murtagh Book 5 in the story about Eragon/Alagaësia? Yes [R]
Murtagh is a direct inline full-length sequel to the series, even though it has a different main character. [1]
I just finished Fractal Noise last night, and when you mentioned in the afterward about another book for a certain Eragon character, I was hoping it would be him. Yeah, I wanted to mention Murtagh on the "Also By" page in Fractal Noise, but we weren't sure if Murtagh was getting announced before Fractal Noise got released to early readers. [T]