Rock the Cradle: A cultivation story

[Tylansimov]

Destruction Madra literally eats away at the channels of the person that uses it, it's like mainlining bleach if you don't spend hours repairing the damage after each use.

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This is unclear in canon, IMO. Blackflame degrades the user's channels. It's also a bit unclear if the story simply starts brushing past Lindon repairing his channels, or if it becomes less a problem once you reach Underlord and above.

But it's worth noting that Blackflame seems to be a particularly nasty Destruction path, with the Fire amplifying Destruction and possibly adding a "sooty" element. For example, while we only see a tiny part of it, Ozmanthus' path doesn't seem to have had the same problem.

 

[SinisterPorpoise]

This is unclear in canon, IMO. Blackflame degrades the user's channels. It's also a bit unclear if the story simply starts brushing past Lindon repairing his channels, or if it becomes less a problem once you reach Underlord and above.

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IIRC it stopped being a problem after he made a Contract with Little Blue, automating the process that she had been manually handling before then.
edit:
Also I think that Blackflame in particular is problematic because as previously stated in the WillWightVerse Fire+Destruction=Volcanic for whatever reason, and Volcanoes tend to be hilariously corrosive.
So okay, maybe Destruction would make sense for Volcanoes, if the equally-corrosive Poison/Venom Madra wasn't already an established thing before Destruction was instroduced a book later.

 

[Tylansimov]

IIRC it stopped being a problem after he made a Contract with Little Blue, automating the process that she had been manually handling before then.

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Hmmm, possibly? I know their contract "tinted" his Pure madra to match hers. So I guess that made it so switching from Blackflame to Pure automatically cleansed his channels, because his Pure madra now had the same cleansing properties as Little Blue's?

 

[VagueZ]

Also, I'm somewhat puzzled as to why Volcanoes naturally produce Destruction Aura alongside Fire rather than something like Earth, Force, or Poison.

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I've used Etaja as a comment on this type of thing before. Sacred Arts sort of work on "what's your first instinct for how this should work/be categorized?" and then that's just how it works. So this one is sort of... "Of course volcanoes destroy things, next question."

Trying to fully rationalize the madra system with every Word of God comment gets to be a surprising headache, though. Like, WoG has talked about bone madra, which I suppose goes alongside blood in how people heal/how bodies work, but bone madra isn't mentioned anywhere in canon, so I quietly ignored that because it feels kind of out of place and I couldn't think of a fun way to use it. Most of what we have makes decent sense unless you dig too far or find an unintuitive lens for it.

I sometimes do the former, but I try to avoid the latter. This quest is based on a sincere love of the canon works, not a "I must fix this!" impulse.


Also, if anyone else backed the Cradle animation kickstarter, the backer short story collection "Threshold" released last week. It has some interesting stories and, good news, none of them have revelations about that setting that require me to modify my upcoming plans at all!

 

[SinisterPorpoise]

I've used Etaja as a comment on this type of thing before. Sacred Arts sort of work on "what's your first instinct for how this should work/be categorized?" and then that's just how it works. So this one is sort of... "Of course volcanoes destroy things, next question."

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It's just very weird to me because my first instinctual response is that Volcanoes create rather than destroy, that's where islands come from after all, Dynamic rather than Entropic.
Also I was just rationalizing Bone and Death Madra to be the same thing before now.

 

[Ferb_Ancos]

It's just very weird to me because my first instinctual response is that Volcanoes create rather than destroy, that's where islands come from after all

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I can assure you, that is not the first thing most people think about a volcano.

 

[NewDay]

I can assure you, that is not the first thing most people think about a volcano.

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I've always thought volcanos were forces of both creation and destruction. The first thing that comes to my mind is the episode of Lilo and Stitch with Yang creating islands with Yin. The second is Pompeii. So yeah, creation and destruction.

 

[Wiggy]

Destruction Madra does seem like it'd imply Creation Madra is a possible thing. Though it'd probably be pretty rare in the wild? Maybe you'd find creation aura around an artist's workshop or at the site of a birth or something. Hm. Maybe a freshly erected building to contrast destruction appearing around a smashed one?

 

[HeWhoLurks]

Volcanoes have been a symbol of a cycle of creation and destruction in a lot of mythologies, particularly those of peoples living near ones like say the Hawaiians. They embody a whole theme of renewal.

 

[SinisterPorpoise]

Destruction Madra does seem like it'd imply Creation Madra is a possible thing. Though it'd probably be pretty rare in the wild? Maybe you'd find creation aura around an artist's workshop or at the site of a birth or something. Hm. Maybe a freshly erected building to contrast destruction appearing around a smashed one?

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Pure Madra? It's the Madra that people are born with.
Hmm, but it can't really create anything , even though it can be used to heal.

 

[Wiggy]

Pure Madra? It's the Madra that people are born with.
Hmm, but it can't really create anything , even though it can be used to heal.

Click to shrink...

Pure Madra is something only humans are born with, I'd expect Creation to be a bit broader than that. It also would probably take a ridiculous amount of energy to actually create stuff ex nihilo and be a really inefficient path early on, but I bet it'd be a great boost to forger paths mixed with another madra type. And then post ascension maybe you could be the nega ozriel, making new worlds without needing a piece of a shattered previous one lol.

 

[veekie]

Lindon's greed while impressive is also extremely reckless and unhealthy. Keras would possibly take the risk if they felt like they're on a time crunch but they don't really need to yet.

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The Keras style method is probably to make drugs from it, using reagents to mitigate rather than mainline it raw

 

[Wiggy]

It's mostly seen in canon with pure madra, but every madra type has a number of different facets to it that you can attune yourself to in order to change the flavor of the madra and change how it works somewhat. Like how Eithan's pure madra is themed around emptiness, while lindon/little blue are more purity or cleansing.

Similarly, I get the vibe that the specific Death madra Keras pulled out here was attuned to something like *murder* whereas Keras' death madra is a more natural type as part of their cycle of renewal. Cycling that truegold madra would likely be a big boost for keras, but it would definitely have knock on effects and probably stain their madra in an unpleasant way.

 

[ArcanaVitae]

This is unclear in canon, IMO. Blackflame degrades the user's channels. It's also a bit unclear if the story simply starts brushing past Lindon repairing his channels, or if it becomes less a problem once you reach Underlord and above.

But it's worth noting that Blackflame seems to be a particularly nasty Destruction path, with the Fire amplifying Destruction and possibly adding a "sooty" element. For example, while we only see a tiny part of it, Ozmanthus' path doesn't seem to have had the same problem.

Click to shrink...

Blackflame is notably reckless as a path it's taking a destructive Dragon path to be used by humans, most Death or Destruction paths are constructed with a lot more care for their users if the creators or users are smart. Blackflame went nah that's how losers think and went all into power and combat ability which ended up killing them.

Kersas uses a dangerous madra element with Death but is very careful about it and uses it in a way that doesn't draw upon it in ways that would cripple or kill them and then uses Life to counteract side effects.

Also a path that Ozmanthus makes and uses it by no may shape or form normal so I don't really think it can be used as a good example.

IIRC it stopped being a problem after he made a Contract with Little Blue, automating the process that she had been manually handling before then.
edit:
Also I think that Blackflame in particular is problematic because as previously stated in the WillWightVerse Fire+Destruction=Volcanic for whatever reason, and Volcanoes tend to be hilariously corrosive.
So okay, maybe Destruction would make sense for Volcanoes, if the equally-corrosive Poison/Venom Madra wasn't already an established thing before Destruction was instroduced a book later.

Click to shrink...

There are ways to counteract dangerous elements, Contracts, treasures, different madra types are just a few of them. Keras themselves function for that with Death Madra for Beti and Keras uses Life to deal with Death's consequences.

I've used Etaja as a comment on this type of thing before. Sacred Arts sort of work on "what's your first instinct for how this should work/be categorized?" and then that's just how it works. So this one is sort of... "Of course volcanoes destroy things, next question."

Trying to fully rationalize the madra system with every Word of God comment gets to be a surprising headache, though. Like, WoG has talked about bone madra, which I suppose goes alongside blood in how people heal/how bodies work, but bone madra isn't mentioned anywhere in canon, so I quietly ignored that because it feels kind of out of place and I couldn't think of a fun way to use it. Most of what we have makes decent sense unless you dig too far or find an unintuitive lens for it.

I sometimes do the former, but I try to avoid the latter. This quest is based on a sincere love of the canon works, not a "I must fix this!" impulse.


Also, if anyone else backed the Cradle animation kickstarter, the backer short story collection "Threshold" released last week. It has some interesting stories and, good news, none of them have revelations about that setting that require me to modify my upcoming plans at all!

Click to shrink...

It's a very interesting concept to know how stuff like that has been shaped by perception and other stuff like that. There being an infinite amount of madra types does make sense though it's just that not everything is easily usable. Also this is your quest so taking what you can use and not usig what you can't is okay.

Destruction Madra does seem like it'd imply Creation Madra is a possible thing. Though it'd probably be pretty rare in the wild? Maybe you'd find creation aura around an artist's workshop or at the site of a birth or something. Hm. Maybe a freshly erected building to contrast destruction appearing around a smashed one?

Click to shrink...

That would be interesting to look into. I imagine it would come about when people are making stuff and due to people usually using madra to do so it would get swallowed/tainted by other types.

Pure Madra? It's the Madra that people are born with.
Hmm, but it can't really create anything , even though it can be used to heal.

Click to shrink...

Pure Madra is something only humans are born with, I'd expect Creation to be a bit broader than that. It also would probably take a ridiculous amount of energy to actually create stuff ex nihilo and be a really inefficient path early on, but I bet it'd be a great boost to forger paths mixed with another madra type. And then post ascension maybe you could be the nega ozriel, making new worlds without needing a piece of a shattered previous one lol.

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Pure Madra is a combination of Life, Blood and Dream madra that only humans have.

Creation madra likely would work insanely well with Forger stuff.

The Keras style method is probably to make drugs from it, using reagents to mitigate rather than mainline it raw

Click to shrink...

Keras would likely do that they're pratical in wanting to get the most out of what's present but in a safe and controlled manner.

It's mostly seen in canon with pure madra, but every madra type has a number of different facets to it that you can attune yourself to in order to change the flavor of the madra and change how it works somewhat. Like how Eithan's pure madra is themed around emptiness, while lindon/little blue are more purity or cleansing.

Similarly, I get the vibe that the specific Death madra Keras pulled out here was attuned to something like *murder* whereas Keras' death madra is a more natural type as part of their cycle of renewal. Cycling that truegold madra would likely be a big boost for keras, but it would definitely have knock on effects and probably stain their madra in an unpleasant way.

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Yeah there's mutliple themes and types to the same madra types, for example Life could be Plants or animals. Keras has kinda focused on using Life for growth with plants and then with healing as well.

Keras and the assassin use Death in a very different way while Keras has death as a natural thing the assassin has it as a fundamentally violent thing.

 

[1337Procrast]

I don't think Creation madra exists it's a bit too broad I think. Forger techs as a whole and a lot of soulsmithing is how you'd get that kinda stuff. Destruction has a very strong identity in its specificity that I think Creation would lack.

On a note about cycling that other person's death madra. Even Lindon had to heavily filter a dragon's version of blackflame to be able to be cycled by him. With access to Pure Madra, a Madra type perfect for doing that kind of job internally. Being able to just hoover in any madra type and make it your own requires specific investment and it's mainly a thing you want if you don't have access to pills. Keras can make pills. They don't really need it. If Keras wants a cycling boost the best thing to do is to try to attain the resources to make better pills.

 

[Queshire]

A different series I read has creation & destruction in its power system though that series called them arcane mana & void mana (a different void than the one in cradle of course.) Arcane mana is second best at everything other than void. You could power lightning, fire or ice from it equally and while you wouldn't match up to a true specialist you'd still be better at it than someone without such specialized mana.

I suppose a Cradle version of that would be a very flexible madra that's well suited to adjusting techniques from a wide variety of paths in order to run off of Creation madra?

EDIT: Or it's just soul fire.

 

[Karnax626]

On a note about cycling that other person's death madra. Even Lindon had to heavily filter a dragon's version of blackflame to be able to be cycled by him. With access to Pure Madra, a Madra type perfect for doing that kind of job internally. Being able to just hoover in any madra type and make it your own requires specific investment and it's mainly a thing you want if you don't have access to pills. Keras can make pills. They don't really need it. If Keras wants a cycling boost the best thing to do is to try to attain the resources to make better pills.

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Yeah, Beti being a Truegold might be able to process Enohel's madra so Keras can use it, but even then I'd be skeptical.

 

[ArcanaVitae]

So something to note about Keras is a Sacred Artist is how they've developed. First and foremost Keras is a Forrester even if they've heavily branched out from that origin, Keras's path started out as a gardener's path. Keras then expanded that path into healing and effecting thing other then plants through Verdant Valley and then getting that trained by Bronze Serpents which made it a plant path to a more general life/growth path. Keras also got a look at Death madra through Kyeol and Olerac which caused them to be fascinated with it and how it interacts with life and the ecosystem. Later on when Keras signed on with Cheng and bonded with Beti they become a proper Death Artist in addition to their Life Artist with the help of Etaja.

It should be noted that even though Keras is both a Life and Death Artist they're primarily a Life Artist that has added death as a secondary and complementary element. Their understanding of Death is very much wrapped up into their understanding of life. Both in how death feeds into an ecosystem and how life changes with the presence of Death. But Keras has also started using Death as a weapon and realizing that it's a natural part in nature not just due to things dying but due to conflict. I think that the Dream tablets and the whole incident with Enohel has showed Keras that Death is a part of the life of a Sacred Artist because combat will occur due to their lifestyle and not just in self defense but for politics, power and resources. For Keras Life and Death are natural parts of the world but they can also be interacted with in a more artificial manner such as through farming or killing for reasons other then survival.

Something to note is that both Life and Death madra could be very easily turned to Slaughter Arts in draining a person's lifeforce and then draining the bits their death gives off. But thing is that would be very noticeable as a slaughter artist and Keras has made efforts to not do that. Keras themselves thinks that slaughter artists can be accepted if they're useful such as a butcher or solider but I'm not sure they want to walk that path themselves. Also there's the fact that as a Death artist they're kind inclined to get people to look at them weirdly, people can tell that Keras's death is more natural then a slaughter artist's but death madra still has a bad reputation.

But people are able to tell that Keras is a weird Life and Death Artist that focuses on the relationship between the two in some way some people with better senses could tell more but Keras's stuff is acceptable enough they'd be counted as eccentric researcher with an interest in the macabre. Socially they're in a weird place as a Refiner and Healer while also being a Life and Death Artist, I'm guessing the Refiner, Healer and Life Artist combo isn't to out of left field because there is a lot of pills and elixirs that help with healing and Life is a popular healer madra type. It's just that they Death Madra would be what throws people for a loop. There's also the possibility of Keras being made to learn ocular methods and their refiner speciality not being healing but esoteric stuff.

I'm very curious about if there is anyone else who's gone down the Life and Death Artist Path because it is a very interesting concept to explore. I'm hoping that VagueZ will either include one that Keras can meet or Keras will be able to acess some records about such a path because it would be useful for Keras's growth and interesting to see.

 

[Wiggy]

Going back to the idea of madra aspects, it'd be interesting if we could specialize Keras' death aspect into something of a Decay focus. It'd fit the the nature theming and it would probably complement the way we're mixing it into our existing techniques to erode away at enemy techniques. If we ever get a chance to look deeper into madra theory via visiting ghostwater's library or getting something similar from the Akura, that'd be an interesting route to investigate.

 

[VagueZ]

Destruction Madra does seem like it'd imply Creation Madra is a possible thing. Though it'd probably be pretty rare in the wild? Maybe you'd find creation aura around an artist's workshop or at the site of a birth or something. Hm. Maybe a freshly erected building to contrast destruction appearing around a smashed one?

Click to shrink...

One thing that I've got a stack of notes on but hasn't appeared in-quest yet is that there isn't always an exact opposite to things. Fire and water or light and dark are usually given as opposites, but I can think of some lenses to contrast other things: water and earth as opposites in the sense of them intermingling to cover the surface of the world, perhaps. Destruction implying Creation is something I'd thought of, but it feels like it should've gotten mention in canon if it were real, given (book 9+ spoilers) Lindon starts associating his Void Icon with "creation ex nihilo". Obviously he wasn't about to add a third path, but it feels like "this would be a grand revelation to a Creation-aspected sacred artist" or something similar should've appeared.

Your point further on about the different facets is very important to how I'm envisioning Keras' world, though.

It's useful to assume that there's maybe a couple dozen basic types of madra, which can have various sub-associations. The opposite of destruction madra, if you were trying to balance it out in terms of various natural treasures, might be dream (creating its concept instead of destroying its nature), earth (the endless bulwark of the planet as contrasted to things wearing away at it), life (bringing new things into being as opposed to wiping them out), or water (endless tides and flows bringing change as opposed to things crumbling where they stand).

You can probably think of a few others.

I don't intend to introduce more than a handful at most of new madra types, but new associations and themes from exploring something different about them or from what comes of having more than one type of madra to suggest something different? That's a fun place to explore and to create characters for: What would a dream/water path be like? Light/cloud/poison? Force/life/shadow? Blood/earth/lightning?

Pure Madra is a combination of Life, Blood and Dream madra that only humans have.

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Ah... I'm afraid that that's not quite right. The thing that makes madra pure isn't that it's combining a body's natural aura of these types. The way the books stress it is that pure madra is what you get when you take everything else away or when you start with nothing at all, not leave a few human things mixed in to the right degree. It's just a blank human spirit, hence why almost everyone stops having pure madra early on in their life.

I didn't really stress it for this quest because none of the paths I'd designed for the protagonist were pure and I haven't had a strong concept for a pure madra path character to show up yet.

The fact that it's not made up of anything at all except "a human spirit" is why it has the benefits that it does have, which canon goes in depth on.

I suppose a Cradle version of that would be a very flexible madra that's well suited to adjusting techniques from a wide variety of paths in order to run off of Creation madra?

EDIT: Or it's just soul fire.

Click to shrink...

I have some theories that this is very close to how a lot of Arelius paths work. Tiberian Arelius' path is noted for being a water/wind/lightning path where he could adjust his mixture on the fly to bring forth one element more prominently.

If and when we meet some Arelius characters who aren't straight from canon, they will almost certainly have some tricks that lean into the sort of things I think you're thinking about. Things inspired by their Monarch's style and famous accomplishments I figure are often common in those close to a Monarch.

I'm very curious about if there is anyone else who's gone down the Life and Death Artist Path because it is a very interesting concept to explore. I'm hoping that VagueZ will either include one that Keras can meet or Keras will be able to acess some records about such a path because it would be useful for Keras's growth and interesting to see.

Click to shrink...

I'm not sure if and when we'll see more of this. It's part of the nebulous set of things that could show up after this arc, depending on how things shake out and as I firm up plans. The main source of information that Keras is currently aware of would be sources discussing the Bloody Lords, the Underlords who rose out of the Bronze Serpents to challenge the Seishen King in the First Pacification.

The Bloody Lords are such an acceptable social target as Universally Bad that they could be safely included in a children's storybook, though, so that's not a nice subject to look into.

 

[Tylansimov]

I feel like Life and Death is sometimes used for slaughter artists. Not as common as Blood/Death, though. I've theorized before that you can probably make a Life/Death path work by emulating predators (in the same way Keras envisions themself as a scavenger).

Not quite sure what the benefit of the Life would be, since a slaughter artist isn't going to be a healer or gardener. Maybe a lot of Enforcer techniques, to use Life to reinforce the body? Except reinforcing the body seems to be a Blood thing. Life can probably reinforce lifelines, but canon is pretty unclear about the benefits of reinforcing your lifeline. Maybe it makes Lord advancements easier?

 

[SinisterPorpoise]

I've theorized before that you can probably make a Life/Death path work by emulating predators

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This is apparently what Northstrider does, in a "you are what you eat" interpretation, and his path is predominately Blood.
Speaking of-

The opposite of destruction madra, if you were trying to balance it out in terms of various natural treasures, might be dream (creating its concept instead of destroying its nature), earth (the endless bulwark of the planet as contrasted to things wearing away at it), life (bringing new things into being as opposed to wiping them out), or water (endless tides and flows bringing change as opposed to things crumbling where they stand).

Click to shrink...

-if Life is opposite Destruction, then Blood may be the opposite of Death, making Death/Destruction the literal antithesis of the Bronze Serpents' Life/Blood Path.

 

[ArcanaVitae]

Going back to the idea of madra aspects, it'd be interesting if we could specialize Keras' death aspect into something of a Decay focus. It'd fit the the nature theming and it would probably complement the way we're mixing it into our existing techniques to erode away at enemy techniques. If we ever get a chance to look deeper into madra theory via visiting ghostwater's library or getting something similar from the Akura, that'd be an interesting route to investigate.

Click to shrink...

Decay would be interesting both in how it's natural and it would fit Keras as a Refiner. Also learning more about how madra types work and madra theory would be a good thing both for Keras's abilities and for Etaja's information gathering goal.

One thing that I've got a stack of notes on but hasn't appeared in-quest yet is that there isn't always an exact opposite to things. Fire and water or light and dark are usually given as opposites, but I can think of some lenses to contrast other things: water and earth as opposites in the sense of them intermingling to cover the surface of the world, perhaps. Destruction implying Creation is something I'd thought of, but it feels like it should've gotten mention in canon if it were real, given (book 9+ spoilers) Lindon starts associating his Void Icon with "creation ex nihilo". Obviously he wasn't about to add a third path, but it feels like "this would be a grand revelation to a Creation-aspected sacred artist" or something similar should've appeared.

Your point further on about the different facets is very important to how I'm envisioning Keras' world, though.

It's useful to assume that there's maybe a couple dozen basic types of madra, which can have various sub-associations. The opposite of destruction madra, if you were trying to balance it out in terms of various natural treasures, might be dream (creating its concept instead of destroying its nature), earth (the endless bulwark of the planet as contrasted to things wearing away at it), life (bringing new things into being as opposed to wiping them out), or water (endless tides and flows bringing change as opposed to things crumbling where they stand).

You can probably think of a few others.

I don't intend to introduce more than a handful at most of new madra types, but new associations and themes from exploring something different about them or from what comes of having more than one type of madra to suggest something different? That's a fun place to explore and to create characters for: What would a dream/water path be like? Light/cloud/poison? Force/life/shadow? Blood/earth/lightning?

Click to shrink...

Madra Types and Icons can be streched really far it just matters how they're applied and used.

Ah... I'm afraid that that's not quite right. The thing that makes madra pure isn't that it's combining a body's natural aura of these types. The way the books stress it is that pure madra is what you get when you take everything else away or when you start with nothing at all, not leave a few human things mixed in to the right degree. It's just a blank human spirit, hence why almost everyone stops having pure madra early on in their life.

I didn't really stress it for this quest because none of the paths I'd designed for the protagonist were pure and I haven't had a strong concept for a pure madra path character to show up yet.

The fact that it's not made up of anything at all except "a human spirit" is why it has the benefits that it does have, which canon goes in depth on.

Click to shrink...

Okay good to know.

I have some theories that this is very close to how a lot of Arelius paths work. Tiberian Arelius' path is noted for being a water/wind/lightning path where he could adjust his mixture on the fly to bring forth one element more prominently.

If and when we meet some Arelius characters who aren't straight from canon, they will almost certainly have some tricks that lean into the sort of things I think you're thinking about. Things inspired by their Monarch's style and famous accomplishments I figure are often common in those close to a Monarch.

Click to shrink...

Meeting some Arelius would be interesting.

I'm not sure if and when we'll see more of this. It's part of the nebulous set of things that could show up after this arc, depending on how things shake out and as I firm up plans. The main source of information that Keras is currently aware of would be sources discussing the Bloody Lords, the Underlords who rose out of the Bronze Serpents to challenge the Seishen King in the First Pacification.

The Bloody Lords are such an acceptable social target as Universally Bad that they could be safely included in a children's storybook, though, so that's not a nice subject to look into.

Click to shrink...

It's not a taboo but it's still very much an unpopular subject to research with a stigma attached to it. I'd like to look into the Bloody Lords and other people who use Life and Death because it is an interesting type of path and it would be neat to see what other people do with that type combination.

I feel like Life and Death is sometimes used for slaughter artists. Not as common as Blood/Death, though. I've theorized before that you can probably make a Life/Death path work by emulating predators (in the same way Keras envisions themself as a scavenger).

Not quite sure what the benefit of the Life would be, since a slaughter artist isn't going to be a healer or gardener. Maybe a lot of Enforcer techniques, to use Life to reinforce the body? Except reinforcing the body seems to be a Blood thing. Life can probably reinforce lifelines, but canon is pretty unclear about the benefits of reinforcing your lifeline. Maybe it makes Lord advancements easier?

Click to shrink...

It's probably one of the less common slaughter artist paths combinations but still popular enough to be notable. Life for reinforcement and healing seems like what it would be used for sure Blood can do the same thing but some people would just prefer Life due to using it first or for whatever reason.

This is apparently what Northstrider does, in a "you are what you eat" interpretation, and his path is predominately Blood.
Speaking of-

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Northstrider also uses lots of Hunger stuff.

-if Life is opposite Destruction, then Blood may be the opposite of Death, making Death/Destruction the literal antithesis of the Bronze Serpents' Life/Blood Path.

Click to shrink...

Keras's thing is that they're realizing that Life and Death are inexorably linked together and are understanding each of those elements through that lense. It's also possible to shape elements in a certain way to oppose other elements I imagine having Blood be opposite to Death and Life opposite Destruction is totally possible.

Also just got thinking about if Enhol possibly uses methods that are inspired or sourced from the Bloody Lords.

 

[Queshire]

To be fair, this quest has stretched the idea of slaughter artists quite a bit from what we see in the series.

 

[Wiggy]

It's interesting to think of how a full scale war would work in Cradle rather than the more small scale dueling and skirmishing we mostly see in series. I imagine a large battle would have a bit of emphasis on ruler techniques given they're the go to aoe effect and how a large group of sacred artists would generate large amounts of aura in their fighting. I can picture entire teams of death or blood or sword artists on each side wrestling with each other for control of the ambient aura given off by the fighting so they can annihilate the enemy army with a massive attack while strike teams try to assassinate them to gain the advantage. It'd add another element for why most sects all tend to follow the same general path rather than branching out too far, since a hundred fire artists, like the brightflares maybe, all working together is going to create incredible amounts of fire aura to use against their foes.