Comments on: Mantis-kinden, by David Mumford

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Adrian Tchaikovsky — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:35:45 +0000

Open to interpretation, I guess. Perhaps it varies individual to individual.

By: blundering beetle

blundering beetle — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:10:02 +0000

i kind of imagined the spine going the opposite way, according to the american cover of blood of the mantis, with tisamon on it.

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Adrian Tchaikovsky — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 19:20:49 +0000

Reply @ Low — very similar, except the angle of the blade can be angled with the hand (or even folded back) — so a little like a katar/push dagger built into a gauntlet.

They should probably come with some manner of health warning if you're not a Mantis-kinden…

By: low

low — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 20:31:24 +0000

So the claw is sort of like a Indian pata.

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Adrian Tchaikovsky — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 17:18:20 +0000

The "claw" is a gauntlet with a metal blade fixed to jut between or over the fingers, with a crossbar for grip — there are no real moving parts (and just as well). Pistol Shrimp-kinden almost certainly exist as a subset of the Swiftclaw lot, and a sonic attack Art seems appealing

By: low

low — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:40:15 +0000

I know you've touch on this a lot but I'm still confused about the mantis claw. It's a gauntlet, does that mean that it has articulated fingers and is the claw hinged? Also, those undersea pugilist are cool. I had a hard time finding out what their totem "insect" was. At first I thought they were lobsters. Little disappointed that there were no pistol shrimps though, come on a giant claw that shoots sonic blast. (I thought this was the appropriate place to put them seeing as they are "cousins " to the mantises.)

By: Moon Kim

Moon Kim — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 02:11:36 +0000

Thanks for the reply, now to mull over why just lowlanders… Also is Chosen of the marsh a weaponmaster in a different name? Since they wouldn't even known Parosyl would even exist.

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Adrian Tchaikovsky — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 21:41:51 +0000

The Marsh-folk have very similar Art to their Lowlander relatives, but the Spider-hatred is definitely just a Lowlander thing.

By: Moon

Moon — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 05:10:37 +0000

Just a quick question, after reading the scarab path i found out something interesting. The marsh based mantids have no idea that their lowlander cousins exits right? Does it mean they do not have the kinden hatred towards spiders? And also would they posses somewhat different arts than other mantids seeing as a marshland is different from a forest

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 20:10:26 +0000

I know you've said it twice Adrian, but I always envisioned it as a fully bladed Kama.

Love your work man, currently on "Blood of the Mantis", and can't read fast enough!