Sup, horsefuckers. Working on a D&D campaign for mlp and

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Ok, let's start off slow.

What class would your waifu be?
>Pic Related

I think Trixie would be a bard. Lots of options, can do just about everything well enough, and enough charisma to sell her skills. If I were playing her I would roll valor and use her magic to supplement her in your face attitude and combat prowess.Rapier, no shield for style points, and her inspirations would be sarcastic quips, their biting nature spurring other characters to try to prove they are better than she is.

>>29012423
In my non-pony campaign I'm currently playing a zebra monk sent to the normal world of dnd for a yet unknown reason. Shit's cash.

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>>29012802

That's pretty sweet. How are monks? Haven't gotten to try one yet. What's the rest of your party like?

I'm in a game right now where shit has hit the fan to the tune of a thousand year old lich who was known for destroying cities for fun. Playing a griffin rogue, it's been pretty fun so far. I'm essentially a griffin version of solid snake+carl winslow.

>>29012423
The unicorns have a monarchy and noble caste system based on magical potential in bloodlines. Although they have powerful individual mages (such as Starswirl) they can't field a proper army. Since they are the only ones who can raise and lower the sun/moon, they can force a tithe of food from the earth pony state, and basically tie the hands of the Pegasi. Only a select council of powerful noble magi are taught this magic, and it is a closely guarded secret.

Pegasi are a mix of ancient Romans and Spaniards. They believe in martial skill above all else, and their leaders are chosen from within the military. This is mainly because the skies are still a very unfriendly place, with the constant threat of attack from pony-eating gryphons, colossal birds, and at worst dragons. However, this dangerous way of life has bred a society of meritocracy, where anyone of skill may climb ranks in military and society, and being of a noble lineage does not guarantee advancement.

The earth pony society is the newest, since only a few generations have passed since they were fully nomadic tribals, having to constantly be on the move to avoid predators. Eventually a visionary leader from within their tribes that transformed them into an agricultural society, leveraging their strong ties to the primal earth to grow their own food. However despite their great physical strength they are the most disadvantaged group, since pegasi may raid their settlements safely from the air and loot and kill as they please, and the unicorns can potentially ruin a harvest on a whim. This has lead to them becoming a peasant caste system which must provide food to the other two kingdoms as tribute to be left alone. This led to many dissatisfied earth ponies to abandon farming and create a vast merchant empire, which now acts as a sort of legitimate government similar to ancient Carthage.

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>>29012423
Here's a map I used to play RISK on /mlp/. Unfortunately, RISK threads aren't actually allowed and get deleted sometimes, and there wasn't too much interest in the threads, so it just kinda died off. This was just a few months ago, not back in the day when /mlp/ was into RISK threads.

If you want more maps like this, just go into deuarchive and search on /mlp/ with the word "equus" in the filename box

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So, here's the thing, OP. I am actually finishing up almost the exact thing you're describing.
1- takes place roughly 1500 years before the events of the show
2 - Equestria founded, but the Old Kingdoms still exist
3 - Planar travel is hard, due to 6 seals warding Equestria from interplanar travel, and completely sealing the plane off from the Far Realm.

The premise of the campaign was simple. It had 4 tiers:
1 - A conspiracy composed of movers and shakers in the Old Kingdoms, trying to break Equestria apart. They were partially manipulated by 2.
2 - The changelings. Led by Queen Chitina, they were silver in abdomen color, and fed on confusion. Chitina was driven insane by 3. She carried out terror attacks against Equestria, trying to cause as much chaos as possible.
3 - The Cult of Discord. There weren't that many of them, but they were trying to bring Discord in through the Seals by weakening them with a special ritual. Discord was less like in the show and more like a primal force for Chaos.
4 - Phyrexians. An outside context villain. They were supposed to spread their influence while the PCs focused on threats 1-3. They are really powerful and use technology more than magic.

The campaign itself is reaching its 2nd year, but is almost done. The players are Amelia Haukbrandr, the Griffon Paladin; Radiant Pine, Earth Pony Wizard; Crazy Heart, Earth Pony Barbarian; Danger Close, Pegasus Warlock; and Emerald Skies, Changeling Queen Sorcerer. There were a couple of others, like a changeling rogue, a unicorn bard, and a unicorn beguiler.

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>>29012832
Well, my monk has just been introduced, so I can't say I know how playing monk is like.

The rest of my party is ridiculous. We have:
A slavic LE Paladin with dreams of taking command of the main chaotic force of our campaign: the Daddy Horde

A CG Barbarian who pretty much just wants reknown and so far has played a very good foil to the above.

A LG (I think) short lizard cleric thing that was put in stasis inside the corpse of a past party member. He was one of the founding members of the campaign's force of good, the Pimpin' Preisthood.

Another CG paladin with a hard-on for discipline, who's in it for the money so he can fund his "school of dick moves".

My monk has no fucking clue what's going on.

>>29012906
Anyway, the campaign started with them chasing after the Conspiracy, but they were made aware of the final enemy too soon (thanks 2nd DM). Then the PCs started running around trying to accomplish too much in a short time. They ended up finding things like a Precursor bunker, rescuing Sunny Skies (proto Celestia) from changelings, and then the secret enemies; finding Starry Gaze (proto Luna), losing proto Luna to the final guys, managing to unite the races, blowing up a mountain full of Discord cultists, researching power armor, and more stuff that I'm forgetting because I'm currently in a D&D game.

I'm gonna link you to the:
Final Equestrian Disposition as they're about to launch the final attack on the final boss HQ:
http://pastebin.com/Mcdbv1Z0

and these are the haphazard notes I have on my desktop. I have more, and so do my players. I'd like to collect them at some point:
http://pastebin.com/UVMAFfv5

Anyway, doing a D&D campaign from start to finish (we did ours from level 2 to 20) is very rewarding.

Tails of Equestria is getting a full adventure! I was planning on running Lost Mine of Phandelver in the ToE system for some nor/mlp/eople, but I guess I'll run this instead

http://riverhorse.eu/the-curse-of-the-statuettes/


>>29012423
If the sisters aren't alicorns yet, you need to give an explanation for why they took over the role of the unicorn tribe in raising/lowering the sun/moon

Also, the show has said that the Royal Sisters themselves discovered the Elements (or rediscovered) /after/ they had ascended (in one of Twi's flashbacks from Princess Twilight Sparkle Part 2). You can explain this readily enough by casting aside the EoH as just a really powerful set of magical items. This will probably mess with headcanons, including my own, because the EoH are usually seen as an extremely powerful force, possibly even the basis for the existence of harmony itself. But this is way easier. Also, I suggest going with >>29012844. Very good interpretation, doesn't offer any radical headcanons. The sisters could be raised simply as very powerful mages trained by Starswirl because starswirl was hitting that marepussy, and invented a new spell twi became an alicorn after making a spell that made it easier to raise and lower the moon.

That's my suggestion

>>29012937
>>29012906

This is good, stuff. Sounds dark and a bit crazy at the same time. I know the feeling actually, I have a 3.5 game I'm running at the moment that's been going on for about that long. We're a handful of sessions from the final confrontation depending on what's going on.

Basically the mortal races and elves were at war, the mortals built a magical nuke and the intent was for it to only kill things with the immortal gene. It was sabataged and set off by elven interlopers though, killed most mortals, and horribly deformed the elves. The main city was saved due to an experimental magical technology meant to protect from outside attacks and powered by divine energy.

500 years later, the city is low on resources since they burned most casters as punishment and in desperation are sending people out into the world to see if it's safe to live in. Enter the party:

A NG human pit fighter who takes the job so her family won't starve, and to see just how good she is since the pits have become boring

A LG human Bard/warblade with a lust for a good story and a massive ego.

A CE orc Dragon Shaman who is tired of everyone hating him and just wants to go out and smash in peace.

A LE gnome warmage who just wants to grow his power in a world without casters and probably rule the world.

I started them at 5, we're at 16 now. The big bad is a wizard/cancer mage who wants to promote the taint left behind by the bomb and ruin normal life forever. He was actually released by the party, and made his appearance after holing up in the fighter for a while as a disease. She threw him up, and I think the character is really guilty about the whole thing.

>>29012981

>overcome terrifying danger and save ponyville, neigh the world!

Wordplay like this makes me moist. This also sounds pretty cool, I don't know Tails of Equestria.

I did think a lot about what roles the princesses would play if they weren't born as alicorns a lot. I like this interpretation. Could even give a sort of kingmaker quest to the whole thing if the players decide to take that route which could be fun for everyone if played right.

>>29013067

In my campaign, the Princesses were sisters, but were separated at birth. One of the religions that the Old Ponies believed in was of the Prophecy of the Two. Changelings kidnapped Sunny Skies. Starry Gaze was faked dead and sent off to friendly pirates. Sunny Skies was rescued by PCs, then kidnapped by Phyrexians. The PCs rescued her again. She was then killed by Phyrexians, but instead she Ascended and became an alicorn.

Starry Gaze was a friendly pirate and picked up by the PCs. She adventured with them for a bit and got kidnapped by Phyrexians. The PCs rescued her, but here's the thing - they exposed her to an artifact that induces psychic catatonia and nightmares. And each minute in proximity to the artifact is like a day. She was in contact with it for 20 hours. So now, she seeks to die in the final battle, so that she can Ascend.

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My own take on Alicorns, in the Pre-Celestial era:

More mythical than real to your average pony, both Unicorns and Pegasi view the alicorn as divine figures and the progenitor of their races, and their claim to divine heritage and sovereign rule. (King Platinum Blueblood famously claims that his bloodline can be traced back to the creation of the unicorn race by an Alicorn). Both species believe that through excellence one of their race may even be capable of transforming into one of these beings (hence the unicorns obsession with breeding magical bloodlines, and the pegasi to turn out only the most mighty of warriors)

Ancient Earth ponies on the other hand only recognize the Alicorns as being one aspect of a larger pantheon of earth and celestial spirits, while modern earth ponies have little concern for old superstitions anymore.

As for Alicorns themselves, it was believed that they once existed in greater numbers when the world was young, and in stories they take on the aspects of controlling all of the natural world - from raising the sun and moon, to controlling the weather, and even making the earth green and bountiful. Then for reasons unknown they left, presumably returning to the heavens.

Celestia and Luna may be the only original alicorns from that era left, and they are safely sequestered away in primal Equestria until the events of Hearthswarming Eve.

Alternatively, Celestia and Luna are the final products on the Unicorns experiments into creating Alicorns, bestowing a secret ritual unto two children of immense potential and destiny. Of course since they were not natural alicorns their powers are not quite as awe inspiring as the old legends.

>>29012423
>he elements exist, but have not been created/discovered yet.
if youre looking for headcanons, i got one for this.
where in traditional D&D you have evocation, illusion, etc, in equestria there seems to be two main ones. namely harmony magic and chaos magic. friendship would be a variant of harmony. this is also means there would exist elements of chaos.

honesty, loyalty, and the elements we know that make up the tree of harmony are but a small handful of the multitude that can exist. the tree was formed by somehow absorbing magic directly from a harmony ley line.

>The sisters exist, but aren't in power yet. May not even be alicorns at the moment
from the way lore is laid out, id guess they were born alicorns in a society where it wasnt all that unusual, but some huge event destroyed their society and they only escaped with the help of a practicing unicorn wizard who would later go on to become a legend. think of starswirl as a sort of khadgar figure from warcraft.

One bump, hopefully I wake up tomorrow to a full thread.

Thanks to those who gave ideas!

>>29012423
>The sisters exist, but aren't in power yet. May not even be alicorns at the moment, depending on what we come up with.
The sisters were always alicorns, as far as I know.

>>29012423
Is this intended to be prior to the migration south, or after it?

If it's after, a thing to think about is what lived in Equestria prior to all of the ponies rolling over everything. While land might be sparsely used, it wouldn't really make sense if a shitload of territory was just randomly empty for no reason.

I am/was part of a mod team for Crusader Kings II and we put a lot of deer in various places but never really got anywhere with it.

Don't forget about the Crystal Empire.

>>29012981
>If the sisters aren't alicorns yet, you need to give an explanation for why they took over the role of the unicorn tribe in raising/lowering the sun/moon
A possible answer was given by that journal thing they released; the sun/moon shit burns out a unicorn's magic, and, presumably because of the population decline from the whole frozen north shit, they just ran out of people to do it and it fell to them.
Same source also suggests >>29014018

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>>29014293
>Is this intended to be prior to the migration south, or after it?
No one migrated south, at least not en masse. The blizzards that overtook them were unnaturally produced by windigos, fueled by the tensions and hatred that had been mounting between the tribes for years, rather than an endemic feature of the north.

>>29014728
But the ponies migrated by foot (or hoof), and the only part on the Equestrian map that isn't facing the ocean is the Frozen North

>>29014741
The only mention of migration is the part where Spike says, "Once upon a time, long before the peaceful rule of Celestia, and before ponies discovered our beautiful land of Equestria..." Which could refer to the full scope of Equestria (i.e. before they discovered it all, from coast to coast), or it could just be an oversight.

Remember that building in the frozen north was the Crystal Empire's weird little thing, and even that was only possible because of the Crystal Heart.

Alright OP, lets say that Ive never played any pen&paper rpg, but really wanted to get into it for a few years.
What materials would I have to read and understand in order to participate in that campaign of yours?

>>29014755
(cont.)
On second thought, it probably just means that the place where Equestria was to be founded -- its birthplace -- hadn't been discovered yet. This has no bearing on modern-day Equestria, which has expanded outward to cover at least all of the warm regions of the continent.

In sum, they probably migrated to Equestria's central cradle from some area that would later be reabsorbed by the nation's growing borders. That could honestly be anywhere in modern-day Equestria.

(It's also possible they came from the west, but that area was shown with acacias and wide savannas on the cutie map, meaning it's most likely zebra territory. Here's hoping we get an updated map with S7 and/or the movie.)

>>29014828
He said 5th edition, so you would need a 5E D&D Player's Handbook.

>>29014828

5e player's handbook is really all you need. My group has also been using the races from this:

http://fav.me/d8493z3