Nightmare Rarity: Surrender, peasants! Your efforts against my army are in vain!
Granny Smith: Really? Cuz over there looks like your long-due butt-whoopin'.
(beat)
Nightmare Rarity: The dragon? And that's...
Shadowfright: Ooooof course.
Nightmare Rarity: Is that all? Our loyal guard is probably just bringing him to me to be sentenced.
Spike: Oh, really? Got something you want to say to that, Jerome?
Jerome: I'm done being a guard! As well as... being a nightmare!
Pinkie Pie: Did somepony here order the purifying power of friendship??
Princess Luna: Comrades! You made it!
Rainbow Dash: Nice job buying us time to save you!
Applejack: ...Why are you back to normal?
Princess Luna: Not now!
SFX: (WHOOSH)
Shadowfright: No! NO!
SFX: (BAM)
Larry: ...huh?
Twilight Sparkle: So there's no real nightmare army. Just one big one.
Applejack: And it's still got our Rogue. Let's do this!
Nightmare Rarity: No!
SFX: (ZAP)
Princess Luna: So the moon folk I corrupted resurrected the essence of my old anger? I knew I was forgetting something...
The Nightmare Moon-centric FIENDship is Magic comic issue does a neat little band-aid job of putting the evil back into her step. That said, it also introduces the adorable little plot hole of Luna, immediately post-reformation, thinking to herself, "Okay, when exactly do I tell Celestia about the army of corrupted natives of the moon, who are probably now wondering where their glorious leader disappeared to?"
I came to a stunning realization this week. The elements of Harmony, when targeting evil, are a Prismatic Spray. I mean, one option is apparently to turn them to stone, and another is to send to another plane (or moon).
Everything makes so much sense now! So let's see, we've got banishment, turning to stone, and curing insanity (I guess that's the good-aligned version of causing insanity). Statistically speaking we'll need to use our ultimate magic on a lot more villains before we see all the effects though.
Not really. There was the occasional NPC ally gets hit with a Charm spell and the players slap them out of it (or drop a dispel), but nothing really notable.
The trouble with it is that I loathe to hit players with Charm spells, because I feel it takes away control of their character. I stick to illusions for messing with their heads.
The only time I remember that there was a controlling magic item, the party, instead of doing "I know you are in there." and trying to save the character, was the ones to put the controlling magic item on them.
Our Good party had been summoned by Ba'al and offered a reward for becoming his underlings and collecting the Regalia of Evil for him. He already had the Gauntlet of Evil. Almost all the party accepted, which switched their alignment to evil. I was playing the LG monk, and I decided that it was against my alignment and personality to want to switch to evil. I noted OOC would not mind becoming evil, but my character would. So...the rest of the party grappled me and forced the first of the Regalia of Evil on me. I was turned evil by it. As well, it now meant I was the Regalia of Evil Champion for the party now. And the most powerful member. Sometimes sticking to your alignment has its rewards.
My party got mind controlled by Celestia once, because they were causing havoc during my absence. My attempt to bring them back was fruitless through diplomacy (since they never did diplomacy), which left one choice for me.
No, it wasn't fighting them, but to appeal to Celestia for them to be freed (they were there because Celestia had them there in case I did something dumb). She asked me if they were still worth fighting for, despite all of the chaos they created. That made me say that I was willing to die for them cause they aren't that bad (especially since they did help me save my village a few sessions back). She dared me to prove the statement.
I brought my blunderbuss out and point-blank shot my own leg off. Celestia failed to keep her concentration higher then the groups will save for that one. The group, despite their now hatred for Celestia, immediately got me to a hospital so I wouldn't bleed out, to which case they started volleying me with criticisms about me shooting myself. In the end I did get to keep my character cause Celestia did feel bad about my extreme reaction to her dare, and she sent me a set prosthetic legs as an apology (although, the rest of the team has designated a roster of people to watch me, just in case).
No one plays a psyker, so we don't have to worry about Daemonhosts very often. Maybe I'll throw some kind of posessing entity into an upcoming session of my 5e pony game.
Not really. I'm flying by the seat of my pants using outdated 3.5 campaign notes I never got to use, and despite my consummate procrastination and utter failure to prepare any rails for getting to the dungeon session 1 was a complete success. Apparently, "When in doubt, introduce the party to an adorable little filly" is a good strategy for winging it.
Well, I have no idea whether I was balancing properly because they're all level 1 and two of them are mulching monsters with Finesse weapons backed by 20 Dex and dodging counterattacks, but we had fun.
I guess I'd say to formalize stats for the playable races ahead of time, and pick your setting. We're using one spawned from a story on /mlp/.
I'd suggest naming NPCs ahead of time, but I kinda enjoy making up pony names on the fly. Peach Blossom and Brick Wall seemed apt for residents of a trading post.
I'm playing an Idiot Bard, whose Wisdom went up post-coitus with a dragon (long story, already posted), so he now has a baby dragon familiar/son who can sing. Our Sorcerer went evil after being ensorcelled by one of the souls or something. He smote the Big Bad, and became an even Bigger Bad.
I then proceeded to Perform Dance and Sing (after crashing through his throne room's large windows with my dragon), and got into a song-and-dance battle with him.
Literally speaking, he's Charmed to sing and dance, while still slinging spells at me... which I nimbly dance and weave around, my dragon acting as the background singer, until the Sorcerer fails two will-saves in a row, the second one a crit-fail, and the soul/demon possessing him is no longer in control, but still within him. The sorcerer's unable to stop his megaspell from launching, so instead he changes it.
Instead of destroying the world, and turning it into a hellscape, he practically creates Eden, at the cost of his own life. No one outside our party (and the Gods) knows he was the one about to destroy us all, everyone thinks he and my bard fought the bad guy till he died and, seeing no alternative, he sacrificed himself for the good of all. While true, it's very much edited from reality.
As a relative newcomer to the MLP fandom, I do find it amusing how many times Princess Celestia tends to take a back seat and let everypony else do her dirty work for her (like she seemed to do in this comic). Not a criticism, just an observation.
A common complaint in many RPGs is about how the powerful NPC isn't dealing with the problem himself.
My standard answer is that he is dealing with the problem: He is deploying resources in the form of followers and/or wealth, (i.e. he ordered or hired the PCs to deal with the problem).
Many fanon interpretations also give Celestia a very good reason for wanting to stay on the sidelines: Her fighting at anything near full capacity causes a lot of collateral damage and it's all too easy for her to dial it back too much when trying to avoid this[1].
[1] As in: "Yes I could have easily defeated Chrysalis but I didn't want to put a hole clean through the Canterhorn."
Celestia in the IDW comic explains that she sees herself as a teacher to her subjects. She could easily resolve a lot of issues herself, but she chooses instead to teach her subjects to take care of it themselves so that they can be self-reliant.
Basically the idiom of "Give someone a fish vs. Teach someone to fish"
Yeah, the whole "they need to learn how to do these things themselves" is what I figured is Celestia's modus operandi in cases like this, more so in the TV series where Twilight is concerned. And admittedly having someone powerful fix everything makes for a boring plot anyway.
There is suddenly a lot of trouble in Equestria: the return of Nightmare Moon, Discord, Tirek, and Sombra, the appearance of the Changelings, and lots of other problems. A lot of that may have been prophesied, even if only in a vague "time of troubles" sort of way.
She has what amounts to a weapon of mass destruction, but using it alone is challenging even for her, and she can't neglect her duties regarding the sun or everyone dies, anyway.
So she takes on a protege, to prepare them to eventually take over the Element of Magic. First, Sunset Shimmer, then Twilight Sparkle.
But you can't just hand over the Elements and tell someone "point this bit at the enemy and push this bit". It has to be understood. It's very much a ruby slipper sort of thing (though unlike Glenda, Celestia isn't manipulating Twilight to get rid of her rivals).
Celestia is still very powerful, but she has handed most of her direct "oomph" over to Twilight out of necessity.
In all those years before Sunset then Twilight, she may well have been "of Explosion" too. Why is it that Equestria, despite apparently knowing relative peace and unity for 1,000 years between Luna's banishment and return, did not advance beyond recognition? (Beyond plot needs.) If it kept rebuilding from Celestia's necessary reactions to threats and invaders, made less necessary now thanks to Luna's, Twilight's, and Cadance's assistance, that would explain things.
There's a fair bit of fan work that implies that all the stubborn, proud, and resilient nature the Apples are known for (and combat skill in several cases), Granny Smith was all that and then some in her prime; seeds of this is obviously planted from works like this, and her actions we get to see in the show (such as the Zap Apple ritual that poor Bloom didn't understand and felt embarrassed about, in the beginning).
That IS what she meant when she said she likes having a stable full of Mustangs and Broncos, right?
The trouble with it is that I loathe to hit players with Charm spells, because I feel it takes away control of their character. I stick to illusions for messing with their heads.
The only time I remember that there was a controlling magic item, the party, instead of doing "I know you are in there." and trying to save the character, was the ones to put the controlling magic item on them.
Our Good party had been summoned by Ba'al and offered a reward for becoming his underlings and collecting the Regalia of Evil for him. He already had the Gauntlet of Evil. Almost all the party accepted, which switched their alignment to evil. I was playing the LG monk, and I decided that it was against my alignment and personality to want to switch to evil. I noted OOC would not mind becoming evil, but my character would. So...the rest of the party grappled me and forced the first of the Regalia of Evil on me. I was turned evil by it. As well, it now meant I was the Regalia of Evil Champion for the party now. And the most powerful member. Sometimes sticking to your alignment has its rewards.
No, it wasn't fighting them, but to appeal to Celestia for them to be freed (they were there because Celestia had them there in case I did something dumb). She asked me if they were still worth fighting for, despite all of the chaos they created. That made me say that I was willing to die for them cause they aren't that bad (especially since they did help me save my village a few sessions back). She dared me to prove the statement.
I brought my blunderbuss out and point-blank shot my own leg off. Celestia failed to keep her concentration higher then the groups will save for that one. The group, despite their now hatred for Celestia, immediately got me to a hospital so I wouldn't bleed out, to which case they started volleying me with criticisms about me shooting myself. In the end I did get to keep my character cause Celestia did feel bad about my extreme reaction to her dare, and she sent me a set prosthetic legs as an apology (although, the rest of the team has designated a roster of people to watch me, just in case).
Well, I have no idea whether I was balancing properly because they're all level 1 and two of them are mulching monsters with Finesse weapons backed by 20 Dex and dodging counterattacks, but we had fun.
I guess I'd say to formalize stats for the playable races ahead of time, and pick your setting. We're using one spawned from a story on /mlp/.
I'd suggest naming NPCs ahead of time, but I kinda enjoy making up pony names on the fly. Peach Blossom and Brick Wall seemed apt for residents of a trading post.
I then proceeded to Perform Dance and Sing (after crashing through his throne room's large windows with my dragon), and got into a song-and-dance battle with him.
Literally speaking, he's Charmed to sing and dance, while still slinging spells at me... which I nimbly dance and weave around, my dragon acting as the background singer, until the Sorcerer fails two will-saves in a row, the second one a crit-fail, and the soul/demon possessing him is no longer in control, but still within him. The sorcerer's unable to stop his megaspell from launching, so instead he changes it.
Instead of destroying the world, and turning it into a hellscape, he practically creates Eden, at the cost of his own life. No one outside our party (and the Gods) knows he was the one about to destroy us all, everyone thinks he and my bard fought the bad guy till he died and, seeing no alternative, he sacrificed himself for the good of all. While true, it's very much edited from reality.
She actually explains why she does this in one of the Friends Forever comics.
My standard answer is that he is dealing with the problem: He is deploying resources in the form of followers and/or wealth, (i.e. he ordered or hired the PCs to deal with the problem).
Many fanon interpretations also give Celestia a very good reason for wanting to stay on the sidelines: Her fighting at anything near full capacity causes a lot of collateral damage and it's all too easy for her to dial it back too much when trying to avoid this[1].
[1] As in: "Yes I could have easily defeated Chrysalis but I didn't want to put a hole clean through the Canterhorn."
Basically the idiom of "Give someone a fish vs. Teach someone to fish"
It's an idea I can agree with.
There is suddenly a lot of trouble in Equestria: the return of Nightmare Moon, Discord, Tirek, and Sombra, the appearance of the Changelings, and lots of other problems. A lot of that may have been prophesied, even if only in a vague "time of troubles" sort of way.
She has what amounts to a weapon of mass destruction, but using it alone is challenging even for her, and she can't neglect her duties regarding the sun or everyone dies, anyway.
So she takes on a protege, to prepare them to eventually take over the Element of Magic. First, Sunset Shimmer, then Twilight Sparkle.
But you can't just hand over the Elements and tell someone "point this bit at the enemy and push this bit". It has to be understood. It's very much a ruby slipper sort of thing (though unlike Glenda, Celestia isn't manipulating Twilight to get rid of her rivals).
Celestia is still very powerful, but she has handed most of her direct "oomph" over to Twilight out of necessity.