Understanding kelpies in The Chase · 5:55pm Jun 9th, 2014
Kelpies in The Chase are going to remain somewhat mysterious in story, but I feel I owe it to the reader to flesh them out. They are nearly extinct and very little is known about those left.
Kelpies are viewed as naturally promiscuous creatures. This isn't exactly true, but they did develop a history of sleeping around, causing disharmony, and committing adultery. The reasons for this are simple. If a kelpie breeds with somepony that has kelpie ancestry, no kelpie is formed. So if one stallion is a dud, they move on to another. Because of this behaviour, people poisoned the kelpies' watery homes and drove them out. They are only barely tolerated upon the Isles due to ponies like Keg Smasher enforcing brutal laws about their protection.
If breeding with a pony that had no kelpie stock, they will produce a kelpie every time. Female, kelpie, with traits of both parents. I'll leave you to speculate what that means exactly, the traits of both parents.
Bucky has no kelpie ancestry. Ponder this.
Kelpies nearly went extinct for a lot of reasons, water pollution as Equestria industrialised being one of them.
Yes, the flowers that will grow in Thistle's mane will act as a sexual attractant. Kelpies are siren-like creatures, only kelpies want to attract males to keep breeding and continue their species. Over time, with a viable breeding partner, the flowers will specialise to attract one male in particular, the one that keeps producing viable kelpie offspring.
Kelpies are carnivores. While they can eat vegetable matter, it doesn't do them a lot of good and they don't get much from it. They are capable of eating more than fish, going on land, seizing an animal like a deer, and then dragging it into the water to drown it.
Also, all kelpies exhibit the ability to control water to some degree, some far more than others. Never splash a kelpie, it's rude, and you wouldn't like it if they splashed back.
Wait, how can non-kelpies have kelpie ancestry if breeding with one with no kelpie ancestry always results in a kelpie?
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Kelpies can crossbreed with other creatures and said crossbreeding could introduce kelpie stock into viable bloodlines when the crossbreeds interact with ponies.
In my universes, crossbreeding is possible with anything.
Chimeras are the results.
Great... now I really, really want to see a kelpie Sombra!
...scratch that. I want to see a waterbenidng kelpie Sombra!
Huh. I guess the biggest question here is how widespread kelpie ancestry is. And how much of it is needed to disqualify a pony. Is it genetic, and thus can fade after sufficient generational dilution, or is even one kelpie in the family tree too many?
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In the cannon I've created, it fades over time.
Thistle and her children will repopulate the mainland. Slowly.
Environmentalism will spring up because of this, and major polluters like Manehatten will have to be dealt with.
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It would almost have to, since, if it didn't, Kelpies would eventually die out anyway, because eventually everypony would have at least one Kelpie ancestor and thus would be nonviable for continuing the race.
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If
I don't get it.
Kelpie x Pony always produces a Kelpie then how can you have ponies with Kelpie ancestry?
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Read comments.
how would they cause water pollution? theri world is run by magic. wouldn't technological advancement be done using magic?
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Sewage, trash, alchemical leftovers of a highly toxic nature, etc.
2212162 weird......
reminds me of some weird fanfic i read once where there is a backstory about basically pony cia creating a false threat called Kelpie.......... it ended in a rather humiliating manner for them.
There's still something I don't like about kelpies, but yours are an exception. It's obvious that you put a lot of time into creating them and Thistle is well executed. Some of the genetics seem off to me, but I'm not a biologist so they could easily just be way above my level of understanding. Overall, you're doing a job with them abd I want to see where you take the them.
Awwh man! I wanted to do something with Kelpies. Oh well.
lol, I study biology, and the science behind this is very iffy... but I love it. It's a magical world where dragons love ponies and unicorns use magic. There is no way to assume that they have the same rules to their genetics or whether genetics applies to them at all. Kudzu... keep making awesome character profiles please!!
I won't lie... I thought about Kelpies and the whole breeding thing, I got really depressed D:
But I like the idea behind them, they're really neat!