"Reaping Rainbow" Lost Lore: The Necromancer's War · 5:38pm Dec 15th, 2019
In Reaping Rainbow, mention is made of "The Necromancer's War." Believe it or not, but it's actually a concept I had for a story that never came to be. Today I thought I'd share what could have been...
While the Necromancer's War is only mentioned in RR, it was going to be a major backdrop for a story I envisioned around the end of Season 7 called "The Warrior." In it, archaeologists would discover the ancient ruins of a temple buried under a hill. Inside the temple, magically sealed inside a sarcophagus, they'd find a unicorn warrior in suspended animation. The warrior, named Steinhart, was a towering, bearded warrior who wielded a gigantic claymore engraved with magical runes and was a member of one of the most legendary units in the conflict known as the Necromancer's War.
This is the type of thing I was envisioning, only more pony-like.
Steinhart, better known as "The Deathbringer" for his skills at putting down hordes of the undead, would be brought to Twilight to help her fill in the history of the war, as not even Celestia was fully aware of everything that happened or how it ended.
Briefly, the Necromancer's War occurred about 200 years after Luna's banishment. A dark sorcerer learned the secrets of necromancy and transformed himself into a lich. With his new powers and his mind corrupted by evil, he began a campaign across Equestria, resurrecting the dead to serve as his army, slaughtering outposts and villages on the outskirts of the young nation until he had enough undead to conquer it. Discovering the threat, Celestia sent the Equestrian military and called upon ponies across the land to enlist. Steinhart heeded the call.
Unfortunately, necromancy was poorly understood, and ponies soon discovered that zombies were quite difficult to permanently kill, and any ponies who perished fighting them would only cause their ranks to swell. Normally, the only way to permanently kill a zombie is to decapitate it or cause severe trauma to its head, like with an arrow or blast of magic. Steinhart, however, came from a remote village that knew how to create magically enchanted weapons by engraving them with runes. These runic weapons could kill a zombie and dispel necrotic energy, but they were costly and time-consuming to create. By sharing his knowledge with Canterlot, however, a number of weapons were created, and so Steinhart was put in charge an elite squadron of undead hunters. Together, they would lead first strikes that helped turn the tide of war.
Eventually, Steinhart himself would infiltrate the lich's temple and slay him after a great struggle, but the damage from the battle would cause the temple to begin to collapse, and so Steinhart took refuge in a sarcophagus to avoid being crushed, not knowing that it was enchanted and would freeze him in suspended animation for the next 800 years.
Yeah, might have been playing a bit too much Doom (2016) at the time...
The rest of the story would focus on how Steinhart would recount his tales for ponies and astonish them with his tales of bravery... only for him to start to show signs of distress. Twilight would catch him staring off into space around her castle, hear him screaming in terror at night, and catch him in private having emotional breakdowns. It would turn out that he experienced horrifying things during the Necromancer's War that he'd never shared and that history had scarcely covered.
His home village had been attacked by the undead, and he'd been forced to purify it. In other words, he'd had to kill his undead friends, neighbors, and family to release them from servitude to the lich. All his comrades who'd fought alongside him with their own runic weapons had also perished, including a beautiful pegasus archer he'd fallen in love with. The violence of his battles left him so jumpy that anything that triggered memories of them sent him into a panic.
In short, Steinhart would be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but in his time such mental traumas were poorly understood and labeled as cowardice. Thus, Steinhart did his best to conceal his symptoms, suffering privately rather than risk tarnishing his honor or ruining his reputation as "The Deathbringer." Twilight would encourage him to seek help, however, and reassure him that he was not a coward for doing so. The story would end happily, with Steinhart finally admitting his trauma and starting to heal from it.
I had planned to release the story on Veteran's Day to bring attention to veterans suffering from PTSD. The title was an allusion to the concept of the "wounded warrior," and links to charities who help veterans with physical injuries or mental traumas would have been included.
So, why did this story never come together? Well, part of it is just that the concept was a bit too dark for me: I don't mind darker MLP stories, but I personally feel a bit self-conscious writing them. I honestly worried about including zombies and other dark elements in Reaping Rainbow but did it anyway because the story is, after all, a comedy, and didn't need to take itself quite as seriously as what "The Warrior" would have been.
Another reason for the story's cancelation is that, honestly, it felt a bit too similar to stories about the Pillars of Old Equestria, Rockhoof in particular. With a similar name and character and the motif of fitting in the modern age featured in the episode "Between a Rockhoof and a Hard Place," I just felt the idea wasn't as novel as it could have been and just eventually lost interest and moved on to other projects.
Still, the concept of the Necromancer's War was an interesting one, and so it got something of a "resurrection" in Reaping Rainbow.
And, it being the holidays, I suppose it's also an ideal time to give to charity, so if you liked the charity idea and also want to help the brave men and women who've served, here's a link to some of the highest-rated military charities. If you make a donation, I suggest one of their four-star rated ones, as they do the most with their money and are the most transparent.
Much love to you all, and here's hoping I can complete another special for this year's Hearth's Warming. 
Sounds cool. can I use a prompt like this for a story?
As I recall they even kind of covered PTSD a bit with Rockhoof?
Anyway, though, thanks for the information and the good work you do. :)
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I don't see why not.
Dang, I kind of wish that had gotten written. I really like the concept, and the delve into a darker side of Equestria. You know ya boy likes it dark.
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Yeah, part of me regrets not writing it as well, but I think I've moved on from the idea too much to really give it the attention it deserves.