The Quest for Sunbutt's Jewelry · 12:55am May 25th, 2014
"I'm not saying it's Applejack but it's definitely Applejack."
Twice a week, for fourteen months, myself and four other writers got together to play a little game of D&D. With ponies. For most of them, it was their first time playing D&D. For me, it was my first time running a D&D game that prominently featured candy colored horses. Each session lasted six hours—from 3:00 PM to 9:00 PM, and in total, we each sunk almost 600 hours of our lives into the campaign that resulted.
Normally, this is where I'd start the moral about making sure you spend your time wisely, but that game was incredible. We told a damn fine story. A story you can now read, thanks to the efforts of Pav, one of the players.
Taking place 100 years after Nightmare Moon's banishment (the "day of darkness") the game focuses around five ponies looking to win fortune and glory in the eyes of Celestia by retrieving her lost raiment—her hoofboots, her crown, and her necklace. It portrays an Equestria very different from the one in the show—a world rife with racial tension, worrying undertones, and where the Blueblood name is associated with intelligence and charm. Truely, it is a dark mirror to all that we have seen.
Yes. Exactly like that.
While the game started like many of my D&D games have, it soon took off on its own. Pav, Ether Echoes, ADragonDreaming, and Warmblood really showed off their grasp of good storytelling, and developed their characters beautifully over the course of the campaign. They repeatedly surprised me in the best way. When the campaign ended, it was a sentimental moment for all of us. We'd spent over a year working together on what was really a collaborative writing project, and we'd gotten to like all the wonderful characters we'd created.
And then for some reason we posted them on the internet so everyone could hate them. Not sure what we were thinking there. But anyway! Quest for Celestia's Raiment will now be updating weekly as new sessions are novelized, right alongside Daring Do. Enjoy!
3AM to 9PM, huh? That's some dedication.
2142494
Doh!
3PM to 9PM. >_<
Six hour session. Not eighteen.
2142494 Yeah, and WAY over 6 hours. thats like, like, umm... *Counts with fingers* 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 Like, 18 hours.
Does it ever reference the events of Heralds of Luna?
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Actually, Herald's of Luna is the game we're running now. IE, the prequel to Celestia's Raiment! So it would be more accurate to say HoL references QfCR.
2142537 Ohhh! I thought you were just publishing another tabletop adventure without finishing the first. This clears things up!
Jaxie.
*Jewelry.
2142698
I will destroy you.
2142706
You will try. But we both know you will fail.
I can't wait to be surprised by all the plot twists, riddles, and clever interpretations!
Wasn't this supposed to be a non-pony rewrite of the campaign?
2143108
Oh, I'm sorry. You're thinking of indie games. In D&D, instead of cleverness, we use violence. And instead of violence, we use more violence.
And, Pav is the one novelizing the game. All pony all the time!
2143123
You give us 600 hours, we'll give you the raiment.
Any updates on IFIWT? Just a... mild curiosity. Discarded outlines, passing thoughts, hallucinations of purple unicorns arguing with themselves, etc.
2143184
Actually, yes! Just this week, I had a breakthrough on how I'm going to finish it and got through the logjam that has been plaguing me.
Expect it to be finished by the end of June.
2143202
Well that was unexpected. Even more so that there's possibly a sane ending to it. I look forward to it!
2142494
2142499
>eighteen hours
>eighteen hours
>eighteen hours
Can we can we can we?
24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_los1oy7Xzh1qdxv6qo1_400.png
2142605
But from a RL perspective, HoL is our second D&D session, with the same GM and players. Given how positively delightful QfCR was over this past year, a) we knew we needed to upload this beast, and b) we were stoked to repeat the magic. Of course, conflicting schedules have been preventing us from running HoL for the past three Sundays, thus the lack of updates 
But the good news is, Daring Do will be updating weekly as Jax writes it, QfCR will be updating weekly as I churn through the logs and convert them to prose, and HoL will update as fast as we can actually schedule sessions for it.
Yuppers! HoL is chronologically 100 years before QfCR, since the former is just after Discord's imprisonment and the latter is... err... 100 years after
2142698
2142706
Pav: Jax I'm sry :(
Pav: I can't translate QfCR. It's going to be way harder than I thought.
Jaxie: Nooo :( Why is it harder than you thought?
Pav: (she)
Jaxie: ...I hate you so much.
Why didn't you record this?! (With their consent of course, if they didn't then that makes sense.)
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I did record it! We did it online. That's where the novelization comes from!