A Sunney Towne History · 8:47pm Aug 14th, 2016
Introduction:
I've been writing a lot about Sunney Towne (my spelling), the ghost village created in Story of the Blanks, so I thought a history, genealogy and character listing would be useful. This post has the history
I. Origins of Sunney Towne:
The story begins in Pie Towne, which was on the Big Muddy between modern-day Nickerlite and South Dunnich, the settlement founded almost 1000 BTH by Petros Pita ("Rock Pie" in Equestrian) and Surprise, the Formerly Undying, of Paradise Estate. Some 1450 years later -- around YOH 470, or 1,030 years before the start of the Show, a number of Ponies from prominent failies of the town, including the Pies, Hoofs, Gifts, Leafs, Stars, and Nias, suffered from the genetic condition of Adermosignia, or Adult Blank Flank Syndrome as it is called today.
This was the Century of Disaster. Equestria was approaching a major crisis from several directions. The weather was worsening, banditry and plagues were rife, and civil order was starting to break down. Superstitions spread, and adult blank flanks might be scorned or hated as freaks. The leading families of Pie Towne pooled their resources, and petitioned Princess Celestia for the charter to build their own town, which would be inhabited principally by adermosigmatics.
In YOH 475 Celestia granted them their charter. In YOH 476, a party of settlers from Pie Towne crossed to the southeastern shores of the confluence of the Avalon and Muddy into the Motherwater, and founded Sunney Towne.
The new settlement was to suffer a horrible fate.
II. History: The leading family of Sunney Towne was the Hoofs. The original leader of the colonization project was Peacelandia ("Peasy") Hoof (401-476), who was an old mare -- a great-grandmother -- at the time that the project was launched. She died of disease in Riverbridge in 476, and never got to see her town built. The settlement was named "Sunney Towne" in honor of Princess Celestia, who had granted them the land.
Her daughter, Pretty Hoof (418-490) who was married to the rich and influential Blanken Pie (424-481) then led the construction and became the headmare of Sunney Towne. Under her the village doubled from around 100 original colonists to about 200 settlers, and seemed to bid fair to become a real town as its name optimistically implied.
Then the Plagues struck.
The Sweating-Sickness hit Sunney Towne in 485 and carried off dozens of Ponies, including Starshine (the first wife of Pretty Hoof's grandson Grey Hoof and the mother of Starlet, who fell ill and lingered until 486). Pretty Hoof was one of the many more who fell ill and never fully recovered. Pretty Hoof lingered until YOH 490, but the duties of headmare were increasingly taken up by her daughter Dainty Hoof (440-498), who had wed Grayneo (424-476) and hence had kin among the Crystal-Imperial descended Nia clan.
Dainty Hoof was a competent though somewhat snobbish leader, and the population, which had fallen to about 100 owing both to death and disaffection, began to climb back up again.
There were occasional problems with bandit raids, but these stopped after a particularly dangerous raid in 491, which might have killed Grey Hoof's second wife Mitta Gift (465-500) and her daughter Ruby Gift (485-500), was beaten off by Grey Hoof and three of his companions -- Greyfeather Pie, Bluff Crawford and Mouse Baker (438-500). Grey Hoof instituted a Towne Watch, and led patrols of the roads to discourage future banditry.
Then, in 496, came the Mark-Pox. The worst of the Plagues which spread at the end of the Century of Disaster, this distorted Marks. Marked adults were the most vulnerable to it, but Blank children and adult Adermosignatics could fall victim as well. About 30 Ponies -- 1/6 of the village's population -- died immediately. Almost 30 more died in the next year or two. One of those who fell ill was Dainty Hoof. Grey Hoof blamed himself, because he had feasted the carrier who brought the Pox to town.
That same year, Ruby Gift (aged 11) was befriended by Luna. She became one of the friends who helped keep Luna sane after she had been broken by Sombra. Luna favored her, and it was understood that she might expect a commission in the Night Watch, eventually in Luna's Loyal Band -- her elite personal guard unit.
From 496 to 498, Dainty Hoof declined, and Grey Hoof (462-500) took up the reins of leadership. The combined strain of leadership, fear for his mother's life, and his sense of guilt for the Pox, drove Grey Hoof slowly mad. By 498, when he became headpony, Grey Hoof was almost certainly a neurotic paranoid, with increasing psychotic tendencies as he began to break under the strain.
He became increasingly hostile to outsiders, and to the Marked in general. He began to imagine that he had a special Talent to see the Pox, and that it might be seen in the Marks of others. His wife Mitta, and his longtime lover, the lifeweaver Three Leaf (464-500), an old friend of Mitta's whom Mitta wanted Grey Hoof to take as his second-wife in a Morgan-Marriage, tried to soothe his growing madness, but were inadequate to the task, though Three Leaf as a healer was able to compound teas that soothed the most dangerously violent expressions of his insanity.
The details are murky, but in at least one case Grey Hoof, aided by his eldest and bastard son Gladstone (478-500), whom Three Leaf had borne before Grey Hoof wed Starshine, probably murdered a couple of harmless traders because he believed that they bore the Pox. Gladstone, who desired his father's approval above all else, was himself Marked but repeatedly maimed himself to prevent his Marks from showing. Gladstone would do literally anything to please Grey Hoof, and himself had sadistically-violent tendencies perhaps worse than Grey Hoof's own.
Sunney Towne grew impoverished as trade dropped off. More Ponies, including Greyfeather Pie, left for other communities. Grey Hoof was lashed by the awareness that he was failing as a leader, which further eroded his sanity.
As Grey Hoof descended into murderous madness, he resented anything that might endanger his dominance over his family. He did not mind the obvious love of his elder daughter Starlet (482-500) for Roneo (481-500), one of his own cousins twice removed, through Grey Hoof's own father Greyneo, because Roneo was a likeable kid who looked up to Grey Hoof for leadership, and who would make in the headpony's estimation a good son-in-law.
But he did mind the growing friendship between Ruby Gift and Princess Luna, for several reasons. He could not compete with Luna as a heroine: she was an immortal Alicorn and Ruling Princess, while he was merely the headpony of an out-of-the-way village. Ruby would go off to live in the Castle Foreverfree with the Night Watch, and inevitably grow far beyond his world. And ... Ruby was drawing Night Watch attention to the village, and he feared his murders would be discovered.
III. The Fall of Sunney Towne
On the night of the Summer Sun Festival of YOH 500 -- which was also her 15th birthday -- Ruby did a favor for Roneo, finding a gem of his that she could never have discovered save by Talent. And she fully realized that she could find anything. She was a Finder, and one of the most powerful ones of her generation. Her position in the Night Watch would be secure. She could HELP Luna, rather than being a parasitic favorite. She had a glorious future ahead of her.
And her Mark manifested.
And, proud of it, she showed it to her father Grey Hoof.
And his sanity shattered.
Grey Hoof, convincing himself that Ruby had the Mark-Pox, called together the whole village, and before them murdered his most beloved child. Then, aware that the murder could not possibly be overlooked, he had her corpse burned in the oven of the horrified Mouse Baker, and swore all assembled to secrecy, by a dreadful oath whom none should ever swear for any reason, binding their very souls to the secret. And the village, horrified by what had just happened, and cowed in fear of Grey Hoof, swore that same oath.
It was an utterance of madness -- Grey Hoof was no mage, and could not make effective such an oath, even by the strong Earth Pony black magick of equine sacrifice -- the ritual killing of one's own beloved virgin child -- which he had made. But he created a pattern, all unknowing, and One was coming who had the power to empower his mad geas.
As the last of Ruby's flesh was seared from her corpse, her own ghost sadly watching unknown to the villagers ...
... Princess Luna came flying down, to wish her dear friend a happy birthday.
The pathetic attempt by Grey Hoof and his followers to conceal the truth availed naught before the super-powerful senses and vast intellect of a fifteen-centuries-old Alicorn. Luna almost immediately perceieved what had happened. Her young friend, of such sterling character and vast potential, had been murdered by her own kin because they panicked and could not be bothered to at worst quarantine and watch her. Disgust and rage consumed Luna.
And Luna's sanity snapped.
She summoned the power of the Night Shadow into herself, and became Nightmare Moon. And, in just a few seconds of ferocious violence, she utterly destroyed Sunney Towne, slaying everypony in the village. In the process she made her own equine sacrifice, a black magick that empowered Grey Hoof's foolish oath and warped the souls of the dead into ultra-powerful undead spirits -- the Wraiths of Sunney Towne, bound by the Curse of Nightmare Moon and the Oath of Grey Hoof to haunt that land forever, until they might make amends for the great crime they had committed and the treason they had made against the Realm by doing some deed of merit equal to the evil they had wrought.
And Luna paid for this.
For to do something so evil, she had to drive out Love from her heart. And in doing this, she gave the Night Shadow dominion over her own soul. She was trapped within Nightmare Moon, until she might give her heart again to Love.
Nightmare Moon rose from the burning ruins of Sunney Towne, and made her way to the Castle Foreverfree, to meet her own destiny.
And in the slowly-cooling ruins of Sunney Towne, shapes moved. And move today.
Pray that you never meet them.
And among their number is poor Ruby, who was more or less guiltless. I wonder what Luna would do, in the modern age post her return, if she ever finds out that Ruby's spirit is still trapped there.
I further wonder what Ruby's ultimate fate will be...
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Ruby is the key to their salvation. Because she loves them. And she has been working at Finding their path to salvation for a thousand years.
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Hope you liked it. One of the influences you've had on me is to emphasize the role of self-corruption in becoming vulnerable to the Night Shadows, and I think I showed it there.
Boy did I pick a good time to listen to Lux Aeterna, ironic though the name may be. Perfect way to set the mood.
In any case, it really is incredible how one well-meaning action can cause so much horror. That's not to say it was Ruby's fault, though she may see it that way. She only provided the tipping point that sent forces far beyond her spiraling out of control. But when she did...
Well, they still haven't finished picking up all the pieces. No wonder she feels responsible.
I knew a fair amount of this from the story, but I didn't realize this was actually the tipping point for Nightmare Moon. If bearers of the Elements of Harmony (if they were still available) came to Sunney Towne and fired off a round, would it do anything?
There were occasional problems with bandit raids, but these stopped after a particularly dangerous raid in 491, which might have killed Grey Hoof's second wife Mitta Gift (465-500) and her daughter Ruby Gift (485-500), was beaten off by Grey Hoof and three of his companions -- Greyfeather Pie, Bluff Crawford and Mouse Baker (438-500). Grey Hoof instituted a Towne Watch, and led patrols of the roads to discourage future banditry.
I love that creepy account above. And I have to say, that bandit raid can't have been very fierce or determined if four ponies were able to drive them away.
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Well, we're seeing it from Ruby's six-year-old point of view. It was scary for her!
Seriously, you're right. (Older) Ruby realizes that the bandits were just stragglers from the wars. A really large bandit gang couldn't have operated so relatively close to the Castle Foreverfree. They were a weak group attacking what they thought was an easy target -- a mother and child caught outside their village. They were also not that competent.
4153004 Ah, rather like some post-battle events in both medieval European and Japan's Sengoku Jidai. Soldiers from a defeated force making their way out of the area and stealing whatever they can to survive, and hoping they don't run into irate peasants whose farms were plundered (and wives and daughters probably assaulted) when they were marching to the battle.
And those ponies were indeed lucky. Here on our Earth we used to have some massive bandit gangs; just finished reading a book that said as late as the early 1800's AD, Germany and France had gangs that consisted of entire military units that ran to the woods and started plundering the countryside, occasionally numbering into the high hundreds. Hopefully Equestria didn't have to deal with that!