What is a fury, anyway?

If you’ve been reading my Codex Ponera stories, but are unfamiliar with the Codex Alera series that I’ve fused MLP with, then you’ve probably got a few questions. Questions like, “Pepperbrony, what the hell are all these furies you’ve been banging on about?” or “Hey, Pepperbrony, you’ve got this character who can do these weird and wacky things with their fury, why can’t that other character do the same things?” Well, get out your notepaper and pencils, because I’ve got some answers for you.

Your fury and you - Furycrafting 101

First thing is first. What is a fury?

Simply put, a fury is simply a spirit-like entity, not drastically dissimilar to an elemental in most respects (or what I think of as elementals anyway, since I know very little about them). There are six kinds, and each is able to influence, control, react to, or otherwise interact with its own element. Those elements, the six kinds of furies, are Earth, Air (sometimes referred to as Wind), Water, Fire, Wood, and Metal.

Unlike the normal idea of spirits, however, there are far more furies than you might expect. Each fury is generally a part of a piece of its element, and each piece nature has its own fury. For example, each tree has a wood fury. Each stone holds an earth fury. Every breeze is a wind fury. And so on and so forth. Generally, these furies will simply sit there and not interact with the world, but for one thing: their interaction with ponies (or humans in the original Codex Alera).

Ponies are able to… bond is the best word, with furies. Thanks to these bonds, a pony can work with the world around them through their fury. This is called furycrafting, often abbreviated to crafting. Crafting with a specific type of fury is usually called by the name of that type - manipulating wind is called windcrafting, communing with plants is called woodcrafting, et cetera.

At this point, hopefully you have a better idea of what furies are, and why I’m writing about a pony’s fury when they don’t seem all that angry or upset.

Ponies and furies, furies and ponies - Furycrafting 102

Second thing is second. Why do different ponies have different crafting abilities?

Just as not all people are the same, so to are ponies different from each other. Canonically, we have three different tribes of ponies, but even putting that aside, everypony has different skill sets - Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy have wildly disparate flying abilities, for example. So it is with furycraft.

For the most part, ponies can craft with only one kind of fury. Rainbow Dash is a windcrafter. Scootaloo is a firecrafter. The implications of this should be obvious. Windcrafters can conjure up a breeze, but couldn’t start a fire to save their life (those of you who have read the Codex Alera might be laughing right about now). For this reason, any given pony is usually quite limited in what they can do.

However, some ponies are luckier than others, in that they have more than one crafting discipline available to them. Octavia, as you’ll have learned in the prologue to Cliffside Eyrie, has the ability to craft both earth and wood. This was why Rainbow’s plan involved Octavia both earthcrafting and woodcrafting to reach their goal.

These multi-crafters, as you might call them, are not unheard of at all. But the ability to craft multiple kinds of fury gets rarer the more varieties you are dealing with. So while literally any pony can craft with at least one kind of fury (well, almost any pony), there are not as many dual crafters, few triple threats, scarce four crafters, only a handful of fives, and ponies that can craft all six are few and far between.

Another difference between crafters is strength. Two ponies with the same kind of fury might not be evenly matched, as one may be a more powerful crafter than the other. Strength with crafting is like strength with any other skill; It improves with practice and use. Also, the more a pony works with their fury, the better they understand it and it them, so that they generally perform better the longer they have worked together. However, experience and practice are not the only factors when it comes to crafting strength.

Some ponies are just naturally stronger crafters than others. That’s not to say that they can simply skip fury day at the metaphorical gym, but rather that they’re able to reach higher peaks than others. Greater natural strength tends to come with multiple crafting, so that in general a pony with two furies will be stronger with either than a pony with one. Not that this is always the case - Rainbow Dash actually has as much raw windcrafting potential as you might expect from a pony with six furies.

Of course, the flip side to that coin is that a pony with one kind of fury can dedicate themself to that particular discipline, while a pony with more than one must practice each of their different crafts. Sort of a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ situation. Their greater power can often offset the experience differential, but with great experience comes other perks, such as improved efficiency or a deeper knowledge of what’s possible with their fury. On average, the increased power begins to overtake greater experience around about the three or four fury mark.

So, now we know what I mean by fury, and why some ponies can do particular tricks when others cannot. Naturally, with some ponies holding greater and more varied crafting talents than others, there are some social implications, but the details will have to wait for another blog.