Friendship is Card Games: d20 Pony, Ch. 3

This week, we return to Hoofington for more of the adventures of Trailblazer. Last time, she met and—through audience participation—wooed a wide-eyed bat pony who’s just as eager to explore the world. Let’s see where her road takes us next.

Chapter 3 has another dive into the Everfree to recover a lost sword, and I have to say, I do like how this comic makes the Everfree feel menacing. Between the random encounter rolls, the atmospheric description, and details like the ominous, briefly glimpsed shadow in the castle, it makes the place feel like an eldritch hellwood that is best treated with respect and caution. One thing that always bothered me with FiM was the increasingly casual way they treated the Everfree. It works as the local adventurers grow in power and oppose godlike beings on a more frequent basis, but it still feels off.

Also, it makes sense that music is considered a form of magic in Equestria. Spontaneous musical numbers don’t happen without a little supernatural assistance. Though a buried, magical lute… Do you want a necrodancer? Because this is how we get necrodancers. Even if the lute was originally made to create a harmony to oppose Discord.
(And I do have to wonder if we’d recognize Ponyville’s resident rune scribe.)

I do appreciate the Recettear reference in the trading post’s salespony. To say nothing of how adding a poison joke flower to boiling water causes it to freeze solid. I’m always a sucker for the little details.

Now, let’s see what I can do with this installment:

Thickening Fog W
Instant
Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt by up to X target creatures this turn, where X is one plus the number of cards named Thickening Fog in your graveyard.
Few reach the Everfree’s great secrets. Even fewer see them.

Rallying Chord 1WW
Instant
Cleave 3WW (You may cast this spell for its cleave cost. If you do, remove the words in square brackets.)
Creatures you control [of the creature type of your choice] get +2/+2 until end of turn. Untap them.
The right tune can inspire courage in just about anything.

Rune Scribe 2W
Creature — Pony Wizard
When Rune Scribe enters the battlefield, return target enchantment card from your graveyard to your hand. If that card is a Rune card, you may return it to the battlefield instead.
The Ponyville marketplace offers fresh produce and secondhoof miracles in equal measure.
2/1

Supply Hauler 2W
Creature — Pony Scout
Whenever Supply Hauler attacks, put a +1/+1 counter on another target attacking creature.
Wanderers and adventurers are often commissioned to do the odd jobs that keep Equestria running.
2/3

Fae Merchant 1U
Creature — Faerie Citizen
Flying
Ascend (If you control ten or more permanents, you gain the city’s blessing for the rest of the game.)
2U: Until end of turn, target creature has base power and toughness 1/1 and gains flying. This ability can’t target creatures you don’t control unless you have the city’s blessing.
1/1

Found Wanting 1U
Instant
Return target creature and all permanents attached to it to their owners’ hands.
Some ponies just aren’t cut out for adventure. Some only learn that after setting out for one.

Treasure Diver 1UU
Creature — Pony Rogue
Whenever Treasure Diver attacks, exile the bottom card of defending player’s library. If it’s a land card, Treasure Diver can’t be blocked this turn. Otherwise, you may cast that card for as long as that card remains exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast that spell.
3/1

Ominous Shadows 1B
Enchantment
Black creatures you control get +1/+0
Daybound (If a player casts no spells during their own turn, it becomes night next turn.)
Even at noon, the ruined castle was swathed in darkness.
Nightmarish Fragment
(B) Creature — Nightmare Shade
Menace
1B: Creatures you control get +1/+0 until end of turn.
Nightbound (If a player casts at least two spells during their own turn, it becomes day next turn.)
At midnight, the swaths held court.
2/2

Moonflower’s Support 3B
Sorcery
Choose two target creature cards in your graveyard, then roll a d20.
1-9 | Return those cards to your hand.
10-20 | Return one of those cards to the battlefield tapped and the other to your hand.

The Golden Lute 4B
Legendary Artifact
2B, T: Return target creature card from a graveyard to the battlefield under your control with a harmony counter on it. Activate only as a sorcery.
At the beginning of your end step, if The Golden Lute is untapped, sacrifice each creature you control with a harmony counter on it. if you sacrificed three or more creatures this way, transform The Golden Lute.
The Lute Awakened
(B) Legendary Creature — Horror
Ward — Pay half your life, rounded up.
At the beginning of each upkeep, return to the battlefield under your control all creature cards in graveyards that were put there from the battlefield last turn.
6/6

Thermal Inversion 1R
Instant
Switch target creature’s power and toughness until end of turn.
Jump-start (You may cast this spell from your graveyard by discarding a card in addition to paying its other costs. Then exile this card.)

Rope In 2R
Sorcery
Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste until end of turn and can attack as though it didn’t have defender this turn.
It wasn’t that Windcaller couldn’t say no. Trailblazer just wasn’t listening.

Castle Ruin Expedition 1G
Enchantment
Landfall — Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, put a quest counter on Castle Ruin Expedition.
Remove three quest counters from Castle Ruin Expedition and exile it: Return up to two target permanent cards from your graveyard to your hand.

Messy Encounter 1G
Sorcery
Target creature you control fights target creature you don’t control. Create a Blood token. (It’s an artifact with “1, T, Discard a card, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.”)
Not all trips to the Everfree end with stained-glass windows.

Sense of Foreboding 1G
Sorcery
Creatures you control can’t be blocked by creatures with power 2 or less this turn.
Cycling 2 (2, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
Even when nothing’s there, the Everfree’s attention weighs heavily on travelers.

Lone Timberwolf 2G
Creature — Elemental Wolf
Whenever an opponent casts an artifact spell, return a green creature you control to its owner’s hand.
The most skittish timberwolves get chased out of their packs, then take out their nerves on everything else.
4/3

Notice Board 2
Artifact
As Notice Board enters the battlefield, each player secretly chooses a card name other than Notice Board.
Reveal the name you last chose: Draw a card and secretly choose a card name. Any player may activate this ability but only once each turn and only if one of their opponents cast a spell with the chosen name this turn.

Ancestral Windblade 3
Artifact — Equipment
Equipped creature gets +2/+0 and has first strike.
Whenever equipped creature dies, you may put a creature card that shares a creature type with it from your hand onto the battlefield and attach Ancestral WIndblade to it.
Equip 2

Mysterious Cask 3
Artifact
T: Put a charge counter on Mysterious Cask.
T, Remove X charge counters from Mysterious Cask: Add X mana of any one color. You gain X life.
Anything aged for ten years is worth a taste.

Hoofington Glassblower UR
Creature — Pony Artificer
T: Add U. Spend this mana only to cast an artifact spell or to activate an ability of an artifact.
T: Add R. Spend this mana only to cast an instant or sorcery spell or to activate an ability of an instant or sorcery card.
2/2

Windcaller, Song Sage GWU
Legendary Creature — Pony Bard
If an ability of a Song or another Bard you control triggers, that ability triggers an additional time.
Finale — Whenever you sacrifice a Song, look at the top three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
1/4

Brewing Storm 1UR
Enchantment
Creatures your opponents control get -1/-0.
At the beginning of each opponent’s upkeep, that player may have Brewing Storm deal 2 damage to each creature they control. If they do, sacrifice Brewing Storm.

Lost 4U//Forgotten 1B
Instant//Instant
Lost: Put target creature on top of its owner’s library.
Forgotten: Target player mills five cards, then exiles all cards from their graveyard.
Fuse (You may cast one or both halves of this card from your hand.)

Comments

[Herald of Opera]

Protection From Editors Alert: The names of cards in your hand isn't public information, and combined with basic logic I'm at least 99% sure that Thickening Fog is supposed to be counting the graveyard instead.

Stupid Complicated Game Alert: There was a weird rules glitch involving "choose a card name" and tokens, but it wouldn't affect Notice Board and they're actually fixing it with Crimson Vow anyway. Just thought you should know.

[FanOfMostEverything]

5604541
Thanks for the catch; that definitely should've been graveyard.

[Arkonfleight]

5604541
>Names and tokens
I remember, in ancient days of yore (so like, Mirrodin era) a buddy trying to save his squirrel tokens from an Echoing Truth by naming them Reginald, Steve, Foofington III, etc.

[Herald of Opera]

5604620
Stupid Complicated Game Alert: This is not how it works, although it is hilarious and I'm glad you shared it.