My Little Fortress: Shadytrails

by PersonalGamer


[1] ★ Welcome to Shadytrails!

Welcome to Shadytrails

As I promised a few weeks ago, here's a new community fort for those who were itching for another My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fort. Set in the same universe as my previous two games, it would be helpful if you're familiar with them already. If you're not and have a lot of time to kill, have a look at Dawnpick and Duskfields. Unfortunately, Dawnpick has suffered over the years and has had a lot of the early images rot and some of the posts have been vandalized for unknown reasons, so you can check out Paaaad's very nice edit of it on FiMFiction: Dawnpick. It's nowhere near done, but I greatly appreciate the huge effort already put into it.

If you're not familiar with either Dawnpick or Duskfields, that's okay too. This game takes place in the same world, but 30 years prior to the events of Dawnpick. Some of the same characters may exist, somewhere, but this is a story completely unrelated to Virtue and her family. The important thing to take away from it is that this is a fort based on My Little Pony, but the canon is very different from what is in the cartoon.

This is not a succession fort, despite the fact that it's a successor to my previous fort. Don't be confused, it's just a community fort.

The Story Begins

Thirty years before the events of Dawnpick, the world is in a relatively peaceful, if fragmented state. The ponies, griffons, zebras, diamond dogs and others live in relative isolation, trying to stay out of each others' ways. There are the few merchant guilds that span the gaps between their lands, but most find the work hard, unforgiving, and oftentimes not profitable enough to extend their reach deep into the various kingdoms.

To remedy this problem, many are seeking to set up permanent trade routes and trading posts to supply them. The Prestigious Confederacy is one such group: a large merchant organization staffed by a wide variety of creatures from many lands and seeking to bring them together in the name of economics. They have chosen several key sites, chosen the most eager of their bright eyed and bushy tailed upcoming officers, hired the needed help, and sent them on their merry way to fortune or ruin.

This is the story of Isolde Hookbill, a young adult griffoness, and her team, set out on the road to found Shadytrails. Deep in the south, it's near enough to several old trade routes and rivers large enough to handle shipping, so it seems to be a promising site.

Will she bring fame and fortune to her employers, or will disaster strike first?


So cold. Hopefully this wasn't a mistake!

Expedition Team

Here's the expedition team. Click on any avatar to get a full sized image. Note that most of these characters are already taken, so if you're looking to join, check the next post!

- Isolde Hookbill - She's the expedition leader
- Silver Rush - A batpony (treated as a Pegasus in game) and the team's miner
- Jack Pine - The team's woodcutter
- Shooting Star - A soldier specializing in archery
- Tunda - The team's farmer
- Patina Dreams - The team's mason and metal crafter
- Rosewood - The team's carpenter
- Gunther - The team's doctor
- Kiume - The militia commander and swordszebra
- Shortstack - The team's cook and brewer

Isolde's Diary, 15th Granite, 222

Today, we came to the join of two small rivers and decided to call the traveling to a stop. There's snow as far as the eye can see, so I don't see much point in trying to go much further. According to the map, we should be where we were headed anyway, or close enough.

Someone higher up in management wrote the word 'Clusterbuck' on my map, which I'm hoping was a mistake. I'm going to say it was, anyway. I got everyone together last night and had a little vote on what to really call the place, and the name that came out of the discussion was 'Shadytrails.' Shortstack's idea I think? Anyway, I like it. It's sure better than 'Clusterbuck' anyway.

Right now 'Snowytrails' would be a more appropriate name, but I'm sure it'll start warming up soon enough and all of that will be gone. Last year had a particularly hard winter, so I'm not too worried about the snow still being around. In truth, this is a good thing, since it means that any merchants traveling nearby will want to come here to resupply and rest. That should be good for business, both ways, since they'll be able to travel further and should have much better morale with a hot meal and warm place to sleep.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. This is probably literally the hardest moment in this whole expedition: getting started now that we're here. There's nothing but work to do, and even though there's ten of us able to pitch in, it's going to be a while before we have anything remotely like an outpost here.

For now, it's time to get the wagon unloaded, get something warm cooking, and get some shelter set up. Everyone's pretty tired, so we can start working hard tomorrow. Until then, we can all relax a bit and be happy that we made it out here without any incidents.


Regarding the map symbols; "p", "z", and "g" represent the resident Griffins, Ponies, and Zebra. The up and down triangles represent access to a higher or lower terrain (right now, they're on the fort's "upper" level -- the brook is running down the left side of the screen while the lower level is on the right. The "0"s are tree-trunks, and those seen above the upper region are the upper parts of trees. The white represents the snow, obviously; it'l be replaced by a smattering of small, green punctuation marks when it thaws. Some features, like the arrows and the yet-unseen "floors" or walls are colored basedon their material.