So what are your takes on different species having kids? I'm personally no more permissive than reality, barring epic-level magical intervention. And the main hybrids we do see - mules - seem to have got the short end of the stick, at least when it comes to pony magic...

7163749
I go by dnd rules. A pony and a dragon always make a kirin. A griffon and a pony always make a hippogriff. These hybrids can breed with other hybrids of their kind and enough of them were born and breed with each other that they both became distinct races.

7163760
What pony, exactly? Earth, unicorn, pegasus? Does it matter?

7163765
I don't think it really matter what type of pony it is.

7163749
I've established a kind of "bureaucratic normalcy" to the process. The Princesses can make compatibility happen via magic if the right paperwork is done and processed. It's no more odd, mechanically, than any other government service. In practice, there are different takes on it but they put out PSA to advise people to be nice to hybrids.

Possible, but requires a great deal of intervention up to birth (and possibly after), and because of this would have a higher fatality rate the less "compatible" the species are. The combination of that and cultural differences has made it - and cross-species relationships in general - something of a taboo, though some are more flexible about it than others. In the world's now, enough skill and knowledge has been accrued to make intervention more reliable, and the taboo is starting to break down.

7163749
Without magic intervention, my first assumption would be for it to be limited to closely related species -- different pony kinds can have kids with each other, of course, and I'd assume that they can with Saddle Arabians as well. Mules exist, so pony/donkey pairings must be viable as well. Since cow/buffalo hybrids are viable in real life -- and actually tend to be fertile enough to have been established as a breed -- I'd assume the same goes here. Most other bovines can probably have kids as well, although probably not fertile ones.

The question then would be how closely related purely fantasy species are to each other -- say, griffons and hippogriffs, or dragons and sea serpents.

But another option would be to follow fantasy conventions rather than real life biology. For example, the concept of hippogriffs being horse/griffon crossbreeds is actually fairly central to their origin in real-life culture -- their original appearance in the Orlando Furioso explicitly describes a hippogriff as being born to a griffon and a mare. Even then, however, I'd prefer to limit how easily entirely unrelated creatures can crossbreed without external assistance.

Now, with magic thrown in it's a whole different ballgame, chiefly because we know for a fact that magic absolutely can turn a creature into a completely different species -- see "It Ain't Easy Being Breezies" and the hippogriff/seapony situation. In that case, the most obvious choice for interspecies couples who want kids is to temporarily become the same species, although that wouldn't produce a hybrid child. Using magic to make the gametes of different species fertilize one another might be another option. In this case, mind, I wouldn't expect a "standard" hybrid to be born -- since these things would be fairly unique and ad-hoc I wouldn't be that surprised by every child being a fairly unique case.

Of course, all of those things would require a lot of powerful magic to work; Twilight or Starlight could likely do this sort of thing, but they're hardly regular unicorns -- most of Equestria's population probably wouldn't have access to them.

Then of course there's Discord -- he could probably create half-draconequus children in whichever way he pleases, although I would argue that it's up for dispute how interested he'd be in doing that.

7163749
I don't epic level is needed for the magic to be powerful enough to do it base on what spells and potions we seen on the show. But I do have headcanon and rules for my work for them and this is them.

Crossbreeding magic is common enough that all mix specie couples can have kids with the mule problem if they want no matter what. But some don't need them

Some creatures like dragons can breed with anything period, making either dragons, half-dragons or dragon-blooded creatures.

Chimeric creatures can freely interbreed with anycreature that is part of whatever they are made of. For example griffons can breed with any cat or bird, or any chimeric creature that is part of one those like hippogriff, without the mule problem.

And any breeding that can happen in real life can of course happen in the work, Ponies can freely breed with any equine for example.

7164012

7164084
I tend to be more conservative - the show has plenty of races already, and magic that lifechanging seems rare. As mentioned, species switching might be a path, as might chaos magic - but both come with significant inherent risks to mother and child.

7164089 which would make it more likely that if species changing magic is used, it's used by/on the father/inseminating parent.

That said, I kind of expected compatibility spells being a thing, and just as often as not produce a self-perpetuating hybrid species.

7164230
Interesting that so many think that...

And changing the father would produce a normal child of the mother's species... or av least, if everything works out.

7164089
Rare? We see them don't plenty of spells that could do something like I'm suggesting all the time

7164379
How many spells have lasting effects on par with creating life?

7164242 exactly!

7164387
Who said anything about creating life by spells? I was talking about spells that allow true hybridization and we have seen a lot of those

7164650
When?

7164666
Specie swap spell that turn them into breezies, the spell that was use to turn mice into those odd horse mice creatures, that whole thing that turn Fluttershy into Flutterbat, a few different spells from the comics like one that made an earth ponies into a fish hybrid, that whole body swap portion, that transmutation spell made a orange frog creature, That pearl which was used to make other magical items, and frankly I would like to add we seen far more powerful spells then these and what would need to do hybridization done by unicorns.

Also I should probably add that the IDW comics said half-dragons exist but that is from the comics and frankly it is about dragons which always make half-dragons anyway

7164686
I suppose the pearl might be a suitably powerful artefact - it's transformations are pretty much permanent, although we don't know how flexible it can be. Horn-cast spells seem the opposite - can turn you into anything, but only short-term. Or at least, we never really see them having effects as long as a pregnancy - but it's interpretable either way, I guess.

7164701
Doesn't have to be as long as pregnancy, it only has to be long enough for insemination to happen, and we have seen a few permanent horn cast spells happen. That turning an earth pony into a hybrid was design to be permanent so he could live with the merimare he fell in love with

7164720
Well that gets into awkward questions of what happens to a transformation-induced pregnancy afterwards.

And I care not for comics.

7164723
Not really, it would be safe to assume the same things that happens to the mother specie when they are normally pregnant would still happen. In fact giving that this involves transformation it is possible the child may not be a hybrid at all but just normal member of the mother specie with maybe a few traits of the father specie. It would be safe to assume that the level of how much of a hybrid the child is would depend on the spell used

7164880
Only if you assume that the fathers sperm/DNA don't revert too.

7164888
I think that is safe or at least doesn't matter depending on the magic used and what the species are

7165385
Well one would hope so - otherwise the results might not be pretty. But I really wouldn't count on unicorn magic for it, unless maybe it was the caster's actual special talent.

7165403
They probably have doctors that know it, and besides they also more then likely have magical items as well as portions to do it if can't find an unicorn

7165639
Well, it's possible, but I wouldn't say more than likely. We haven't seen any mixed couples or hybrids around, after all.

7165642
Well we haven't seen hybrids, expect for mules, we have seen mix couples. It is canon that Sandbar and Yona ended up together and was heavily hinted that Discord and Fluttershy did too but with him being a chaos spirit you can't really say anything he does is normal. Of course there also the fact that Spike was never into dragonesses and we know that half-dragons do exist but then again that is normal for dragons in fantasy and even mythology as well

7165670

It is canon that Sandbar and Yona ended up together and was heavily hinted that Discord and Fluttershy did too but with him being a chaos spirit you can't really say anything he does is normal.

Former seemed more ambiguous than the latter if you ask me. And how does the presence of mixed couples without ani sign of offspring support the availability of reproduction?

and we know that half-dragons do exist

???????

Is this another comics thing?

7165678
No, the straff have come out and say they were together. They also did this whole event in the app game about it

I already bought them up before

7166463
Ah. Well I don't follow the comics or app game. And in mi show-based headcanon, there are no half-dragons and such without Epic Magic and such.

7166468
Again we seen normal spells in the show that can do that and dragons would be the specie that could make hybrids with anything without magic. Not only is that normal for all fantasy settings but frankly it happens in mythology all the time. In fact in myth kirins are half-dragon horses

7167293
Perhaps - but I don't see why they should be able to breed with anything but dragons here.

I suppse it's possible such spells can let mixed couples have children of one kind or the other, who wouldn't be particularly noticable. Although in that case, I wonder why there are still mules - accidental pregnencys?

7167387
Maybe it just make fertile hybrids if the two species can make hybrids naturally

7168136
Perhaps - lots of possibilities, not much evidence. So you can allow it and I can forbid it while being equally true to canon.