Essays Index
Equestrian Culture series: Part 1 - Religion | Part 2 - Government and Military | Part 3 - Values and Morality | Part 4 - Names and Family | Part 5 - Language

Religion:
Alicornism:
Prior to the reign of Discord, Celestia and Luna were mere diarchs with no special religious significance to them. However, Discord's influence changed this. During their absence through the Reign of Chaos, the princesses attained almost mythical status in the eyes of the common pony, to whom their time of peaceful rule seemed like a distant, bygone age, even if it was more recent than it seemed. At the same time, Discord acted as an embodiment of entropy would, and actively destroyed any preserved knowledge about the Tree of Harmony and its nature, as well as the alicorn home realm of Asgard.

Following Discord's defeat, the sisters then had to retake their divided nation, uniting it again by conquest in a series of crusades that lasted many years. It was in this period of reunification that organised worship of the Royal Sisters began, as they came to be seen as returning saviours, seemingly straight out of legend. As the country began to rebuild, a church was established, known as the Church of the Royal Sisters. In a time of such strife, the Church was useful to the princesses, bringing hope to the people and helping to reestablish their power over the more rebellious territories, as well as restoring patriotic sentiment in the newly rebuilt nation.

Celestia herself was never comfortable with being worshipped, but tolerated it and did not discourage these notions of her divinity precisely because of the Church's usefulness. Luna, in contrast, loved the praise that being a goddess brought, and actively encouraged her followers. Equestria was a theocracy from this point on for several centuries, and the Church's influence would dominate Equestrian culture for some time. Cathedrals, churches, and chapels began to spring up all over the country, and weekly attendance of mass became common.

The Church had several core beliefs, forming a loosely agreed-upon mythology known as Alicornism that was partially based on truth. According to them, Celestia and Luna were the rulers of Paradise, a heavenly realm that was also the afterlife of the virtuous dead, and they lived there with their angels, who, like them, took the form of alicorns. Discord, meanwhile, was a demon born of all the world's ills, whom they called the Devil. It was said that he attacked Paradise, causing the angels to flee to Earth for safety, and that he chased them there and then began the Reign of Chaos. Celestia and Luna defeated him through their own godly might, not by use of any magical artefacts, and in doing so they proved their divine right to rule.

Church doctrine thus framed all alicorns, but especially the princesses, as divine beings, worthy of deep respect and reverence, and also taught that Equestria was the greatest nation in the world because it was ruled by true deities. Weekly mass was intended as a way to show this respect, and priests would pay tribute to their princesses with prayers, songs, sermons, and displays of sunlight or moonlight magic. At the Royal Sisters' behest, mass was also used to preach moral lessons to the people, reintroducing the long forgotten lessons of the Path of Harmony and the first Hearth's Warming, and this moral philosophy soon became core to the theology of Alicornism.

However, the propagation of religious dogma also led to the Church independently developing concepts of sin and heresy, which generally referred to anything seen as disharmonious, such as selfishness, bigotry, denial of the virtues of harmony, and the practice of chaos or order magic. Cult worship of any deities other than the Royal Sisters was also seen as borderline heretical, but was tolerated at first so long as it was peaceful.

As the Church gradually shifted in this more dogmatic direction, Equestria implemented laws protecting citizens from being victimised for perceived heresy, but heretics still came to be seen as social pariahs, and were ostracised by their communities and looked upon with scorn until they repented. As well, a systematic discrimination still crept into Equestria's law enforcement and criminal justice systems, with criminals who also happened to be heretics typically suffering much harsher punishments under the law compared to non-heretical criminals. The Church also often condoned and even participated in mob justice against heretics, particularly in small towns and villages where the clergy would have close community ties with local law enforcement, eventually necessitating even stricter legislation to stop them.

The development of a concept of heresy also led to the popular conception of a Hell. Much like the righteous dead supposedly went to Paradise, the home of the alicorns, the unworthy and heretical were said to go to Purgatory, a realm of endless dark silence, where they would remain until they repented and were forgiven. This idea came from two primary sources. The establishment of the real prison of Tartarus, only sparsely referenced by either the princesses or Equestria's legal system, served as the inspiration for the idea of the princesses banishing the evil dead to an otherworldly prison. Meanwhile, the dark imagery of Purgatory borrowed from the pre-Alicornist folklore surrounding Duroc, the God of Death, who was said to steal the souls of the dead and whisk them away to the Great Abyss, another real location, but one which even less was known about.

Over time, the Church's ubiquity in Equestrian culture caused a decline in other religions and spiritual practices. The Church actively tried to convert as many as possible to its faith, even non-ponies, and in doing so, they saw to the end of countless smaller cults. Most were denounced as heretical and forgotten by history, while others that were not so incompatible with Alicornism underwent a form of syncresis instead. For example, many coastal communities believed in a heaven for honourable sailors known as Fiddler's Green, and a hell for villainous pirates called the Locker. The Church would reinterpret these as merely being different forms of Paradise and Purgatory, thus allowing them to more easily assimilate these cultures into the faith.

However, even for all its power, a division grew within the Church. While the pontiff and cardinals in charge remained devoted to both their goddesses, each princess had different priests, and the two halves of the Church developed vastly different cultures over time. At first, this was not an issue, as the Celestian and Lunanite priests were merely seen as two sides of the same coin, complimentary to each other rather than competing. Celestian priests would hold mass during the day, while Lunanite priests did so by night, each singing the praises of their respective goddess in their perceived spheres, and the Church's congregations worshipped both princesses for different but compatible reasons. For example, Luna was considered a war goddess, among other things, and so had a greater following in Equestria's military, while Celestia was strongly associated with the harvest, and was the preferred goddess of earth pony farmers.

However, in time, this division grew as the Celestians and Lunanites began to develop opposing moral values and ideologies. For instance, Celestian priests followed the example of their goddess, and preached the value of humility, while at the same time the Lunanites taught ponies to have pride, and often talked about Luna's glory and might. This was but one example of an ideological schism that eventually became too great to reconcile, and led to many prominent archbishops to call for a reform.

The reform of the Church of the Royal Sisters split it into two smaller organisations, known as the Church of the Holy Sun and the Church of the Glorious Moon. Each church now had its own pontiff, and maintained separate clergy, knightly orders, and general ideologies. Even their holy books and traditional ceremonial practices diverged, such as how the Church of the Holy Sun continued to honour Celestia with choir, whereas the Church of Glorious Moon began to instead hold parades and play marching drums to show their devotion.

It was this schism in the Church and the following reform which was one of the major catalysts for Luna's turn to darkness. While both churches still expected their congregations to show the utmost respect possible to both goddesses, the schism made it socially acceptable for commoners to only devote themselves to one goddess, same as the priests did. Since Luna's church only held mass at night, it was more convenient for the majority of citizens to remain Celestians and attend the Church of the Holy Sun exclusively, while the Church of the Glorious Moon maintained a devoted, but significantly smaller congregation. This, among other things, was the source of much of Luna's jealousy of her sister, and indirectly led to her rebellion.

When Luna initiated the War of the Night, her followers were divided in their loyalties, with some joining her side, and others remaining loyal to Equestria. A slim majority of Church of the Glorious Moon remained loyalist, as did most of the common ponies who made up its congregation, but a large portion of Equestria's Lunanite military, particularly the thestrals of Trotsylvania and the Night Guard, instead joined the rebellion. The rebel Lunanites made up the bulk of Luna's army during the War of the Night, and many of them became vampires and hengstwolves, or else bonded with nightmare spirits to become Darkwraiths.

Eventually, the War of the Night concluded with Luna's final corruption into Nightmare Moon and her defeat by Celestia, with the rebel Lunanites being driven back shortly afterwards. This marked the end of the Classical Era and the beginning of the First Celestial Era, and a cultural backlash against Luna and her followers came shortly after. Luna was now viewed by the public as a traitor, even managing to replace Discord as the Church of the Holy Sun's symbol of ultimate evil, while the Lunanite rebels who followed her during the war were denounced as heretics and hunted down with extreme prejudice.

The Church of the Glorious Moon remained for a time after the war, but the vast majority of its clergy and followers quickly deserted to become Celestians instead. Even traditionally Lunanite organisations and cultures such as the Night Guard abandoned Lunanism, although aspects of it remained with them. The few remaining Lunanites tried to justify their continued worship of Luna for a time by claiming that they did so in memory of the honourable mare that they knew, rather than the monster she became. However, most Celestians did not understand or accept this, and soon enough, even loyalist Lunanites were seen as heretics and persecuted.

Meanwhile, the Lunanite rebels tried to form their own nation in the aftermath of Luna's defeat, known as the New Lunar Republic. The Republic was a small territory located out in Thoroupe, and for a time, was home to the vast majority of Nightmare Moon's former army, including several of its most senior commanders. However, it was attacked almost immediately after its formation by a union of kingdoms that had fought against Luna during the War of the Night. Fortified and well-defended, the New Lunar Republic fought off this siege for decades before it eventually fell.

Before the Republic's collapse, a secret society known as the Cult of the Nightmare was founded by an elite few who had not yet lost faith in Nightmare Moon's cause. They worked in the shadows for many years after the fall of the Republic to infiltrate and undermine Equestria, hoping to one day revive their goddess and achieve the eternal night that she strove for. The cult persisted for several generations, terrorising the common folk, conducting dark rituals, and conspiring against the Crown, until they were eventually routed and crushed after a failed surprise attack on Canterlot Castle itself.

However, for the the vast majority of the Lunanite remnants, the collapse of the New Lunar Republic was the end. Those who did not join the Cult of the Nightmare instead became bandits and outlaws in order to survive, joining the ranks of those who had already given up and turned to crime after Nightmare Moon's initial defeat. The vampires and hengstwolves in particular took to preying on Equestria's citizens to survive, causing vast famines and plague in the process. This only caused the public's scorn for Lunanism to worsen, eventually forcing the Church of the Glorious Moon to also disperse. The Second Celestial Era thus began.

With the Church of the Holy Sun as Equestria's only official religion, the Second Celestial Era was characterised by a level of fanaticism and religious fervour unseen at any other point in history. Lunanism was Equestria's common enemy of the time, as all of the nation's problems could be traced back to it, and heresy quickly became the most serious "crime" one could be accused of, despite laws attempting to curtail such witch hunts.

Driven by the necessity to prevent greater bloodshed, vampires and hengstwolves were legally classified as monsters rather than people after the War of the Night, thus allowing free agents and bounty hunters to hunt them down without any expectation or obligation to capture their targets alive. Vampires and hengstwolves thus had no rights under the law, and were freely allowed to be killed without consequence, despite Equestria technically not allowing the death penalty. In fact, lethal force was highly encouraged by the Church, who regularly sent out their own knights to hunt down and kill vampires and other such beasts, and who paid bounties to anybody else who did the same.

This was the beginning of hunter culture, as all across Equestria, companies began to form which were dedicated solely to slaughtering monsters, vampires and hengstwolves especially. These companies made their profit through the bounties the Church paid them, and pioneered several new fighting styles and advances in technology in the name of more efficient hunting. Hunter culture was also fanatically religious, even by the standards of an already fanatically religious society, due in no small part to the fact that the sunlight magic which they saw as holy was the most potent weapon they had against their foes.

Hunter culture also introduced a new element to the mythology of Alicornism, that of alternative afterlives. Infection with vampirism was a common hazard for hunters, and as hunters did not want to believe that they would be denied entrance to Paradise for their infection, they instead invented for themselves the idea of the Hunter's Dream. This was supposedly a separate afterlife, which all true hunters were destined to go to, based on the conception that since Luna's fall, Celestia had inherited her guardianship over the world of dreams.

Eventually, the actions of a hunter known as Van Helsing indirectly led to fall of the Equestrian theocracy, as he sparked the downfall of the government's own monster-hunting agency, Apollo Division. The Church took over its operations following this event, and used their power to found the Holy Inquisition and launch the Great Crusade into Trotsylvania. What followed was a long series of atrocities and war crimes committed in Celestia's name, intended to identify and punish heresy and to destroy all vampires.

Celestia herself, disgusted by the actions of the Church of the Holy Sun, intervened to put a stop to them. In a historic public speech, she officially denied her own divinity for the first time, telling the truth of her origins, and denounced the Church. With Celestia's true feelings made known, nopony resisted her as she passed laws to cease the Great Crusade, shut down the Inquisition, and prevent the Church from holding power within the Equestrian government.

Although Celestia allowed the Church of the Holy Sun to continue to exist, its power as a cultural entity was forever broken. The end of the theocracy marked the beginning of the Third Celestial Era, and from then on, the Church was a purely ceremonial organisation, existing solely for the sake of tradition. It continued to dwindle in power for quite some time, until quietly going defunct some centuries later. Several revival attempts and successor organisations sprung up across the centuries since, and a few even still exist by the present day, but most can be more likened to smaller cults than true churches.

Despite all this, remnants of Alicornism remain in Equestrian popular culture to this day. Celestia is still the centre of various ceremonies and holidays, representations of her cutie mark are often featured in quasi-religious displays, and ponies even still swear by her name and direct prayers to her sometimes. In contrast, Luna and Nightmare Moon eventually faded into myth, with true worship of both ending with the fall of the Cult of the Nightmare, but aspects of Lunanism carried on in organisations like the Night Guard, though only as ceremonial practice, rather than a religious rite. Meanwhile, Nightmare Moon became a popular counterculture symbol, as well as an icon of good luck in the criminal underground, and the holiday Nightmare Night also still exists to commemorate her defeat.

Discordism:
Discord is a true god, unlike many supposed deities on Earth, and so has been worshipped in many places and many forms throughout his existence. While his followers often have incorrect notions of his history and purpose that Discord doesn't often bother to correct, he is generally recognised for what he truly is – a living embodiment of chaos. In Equestria, he is known as the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, and this is a fairly accurate interpretation of his role without any religious connotations.

Aside from being known as "the Devil" in the mythology of Alicornism, Discord is a major subject of only one other religion – his own. There have been three major iterations of Discordism throughout history.

The first of these was simply known as the Chaos Cult, and was formed in Equestria during the Reign of Chaos by ponies. Most of these ponies were quislings who simply decided to join the winning side, and who were toyed with by Discord just as much for their troubles, but a few were true believers in chaos, and were skilled chaos mages in their own right. The ideology at the centre of this cult was less concerned with the worship of Discord himself than it was with his values. The Chaos Cult valued chaos itself above all else, but chaos tempered by what few morals Discord still held and preached, such as a disdain for unnecessary death.

In Equestria, the Chaos Cult acted as Discord's spies and enforcers during this time, spreading chaos for him where he could not be present, and ensuring that ponies were not able to mobilise against Discord or form anything resembling a functional society. Chaos cultists also acted as living hosts to complex matrices of spells that Discord infused into them. These spells served a great many purposes, and played a role in countless complex plans and schemes that Discord liked to set in motion at random.

The Chaos Cult did not survive long after the defeat of Discord. While their actions during the Reign of Chaos were mostly forgiven, as it could not be proven that most of them weren't under mind control, Discordism was still outlawed. Those who continued it and who resisted the law of Equestria after its reunification were thus arrested, then to be subjected to either imprisonment or reforming spells.

The second iteration of Discordism was the Cult of Discord, also formed during the Reign of Chaos. This cult was founded by several of the first minotaurs after Discord created their species, and later became the state religion of Minos after the nation's formation. Unlike Equestria's Chaos Cult, chaos itself was downplayed in the Cult of Discord, which instead focused on honouring Discord himself for the role he played in minotaur history.

The Cult of Discord was never a large religion, even in Minos, ironically because minotaurs were too chaotic to care about worshipping their creator. However, the Cult of Discord's power has waxed and waned greatly over the centuries, responding to changes in the political and social climate of Minos, as well as the world at large. Discord worship has traditionally been strongest in Minos during times of war and strife, as minotaurs look to their old god for support when uniting against a common enemy, especially if that enemy is Equestrian.

The third and final iteration of the cult was known as the Brotherhood of Chaos. As all forms of Discordism were outlawed in Equestria, and the Church of the Royal Sisters branded any chaos cultists as heretics, it became necessary for those few remaining in Equestria to go underground. Most remained in solitude, as the idea of working together against Equestria was too harmonious an idea for them to consider, but a few of the almost rational ones banded together to form a secret society of their own, much like the Cult of the Nightmare.

The Brotherhood of Chaos survived in secret well into the modern age, undermining the efforts of the royals to bring harmony wherever they could. They were known to Equestria, and considered terrorists, but were too resilient, numerous, and well-hidden to put a permanent end to, though Equestria's numerous agencies such as Apollo Division and the EIS came close several times.

The last of the Brotherhood of Chaos were not found and stopped until after Day of Discord, when their god's return prompted their remaining members to finally come out of hiding to join him. At this time, they numbered ten members, including Sir Ancient Tome, then the Archmage of Canterlot. All of them would be arrested for treason later that day following Discord's defeat, only for Discord himself to be released and pardoned mere months later. Discordism has since been quietly legalised in Equestria, but nobody really cares at this point, not even Discord himself, and the last members of the Brotherhood of Chaos currently remain either imprisoned for other crimes or committed in mental health institutions.

The Path of Harmony:
The Path of Harmony was a religion followed in ancient times, and was taught by the Tree of Harmony to a small but dedicated cult of followers in ages past. This cult emphasised the six virtues embodied by the Elements of Harmony, and followers were taught special meditation techniques and rituals to help them gain control of their own emotions, letting go of anger, greed, hatred, fear, and anything else that might disrupt harmony.

Those greatest of the Tree's followers, who most clearly understood its teachings and, more importantly, the spirit of those teachings, were eventually elevated beyond flesh to become the first crystal ponies, while the now-extinct sparkly-eyed pegasi formed from a breakaway of this cult. This transformation was gradual and temporary at first, but became increasingly permanent for individuals over decades of following the Path. The descendants of crystal ponies from this cult also had a natural affinity for harmony, and over the generations, this cult's descendants became more and more permanently crystal with less reliance on the Tree of Harmony to personally teach them. The Path of Harmony became almost innate to their nature.

However, following the Deer–Pony War, the cult were forced to move on from the Tree and into other lands, with the crystal ponies and sparkly-eyed pegasi going on to found the Crystal Empire and the cloud city of Timbucktu respectively. While the Path of Harmony was preserved through them, the cult itself gradually died out, and the Tree was left alone in the Everfree Forest, visited only by the occasional pilgrim. This would not have been an issue by itself, so long as the Path of Harmony persisted somewhere, but coupled with the Reign of Chaos and the fall of both Timbucktu and the Crystal Empire, the Path of Harmony as a religion vanished from the world almost completely, leaving only a rare few in Equestria who still knew the old ways.

In time, even the pilgrims stopped coming. The Path of Harmony was forgotten, and the Tree itself faded from public memory and never returned. But despite this, the virtues of harmony and the most important tenets of the Path survived, and were incorporated into the doctrine of the Church of the Royal Sisters, even if the art of becoming crystal was seemingly forever lost. The later Church of the Holy Sun and Church of the Glorious Moon also carried forward these teachings, and they became central to Equestrian culture by later centuries.

After the end of the Equestrian theocracy, they continued to influence cultural values independent of any religious organisations, becoming more like a popular philosophy than a religion of worship. Harmonism, as this philosophy is called, still persists to this day, even if its origins are largely forgotten, and the ways of Harmonism are still close enough to the Path of Harmony to suit the Tree's purposes. While Equestria today is mostly secular, Harmonism is the largest remaining "religion," and still passively influences Equestrian culture at large.

As well, since the return of the Crystal Empire, and the Tree of Harmony's rediscovery by Twilight Sparkle and her friends, it is hoped that the true Path of Harmony might still yet make a comeback.

Creator worship:
Every culture in the universe has some concept of the Creator, the anonymous being that is said to have created magic itself and all life, possibly even including itself. The more advanced civilizations amongst the stars know for a fact that this entity must have once existed, likely in a universe prior to their own, and that they may still exist in this universe as one of the elder gods, but more primitive worlds like Earth can only speculate the existence of such an entity.

While the Creator is referred to by many names and interpreted in many ways, in Equestria she is mostly imagined as a mare called Epona. Ponies believe that Epona desired for the world to live in harmony, and that ponies evolved to imitate her form by striving to achieve the harmony that she wanted. Most Equestrians have a consistent view of who Epona was, but they largely disagree on what happened to her, save that they believe she is definitely not around anymore. There is a divide between those who believe that Epona left the world behind long ago to travel the stars, and those who believe that she died to give birth to their world.

The former is more in the public consciousness, and is the popular version of the legend taught to foals today. This interpretation's first appearance in history was in the written accounts of the old Unicorn Kingdom, where it was common belief among unicorn scholars in the absence of any true knowledge as to the Creator's fate. Star Swirl the Bearded himself was among those who believed this story. This version of the legend later became a fairytale told to children after it was published along with other such myths and folklore by the Brothers Grim, and endured throughout the ages despite the other competing versions of the story.

The latter theory is mostly supported by old traditionalist families and the Canterlot nobility, and can trace its popular origin back to the doctrine of various religious institutes, such as the Church of the Royal Sisters, who characterised Epona as a distant ancestor to the princesses. However, while it was these religious institutes that popularised this version of the legend in Equestria, presumably in an effort to downplay worship of Epona over Alicornism, the oldest iterations of it are actually oral tradition from the Earth Pony Republic.

Epona today is well known amongst the populace, and most ponies when asked will say that they definitely believe she was real and that she created them all. Some ponies revere her for this, and some even swear by her name instead of Celestia's, mostly those outside the Heartland. However, due to her absence from the world, she is not and never was the subject of widespread worship, and is often thought of more as a historical or mythical figure, or a character from a fairytale, than she is as a true goddess. What few religious groups that do exist based around worship of Epona do so more as a process of mourning and remembering her than as a way to gain her favour, and those who seek to defer to her will instead do so by practising Harmonism.

Other cultures and species across Equestria's world of course have their own views of the Creator, most of them less equi-centric in worldview than Epona, but for the most part, these other interpretations still convey the same general ideas about the Creator's role and absence.

Others:
A number of other deities, both major, minor, and even fictional are also worshipped or honoured across the Nine Realms.

Although Order has never had as much of a foothold on Earth as Discord or the Tree of Harmony, he is still worshipped by the Heartland deer such as King Aspen and his village of Thicket, as well as the great spiders of Arachnia in Thoroupe. Elsewhere in the realms, his other loyal creations such as the umbrums, the nightmares, and the Fates of Niflheim also act nominally in his name, though it has been a thousand years since any have heard from him directly.

Of the lesser deities living in the Nine Realms, the only non-native god with a significant following is Hixelkicks, Godmother of Chimeras, who is considered by various chimeric peoples to be a maternal figure with a personal interest in the lives and well-being of her creations. She is mostly honoured in Jotunheim, where a great number of her creations such as the draconequui and griffons live, but she is not as well known or revered on Midgard, where only the centaurs and gargoyles of Tauros worship her.

There have been many other lesser deities worshipped on Earth, with most of the native gods having had their own followings at some point or another. Most of the still surviving Earth gods still have followers today. King Leo, as god of the sea, has a small cult in Aquastria, and is sometimes prayed to by sailors, and the buffalo still honour the Rainbow Crow every year at the harvest. However, most of these old religions died out when their gods did. Boreas, God of the Sky, was once worshipped by the griffons until they killed him, and many cultures across the globe which once practiced sun and moon worship ceased doing so after the emergence of Celestia and Luna. The only two Earth gods which still have large followings even after their deaths are the Woodfather and the Stonemother, who are still ritually worshipped the entfolk and rock lobsters respectively.

However, not all Borderworld religions follow actual gods, as followings sometimes form around powerful or charismatic mortals as well. For example, prior to Ragnarok, Mt. Canterlot was inhabited by a dragon called Nidhug, who was worshipped as the Mountain God until his downfall. Afterwards, during the Reign of Chaos, many of the warlords of the divided Equestria also commanded cults of their own, although most were put down by Celestia and Luna during the Reunification Wars.

Of all such false religions, the only one which still survives and maintains a culturally significant presence to this day is Secondism, the state religion of the Valley of Eden in eastern Thoroupe, represented by the Church of Daylight. Much like Alicornism, it venerates an immortal alicorn monarch who is said to have rescued the nation from Discord long ago. Lord Second, the King of the Valley, was an alicorn born in Asgard, much like Celestia and Luna, but unlike them is not a true lesser deity. His heirs, the ascended alicorns known as Lord First and Lord Third, are also figures of importance in Secondism.

Due to their similarity, Secondism and Alicornism were mostly compatible religions, with Alicornists regarding Second as a lesser angel created by Celestia and Luna, despite Second being older than them both, and Secondists simply regarding Celestia and Luna as part of the same divine pantheon as Second. However, the future of Secondism and of the Church of Daylight is currently in question, as Lord Second himself died under mysterious circumstances a few short years after Nightmare Moon's return, throwing his kingdom into turmoil.

Acknowledgements:
-Celestia and Luna having once been worshipped as gods, despite not being gods in truth, is a concept borrowed from The Best of All Possible Worlds by McPoodle.
-The idea that Celestia and Luna could have conceivably had an offscreen war with actual stakes and drama before their fight in the Princess Twilight Sparkle flashback, rather than the entire reign of Nightmare Moon having literally been only five minutes, was proposed in Equestria: A History Revealed by Hoofry_Poneigher.
-The New Lunar Republic, despite what it's ballooned into in fanfic since, was originally invented for the song, "For the New Lunar Republic" by iamnotacleverpony.
-The Cult of the Nightmare were blatantly stolen from Past Sins by Pen Stroke.
-I got the word "hengstwolf" from FanOfMostEverything's Friendship is Card Games blogs.
-Nightmare Moon being an idol of criminals and shady types is from some fanfic I once read, but I can't for the life of me remember which.

Congratulations, Danny. Hixelkicks is a totally original name.

The other stuff was good too. The thought of Luna being a huge attention whore makes since, but it still makes me laugh.

The warring states period also sounds really interesting. I'd like to see that fleshed out more.

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As a matter of fact, I'm a little way into writing a oneshot based on that period called The Warlord. It's set in a northen territory called the Greenlands, and shows the fall of one of the last of the old kingdoms.

Here you go Danny. I am commenting just the way you like it. I hope it gives you much happiness.

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The Cult of the Nightmare worked in secret for many years to bring about their goddess's return, until eventually they were routed and crushed.

Eventually they would return and make a failed attempt to resurrect Nightmare Moon, accidentally creating a little filly named Nyx.
(Sorry, but the Cult of Nightmare reminded me of Past Sins)

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Don't be sorry. That was an intentional reference.

Boy, talk about art imitating life here.

Ilike that you gave a general grasp of the different religions for the Boarderworld.

I'm curious regarding the advanced civilizations you talk of here. Are we talking about the other eight relams, or something in the galaxy of Midgard.

But really though, your series should be documented in TVtropes. It deserves it, in my humble opinion

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Advanced civilizations definitely refer to aliens elsewhere in the galaxy. The rest of the Nine Realms are, if anything, more primitive than Midgard.