I've had an idea that I want to use in my fic.

If anyone here reads my stuff: be warned, what I'm about to mention could amount to spoilers.

So anyway, here it is:

Ancient Egyptian Griffins.

A civilization of winged-lion-people ruled by a pharaoh.

I thought it was a cool idea, but I'm not certain if others see it that way.

The Egyptians had a fetish for mismatched body parts on their gods and mythical monsters (as with the sphinx) so it seems to fit nicely.

However, while the Greeks ripped off large segments of Egyptian mythology to form their own culture, (Hephaestus is a re-imaging of P'tah for example.) the griffin is ultimately a creature of Greek myth.

This means griffins have no problems fitting into the MLP universe, (Faust created it with Greek myth as a basis)
but if I use the Egyptians as inspiration for my griffin society, people might not get it.

What do you guys think?

Someone may even have done this already.

2106344

Someone may even have done this already.

Originality is hard when it comes to fan-fiction as it's impossible to monitor every fic ever written. As long as you don't end up making a copypasta, I don't think people will give a shit.

2106344 Sounds like a good idea. I haven't heard it before. Honestly don't worry about people not getting it. If you take your time revealing how it works and use certain terms to make it look and sound and feel Egyptian in nature then you have a world built.

2106351

That is true, but if I found the idea to be "unoriginal", that would actually be encouraging, because it would improve the idea's validity from my perspective.

2106357

I see. Thanks for the support.

2106344 Honestly, I don't think many people are going to care if griffins are Greek, Egyptian, or (in my head canon) Scandinavian, as long as you stick with a single idea and don't jump around with cultural references, I don't see a problem with it, in fact, I have yet to see Egyptian griffins, seems kind of cool to me.

2106372

Scandinavian?

Dammit why did I think of that?

Interestingly, while I make no direct reference to it, the rise and fall of my hypothetical empire will mirror that of the Ottoman Empire.

I suppose at the end of the day, the best way to make a fictional civilization is to study ones that existed in real life.

2106360
What about an ancient history lesson? The Egyptian-like race was wiped out by Griffons and replaced by them. The Griffon is sold as a slave to an Egyptian-like society ruled by other chimeras, so naturally he fits in (but is also recognized as a foreigner) and works his way to the top of the society (Only the Pharaoh is above him). Then he stages a hostile takeover by his people.

I wouldn't be inclined to read it just because it would have to occur so far outside of the known My Little Pony universe.

2106344
You could really fit griffins into any ethnicity not already taken by another MLP race: Egyptian, Norse, Southern European, I've even seen Chinese work well. The possibilities are almost endless.

2106704

I'm sorry you feel that way.

I just like to move things outside of the west every now and then.

Wouldn't want things to go round and round like clockwork, now would we?

That would just be generic.

2107830

Oh, it's not that. I love the stories that move outside of Equestria, so long as they include (or at least heavily reference) canon characters. Fallout: Equestria is a good example of one of these.

The problem is, it'd have to be written extremely well for me to consider it, as being so old the only canon characters it could reference are Discord, Celestia and Luna.

2119369

Fair enough, but that's not the question. All I'd like to know is if it's a viable idea and not something I'd get laugh off for.

There's no requirement on FiM Fiction to write about cannon characters. There are fics that don't use any at all.

It's presumptuous to think that only Celestia, Luna and Discord could possibly appear from the cannon because you don't know what I'm doing with the idea.

What If my fic involves time-travel? That would allow me to use as many cannon characters as I want.

What if my fic is an alternate in which cannon characters are re-imagined into roles they wouldn't normally occupy?

What if the idea is being applied as part of a simulation? Or a story within a story? Or as background history for a modern environment?

Come on, be creative.

Regardless, I think I know where I stand with this idea now, so I'm happy.