188 - Finding an Exit
“So what do we do now?”
Drafty had just climbed to her hooves as she heard C. Shells’ question, leaning against Cloudbank and shaking her head to clear away the last of the cobwebs from her brush with death. “What do you mean?”
“She means we’re trapped,” replied Turbo bluntly. “We all managed to make it here in one piece, but there’s no way out.” Drafty blinked at that, moving away from Cloudbank as she took a better look at their surroundings.
There wasn’t much to see. Although the light from Severance’s blade was dim, it provided enough illumination to make it plain that the inside of the vault consisted of a single large room. The back wall was made entirely of small drawers, each with a number and a keyhole. The left and right walls were lined with shelves, all of which were stuffed with bags that had been stamped with the symbol for bits. And the wall behind her was dominated by the large round door, now closed, and a small bookstand that had been shoved into a corner, a single folio labeled “Records” resting atop it. The only other distinguishing feature to be found was the lack of water in the room, the floor being mercifully dry.
He’s right, Drafty realized with a sinking feeling. The only way out is the way we came in! And those ghouls are definitely still out there… She ran a hoof over her throat as she thought that, unable to help the shudder that went down her spine as she recalled the sensation of sharp teeth sinking into her neck, followed by the incredible pain of them tearing her throat out.
Noticing the look on Drafty’s face, Cloudbank stepped forward and rubbed her side against the other mare. “There is a way out,” she said, forcing confidence into her voice. “We just have to find it.” She turned around then, positioning herself so she could face everypony at once. “Getting here was tougher than we thought it would be, and it was touch-and-go there for a minute, but we did it. We beat the odds and we made it through. Together.”
She paused then, a sudden wave of determination crashing over her. The sensation was heady, and in the wake of all the close calls they’d just endured – which had ended with Drafty’s almost dying – it seemed crazy, but somehow that only served to heighten the feeling. That’s right. We’ve all put our lives on the line for each other, and it’s gotten us this far. We can do it again. I know we can!
Giving a resolute nod, Cloudbank made eye contact with each of her companions in turn. “Drafty, you were the one who came up with the idea for how to get past those spikes in the water. If you hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have made it here to begin with.”
“Well, I do have a knack for traps,” smiled Drafty modestly.
Cloudbank gave her a nod before looking at the pony next to her. “C. Shells, you helped Sandbar when he injured his hoof, and you held Drafty up when that ghoul tried to drown her. If you hadn’t come with us, I know we would’ve lost somepony by now.”
C. Shells waved a hoof, as though to bat the compliments away, but she was smiling. “I didn’t do anything special, and certainly not anything you all didn’t do for me before.”
Accepting the humble response, Cloudbank turned her gaze to the pony across from her. “Turbo…I know we haven’t always gotten along, but I want to say thank you.” She gave him a small, grateful smile. “Since this started, you’ve thrown yourself into danger more than anypony here, and when everything looked hopeless, you were the one who got the vault door open. No matter what you did before, I’m proud to have fought beside you now.”
“I-” Turbo opened his mouth, about to say that if she was so grateful for his help she should talk to Lex about lifting Garden Gate’s curses, but a sudden sense of acute discomfort made the words stick in his throat. He worked his jaw silently for a moment, not sure what to say, before he finally gave up. Instead he looked down, unable to meet Cloudbank’s eyes for some reason, and nodded in acknowledgment.
“And me?” grinned Sandbar as Cloudbank turned her eyes toward him.
He looks just like a puppy that wants a treat, she thought, unable to stop from grinning at the mental comparison. “How’s your hoof?”
“Huh?” He blinked, the question catching him off-guard. “It’s still a little tender. Why?”
“Can you walk on it?”
A nervous look flitted across his face as he gingerly lowered his injured hoof to the ground, leaning his weight on it…and then grimacing as he immediately shifted backward. “…no,” he answered glumly, his ears folding down. But his dejection only lasted for a moment before something occurred to him, looking back at Cloudbank. “Can you use your magic to heal it?”
She shook her head. Between saving Drafty just now, demonstrating that protective spell back during her speech, and using some extremely minor magic to repair a few torn tents for some of the camp ponies when she'd been looking for volunteers to come here, she was almost completely tapped. “I only have one spell left, and it’s not a healing spell.”
“You don’t need magic for a little cut like that,” scoffed C. Shells, moving next to Sandbar. He gave a slight yelp as she pulled his bandana off of his head, spitting on it before lifting his injured hoof in hers and dabbing at it. “You just need to swab it clean, let it rest, and I bet that in ten minutes you’ll be good as new.” She dabbing at his injury as she spoke, causing him to bite his lip in discomfort.
“I hope so,” interjected Cloudbank, “because I’m still counting on him to carry as many of these bits as he can when we get out of here.”
That made Sandbar jerk his head back towards her, a surprised look on his face. “Wait, really?”
Everypony else looked similarly startled at her words, with Drafty speaking up first. “Cloudy, are you serious? I mean, I’m glad that we’re all having a moment here, but at this point I think we’ll be lucky if we can all get out of this place alive.”
“That’s a very big ‘if,’” added Turbo. “The only way out is to open the door and fight our way through those ghouls, and even with your magic scythe,” he gestured towards Severance, still floating silently above them, “I’d be surprised if any of us made it. There’s just too many of them.”
“Then we’ll figure out another way,” replied Cloudbank without missing a beat. She paused then, hoping that her companions would be galvanized by her surety, but the only response she received was an uncomfortable silence. “C’mon everypony, think! I wanna hear some ideas! If we can’t fight our way out, then how do we get out of here?”
For a moment no one replied, until Turbo let out a sigh. “I’m sure you’d have mentioned this already if you did, but do you have any magic that can help? Something that can get us out of here or call for a rescue?”
Cloudbank shook her head. “I only have one spell left, and all it does is boost your sense of courage.”
“That wouldn’t be the worst thing right about now,” murmured Drafty, rubbing her neck again as she glanced back at the vault door.
“You’re just jealous because that healing spell you got didn’t leave you with a cool scar like mine,” teased Sandbar, pointing at his own neck, and the statement was ludicrous enough that Drafty couldn’t help but laugh.
C. Shells joined her a moment later, vainly trying to keep her amusement under control. “You’re such an idiot,” she murmured at Sandbar, her body shaking with mirth.
He snorted good-naturedly, chuckling as the bout of laughter spread to him. “I’m just saying, an awesome scar is the sort of characteristic people remember. Remember that one guy in ‘Daring Do and the Disappearing Diamond’? The museum curator? He didn’t actually steal the diamond, but because he had that nasty scar, he seemed like…like…” Sandbar trailed off, before his eyes suddenly widened. “That’s it!”
“What’s what?” snickered Cloudbank, still enjoying the moment of levity that had spread throughout the room.
“That’s how we get out of here!” The excitement in Sandbar’s voice was enough to command everyone’s attention, quieting down as they looked at him. “Remember what happened in the beginning of that book? When the Diamond of the Wise King was stolen from the museum even though it was locked up tight?”
“I read that,” nodded Cloudbank. “There was no sign of a break-in, so everypony suspected the curator, since he had only taken the job a week before and had the keys to the place.”
“Right, and his scar made him look like a villain,” continued Sandbar. “So the police thought it was an open-and-shut case. But Daring Do knew better, because he’d been talking to her about financing her next expedition during the night of the robbery. So she searched the crime scene-”
“-and found a secret passage,” finished Cloudbank, realizing what he was getting at. “You think there might be a secret passage out of here?”
“It would make sense,” he enthused. “I mean, we’re like Daring Do! We’ve gone into an old ruin, fought our way past traps and monsters, and now we’ve found the treasure! So I bet there’s a secret passage that will get us out of here now!”
Drafty frowned, rubbing a hoof on her chin in thought. “I don’t know, Piggy didn’t say anything about a secret passage when I was hitting him up for information about this place.”
“That doesn’t mean that there isn’t one!” Sandbar went over to one of the shelves, pushing the bags of bits to the side. “Maybe he forgot, or-, no, wait, maybe he never knew! You said that his great-grandstallion built this place, right? Big Banks? If he had a hidden passage and never told anypony about it, then-”
“There’s no secret passage.”
Turbo’s voice was soft, but the absolute certainty in it was enough to make everypony look at him. “You don’t know that,” shot back Sandbar with a scowl.
“Yes I do,” sighed Turbo.
“How?” asked C. Shells.
“Because this entire room is dry.” Turbo waved a hoof to encompass the vault. “Think about it. If there was a secret passage up to the ground floor, the floodwater would have slipped in through it, and there would be knee-deep water in here just like the rest of the basement. But there isn’t.”
Sandbar gaped, looking like a foal who’d just been told that Hearth’s Warming was cancelled. “No way.”
“I guess that makes sense,” muttered Drafty, her ears folding down in discouragement. “I mean, when you think about it someone who owns the bank wouldn’t really need a secret passage into their own vault.”
“That would be a security risk.” C. Shells looked similarly dismayed. Despite the flaws in it, Sandbar’s idea – and his enthusiasm – had been encouraging.
Sandbar sighed, sitting down and hanging his head dejectedly. “I’m sorry, you guys. I got everypony’s hopes up for nothing.”
“No.”
Cloudbank looked up slowly, a smile spreading across her face as she looked at Sandbar. “It wasn’t for nothing. Just the opposite, that’s how we’re going to get out of here!”
He blinked at that, sharing a confused look with everypony else before asking the obvious question. “How’s that? If there’s no hidden passage…”
“Then we make one of our own,” replied Cloudbank firmly. “Severance!” The scythe floated into her grasp obediently.
“You want to cut a way out of here?” asked Drafty incredulously.
Turbo shook his head. “That won’t work either. Cutting down the door won’t be any different than opening it. You might crush a few ghouls if you push it outward, but the rest will just swarm us. And I doubt there are any passages on the other side of the other three walls.”
“Maybe,” smirked Cloudbank, “but there’s one other direction that definitely has a passage we can take to bypass those monsters.”
With deliberate, dramatic slowness, she pointed upward.
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Secret passages are no go though I am glad you managed to incorporate that in such an amusing fashion.
Though I seriously wonder if cutting a way out of the vault is sound. While Severance has the capabilities to carry out that task, the scythe could view this as relying on it too much.
And even if it doesn't, there's a chance of the ghouls being attracted to the noise and pour in through the opening. The courage spell sounds like it could prove to boost someone's ability to fight without fear. I really wish it's Warband but that spell is too high leveled for Cloudbank's current level.(What is her level right now anyway? 2?)
Still, I like how the group dynamic is reminding me of a party of adventurers or would NPC party members apply here? I'll even make a list with some admittedly cliche descriptions.(Quick question, if you had to pick classes for the party members, what would you pick?)
Cloudbank being the determined leader that's still coming into her own.
Drafty as the pillar for Cloudbank to lean on in times of trouble as well as Cloudbank's source of inspiration.
Turbo, the experienced survivor who has seen and done many things(many of which best not said) to make it this far.
Sandbar, the optimist and somewhat naive party member out on their first adventure with aspects of a comedic relief thrown in.
C.Shells is...the odd one out I guess since Cloudbank's the party leader here though I expected more input on C.Shell's part after the speech she gave to her crew.
I mean, she has done a lot in the previous chapters(leading her crew against the sahuagin, the kraken. helping set up the safe house, etc) but that's always done in the background and with her crew helping and I was hoping to see some of that in action...though that may have taken the focus away from Cloudbank and Drafty...
Oh well, all I can do is wait and see if C.Shells as well as the rest of the party will have their moment to shine in future chapter. Though Turbo holding off multiple ghouls with just a knife on his own is rather impressive.
I didnt propose using cut through absolutely anything Severance as an exit mnaker, despite watching Thunderbirds, seeing the vault raiders on the news, and visiting a computer shop in an ex bank that kept their stock in the vault till they moved, because of the non personal weapon and self sentience and mentions of requirements thereof, no matter the power.
Otherwise I wouldnt have proposed to fight my way through the ghouls in the first place. Just do like the vault raiders, pick a place a distance away and drop an access shaft down the back.
Sevreance can still refuse, until appropiate reasons are offered, but Cloudy has events bonuses and rolls on her side?
hum i don't know about this.
this is asking a hole lot from Severance and with know idea what is above? but just sitting there is a no go also.
8623236 As you noted, just staying there isn't really an option, since there's no other way out and no way to call for help. Fighting their way out is likewise the least-feasible method of getting out of there, so cutting a hole in the ceiling and escaping that way is probably their best bet. While it's true that they don't know precisely what's above them, it's a truism that a lower flower is going to be built beneath the upper floors of a building, even when said lower floor is the basement. So there's probably more of the bank directly above them.
Also, nice job on the pun!
8623137 I've been trying to hint for the last chapter or two that there's a difference between what Cloudbank thinks that Severance's warning about becoming overly reliant on it means, and what it actually means. Remember, during the battle with the kraken it not only warned her when Tlerekithres threw a ship at her, it cut the thing in half when she swung it. And just now, when she told it to help Turbo, it obeyed.
Contrast this with the times it has refused to help her: when she was controlled by Tlerekithres and asked it to do something, and when she was preparing for her last strike against the kraken and asked the scythe about where to aim. In both cases, it refused to do anything to help her.
There's a degree of difference between when it was willing to help out and when it wasn't. But I won't say anything else about that for now.
8623102 Having Sandbar, with his child-like optimism, be the one to think of such a pie-in-the-sky answer as "there must be a secret passage out of here! Because we're heroes!" was a lot of fun to write. Fun fact: I was originally going to call the book he referenced "Daring Do and the Double Diamond," until I realized that this would make everyone think of that guy from Starlight's village. The reason I wanted to name it that was because I felt like making another sly reference, to the (non-canon) series of Forgotten Realms novellas that made up the Double Diamond Triangle Sage. As it was, I still worked in a bit of a reference, since the "Diamond of the Wise King" is my way of noting that the authors of the first two books were J. Robert King and David Wise (although the latter wrote his book with James M. Ward). That, and the final book is called "The Diamond" too.
As for Severance's attitude towards what Cloudbank wants to use it for...well, see my previous post for more on that. The thing to remember here is that this is ultimately up to Severance's definition of what constitutes being overly reliant, and the scythe has its own particular rules that it plays by. There's more that I want to say about this, but I'll leave it at that for now.
If they do make use of Cloudbank's plan, then the ghouls might hear the noise and figure out what's going on...or maybe not. There are different ways that could go down, particularly with the ghouls being particularly ravenous (to the point of seeming to be almost feral now). If the ponies are smart and lucky, they might be able to leverage things to their advantage. Then again, this could just be waiting to go sideways, as so many other things have. But it's still a better idea, at least on its face, than trying to fight their way back out.
It's at this point in your comment that you kept me honest. I winced a little bit at this next line, not because it was bad but because you pointed out where I hadn't quite lived up to my own standard for this story. To quote the line in question:
This zinged me twice, once for the issue of her spell, and the second for the issue of Cloudbank's character level.
With regards to the first one, the fact of the matter is that I made a small error here. The problem wasn't with the actual spell itself - she's saying that her existing spell is remove fear (which only helps on saving throws vs. fear effects) - but rather that I forgot about 0-level spells.
Right now, Cloudbank has the ability to use three 1st-level spells per day. Today, she's used shield of faith (during her speech) and cure light wounds (to save Drafty), and has remove fear left over. The reason she can use that many is because one is her standard spell slot, one is a bonus spell for having a high casting stat modifier (Wisdom, for her), and one is her domain spell. (If you're curious, the domain spell is remove fear, which is the 1st-level spell for the Loyalty subdomain of the Law domain; as per (the revised) Princess Luminace's Guide to the Pony Pantheon, that's one of the Night Mare's subdomains.)
However, that overlooks the fact that she should have at least three 0-level spells as well. This put me in an awkward position, because 0-level spells can, in Pathfinder, be cast at will - we've even seen that in action, since Cozy was using her light spell over and over when Lex was leading her and her friends back to the shelter. In order to fix this, I've added the following line back into this chapter, when Cloudbank is telling Sandbar that she only has one spell left:
That is to say, she's prepared, and used, mending three times for the camp ponies before she left. That's...still not quite in accordance with Pathfinder; she should only have prepared that spell once, and can simply cast it infinitely until she changes it, along with two other 0-level spells. So what's the deal? The answer is that Cloudbank is buying divine caster levels via the Eclipse: The Codex Persona rules (the same rules used for Lex and Sonata), and those are built off of the 3.5 standard, which doesn't allow for infinite castings of 0-level spells. To be clear, you can have that in Eclipse, but it needs to be purchased separately, and she hasn't done that (whereas Cozy has). Hence, Cloudbank has used up her 0-level spells for the day on doing good (albeit minor) deeds for the camp ponies.
That's a rather clumsy explanation (and retcon), but it's the best I can do.
Having said all of that, you might have noticed that my saying how many spells of each level she has is the equivalent to a 1st-level cleric. Since she's using the Eclipse rules for character-building, it's possible that she's just taken fewer spellcasting levels than her actual character level...but that's not the case here. That is to say, Cloudbank is a 1st-level character (as are all of her companions).
I know that sounds wrong, but hear me out.
I previously let it slip that she (and pretty much everypony else) gained a level during their fight with Tlerekithres' minions (only one, as per the rule that you can't gain multiple levels simultaneously). The thing is, characters in Pathfinder/D&D v.3.5/the d20 System always start at 1st-level; there aren't any standard rules for "level 0" characters. The closest that you're likely to find (without looking at third-party offerings) is Pathfinder's rules for young characters, but those don't really work here either, since Cloudbank and the others weren't underaged, but rather inexperienced. It was after (and because of) that battle that they graduated from being "ordinary" ponies into being exceptional individuals (as a note, Turbo is 1st level because of his experiences up until now as an active survivor, rather than being part of that battle).
Pathfinder, unfortunately, doesn't really model that very well. Under its character class-based rules, you're 1st-level from the get-go, since being a 1st-level character only requires you to have 0 experience points...which, being 0, is what everyone is going to have from the start. This sits rather oddly with the starting age tables, since those tables heavily imply that you're not able to take your first level in a PC class until you've worked at it for the listed number of years (which is rather strange for things like a sorcerer, which is a class based around your having inherited, innate magical abilities due to your lineage). To be fair, the aforementioned "young characters" rule tries to bridge this gap, but it does so by restricting those characters to NPC class levels that are eventually retrained into PC class levels...and, again, that's for underage characters, rather than adults who never had to go adventuring in the first place (presumably they'd utilize the same system - i.e. having NPC class levels and then retraining them - but if that's the case, is there much point to calling out young adventurers specifically besides some minor ability score modifiers?).
It's amusing to note that even Paizo, the publishers of the Pathfinder RPG, have hinted at being unsure about the degree to which non-adventuring adults should have class levels in NPC classes. That's why, although those classes go up to 20th level, their intro to their sample NPCs flat-out says that NPCs who only have NPC class levels really shouldn't get above 10th level (and so present none themselves; I still remember a lot of jokes about "20th-level commoners" from back in D&D v.3.5's heyday).
Eclipse, of course, doesn't have that problem; the book flat-out presumes that there's a level 0, and that it functions exactly the same way as level 1, 2, 3, etc., with the sole difference being how many hit points you have. To be fair, the book does call out level 0 as being representative of young characters, but since the actual rules function exactly the same for that level as for any other level, it's easy to ignore that and say that background adults who are unexceptional in any way (notwithstanding ability scores) are level 0 characters.
Overall, what that means is that however you want to look at it - that Cloudbank and co. were level 1 in an NPC class and retrained, or were level 0 characters who have gained a level - they're level 1 characters now. (Technically, the latter interpretation is the "correct" one, because that's the system I'm using to provide the background framework for this story, but insofar as this discussion goes the end result is roughly the same either way, albeit that I'm not using class levels for these characters). With that said...I really should sit down and write out stat blocks for these guys, given how prominent they've all become. Certainly, I needed to do that for Sonata before I started bringing her character forward more, so there's no reason not to do the same here.
So...I hope that answers that. Moving on...
If I had to give Pathfinder PC class levels for these characters...that's a bit difficult, because right now there's only one spellcaster in the group, and comparatively little to distinguish the non-spellcasters from each other. I suppose I'd have to go with something like the following:
Cloudbank: 1st-level cleric of the Night Mare. This is self-evident.
Drafty: 1st-level rogue. Her skill with traps and lack of any clerical abilities (insofar as Kara is concerned), along with her personable nature, really says rogue to me.
Turbo: I almost went with ranger (with the urban ranger archetype), but I think that he's a 1st-level slayer with the cutthroat archetype. That seems to fit with how much of a brutal combatant he's been shown to be over the last few chapters. (Though a lot of that was him fighting defensively and taking a total defense.)
C. Shells: The best fit I can come up with is a 1st-level fighter with the tactician archetype (scroll down). That somewhat approximates her being a captain who leads a crew, even if it's not the greatest fit for what we've seen her do (more on that below).
Sandbar: This is another "close enough" fit, but I'd call him a 1st-level fighter with the unbreakable archetype (scroll down). It thematically fits his eternally-optimistic nature, and that he's apparently notably strong (remember that he grabbed a stanchion to use, instead of a knife).
The reason why C. Shells is so hard to place is that she's a character who not only doesn't have a narrative arc, she doesn't have particular strengths or weaknesses to make her notable. Cloudbank is trying to figure out what it means to be a leader, is unsure what she wants from Lex (and vice versa), and is adjusting to her role as a priestess. Drafty is pursuing a three-way relationship (with Cloudbank and Lex), and is harboring a secret about her worshiping Kara. Turbo wants to help Garden Gate, and is in conflict with Lex and Cloudbank in that regard. Even Sandbar, although he doesn't have an arc, is notable for his playful attitude (and, of course, his scar).
C. Shells doesn't really have any of that. She's a good captain who cares about her crew, but besides that she doesn't have any notable virtues beyond being a little braver than most ponies, and that's true for everyone in Lex's group now. She doesn't really have any goals that she's shooting for (besides doing the best she can with what she has where she is), no particular flaws that she's working to overcome, and no major relationships with anyone else besides her subordinate Ocean Spray. Even her relationship with Lex is something of a formality. She has, from a meta-character point of view, traded away any major virtues for having no real vices. She's an everymare, really.
Unfortunately, that makes her sort of bland as a character, which is why I had a hard time having Cloudbank find something to thank her for. Such characters might make very reliable friends, and are the bedrock of a society, but having no notable perks or flaws just means that you're not notable, period...and that's not a good thing for a character in a story. Hopefully she'll get a chance to shine going forward.
EDIT: Having given it some further thought, I don't think that I gave you a very good answer with regard to everyone's level - they probably should be level 2 rather than level 1. The problem with what I said before is that, if we go with what I said above about "ordinary" adult ponies being level 0, that clashes with what I've written before about Rarity being level 1, and holding her up as an example of your average pony in Equestria. It also creates some problems if we want to assume that younger characters have lesser stats than adults without being near-totally helpless.
The root of the problem is that, if we have background NPCs be 1st-level characters, that necessarily means that they've spent one of their levels on a class (or some abilities) that most likely won't help them in the event that they ever become adventuring characters (the way Cloudbank and the others have). Retraining is obviously a fix for this, but making such a huge precedent for swapping out abilities makes it curious that such things don't happen among adventurers who want to change their career paths (which they typically don't, or at least not very much).
Of course, given that we're using Eclipse stats for everyone rather than character levels, that's not really a big deal at all, since we can assign as few or as many of everypony's existing Character Points on non-adventuring options as we want, and allocate the rest as necessary later. In that case, it might very well be that Cloudbank is a level 2 character that's only "bought" one level of clerical spellcasting (since she hasn't used as many spells as a second level of that would get her).
All of this makes me think that I really need to sit down and write full stat blocks for these characters at some point in the near future.
8624365
Considering how long the story could potentially end up being, you'll likely end up editing them quite a bit over time, regardless of whether or not you use them since they'll need to learn and adapt to the situation and to Lex's leadership. Wonder if this adventure would get them another level?
I can see the remove fear spell being a rather useful spell to have since the ghouls' singing and taunting could technically induce a fear effect. I mean, fear normally elicits one of two responses, flight or fight. And given how the majority of ponies in the series respond to disaster, they flee with no resolve to fight, making them easier meals for the ghouls. Of course, just seeing a ghoul would likely be enough induce fear in average folks.
Now that I think about it, are there character traits that allow PCs or NPCs to have fears or phobias of specific creature types, like undead or sea monsters? If so, then I think more than a few would have gained that trait by now...and I'll stop here before I ramble myself into even more unrelated topics.
8624365
I don't think it makes any sense for competent adults to be 1st level, honestly. When I'm GMing I usually have them be at least 3rd (with young characters being 1st). Often have PCs start at 3rd, also, kind of for the same reason.
Goblins and kobolds and other popcorn races stay 1-HD because they're all basically young and inexperienced. Human (and maybe orc?) guards would have had training first.
But... it kind of makes sense in this sort of crossover? If the idea is that 'class levels' are an Everglow thing and ponies who haven't been exposed to Everglow monsters and magic are using some sort of alternative point-based system instead.
If you wanted to make it playable, you could model it as a racial thing, with a typical adult pony having a couple of hit dice and a bunch of skills that make the first few levels more expensive but eventually become mostly irrelevant if they keep levelling up in a PC class.
8624861
That's really all the more reason for me to sit down and write up what they can do. The entire point of my making stat blocks for the characters was to keep their powers and abilities concretely defined; while extremely low-level characters can be presumed to have very few of those that are notable in their own right (in Eclipse terms, most of a 1st- or 2nd-level character's Character Points are going to be spent on basic things, like proficiencies, Hit Dice, Base Attack Bonus, saves, and skills). But beyond that, I really should write up what they can do...though, in the event of abilities that don't seem like they can be intuitively picked up on the fly, that means having to come up with an in-story explanation for where those new powers come from. That's not exactly simple...but it might be worthwhile to focus on that, if things get that far.
You seem to have a knack for hitting on issues that I struggle to find a way to balance.
In this case, there's an issue of plausibility with regards to how fast the d20 System allows characters to go from 1st-level nobodies to high-level movers and shakers if they continually level up. This is a problem because the scale of power between 1st level and 20th level is absolutely massive, and so runs the risk of setting a precedent that anyone who pushes themselves through extreme conditions can achieve incredible power in well under a year. Obviously, not everyone would survive doing so, but a place like Equestria has such a paucity of high-level characters that this creates a problem with internal consistency as well as tone.
Lex, for example, has effectively gained three levels over the course of this story, but that's somewhat ameliorated by how two of those were part of the template that he received from the Night Mare, and so can't really be judged (from an in-character standpoint) as being quite the same, since that was a direct infusion of power from a deity rather than any sort of natural progression of personal ability (from a meta-character standpoint, he essentially got that under a "buy now, pay later" plan, since he had to supply the experience points for those two levels before he could gain anymore). That aside, he's gained one level in just under a month, which is somewhat more reasonable (somewhat).
Not per se. The "effect" part of a "fear effect" means that there's a discrete, objective thing that's causing fear - usually allowing a saving throw - rather than something simply being scary. While I suppose something like the Intimidate skill might count also, most everything else that creates a fear effect is a spell (such as cause fear) or a special ability (such as the fear aura that older dragons, such as Moss, develop). While previous editions of D&D had "morale checks" for when a hostile NPC's courage might break during the course of a battle, Pathfinder really doesn't have that; the d20 System doesn't really want to dictate how characters have to behave when not under magical influence (debates about the strength of the Diplomacy skill aside).
All of which is to say, the things you're outlining aren't wrong, but technically don't represent any sort of game mechanics that the remove fear spell is written to interact with. That means that the effects of the spell are somewhat nebulous for how much they apply to mundane sources of fear (since it seems awkward that it would help you resist a cause fear spell but not being afraid of a scary-looking monster).
The closest is probably the "xenophobic" drawback. It's not quite the same, but works off of the same idea.
Amusingly, what you get in return for taking a drawback is almost identical in Pathfinder and Eclipse. Pathfinder allows you to take one drawback in exchange for taking a third trait (since you get two normally). Traits are treated as being "half-feats" in terms of their overall level of power (notwithstanding campaign traits, which are slightly stronger in exchange for tying your character closer to a particular adventure path). A "feat" is Eclipse is worth 6 Character Points. In that system, "disadvantages" are each worth 3 CP, and you can gain a maximum of three (though if you take that many, you get a 1 CP bonus, for 10 altogether).
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I'm inclined to disagree, but I see where you're coming from with this. To me, that's a product of the d20 System's de facto presumption that characters effectively begin their lives at 1st level. Taking on a "younger characters" system after the fact doesn't really do more than put a band-aid on the problem, and that's at best; trying to retcon in a "weaker-than 1st-level" state when the game hasn't been built with that in mind is necessarily going to be awkward, and so a lot of people will just say that competent adulthood is slightly higher than 1st level.
Well, humanoid races with only 1 natural Hit Die universally have class levels instead of retaining that single racial Hit Die, but that's an aside. More notably, don't underestimate kobolds or similar races. They can gain class levels just like you can.
Hrm, this looks like another area where I haven't been completely clear, darn it.
Strictly speaking, Everglow uses character classes because that's how David Silver wrote the game world; he used the Pathfinder rules, and those rules don't really have any other way for characters to be represented. But this was a problem, because Equestria very clearly didn't fit that mold, and so - when he started writing A Dangerous Sparkle - had the characters essentially "translate" themselves from Equestrian to Everglow, which not only entailed their looks changing, but also their abilities. It's why Twilight, in the beginning of that story, couldn't use her Equestrian magic and had to learn everything all over again the Everglow way while she was there. This essentially sidestepped the issue of trying to represent Equestria in game terms.
Eclipse, however, doesn't really have that problem, being flexible enough to model Equestria and Everglow under the d20 rules (albeit with a variant regarding how characters are built). In a practical context, what that means is that - technically - I should be using the Eclipse rules to model what characters on both worlds can do. Strictly speaking, that's not really that difficult; since the Eclipse rules are d20-based to begin with, they can model your standard character classes no problem, and so can easily represent what we've seen about Everglow so far. In that case, the major difference between the two worlds is that the ponies of Equestria aren't using the "Pathfinder Package Deal" meta-mechanic, and so aren't quite as optimized as their Everglow counterparts (who do use that package deal), as illustrated by the two different versions of Rarity that I wrote up before. In theory, an Equestrian pony that spends enough time on Everglow will bridge this gap.
To put it another way, the ponies of Everglow are using Eclipse stats. They're just using them to take suites of powers that largely recreate traditional character classes.
The only real problem here is figuring out why, under these assumptions, the ponies of Everglow would choose to stay locked into rigid "class" progressions when they could - from an out-of-character point of view - individualize a great deal more than they are, thanks to the Eclipse rules. I haven't had much of a chance to answer this yet, but the long and short of it is that I don't think they do (hence that link to my write-up of Queen Iliana). I suspect that while tradition and a desire for order have made certain progressions carry the weight of tradition - remember, Everglow is a world that is struggling against chaos (that was a plot element around why The Unspoken became a god), and so would probably want to move away from wild individuation - there's still a great deal of less-visible variance going on. After all, that's eminently believable, since even character class-based rules have ever-growing lists of new base classes, archetypes, feats, etc. all expanding what they can do anyway. So using point-buy rules to model their characteristics seems like a natural fit.
Or at least, I think that's a nicer explanation.
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Sure, levelled kobolds exist! But if you run into a kobold tribe most of the combatants will be plain old kobolds, where an orc tribe (or a human village) I'd give the generic orc warriors some class levels. That part's just personal preference obviously.
I know Cloudy would hate it, but could they have Severus teleport to Lex and get a rescue party from camp?
8626708 Insofar as we know, Severance can't teleport.
We have seen it cut open gates to other planes of existence - albeit only in David Silver's The Apple Falls Far From the Tree - but no one in this story is aware that it can do that.
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Oops.
Basically the only reasonable course of action here.