A collection of headcanons concerning Equestrian history and geography, and an invitation for dicussion and exchange of ideas.
With the release of Season 4, this Encyclopedia is to be considered outdated.
Equestria. A land we know, a land we love. Or so we think. But do we really know it? What stories lie hidden behind the veil of time? What miraculous places, what strange creatures yet wait to be discovered?
Meet Ink Blot, senior librarian of Canterlot and his life's work in making: Ink Blot's Unassorted Encyclopedia of Absolutely Everything (Ever). Article by article, let him unravel his homeworld to you. And who knows - historians lie. Maybe you know a story that he's never heard of?
A collection of headcanons concerning Equestrian history and geography, and an invitation for dicussion and exchange of ideas. Set in a fully humanized Equestria and aimed to portray a more serious background in the style of classical fantasy novels.
The story of Equestria’s founding is thoroughly documented and well preserved – anyone who ever sat through a Hearth’s Warming Eve celebration will agree to this. Yet while every child knows the tale of the three kingdoms, shockingly few of the Equestrian people would be able to tell you what happened after that. Thanks to the commendable support of Princess Celestia – who has offered us the vast library of early lore that is her personal memory – those times have never been lost; yet, having the story written down serves little purpose when no one bothers to read it. To fill this lamentable gap in the populace’s general knowledge, please allow me to reiterate why such ancient history is still important for us today.
As we all know, the three races came to modern Equestria from the southwest, fleeing from the blizzards that were ravaging their homelands at the time. Haunted by a powerful windigo population, they narrowly survived by overcoming the old barriers of hatred and mistrust between their people, and harnessing the power of Harmony for the first time in recorded history. The events of the first Hearth’s Warming Eve would climax in the ignition of the Fires of Friendship and the forging of the most influential alliance this world would ever see. Pegasi, unicorns and earth walkers joined their forces and declared their new home the United Realm of Equestria.
While this was a tremendous step towards unity, it was of course not as absolute as it may seem at first. All three races had come from different nations and were strangers to their new home, and they all had their own ways of adapting to it. While battling the windigos had made them fast friends, their cultures weren’t as easily fused.
The earth walkers spread out across the countryside, as they were used to. Having lost all faith in their Chancellor, they split into a plethora of independent settlements, often consisting of only a few families. They worked the rich soil of the new land to bring forth crops like nothing before them. Now pioneers as well as farmers, they would soon be famed for their hospitality, their easy smiles and their generous way of sharing the spoils of their labour.
While their approach was a very direct one, it was nothing compared to the pragmatism of the pegasi. Commander Hurricane and her warriors were a proud and fierce kind that valued their history and accomplishments. Where the other races left their home behind to build a new one in Equestria, the pegasi simply took theirs with them: Hurricane dispatched a squad of her most durable soldiers to return to their ancient cloud fortress of Stratopolis and simply move the entire city north. Once the feat was done, Commander Hurricane declared that Stratopolis would from then on carry a new name: Cloudsdale. It was a token of good will. The pegasi were ready for peace.
Meanwhile, many unicorns were fascinated by the mysterious fire that had driven out the windigos on Hearth’s Warming Eve. Keen to study that thrilling new power, the already studious scholars serving Princess Platinum grew more numerous and influential with every passing day. It wouldn’t take long until Starswirl the Bearded and his prize student Clover held more actual power than the royalty they were supposed to serve. It speaks volumes that Canterlot was a library before it was a palace – the unicorn kings built their homes beside the archives, not vice versa.
As it would turn out, they had chosen their subject wisely. Modern researchers generally agree that the founding day of Equestria was the first confirmed manifestation of the Elements of Harmony in this world. Some would go as far as to speculate that the very Spirits have been born that day. The actual influence of the three races’ alliance may not have been as strong, but it is for a certainty that their pact brought peace and kindness to a world that had known nothing but strife until then. What we do influences reality just as reality influences us – the new age dawned with the Elements stronger than ever before. They drank their people’s trust and friendship and rewarded them with milder seasons, kinder hearts and stronger magic. Most of all, they would soon after choose their champions among them, and change Equestria forever.
Exactly a century after the three races’ arrival in the alien lands of Equestria, three very remarkable children were born into the world. Everything about them made clear they were special. To begin with, the three of them all had parents of different races. The idea of inter-racial marriage was a novelty to the ancient Equestrians, and rarely practised. At the same time (looking back), it is no surprise that the Elements of Harmony would have picked such shining examples of unity as their chosen ones. In the end, things happened the only way they could have.
All three children were born on the same day, the centenary of the first Hearth’s Warming Eve, but at different hours. The first stepped into the world at noon, when the sun was at its zenith, out in some small earth walker settlement. Her mother was a gardener’s wife, her father a pegasus warrior. The second followed at dusk, when day and night were in perfect equilibrium, and he would be the only male among them. He was son to a unicorn scholar who brought him forth in her study in Canterlot, with his father, an earth walker merchant, watching over them. The last of the three was born at midnight. Her mother was a citizen of Cloudsdale and it was there that she was born, the full moon shining in her eyes. Her father had been some unicorn guard in Canterlot, an affair that both parents had kept a secret for as long as they could.
Yet all three children had one thing in common: they bore the traits of unicorns, pegasi and earth walkers all at once. They were alicorns.
Their appearance turned Equestria upside down. The brightest minds of all the land were soon studying the infants in Canterlot, whereto their frightened parents had brought them. Accusations of infidelity and foul sorcery were raised, but one gaze upon the newborn children would always suffice to quiet such slander. They radiated Harmony. Even in the crib, they seemed so inexplicably dignified that visitors would often report feeling the urge to kneel down before them. As they grew, so did that effect. And so did their power.
Where unicorn children would learn to lift pebbles at the age of seven, the alicorn siblings could move entire buildings with their minds. Twinkle Star, who had succeeded Clover the Clever as royal advisor, taught them the most complex spells she knew, and they mastered them within the hour. The old wizard would often be heard remarking how keen of mind they were, how mild of temper and wise far beyond their years. Truth is, despite an army of scholars observing them day and night, the three of them had always been the only ones who really understood what they were. The eldest, Celestia, was quickly shaping out to become their leader. The others followed her and listened to her advice, and she cared for them like any big sister would. It is remarkable how easily the three of them came to see each other as siblings, despite having no physical relation whatsoever.
Then came the day of their rite of passage. Every culture had its own practice of passing children on to adulthood; now the alicorn siblings belonged to neither of those cultures, but were raised amongst unicorns in Canterlot. Unicorns initiated their children through their own ancient duty: it fell upon their race to combine their magic at every dawn and every dusk to raise the sun and moon accordingly. Before partaking in the ritual, every child would be taught the spell to then perform it in front of the entire community, proving that they had mastered it. Only then would they be considered adults.
Celestia was, as ever, the first to be tested. The people of Canterlot had come together to see her, and the streets around the Twilight Plaza were packed with onlookers. An hour before scheduled dawn, she called forth her magic and summoned the spell. No other unicorn had had wings before, so it was quite a sight to see her rise from the ground as her invocation grew in power. Then, to the utter shock of anyone who paid witness to it, the sun began to rise in the east.
All hell broke loose. Some where accusing the alicorn of trickery, some were accusing each other, some were too confused to make any sense of what had happened at all. In the commotion, it took a while until anyone noticed the undeniable proof that there had been no deception: Celestia had gained her mark, and it showed the sun in plain sight. The alicorns had been known to be powerful, but this was beyond all imagination. Incredulous, Twinkle Star ordered Celestia to lower the sun again, which she did without effort.
Luna stepped up while the unicorns were still gaping at her sister. Ever the graceful, she ascended into the sky and raised the sun for the second time in less than a minute. Yet she struggled with the spell, nearly failed to finish it, and her mark would not show. Still, she had done the impossible – and as it seemed, it wasn’t even her destiny. The onlookers were almost grateful when Melody, the third of the alicorns, failed to follow the example of his sisters.
Yet when the night came, and Luna earned her mark by raising the moon, it was Celestia who in turn could not do the same as easily. Yet Melody once again could not manage to keep up with either, and his mentors began to worry. Most likely disharmony touched him for the first time then – the taste of failure on his lips, being branded the lowest of alicorns.
This article covers the Elements' historical discovery. For their actual nature, please consult article #8: The Elements of Harmony
-Ink Blot
Several years after earning their Marks, the siblings grew restless. The mystery surrounding them was still not solved, despite all the efforts of their teachers and mentors. Adolescents naturally search for their true selves – but in their case, no one could show them the answer. Eventually, Celestia had had enough. On her twentieth birthday, she proclaimed that she would no longer subject herself to the useless investigations of wizards and scholars. Instead, she retreated from the outer world to go on a journey in search for herself. As her new hideout, she chose an abandoned unicorn castle in the outer fringes of the Everfree Forest and as ever, her younger siblings followed. A number of earth walker settlements agreed to see to them in their exile, restoring the castle to some of its former glory and keeping the alicorns safe and fed.
And there they remained for more than a year. While history is quite well informed about what they did on the outside – meditations mostly, discussions, research and a lot of travelling up and down the Everfree Forest – the essence of that year will be forever out of reach for us; we simply cannot hope to understand the way an alicorn perceives the world. However they might have done it, the siblings each traced back the magic that had made them. Piece by piece, they understood what the world was really made of. In the end, they found out who they were: they discovered the Elements of Harmony. All this time, each of them had been carrying two of these virtues in their heart, no more, no less. They defined their being and personalities. The siblings understood that the Elements were not traits of the alicorns, but that instead the alicorns were impersonations of the Elements. Celestia, the leader of the three, found in her heart Loyalty and Honesty. Luna, the graceful maiden, proved generous and kind. And Melody… Melody, the enfant terrible, saw in himself what would become his undoing: Laughter and Magic.
The three of them returned to Canterlot. Realizing their own nature had obviously done wonders to their confidence, as all reports of that time agree on the boldness with which they acted then. Celestia declared herself and her siblings the rightful rulers of Equestria, and brought forth six tokens to strengthen their claim: the Elements of Harmony themselves, crystallized into gemstones. Those stones had been enchanted by the alicorns to serve as direct links to their respective Elements, making each of them a unique kind of spell focus and a link to nearly boundless power – if the wielder knew how to access it. Which, at that time, only the siblings did.
The unicorns were the first to bend their knees, and unsurprisingly so. There were two things that the people of Canterlot respected: arcane knowledge and arcane power. The alicorns had been born with the latter, and now had earned the former. They were the ones teaching their mentors about the Elements of Harmony now. In a few short months, they had learned more than the rest of society in decades. Equestrians began to understand the world around them. Canterlot accepted the alicorns as their prince and princesses.
The earth walkers were just as easily convinced. They had long abandoned any kind of central government, but after only a few visits of Prince Melody, they decided that they’d like those new leaders. In particular, they were enthralled by the alicorns’ connection to Harmony. They remembered the old Speaker Smart Cookie, and the Fires of Friendship she had helped to ignite. They took the appearance of Celestia and her siblings as a sign of the Elements’ rising strength, and were more than willing to submit.
It was the pegasi who offered the most resistance. They had forged what they considered an alliance with earth walkers and unicorns but remained warriors to the core: proud of their traditions, fierce in their beliefs and not willing to bow to anyone. Two generations would pass until Cloudsdale officially acknowledged the alicorns as rulers of Equestria.
But in the end, there was no one left who questioned the rightful rulership of the siblings. Now at last were the three races truly unified – bound together by Harmony.
After the alicorns came to power, Equestria grew and prospered for countless generations. The centuries saw the foundation of many a great city. Research of the Elements of Harmony progressed slowly, but steadily. Chrysalis ascended to alicornhood, and the Crystal Empire was established in the north. Meanwhile, the royal siblings became more revered with every passing day. Religious societies that worshipped them as gods were quite common. The Night Guard and Royal Guard both trace their origins back to that time, though the latter were originally named the "Celestian Solari".
Yet while the rulership of the siblings seemed an image of perfection to the Equestrian common folk, trouble was brewing. Luna and Celestia – who now styled themselves princesses of night and day – governed Equestria with solemn dedication to their responsibilities. With the troubles of an entire realm upon their shoulders, both of them considered any kind of relaxation treachery against their people.
Their mindset clashed heavily with Prince Melody’s approach to power. He was the keeper of Laughter and Magic, and he understood himself as such. Spreading cheer and smiles was in his blood. He could not stand the sour-faced attitude of his sisters, just as they couldn't stand his. Through countless shunned surprise parties, popped balloons, cakes thrown into his face, Melody came to feel that even his own kin could not love him. For all his life, he had failed every challenge stacked against him. Where his sisters governed day and night, he was effectively without power. Yet Laughter was who he was. If Laughter had no place in the world… what did that say about him?
An alicorn perceives time in different ways than a mortal would; their resilience is remarkable, but not unlimited. On his eight hundredth birthday, Melody hit the absolute low-point of his life. Without friends or family, he celebrated his own birth locked away in his chambers, with no one to attend his party and with presents he had wrapped himself. Just then, when he felt that his existence couldn’t be any more pitiful, his sister Luna found him.
The silver princess scowled him for his laziness. Naming him a useless fool and a disgrace to the alicorns, she drove him from the castle, crying. As he fled Canterlot in helpless rage, Melody swore never to return to his sisters again. He would find his place in the world, with them or against them. His grief turned into bitterness, and a horrible idea took root in his mind.
The prince’s wings took him southwest, towards the Equestrians’ ancestral lands. Warmth began to vanish all around him as he approached the fringes of his homeland. Mountains of snow grew beneath him, higher and higher. The cold turned from cruel to murderous. Without his alicorn magic, Melody would soon have perished, yet he rejoiced in the strength of the blizzards battering his form. He felt them swell with rage as he fed them his own thirst for vengeance and he knew that there was mind in them – evil, lifeless, empty mind. It was just as he had predicted: the hate eaters of old were still alive. Weakened, yes, and driven from Equestria, but they were still there. And he knew where they were strongest. This one time, he swore to himself, he would do something right.
The cave was not hard for him to find. Though winter had reclaimed the area after the first pioneers departed, it was still a place of power, hallowed and haunted at once. Its aura drew the alicorn prince like a moth to the flame. As Melody entered the crevice, the howling blizzard was cut off; the mountain all around protected him, just like it had done to the three races seeking shelter there nine hundred years before. The very air seemed to resonate with the Fires of Friendship and yet there was a chill to it, like a constant trickle of cold water in the neck.
On a pedestal in the very centre of the cave, the prince found what he had been looking for: a common rock. Nothing remarkable was to be seen about it. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t shiny, it wasn’t even shaped any different than any other stone. And yet once, in a time before Equestria, a princess, a chancellor and a general had nearly killed each other fighting over it. Never had a trivial thing like that caused so much hatred. It trembled with Dissonance.
Melody could sense the windigo spirits howling all around him. He embraced the strange relic with both of his hands and spoke two sentences that would have went down in history if anyone had been there to hear them: I am Melody, prince of Equestria. Offer me just a place in this world, and I will give you all I am in return.
His bitterness was a feast for them. They did not refuse his invitation as he opened his arms for them. One by one, they plunged into his body, poisoned his great soul with their own, one by one, demon after demon, one by one until Melody was shrieking in agony. When he finally realized what he had done, it was much too late to fight them.
By the time it was over, his mind was throbbing with chaos. The windigos were no more and the storm outside soon passed. Each and every one of them had bound their soul to Melody, to make the alicorn prince their own. In body and mind, he had been turned into a vessel of disharmony. He rose on mismatched limbs. With a lion paw where a hand had been, he wiped away the blood dripping from the horns that had just broken through his brow. Discord opened his eyes.
Back in Canterlot, Celestia stumbled as she was struck with a sudden, inexplicable horror. In her private chambers, Luna awoke from a terrible nightmare, screaming. Amongst the glaciers of the frozen north, black King Sombra shuddered with delight. For one second, every being in Equestria felt that something monstrous had occurred.
First reports of unsettling events reached the capital two days later. To the south, the entire landscape was warping. Crops were wilting, animals wreaking havoc on earth walker settlements, storms raging with such ferocity that the pegasi could not detain them. The princesses’ feeling grew from bad to worse as the phenomenon spread; too many bad news that followed too closely on their brother’s disappearance. Several guard squadrons were sent out to investigate the problem, but none of the returned. Meanwhile, a growing stream of refugees kept pouring in from the south, carrying news that grew more surreal with every passing hour.
But when the princesses finally decided to strike south themselves, Discord had already come to them. The draconequus swept down onto Canterlot, riding the storm of chaos that followed in his wake. In between bursts of manic gaggling and sudden weeping fits, he spew out a flood of incoherent rambling, threats, promises, pleas for forgiveness, even poetry. His assault washed over the city like a winged wave and left those unfortunate enough to cross him twisted, warped and stained. Discord’s mad assault was eventually met by his former sisters on the steps of Canterlot Palace. The Royal and the Night Guard both stood beside them.
The draconequus tore them to pieces, laughing. Even the royal sisters were like leafs in a storm before him. In the end, the defenders had no choice but to turn tail and flee. Celestia and Luna were driven from their thrones, their guards broken and scattered. As they fled to their old sanctuary in the Everfree Forest, their brother’s cackles rang after them. An age of chaos descended on Equestria.
At this point, any attempt to establish a chronological order of events is destined to fail. With the alicorns’ power broken, Discord’s reign soon stretched from the badlands in the south to the frozen haunted north. Time and space crumbled. Equestria was plucked away from reality, and returned to it only by the great deceiver’s defeat. Afterwards, some would say it lasted days, others that it lasted years, decades, centuries – but when the nation was eventually returned to Harmony, not a minute had passed in truth. This is why the Age of Discord is rightfully considered to be no actual historical era at all: to the rest of the world, it went past in an instant.
Speaking of that age is neither pleasant nor fruitful in any way, so let us skip ahead. After an immeasurable span of time, the royal sisters did eventually re-emerge from their exile. The Elements of Harmony had once again revealed themselves to them – Laughter to Celestia, Magic to Luna – and thereby filled the hole left by Melody’s betrayal. For the first time in history, the alicorns made full use of the magical gems they had crafted so long ago. The Elements were unleashed in all their glory, and they crushed Discord like he had crushed their bearers before. Their spell swept over the land, restoring peace and order where it went. The lord of chaos himself was trapped in stone and sealed away for all eternity, even as his deranged laughter echoed in the ears of his victorious sisters.
His part in history was done, but theirs far from it. As they struggled to pick up the shards of their once powerful nation, the sisters silently agreed to never speak of this past again. Too painful was the memory of their fallen brother, too deep ran guilt, shame and anger all at once. Soon enough, their vow would spread to all of Equestria. The entire nation joined in their agreement, maybe for the same reasons, maybe for others. Did they wish to punish their prince by striking his name from history? Had his reign been so horrendous that even their memories still scared them? Whatever the answer may be, the world soon forgot that there had ever been a prince called Melody. Today, the draconequus is nothing more than a fairy tale to frighten children – and the truth just a bitter memory tucked away in Celestia’s mind.
It is common knowledge that Princess Luna’s fall took place a thousand years ago, merely a century after Prince Melody had suffered a similar fate. One can only imagine the blow this must have dealt to her sister Celestia: not only did the golden princess lose her second sibling so shortly after the first, but this time it was much less expected. Where Melody had been marked for disaster all along, Luna had always been a strong and dependable co-ruler that had never showed any signs of corruption. Now the quick succession of Melody’s damnation and her own has led to the popular believe that the two events were somehow connected: that either Luna did not have the strength to swallow what happened to her brother, or that Discord slowly poisoned her thoughts from within his stony prison. Weakness and deceit are the two more common theories, but the author has his own opinion on the subject, which he would like to present here.
The most likely reason for Luna’s sudden madness is - as a closer look would suggest – not to be found in Discord’s mind nor her own. If we really intend to make sense of her sudden bitterness, we’d best look to a mortal woman born in the first decade after the draconequus’ banishment; a blind girl by the name of Snowdrop, still today revered as a heroine amongst her people, the pegasi. Much and more has been written about her life, and it would be a waste of words to speak about it once again. Of our concern here is her connection to the silver princess, which is commonly known to have been quite remarkable, but not to the depth to which our theory will lead us.
As any pegasus will tell you, the lady Snowdrop was blind from birth. Like so many others with her affliction, she made up for her lack of vision with a sense of hearing that was that much sharper. Even before she presented Princess Luna with the first snowflake, she had been taught by her mother to listen to the most delicate of sounds. Snowdrop was the first being on Equestria to understand the connection between the stars above and the world beneath. Through her love for snow, she learned to see their delicacy just as much. She would be the first and the last mortal to ever hear their twinkling.
Needless to say, the Night Guard soon fell in love with their little admirer, as did the princess of the night herself. Snowdrops dreams would always be sweet, her rest undisturbed and her mind at ease. From dusk to dawn she would sit listening to their silver voices and learn their words, one by one. No one had ever or would ever understand the night like she did. Luna, who had never known a friend before, grew immensely fond of her. For a millennium, the people of Equestria, her people, had shunned her beautiful night without a second thought. She had her Night Guard to attend her, but they were her servants and her children – they could never be her friends. Now that she had met a soul who could accept her how she really was, someone who was worthy of her friendship… she sensed a hole had been filled that she never knew existed.
But as we all know, this story has no happy end. Being just a pegasus, Snowdrop was destined to die eventually. She lived a long and fruitful life, and thousands upon thousands mourned for her passing, but she did die nonetheless. Now, several trustworthy reports exist that tell of Princess Luna visiting her on her deathbed: she who she had found love for the first time now learned the meaning of loss; to have a dear one snatched away, not fallen to chaos like her brother Melody, but eradicated root and stem and gone forever. She begged Snowdrop not to do this to her. She offered her a place among the stars. Without trial and without initiation, the pegasus woman would have been made an immortal Night Guard there and then.
Snowdrop took Luna’s hand in her shivering own and turned her lightless eyes to her. All reports agree that – though it may seem strange – she was the one lending comfort to the princess, not vice versa. Her destiny had been fulfilled. She had lived a long and blissful life, she said, and she had been amongst the stars all along. If she became one of them, would she still hear them twinkle? Would she turn seeing? Would she still be herself? Gently, she refused the alicorn’s offer. She died with her face frozen in the same serenity that had carried her all her life.
Yet where Snowdrop’s struggle ended, Luna’s battle had just begun. Her office was the protection of dreamers. She spent her service fighting nightmares with her own inner light. Now that she had found and lost a friend, she had become painfully aware of her own loneliness. She had her Night Guard and had never failed in her duty, but did the Equestrians, her own people, consider her any more than they had her brother Melody? She didn’t like the answer. No longer was she willing to humbly serve in solitude, not after that one taste of friendship. She remained weakened and uncertain of herself, and thus her mind was vulnerable. It didn’t take long until a powerful nightmare managed to slip past her defences and take root in her thoughts. Eventually, Luna’s doubts consumed her as they turned to self-loathing. Loathing turned to fear, fear turned to sadness and sadness made way to seething rage.
One fateful night she refused to lower the moon, turning to Nightmare once and for all and setting of the events that would one day be known as the Twilight War. But that sad tale is for another day.
Beyond the Crystal Mountains, north of modern Manehatten and east of the Crystal Empire lies the Sea of Song, one of the major oceans of the known world. It spans from northern Equestria to the frozen wastelands, past the stony island of Griffonia and further still, stretching far and wide into the unknown eastern regions. In the past, several pegasus expeditions have tried to cross the treacherous waters in search of what lies beyond, but thus far none of them have been successful. It is currently unknown if the Sea of Song has an eastern coast.
To the west, the ocean is bounded by a towering line of harsh and ruptured cliff sides. When the tide rises, hollows and caverns in those cliffs soak themselves full of sea water; later on, as the ocean retreats, the water then trickles out again, causing a veritable chorus of gurgling noises that can be heard from miles away. It is this strange phenomenon that has given the Sea of Song its name.
At least that’s the scientifical explanation. Those in need of a less mundane approach will be delighted to hear that it is not without an alternative, however. Both pegasus explorers and citizens of the Crystal Empire have been known to tell stories of mystical lights shining among the storm-tossed waters at night, and of ethereal, heart-rendingly beautiful chants rising from beneath the ocean surface. While established researchers frown upon the mere thought, whispers of a Sea Pony kingdom beneath the waves still persist amongst the population.
Whatever the truth may be, only a handful of people have seen the fabled sea for many years. A couple of small settlements once dotted the barren landscape between the Crystal Empire and the Singing Cliffs, but since the Empire’s disappearance a thousand years ago, these communities have all been abandoned, one by one. Descendants of those villages still live scattered around Equestria today, and a few of their original inhabitants still serve in Princess Luna’s Night Guard. While those individuals carry the memory of their old home with them, the Sea of Song itself remains as it ever was: nobody’s land, wrapped in solitude, salt and the otherworldly duet of water and stone.
Far beyond the borders of northern Equestria, past the cold and unforgiving peaks of the Crystal Mountains and amidst the frozen wastelands of the arctic north lies the Crystal Empire, the long forgotten seat of an ancient culture, and of a power unlike any other in the world. Its younger history is well known to most, but everything that happened before the Empires long disappearance is as obscure to the Equestrian people as it is significant for the crystal kind. Delving into the lore of this fabled nation, a scholar will be confronted with tragedy and glory both. He will meet friends and foes that influence the world still today, and learn of a society daring enough to question the Elements of Harmony.
But all in good time.
The history of the Crystal Empire begins roughly two-and-a-half centuries after the founding of Equestria. At that time, the three alicorn rulers of the land had been in unquestioned power for more than a hundred years already. The Elements of Harmony had been discovered and turned into proof for their rightful reign, and scholars from all over the world were eagerly studying these new and exciting forces. As the alicorns were considered emissaries of the six Elements, their divine power seemed to stem from their influence; more than a few researchers were likely trying to reproduce these effects to bestow the same powers onto themselves. They all failed, however. All but one.
Little is known of Queen Chrysalis’ life before her ascension, but historians agree that she most likely served as a unicorn scholar in the aspiring young city of Canterlot. Wilful, innovative and exceedingly intelligent, Chrysalis could have been one of the leading scientist researching the Elements of Harmony, if not for her overly unconventional beliefs. When her patrons finally had their fill of her eccentric experiments, they dismissed her from her position and refused to support her work any further. Undaunted, Chrysalis continued her work on her own, backed only by her beloved mate, whose name was lost in the ages past. For years they studied, and what they found in their esoteric pursuits no one will ever know – fortunately.
Several months later, Chrysalis and her mate returned to the surface of society and immediately demanded an audience with the prince and princesses. They claimed to have discovered a seventh Element of Harmony, standing apart from the others. The Element of Love, as they had named it, represented a particular feeling that did not touch the six harmonious virtues as they were known, and had thus never been noticed by the three rulers, or so they said. Their declaration would have been written off as simple gibberish, had they not brought a very compelling token of their credibility with them: a pair of wings, sprouting from Chrysalis' back. Somehow, she had turned herself into an alicorn – a feat that most had thought impossible. Throughout history, hers was the first of only three cases of a mortal changing their species through magical means. In the massive aftershock of her declaration, the number of scholars studying the Elements did of course skyrocket, but to no avail.
Until this point, it had, as mentioned before, been a widely accepted belief that the alicorns were emissaries of the harmonious Elements, a fact backed up by the extraordinary circumstances of their births. With Chrysalis’ apotheosis, this theory was shattered. Still today, we have no clear answer for the question it left behind, which is: the power of Love has been proven, but is it truly the seventh Element? Some speculate it might be just a conjunction of the six others, like the Fires of Friendship; others speak of the influence of disharmonious powers, or suspect it to be something else entirely. And what about the alicorns? Is the favour of an Element really required to become one? Can there be only so many alicorns in the world, or is their number potentially unlimited? What exactly makes the difference between them and common mortals?
Chrysalis – who claimed to have answered all those questions – was outraged by the way Equestria reacted to her declaration. She had given them a messiah, and now they refused to accept her as such. Their mistrust infuriated her further and further, as she could not understand why they wouldn’t believe that there truly were seven Elements. When Princess Celestia denied her her crown – which she, being an alicorn, considered her good right – she had suffered enough insolence from the fools and cretins that surrounded her. Gathering the ones that had chosen to believe in her tidings of joy, she marched north. She declared the foundation of an independent empire to the north, ruled by her mate and herself. She named it after the mountain range that would separate it from the green lands of the south: the Crystal Empire.
In Equestria, the princesses decided not to mingle into her affairs. Individual freedom was one of the many virtues of Harmony: as long as she wouldn’t rise against them, they would have no quarrel. That decision turned out to be a wise one: the two young realms would profit from their good trading relations for centuries.
In the meantime, high in the north, Chrysalis, who now styled herself queen of the Crystal Empire, was gathering her people for a great ritual. Those who had survived the long and perilous journey were hungry, cold and in dire need of shelter. Determined not to fail their trust, she intended to demonstrate the power of Love in a very direct way. All those needs they suffered from, she promised Love would heal.
The next day, she brought forth a heart-shaped gemstone and made them flock around it. Details of the ritual remain as mysterious as every event surrounding the crystal queen, but the results spoke for themselves: her people were indeed never plagued by the cold again, nor did they feel hunger or exhaustion the way they did before. Time did not touch them anymore. The crystal kind had been born.
Whatever spell was cast that day, its power stretched to the land as well. Around the heart, the ice was melting. A sizable area was freed from the arctic snow, and would stay so for as long as the Empire remained. So began the nation that we know today. The crystal kind built their city around the heart, and erected a great palace to hold it in place.
Chrysalis’ rule over the young nation was destined to be a long and glorious one. When her beloved died of old age, she mourned for a decade before taking a new mate. When he too had passed, she sought another. Honouring the Element of Love, she would always find one dear to her and her long line of consorts was never interrupted. Her people flourished with her, proud and faithful.
Until her heart chose to love on that did not deserve it. A unicorn who answered to the name of Sombra.
Historians would have us believe that his time as the crystal king was filled with bad omens from the very beginning, but in truth quite the opposite was the case: throughout the centuries, Queen Chrysalis had given birth to many children from many lovers, all of them mortal and common in their ways. Sombra gifted her with a child in his early years as well, but this one was special. Even as a babe, the pegasus child would enchant the eyes of her parents and anyone else lucky enough to catch a glimpse of her. Innocent, charming and breathtakingly beautiful, the young princess would soon become the pride of the Crystal Empire. Her parents felt that such a happy child deserved an equally joyous namesake and named her after Melody, the Equestrian prince of Laughter and Magic: Princess Cadence.
But as we know, the bright future that the crystal kind saw in Sombra never came. Early reports of his reign all call him a graceful king and dedicated lover, but in later years, those reports turn dark and darker still. We cannot spy into the black one’s mind and find out what truly happened to him, but fact is that he turned into something evil. A common theory names greed for the power of Love the reason, another speculates that it was envy for his immortal wife and yet another claims that Sombra hadn’t changed at all, that he had simply hid away his black heart until then. Whatever the truth may be: his hunger for Love would soon grow far beyond anything natural.
In the end, desiring for his Queen to love him more than anyone before, he created the most potent love poison known to this world and made her drink it – a mistake that would go down in history. For the longest time, the nearer circumstances of the Empire’s downfall were unknown. There is a popular fairy tale that appears to be based on those events, although it names the lovers prince and princess instead of king and queen, and states that their realm was destroyed because they couldn’t stop looking into each others eyes. Fair enough, this is the effect the potion would have on a common mortal recipient; on the crystal alicorn, it was worse by far.
The recent resurfacing of the Crystal Empire has led to the discovery of a truth much less pleasant than any story. As it would seem, the unique connection between Queen Chrysalis and the Element of Love would turn to her undoing, as Sombra misused her as a link to that unlimited force. Only through her could he reach it, and only with it could he quench his thirst for power. Abusing the boundless adoration that she now felt for him, he persuaded her to use the Crystal Heart for his own schemes and she obeyed, mad with the desire to please her beloved. All the power of the crystal kind went on to him, all the light and passion in the hearts of their people and of Chrysalis herself. When it was done, there was no love left inside of her, not the tiniest bit of warmth in her stone-cold heart. Only then did the potion wear off.
Once it did, the Queen found that she had been robbed of all that she had ever been. Immortality meant nothing to her without the light of her beloved. Hunger overcame her like it had claimed King Sombra before, and from that day on, she would stop at nothing to sate it. Stalking the palace, she would hunt her own guards and servants, draining them of their love, turning them into hollow images of herself. Yet nothing she did made the emptiness leave. It wasn’t long until her dark deeds began to take their toll on her body.
Alicorns are the purest incarnations of the Elements of Harmony. Their connection to the world is stronger than anyone else’s, and their magic heavily resonates with what their hearts resemble. As Chrysalis lied, deceived and hunted her own loved ones, her form was twisted and reshaped into a monster better fitting her soul: she became the first of the Changelings. Soon, the people she had drained of their own feelings would follow her, their flesh turning black and their hands to claws. Finding no food in the devastated, love-forsaken wasteland that the Crystal Empire had become, the Changeling Queen and her children then fled from the realm and were not heard from for a thousand years – not until their recent attack on Canterlot.
All the while, Sombra continued in his rampage. He enthralled his people, clad them in chains and tried to force them into feeding him power. He did not understand that love cannot be taken, merely given. Instead, the Crystal Heart soon resonated with hatred and fear. The Black King drank that essence and gorged himself on pain and confusion until his own heart was as dark as the crystal one had become. The beautiful landscape of the Empire turned to pitch-black, fissured stone. Its radiance soon faded.
Only a single crystal woman possessed the inner strength to resist Sombra’s dark influence long enough to counteract it. Cadence’s wet nurse, who would later claim that the infant princess had lent her strength somehow, managed to send a warning to Equestria before it was too late. Although the black king cornered and captured her shortly after, the damage had been done: the message had reached the alicorns in their far-off palace.
Sombra knew that the three siblings were a mighty foe, but with the power of the Crystal Heart at his back, he was confident that he could defeat them. While his daughter was thrown into the deepest dungeons beneath the castle, he readied his defences for the storm to come.
They did not even bother to bring the Elements of Harmony with them.
Leaving the affairs of their own realm to their brother Melody, Luna and Celestia dealt with Sombra like a minor annoyance. With a single spell they overwhelmed him and cast him down to shadow. They destroyed his body, his identity and most of his mind. Only his hunger remained, too strong for them to vanquish. He was turned into a phantom, more shadow than man, barely capable of conscious thought aside from his never ending wish to feed. The sisters took what remained of the black king and banished him to the furthest northern reaches of the world, sealing him beneath the arctic ice.
But even as they did, Sombra cursed the Empire that had failed him so direly. It vanished from the surface of the world, with not a single trace of where it went. For a millennium, the crystal kind would cease existing. Luna and Celestia could only return to Equestria and tell their people of what had happened in the north. The long silence followed.
It was broken only two decades ago, when Princess Celestia introduced a new protégé of hers to the society of Canterlot: Cadence. The crystal princess had reappeared on Equestria roughly adecade earlier, but had only now caught the alicorn’s attention. Raised by Earth Walkers in the north, she had faced and defeated a powerful sorceress threatening her home town. There, the Element of Love had revealed itself to her. Just like her mother so many years before, Cadence had ascended to alicornhood.
All the while, Celestia herself was brooding over this change of events. She hadn’t told Cadence the truth about her past, nothing of her kingdom or her people. Modern Equestria had forgotten there had ever been a Crystal Empire, and she saw no need to remind them just now. The day would come when destiny would reveal itself, but until then she would do what she had always done: watch and bide her time.
Years later, a unicorn called Twilight Sparkle would catch her attention. From the very beginning, Celestia felt something special in the little girl and decided to take her under her wing. Cadence would become her babysitter and the two of them would share a deep connection of mutual love and caring. Neither of them would ever know of the little detail that had led Celestia to that particular decision: the day of Cadence’s appearance in Cantlerot had also been the day of Twilight Sparkle’s birth. The Elements, Celestia knew, were weaving their net. It was no mere coincidence that her two pupils had appeared on the stage just then. In her golden heart grew the cautious hope that the Crystal Empire’s redemption was finally at hand.
Though their discovery precedes the banishments of Nightmare Moon, Prince Melody and even King Sombra, the true history and nature of the Elements of Harmony remain a mystery to scholars all over Equestria and beyond. Even amongst the intellectual elite of Canterlot, the topic is cause for heated discussion still today. The following article will outline a more popular theory, one that has proven its plausibility throughout the course of history – but has not yet been proven right.
The most basic and at the same time most complex conundrum a student of the Elements will face is their impossible inner duality. Not only are they forces of nature and pillars of the world, but also their own spirits, deities that reign over the boundless wells of power they embody. They are the blood flowing through the veins of the earth and the heart that is pumping it, the principles of purity and the foremost paragons thereof. According to some scholars, they are also the matter from which the world is build – and the hands that built it. Principles, forces, symbols, spirits, keepers, makers, watchers and elements they are all at once and it is not surprising that so many researches fail to understand how this is even possible.
To put it simply, every Element of Harmony is made of two parts: the first is the energy of which it is made, its essence so to speak. Vast beyond imagination, these essences are raw power, streams of Harmony flowing through the world, keeping it from falling apart – without them, Equestria would perish. They are the source of all magic and with it the source of every higher race on the planet, for magic flows through all of them. Despite their belated discovery they have always been and always will be, like the wind and rain. All beings are connected through them; all beings affect them and are affected by them through their acts, both good and evil. Of this there can be no doubt.
The second part of an Element is its Spirit, its mind. This particular facet has proven to be much more elusive than the first, and for the longest time its sheer existence was nothing but a theory. The Spirits are the entities granting the Elements consciousness and will, turning them from forces of nature into actual individuals – and these individuals act on their own agendas. It is currently unknown if the Spirits have a greater vision of the world, or if they act through minor acts of friendship alone. Throughout history, their influence on Equestria has always been subtle, if present at all. With two exceptions.
Two times did the Spirits of Harmony make themselves known to the world, first through their champions, the alicorns. As we all know however, these champions failed them, so they turned away from them, hurt and disappointed, knowing that not even the purest of mortals could ever represent them.
A thousand years later, the time had come to set things right. Proving that their will to act had not left them, the Spirits returned to Equestria to stop the reawakened Nightmare Moon once and for all. Showing their ability to learn from past mistakes, they chose avatars instead of champions this time – the six young women we know today. These girls are truly harmony incarnate, not mere ambassadors but the elemental spirits themselves.
On a final note: after the events of Discord’s second uprising, it has become quite clear that while the Elements themselves are completely immune to his corrupting touch, their Spirits are not. The brief existence of the Spirits of Disharmony – however horrible it was – has allowed for a deeper glimpse into their true selves and should not be ignored. In the following passages, the reader may find that few things describe the Elements better than their exact counterparts.
Honesty
The Element of Honesty, primarily associated with the earth walker race, embodies the virtues of strength, truth, endurance and integrity. Considered the most pragmatic, down-to-earth piece of the six, it is also commonly linked to the more primal virtues: hard-earned respect, love for one’s family and the delight of an exercised body. The earth walker’s uncanny resilience is a result of Honesty’s magic flowing through them – many of them can work for days without rest or sleep and move objects ten times their own weight. Its Spirit favours honest workers, from smiths and miners to farmers and crafters; generally speaking, those who pour their sweat and tears into what they do for others.
Its counterpart is the Spirit of Dishonesty, embodying the image of a lying, careless parasite. Without any shred of dignity to it, a being afflicted by Dishonesty will lie and deceive in the most despicable of ways in order to achieve their own goals, no matter how trivial. It cares for no one but itself, but – if confronted with this – will brazenly deny it nonetheless. It is the perfect sycophant.
Laughter
The three races of Equestria are all defined through two Elements primarily. The second patron of the earth walkers is Laughter, the principle of joy. Observed to bear a strange resemblance to the disharmonious spirit Discord, it stands for a world view unlimited by the burdens of reality: its chosen ones are often found disregarding the very laws of nature, effortlessly playing the universe for a fool. In contrary to Discord however, it is an altruistic concept, seeking to share its own bliss with those around it instead of drawing it from them. The earth walker’s famous joviality, their ability to make quick friends with anyone and to never miss a chance for celebration or a good meal most likely stems from it. The Element favours both the joyful and the sly: mummers, artists, actors and musicians used to revere it just like cooks or bakers but also tricksters, magicians and fortune tellers – not thieves however, as theirs is the work of disharmony.
Corrupted, its soul is known as the Spirit of Sorrow, a pitiful thing that does not know joy and does not which others to. To it, the very idea of being cheerful is never justified. Feeling happy is a wrong done to reality, and the Spirit will actively work to set such a wrong to right. A person that is touched by the Element of Sorrow sees enemies everywhere and is more than ready to lash out at them pre-emptively. It suffers just for the sake of suffering, feeling the same pity for itself that it will inspire in anyone who is so unfortunate as to cross its path.
Kindness
The pegasi display their magical capabilities in a more obvious way than the earth walkers do. Their impossibly delicate form is a result of their connection to the Element of Kindness: a pegasus can dance on a blanket of freshly fallen snow without leaving tracks and walk on clouds like solid ground. Amongst all races, Kindness, as opposed to the Element of Laughter, is especially fond of those who wish to prevent sorrow instead of spreading joy: therapists and healers, nurses, veterinaries, diplomats and peacemakers. It praises the virtues of mercy and understanding, and helpfulness to the point of self-abandonment. He who gives away everything for the harmed is its champion; its Spirit will ever smile on those who mend the wounds of the world.
Its disharmonious opposite is the Spirit of Cruelty. This evil creature longs for self-fulfilment and amusement alone, two things it can achieve only through the suffering of others. The archetype of sadism, Cruelty wilfully harms those around it. From mean little pranks to full-fledged death traps, it will stop at nothing to feel the joy of making others suffer.
Loyalty
Competitive, brash and wilful, the Element of Loyalty rewards courage and ambition – if put to right use. Sportsmen and soldiers most famously follow its lead by using their strength and energy to protect their loved ones, but daring adventurers and explorers are also dear to it. Being true to Loyalty means to put one’s own restless advance before everything else, everything but the well-being of one’s friends. The Element is storm and stress and thus very much befitting the pegasus race. It has graced them with unparalleled speed and with wings powerful enough to cause a veritable hurricane with a single beat… and also gifted quite a few of them with reckless bravery, or so some would say.
Its counter Element is the Spirit of Disloyalty, much more fitting its name than Loyalty itself is. Selfish beyond all measure, it cares not one bit for the welfare of anyone else. Helping a friend in need would never cross its mind; while it will gladly accept the assistance of others, it will turn tail and run as soon as its own strength is needed. The Spirit is a faithless traitor and a useless coward, with no honour to speak of and no integrity at all. Its entire existence is utterly without purpose.
Generosity
The Element of Generosity’s single core value is in fact just that: generosity. Where other Elements have a plethora of virtues attached to them, this one represents the will to share, and the will to share alone. Much more interesting is the fact that, being the only Element directly and undeniably linked to mundane possessions, Generosity encircles quite a few characteristical traits as well. Champions of the fair element all display an extremely fine-tuned appreciation for beauty and culture. They prefer to surround themselves with objects that are exquisite in their nature and pleasing to the eye – all in all, they are in love with worldly riches. This might seem a vice, but is in truth required for the Element to take full blossom: only when the possession of something is truly appreciated can giving it away be considered an act of Generosity. It is the will to share that which is dearest to one’s own heart that makes the Element proud. Being as it is, Generosity smiles upon professions that value elegance and beauty: jewellers, models, gardeners, tailors and merchants all bask in its blessings. It is said that the unicorns owe their natural grace and heightened senses to the influence of this Element… just like their highly refined, often even snobbish attitude.
Opposed to Generosity stands the Spirit of Greed, identical to its counterpart in terms of materialist attitude, but nothing like it in its will to share its precious possessions. Hoarding is the typical behaviour of individuals struck by the Spirit, often to the point of starvation. A being consumed by greed will rather die watching over their accumulated riches than to risk leaving them alone for just a second; extreme paranoia is another symptom of the chaotic Element, as the afflicted will see the same hunger for wealth in the eyes of everyone around them.
Magic
First among equals, the Element of Magic is the most crucial, the most elusive and the most potent of them all. Whereas the lesser Elements each represent a certain harmonious virtue, Magic stands for the essence of harmony as it truly is. Only with the Five all present and coupled with a spark of understanding will it ever reveal itself: enlightenment, peace and serenity are granted to those worthy of its attention. Though primarily linked to the unicorn race and their arcane prowess, the Element of Magic flows through every being, every river, every last little stone in the field. It resembles an ascended state of the mind, born from the union a spotless heart and an open eye. It is the reward, so to speak, for absolute dedication to harmony. As such, those restlessly seeking for knowledge and wisdom will always be among its favoured: scholars, monks, teachers and librarians, priests, hermits and of course wizards. Few have ever caught a glimpse of what the highest element truly is – but to have done so means to know perfection.
But the brightest light casts the darkest shadow. Just as Magic incorporates the clearest and highest state of spiritual salvation, its counterpart, the Spirit of Desolation, is the epitome of absolute emptiness. Simply speaking, it represents a state wherein the soul inside an individual has died. Desolation is stasis, trauma, absolute lethargy. It nurses despair so dark, so completely forlorn that the afflicted is like to cease any action at all – their agony saps them of even the tiniest bits of strength they might have. Just laying eyes upon the lacrimal spirit can rend the beholder apart with pity… and then with suffocating sorrow, caused by the realization that nothing on earth could ever ease such misery. Touched by Desolation, there is no hope left to have.
Note that the following articles are based exclusively on reports done by actual members of the Guard. I accept no responsibility for any possibly offensive material presented.
-Ink Blot
Among the common folk of Equestria, little is known of the dark and enigmatic people commonly referred to as the Night Guard. Some call them demons or monsters, fiends that come out only at night to feast on the flesh of innocent children. Others say they are the lapdogs of Nightmare Moon, whose dark wings bring discord and despair wherever their shadow falls.
Nothing could be truer, and nothing more false.
The Night Guard are indeed nocturnal, and their outer appearance is unsettling to say the least. In general, they are a tall and slender race, pale of skin, with haggard features and cat’s eyes of amber, their gaze a frightful thing to feel. They sport hair of black or silver, the same colours dominating their clothing, arms and heraldry. Among otherwise unremarkable teeth, they possess a pair of sharp, vicious fangs which they use for hunting food.
It is another common misconception – this one widespread among the Royal Guard of Canterlot – to think the Night Guard brutal and ferocious, raw, barbaric savages that eat flesh and bite the necks of sleeping animals to drink from their blood. While there are some of them that have displayed such behaviour (much to the dismay of their siblings), for the most of them such accusations are not any more justified than the fairy tales of the common folk.
In truth, they are both peace- and faithful and even if they scarcely show it, they are subjected to love, joy and pity like anyone else. Cold they may seem, bitter they may be, but although many of them live and serve and die without a single smile on their face, they do Luna’s work all the same. They guard their beloved lady wherever she goes at night and stand vigil over her sleeping body during the day. They watch over the Equestrian people in their sleep, protecting their dreams against the creatures of darkness. With whispered counsel, they help them face and defeat the nightmares that spawn from their innermost fears, they plant seeds into their minds that ever so often bloom into brilliant ideas, they protect wanderers that have gone astray at night and guide them back to safety.
But not all nightmares come from fright. There are other ones, darker ones, spawning from the wicked forces of Disharmony. Those discordant demons will cling to their hosts like parasites, tormenting them with visions of terror and despair until there is nothing left but an empty shell, scared to insanity. It is those Nightmares that the Night Guard feed on, devouring the evil spirits, drinking them with their sharpened fangs, protecting the sleepers below from their influence and filling their own bellies in the process.
Speaking of the Night Guard is complicated, as they are a religious order, a military organization and an independent species all at once. It is obvious that they are not like other people. They do not age, and need no common food. The pegasi among them sport black, bat-like wings instead of feathered ones and their faith in the silver princess is fierce beyond common sense. At night, they move with the grace of cats and swift as shadows, but turn weak and clumsy in the daylight. Their true nature lies far beyond the borders of Equestria: they are Luna’s chosen children.
They are the stars incarnate.
Standing vigil beside the moon is their first and foremost duty. Their lesser lights – hundreds, once thousands of them – add to her radiance, and keep the horrors of the outer realms at bay. Rarely does a shadow escape their watchful eye, and if one does it is swiftly tracked and devoured. Most of the Night Guard spend extended periods of time in the higher spheres, which is why they show so little presence on Equestria below. Most of their common tasks do not require them to break their often century-long meditations; even if an incarnation is called for, they are like to show hesitation. The act is both tiring and dangerous to them, as the body of a man is that much more fragile than a watchful star. Most of them do not possess the strength to return to the skies under their own power, and should their bodies die, so do they.
In spite of their unworldly demeanour, though, every Night Guard was once a common pegasus, unicorn or earth walker. They are recruited from the ranks of mortal followers of the moon princess – once wandering groups of monks, now cults hidden away from society – whose dreams they carefully survey, looking for those worthy of ascension. If potential aspirants are found, they will receive a vision calling them to the stars. A ritual will be held, at midnight and under a full moon. At the climax of that ritual, the aspirants will stab themselves in the heart with a dagger of moonstone, shed their blood and die on the spot.
In their final dying dream, with their lives flashing past them, every single one of them will once in their existence face the silver princess in person. There will all their hearts be laid bare to her, and she will judge them for their strength, their courage and their faith. Who is found worthy will be lifted to the stars – and who is not will fade to black. However, a detail that they will not be aware of at the time is that no one undergoing the ritual has ever been condemned. The true test is one of trust: the willingness to throw away one’s life for the mere chance of serving the moon is what makes the aspirant worthy.
Only through this trial by fire may a mortal ascend to the ranks of the Night Guard. Once a new member has been welcomed into the order, they will be given a few decades to adapt to their new existence. After that, most of them choose a caste to join, as befits their individual talents and favoured duties. In doing so, they receive a title to bear with their name, a symbol of their full initiation. They will do their service there, until they either die or are promoted to a higher rank – usually to fill a seat left vacant by a passed-away superior.
And there will they continue their existence in service to their beloved moon and princess, as her favoured agents, servants and children. As lights in the darkness, and guardians of the night.
Contrary to the complex hierarchy of the Celestian Royal Guard, Luna’s Night Guard follow a more horizontal approach. They are separated into six castes, each of them representing a certain duty, believe and philosophy and led by an elected Corporal. These Corporals are themselves led by a Commander, equivalent to the Royal Guard Captain, who rules over his siblings in Luna’s name.
Before proceeding it should be noted that the importance of the caste system is easily overestimated: it was implemented only during the Twilight War and served as a means to organize the Night Guard into specialized units better suited for combat. Now, in times of peace, its significance has dwindled dramatically. Every Guard partakes in each of their duties and their castes merely signify the one they favour. Joining one is optional and leaving not an issue, and most of the Night Guard tread theirs rather like a sports team, like something to brag about over a pint of Moonshine, not like an order within the order.
However, the castes still possess the plethora of perks that have always given them their unique characters: a creed, an iconic task, and a specific approach to the faith of the moon. The Night Guard are convinced that in their entirety, the six castes represent the spirit of the night in its true and entire nature; enacting that believe, each of them has taken one of the lunar phases as their heraldic symbol. Let us take a closer look at them.
Moon Smiths
Flying the banner of the waxing crescent, the Moon Smiths are weavers, crafters and builders. Their original duty was to provide their siblings with arms and amour for battle, and still today they forge the heavy plate mail worn by the guards protecting the silver princess. Since the war is over, however, their duties have changed dramatically. With weapons now in low demand, they are pursuing other ways of craftsmanship: they brew Moonshine, an infamous, highly intoxicating beverage distilled from fermented moon rays, and provide their siblings on Equestria with food, clothing and equipment. But most of all, they delight in the art of Whispering: breathing visions into the minds of dreamers, images to inspire artists, explorers and scholars alike.
Many groundbreaking ideas of Equestrian history were the result of such Whispers; a fact that the Moon Smiths take great pride in. Concerning their philosophy, their most distinguishing trait is most likely their optimism, their conviction that even in the depths of despair, a solution can and will always be found. Their current leader is Corporal Stardust. Their creed: The Light We Forge.
Dream Keepers
The Dream Keepers are the Night Guard caste most closely linked to the Element of Kindness, representing the waxing half moon in her role as mother and healer both. Their creed reads Her Guidance, and they preach the ideas of tolerance and understanding as the most important teachings of the night. All beings dream, and in dreams they all are Luna’s children. Even the most zealous of the Celestian Solari will eventually settle down, close their eyes and pay tribute to the silver princess. The Keepers’ iconic duty has stayed the same it always has been: cleansing dreamers from nightmares that they themselves created. Such nightmares are the result of a soul’s inner disharmony. They are fears and doubts made manifest, and dispelling them is an extremely delicate task that requires empathy, tact and care. So great is their importance that Princess Luna often sees to these issues herself, and the Dream Keepers are much revered for shouldering such a responsibility.
While not very numerous, their ranks include some of the oldest and most powerful Night Guard alive; their very first Corporal, Moon Petals, still leads them today. Yet they see themselves as mere messengers of Luna’s mercy. Like parents cradle their children, they will carry the grace and serenity of night, and with every soul that may rest in peace they will do their lady’s humble work.
Silver Guard
Strength, honour and perseverance are the words best suited to describe the stalwart Silver Guard caste. They gather beneath the full moon, when the night is at its brightest and the principles of twilight almost forgotten. The light is their element and they protect it with a stubbornness that has long become legend: above, they are the brightest stars of all, burning away the horrors of the outer spheres with their determination; below, they guard their beloved princess, pull her chariot or watch over her sleep during the day – often until dropping from exhaustion. No other caste is as uncompromising, no other caste suffers so many casualties on such a regular basis. In the last millennium, the Silver Guard has seen the passing of three dozen Corporals. Their current leader, Fervent Gleam, was elected less than a decade ago.
Their direct, honest mindset has earned them a reputation of being “Royal Guard in black” – truth is, their rivalry with Celestia’s chosen is much more than just a rumour. They agree to these slanders, too: from their own point of view, they are like Royal Guard, just darker, thus better, stronger and fiercer. Even their creed, Gold to Silver, is a direct provocation to their diurnal kin – and, according to them, a proper vision of things to come.
Dream Reapers
The Dream Reaper caste carries the sigil of the waning half moon and its members see themselves as the complimentary element of their cousins, the Dream Keepers. Their creed is Our Faith, and it represents their relationship perfectly: their work is essentially the same, but the other way around: action instead of patience, destruction instead of healing, judgement instead of tolerance. Following the commands of Corporal Evenfall, they too display a deep and honest love for the dreamers below, but in their opinion, a parent’s love is best displayed by destroying that which would harm their children.
In war, they crept into the minds of their enemies, planting visions of terror and despair where strength was most direly needed. Now that the common folk of Equestria have become their protégés as well, they have taken to another foe: just like the Dream Keepers, they specialise in fighting nightmares. In contrary to the Keepers however, they hunt for actual Nightmares, nocturnal demons spawned from the sleeping mind of Chaos. This task is vital to any Night Guard, as they feed off those demons, but the Dream Reapers have vowed to bring their art to perfection. While treating their own people with love and kindness, they are cold, determined predators on the hunt, teeth bared, hearts empty, eyes ever open.
Moonlight Shadows
Dark, cold and grim, the Moonlight Shadows are the most martial of the Night Guard castes and the most frightening by far. Their symbol is the waning crescent, the harbinger of darkness, and they have adopted the most sinister aspects of the night with a totality that is unsettling to even their own siblings. Theirs is a hopeless, bleak philosophy: nothing was truly meant to be, they say, and all things will find peace only through their eradication. They represent a part of the silver princess that is dangerously close to Nightmare Moon, the night’s forbidden wish to wrap all of Equestria in a blanket of soft and cradling shadow – fast asleep for all eternity. They have lesser numbers than any other caste, which is partially the fault of their utter inability to adapt to a world without conflict. They refuse to assume a peaceful duty, instead clinging to their ancient rites and practices but lacking an enemy to use them against.
Once, during the Twilight War, they were the feared and famous shock troops under Luna’s command. Consisting almost exclusively of bat-winged pegasi, their lightning assaults and ambushes soon became the nightmares of the Royal Guard far and wide. The Shadows would appear from the darkness, strike and vanish before there was a chance to react. It is said that the speed of their attacks was only rivalled by the grace of their movements; it is said that they could to cut through an entire patrol with contemptuous ease, leaving a trail of corpses in their wake. Still today, the children of Celestia whisper of things lurking in the darkness, and with time the air of mystery surrounding the Shadows has grown exponentially. Yet all the while, they continue in their practice under the watchful eye of Corporal Silent Sigh without aim or purpose. It is unlikely that their caste will survive much longer, not without a new war to fight, and it might be that very soon, only their legend will remain – and eventually be forgotten too, in accordance with their creed: All Shall Fade.
Black Priests
As the Dream Keepers correspondent to their Reaper counterparts, so do the Black Priests to the Silver Guard. The new moon is their sigil and Blue To Black their creed. They are creatures of utter darkness and thus often confused with the Moonlight Shadows though theirs is, in fact, a completely different part of it. Their Corporal is the newly appointed Nightshade, and her qualities represent the caste exemplarily: secretive, reserved and ponderous, the Priests have an extraordinarily relative way of thinking. In the blackness of their minds, the outlines of things blur: good and evil, true and false, right and wrong are just words, concepts without any meaning once the blanket of night has levelled them down. They function as keepers of the faith, though a theological discussion with them is unnerving at best, as they tend to never give a direct answer, usually agree to everything their opposite might say and see no problem in having multiple opinions at the same time – or, more often, no opinion at all.
Their duty remains the same as ever, recruiting aspirants to join the Guard. Their boundlessly tolerant, unbiased way to question everything has often caused them to vouch for favourites that everyone else would have called absurd; just as often, those absurd choices would eventually turn into some of the greatest Night Guard who ever lived. The Dream Reaper Corporal Evenfall, once an aspiring Solari, is just one of many examples for this. Much respected by their kin, the Black Priests remain the voice of temperance in the Guard, a constant reminder that every act should be reconsidered thrice before acting it out, and that nothing ever is as it seems.
---
These six castes form the official body of the Night Guard order. Their sum is its entirety as an organization – but not as a species. There are two other groups of lunar descent, both originating from the times of the Twilight War and (though it displeases their siblings) still existent today. Although detached from their brothers and sisters they still belong to Luna’s people, and ignoring them would be not be right.
Hollow Shades
When the Elements of Harmony banished Nightmare Moon from the world, they simultaneously struck a tremendous blow against the Night Guard. Countless had died battling the people of Equestria, and now the survivors found themselves stranded on the world they had failed to conquer. With the exception of only a few particularly powerful Silver Guard, they lacked the strength to return to the stars without Luna’s aid and with the princess now gone, they were trapped inside their mortal bodies.
Still, they were determined to carry on fighting. Knowing they had been defeated for the moment, they fled from the battlefield to bide their time. Scattered and disorganized at first, they soon rallied under the command of a former Moonlight Shadow, Midnight. She taught them a new lifestyle that focused on wilderness survival instead of warfare and let them to the northeast, away from civilization. Passing Foal Mountain in a journey that is said to have lasted years, they eventually settled down in the dense and gloomy Phantom’s Haunt forest.
A place with an ill reputation and shunned by the Equestrian people, the grove was a perfect hideout. Particularly interesting for the Night Guard were a number of vast, near bottomless chasms cutting through the ground at the centre of the forest, like giant claw marks scarring the earth. Those fissures, known as the Hollow Shades, were where they erected their new homesteads. Caves were carved into the stone, and huts built hugging the crevices’ walls like sparrow’s nests. The exiles named their settlement after the place that had given them shelter when nothing else would, and in time took that name for themselves as well. With their homes built and their future clear, they prepared for a long time in hiding.
And for a long time, they stayed.
A millennium later, Midnight – the same woman that had once let her siblings to the Hollow Shades – casually marched into the office of Commander Sirius and reported back for duty. With Nightmare Moon gone and Luna returned to them, she and her siblings had finally resurfaced and were more than willing to serve the Night Guard once again. The unexpected return of more than a hundred of their kin was, of course, a cause for great celebration amongst the Guard – or so it seemed at first.
It would soon become obvious that in their long, lonely exile, the Hollow Shades had changed. Their way of speaking had turned rough and bawdy, rather like the one of bandits and marauders. Their faith in Luna was less than devout, and often they’d jape about their ‘prudent cousins’. Worse, they ate meat and drank blood, and embarked in the pleasures of the flesh. They had spent too much time on Equestria, their siblings decided, too much time away from Luna’s light. They had turned into savages, a blot on the Night Guard’s reputation. Nowadays, there is little love between them and the rest of the Guard, only spite and distain. While officially reunited, there is in truth a gap between them that is not likely to be ever crossed. It is rumoured that Commander Sirius is just one further slight away from sending them all back into exile – and a slight is the only thing they are certain to provide.
Nightmare Guard
One thousand years ago, after centuries upon centuries of solitude and neglect, the mind of Princess Luna fell into darkness, turning away from her silver light and her nature as warden of dreams. Instead, it gave birth to a creature that was anathema to the kind protector she had always sought to be: Nightmare Moon, greatest of the nocturnal horrors. While most Night Guard followed their new princess only reluctantly, some showed no such doubts. Some recognized the Nightmare as their rightful leader, believing that Luna’s true nature had not been swallowed by the darkness but had only now revealed itself. This small group consisted of the youngest of their order – for a reason.
When raising a mortal aspirant to the stars, Luna gifts them with a tiny splinter of her own divinity, turning them into lesser images of herself. The aspirant is blessed with light and immortality, but also receives her spirit, her mind. However, the latest generation had been touched by Nightmare Moon instead, and it was her spirit that had shaped them. Driven by hunger, spite and bitterness, they were all too eager to do her evil work. Pillaging, torturing and murdering they swept though the land, butchering hundreds upon hundreds of innocent people.
The integrity of the Night Guard suffered greatly under their actions and Commander Sirius – well aware of this – accepted these new recruits only grudgingly. Nightmare Moon favoured them however, and there was very little he could do about it. Instead, their favour grew as did their cruelty. Soon they were preparing on forming an independent caste, the Nightmare Guard, with their own banner, creed and corporal.
Those plans were put to a sudden halt when Celestia banished her sister to the moon.
Sirius acted quickly, but the Nightmare Guard acted quicker. Knowing that they had overstayed their welcome and with their dreamborn kin still in shock, they seized the opportunity and fled from the judgement that was certain to come – after all, their crimes had been a major reason for Luna’s banishment. Finally they got the caste status they had been demanding, but instead of champions they now were outlaws, criminals, enemies. Scattered across earth and night sky both they fled to every corner of the world. In every shadow they hid, nursing their bitterness, feeding the darkness in their souls the black poison of their solitude.
But the night does not forget. While all Night Guard hate and fear their wicked kin, Corporal Silent Sigh and her Moonlight Shadows are their most merciless hunters today. Over the past millennium, they tracked them down and snuffed them out, one by one. Nowadays, only a handful of Nightmare Guard remain.
Yet still they pose a threat. For the longest time, fighting the Nightmare’s children has been a matter of vengeance and justice for crimes long past. But with Luna’s recent reappearance, they are no longer content with terrorizing villagers and poisoning the dreams of little children. With dark rituals and acts of evil, they now hope to return the silver princess to her ‘true nature’ and plunge Equestria into eternal nightmare. Should the Moonlight Shadows fail to stop them, no one can predict what they might do.
Their banner displays a total eclipse, the moon devouring Celestia’s light. Their creed: The Night Will Last Forever.
Even to his own siblings, the stalwart Commander of the Night Guard is a mystery. Known for his tactical genius, Sirius has excelled in all of his roles, be it leader, warrior or priest. He is both devout and confident, rigid and passionate and most consider him the perfect example of what a star should be.
While there are quite a few things to be said about him, Sirius is mostly known for simply his age. While not being the first Night Guard Commander – four others held that title before him – he is indeed the first Night Guard. The first being ever to be raised to the stars, at a time when there were no stars in Equestria. He does not speak about his life before ascending, and no one has ever been foolish enough to push him; still it is commonly believed that even Luna herself is as not as ancient as he is, meaning that she would have raised him in her earliest years, when there still were mortals older than her.
The romantically inclined often whisper about a deeper reason for this. It is obvious that Sirius’ dedication to Princess Luna exceeds any religious commitment by far. That he is in love with her is a generally accepted fact. Now some would say that his is not the love of an amorous admirer. Some would say that his way of worrying over ever little mistake she might do at some point is the typical reaction of any parent – some would say that he is her father, who could not stand to see his immortal daughter grow up without his guidance and who stopped at nothing to stay by her side. Some would say so, but only behind his back.
Whatever his true origins may be, first official mention of Sirius’ name was made in the third century of Equestria’s existence. The Canterlot archives include several reports written by Commander Night Sky concerning his distinguishing performance in every aspect of duty.
He remained a common brother for four hundred peaceful years, ever adding to his spotless reputation. Even during Discord’s cursed reign, he never once stumbled. When things did eventually change for the worse, no one put the blame on him except for himself. Princess Luna fell into darkness and Nightmare Moon was born. The Nightmare declared war against Celestia and her people, knowing that the Guard would follow her. They did so, reluctantly. During the Twilight War, Sirius’ grew from an exemplary servant into a living legend. As the castes were forged, he chose the Silver Guard for his own, and they chose him as their Corporal. His allies admired his qualities as a tactician as much as the stalwart determination with which he forced his troops to hold the line in battle. His enemies came to know him as a merciful victor who treated his captives with respect and who punished any acts of cruelty done under his command. Stories tell of a duel between him and the Solari Glimmer Lance: right before engaging in lethal combat, the contestants were heard assuring each other of their utmost respect.
But his greatest hour of triumph – though he would never name it so himself – was the Battle of the Winsome Falls. Commander Silver Wind and Captain Zenith of the Royal Guard had fought each other before, but never had they met face to face. Between the rainbow falls of Cloudsdale, the two leaders did so for the first time. And for the last, as Zenith turned out be the greater fighter. Silver Wind was slain, his soldiers scattered. They suffered a crushing defeat that day. Had Sirius not ordered his caste to cover their retreat, it might have been that much worse. While their brothers and sisters fled back to the night sky, the Silver Guard held the line until the very last moment. Less than a third of them survived.
Upon returning from his grim duty, Sirius saw himself face to face with another foe. Nightmare Moon did not forgive her children their failure, and her wrath struck them terribly. She ordered her Corporals to bring forth a culprit, which they were all too happy to provide: their brothers and sisters, friends and neighbours, everyone but themselves. Disgusted by their cowardice, she turned to Sirius, the last of her champions to answer her summoning. He had just returned from his desperate mission. He had lost hundreds of Night Guard dear to his heart. He had slain more than a dozen good soldiers with his own hands, soldiers whose only crime had been their wish to protect their families. He was the first of his race. He had watched Luna’s birth; he had watched her grow into her destiny. He loved her more than life, and now her soul had been imprisoned by a Nightmare that held her hostage and forced him to follow her. As much as he despised Nightmare Moon: without a way to free the true princess, he had no choice but to serve her captor.
And to lead his siblings to the slaughter.
He told her that she was the only one to blame for all the things that had happened. The Twilight War was her doing and hers alone. Every Guard that had died had done so by her command. Had she not ordered Silver Wind to engage in a battle right beneath Cloudsdale, the fiasco could have been prevented altogether. It was her who hadn’t accepted the Commander’s defensive battle plan and who had forced him into a much too aggressive charge against the martial pegasi, all the while knowing that they were still the greatest fighters in Equestria. She had sent her own children to their deaths, for nothing. She was the culprit, and no one else.
As Sirius spoke, he was certain that those words would be his last, and in fact they almost were. Nightmare Moon came over him with the fury of a tempest. She thrashed and flailed at him, raged like never before and then turned calm, all of the sudden. Into the breathless silence that followed, she spoke the words that declared Corporal Sirius Night Guard Commander. He had proven a courageous warrior and a masterful tactician before, but by openly defying his own princess, he had now shown clairvoyance and bravery unlike any of his siblings. He had what it took to lead them to victory.
As it would turn out, he had not.
Even in his new position as Nightmare Moon’s general and first advisor, his voice of reason wasn't loud enough. The Nightmare Guard continued in their crimes, and so did the princess herself. Luna remained out of reach and he still lacked the power to stop the atrocities done by her shadow. Though he won battle after battle, he could not prevent the inevitable judgement that came in form of the golden princess, Celestia. In a final confrontation of cataclysmic proportions, she unleashed the Elements of Harmony against her enemies, striking down her nocturnal sister and banishing her to the moon.
Sirius hated the Nightmare with all his heart, but her loss still was devastating. He fled to the night sky, but without their princess to aid them, only very few could follow him. Rejoining with those that had not been part of the battle, there were still no more than hundreds were once there had been thousands. Mad with grief, the Night Guard turned their backs to Equestria. It would take decades until Sirius managed to break through their mourning and give them a new purpose: to set their lady free.
With their function returned their strength. Sirius held no grudge against the Equestrian people, who had fought only to defend themselves. He ordered his siblings to return to their duties, and all but the most resentful complied. Luna was still gone though, and nothing could fill the hole she left. The people beneath would still be plagued by nightmares for centuries to come. All the while, the wisest and most powerful of the Black Priests would work night in night out in search for a way to break the curse upon Nightmare Moon.
A millennium later, Sirius was the first to welcome his mistress back. He watched her abduct her sister from the royal palace, watched her fight the Spirits of Harmony, watched with the other stars from above. When the Elements shattered the prison that was Nightmare Moon, their jubilation knew no limits. All the hatred of the past had been forgotten. Still today, Sirius is deeply grateful for the service the Spirits have done his kind. Luna met him the next night and commended him on his heart, his silver heart that had stayed pure even while serving the Nightmare. His reunion with the princess would be the only time that the Commander was seen shedding tears.
Today, the trust Luna puts in him is greater than ever. Although it was Nightmare Moon who raised him to power, he is no lesser man in the eyes of her true self. He commands over her children in her name and advises her on every decision, a paragon amongst the stars, keen of mind, courageous and pure like polished silver.
The Night Guard is one of the oldest organizations of Equestria, and the only one whose members are potentially immortal. Because of that, the collective memory of Luna’s chosen is in some ways richer and more diverse than even the archives of Canterlot. Like the Royal Guard, they treat the greatest among them with respect in life and with reverence in death. Stories of heroic deeds are used as educational anecdotes, sources of inspiration or simply for amusement.
To the average Equestrian, their approach to lore will seem as strange as everything else about them: with so many of their greatest kin still alive and active, they do not distinguish legends from heroes, sagas from history. At the same time, they hold firm in their belief that every member of their order is unconditionally equal, which turns their habit of worshipping heroes into an outright paradox. The author has confronted several Black Priests with that conundrum, all of which have given the same answer: “No star is less, but some are more.”. He does not presume to understand that statement. Further research may be necessary.
As a final note: while Night Guard are not commonly known for their verbosity, they do in fact turn rather talkative when approached upon this particular subject. The following articles have all been verified by several members of the Guard at least; on several occasions, reports were done by the very subject they referred to. Nevertheless, readers are advised to remember that Night Guard do not distinguish mythology from historiography. Only a few of these articles rely on scientific evidence as of now.
The Centauri Twins
As a star grows older, their understanding of the concept of family often changes dramatically. This drastic development is caused by two major effects: one the one hand, their ascension permanently detaches them from their original relatives – they often outlive their own bloodlines by centuries. On the other, they are trained to consider the Night Guard their new true family from the very beginning. Members of the order address each others as brothers and sisters and they mean so quite literally. They are convinced that spiritual similarity matters, not bodily relations (a belief that shows remarkable parallels to the one practiced by the alicorns). In general, the common idea of family means nothing to them.
Of course, this rule as well is not without exceptions. Alva and Betta, called the Centauri Twins, are one of those. The both of them share that one title, and for a very good reason.
Their story begins in a pegasus outpost somewhere in southern Equestria, in the fifth century of the nation’s existence, and could be the perfectly average tale of any Night Guard if it wasn’t telling of two beings instead of one: they grew up as weather makers, until one day a wandering group of moon priests stopped by their settlement. Cults worshipping Princess Luna were not uncommon at the time, so the monks were welcomed and given shelter. They would preach the ways of the moon and try to recruit new followers. Some would follow. Alva and Betta were amongst these.
They travelled with the priests for a couple of years. They showed great promise and were soon initiated into the higher mysteries of the lunar cults – both at the same time, for their mentors knew that they wouldn’t keep secrets from each other anyway. In the time that followed, both sisters would be offered multiple opportunities to climb in the group’s hierarchy, but would always decline; each refused to assume a higher position if the other couldn’t do the same.
One of their mentors eventually received a vision that ordered Alva to the stars. True to her sister even now, she ignored that command. For the first time in her life, Alva had denied an order. For the first time in history, a priestess of Luna had refused ascension.
Understandably, her teachers were outraged. The vision had been an instruction passed down by the princess herself; refusing it was unacceptable. At the same time, forcing an ascendant to partake in the ritual of the stars was not an option either. Two nights later, while they were still trying to find a way to solve their dilemma, the leader of their group received a second vision: this time, Betta was called alongside her sister. Confronted with this change of plans, both sisters accepted the order immediately.
The ritual was performed shortly after and for once it held more than one aspirant in its heart. Still today, the Centauri Twins are the only Night Guard that did not die by their own hand – each plunged their dagger into the other’s heart. At this point, it is the author’s belief that things take a turn towards the mythological: several sources all insist that during their death dream, when aspirants are judged by Princess Luna herself, the two of them would meet the astonished princess together, meaning that they did not only share a similar vision but the same one dream.
Whether this is true or not: they passed the test and joined the stars above. For another five hundred years, they would never once be separated. They clung to each other in the night sky, their two lights shining as a single beacon in the south. They shared their duties, their discoveries, even their meditations. They continued to show great promise and earned the respect of their siblings, but also their suspicion: the Night Guard do not trust a soul that serves another mistress than Luna alone.
When the Twilight War came and the Guard was split into castes, the sisters would for the first and the last time in their lives go different ways: Alva chose the Moon Smiths as her own while Betta joined the Moonlight Shadows. They were among the major part of the Night Guard that actively participated in the conflict. It would quickly turn out that their different choices had done little to set them apart. Now formally serving their respective corporals as much as the Nightmare, they would still cling to each other first and foremost. Alva forged the weapons that Betta would wield; legend has it that she made their hilts to fit perfectly into her own palm, identical to her twin sister’s. Betta was no remarkable fighter, nor was Alva’s smithery particularly fine – but when both were put together, they formed an unstoppable force.
While they sealed their legacy with countless acts of heroism throughout the entire conflict, they could of course do nothing to change its outcome. When the Nightmare fell, they were among the few lucky survivors who were brought back to the stars by Commander Sirius and his Silver Guard. From that point on, their story fades to nothing. They lived for nearly another thousand years, but no great deeds followed on what they had done before. The Centauri Twins remained indifferent to the outside world; they did their duty to their princess, but aside from that focused on the only thing that mattered to them truly: each other. In the end, Betta would find her match in a Nightmare Guard she had been ordered to track. In the moment of her body’s death, not one but two stars disappeared in the sky; if the stories are true, Alva vanished with her sister, without a trace. As always in their long, long lives, the Centauri Twins had stayed together.
Spectrum
The Night Guard treat their heroes like embodiments of aphorisms. They are role models in very specific ways – though none of them quite as specific as Spectrum, called the Lord of Colours. He is considered the prime example of just one particular saying: that a madman and a genius are essentially the same.
Born an earth walker in the third century after Luna’s banishment, Spectrum was called to the stars in his late youth. While most of the younger Night Guard tend to be less grim and bitter than those who fought in the Twilight War, he was proving to be well beyond even their average from the very beginning. With his kind and joyous heart overflowing with love for the whole wide world he was predestined to join the Dream Keeper caste, which he did merely a decade after his ascension. And from that point onwards, there was trouble.
From the moment of his initiation until his death six centuries later he would constantly clash with Moon Petals, Corporal of his caste. There was simply too much Laughter in him; he utterly refused the Dream Keeper’s traditional philosophy and approached his duty with his very own methods instead.
Most notably, these methods concerned his way of interacting with the Equestrians whose dreams he sought to heal. It was his stern belief that in order to comfort someone, one had to be as close as possible to them. Enacting this idea, he met his protégées in person. For every sickened soul that he tended to he would choose a mortal form below and rest his body beside theirs as he approached them in their dreams. He’d walk up to their dreaming selves smiling; he’d greet them warmly, explain his purpose, make an effort of healing them and then disappear, leaving not a memory behind.
For his form, he would usually choose the least frightening appearance he could think of. With his patients, often children, being plagued by nightmares, he saw no point in scaring them even further. Instead of the black and silver of his order, he would wrap himself in garments of rainbow hues, glittering and sparkling with every step. He’d hide his pale skin beneath layers of face paint and occasionally dye his silver hair just as vibrantly. It was this behaviour that got him his mocking title, Lord of Colours.
This is particularly noteworthy if one considers the time frame in which it happened: most of the populace had forgotten that Princess Luna and her Night Guard even existed, and Commander Sirius was eager to keep it that way. Spectrum’s less than subtle approach was considered an outright danger to the entire Guard. He would have been punished for his behaviour, no doubt, if not for one detail that simply couldn’t be ignored: his methods were met with unrivalled success.
Spectrum died in the sixth century of his service while trying to protect a nightly wanderer from a raging manticore. By the time he did, he had long grown from a subject of ridicule into a living legend. He had cured thousands of Equestrians from their inner disharmonies. He had healed neurotic children in a single night. He had succeeded in cases where even Moon Petals had not.
In later years, quite a few of his siblings tried to re-enact his behaviour, but without success. It has been concluded that it had been Spectrum himself who had made it work: madness in itself does not accomplish anything without genius to back it up.
One part of his legacy remains influential, however: Luna herself, upon hearing tales of his deeds, chose to adopt one of them. She decided that from then on she would reveal herself to dreamers when required, though only the most lucid will remember meeting her afterwards. In doing so, her actions still keep the Lord of Colours alive. With every mortal man or woman waking from visions of the Silver Princess, his memory is honoured in the ancient ways again.
Shimmer Swirl
Shimmer Swirl’s legend is certainly the best documented of all the Night Guard’s folklore, simply because there are several Equestrian sources that back up the stories told by the Guard. The Guardian of White Tail Woods is a rather young member of the order, having been raised to the stars not even two centuries ago. Her cultural background is thus a lot more modern than what is commonly the case and so is her mindset as a result of that. Born into an age of individuality and prosperity, she allows herself to maintain personal preferences and beliefs beside her role as a daughter of Luna.
Shimmer Swirl was destined to become a Silver Guard from the very beginning of her second life. She is a stern believer with little patience for doubt or hesitation. Once a mother to three children, she left her old existence after losing two of them to a pack of timberwolves raiding their village in the White Tail Woods one night. The assault had come without warning and had taken her small community by surprise, costing most of her neighbours their lives. Wounded and scared, but fuelled by the madness of a mother seeing her children threatened, the earth walker woman managed to form a ragtag defensive force and drive the invading creatures from her home. Mortally wounded by the furious beasts, Shimmer Swirl still refused to leave the settlement: with two daughters to bury and a little son to take care of, she couldn’t accept going anywhere, not to a hospital and not to her grave.
For days after that she stayed alive, fighting her own demise with iron conviction. Eventually, during a short, fever-stricken rest, she was visited by a Black Priest who made her an offer most uncommon: despite her being uninitiated into the faith of the moon, despite not caring the slightest bit for the banished Princess Luna, he gave her the opportunity to undergo the ritual of the stars that would turn her into an immortal Night Guard. Strength and power were promised to her, enough to watch over her little son. It was these last words that made Shimmer Swirl agree. She could accept her own death, but the idea of leaving her last child behind was too frightening for her to stand.
Shortly after, a group of moon cultists arrived at the ruined settlement. Led by their own dreams and visions they came at night like the timberwolves before, abducted the dying Shimmer Swirl from her bed and performed the ritual in all secrecy. To her neighbours and friends it was as if she had simply vanished into thin air one night.
Only by meeting Princess Luna in her dying dream did Shimmer Swirl’s ascension turn from a scheme to trick death into something larger. Now seeing the world through the eyes of a star, she began to understand what the faith of the moon really meant to the world. She would finally learn the teachings that all her siblings had known long before their own first deaths and accept her role as a servant of the moon as a purpose in itself, not just means to an end. Looking down on Equestria, she now saw countless of thousands of her children resting beneath, all of them needing protection.
Still, unlike so many of her siblings, she never forgot her roots. Since the day of her ascension, White Tail Woods never saw another nightly attack on any of its settlements. Her son would grow big and strong and then old and frail and never see his life in danger, convinced that he had been born under a lucky star – and never realising just how right he was. Countless nightly wanderers tell tales of strange visions that plagued them in the forest and that turned out to be warnings of dangers ahead, of the feeling of a shadow lurking just beyond their perception that seemed to watch every step they took or of sudden, inexplicable bursts of light that drove off dangerous creatures as they were just about to be pounced by them.
The Guardian of White Tail Woods is considered the face of a modern Night Guard by many of her brothers and sisters and her persistence to maintain individuality has made her a role model for many. Other, even younger Silver Guard have taken to a similar behaviour, becoming wardens of their former homes first and foremost. While Corporal Fervent Gleam endorses this new kind of passion, Commander Sirius clearly disapproves of it. Ancient and zealous, the puritanical commander cares little for any break from tradition; worse than that, Shimmer Swirl, like the Centauri Twins, is the servant of two masters. While so many of the younger Guard have sided with Shimmer, Sirius cannot accept to see his subordinates be loyal to anyone but the princess herself.
Dusk
The unicorn Dusk is an ancient member of the Night Guard, born more than thirteen centuries ago; despite his long history of service however, he has only recently grown into a hero of his kind. Dusk was born under the name of Golden Fields in the high north, on the bleak steppes stretching between the Crystal Empire and the Sea of Song. The only unicorn in a settlement of earth walkers, he never felt at home among his family and decided to join a lunar cult when he was only sixteen.
This was before the Twilight War, so the monks of his time did not need to hide away. Quite the contrary, they were openly recruiting acolytes for their faith. Golden Fields joined the order as a way to escape his boring life at home at first, but quickly adapted to his new surroundings. The metaphysical teachings of the monks awoke in him a feeling he had never known before: fascination. As his learning grew more and more profound he first abandoned his plans to run away at the first chance, then his plans to leave the group at all. It took him less than two years to ascent to priesthood and only another until he was called to the stars. There were older, wiser, more experienced and more powerful cultists in his group, but it was Golden Fields’ blazing ardour that caught the Black Priests’ attention. Overjoyed by their offer, the unicorn submitted to the ritual and died by his own hand shortly thereafter.
His first meeting with Princess Luna struck the newborn star with a sense of boundless adoration that would never leave him again. Even amongst the pious Night Guard, he soon built up a reputation of being zealous to the point of fanatism. He adopted the name of Dusk and eagerly threw himself into his duties.
When the time had come to choose a caste, the unicorn found himself torn between two factions: the Dream Keepers mirrored his compassionate heart, but the Reapers acknowledged his talents as a nightmare hunter. Eventually, the extremely gifted dream eater chose action before thought, joined the Reaper caste and swiftly earned his first title: Dream Glutton. For the longest time of his life, he remained there. He did his duties and excelled at them, but never performed any heroic acts to gain him the attention of his superiors. In the end he would not be known for his talents, but for his devotion.
After the banishment of Princess Luna, the Night Guard’s influence on the world dwindled drastically. In her absence, they could not stop nightmares from taking hold in the world beneath and driving them back grew harder and harder. Eighty years ago, a particularly powerful spirit by the name of Eris began to make itself felt amongst the population of eastern Equestria. Fully aware of both the danger posed by such a great nightmare but also of the Night Guard’s dire situation, Commander Sirius ordered Corporal Evenfall to put his best still expendable dream eater on her. Evenfall chose Dusk.
The unicorn obeyed. For decades and decades he hunted her, even though he quickly found her to be his equal at the least. Eris crept from host to host, leaving a trail of devastation in her wake. Dusk would seek out each of her victims, make them tell him all they knew about her and then pass them on to the Dream Keepers.
Twenty years ago, his hunt rose to a new dimension when his prey escaped from the surface of Equestria and into another world. Relentless, Dusk requested Corporal Evenfall for permission to hunt her still – and was granted it.
As we know, there are other worlds than our own. The vast majority of researchers are convinced that they lie beyond the outer spheres and the realms of darkness and disharmony in their own dimensions, countless other planes of existence that are alien to everything an Equestrian may know. Dusk could smell Eris’ trail throughout the darkness, but could not follow her through chaos. Instead he travelled north, beyond the Crystal Mountains and the banished Empire, crossing thousands of miles in the blink of an eye. There, at the edge of the world, lies one of the oldest wonders of the silver princess.
The Wayward Lake is one of several mythical waters told to have been created by the alicorns in the first years of their reign, when the siblings were experimenting with their new powers. It is also one out of only two of these whose existence has been scientifically confirmed, Prince Melody’s Mirror Pool being the other. The Lake is the result of Princess Luna probing the limits of her magic: its ice has been enchanted with the power of the moon, a mysticism that allows it to transcend time and space completely. A single shard of that ice, crafted into a mirror and gifted to Queen Chrysalis of the Crystal Empire during a state visit, possesses the power to carry even common people into another reality – the Wayward Lake itself can carry any creature wherever they want to. Dusk, who had never once in his life as a Night Guard taken on a physical body, plunged into the frozen waters while still in his true form: a star falling straight from the night sky and disappearing from the world in hot pursuit of the nightmare he had sworn to destroy.
And with that his tale ends, for there is no way back for him. Only when he sacrificed his connection to Equestria in order to fulfil his duty did Dusk join the realm of heroes. In absentia, his brothers and sisters granted him a new title: the Wandering Star. His story soon became a symbol of dedication: a star must do its duty, no matter the cost.
Inkwell
The origins of the Black Priest known as Inkwell are lost since countless generations. She is one of the oldest Night Guard alive, her birth predating even those of Moon Petals or the Centauri Twins. Early reports tell of a particularly well-read member of the Guard with a profound fascination for the metaphysical and the obscure. She continued studying the higher mysteries of the night even long after her ascension to the stars, and eventually mastered them on a level that no one else would ever achieve.
When the Twilight War came, it was only natural for her to join the Black Priests and continue her labour as researcher and master mage. Far too engrossed into her studies to care about the actual conflict, she remained unscathed by the battle raging beneath – until it ended.
After Luna’s banishment it was Commander Sirius who tied the scattered remains of the Night Guard back together and who organized them once more into an order with unity and purpose. While some of Inkwell’s kin were ordered back to their old duties, others were sent to the edge of the earth to gather the shards of Nightmare Moon’s empire, to search for fallen siblings or to hunt Nightmare Guard. The Black Priests however were given the most crucial task of all: to break the curse that had struck down Princess Luna, and to free her once and for all.
A thousand years this task would take, that was the prophecy the Elements beneath had spoken, the same Elements that had woven the curse in the first place and whose might was not to be questioned – Sirius knew that to free their mistress meant to fight the single most powerful spell in the history of the world. Sixty-six of the Black Priest’s greatest thinkers, clerics and magicians were ordered to do the impossible.
While every Night Guard caste knows and practices spell craft, it is the Black Priests that delve deepest into the recesses of mystical esotericism that is lunar magic. They are masters at dispelling any kind of metaphysical force, but in doing so they employ a method that is nearly impossible for the common mind to comprehend: by bending the laws of reason towards relativity, they alter reality with their thoughts alone. For a millennium without rest or pause, they fought the curse imprisoning Luna by plainly denying its existence.
This may sound simple at first, but the educated reader will understand the amount of effort it would take to equip a fleeting concept like conviction with actual magical powers. The Priests tirelessly sought out new ways of thinking, deliberate logical fallacies or sources of uncertainty they could use to lever out the entire construct. They used doubt like a craftsman uses a crowbar.
Out of the sixty-six Black Priests charged with the task, only Inkwell survived. When the spell was finally broken and Nightmare Moon returned, every Night Guard gathered to greet her back – except for them. Some had died of exhaustion, some had been overwhelmed by lurking nightmares, some had lost their minds and wandered out into the outer spheres where nothing could save them. Inkwell completed the monstrous spell by herself and then departed from her post like nothing had happened. Her new Corporal, Nightshade, found her some time later, drifting through the night sky without aim or purpose.
Still today, Inkwell fights to regain her sanity. She is not yet aware that Princess Luna has been redeemed, nor does she recognize her own sisters and brothers. Perpetually locked into the moment when she last saw the world, her mind is a barren desert made of madness and delusion. Countless Dream Keepers and even Luna herself have tried to cure her, but all of them have eventually turned away in horror. They report that Inkwell still mumbles the endless catechisms of her great spell and that just by hearing the words they could feel them eating away at their sanity.
Stardust
The Night Guard Stardust was born in the fourth century of Celestia’s rule and elected Corporal of the Moon Smiths three hundred years later. As is the case for most of the Guard’s leaders, his actual election took place long after his siblings had first agreed that he’d be the next in line. Only when a Corporal dies can a Corporal be chosen, and thus it was the death of his predecessor that made him what he is today.
Stardust is known as a reliable leader who has never overstepped any boundaries and whom the Dream Keeper Spectrum famously called a “veteran bore”. He is a stone-cold pragmatist and cares little for matters of the faith, or for anything not directly related to his work. He bears an aura of strength and level-headedness that makes him the perfect leader for a caste of craftsmen. He combines deft hands with commitment to his duties and an innate sense for his role as taskmaster.
With his way of unquestioningly obeying orders he doesn’t even care about, Stardust has gained a reputation of being slothful, servile and even spineless amongst members of other castes. Such talk shows a distinct lack of knowledge, however, for his mind is not uncaring but perpetually occupied. In addition to his other tasks and burdens, the old Corporal has proven to be an exceptionally productive tinkerer. Ever the perfectionist, he tirelessly seeks new tools, new weapons, new items worth crafting for one reason or the other. He never ceases to improve existing designs either, and with remarkable success. Even the armour worn by Celestian Royal Guard today is partially based on a Silver Guard design that he came up with.
Stardust remains a source of order in the Night Guard, uncommon in his normality. He has reformed the Moon Smiths into an efficient machine, working away towards perfection. He treats his inferiors like he treats himself: as tools, as parts of the clockwork that serve to do tasks and that’s all there is.
Moon Petals
Corporal Moon Petals of the Dream Keeper caste is doubtlessly one of the greatest Night Guard heroes who ever lived. She is a living legend that is looked up to and admired like only Commander Sirius or even Princess Luna beside her. From the moment of her first death 1200 years ago until today, she has been a shining example of absolute, flawless purity. For her wisdom and humility, she was elected Corporal when the Dream Keepers first were formed in the Twilight War and has led them ever since. Throughout the conflict she preached a way of love and understanding, fearlessly opposing the consuming rage of Nightmare Moon.
Probably the only reason why the Nightmare never snuffed her out for that was that her talents simply made her irreplaceable. Dream Keepers specialize in healing the spirit, but do as well possess means to mend the body through the mind. Moon Petals possessed the mercy, will and spellpower to do both exceptionally well and her way of inspiring those around her just by being there for them pushed the Dream Keepers onwards like nothing else could.
At the same time, she did what was nothing less than a sacrilege in the Nightmare’s eyes: she offered her gifts to her enemies just as much as her kin. She cared not for race or allegiance but only for the need of help. Even decorated heroes of the Celestian Solari would find themselves beneath her healing hands. Modern historiography may not even begin to understand the number of lives she has saved.
On that subject it is to be noted that Researcher Dust Bunny’s project in the old Canterlot archives has recently brought up an interesting document: an ancient order written and signed by Captain Zenith of the Solari that names “the lady Moon Petals, verily an image of the moon maiden of old henceforth a favourite of the crown of Canterlot”, thus making her a champion of Celestia even while fighting on the other side of the war. By that decree, Moon Petals had been made untouchable –assaulting her would from then on be a dire crime. In retrospect, it seems no surprise that she survived the conflict unscathed.
Throughout the Twilight War, Moon Petals asked the Dream Keepers to follow in her footsteps, but the Nightmare’s orders overruled her own. Nightmare Moon could not command Petals herself, as the Corporal simply refused to listen, but she could have the Keepers ignore her example. None of them had Moon Petals’ courage, and so they chose to obey the higher force.
Once Nightmare Moon was banished, they were quick to change their minds. Like most Night Guard who had fought for the Nightmare only because they saw no other choice, they were quick to abandon all of her teachings and return to the old ways of the moon. Corporal Moon Petals swore allegiance to the new sovereign of the Night Guard – Commander Sirius – and her caste followed her in unison. Since that day a thousand years ago, the Dream Keepers have strictly followed her doctrine. Her careful hand has shaped them to be pensive and conservative, but also kind, strong and doubtlessly pure in their hearts.
Fervent Gleam
As mentioned in the corresponding article, Silver Guard have the persistent habit of dying quite young. Rare is the Corporal who manages to survive their office for more than half a century, as their caste expects them to take on the most dangerous tasks of all. Fervent Gleam, probably the youngest Corporal in the history of the Guard, was elected less than a decade ago and has already had a brush with death not once but twice.
His ascension occurred in the recent past, predating Luna’s return by only forty years: he has not even surpassed his natural lifespan yet, which makes him a child in the eyes of other Night Guard. At the same time, the borderline mad courage he has been displaying for all his second life made them choose him as their Corporal, albeit with only a few votes ahead of his competitors.
Fervent Gleam is known for his rash behaviour as much as his disdain for doubt or hesitation. He openly refuses the ways of the Black Priests as weak and pointless and is known to have had severe disagreements with both Moon Petals and Nightshade. Even Shimmer Swirl, the only Silver Guard prestigious enough to even dare opposing him, has been known to frown upon his orders time and time again.
Still, his prowess in combat continues to impress. Like so many of his predecessors, Fervent Gleam is always on the lookout for a chance to prove himself. He has fought off cave trolls, timberwolves and even hydras assaulting nightly wanderers. He famously joined the Centauri Twins in their efforts to bring down a dragon terrorizing the eastern fringes of the Macintosh Hills and was supposedly involved in the assassination of the Nightmare Guard Blood Song.
The Silver Guard have always been a source of renewal in the Night Guard order. They are a caste of the young and the brash that combine all the virtues and vices of youth in them. Fervent Gleam may be a highly controversial leader – but few will deny that he is just the kind of Corporal his subordinates deserve.
Evenfall
Evenfall, Corporal of the Dream Reapers, is definitely one of the more elusive chapters of Night Guard history. There are a number of oddities concerning his ascension that will likely never be resolved: why did a sergeant of the Celestian Solari who was known mostly for his iron faith suddenly turn his back on Celestia and join the ranks of the night? How could someone who fought in the Twilight War even consider betraying his own order in favour of a people that he had seen murdering his own friends and comrades just a few years before?
A commonplace theory stresses the fact that the Celestian Solari were not without cruelty either, quite the contrary in fact. Evenfall is known to hide a soft and caring heart beneath his soldierly attitude, and perhaps the atrocities committed on both sides of the conflict made him lose faith in Harmony all together. In a state of disillusion and doubt, it might have been possible for a Black Priest to convince him that after the Nightmare’s defeat, the Night Guard had changed to the better – in contrary to the Solari, who established their rigorous faith with even greater ardour than before.
This would also explain why unlike so many of his kin, Evenfall turned away from Equestria the very second his ascension was complete. Hunting nightmares in the outer fringes of the sky allowed him to continue in his duty without needing to interact with the ones he protected – the ones that had disappointed him so utterly. To keep his bitterness from consuming him, he turned instead to his military training to form a wall of resolution around his fragile heart. Much of the Solari he once was still lives on in the Night Guard he is today.
Whether he was running away from his past or if his dedication was real: Evenfall would spend the greatest part of his second life with the iconic duty of his caste, the Dream Reapers. Throughout centuries of patient practice, he would eventually turn into the greatest living hunter in the entire Guard, easily surpassing even renowned elders like Crepuscule or Dusk. When he was elected Corporal, it was done in recognition of his talents, neither his past nor his qualities as a leader.
Ironically, his past has of course equipped him with the qualities of a leader. Choosing a former Solari as their Corporal has led to some quarrel between the Dream Reapers and the Moonlight Shadows, some of which accused them of faith- and carelessness. The greater, more moderate part of the Guard welcomed his election however, and in time his good performance helped to silence all but the loudest of mouths.
To this day, Evenfall’s true feelings remain a mystery. If his passion for the hunt truly was a way to escape his past, he never stopped running. Fact is that the Dream Reapers have found a capable and dedicated leader in the old soldier – and even if he ever regrets the decision he has made so many centuries ago, no one will hear of it.
Silent Sigh
Little is known about Evenfall’s past but nothing can be said about Silent Sigh’s, except for the fact that she has been Corporal of the Moonlight Shadows for the last two centuries – and that her election caused a cry of outrage to ripple through the Night Guard that to this day has not died down. All sources indicate that she herself made sure that her past turned as clouded as it is today – all traces and records have been wiped away, except for the memory of her oldest siblings; their silence however is as iron as hers, and the fiercely loyal Moonlight Shadows leave little hope for that to change.
The caste of the waning crescent has always been looked upon with mistrust by the rest of the Guard. Silent Sigh’s behaviour and the obvious support of her followers have strengthened that general suspicion over the course of recent history, and have isolated the Shadows even further than before. Some whisperers have gone as far as to accuse her of being a Nightmare Guard, a spy that has infiltrated the order to sow disharmony from within.
This serious accusation naturally clashes heavily with the fact that Silent Sigh is the direst hunter of the forsaken ones that Equestria has seen in ages. She has dedicated her entire caste to hunting the shadows of the past with such a passion that many of them have been able to forget that they too are just a relict of the Twilight War – this might be another reason why they defend her claim as eagerly as they do. Still the neutral observer will have to admit that her efforts have played a major part in keeping the Nightmare Guard at bay, which after Princess Luna’s return is more important now than ever before.
However, her thankworthy choice of enemies does nothing to change what she is: a cold-blooded killer, an assassin in service of an alicorn princess which in itself is an outrage for most of the Night Guard. Only the grimmest of stars join the Moonlight Shadows, those who embrace the lounging for destruction that is inherent in every being. Silent Sigh is one of only a few unicorns among her caste, but has used her magical ability to compensate for her lack of wings. Instead of the lightning assaults favoured by the larger part of the Shadows, she has learned and perfected the martial art of Slinging, a technique that once was common amongst the entire Equestrian military but has mostly been abandoned or forgotten in modern times: it employs unicorn telekinesis to accelerate small, sharp disks of metal to extreme speeds and then fling them at an enemy. Such projectiles are nearly invisible, completely soundless and can kill an unarmoured target with a single strike without even betraying the attacker’s position. A powerful and well-trained Slinger can hit a moving target from hundreds of feet away.
More than a few Nightmare Guard have met such an end by the hand of Corporal Silent Sigh; her way to kill unseen, unheard and without a trace is what earned her her curious nickname: Lady Lullaby, a title uttered rarely with reverence, often with a shiver. With her age not certain, it remains unknown if it was really only Nightmare Guard that she has put to sleep in the past. The sinister aura surrounding her name shows no signs of dispersing – and with the reputation of the Night Guard being as fragile as it is in the first place, she remains a thorn in Commander Sirius’ side: too valuable to condemn completely, to imperfect to welcome openly.
Nightshade
As Corporal of the Black Priests, Nightshade is responsible for keeping the faith and lore of the Night Guard alive within the order. Corporal Fervent Gleam insists that she was elected only recently. Reports given by her subordinates name her a hundred, a thousand or ten years old, call her by a dozen different titles, describe her as possessing a horn, wings or both but at the same time never claim that she is an alicorn (by appearance she seems to be a pegasus); most agree that she is female and a part of the Black Priests. Some state that their caste doesn’t even have a Corporal, others wonder whether she is their current leader or a past – or future! – one. The author has questioned Nightshade herself on the subject, who has thus far not denied or affirmed any of these claims.
To my esteemed colleagues: this is ridiculous. Tell Paperback that I need a Silver Guard to talk with if he doesn’t want me to lose my mind. If he does want me to lose my mind, tell him that he won’t get my position either way. Look at this mess! I can’t work like this! The entire caste is bonkers, it’s like I’m listening to rambling infants! Tell him that if he doesn’t get me a reliable source of information within the week, he can take this article and shove it up his useless little-
Despite extensive research and the opportunity to question numerous historical figures personally, little to nothing is known about the higher mysteries of the night. We are aware that in the old days, a moon cultist’s rank was derived directly from their knowledge of these mysteries and that the Night Guard practice them zealously still today, but what they entail is unknown to anyone but the moon’s faithful themselves.
The author has interviewed dozens of experts on the subject, but has only managed to extract the knowledge of one single mystery known as the school of Equitism. It combines elements of a creation myth and a metaphysical world view with the practical aspects of an oracle system and is popular among the waning Night Guard castes: Black Priests, Moonlight Shadows and Dream Reapers. Numerous members of all three believe in both its practices and doctrines. Lady Shimmer Swirl, convinced that clinging to esoteric baggage is only slowing her order down, shared this information for the sake of historiography – and has, as I’ve come to hear, been harshly reprimanded because of it.
The creation myth of Equitism correspondents with the Dawn Theory of the ancient Celestian Solari, which states that the night is just the symptom of a massive, singular process that is slowly turning the world from Chaos to Harmony – daylight. A common origin as propaganda from the Twilight War has been suspected but thus far lacks scientific proof.
Equitism in contrast declares that in the beginning there were Harmony and Chaos, one of them eternally creating, the other one ever destructive. These two powers were trapped in an eternal circle: Harmony forms a reality in the endless expanses of the void, Chaos tears it down again.
The catalyst that would eventually break that cycle had to be an original part of the two forces, for there was yet nothing else. Chaos on the one hand was a single, formless thing that was everything and nothing. It possessed every attribute at once and yet none – thus, the eternal change could never change itself. Harmony however was a web, a system of perfect order in between all attributes that are, categorized in relation, opposition and so on. The fact that it was a construct made from countless little modules allowed the eternal order to change. “For that which is one must always be many – only that which is many can make them one” is how the Night Guard’s own scriptures phrase it.
At the same time, the powers of Harmony could not create a stable world on their own any more than Chaos could, and the Spirits knew that: “For even the golden one [in this case probably referring to the sun or even day as a whole, not Princess Celestia] will turn to unrest if it will not change.” From its own matter, Harmony created a compromise. It broke itself into two parts: pure Harmony on one side and another kind on the other, one that combined the uncertain and unrestful of Chaos with Harmony’s stability and benevolent being: day and night had been born.
The unstable nature of this compromise would allow it to survive only in a constant state of change. Day and night couldn’t exist alongside, but also not without each other and thus were forced to tirelessly replace each other in a circular, delicate balance. Thus a new cycle was created, but this one was a peaceful exchange and no longer a conflict, it occurred dictated by and within the framework of Harmony as a whole now re-enacting that cosmic conflict within itself. The world so constructed passes through change without ever fully dissolving. The laws of Chaos gained a stabilizing outlet, change was canalized into a perfect circle and pure Chaos thus banished forever.
This concludes the creation of the world’s most basic elements: day and night, pure Harmony and the hybrid entity needed to balance it out. In the Equitist mysticism, both have a symbol associated with them: a long line for the day and a broken one for the night . Together, they form the two laws of reality: time, which would later manifest itself as the endless sky, and space that would become the earth beneath, a circle within a circle within a circle. Due to this, the natural world can be depicted as two lines on top of each other: sky and earth, time and space. By the nature of the forces that formed them, both will always have to be absolute (diurnal) or relative (nocturnal), which results in four possible conditions:
These conditions form the framework, the four corners between which all of reality takes hold. They are traditionally equated with the natural elements of the Elemental Theory in the following order:
Sky absolute, earth absolute: water.
Sky relative, earth relative: fire.
Sky relative, earth absolute: earth.
Sky absolute, earth relative: air.
However, these are not sufficient to describe reality as a whole. Soon after the creation, a third power takes its place in the circle: life (represented by the five vital elements in the Elemental Theory). Only together do time, space and life encircle the world in its entirety and since the world is Harmony incarnate, their sum thus equals Harmony itself. Adding life to time and space, a third line must be drawn beneath the other two, resulting in eight individual symbols. The ideas associated with these true elements vary from the ones of the scientific perspective presented in their corresponding article, hence a brief summarization:
Day. Time, space and life are certain. This symbol represents pure Harmony.
Night. Time, space and life are relative. This symbol represents chaotic Harmony.
Magic. Time and space are relative, but life is not, for it has transcended them both by understanding the
true nature of the world. This sign represents enlightenment.
Kindness. Time and life are relative, space is not. Time flows onwards, space remains stable, life is
untouched by either and does not interfere. This symbol represents effortlessness.
Generosity. Space and life are relative, time is not. Though everything changes, one moment in time has
been made eternal. This symbol represents grace.
Laughter. Space and time are certain, life is not. Even as time and space are stern and stable, life surpasses
them easily. This symbol represents transcendence.
Loyalty. Time and life are certain, space is not. Life pushes onwards through time, changing space by
force. This symbol represents restlessness.
Honesty. Time is relative, space and life are not. Life maintains space against the flow of time. This
symbol represents stubbornness.
Yet even these eight symbols do not suffice to fully describe reality: since the world is eternally changing it can never be expressed as one of the eight, but only as a process from one to another – after all, Harmony is not within any element, but in between them all. As a final result, each of the eight symbols is connected with every other in pairs of two, forming the 64 processes, the essence of the changing world.
The Equitistic Oracle: Instructions
Since the world passes through the strictly ordered pathways of Harmony, Equitism states that the initiated adept is capable of comprehending and predicting the future. In order to do so, priests use a set of three silver coins painted black on one side – but any coins will do. In order to consult the oracle, the inquirer must first speak their question aloud, then toss all three coins at once: their silver side stands for the day, their black side for the night (when using regular Equestrian Bits, the side not labelled with a number is usually considered to represent the night). The adept adds the results together, counting one point for each ‘night’ and two for each ‘day’. Subsequently, the following results are possible:
3: Midnight. Absolute darkness has been achieved. However, since no extreme can persist in the great
circle of things, it will soon change to dawn and day.
4: Night.
5: Day.
6: Noon. As the opposite of midnight, this symbol represents the brightest light, that by nature tells of the
coming dusk.
The result is written down and the procedure repeated another five times. The adept dedicates each toss to a specific element in their systematic order: Magic, Kindness, Generosity, Laughter, Loyalty and Honesty. After the sixth toss, a full symbol will have come together that is supposed to stand for the present. The unstable numbers – midnight and noon – will not stay still for long, however, and quickly revert to their opposite, thus creating a second symbol that stands for the future. From the relation of these two symbols, the adept will then attempt to read the best course of action.
Before proceeding to the 64 symbols in detail, the author feels the need to remind the reader of three important details: firstly, every symbol consists of two parts, its image and its judgement. The former describes the situation the symbol indicates, the second suggests a way to react to it. Secondly, since the oracle is a Harmonious kind of magic, it requires at least two persons – an inquirer and an adept – to work. And as a final note: even the Night Guard themselves consider Equitism to be nothing but archaic superstition, and no enlightened reader should at any given time expect the oracle to work at all.
The 64 Symbols
1: True Day
above Day, the Absolute beneath Day, the Absolute
Image: The shadows waver. The sun dictates. Creation triumphant. Judgement: Great blessings. The sage embraces renewal. Woe to the fool who seeks the shade.
2: Dawn
above Day, the Absolute beneath Night, the Relative
Image: The darkness takes its leave. Stones rise from mud. The waters clear. Judgement: Opportunity. The sage finds certainty. The mists retreat.
3: The Fanatic
above Day, the Absolute beneath Magic, the Enlightened
Image: The absolute surpasses the enlightened. The balance is threatened. The forests grow without measure.
Great Opportunity. Great danger. Judgement: Purity turns against itself. Light blinds. Light burns. The sage seeks the shadows.
4: Justice
above Day, the Enlightened beneath Kindness, the Effortless
Image: Effort to the absolute. The sun burns, however tempered. The eye tears the world in two. Judgement: The sage follows the heart. Who is guilty, who is not? Blades fall. Choices must be made.
5: The Mirror
above Day, the Absolute beneath Generosity, Graceful
Image: Daylight surpasses grace. The mirror speaks true. Judgement: Great blessings brings the open eye. The sage does not choose comfort. Pain to knowledge.
Knowledge to pain.
6: The Shackle
above Day, the Absolute beneath Laughter, the Transcendent
Image: The chains weigh down the wanderer. Life grows weak. The old laws bind. Judgement: Great danger. Crushing purpose. The sake breaks free.
7: The Sunray
above Day, the Absolute beneath Loyalty, the Restless
Image: The sunray pushes onwards. Its light is power. Its way is certain. Judgement: The sage follows. The path is clear. Great blessings. Great opportunity.
8: The Crone above Day, the Absolute beneath Honesty, the Stubborn
Image: The stubborn to the absolute. The world rests within knowledge past. Harmony lingers. Little
opportunity. Judgement: The sage accepts. Great blessings brings the leaf that floats.
9: True Night above Night, the Relative beneath Night, the Relative
Image: The outlines fade. The moon rises high. Nothing is. Everything could. Judgement: Hesitation. Wonder. Doubt. The sage will remain. Little opportunity.
10: Dusk above Night, the Relative beneath Day, the Absolute
Image: Change. Opportunity. What is lies dormant. What could awakens. Judgement: Triumph of the meek. Doom to the brash. The sage will look to every path at once.
11: Doubt above Night, the Relative beneath Magic, the Enlightened
Image: Darkness conquers knowledge. Thoughts all veiled. Void of reason. Judgement: Danger. Shaking ground. The sage finds a way. The fool finds too many.
12: Tranquillity above Night, the Relative beneath Kindness, the Effortless
Image: Change without changing. Minds unburdened. All things flowing gently. Judgement: The sage hears the silence. Thousand voices without a word. Great blessings brings the heart joining
space and time.
13: Humility above Night, the Relative beneath Generosity, the Graceful
Image: The uncertain surpasses the fair. The gentle powers reign. Judgement: The humble will be highest. The sage hides the light, for the circle will make it shine all the brighter.
To contradict is to foresee.
14: The Orphan above Night, the Relative beneath Laughter, the Transcendent
Image: Mind stumbles. The transcendent lost in darkness. Frightened children, far away. Judgement: Danger. The fool has strayed too far. The sage seeks earth and sky.
15: Apathy above Night, the Relative beneath Loyalty, the Restless
Image: The darkness chokes the restless heart. The sky tires. The earth slumbers. Judgement: Energy fading. Power fleeting. The sage knows that which must not be lost.
16: Oblivion above Night, the Relative beneath Honesty, the Stubborn
Image: Persistence wavers. The night consumes the stubborn. The sky feeds off the earth. Judgement: Great danger. Mind fades, eye fades, heart fades. The sage prepares, but does not hope.
17: True Magic above Magic, the Enlightened beneath Magic, the Enlightened
Image: Mind over all. The sage has conquered. Life triumphant. Judgement: Great blessings brings the open mind. Great opportunity. The sage is first among the stars.
18: Temperance above Magic, the Enlightened beneath Day, the Absolute
Image: The spirit watches the absolute. The enlightened sits by the fire. The sun is tamed. Judgement: The sage questions carefully. To advance is to step lightly. To run is to turn the circle.
19: Clarity above Magic, the Enlightened beneath Night, the Relative
Image: Life pierces through the veil. The circle at its brightest. New shadows rise. Judgement: The moment is truth, truth just a moment. The sage grasps the flashing light, the fool lets it slip. Both
will fall again to night.
20: The Heartless above Magic, the Enlightened beneath Kindness, the Effortless
Image: The enlightened leaves all ease behind. The open eye forgets to see. Judgement: A price for clarity. Too high? Too much? The sage knows that which must not be given.
21: Hunger above Magic, the Enlightened beneath Generosity, the Graceful
Image: The enlightened goes beyond the graceful. The body suffers, the mind roams free. Judgement: The circle moves. No extreme may stand. Through the hungering flesh, the sage appeases the mind.
Opportunity.
22: The Solari above Magic, the Enlightened beneath Laughter, the Transcendent
Image: The grasping goes beyond the grasped. The enlightened seeks to surpass. Judgement: Danger. Wisdom blowing in the wind. The seeds of vanity are spread. The fool looks to the world
and calls it wise. The sage looks well beyond.
23: The Explorer above Magic, the Enlightened beneath Loyalty, the Restless
Image: Feet carry the body. Mind guides the body. Judgement: Blessings brings the restless spirit. The sage moves forward, guided by the light.
24: The Scribe above Magic, the Enlightened beneath Honesty, the Stubborn
Image: Truth is close. The way is barred. The paths are many. The ways are barred. Judgement: Questions. Answers. The sage looks back to move forwards. The circle turns.
25: True Kindness above Kindness, the Effortless beneath Kindness, the Effortless
Image: Sky and life fleeting over solid earth. Change without force. Force without effort. Judgement: Rivers flows. Wind blows. The sage delights. The fool laments. Both drift.
26: Mercy above Kindness, the Effortless beneath Day, the Absolute
Image: The effortless tames the absolute. The stern bows to the gentle. Judgement: The universe rejoices. Great blessings brings the hesitating hand. The judge’s sword falls silently.
27: The Lover above Kindness, the Effortless beneath Night, the Relative
Image: Doubts dispelled without effort. The circle turns to day. Judgement: Two before one. One before all. Two is the circle. Two is Harmony. The sage seeks the second.
28: Naivety above Kindness, the Effortless beneath Magic, the Enlightened
Image: Ease through isolation. The gentle turns to sloth. Judgement: Danger. Opportunity. The sage will walk. The sage will be wary. The paths wait. The circle turns
both ways.
29: The Changeling above Kindness, the Effortless beneath Generosity, the Graceful
Image: To surpass the form without effort. Faces change. Hearts remain. Judgement: Danger. What seems conceals. What is close may break. The circle turns.
30: Innocence above Kindness, the Effortless beneath Laughter, the Transcendent
Image: Beyond and back. Wind in the trees. River flows to nowhere. River flows to everywhere. Peace
awaits it all the same. Judgement: Great blessings. Beyond the obvious the sage will step with ease. What was may be gone without
effort. The world in Harmony. Sun and moon shine brightly.
31: Cowardice above Kindness, the Effortless beneath Loyalty, the Restless
Image: Water retreats from the rocky shore. Stones on the roads drive the wanderer away. The bird rides the
gentle wind. Judgement: Danger. The world seeks the effortless. The circle spins easily. The sage questions. The sage may
follow. The sage may fight.
32: The Lake above Kindness, the Effortless beneath Honesty, the Stubborn
Image: Beauty on the shores. Fish in the waves. Still waters are deep. Judgement: The sage rests on the shore. The sage is not a fish. Peace may be given or the waters will drown.
33: True Generosity above Generosity, the Graceful beneath Generosity, the Graceful
Image: Beauty in the circle. The graceful triumphant for the moment. Forms flee. Time persists. Judgement: The sage looks to the future. In all hearts, the sage shines. The circle will turn.
34: The Maiden above Generosity, the Graceful beneath Day, the Absolute
Image: Beauty may be questioned. Beauty remains pure. The graceful surpasses the absolute. Truth in
hearts. Judgement: Confidence. The sage will let the storms go by, unmoved. Mirrors break, the eye stays true.
35: Vanity above Generosity, the Graceful beneath Night, the Relative
Image: To know is to believe. To speak is to presume. To do is to inflict. Judgement: Danger brings the confident heart. The sage does not seek for the reflection, but takes the image
inside.
36: The Artist above Generosity, the Graceful beneath Magic, the Enlightened
Image: Without transcendence, the ways are few. The world seeks relief from enlightenment. The artists
speaks without speaking. Teaches without telling. Judgement: Opportunity. Guidance must be given. Helpless stand the trees threatened by fire. The sage shows
without showing. The sage leads without leading.
37: The Mother above Generosity, the Graceful beneath Kindness, the Effortless
Image: Guidance through Harmony. Onwards through the circle. The gentle hand leads. Judgement: Love leads to necessity. Necessity leads not to force. The sage sees what is and what isn’t.
38: The Snowflake above Generosity, the Graceful beneath Laughter, the Transcendent
Image: The graceful acts through the transcendent. The world fades to black. The moment liberating. Judgement: Triumph of the evanescent. Grace for a heartbeat. The circle moves quickly. The sage knows.
39: The Songbird above Generosity, the Graceful beneath Loyalty, the Restless
Image: The graceful is driven. The restless is graceful. The circle. A target. The endless in motion. Judgement: Great blessings bring the storm and sea. The sage drinks the foam. The sage rides the wind.
40: The Flower above Generosity, the Graceful beneath Honesty, the Stubborn
Image: Beneath the soil, a young thing awakens. That which remains is the seed in the ground. Judgement: Opportunity. The circle slows. The sage looks to the roots.
41: True Laughter above Laughter, the Transcendent beneath Laughter, the Transcendent
Image: Laughter. That which is Harmony surpasses itself. The stars dance. The sun and moon dance. Judgement: Joy. The simple mind triumphant. The beyond must be sought. The sage surpasses.
42: The broken Shackle above Laughter, the Transcendent beneath Day, the Absolute
Image: The narrow eye is conquered. The small heart is vanquished. That which bound the mind is gone. Judgement: The circle moves towards the sage. The sage moves not, for there is no need. The old shackles are
forgotten. A new night comes.
43: The Night Guard above Laughter, the Transcendent beneath Night, the Relative
Image: The relative strengthens the transcendent. The eye goes beyond the beyond. Judgement: The sage must know what cannot be known. The sage must move past that which is in motion. The
sage must turn the circle.
44: The Child above Laughter, the Transcendent beneath Magic, the Enlightened
Image: Feeling without seeing. Space and time without life. The heart goes beyond. The spirits knows not
how. Judgement: Great blessings brings the heart that lets go of the mind. The sage knows before knowing. The sage
thinks without thinking.
45: The Dream above Laughter, the Transcendent beneath Kindness, the Effortless
Image: Time surrenders. Space surrenders. A dream arises. The circle turns. Judgement: Some purposes are out of reach. Some purposes are not. The sage seeks not the beyond, but the
beyond seeks him.
46: Ecstasy above Laughter, the Transcendent beneath Generosity, the Fair
Image: All that is is one. Sun and moon are all the same. The mind walks in between the lines. The circle
turns. Judgement: Danger. That which is is not what will be. The graceful heart turns greedy. The joyous heart turns
mad. The sage knows not to rise too far.
47: Lightning above Laughter, the Transcendent beneath Loyalty, the Restless
Image: Force pushes down. Destruction from creation. The beyond at war. The circle turns. Judgement: Great danger. The sage assembles an army. New threats forming. The waters rise.
48: Trust above Laughter, the Transcendent beneath Honesty, the Stubborn
Image: What is trust? What is naivety? It lies beyond the eye. Space without life. Space without time. Judgement: Great blessings brings to root out the seeds of Chaos. The sage remains. The world will not move the
peace.
49: True Loyalty above Loyalty, the Restless beneath Loyalty the Restless
Image: Change to change. Day to night. The circle to Chaos. Chaos to Harmony. Judgement: Great blessings. The sage turns the circle. The circle turns the sage. Even change must change.
50: The Fool above Loyalty, the Restless beneath Day, the Absolute
Image: Driven. The restless surpasses even the absolute. The eye seeks where there is nothing. Judgement: Danger. The blind know not that they are blinded. The sage knows that he knows not. The sage
hesitates. The fool is proud.
51: Courage above Loyalty, the Restless beneath Night, the Relative
Image: The shadows do not fade by themselves. Space and time linger. Life may energize. Judgement: Opportunity. The sage pushes forwards. Greatness brings the great deed. Pursue the further.
52: Brashness above Loyalty, the Restless beneath Magic, the Enlightened
Image: That which must be known left behind. That which would be known ahead. Before life, Harmony
wavers. Judgement: Temperance. The sage leaves not the pillars that hold him. The earth carries the sky. Harmony the
circle.
53: The River above Loyalty, the Restless beneath Kindness, the Effortless
Image: Through ways long set the river runs. The present walks alongside the past. Time is fleeting. Space
is still. Judgement: The circle moves in place. Forwards but silent. With force, but without effort. Wild, but still. So does
the sage.
54: The Dragon above Loyalty, the Restless beneath Generosity, the Graceful
Image: The dragon hoards. He craves the earth. He stems himself against the sky. His hunger is his creed.
His creed is his hunger. Judgement: Danger. The fool loses Generosity to Chaos. The sage turns away from the hungering world. For the
circle turns, and the richest will be poor.
55: The Trickster above Loyalty, the Restless beneath Laughter, the Transcendent
Image: Through means beyond the visible, the strong acts. Through the sky, the trickster plays with life. Judgement: Opportunity. Triumph of wit. The sage knows when to play and when to hide.
56: Innovation above Loyalty, the Restless beneath Honesty, the Stubborn
Image: The restless surpasses the stubborn. Sky changes earth. The circle turns. Judgement: Form renewed. Earth in motion. The sage looks to the worldly.
57: True Honesty above Honesty, the Stubborn beneath Honesty, the Stubborn
Image: Rock. Soil. The earth awakens life. Life holds the earth. Judgement: The circle slows. Little opportunity. The sage seeks to preserve that which is, as does the world
around it.
58: The Mountain above Honesty, the Stubborn beneath Day, the Absolute
Image: The absolute strengthens the stubborn. That which would withstand withstands. Judgement: The sage rages. The mountain holds. The world will push. The sage resists.
59: Memory above Honesty, the Stubborn beneath Night, the Relative
Image: Through stubbornness, live overcomes the relative. Sky fades. Earth persists. Judgement: Forgotten. Returning. The sage regards the backwards.
60: The Warrior above Honesty, the Stubborn beneath Magic, the Enlightened
Image: The circle turns from Magic. Sky is fleeting. Life will hold. Judgement: Danger. The path closes. The sage acts swiftly.
61: The Bridge above Honesty, the Stubborn beneath Kindness, the Effortless
Image: Above the gentle waters stands a sturdy bridge. The wanderer crosses with ease. Judgement: Triumph of unity. Harmony strengthens. The sage does not walk alone.
62: The Gemstone above Honesty, the Stubborn beneath Generosity, the Graceful
Image: Deep in the earth lies a gleaming gem. The stubborn guards the graceful. Judgement: Tenacity. Triumph of the tireless. The sage breaks the earth to find the stone. The fool reaches for the
soft fruit hanging from the tree.
63: Profanity above Honesty, the Stubborn beneath Laughter, the Transcendent
Image: The stubborn suppresses the transcendent. For now the circle moves in place. Judgement: The sage seeks not the great beyond. Triumph of the small things. Seek the ancient.
64: Strength above Honesty, the Stubborn beneath Loyalty, the Restless
Image: With energy, the stubborn forges onward. What is aimed for must be reached. Judgement: Great blessings brings the sage who holds such power well. Woe brings the fool who leaves Loyalty
The nation of Equestria has often been named both the cultural and geographical centre of the world. This elitist attitude has, above all, been pursued by unicorn scholars in the early days – scholars who had made the very centre of Equestria their homes. Quick to forget that they too hailed from the south-western grasslands and not from the country they glorified so readily, they swiftly tailored themselves a metaphysical world order known as the Elemental Theory. While most parts of this pseudoscientific concoction have thankfully long been abandoned, there are a few aspects that remain accepted by sound science still today. They influence the perception of the “Elemental Species” quite heavily, so the author considers it unavoidable to elaborate on the theory that brought them up.
At its heart, the theory states that there are three different groups of elements that make up the entire world, ranked into an order of power and significance. The first and least are the natural elements, the four basic components that form the inanimate world: earth, water, air and fire. As the Canterlot scholars considered Equestria the centre of the world and thus the perfect combination of the four, it seemed only reasonable to them to assign a specific element to each of the cardinal directions: air to the windswept mountains of Griffonia to the east, fire to the magma-ridden wastelands of the south, earth to the endless Sun’s Eye Desert to the west and water to the Crystal Mountains and the frozen north.
Deriving from those are the five vital elements, the components of living, breathing bodies and lesser, animal life: earth to bone, water to blood, air to breath, fire to flesh and all of them united to mind. The theory associates the inhabitants of each of Equestria’s neighbouring nations to the vital element connected to the natural one of the land itself – for instance, the dragons in the southern badlands are considered elementals of fire and flesh. Naturally, they would reserve what they considered the highest vital element – mind – for themselves and their allies at the centre of the world.
The highest class of elements, of course, are the Elements of Harmony. The theory states that the natural order of the world would not have allowed any other species to discover the Elements, since only the people of Equestria are born of pure mind and thus capable of transcending bodily life to a higher level of existence – spiritual and eventually magical life, magic being the purest element of them all. It should be no surprise that the ancient unicorns were so eager to declare the arcane the highest of all arts, magic the highest of all principles. It took centuries of the alicorns’ careful tutelage to turn them away from their arrogance. Yet it must be stressed: while mostly used as a justification of unicorn supremacy in the past, the elemental theory is too significant not to be mentioned before elaborating on the other species, to which the author will proceed herewith.
As a final note, I am not going to write the article about Sea Ponies you asked for so don’t wait for it. This is an encyclopedia of the real world, not of myths and folklore. If you still feel the urge to have them mentioned, tell my editors to do just that: have them note that water and blood – according to the Elemental Theory – are bound to the Sea Ponies living in the Sea of Song to the north or something, I don’t really care for it, but if you insist on ruining a work of science with such silly fairy tales, I cannot stop you. You have been warned.
Despite their hospitable and open-minded nature, citizens of Equestria never had much contact with the zebras inhabiting the endless expanses of the Sun’s Eye desert to the west. This is not due to hostilities or fear of one another, as the zebras are as welcoming as their neighbours to the east, but simply a matter of distance – with the countless dangers lurking alongside the road, few feel the need to travel to the Sun’s Eye without a very good reason. Even the Night Guards’ eyes do not extend beyond the dunes, as they choose to limit their focus on Equestria beneath. Thus, the only sources of information about the zebra culture are the princesses with their ancient memory and the occasional adventurer or explorer. The only member of their kind available for personal questioning would have been the exile Zecora, who has politely but empathically declined the author’s request to do so.
According to the Elemental Theory, the zebras are the children of earth and bone. While their physique mostly resembles the one of earth walkers, there are a number of notable differences: they possess a dusky skin, dark eyes and black hair, all of these robust and ideally suited for the merciless environment of their homelands. Stripe-like patches of white extend across their entire bodies, skin and hair, that flow and mingle into each other to form complex patterns across their entire exterior. For the longest time, those patterns were considered a kind of tribal war paint; Equestrians have only recently discovered that they are in fact part of a zebra’s natural epidermis and most likely a physical manifestation of their race's own, inborn magic - like the wings of a pegasus, the strong legs of an earth walker and so on.
Zebras, like dragons and griffons, have been the subject of elitist contempt and racial slander throughout the course of history. While the enlightened modern viewer will understand that their cultural achievements easily equal or even surpass those of any of the Equestrian races, they often faced suspicion and hostility. Their ways are alien to anything known to earth walkers, unicorns or pegasi and thus have often been rejected as supposedly primitive, uncivilized or savage. In contrary to the dragons, who do not take kindly to this kind of insult, the zebras have always been above such petty squabbles.
Even long before the nation of Equestria was founded, there was a blooming culture in the middle of the Sun’s Eye. While the ancestors of the earth walkers were still scavenging for food in the swamps and forests of their homeland, zebras crafted tools and brasswork of intricate beauty; they learned and used the alchemical properties of countless of plants collected in every ecosystem neighbouring the Sun’s Eye, and even in the heart of the desert itself. While unicorns were still establishing the first few basic traits of civilization, zebras lived in fully developed communities with an efficient concept of labour and a stable hierarchy, at peace with nature and each other.
The heart and soul of zebrican culture is their religion. Instead of praying to the Elements or alicorns like the first Equestrians did, they worship the earth itself as an inspirited, transcendental being and the mother of their race. As a result, their species has always aimed to live in harmony with the world surrounding them. They travel across the desert in small tribes, often consisting of only a few dozen people. They dwell in tents made from the skin and bones of dead animals, as they refuse to harm a living creature for any reason but self-defence.
Each tribe is led by two chieftains – one male, one female – who govern over their people with counsel and advice. They do not give orders, but are so highly respected that their word essentially holds the same quality. When a chieftain dies their tribe will mourn for a month; after that, a ritual celebration will be held in which every member is asked to perform a number of challenges to prove their skill and cunning in many different fields. The shamans will observe the celebration and elect the worthiest contestant as the new chieftain on its final day.
Shamans also represent the next step in the social latter: they are the spiritual guides and lorekeepers of the tribes; they counsel the chieftains, perform rituals and try to see the future in the sand and the rare clouds in the desert sky. In contrary to the chieftains in their splendid, cumbersome garments made of hundreds of pieces of embellished jewellery, shamans usually wear little to no clothing. Instead, they paint runes of clay onto their bodies that overlap with their natural stripes to form a pattern so complex that the sheer sight can be confusing to the eye, and often dye their hair into the same black-and-white fashion as their skin.
Shamans live in reclusion from the rest of their tribe. They are a mystery even to other zebras and guard their knowledge jealously. Only rarely do they choose new apprentices, and even rarer does an apprentice choose a shaman. Aside from that, they interact with the rest of the tribe only through advising the chieftains or by curing ailments and diseases.
Much and more has been speculated about the shamans’ mystical powers, but little of that has been scientifically proven as of yet. It is beyond any doubt that they possess some magical ability, but to what extent? Zebra tribesmen claim that they can bring rain with song and dance, summon water from beneath the desert sand, see into the future and communicate with the creatures of the wild. They are also responsible for sending the souls of the dead back to the Mother Earth, where they may become one with her once again. It is the author’s belief that most of their ‘magic’ is simply a profound knowledge of the fauna and geology of the Sun’s Eye, which they use to further their tribe’s wellbeing and their own fame in the process.
The last and largest social class in zebra society are the workers, most notable of them the herders. Each tribe is accompanied by a massive herd of animals – mostly goats and camels – that provide them with milk and meat. Fur and bones are used for building tents; the latter also serving as a raw material for weapons, tools and jewellery. The zebras’ religious doctrine of never killing a living creature (as mentioned above) forces them to wait for their animals to die a natural death; as a result, the materials harvested are all of inferior quality and the amount of livestock needed is greatly increased. This forces the tribes to travel swifter and more frequently, as their large herds will quickly strip any area they settle in of whatever meagre plant life the desert has to offer.
The author understands that the zebrican habit of eating meat would appear barbaric in the eyes of an Equestrian; it is to be noted that the tribes do only what they need to survive. They have developed ways to integrate rudiments of agriculture into their nomadic lifestyle, but the amount of grain and millet they manage to wrest from the dry ground simply does not suffice to sustain them. Because of that, herding is a highly respected task that many zebras choose to pursue.
Aside from that, they do not have professions in the Equestrian sense of the word. There are no tailors, smiths or woodworkers. Every family crafts what they need for themselves. Of course, a gifted weaver will often be asked to make clothing for their neighbours, who will trade pieces of cloth with whatever they have to offer that is particularly fine. So while zebras possess no known currency, bartering within a tribe is a common practice.
As a final note: the warriors of the Sun’s Eye desert are at the centre of many legends that Equestrians tell each other of their cousins to the west. The unspectacular truth is that there is no such thing as a zebra warrior; an extremely peaceful race since ancient times, war is a concept completely alien to them. The famous depictions of wild desert fighters in their colourful garments, wearing wooden pearls and feathers, armed with shields and spears and covered in war paint are mostly folklore – most adult zebras possess a weapon, usually a spear with a tip made of bone, but use it only to defend their tribes against certain wild animals as a kind of ragtag militia.
Unicorn archives hold too many false beliefs and biased rumours about this old and venerable species as it is. No incorrect image – however romantically appealing – can be allowed to stand. In accepting our neighbours as what they truly are lies the first step to what will certainly one day be a fruitful and peaceful relationship. Perhaps future generations will finally come to understand the many things that we still fail to see in our noble neighbours to the west.
In the history of the last few hundred years, the windswept realms of Griffonia in the east have undergone a greater change than any other country in the world. With the Equestrian lifestyle seeping heavily into every aspect of griffon society, few of the old ways which determined their lives for centuries have survived into the modern age. This article will attempt to give an outline of what these old ways entailed - the cultural heritage that runs through the veins of every griffon today.
First and foremost, it is required to speak against an old and woefully common rumour: the unique physical appearance of the griffons is most certainly not the result of some discordant magic, nor are they descendants of pegasi who mated with lions. The author understands that their appearance may be unsettling to the Equestrian eye: instead of hair, they sport a crest of feathers sprouting from their heads that spreads down their backs and arms and over their prominent, powerful wings. Their hands are formed much like the talons of eagles and their features are usually sharp, haggard and bird-like. Their yellow eyes and hunchbacked posture complete the image that has misled countless laymen into considering them relatives of either pegasi or wild birds. At the same time, a griffon’s lower body is clearly catlike, with paws for feet and a layer of golden fur covering their legs and hips. Reproductive organs and major parts of the digestive system clearly resemble those of lions. Still, there is no scientifical proof that griffons are actually related to either species – especially since there are no lions in Griffonia. Their origins are unknown even to the greatest experts on the subject and their historiography is incomplete at best; jumping to conclusions is uncalled for.
Like the zebras, griffons have long since lived in a large number of independent factions, called the clans. Unlike the zebras, they never pursued a nomadic lifestyle, nor were they a peaceful race. Griffonia is a rocky island, its towering mountain ranges and abyssal canyons bordered by sharp cliffs and the sea in every direction. The griffons, creatures of breath and air, have made their homes in the tallest spires of the highest mountains, where the wind howls without rest and pause and where the snows never melt. Their eyries, half carved into the peaks, half rising from them like nests, often reach the size of entire cities and shield their inhabitants with walls of solid stone against any danger, be it an army of hostiles or just the bitter cold.
The smallest clans consist of a few hundred members, the largest of up to tens of thousands. They are ruled by an immensely complex hierarchy of lords and lords of lords. Titles like duke, count or baron are bestowed upon venerable elders or promising young heroes who by the right of that title are then given command over a few dozen other griffons. A baron will be allowed to rule over a handful of citizens, a count over a handful of barons, a duke over a handful of counts and so on. As a result, a considerable amount of griffons is in some way involved in their clan’s pyramid of power and all the political scheming that comes along with it.
At the head of that pyramid stands a king or a queen, the greatest hunter, fiercest warrior and most cunning politician of their clan. They are expected to continuously prove their strength and courage to anyone beneath them, and entire clan wars have been provoked by lesser nobles with no other intention but to force a king or queen to risk their lives in battle.
In contrary to almost every other civilized species, griffons are strictly carnivorous. Almost every adult member of a clan spends their days hunting for food in the ranges around their mountain, with the exception of a number of crafters and caretakers – art in all of its forms is unknown to them. Miners carve the iron from the mountain’s depths; blacksmiths forge it into weapons and tools. Leatherworkers turn the skin and fur of slain animals into thick pieces of clothing meant to cover a griffon’s entire body but their face and wings, shielding them against the biting winter winds. Since griffon cubs are not raised by their parents but in a nursery together with the rest of a clan’s younglings, foster mothers are needed to take care of them instead.
Like the dragons, griffons have always been a warring people. Their ideal of the survival of the strongest extends beyond their own clan onto others: the strongest eyrie, the strongest clan, the strongest people shall rule. It is completely acceptable for a griffon leader to declare war on another hold for no other reason but to force its people into submission; defeated griffons will not hate their attackers, but willingly submit to the display of greater force and will integrate themselves into the victor’s own clan hierarchy.
Clan wars are more likely to break out the more clans there are to threaten each other’s territory; at the same time, when a young griffon feels underappreciated by his own superiors but does not dare to challenge them openly, they will break apart from their clan to found their own – an effect that grows more common there more vagrant space there is for them to occupy. This way, the number of factions inhabiting the peaks of Griffonia has stayed roughly the same for a long time.
With their vivid commercial and cultural interaction with modern Equestria however, all these structures have long begun to crumble. Generations of young griffons have questioned the ways of their forefathers, pursuing art, practicing kindness and discovering their love for their natural families. Bounds of blood and bounds of friendship have often overwritten the more ancient laws of clan loyalty and many griffons have abandoned the old ways completely – sometimes forming small communities along the lines of Equestrian hierarchy, sometimes simply emigrating to Equestria to find a new home there. While most griffons remain notably harsh, proud and easy to anger, their culture is quickly turning into a variation of their western neighbour – a worrisome development in the eyes of their old ones.
The dragons of the southern badlands are the elementals of fire and flesh. Ferocious, savage and powerful, they are often looked upon with both terror and awe. Like the old griffons, they have built a society around warfare and strength, however to a degree that even the most feral of griffons could never hope to achieve.
Dragons are fire in body and spirit; their forms seem to oblige their feelings more than the laws of reality. There are no children in their culture: after every mating season, the pregnant females travel north in what has come to be known as the Great Dragon Migration. They lay their eggs which then hatch within the hour; the newborn hatchlings crawl towards their mother’s hoard of gemstones and start to claim parts of it as their own. The strong and greedy will grow swiftly, reaching adulthood within a few months – the weak and the kind will be pushed aside and eventually starve. Dragon mothers consider this a necessary and natural process and will not help their offspring should they suffer such a fate.
In contrary to almost every other sentient species, dragons possess no sense of morals. The very concept of something being ‘wrong’ is alien to them. Still they are more than just mindless animals, no matter how many times they have been called such: instead of ethics, each and every dragon is hatched with an instinctual understanding of pride and nobility that is fully developed during their late adolescence. Honour is the only thing more important to them than strength, and it is not earned just by defeating an enemy. At some point in their lives, every dragon will eventually settle their personal concept of honour into a clear list of rules, their Dragon Code. These Codes are usually a mixture of the two defining traits of dragon culture – ferocity and nobility – and will often include statements such as ‘Challenge every worthy opponent!’ as much as ‘Protect and care for the weak!’.
The Codes are a perfect example of the rampant individualism present in their culture. Every dragon is expected to reign over their own life, down to their personal code of honour. This does not mean that there is no social structure in their society however, quite the contrary is the case. Submitting to a stronger dragon can be a socially accepted act when it is done of one’s own accord. That way, particularly fearsome members of the species may come to lead entire armies of soldiers that serve them willingly. Similar factions are often founded by patriarchs of great dynasties, which leads us to the next point of interest.
Dragon culture is the only patriarchal society in the entire known world. The males happen to be stronger than the females, which in the eyes of their species equals greater worth. But besides strength and honour, there is a third authority they respect: family, in a very uncommon way. Like every higher race, dragons possess a natural magic, their fire. The magical components of a dragon’s inner flame vary greatly. Some show magical effects like a unicorn spell, others simply burn what they touch like common fire. However, it is important to understand that dragons hold this flame inside of them at all times – it is a part of what they are, not only when they choose to enchant their breath with it.
Dragons believe that their flames and their souls are one and the same thing. Each of them possesses such a flame, but their brightness and intensity varies greatly. The greatest of heroes with the brightest of flames will often choose champions amongst their followers in life. On their deathbed, they will summon their champion and breathe their flame into him, granting him the magic that ran through them before. Dragons believe that this way the younger one will gain the strength and courage of the older, who then will live on inside of him in turn. This is the only concept of family that dragons know: father and son, bound by flame instead of blood. Many dynasties have been formed this way, generations of dragons passing on the flames of heroes for countless of years.
As mentioned, it is usually these heroes with their ancestral flames that lead the other dragons into battle. Since they are as proud and noble as they are fierce, they have developed a surprisingly cultivated, well-structured approach to warfare, with leaders, second-in-commands, battalions and banners. Dragons, when assembling into an army, are the most disciplined soldiers known to the world; they can switch from a mad assault to a perfect lockstep and back in a second. They gather beneath the banner of their leader, usually a piece of cloth that bears the names of all those who carried his flame before him. At the beginning of every battle, particularly prideful leaders will use their breath to set their banners ablaze: they vow not only to defeat the enemy, but to do so before the name of their dynasty has been purged from the cloth. Winning such a bold gamble is a great honour – failing a horrible shame.
Dragons, especially their heroes, are constantly looking for a chance to prove their strength. War does not require a reason to them – as a result, the sociology of the southern badlands is in a constant state of strife. Armies form, disband, merge, break apart, assault each other, forge an alliance or break one and so on. Luckily, dragons do not only limit their fighting to each other most of the time, but also reproduce rather quickly – they would long be extinct if they didn’t.
It is a common misconception among the Equestrian populace to assume that because all dragons live for battle one way or the other, they are all warriors. While their culture leaves no room for anything not related to proving one’s strength, there are many ways to do so. Dragons practice what they call the ‘lethal arts’: smithery, tactics, philosophy of warfare and so on. Two thirds of the known martial arts, both armed and unarmed, hail from the southern badlands. Modern dragon leaders are among the most brilliant strategists there are, with thousands of great predecessors to learn from. Their weaponsmiths forge their own kind of sword, slim, light and with a single edge that can cut through solid steel with ease; dragon-forged weapons are without equal in both effectiveness and beauty with their gleaming, curved blades and hilts inlaid with gemstones. Armourers have developed a way to craft their own scales into overlapping designs that can ward off even those swords however – they refrain from using steel, as a dragon’s flame would simply melt that. These armour sets are of equally ornate designs and usually crowned by helmets that hide their bearer’s face behind a fearsome mask.
With so many subspecies of dragons present in the badlands, their cultural (and thus military) diversion has always come naturally. The sight of all of them moving at once has been described as awe-inspiring: dozens of colossal, winged reptiles diving through the sky with archers riding on their backs, hundreds of their smaller kin marching in perfect cadence beneath, their armour glittering in the light, their burning banners flying high. Tiny drakes scurrying in between their feet, slow but mighty earth dragons rising from their ranks like walking, gemstone-encrusted mountains. As much as an Equestrian might be amazed by their sight, as much are they disgusted by his. The dragons have always looked down on their northern neighbours, feeling contempt for their weak and soft little bodies.
The author is aware that the last sentence may seem strange to the uneducated Equestrian: if these dragons despise them so much, why have they never assaulted them? The answer is simple: they have. Dragon raids were an almost day-to-day occurrence in the early days. The last – and greatest – assault on southern Equestria is said to have occurred seventeen centuries ago. A host larger than anything the world had seen in a long time invaded Equestria by night; led by the young hero Guzzle they were intending to make an example of the lands to the north, to show the world the price of weakness. Guzzle had defeated nearly a dozen smaller hosts beforehand and incorporated the survivors into his own – even though he bore no ancestral flame, everyone in the badlands recognized him as one of the strongest and fiercest leaders of their race. He led an army consisting of thousands of warriors and rode the winged dragon Rend, his own brother, into battle. The alicorn siblings awaited them at the southern border of Equestria, alone.
To this day, dragons will not speak of what happened. The alicorns returned to Canterlot the next morning, allegedly in a very grim mood. Over the course of a few years after that, several sources indicate that hundreds of dragon banners had been lost to them in a single night, a catastrophic blow to the ancestry of their race. Afterwards, no dragon would speak the name Guzzle again – and no other army would ever set foot on Equestrian ground.
and a broken one for the night 
. Together, they form the two laws of reality: time, which would later manifest itself as the endless sky, and space that would become the earth beneath, a circle within a circle within a circle. Due to this, the natural world can be depicted as two lines on top of each other: sky and earth, time and space. By the nature of the forces that formed them, both will always have to be absolute (diurnal) or relative (nocturnal), which results in four possible conditions: 
Day. Time, space and life are certain. This symbol represents pure Harmony.
Night. Time, space and life are relative. This symbol represents chaotic Harmony.
Magic. Time and space are relative, but life is not, for it has transcended them both by understanding the 
Kindness. Time and life are relative, space is not. Time flows onwards, space remains stable, life is 
Generosity. Space and life are relative, time is not. Though everything changes, one moment in time has 
Laughter. Space and time are certain, life is not. Even as time and space are stern and stable, life surpasses 
Loyalty. Time and life are certain, space is not. Life pushes onwards through time, changing space by 
Honesty. Time is relative, space and life are not. Life maintains space against the flow of time. This 
Midnight. Absolute darkness has been achieved. However, since no extreme can persist in the great 
Noon. As the opposite of midnight, this symbol represents the brightest light, that by nature tells of the 
