littlebigsister

[quote name="Frosty Frost" post="4447446" timestamp=

Just a word of advice.

Is this right? .-. anyway- it's truly an impressive compilation. Consider a career in pony history/anthropology?

If you like (and I can figure it out!) I'll post the drawing and backstory I make would I do it on this thread, or the OCs one?

She's super excited about it! Thank you again ^-^

Hey hey!

 

I'm going to start writing a guide for ponies in general, but first I have to ask: how much do you want to know? Everything, from the raw basics to the details, just the basics, just the details? I have no idea how I should write this. I guess I'll just write everything as if you don't know anything about the different races, but do know a little bit.

 

So, I'll start writing now. It's gonna take a while.

 Frosty's guide to Equestria

Well, first of all, there's a lot to know about the MLP world. I probably can't list every last detail, so I'm going to try to write a general guide.

 

 

Different races

 

Each race has it's own charactaristics. Unicorns have magic, pegasi have flight, and earth ponies have a deep connection with nature.

 Earth ponies:

Earth ponies are the most common race in Equestria.

These ponies are strong ponies, capable of doing strong physical feats. They can pull heavy carts, lift heavy stuff, run for miles, etc. Not every earth pony is super muscly, but the average earth pony is still way stronger than your average unicorn.

Earth ponies also have been shown to have increased stamina. They'll keep going for far longer than any other race.

It also seems that earth ponies have more fine movement skills than the other races. Some of them can (for example,) use their tail as a fifth limb to pick up objects, or to swing a lasso around.

They can have all sorts of talents, not only ones related to crops or physical strength.

 

They live (from what I could gather,) pretty much everywhere. There are some settler ponies who live in Appleloosa, a small town out in the desert. They are pretty important for society, as they provide all the food for the rest of Equestria.

 Pegasi:

Pegasi are strong as well, but their strength lies in their wings. They're more focused on speed and agility, more than pure strength, like the earth ponies. They have a special kind of passive magic that allows them walk on clouds and manipulate the weather. 

They also can use their wings as some sort of arms, using it to carry items.

 

Pegasi are in charge of the weather. They schedule what the weather is going to be, and they make sure that the weather doesn't get out of control.

 

Most pegasi live in Cloudsdale, which is a big city in the clouds. There are of course pegasi who live in other towns as well, but Cloudsdale is the city with the most pegasi.

 

They also have a weather factory, where they make clouds, snow, rainbows, and other things. They get their supply of water from local lakes, which they pump up with a massive tornado. They make that tornado with a lot of pegasi who fly around in a circle, which creates a large current of air. 

 Unicorns:

Unicorns have a horn which can cast magic, and use it for almost everything.

They're not that strong, but they can make up for it with magic and smartness. Most of the time they have only a little magic, magic that matches their special talent. However, some ponies's special talent is magic, and those ponies have some pretty powerful magic. They're able to levitate many objects at the same time, or cast complicated spells.

 

Whenever a unicorn casts magic, their horn glows in a colour which usually matches either the colour of their eyes, or the most prominent colour of their cutiemark.

 

Unicorn magic is quite complicated, so I'm not going to explain everything about it.

 

Most of pony nobility consists of unicorns.

 

Unicorns live all over Equestria, but mostly in big cities. Canterlot is the biggest city, and is also mostly populated by Unicorns.

 Alicorns:

These ponies are very rare, and are incredibly powerful. Alicorns are almost immediately royalty. 

Alicorns have the best of all three races, and they even have their own type of magic, "Alicorn magic". We don't really know how it works, but it's aparently limited to Alicorns.

 

There are at the moment only 5 known alicorns.

 

 Growing up

 

How ponies grow up depends on their race and where they were born. Unicorns from Canterlot are going to have a totally different background than pegasi from cloudsdale, for example.

But one thing all ponies go through when growing up is getting a cutiemark.

 Getting a cutiemark:

Getting a cutiemark is a thing every pony goes through when growing up.

A cutiemark is a mark on a pony's flank that represents a pony's special talent or destiny. For example, if someone's special talent is cutting hair, then their cutiemark would maybe be a pair of scissors.

 

Getting a cutiemark means finding who you truly are. Finding out what your special talent is, what sets you apart from the rest. Usually something special happens to make the pony realize what their special talent is.

 

 

 Pony society

 

The 3 races work together to keep society going properly. The earth ponies provide food, and do a lot of jobs.

Pegasi control the weather, and make sure the earth ponies can actually grow crops. They also do jobs with air transportation, as they are the only ones that can fly.

Unicorns do jobs that the other 2 races can't do, and are generally intellectual ponies.

 

They pay with Bits, small golden coins.

 

 

 

 Important ponies

There are some important ponies you might want to know about, here's a list:

 

• Twilight: Princess of Friendship and wielder of a Element of Harmony.
• Rest of Mane 6 (Twilight and co.): wielders of Elements of Harmony.
• Princess Celestia: Alicorn that raises the Sun, and is the closest you can get to the ruler of Equestria.
• Princess Luna: Celestia's sister, Raises the Moon. Appears less at social events, unlike her sister, but chooses a more personal approach towards citizens. Can also control dreams, and appear in them.
• Princess Cadance: Princess of Love, and ruler of the Crystal Empire. Married to Shining Armour.
• Shining Armour: Twilight's brother. Former head of the Royal Guard.

• Discord: Villain. Creature of chaos. Causes mayhem and weird stuff everywhere he goes. His morals are questionable, but he says he's reformed.
• Chrysalis: Queen of the changelings. Tried to take over Equestria, but failed. Unlike the other villains, Chrysalis doesn't seem to be that powerful. She instead uses deceit and disguises and strategy to conquer enemies.
• King Sombra: Ruled the Crystal Kingdom for some time, enslaving all the crystal ponies that were there. He's apparently a "shadow pony". What that is, we don't know yet.
• Tirek: Mysterious creature that absorbes magic. He is able to strip the magic from every race of pony, which generally leaves them tired and unable to resist much. Pegasi can't fly, unicorns can't cast magic and earth ponies don't have their strength anymore.

• Starswirl the Bearded: A powerful unicorn, that created most of the magic techniques that ponies use today. Even created time-travel spells. He disappeared one day. He lived just before Equestria was founded.

 

 

 

History

The history of Equestria is quite rich with things that have happened.

Here's a general line of things that have happened, in the order of them happening.

• Equestria founded (See Hearth's Warming Eve)

Unknown timespan

• Celestia and Luna rise to power

Unknown timespan

• Discord rises to power
• Elements of Harmony found
• Discord defeated

Unknown timespan

• Crystal Empire taken over by King Sombra
• King Sombra defeated / disappearance of Crystal Kingdom for 1000 years

About a year

• Luna corrupted / appearance Nightmare Moon
• Luna banished to moon for 1000 years

1000 years

• Nightmare Moon returns
• Elements of Harmony used by Twilight and friends to bring Luna back

The rest I'll not list in case of spoilers. Some people have not yet watched everything, you know?

 

 

 

Places

There are a few important places to know, so here is a list of those:

 

• Griffonstone: A kingdom to the east of Equestria that's populated by griffons. Griffons are half-lion, half-eagle, and their greed for money and gold rivals that of dragons. They used to be very rich, but they lost their wealth, and now live in poverty.
• Yakyakistan: It's a country with a lot of yaks. It's in the far north. Not much is known about them, but they seem to be not very smart.
• Saddle Arabia: Country far away.
• Everfree Forest: A forest located next to Ponyville. It houses mysterious creatures, like Timberwolves and the Ursa Major. Ponies are generally scared to go there. Zecora lives here.
• Ponyville: Town where all three races live in unison. Also the home of the Mane 6 and Twilight's castle.
• Canterlot: The capital of Equestria. Celestia and Luna live here. Most of the rich ponies of Equestria live here.
• Cloudsdale: Large city in the clouds. Only Pegasi live here, as other ponies can't stand on clouds.
• Manehatten: Large city.
• Appleloosa: Hometown of Applejack's cousin. It's in the middle of the desert, with only a few apple trees to feed them.
• Tartarus: A place where evil creatures are banished to.

 

 Festive days

Equestria has a lot of days where they celebrate something.

Here's a list of them, and where they came from, and what they mean to Equestria:

 Hearth's Warming Eve:

It's an event that looks a lot like Christmas. There are Christmas-like decorations everywhere, and it generally feels like it.

The origins, however, are totally different.

 

 

 It all started when Equestria wasn't founded yet. The 3 pony races lived apart from each other in 3 tribes, only helping each other out because they needed to. The earth ponies provided food, and got "paid" by the pegasi and unicorns in their own way. The pegasi made sure the weather was alright, and the unicorns raised the sun and moon every day.The earth ponies basically had the short end of the stick. They lived in relative poverty in comparison to the other 2 races.

 One year, the winter was especially harsh. The earth ponies could hardly grown anything, because there was too much snow, and there were blizzards outside, day and night. They blamed the pegasi for sabotaging them, but the pegasi didn't have anything to do with the blizzard. They couldn't fight it, for some reason. No matter how many clouds they kicked, more clouds always came to take their places. The pegasi were of course very angry with the earth ponies because they didn't give them food anymore. The earth ponies tried to explain that there was no food to share, but the pegasi didn't believe them, thinking they were just holding back whatever they had. The unicorns were also angry at the earth ponies for the exact same reasons, and suspected the pegasi for causing all this.The pegasi knew it wasn't them, and suspected the unicorns of causing it all to bring the pegasi down.

 So in the end, everypony was hungry and cold, everypony blamed everypony, and no progress was made to solve the problem.

 The winter became colder and colder, and didn't show any signs of stopping any time soon.And then, every tribe decided in secret, at the same time, that they needed to go find a new land to populate, away from the other 2 tribes and all the snow. Individually, the leader and their assistant of every tribe set out to find the perfect home.

 Eventually they all found a new land, what would become Equestria, and they all claimed it for their own tribe. The 3 tribes's leaders found each other, and of course, they fought again. It started to snow almost immediately, and they all took shelter in a nearby cave. The entrance to the cave quickly froze shut, and they were all stuck. They fought more and more, and it became colder and colder.

 What was happening, is that there were windigos, powerful spirits, who feeded of disharmony. They got more powerful because of the tribes's fighting, and spread more cold.It was a vicious cycle, the tribes fought more and more the colder it got, and with their fighting, it got even colder.

 It got so cold in the cave, that eventually the three leaders were frozen, unable to do anything anymore, leaving the three assistants.They huddled together, trying to stay warm. Clover the Clever, the assistant of the queen of the unicorns, identifies the source of the problem, the windigos, and tells the other two how to solve it; through the magic of the fire of friendship. They sing songs and tell stories, which staves off the windigos, and slowly melts the ice. Eventually all the ice is gone, and the leaders are free once more. They realize what they had done, and made up with each other.

 They claimed the new land together, and made a new kingdom: Equestria.

 

 

 

Every year the ponies of Equestria celebrate this day with a play of the events that happened. There are many plays all over the country, but the one in Canterlot is the biggest one.

 

 Summer Sun Celebration:

This is a celebration that commemorates both the longest day in the year, the summer soltice, and the defeat of Nightmare Moon.

 

 Nightmare Night:

A celebration where young ponies go around collecting candy, much like Halloween. 

 

That pretty much sums it up.

They collect candy, and offer it to Nightmare Moon, so she won't eat them. Even though Nightmare Moon is no more, they still keep up the tradition, because it is fun.

 

 

 

If I'm missing anything, please tell me, I'll add it to the list.

(Is this how you reply to things? I'm so sorry for mangling this thread) Thank you so much, this is incredible! I wasn't expecting such a comprehensive guide it's perfect, and I think it covers everything. Wow, the show has such a rich backstory and set-up! I hope you can excuse me for thinking otherwise. Thank you ever so much, I'll be sure to let you know how she receives her now-authentic pony-sona! x

Hi there!

So my little sister has recently come to adore everything MLP, which is great- I wasn't exactly encouraged to engage with it or similar kinds of franchise when I was younger, so I guess it's interesting and entertaining for me when she shows me all these songs and characters. I love seeing how happy it makes her!

The thing is, she's made me a... pony-sona, or something (worth mentioning here that I'm very new to both forums and MLP, sorry in advance for the mistakes I will make!) called Glitter Hugs, with a storyline and everything (I am apparently an Element of Protection- though I gather that's frowned upon in OCs- and study under Princess Cadence, which suits me well) and I would like to return the favour. Being of an artistic persuasion, I drew her as an Equestria Girl (yes, she showed me the first two movies- I rather liked the art style, but not some of the outfits!) but now would like to give her in return a pony-sona with a backstory and history in Equestria as she has done for me.

I don't feel that I know enough about the Ponyverse or their customs and culture to properly construct her a realistic and fun alter ego. I adore world building and character design, and so would like to do this properly! It seems like a great universe to create within.

So, if anyone would be willing to help a big sister out and give me a bit of information on things like how ponies might pass through their society as they grow up and how their talents affect them, as well as how common unicorns/Pegasi/allicorns and Magic are. It would be so much appreciated. I've been reading threads on this forum which has been very informative, but more specific information would be wonderful.

tl;dr (do you do that on here?) big sister would like to understand the world and fundamental rules of the MLPverse before embarking upon pony design.

Thank you in advance, I look forward to finding out more! ^-^