Polaris

By Polaris

• November 29, 2013




Age: 26

Gender: Male

Species: Unicorn

Appearance: Ember brown coat, light blue mane, green eyes and black tribal leather vest.

Cutie Mark: Numerous ponies have told of him having a cutie mark, which is a dark and light blue crescent moon with a four pointed star next to it. Those who had been fortunate enough to be allowed know the stories behind it have told that it represents his uncanny ability to travel through the lands with ease, by using the stars as his means of navigation and he is also able to tell time by merely looking at the sun.

Personality: Very little is known about the mysterious wandering northern unicorn Polaris of the Eye of Sorrow tribe, whose motives aren’t very clear to anypony who have occasionally come in contact with him at some point and any further inquiries about his stay in the equestrian soil, have led to a mixed bag of cryptic answers from him, before trotting away towards his next destination. Some had said, that he’s looking for something, while the others say that he has come to find a ‘question’ to his answer, for which they had never gotten the answer of what was the question.<br /><br />Polaris is reported to be a very stoic and polite person by nature, who never seem to lose his calm, even under pressure. However judging by his nearly frightening emotionless demeanor around others and the by the fact that he never seem to smile openly, had led to some of the more biased ponies in smaller villages or inns to turn him around, since they had automatically branded him as a good for nothing bad doer who should just leave and keep on travelling far away from them as possible.<br /><br />He is also reported to quite skillful in the art of surviving in the wilderness by ponies, who live off the land in the country sides and had come across him during whether their occasional walks through the forests, or simply had observed him from a safe distance. His skills are known to be able to identify numerous plants and other various floras, which he can use as a source of food, or to perform alchemy by creating various potions, ranging from simple antidotes to potent healing salves.<br /><br />To other ponies shock, he has been told of hunting and eating the meat smaller animals with his self-made bow or placing several devious traps around the forests near the place where he camps. Fishing has also been reported to be one of the things he does frequently when near lakes or sea, but mostly had been driven off due to the other ponies disgust of having one of their kind killing and eating other living beings.<br /><br />He is mentioned to be stronger and slightly larger compared to a normal equestrian pony, which puts him somewhere in par with the normal earth ponies in terms of both physical strength and endurance. Polaris is known to be a proficient fighter too, for he has even been seen to fend off creatures, bandits or otherwise hostile individuals that had tried to attack him during his travels, using only his hooves to repel those who would stand between him and his way.<br /><br />While he is rarely seen to use his magic in public, Polaris has mastered an ancient art of magic known as ‘nullification’ from his tribe, which is a very strict school of magic where one concentrates to harness the eldritch powers of negative magic around him, which is then projected against other magic users to temporarily disable their ability to cast any spells, and confront them with physical force.<br /><br />There have been rumors of that some of the unicorns, who had been unfortunate enough to come across Polaris and engage him in a combat, had been subjected to a terrifying amount of negative energies cast at them, which had left them permanently cut off from their ability to cast any magic.<br /><br />Having mastered such a dark art of magic comes at a price however, that has left Polaris unable to cast any other form of magic with the exception of basic levitation and illumination spells. Even though being a living conduit of negative magic might sound like severe handicap to some, the true benefit comes from the fact that he has become immune to any conventional magic, and thus cannot be affected by any spell or magic cast at him, be it harmful or beneficial.<br /><br />While he is known to be very calm and collected most of the time, Polaris has been witnessed showing great disdain towards other unicorns, who recklessly flaunt with their powers. One incident involved a certain travelling azure unicorn magician, who he met while visiting at Vanhoover’s great marketplace. It ended as a crushing humiliation for the azure unicorn, as she was stripped off her ability to do any magic because of Polaris’s nullification act in front of the huge audience of already irritated ponies. This caused the whole town to drive her off town for disturbing the peace, and celebrating the newly arrived unicorn as ‘The vanquisher of the lame, and embarrassing Trixie’ by having the merchants offering him many of their wares at great discount and having a place to stay in the local inn for no charge.<br /><br />Being a born northerner, Polaris doesn’t recognize the rule of the two sisters, because of his ancestors have always believed in their own ancient deities that goes back nearly a millennia and as such, considers both Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna potentially dangerous and evil, due to their godlike powers to be able to raise the sun and the moon, which could be easily abused and used against every living being and nation out there to make them bow to their every whim in the fear of them burning their crops with relentless heat waves from the sun, or causing everlasting nights and making the high tides to flood the coastal cities with the moon.

Backstory: Polaris was born into a tribe of secluded northern ponies, who had been dwelling in the harsh environments of the frozen north for as long as anypony can remember. The origins of these northern ponies can be tracked all the way back, before the creation of equestria, and the appearance of the princesses.<br /><br />Tribalistic by nature, the northern ponies have never lived as unified nation, but rather as a large collection of smaller tribes that are scattered all across the northern lands. Mostly living in harmony amongst each other, but some of the more warring tribes has been known to compete or even fight over their lands and the resources with their rival tribes.<br /><br />It is worth noting, that chieftains are all exclusively unicorns, selected from the most powerful and intelligent of ones, as they are the only ones who have the necessary intellect to lead their people and the raw ability to use their powerful ancient magic to see short distances into the future or unleash powerful magic upon those who would dare threaten the tribe’s existence.<br /><br />The northern lands and its denizens however have never been officially recognized as a part of any nation due to its remoteness, and all foreign contact with them has always proven problematic; as they seem to view most outsiders (especially equestrians) as troublemakers due to the bad relations between them in the ancient past and almost tend to turn every wandering scholar, negotiators or fortune seeking opportunists back from their lands through force and intimidation.<br /><br />As harsh as unforgiving the frozen north might sound to outsiders, northern ponies are used to live under such extreme conditions for centuries, thus creating very hardy individuals, where even a northern unicorns are considered stronger than your average equestrian earth pony. Centuries of constant exposure to the chilling atmosphere of the northern climate, has also granted the northern ponies high resilience towards cold and freezing elements of their homeland, such as the deadly snowstorms that continuously ravage the more mountainous areas of the north.<br /><br />Since the climate of the north has made it hard for most of the plant life to grow in the vast tundra’s that cover most of the inland areas, the northern ponies have evolved to be able to eat lichen and other similar flora in addition to the normal grass diet, that would be unsuitable for normal equestrian ponies digestion. It has also been noted that the northern ponies do not share the same teeth structure of their equestrian pony cousins meant for a herbivore, but rather those of an omnivore.<br /><br />In addition of eating plants and berries, the northern ponies have also evolved to be able to consume meat and using their semi predatory fangs to tear flesh that normal ponies do not possess. Fish has always been the preferable alternative among the northern tribes to compensate for the lack of plants to eat, but in the most dire of circumstances, northern ponies have also been known to hunt down and eat reindeers or other small animals in order to survive over the harsh seasons of the north, when fish or plants become unavailable.<br /><br />Several eyewitnesses that live in close proximity to the borders of the frozen north, such as the ponies who live in the outskirts of manehattan, have told numerous sightings of griffons who come over the sea from the east and fly straight towards and over the mountain lines that separates the equestrian kingdom and the frozen north.<br /><br />There have been wild rumors flying around of a possibility, that the griffon empire over the sea in the east have allied themselves with the northern folk and are currently expanding their borders over to the northern lands, while building a strong military presence there for a possible invasion. All attempts to confirm whether any of these rumors are true have been driven to the ground by both the equestria’s and griffon empire's military officials as false.